The Last Siege

  She lay there for a long time, gathering her breath, too drained to cry.

  After a while she moved, wincing a little from the ache in her ankle. Slowly she got to her feet and hobbled to the window. Slinging her rucksack onto the ledge beside her, she positioned herself gingerly, looking out at the snow far below. A good way off beyond the moat several children were playing. They were close to the hedge, just inside it, hurling snowballs at each other. Emily watched them without emotion. They were too distant for her to see their faces.

  When she heard steps on the staircase again, it awoke in her barely a flicker of interest. Fine, let Harris come. She was so exhausted, she didn’t much care.

  ‘There you are!’

  She looked across. Marcus at the door.

  ‘You’ve been here all this time? What happened? No way – don’t tell me – you went up the chimney! Ha ha! What a mess! You should see yourself – you look like a scrawny panda!’ He chuckled heartily and came over to the window.

  ‘Budge over.’

  ‘Ow! Watch my leg!’

  ‘Sorry. What’ve you done, twisted it?’ He sat opposite her, grinning. Emily had never seen him look quite so delighted.

  ‘Yeah, and it’s not that funny, actually. It’s bloody painful.’

  ‘Sorry to hear it. But Em, we did it! We survived this round. We should be proud of ourselves!’

  ‘I’m too sore to be proud. And look at me – I’m covered in soot.’

  ‘Wounds are part of war, Em. And we won this battle. Boy, did we win it.’

  ‘We nearly got ourselves caught, that’s what happened. If I hadn’t crammed myself up there I’d be dead meat.’

  Marcus whistled. ‘He actually came up here, did he? Superb! You did really well, Em. Really well. That’s the closest shave yet. Closer than me. I – ’

  ‘Where’s Simon?’

  ‘Don’t know. But he wasn’t caught. Harris – ’

  ‘It was Harris, then?’

  ‘Who else would it be? Anyway, he’s gone and he didn’t find Simon. But guess what he was up to.’

  ‘Looking for us.’

  ‘Of course not! He doesn’t dream anyone could get in here. That’s the beauty of it. No, he was checking for birds.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Crows and that. You’ve seen all the railings and netting and stuff they’ve got up. They don’t want the birds getting into these covered parts of the castle. If they come in here and start nesting they’ll fill it with crap in no time. Harris was doing the rounds double-checking no fat crow had snuck in over Christmas. I heard him muttering about it. And he picks his nose – I saw him from behind a pillar.’

  ‘I don’t need all the details, Marcus. So what happened to you? He came up here and nearly got me. Then what?’

  ‘Well, I went into the lord’s chamber. Nowhere to hide there – I’d never have dared try the chimney! But there were two other ways out. So I bolted for the nearest, and guess what? It was a dead end! I nearly wet myself, which was quite appropriate because it was a bog. Just a seat at the end with a nice round hole. But I thought I was a goner because I didn’t realize he’d gone upstairs after you. So anyway, I ducked out and through to the next door and that was much better – it led to the chapel.’

  ‘What, it’s a church?’ Despite herself, Emily felt some of her old energy return. Marcus’s enthusiasm was catching.

  ‘Nope, just an empty room with a recess that might have been an altar. Where the lord and lady went to pray. Expect King Edward would have used it too when he – ’

  ‘Marcus . . .’

  ‘OK. So I went in and thought I’d take a breather. Maybe Harris wouldn’t come my way after all. So I loitered there and before long I heard him come into the previous room, the chamber. Boy, was I scared! You’ve no idea.’

  Emily looked at him.

  ‘Oh yeah, you have. Sorry. Anyway, I crept out through the arch and into the next room and that was a big one filled with pillars. I could hear him coming, so I dived across and pressed myself behind one of the pillars. Then he came in and I could hear him getting nearer and nearer, talking to himself all the time. He was grumbling about the birds, wishing he could shoot them.’

  ‘What a swine!’ Emily said.

  ‘Forget the birds – I was standing there in peril of my life! I knew he was going to come round the side of the pillar, but I didn’t know from which side. So I made up my mind – ’

  ‘Hello.’ They looked up in shock. Simon was there. He was pale, but grinning. One of his hands was wrapped up in a dirty handkerchief. It was stained with red.

