Marriage Under Siege (24 page)

'Before you go, my lord...'
Honoria leant over to catch him before he disappeared.

He tightened his grip and
cocked a brow.

'Tell his lordship that I
think we will keep the rope ladder. I would not wish it to be used against us
and take us by surprise.'

He grinned and was gone.

From the depleted
battlements of Wigmore Castle, Francis and Priam watched the besieging force
make its cumbersome way to the north. Mary was right. They took no time, wasted
no troops on subduing Wigmore. Their target was Brampton Percy.

'She will be safe enough.'
Priam did not need to look at his cousin to know where his thoughts were, be
aware of the relentless fears that drove him to pace the stone slabs. 'Drew is
reliable enough.'

'I have to get back there.
I must not leave her to face this alone.'

'Not much you can do at the
moment, my boy. But she will come to no harm.'

'It is my duty to go.'

'Of course. Duty is a cold
but harsh taskmaster.' Priam hid a smile. Perhaps duty was not the only emotion
that drove Francis where his new bride was concerned—although whether he
realised it was another matter.

In response, Francis
groaned in acknowledgement as he replayed his words in his mind. Was it only a
sense of duty that nagged and clawed? Was it only conscience? Far more
important was the desire to smooth away the line between her brows when she was
worried, to shield her from humiliating taunts or physical danger. To see her
smile. Just to hear her voice.

The troops continued to
march past.

He must find a way to
return.

The besieging Royalist army
settled down to starve Honoria out. The troops were deployed, horses
accommodated, tents pitched for the soldiers. The fine beeches in Honoria's
park were chopped down for firewood. Lord Vavasour and his officers made more
comfortable use of the inn and hastily abandoned houses in the village.

The inhabitants of the
castle of Brampton Percy settled equally to sullen defiance behind their
massive walls.

'I thought they would
attack immediately. With cannon, to breach the walls. Or a full-scale assault
with ladders and such.' Honoria watched the daily goings-on of life in a siege
camp from the battlement walk. 'Not this tedious sitting and waiting. It could
take them months to starve us out and they must know it.'

'We could die of boredom
before that happens.' Mary frowned down at soldiers who had been posted sentry
to keep them confined, as if they personally were to blame. There was nothing
any of them could do. Sergeant Drew's garrison patrolled the walls. The
portcullis remained lowered, the gates firmly locked. No one came in or out.
The villagers, unwilling prisoners, fretted about the state of their homes.
Children ran wild or grizzled in frustration, getting under everyone's feet.

'How long can we feed them
all, Mistress Morgan?'

'Mistress Brierly says the
flour will soon see the end. But we have grain. We shall take to using the hand
mill. Hard work, but with the same end result.'

'If we must. It is a matter
of beggars, Mistress Morgan. Do what you can. But, please God, it will not be
for long.'

By the fourth day,
Honoria's nerves were stretched to snapping point.

The lack of attack had an unsettling
effect on everyone. Vavasour was notable by his absence. It was laughable, if
it were not so menacing.

'I never for a moment
thought that war would be like this.' Honoria sat, snatching a moment of
solitude in her solar. She could not remember the last time that she had done
so.

'I see that Lord Scudamore
had the right of it.' Master Foxton had found his mistress alone and was
concerned over her pallid tension. He tried to put her mind at ease. 'They are
reluctant to launch a full-scale attack on a woman because they fear causing
you real harm. And would not know how to deal with you if they were successful.
Their respect for you cannot be measured and we should thank God for it.'

'I have seen small cannon
arrive.' Her fingers tapped in jerky rhythm on the arm of her chair. She could
not be soothed.

'Yes, my lady, but they
choose not to use them.' Foxton persisted. 'If my lord were here, I think it
would be a different matter. They would have begun to batter the walls well
before now.'

'So it is a blessing that
he is not?' She made it a question.

'It could work to our
advantage, my lady.'

But that was another source
of worry. The major source that coloured all her days—and her nights also. She
had heard no word. She slept fitfully, tossing and fretful. When she did fall
into an exhausted doze, her mind was full of dreams which she could not
remember when she woke but which left her wearier than ever. If only she knew
of his safety. Her whole life seemed to be made up of 'if
onlys
'!
If he were still at Wigmore with Captain Priam—she must cling to that hope or
else she would assuredly go mad—then her presence alone at Brampton Percy might
be in both their interests. And she must hold the castle. She could not bear it
if he questioned her loyalty again, believed her capable of inviting the enemy
in. She must hold the castle at all costs.

'I just wish I knew,' she
worried at it, turning shadowed eyes on Foxton.

He disliked the smudges
beneath them and the strain in her shoulders, but could say no more. They must
simply wait and hope.

Mary joined them: her
presence brought no joy. 'Sergeant Drew says to tell you that we no longer have
the luxury of our own cows and sheep confined in the park.'

'Tell me that they have
been borrowed by the Royalists!'

'I like the word borrowed.
They are probably roast beef by now on the commander's dinner table.'

'I cannot pretend surprise.
It was to be expected. But we had no room to house them within the walls. I
hope the meat chokes Vavasour,' she added with unusual malice. 'What right do
they have to steal my property?'

'And...'

'Well? I can see there is
more. Tell me all.'

'Your parkland no longer
presents the pleasing vista it once did to those who might wish to stroll
there.'

'I will come and look.' She
pushed herself to her feet with a grimace.

Honoria discovered that the
pleasant parkland and serene gardens were now the scene of earthworks, hastily
dug banks and ditches. Mounds of raw earth now scarred the once-seductive
landscape of soft grass and woodland walks, ugly and brutal, the red earth
vicious and sharp edged where it had been sliced and turned.

