Ellis Peters - Sanctuary Sparrow

Iestyn demanded, after a brief, deep silence: ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘What do you suppose? There are woods enough and wild places your side the border. Who’s to look for her? A kinless kitchen slave.’ The voice was so calmly and reasonably Susanna’s voice that Rannilt could not take in what it was saying, and stood utterly lost and feeling herself forgotten, even while they spoke of her.

A horse stamped and shifted in the dark, the warmth of its big body tempering the night air. Shapes began to emerge faintly, shadow separating itself from shadow, while Iestyn breathed long and deeply, and suddenly shuddered. Rannilt felt him quake, and still did not understand.

‘No!’ he said in a muted cry just below his breath. ‘No, that we cannot, that I will not. Good God, what harm has she ever done us, a poor soul even less happy than we?’

‘You need not,’ said Susanna simply. ‘I can! There is nothing now I cannot do to have you mine, to belong to you, to go by your side through this world. After what I’ve done already, what is there I dare not do?’

‘No, not this! Not this offence, not if you love me. The other was forced on you, what loss was he, as mean as your kin! But not this child! I will not let you! Nor’s there no need,’ he said, turning from ordering to persuading. ‘Here are we, well out of the town, leave her here and go, you and I together, what else matters here? Let her make her way back by daylight. Where shall we be? Far past pursuit, over the border into Welsh land, safe. What harm can she do us, who has never done any yet, nor ever willed any?’

‘They will pursue! If ever my father gets to know... You know him! He would not stir a step for me, but for this - this... ‘ She spurned with her foot the bundle she had brought with her, and it rang faintly in the dark. ‘There could be barriers on the way into Wales, accidents, delays... Far better be sure.’

‘No, no, no! You shall not so despoil my love, I will not have you so changed. I want you as you are now...‘

The horses shifted and blew, uneasy at having disturbing company at this hour, yet wakeful and ready. Then there was a silence, brief and fathoms deep, and ending in a long-drawn sigh.

‘My heart, my love,’ Susanna said in a melting whisper, ‘as you will, as you order... Have it your way, then... Yes, let her be! What if we are hunted? There’s nothing I can refuse you - not my life...‘

And whatever it had been between them, and concerning her, it was over. Rannilt stood helpless in the corner of the stable, trying to understand, willing them away, westward into Wales, where Iestyn was a man and a kinsman instead of a menial, and Susanna might be an honourable wife, who had been hitherto a household servant, baulked of her rights, grudged her dowry, a discard woman.

Iestyn plucked up the clothing roll, and by the stirring and trampling of one of the horses, he was busy strapping it into balance behind the saddle. The other bundle, the heavy one, gave forth again its soft, metallic sound as Susanna hoisted it, to be stowed behind the second mount. They were still barely visible, those horses. An occasional splinter of light glanced from their coats and was lost again; their warmth breathed on the air with every movement.

A hand swung wide the half of the double door, and a sector of sky peered in, lighter than the darkness, bluer than the blackness, growing luminous with the rising of a half-moon. One of the horses stirred into motion, led towards that paler interstice.

There was a short, sharp cry, so soft and desolate that the air ached with it. The opened half-door slammed to again, and Rannilt heard hasty hands fumbling with heavy bars, hoisting and dropping them into solid sockets. Two such beams guarding the door had the force and assurance of a fortress.

‘What is it?’ Susanna’s voice pealed sharply out of the dusk within. She was holding the bridle, the abrupt halt made the horse stamp and snort.

‘Men, a good number, coming down from the headland! There are horses, led behind! They’re coming here - they know!’

‘They cannot know!’ she cried.

‘They do know. They’re spreading, to ring us round, I saw the ranks part. Get up the ladder! Take her with you. She may be worth all to us yet. What else,’ he cried, suddenly raging, ‘have we between ourselves and the judgement?’

Rannilt, bewildered and frightened, stood trembling in the darkness, stunned by the confusing turmoil of hooves stamping round her, and bodies in violent, blind motion, warm stable smells eddying on the air and pricking her nostrils as the stirrings of terror prickled her skin. The doors were barred, and Iestyn between her and that way out, even if she could have lifted the beams. And still she could not believe, could not take in what was happening to her, or relate these two desperate people with the Susanna and the Iestyn she had known. When a hand gripped her wrist and tugged her towards the rear corner of the stable, she went helplessly with the urgent compulsion. What else could she do? Her ankle struck against the lowest rung of a ladder, the hand dragged her upwards. Fumbling and panting, she went where she was hauled, and was tossed facedown into a pile of hay that enveloped her in dust and dry sweetness. Dimly she was aware of punctures of sky shining through the hay, distinguishably paler in the timber darkness before her, where whoever built this stable and loft had placed a ventilation lattice to air his store.

Somewhere behind her, at the door end of the loft, a larger square of sky looked in, the hatch by which the hay harvest was forked in here for storage, high above the barred doors below. She heard the rungs of the ladder creak at Iestyn’s weight as he climbed in haste, and ran to fling himself on his knees beside that outlet, to watch his enemies close about his refuge. She heard, and suddenly was able to comprehend what she heard. The thud of fists hammering on the barred doors, the challenge of the law without.

‘Open and come forth, or we’ll hack you out with axes. We know you there within and know what you have to answer for!’

Not a voice she knew, for an eager sergeant had outrun his lord and his fellows when he heard the bars slam home, and had come well first to the doors. But she knew the import of what he bellowed to the night, and understood fully at last into what peril she had been brought.

‘Stand back!’ Iestyn’s voice rang loud and hard. ‘Or answer to God for a life, you also! Well away from those doors, and don’t venture back, for I see you clearly. And I’ll speak no more with you, underling, but only with your master. Tell him I have a girl here between my hands, and a knife at my belt, and so sure as axe strikes at these timbers, my knife slits her throat. Now bring me here someone with whom I can parley.’

There was a sharp command without and then silence. Rannilt drew herself back as far as she dared into the remaining store of hay, towards the faint pattern of stars. Between here and the head of the ladder by which she had climbed there was a silent, motionless presence which she knew for Susanna, on guard over her lover’s only weapon.

‘What did I ever do to you?’ said Rannilt, without rancour or hope.

‘You fell foul,’ said Susanna, with unblaming bitterness. ‘Your misfortune and ours.’

‘And will you truly kill me?’ She asked it in pure wonder, even her terror momentarily forgotten.

‘If we must.’

‘But dead,’ said Rannilt, in a moment of desperately clear vision putting her finger on the one disastrous weakness in the holding of hostages, ‘I am of no more use to you. It’s only living that I can get you what you want. If you kill me you’ve lost everything. And you don’t want to kill me, what pleasure would that be to you? Why, I’m no use to you at all!’