  Emily’s ankle throbbed as she turned anxiously where she sat. ‘Simon, what’s happened?’

  ‘So I made up my mind – ’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Cut myself, that’s all.’

  ‘How? Come and sit down.’

  ‘It’s fine, really.’ Nevertheless, he crossed over and leant against the wall beside them, surveying the room. ‘What’s gone on here? Someone hide up the chimney?’

  ‘Yes. Me. What about your hand? How did you do it?’

  ‘It’s nothing. I was on the rope again. Slipped a bit, cut myself on a rock.’

  ‘What were you doing on the rope? You trying to escape?’ Marcus sounded incredulous.

  ‘Of course not. I was trying to hide the rope. It was spilled all over the ledge, remember. If Harris had gone that way the game would have been up, wouldn’t it? Even if he’d just glanced along the passage from the stairs he might have seen it. So I ran down, grabbed hold and climbed out over the side. I didn’t have time to untie it from the railings, so I just hung there. It was a bit useless, really. If he had come by he’d have seen the knot and caught me – but he didn’t come, so that was all right.’

  ‘How long were you hanging there?’

  ‘About twenty minutes. I was scared he’d be down in the hall when I came up, so I left it as long as I could.’

  Emily looked at him in wonder. ‘Twenty minutes! I thought I did well staying in that chimney for five.’

  ‘You did enough to get through. So we reckon he’s gone?’

  ‘Yes, he’s gone, and if you two let me get a word in edgeways I’ll tell you about it!’ Marcus seemed a little put out.

  Simon looked at him for the first time. ‘Sure, Marcus. So, Emily was up a chimney, I was hanging on the rope – what did you do?’

  ‘He hid behind a pillar,’ Emily said obligingly, as Marcus was about to speak.

  ‘Fair enough,’ Simon said. ‘And you saw Harris head out?’

  Marcus sighed. ‘Yeah, there’s a long passage beyond the room with pillars. It leads to the way out. Harris went down it and I followed. A couple of birds had got into a room at the end, where there’s another big stair. He spent ages shouting at them and waving at them with his stick. There was lots of cawing and feathers flying.’

  ‘Swine!’ Emily said.

  ‘When he’d shooed them out he disappeared round a corner and I heard some sort of door closing. I hadn’t dared get too close, but I know he left because I went back to the room with the pillars and saw him pass under the murder-holes.’

  ‘You found them then,’ Simon grunted.

  ‘Yeah. They’re great. Big enough to chuck really chunky rocks down.’

  ‘I’m surprised you didn’t try to brain Harris on his way out,’ Emily said.

  ‘I’d have loved to, believe me, but there’s Perspex sheets nailed over them. Having said that we could probably prise ’em up. They’re not too heavy duty.’

  ‘I’m more interested in Harris,’ Simon said. ‘So he left?’

  ‘Locked and left. We can relax now.’

  ‘About time. We’re sure, are we,’ Emily said, ‘that we want to go through with this? I mean, it’s not too late to leave. We don’t have to stay the night.’

  She looked at the others – Simon with his cut hand, Marcus with his bruised face. They looked back at her impassively. Emily shifted, flexed her aching ankle
experimentally.

  ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘We’ve gone too far to back away from this now.’

  {6}

  ‘I was just thinking,’ Emily said, as she lounged in her sleeping bag in the half-light. ‘It was a good job the snow fell this morning or Harris would have seen all yesterday’s footprints in the hall.’

  ‘Even the weather’s on our side.’ Marcus yawned. ‘We are masters of the castle. How’s the fire going, Simon?’

  Simon did not look up from his place by the grate. He grunted noncommittally. For the previous five minutes he had been struggling to light the pile of twigs and pieces of broken wood that he had positioned in the hearth. Despite numerous attempts to get things going with scrunched newspapers, matches and a lighter, he had had no success so far.

  ‘Try the heater,’ Emily suggested. Earlier, with much puffing and cursing, Simon had lugged this up two full storeys from the hut in the open hall.

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t want to waste it. If we can get a fire going, that’ll do us through the evening. The heater’ll be safer when we’re asleep. It’s only half-full as it is.’

