Runes and Red Sails (Queenmaker Book 1)(9)

She prayed for the second time in as many days, and this time for herself: Please, let it not be me.

The air in the room was stale. She needed a drink to wash the taste from her mouth, she needed air and to stretch. Sleep would be far away for a long while, now.

Ceolwen’s breathing sounded steady, but Aelfhild still took care not to make noise as she stood. Something stopped her short as she moved to part the curtain. The voice’s warning stuck in her head. For a moment she hesitated, then reached out in the dark and found the Eorl’s dagger. Grasping it between thumb and forefinger, she dropped it into her pocket.

The fire had burned down to embers in the hearth, casting a flickering half-light over everything nearby. She could hear only the snores of men on the benches along the walls; the two watchmen at the far end of the hall were fast asleep, feet to the fire and backs propped against the door they were meant to be guarding. Smoke was heavy on the air.

At night, the windows were all shut and barred, but she remembered that one had a knothole which might let in some cleaner air. She went to it, careful how she placed each foot. The night watch proved to be heavy sleepers, which was lucky, because she was of little mind to explain herself or her sodden nightdress to anyone.

Peering out into the lane outside, she was surprised at how well she could see. There were a few wispy clouds that night, but the twin moons shone bright in the sky and lit the city. The air proved no better by the knothole, though. The acrid scent of burning pitch drifted in from outside. Aelfhild’s neck began to prickle.

Something was wrong.

Sweeping her gaze up and down the street, she saw nothing. There was a flicker of torchlight from around the corner, but that was nothing strange—guards did patrol the streets at night.

Something shifted in the shadows and caught her eye. There were men moving in the lee of the building across the way. Moonlight glinted off metal. Armed men.

She dropped to her knees, and barely stifled the gasp that leapt from her lungs.

Stupid girl. You think they saw your eyeball through a hole in the wall? For the briefest of moments Aelfhild was a child again, under her mother’s scolding finger. But there was no time for shame. Think, she commanded herself. What do we need to do?

Find the Eorl first, she decided. He needs to know. Every step, every breath, every heartbeat she was sure the men outside would hear. She wended her way to the back of the hall step by trembling step.

Cuthbert lay face-up on the bed, his mountainous belly rising and falling as he snored. Aelfhild clamped a hand over his mouth as she shook him awake. She pressed down the urge to scream at him as his bleary eyes took an age to focus on her face.

“Men outside,” she whispered. He must have heard the fear, because there were no questions.

The Eorl rolled out of his bed with more sprightliness than she would have expected, and squinted through the crack in a nearby window. He gave no sign that he saw anything, but he took her by the arm and shuffled toward the entrance of the hall. As they went, he woke his warriors in the same way she had woken him, a palm over the mouth to keep hold of that one slight advantage: their attackers did not know they were already discovered.

Aelfhild went in to wake her mistress, but Ceolwen was already sitting up in her bower, eyes perfect black circles in the dim. She began to speak as her servant came in. Before the words could emerge, Aelfhild clamped a palm across her lips. “Danger,” she whispered, beckoning Ceolwen to follow out into the main hall.

Cuthbert had awoken all his warriors. They crouched silently near their beds, anything resembling a weapon in hand. Every ear strained. Outside there were footsteps, the sound of a heavy weight dragging through dirt.

The smell of burning pitch grew stronger, and there was a soft thump at the door. Ceolwen squeezed Aelfhild’s hand until her knuckles popped. Outside the windows, an orange glow started to rise. Fragments of old songs and stories rose unbidden in Aelfhild’s mind, bringing with them a grim realization: the roof.

They would burn the roof.

It was a time-honored tactic amongst her people—warriors would block the doors to an enemy’s hall from the outside and set fire to the thatch. Anyone not consumed by the blaze would run out, straight into waiting blades. Osric had made his move, and broken the peace in terrible fashion.

Daggers in the dark were one thing, Aelfhild thought, but this does not happen in Cynestead. Not these days. The city was meant to be safe ground for all. The Eorls and Reeves would doubtless be furious with the young upstart, but that was little use to the hall’s occupants.

The smoke was overwhelming now, and the raging flames outside shone bright through cracks and holes in the shutters. Aelfhild’s eyes watered as the heat began to rise and cinders floated down through gaps in the crackling thatch.

Stealth abandoned, Cuthbert sprinted back to the middle of the hall. Cups and dishes scattered as he cast aside a table and ripped back rugs concealing a chink in the floorboards. With the blade of his sword he pried up the wooden cover to reveal a pit in the hall’s foundation.

Two of the Eorl’s men dropped down, disappearing into the dark. He pointed at Ceolwen and Aelfhild next, and gestured downwards. Scampering forward on hands and knees below the billowing smoke, Aelfhild half slid, half fell into the hole. It was less than graceful, but a choice between falling and burning was no choice at all.

The drop proved to be hardly any distance; Ceolwen’s feet might have touched the bottom from the ledge, but Aelfhild would have dangled. It was pitch black in the hole. Aelfhild moved forward after she landed, and could feel Ceolwen come down behind her. She grabbed her mistress’ hand and choked back a scream as unseen fingers grabbed her shoulder from the front.