Page 74 of The Book of Lost Stories
Then a sound behind her made her start guiltily. The child! How could she forget that there was another sufferer who also needed her assistance?
Sarah lay in the deep sarcophagus on a bed of dirty straw. Her blue eyes were wild and unfocused and she did not respond to her name other than to whimper and moan.
Alys hitched up her gown and climbed in beside her. ‘Sarah.’
‘No, no!’ whimpered the girl, trying to draw herself back against the wall.
‘Sarah, it is me – Miss Weston. Remember, you were to come and be my maid? Sarah?’
There was no response. Muttering, Alys set about untying the girl and chafing her hands, then briskly slapped her face.
With a gasp, some intelligence came back into the blue eyes, along with terror. ‘Do not have hysterics, Sarah,’ Alys said quickly. ‘It is Miss Weston, come to get you out of this foul place.’
‘Miss Weston? Oh, Miss Weston, I must be dreaming you are here … I—’
‘Do not waste your energy on crying, but let me help you out into the grotto, where you will find Lord Rayven.’
‘L-Lord Rayven?’
‘He is a friend, although at this moment somewhat incapacitated,’ Alys confessed. ‘Come along.’
She pushed the girl out and climbed after her, then gave her the very last dregs of the mug of water. Sarah cast fearful looks at the dark form, prone on the floor.
‘Miss Weston, we must leave here at once, for they mean to do dreadful things to me! Lord Chase … he came and gloated over what he would do to me tonight, how I would be – be the virgin sacrifice and I—’
‘Not you,me,’ Alys said. ‘There has been a slight change of plan. You are merely to be shipped off abroad while I am to take your place in this unholy rite, when all except the inner circle of the Brethren are gone.’
‘But what are we to do?’ the girl said piteously, shaking with terror. Alys thought that as an accomplice she left a lot to be desired.
‘Escape, of course. Now, if anyone should come in before we do so – although I do not expect it until later – they will barely be able to make out Rayven in that dark corner, and you may get behind the door. I will slump against the wall, so that they do not see I am untied.
‘But how then shall we escape?’
Alys went over to the barred window in the door. ‘I heard them lock it each time they shut the door, but not the rattle of the key being inserted or removed and …’ she inserted an arm through the bars and strained to reach down ‘… I have very slender hands and wrists – unusually so – and I believe I can just reach …’
Her expression concentrated, she strained on tiptoe, then there was a rattle and she withdrew her arm slowly, clutching a large key. ‘There!’
‘Oh, Miss Weston!’ Sarah said. ‘But still we have to get out, and Lord Rayven is near death.’
‘No he is not,’ Alys said sharply, ‘merely unconscious from a blow on the head. I cannot leave him, but you can escape and get help for us, if you will. We cannot be more than a mile from the Red House.’
‘Alone, and in the dark, miss?’
‘The dark can have no terrors comparable to all you have gone through,’ pointed out Alys practically. ‘Rabbits and foxes are as nothing to the creatures that inhabitthisden. But you must leave at just the right moment, for I heard my cousin say that the two men who brought Lord Rayven here were to go back and guard the river entrance until everyone had arrived. So we must wait until the Brethren and the … er … entertainers, have passed in.’
‘But what if the two men are still there?’
‘If they are, I am sure I will think of something, for I will come with you thus far. In fact, we will all escape, should I manage to bring Lord Rayven to consciousness by then, but otherwise, I will come back.’
‘What if they capture me?’
‘Then you will be little worse off than you are now.’
She had another look at Rayven. ‘If only I had more cold water to bathe his head. And he is so cold. Listen, what is that?’
The sound of feminine voices carried up the passageway. ‘I believe the women who entertain the Brethren are arriving, so perhaps you had better conceal yourself, and I will sit against the wall.’
The footsteps hurried past without a pause, and once all was quiet again she attempted once more to wake Rayven.
