Page 83 of By the Sword
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Jon,’ he said simply. It would be better for the child not to know his full name.
She held the lantern up again and touched his bruised face, screwing her own up in response. ‘That looks sore. Father didn’t know about Hew,’ she said. ‘Mother threw a trencher at him when he told her what he’d done.’
‘Is your father the blacksmith?’
Sarah nodded. It seemed incredible that such a burly man could produce such an elfin creature.
It occurred to Jonathan that time was being wasted in idle conversation. He twisted so his back was to Sarah.
‘Can you undo these ropes?’ he asked.
Obediently she set to work but her small fingers were no match for the tight knots. Jonathan felt his small glimmer of hope beginning to evaporate. Every moment they delayed the soldiers would be coming closer.
A loud rustling from the direction Sarah had entered made them both start. An older boy of about twelve appeared from behind the boxes.
‘Hurry up, Sarah,’ he said in a low urgent voice.
‘Owen,’ she wailed. ‘They’ve tied him up and I can’t undo the knots.’
‘Here, let me.’
Owen crossed the floor towards them and set to work on the knots. His stronger, more skilful fingers made quick work and Jonathan sighed with relief as he shook out his cramped arms, trying to get some feeling back into the numb fingers.
‘This way, sir,’ Owen urged him, indicating the back of the cellar from where he had come. ‘There’s a tunnel from here to the churchyard. It’s very old and I don’t think many people know about it. It’s only ’cause ma was born in the inn that she knew about it.’
Behind the boxes, Jonathan saw a small opening at ground level. He recoiled. His height gave him an illusion of being slight, but he knew he carried some breadth across the shoulders and the size of the opening gave him pause as he weighed up the potential threat of death by slow suffocation in a tunnel against his fate at the hands of the soldiers.
‘You’ll fit,’ Owen opined with considerable more confidence than Jonathan felt.
The tunnel indeed proved a tight squeeze in parts and Jonathan began to have some sympathy with Giles and his fear of tight, dark spaces. When they eventually emerged from beneath the church into the churchyard, he breathed the cool fresh air with gratitude, offering silent thanks to God for his deliverance from the tunnel.
‘Sir, this way.’
A woman stood in the shadow of a large yew tree, holding the reins of a small horse.
‘This is Mother,’ said Sarah, and by way of explanation added for her mother’s benefit, ‘He’s not the King. His name is John.’
‘There I told you, silly,’ her mother said, her soft voice betraying a Welsh accent. She held the lantern up to him. ‘Oh, your poor face,’ she said, reaching up to touch the bruising. Jonathan flinched away from her touch. ‘I was so cross withMorgan. When I told him that you had saved Hew he was proper sorry for hitting you.’
‘Do you have anything to drink with you?’ Jonathan asked.
She produced a flask of small ale and he drank greedily.
Owen, who had taken up the watch at the church gate, ran towards them. ‘I can hear horses,’ he said.
‘There’s food in the saddle bag,’ the woman said. ‘You must hurry. The soldiers will be here within minutes. The horse is for you. Morgan says it is the least he can do.’
She handed him the reins of the horse. Sarah handed him his hat and cloak, which she had retrieved from the floor of the cellar, as he swung himself into the saddle.
He leaned from the saddle and kissed the woman’s hand.
‘Thank you, Mistress Morgan. I’ll not forget this kindness.’
‘You owe us nothing, sir,’ she said. ‘We will have Hew to remind us of our debt to you.’
A loud clamour from the direction of the inn proclaimed that ‘Charles Stuart’s escape from the cellar had been discovered. With a backward wave at the two children, Jonathan kicked the horse into a canter and rode away from the village as fast as the horse would take him.
