Page 75 of The Book of Lost Stories
This time he opened his eyes, scowled at her and closed them again, which she took as a hopeful sign. ‘I think perhaps he will soon wake, but we cannot afford to wait. Come, I will see to your escape, for then I must have an hour or so’s grace before they come for me, and the hope of the help you will bring if we cannot get out in time.’
She took the horn beaker in case she found the source of the trickling water she could hear, and after a second’s thought removed one of the pistols from Lord Rayven’s coat. Opening the door cautiously, she peered out. Braziers lit the passage, which curved away in both directions. To their right came the faint lilt of music and raucous clamour of voices, and strange heavy scents hung in the air.
‘This way!’ She pulled Sarah in the opposite direction. Cautiously they stole along the passage, and down worn steps.
‘Oh, this is hideous!’ Sarah said. ‘What a dank, awful place.’
‘It is not! Look, the brickwork in parts is quite beautiful, perhaps Roman, although it has been patched and mended roughly over the centuries. See how they have diverted this trickle of water into a basin shaped like a shell … so pretty, if a trifle slimy. But hush, I believe we are near the entrance.’
Three steps led up to a door that was ajar, and Alys tiptoedto it and found she was looking out of a little temple down to the river. To her right, two sturdy manservants lolled against a wall, laughing at some joke; to her left, a pathway led away in the direction of the wall to where the road must lie and, hopefully, escape.
She gave Sarah a shake, pointed at the path, and patted her briskly. ‘Be quiet until you are well out of earshot, but do not fear that they will see you, for they will be looking the other way.’
Sarah looked at her mutely, eyes enormous, as Alys weighed a small and ancient piece of brick in her hand, then lobbed it as far as she could into the bushes to their right.
‘Go!’ she said urgently, impelling the girl out into the open as soon as the two men had leaped up and rushed off in the other direction.
‘Be quick, be careful!’ she hissed, and Sarah fled like a startled hare into the thicket and was gone. Fear, Alys hoped, would not only get her over the wall should the gate be locked, but give wings to her feet.
How easy it would be to follow suit, she thought longingly, before turning back resolutely and retracing her steps to the grotto, pausing as she did so to fill the horn beaker with water from the little stone basin.
Going by the noises of revelry, she still had some time to spare. Lord Rayven lay as she had left him and she moistened his lips with the water, then applied a cold compress to his head, cradling it on her lap.
She had just pressed a kiss on his brow – and, if truth be told, dampened his face with a few salty tears – when he began to stir and mutter at last, his dark eyes opened and he stared up at her in bewilderment. ‘What … where …?’
‘Hush, Lord Rayven, it is Miss Weston. Do not try to speak until your senses return to you.’
He stared up at her speechlessly for a moment, then with surprising strength pulled her to him and kissed her long and hard before thrusting her away and attempting to sit up. He subsided again with a groan. ‘Oh, my head!’
‘I am afraid you have taken a heavy blow,’ she said, a trifle breathlessly. ‘Were you searching for me?’
‘Yes, I – Jarvis – Jarvis told me …’ He sat up, this time successfully. ‘I set off alone like a fool. There were two men guarding the entrance. I had the best of the fight, but then—’
‘Someone struck you on the back of the head. I expect it was my cousin. He seems to make a habit of it.’
‘Hestruckyou?’ He examined her bruised face in the flickering candlelight. ‘He will regret that!’ he said grimly.
‘Possibly, but not unless we can make our escape from this place. Hush!’
The sounds of revelry grew suddenly louder as though a door had opened, and then feminine giggles heralded the return of the girls past the door.
‘The meeting is breaking up. There is no time to spare,’ she said urgently. ‘If you are recovered enough, we must be gone, for they mean me to take part in some heathenish ceremony shortly. I assisted Sarah to get away to fetch help, but that was so long ago that I fear something has happened to prevent her.’
‘Sarah?’
‘The girl who was missing from the Red House … but of course, why should you know about that? Chase kidnapped her, but now they mean me to take her place.’
Some intelligence began to return to his eyes. ‘You helped this Sarah to escape yet did not go with her?’
‘I would have been very happy to go, but, of course, I could not leave you here like this.’
‘I am not the hero of this piece, it seems,’ he groaned ruefully, ‘merely a hindrance. But you were a fool not to make good your escape when you had the chance.’
‘I know it,’ she said. ‘However, they were too stupid to search you, so you still had your pistols in your pocket. I have one of them here.’
‘Then you had best give it back, for I dare say you have no idea how to use it,’ he said, trying to rise to his feet.
‘Yes, I do. I have two just like it in my luggage.’
