Ellis Peters: Sanctuary Sparrow

Cadfael made his way back in haste to a point still out of sight from the hatch, and signalled urgently to Hugh that the time of greatest danger was come. Alcher saw the waving arm before Hugh did, and drew his bow halfway to the ear, narrowing his eyes upon the moving blurs of drab brown coat and paler face that showed as his target. Behind him the sun was just showing a rim over the horizon, and its first ray gleamed along the ridge of the roof. In a quarter of an hour it would be high enough for the light to reach the hatch, and the shot would be an easy matter.

‘Iestyn,’ called Hugh sharply, mustering those of his men nearest him into plain sight, though not too near to the doors, ‘you have had a night’s grace to consider, now show decent sense, and come forth of your own will, for you see you cannot escape us, and you are mortal like others, and must eat to live. You are not in sanctuary there, there are no forty days of respite for you.’

‘There’s nothing but a halter for us,’ shouted Iestyn savagely, ‘and well we know it. But if that’s our end, I swear to you the girl shall go before us, and her blood be on your head.’

‘So you say, big talk from a small man! Your woman may not be so ready either to kill or to die. Have you asked her? Or have you the only voice in the matter? Here, master goldsmith,’ called Hugh, beckoning, ‘come and speak to your daughter. However late in the day, she may still listen to you.’

He was bidding to sting her, to bring them both flying to the hatch to spit their joint defiance and leave their prisoner unwatched. But oh, not too fast, not too fast, prayed Cadfael, gnawing his knuckles on the headland. The boy needs a few more minutes yet

Liliwin tunnelled stealthily through the stored hay, as much in terror of sneezing, as the odorous dust tickled his nostrils, as he was of making too audible a rustling and betraying himself all too soon. Somewhere before him, very close now, he could hear the faint stirrings Rannilt made in her nest, and prayed that they would cover whatever sound he was making. After a while, pausing to peer through the thinning screen, he caught the shape of her shrinking shoulders and head against the dim morning light. Carefully he enlarged the passage he had hollowed out, so that he might have room to draw to one side of her, and have her creep past him, to come first to the frame of the lattice. Iestyn was leaning out at the far end of the loft, shouting angry curses now at those without, threatening still but not looking this way.

There was a woman to fear, for wherever she was now, she was silent. But surely if those without were pressing, half at least of her care must be with her lover. And here in the loft it was still blessedly dark.

His hand, probing delicately ahead, found and touched Rannilt’s bare forearm. She flinched sharply, but made no sound at all, and in a moment he slid his hand down to find hers, and clung. Then she knew. All he heard was a faint, long sigh, and her fingers closed on his. He drew her gently, and by slow inches she shifted and drew nearer, into the cavity he opened for her. She was beside him, the fragile screen of hay hiding him and already half shielding her, and still no outcry. He urged her on past him with the pressure of his hand, to come first to the lattice and the rope as he covered her going. Outside the stable doors the circling voices were raised and peremptory, and Iestyn, wild with weariness and anger, roared back at them incoherent defiance. Then, blessedly, Sussana’s voice, surely close there at her lover’s shoulder, soared above the clamour:

‘Fools, do you think there’s any power can separate us now? I hold as Iestyn holds, I despise your promises and your threats as he does. Bring my father to plead with me, would you? Let him hear, then, what I owe him, and what I wish him. Of all men on earth, I hate him! As he has made me of no worth, so I set no value on him. Dare he say I am no longer his daughter? He is no longer my father, he never was a father to me. May he be fed molten gold in hell until belly and throat burn to furnace ashes...‘

Under the fury of that raging voice, clear and steely as a sword, Liliwin hustled Rannilt past him and thrust her bodily through his dusty tunnel towards the lattice and the rope, all caution cast to the winds, for if this momemt escaped them, there might be no other.

It was Iestyn’s quick ear that caught, even through Susanna’s malediction, the sudden frenzied rustling of hay. He swung round with a great cry of rage at what he saw, and lunged away to prevent it. The first ray of light entering caught the flash of the naked knife.

Hugh was quick to understand and act. ‘Shoot!’ he cried, and Alcher, who had that first finger of sunlight now bright on Iestyn’s body, loosed his shaft. Meant for the breast, it would have been no less mortal in the back, if Susanna, for all her bitter passion, had not taken in all these signs in one breath. She uttered a shriek rather of rage than fear, and flung herself into the opening of the hatch, arms spread and braced to ward off her lover’s death.

At the first cry Liliwin had thrust Rannilt towards the way of escape, and sprung erect out of the hay to put his own slight body between her and harm. Iestyn bore down on him, the brandished dagger caught the levelled ray of sun and sent splinters of light dancing about the roof. The blade hung over Liliwin’s heart when Susanna’s shriek caused Iestyn to baulk and shudder where he stood, straining backwards like a horse suddenly reined in, and the point of the knife slid wildly down, slicing along the boy’s parrying forearm, and drawing a fine spray of blood into the hay.

She was melting, she was dissolving into herself, as a man of snow folds into himself gradually when the thaw comes. The impact of the arrow, striking full into her left breast, had spun her round, she sank slowly with her hands clutching the shaft where it had pierced her, and her eyes fixed, huge and clouded, upon Iestyn, for whom the death had been intended. Liliwin, dazedly watching as the man sprang back to clasp her, said afterwards that she was smiling. But his recollections were confused and wild, what he chiefly recalled was a terrible howl of grief and despair that filled and echoed through the loft. The knife was flung aside, and stuck quivering in the boards of the floor. Iestyn embraced his love, moaning, and sank with her in his arms. Round the fearful barrier of the arrow she essayed to lift her failing arms to clasp him. Their kiss was a contortion the trained contortionist in Liliwin remembered lifelong with pity and pain.

Liliwin came to himself soon, because he must. He drew Rannilt up by the hand, away from the lattice of which they had no more need, and coaxed her after him down the ladder to the stable floor where the loaded horses stamped and shifted uneasily after all these nightlong alarms. He hoisted the heavy bars that held the doors, and it took all the strength he had left to lift them. The eastern light reached his face but no lower, as he pushed open both heavy doors, and led Rannilt out into the green meadow.

They were aware of men flowing in as they came gladly out. Their part was done. Brother Cadfael, breathing prayers of gratitude, took them both in his arms, and swept them aside to a grassy knoll at the foot of the headland, where they dropped together thankfully into the spring turf, and drew in the May air and the morning light, and gradually turned and stared and smiled, like creatures in a dream, waking to be glad of each other.

Hugh was first up the ladder and into the loft, the sergeant hard on his heels. In the shaft of sunlight, bolder and broader now, and blindingly bright above the lingering dimness of the hay-strewn floor, Iestyn kneeled with Susanna in his arms, tenderly holding her up from the boards, for the shaft had pierced clean through her, and jutted at her shoulder. Her eyes were already filmed over as though with sleep, but still kept their fixed regard upon her lover’s face, a mask of grief and despair. When the sergeant made to lay a hand on Iestyn’s shoulder, Hugh waved him away.