  He resumed scrunching balls of paper. Emily wriggled a little further into the sleeping bag and considered their home base. Night was setting in. Only a final, feeble slab of light marked the position of the window. The room was thick with shadow, and the door to the spiral staircase had been yawning open, black and cold, until Marcus had recently pulled it to. Two torches were switched on – illuminating restricted portions of the room while inking out the margins. Simon was using his while he worked on the fire; Marcus had his one angled down at a book he was reading. Emily had not yet turned hers on.

  Despite the dark, the room was already looking homely. The three sleeping bags were arranged outwards from the hearth like spokes on a wheel. Each person had a pillow made of some item of clothing; in Emily’s case, a thick woolly jumper. Here and there were scattered their supplies of food and drink. It was an impressive collection, despite Simon’s contribution amounting to little more than two tins of peaches. When questioned about this he had wordlessly pointed to the pile of kindling he had somehow stuffed into his rucksack, and even Marcus had admitted that this was a fairly valid excuse.

  Between them, Emily and Marcus had amassed the following: four cans of Coke; one old lemonade bottle filled with water; a six-pack of chocolate biscuits; half a loaf of sliced white bread; a third-full pot of jam; an unopened packet of Cheddar cheese; a large clingfilm parcel of cold turkey; three packets of very squashed crisps (they had been in Emily’s rucksack when she landed heavily on the hearth); two satsumas (a third had met a sad demise in the same hearth incident); two knives and a pot of English mustard.

  ‘What’ve you brought that for?’ Simon had asked incredulously when Marcus had proudly revealed the mustard.

  ‘Can’t eat cheese without it. I need to hide the claggy taste.’

  With or without the mustard, it was a creditable array. All they needed now was a warming fire – and the sooner they got this the better because the gathering chill was already affecting them. Emily could feel it piercing her many layers. Her nose was an icicle; each exhaled breath piped brief swirls of steam into the dusk and she was beginning to shiver uncontrollably. Marcus had burrowed as deep as humanly possible into his sleeping bag. Only Simon, crouched at the fireplace, still seemed to be functioning at full throttle. He struck a match and held it under the pile of sticks.

  ‘There now,’ he muttered. ‘That might just do it. Don’t anybody breathe.’

  A dim glow spread from the centre of the hearth. Two scrumpled balls of newspaper flared along their edges – bright yellow, growing to orange. The light illuminated a thin black latticework of twigs surrounding the paper like a tent. For several seconds the paper burned, then one of the twigs above began to glow. Simon had his hands cupped over the little pile, shielding it from any cold wafts of air from the chimney flue. More twigs took. There was a barely perceptible crackling.

  Simon remained where he knelt for several more minutes, husbanding the growing fire. At last he ventured to place four larger stakes of wood on top of the burning pile, then switched off his torch and stood up painfully.

  ‘Keep an eye on it,’ he said. ‘It’s not got hold yet.’

  ‘Nice one.’ Marcus spoke in a muffled voice from the depths of his sleeping bag.

  ‘Well done, Simon,’ Emily agreed. ‘Let’s have some food.’

  ‘Yeah, I need it.’ He kicked his boots off and sat himself in the mouth of his sleeping bag. ‘Who wants peaches?’

  ‘I think you’ll find you’re on your own with that one.’ Emily reached for the packet of bread. ‘Have you even got a tin-opener?’

  ‘Oh. No. Forgot it.’

  Like a giant caterpillar or grub, Marcus swivelled himself bodily in his bag so that he too was facing the food. A hand snaked out in search of the turkey. ‘You brought tins and you didn’t bring a tin-opener? You’re going hungry, then.’

  ‘He’s just lit the fire for us,’ Emily said reprovingly as she cut a slab of Cheddar. ‘Share and share alike.’

  ‘I know. Only joking.’

  ‘I know it was stupid, but I left in a hurry,’ Simon said. ‘It was a nightmare earlier. My brothers were suspicious, wanted to know where I’d been going the last few days. I found it hard to shake them off. They were all hanging around the kitchen, hassling me.’

  ‘They must know you’re with us,’ Emily said, with her mouth full.

  ‘Carl forgiven you yet?’ Marcus asked.

  ‘Oh, he’s caned me for a dozen other things since then. Chuck us the crisps. The fight’s not on his mind now. Neil’s worse – he keeps going on about it.’

