Page 139 of Feathers in the Wind
“Go away, Liv,” Penitence responded without lifting her head. “I just want to be alone.”
“Pen, if you want to leave Kinton Lacey, I won't stop you.”
Penitence raised her head. “What? Walk out, just like that?”
Deliverance nodded. “Just like that. I have every confidence Jack would ensure you had safe passage to Father in Gloucester or Aunt Elizabeth in London.”
Penitence looked away. “I can't leave you.”
“You can. You will be safe. You have Jack.” Deliverance tried to sound braver than she felt. “Believe me, I do know how you feel about him. Do you think he still feels the same way about you?”
Penitence's shoulders heaved, and she laid her head on her bent knees, wrapping her arms tighter around herself.
“He does.”
Deliverance frowned. Something about her sister's certainty made her uneasy. Apart from that fleeting moment at the start of the siege, to the best of her knowledge, Penitence had no contact with Jack since the start of the war.
“How do you know?”
Penitence raised a tear-stained face, her eyes wide with fear. “I just know.”
Deliverance crossed to her sister and put her arms around her. “Then if he loves you, he will wait for you.”
As Penitence sobbed into her sister's shoulder, Deliverance heard her say. “You are so lucky never to have been in love, Liv.”
Deliverance sighed and held Penitence closer. If her sister felt even a fraction of the agony she had experienced in the last few days she must be in real pain.
* * *
Since the scarewith the miners, Luke had taken to doing a late-night round of all the sentry positions. On his way to inspect the guard on the sally port, he stopped on the east wall in the shadow of the Jewel Tower, which stood in the north-eastern corner of the castle.
Deliverance had told him that the name had derived from a story that the crown jewels of the Welsh Kings had once been stored in its depths. Luke doubted the truth of the story, but it made a pretty name for an otherwise utilitarian piece of architecture. He preferred the Hawk Tower with its weathered carvings of hawks in flight affixed to its ramparts.
He leaned on the wall, looking down over the river. The moon glinted off its ripples as it flowed on its never changing path towards the sea. No enemy campfires lit the far bank, and from this side of the castle it was almost possible to believe the world was at peace, if it were not for the smell of cooking fires and a ribald soldier’s song drifting in on the wind.
He turned his face to the night sky, clear and bright after the days of rain. A full moon illuminated the courtyard and above him the stars arched, timeless and unconcerned with the petty affairs of men. As he straightened, a movement in the shadows on the cliff path caught his eye. He peered over the wall into the dark shadows thrown by the castle wall and just for a fleeting moment he glimpsed a dark shape, a man, moving in a crouched position along the hidden pathway outside the castle that led to the sally port.
His hand went to his sword hilt and every nerve now attuned to potential trouble, he swivelled to look down into the castle grounds. He stiffened as he saw a second cloaked and hooded figure slip from the door to the Jewel Tower, also keeping to the shadows.
At first he couldn't tell if the figure was male or female until it passed below him through a patch of moonlight and he glimpsed skirts.
He followed the woman's progress, briefly losing sight of her behind an outbuilding. She emerged from the shadows and he saw with grim satisfaction she was heading for the sally port.
Was this the castle traitor meeting with one of Farrington's men?
He slipped noiselessly down the stairs to ground level and worked his way along the wall until he had a good view of the sally port. He could see no sign of the man he had placed on sentry duty. It had been Truscott, one of the Kinton Lacey men. He may have stepped away to answer a call of nature or, and Luke's mouth tightened at this thought. Truscott may have been turning a blind eye to whatever liaison had been planned for the night. If that was the case, the man would pay dearly for this treachery.
An owl hoot came from beyond the wall and Luke had a sudden flash of memory, recalling the long hours he and his brother had practised bird calls. The owl had been particularly satisfactory.
He heard the gentle swish of the woman's skirts, and her soft footsteps on the cobbles. The woman, holding something in her right hand, passed within feet of him without a sideways glance, her gaze fixed firmly on the sally port.
Even with the hood of her cloak pulled well up, Luke recognised the slight figure, and his heart sank. Penitence.
After Penitence's tears at their midday meal, Luke had nurtured an uneasy feeling about the girl. It was not anything she had said. Her reaction after weeks of siege warfare was perfectly understandable but the knowledge that Penitence's lover waited outside the wall gave him cause to be concerned, a misgiving that had not been misplaced it seemed.
Penitence took the large key to the door from her skirts, but it dropped from her fingers hitting the cobblestones with an audible clang. The girl froze, looking up at the battlements and around her to see if the noise had disturbed anyone. Luke drew back further into the shadows. Of Truscott, there was no sign.
When nothing happened, she retrieved the key and he could hear her desperate breathing as she fumbled again with the key in the lock. Well-oiled, the key turned with only the faintest click and Penitence slipped through the door into the tunnel beyond that led down to the gate. Luke broke his cover and, well-schooled in moving silently, even in boots, he reached the door in a few strides.
