Page 87 of Exile's Return
Jonathan swept the plan off the table and consigned it to the flames, where it flared brightly before dying into the peat. With his hands on his hips, his gaze rested on Agnes.
‘Our mission is the gold, Agnes.’
She opened her mouth to protest but he held up his hand. ‘I do not mean to be heartless but think of it. Peg’s right, if you take the children now, you will be pursued from one end of England to the other as a kidnapper.’ He laid a hand on her shoulder.‘Agnes, I know what it is to risk your life for a child, and I know the trouble it brought me. The days of men like Tobias Ashby are numbered. The King will return within months and then I will be in a position to assist you in petitioning him for custody of the children. I have, or at least I had, some little influence with Charles. Please, I counsel patience.’
Agnes looked away, her fingers balled in a fist. She knew he was right but every instinct in her cried out to liberate her child.
‘Patience is not one of my virtues,’ she said between stiff lips.
‘Evidently,’ said Kit. ‘You and my brother have that at least in common. So we are agreed?’
Everyone nodded, although Agnes’s acquiescence lacked enthusiasm. If Kit and Jonathan were successful in liberating the gold without alerting the castle garrison, then Agnes and Daniel would remain within the castle. Agnes could show Tobias the empty hiding place, hoping he would assume that James had divested himself of the gold and Agnes and Daniel could leave Charvaley as they had come, through the front door.
‘Until tonight,’ Jonathan said.
Chapter 35
The clock on the church tower struck two. Glancing back to ensure the bolsters she had stuffed in the bed resembled, at first glance, a slumbering body, Agnes closed the door behind her and crept on stockinged feet past the slumbering guard.
At supper in the nursery, Agnes had kindly insisted Hannah share in the evening repast with the children and, dispatching the maid to fetch the children’s night clothes from where they warmed in front of the fire, she slipped the sleeping draught into the jug of small ale while the girl’s back was turned. Agnes had allowed the children a few small sips before removing it from them. Enough, she hoped, to render them sleepy without being drugged. She left the jug and cup with the assumption that once she was alone and the children in bed, Hannah would finish it.
Trooper Brown sprawled on his stool, snoring loudly, his legs akimbo and drool running from his open mouth. While she had taken supper with the children, Daniel had conspired to providethe man with a full jug of drugged wine. The empty jug lay on its side, the last of its contents shining wetly on the floor.
Her fellow conspirators waited for her in the shadows of the servant’s stairs. She had never seen a more villainous band. The three men wore cloths wound around the lower parts of their faces, hats pulled low down on their brows: Jonathan, the tallest, Kit identifiable by his swagger, which she had discovered disguised a limp, and Daniel by his slighter build and lithe movements. Like her they were in stockinged feet, their boots carried in bags over their shoulders.
They followed her down the silent corridors and up the stairs that led to the nursery.
The door opened with the slightest click and Agnes slipped in first. The only light in the room came from the window, a waning moon, casting cold shadows across the floorboards. The curtains of the children’s bed were pulled tight against the cold night. Hannah slumbered in a pallet at the foot of the bed, and like Brown, she snored stentoriously. As Jonathan lit the candle on the table, Agnes flicked back the curtains on the big bed and smiled down at the two children curled up together like dormice in the enormous bed, their slight forms making little impression in the vast space. Both were sound asleep. Reaching out a finger, she stroked Henry’s soft cheek.
Soon, little boy, she promised.
The tapestry rattled on the rod as Daniel drew it aside and Agnes glanced at the slumbering Hannah. The girl snorted and turned onto her side. No sound came from the children and she restored the curtains.
The four conspirators stood looking at the old, worm-ridden panelling. Jonathan held up the candle. Counting from the door, Agnes located the third panel, gratified that its location accorded with the point where Lizzie had indicated the ghost had passed through the wall. Running her fingertips along the seams of theoak panel, she found an unnatural indentation. She pushed on it, heard a slight click, and a section of panel eased away, revealing the stone wall.
She glanced at the men and Kit stepped forward, pushing on a corner of stonework. A whole section of the wall swung inward with hardly a creak, leaving a gap about four feet square. Kit stepped back and let out his breath in an audible sigh and Jonathan gave a curt nod to his companions as he advanced on the opening, crouching down to look into the space beyond.
Illuminated by the candle, as Agnes had anticipated, it was a long narrow space, no more than four feet wide, running between the walls. Given the juxtaposition of the two rooms, it was not an anomaly that would be easily detected unless you were looking for it.
Just inside the entrance, piled in a tidy heap, were the four leather satchels she had seen on the night James’s men had brought them to Charvaley.
Daniel bent toward Agnes, and placing his mouth close to her ear, he whispered, ‘Stay by the door and keep watch.’
She nodded and took up a position beside the door, leaving it open a little way to get a view of the corridor. The house slumbered in peace.
Daniel, with his slighter build, disappeared into the opening and handed out the four heavy, leather satchels.
Kit pushed the hiding place shut. Well-oiled, it slid back into place with barely a click, and he had his hand on the tapestry preparatory to pulling it back into place when a sharp cry of anguish came from the children’s bed.
They all froze in place, the three men turning to Agnes.
Henry. One of his nightmares.
As Hannah stirred on her bed, Agnes cast a frantic glance at Daniel.
‘See to the child,’ he whispered and jerked his head at the others. ‘We must away.’
Agnes pulled the tapestry across the wall and hurried across to the children’s bed. She slipped behind the curtains, and taking the whimpering child in her arms, she rocked and hushed him, her heart hammering beneath her bodice.