  ‘Fire’s going well,’ Emily said.

  ‘Pass the mustard over if you’re not going to have any.’

  ‘Turkey, cheese and mustard in a sandwich? Marcus, you are foul.’

  ‘This is a feast fit for a king, this is,’ Marcus said. ‘And rightly so. This must be the best banquet here since 1313.’

  ‘Why then?’

  ‘That was when King Edward stayed here. This tells you all about it –’ He indicated the book open by his side. ‘I found it in the hut. Gives you lots of stories about the castle and there are some great ones, I can tell you. Edward came here on a regal tour and stayed with the baron – can’t remember his name – eating him out of house and home. It was basically a feast that lasted for a week. You wouldn’t believe what they ate: dozens of cows, sheep and pigs, all roasted on spits – we haven’t seen the kitchens yet, but we should find them – together with braised quails, herons and – wait for this one – peacocks! They cooked them and then decorated the basted birds with all their tail feathers. And there was a bear, and – ’

  Emily gasped. ‘They didn’t eat a bear! How horrible!’

  ‘You’re making this up,’ Simon said.

  ‘No,’ Marcus groaned. ‘It was a dancing bear! It entertained them in the great hall while they were eating.’

  ‘Cool,’ Simon said.

  ‘It’s still horrible,’ said Emily. ‘Poor bear.’

  ‘Apparently the king and his court ate so much that the baron had to send out to one of his other castles on the other side of the fens to get extra provisions. It practically bankrupted him. And you know what? The king wasn’t grateful at all. A couple of years later he confiscated the castle, gave it to someone else and banished the baron to France. Not fair, eh?’ He paused for breath and took a giant bite from his sandwich.

  ‘How come you remember all that?’ Emily asked.

  ‘’Cos he invents it,’ Simon said. ‘No one would eat a peacock.’

  ‘’Cos it interests me,’ Marcus said with his mouth full. ‘There are some great stories in here. Some are really spooky. There’s one where— Agggh! Mnnnnnnf!’ He fell back in agony, rubbing his streaming eyes.

  ‘That’ll learn you,’ Simon said. ‘Mustard with cheese. Have some water.’
>
  ‘So all your brothers still live with your mum and dad, do they, Simon?’ Emily said. ‘None of them work?’

  ‘Nah. They just clutter up the place till the pubs open. It’s crowded. Three of us sleep in my bedroom. Pauline gets one to herself, as she’s a girl. Never any peace.’

  ‘It’s a lot quieter at my place,’ Emily said gloomily. ‘Feeling better?’

  ‘My nasal hair’s burned off, I swear it! I’ll never smell again!’

  ‘You’ll smell, all right,’ Simon said, wrinkling his nose. ‘Believe me. Some things don’t change.’

  ‘Ha ha. And a bit of turkey’s gone down my bag.’

  ‘Just you at home, then, Em?’

  ‘Just me.’

  ‘What’s your dad do?’

  ‘Accountant.’

  ‘La bloody da.’

  ‘It’s not that posh. What about your dad?’

  ‘Nothing now. Used to work on the farms. You know Miller’s? Worked there till he knackered his hand in. Industrial accident.’

  ‘No! What sort of accident?’

  ‘A tin bath fell on him.’

  ‘A tin bath!’

  ‘Don’t laugh – or I’ll make you swallow the rest of that mustard.’

  ‘But what—?’

  ‘They were using it for pig feed. Loading it onto a trailer. Dropped it. Fell on Dad’s hand. Snapped the tendons. Knackered.’

  ‘Poor guy.’

  ‘Grumpy old sod, more like.’

  ‘What’s your dad do, Marcus?’

  ‘My dad? I don’t know. Don’t care. Something at a factory. Works nights.’

  ‘He’s happy with you being out tonight, is he?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Marcus picked up his book and began to leaf through it. Emily watched him. ‘So what did you tell him in the end?’ she asked. ‘About tonight.’

  He didn’t seem to hear her. He flicked the pages with deliberate care.

  ‘Come on, Marcus,’ she said. ‘No secrets tonight. Simon and I’ve been talking about our families and stuff. What’s the problem?’

  Marcus looked up. ‘I haven’t heard you say anything,’ he said.