'There will be no more
strolling here for pleasure. It looks like the work of a million moles.' Mary
echoed Honoria's thoughts as she stood beside her, surveying the depressing
scene.

'That was the only part of
this house I truly enjoyed,' Honoria confessed softly. 'A place of softness and
tranquillity, a refuge where I could walk and think.' She shrugged aside her
memories, huddled in her cloak against the chill wind, but unable to dislodge
the icy crystals that cramped her belly. 'I see that my trees are also rapidly
becoming firewood.' She turned from the desolation of stumps and branches
before her. 'Francis will simply have to accept that although I might have held
the castle in his name, the grounds are a wasteland. I could do nothing to
prevent it, regardless of where my loyalties might lie.'

Which Mary found a curious
comment in the circumstances—but Honoria refused to enlighten her further.

*
             
*
             
*

'Sollers is here to see
you, my lady.' Foxton shook his head as he saw hope dawn in Honoria's face.
'No. We have no word of my lord. But there is news.'

Master Sollers, Mansell's
head groom and final authority in Brampton Percy's stables, carried a covered
willow basket, which he placed at her feet, lifting the lid with a flourish. 'I
warrant this will be welcome, my lady.'

Beneath the lid shone the
bright plumage of pheasant and partridge, the dense fur of rabbit.

'Game.' Honoria's eyes
brightened. 'But where did you get it? I thought our fowler had been warned on
pain of imprisonment not to provide any more. And how did it get past the
sentries?'

'There are ways to smuggle
in, if careful, my lady. We've a small postern gate in the north curtain wall,
mostly buried under bramble in the ditch. But Hedges knows of it.'

'I did not. But the
Royalist sentries?'

Sollers snorted in disgust.
'Not much watching goes on over there! And their lordships tucked up nice and
tight in the inn. If you've a dark night when they've finished with their food
and ale, it is not difficult for a careful man to reach the postern.'

'You are a mine of
information, Master Sollers. I would certainly rather
we
enjoyed these rather than their lordships over in the
village. They have dined far too well at our expense of late.'

'Quite right. And, my lady,
there is news to pass on. A Parliamentary victory by Sir William Brereton in
Gloucestershire. Waller is also making good progress towards Gloucester, so it
is said.'

'Waller! Where is he? Did
Hedges know?'

'He said in Gloucestershire
already, my lady. And he thinks some of this Royalist scum have already begun
to retreat towards the south. Foot soldiers have been seen making off towards
Adforton
.'

The news could not have
been better.

And
that might just signal our salvation.
Honoria took a deep breath
tinged with hope as she rescued the game from
Setanta's
inquisitive
snufflings
.
Our relief might
be sooner than we think.

For the first time since
her return to Brampton Percy she retired to bed with a lighter heart.

'My lady. Something's
afoot. Over in the park.' Sergeant Drew stood before her in the Great Hall,
searching for the breath to deliver his message. He slapped his hat against his
leg to remove some of the rain that soaked the rest of his body. He had
approached at a dead run from the western parapet, flinging back the great door
in his haste.

'Take a breath, Sergeant.
Are they planning to use the cannon at last? No, of course, they would not.'
Honoria shook her head at her own foolishness. The dusk had fallen sharply into
night with the onset of steady rain, not the time to be considering firing the
ordnance.

'Not certain. There is some
activity.' Drew was still gasping, but able to string words together. 'On the
west side. Too dark to see, but there is movement beyond the ditches they've
thrown up. And I think horses.'

Without further thought,
she snatched up a cloak and went quickly to the western wall. She peered
cautiously over the parapet. 'I can see nothing.'

'Over there,' Drew
whispered and pointed. 'At the corner of the wall.'

'What do we do, my lady?'
Her Steward's voice beside her made her nerves jump. Foxton, his instincts for
trouble keen as always, had emerged from the dense shadows to stand at her
side.

'Keep a careful watch. In
case they are attempting to start a tunnel beneath the wall.' Honoria could
still see nothing and was fast coming to the conclusion that it was a false
alarm. 'If that happens, we may have to risk a sortie to dissuade them. But
until then...'

'What if it is my lord
Mansell, returned and unable to gain entrance?'

Honoria turned to Foxton,
her eyes wide at the implication of the words. 'I had not thought of it. But it
could be so.'

'But what if it is a decoy,
to get you to open the gates?' Sergeant Drew spoke bluntly with a soldier's
mind. 'They pretend an attack— we go out and stop them—they force an entry. We
must not take any risks.'

A shuttered lantern
suddenly flashed in the night to be quickly closed down. And then again.

'Is that a signal—or do we
misread it?' Foxton's words echoed the terrible uncertainty in Honoria's mind.

'His lordship would know
about the postern gate,' Drew commented. 'He made it his business to discover
every inch of the castle when he first arrived. If it was me out there, I would
make my way round to the north side, where the trees are a little closer to the
wall, and hope that the Royalists were not keeping sharp watch on such a night
as this. And I would try to get from the trees into the ditch where the
undergrowth would mask my movements. His lordship would do the same; I reckon.'

A hurried conference
resulted. Two of the garrison, hand-picked, would be sent out through the
postern to spy out the situation. Drew disappeared to rally his men. Honoria
and Foxton waited.

The waiting was outrageous.
It might be Francis. There again, it might not. Honoria envisioned the
Royalists mining beneath the walls, hammering and shovelling earth until the
stones collapsed, without their sure foundation, to allow Vavasour and his army
to sweep victorious over Brampton Percy, stealing, burning, destroying as they
went. She strained her eyes, but could make out no shadows in the dark. No
sound other than the occasional neigh of a restless horse. A burst of laughter
from one of the Royalist billets. The hollow call of a hunting owl. Please God
that it was the only creature out hunting that night!