B00B9BL6TI EBOK by C B Hanley Page B

long, agonising moment, and then Edwin heard the sound of a heavy bar lifting. The door opened and Edwin felt a hand clutching his shoulder and pulling him inside. He staggered into the room and turned to see an elderly man dressed only in a shirt, who was already re-barring the door. He opened his mouth but didn’t get the chance to explain himself.
    ‘Who are you? What in the Lord’s name are you doing here? Do you not know that you could get us all killed?’ The old man’s voice wavered.
    Edwin shifted his weight, but before he could move the man held out a knife in front of him. ‘Stay where you are! I will have out of you who you are and how you came to knock like that.’
    The knife was a small kitchen thing and the hand holding it was trembling: Edwin felt a strange and unfamiliar confidence at the thought that here was someone he could probably overpower if he needed to. But he didn’t move.
    ‘I’ve come from the castle. The people there sent me, and I found out how to knock from Stephen who was the brother of Alan. Are you William the nephew of Warner?’ Now was the time to find out whether his nocturnal mission had been all in vain.
    Rather unexpectedly, the old man let the knife drop, sank onto a stool and assumed an attitude of despair. ‘I am he. Alan was a brave man. I am afraid I am not so brave, and you are too late.’

     
    Alys was so tired that she couldn’t keep the thoughts straight in her head. The last candle was burning low, and she stared at the increasingly waxy face of her father, the only part visible as he lay in his winding sheet. Tomorrow, even that would be covered as he went to his eternal rest. She would be in the dark soon, but it was nearly dawn so it wouldn’t be for long. She had plenty of time to think, alone here with the silent dead, and she drew her shawl closer to her as she shifted position, her knees becoming uncomfortable and stiff after such a lengthy vigil. It didn’t seem that long since she had watched over the body of her mother in the same bed, and she was drawn to reminisce as her head started to nod … Mama’s face seemed so distant now, just a passing shade in her mind, but she could still remember her gentle laugh and the comforting scent as she held her daughter close and safe. Mama had died of the childbed fever after Randal was born, and Alys had wondered how she would ever survive the loss. She had been totally bereft, beside herself with grief. She had cried herself to sleep for weeks and months afterwards, roaming the house during the day and looking in every corner in case Mama should suddenly reappear and everything would be all right.
    Back then she could hardly have imagined that seven years later she would be kneeling in the same room, with no tears left to shed, looking back to that time almost with fondness: at least then she’d had Papa to tell her that she would still be looked after, and other family surrounding her. Thomas had just gone off to his apprenticeship with Peter of the Bail, but he wasn’t all that far away, and, of course, she and Nick had had each other to cling to as they tried to help look after the little ones. And yet now here she was alone. The children were still too young to fend for themselves, and she was the sole person who stood between them and the outside world, between them and starvation. How could she leave them, even for a while, to carry out her father’s wishes? What would happen if …
    The candle guttered and the sudden flickering of the light made her come to. First things first: she was supposed to be here praying for Papa’s soul and imploring that his passage through purgatory would be short. Once he reached Heaven he would be together with Mama again, and Alys prayed with all her might that they might find each other; and that if Thomas and Nick had not survived, that they might all be together as they waited for her. It was so tempting to wish that she might be there too, reunited with them,