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Chapter Six
Ailyth quickly got into a routine of sleeping for just three hours a night, although nothing could fight the tiredness she felt every waking moment. It was as though she was permanently wading through a dream, her limbs dragging behind her as she fumbled over each task the Baroness made her do. She knew that she couldn’t go on for much longer.
It had only been a week (although it felt like a month) when the cook woke her from an uncomfortable slumber, to warn her that the Baroness was on her way to the kitchen. Ailyth tried to make it look like she had been awake all night, and there was no way she could stop herself from yawning when her tormentor entered the room. The Baroness paid no attention to her discomfort. Instead, she grabbed hold of Ailyth’s arm and dragged her to her feet.
“Where are we going?” Ailyth asked, frightened by the way the Baroness pulled her out of the kitchen. RiffRaff clung onto her skirts with all his might. “What’s happening?”
The Baroness didn’t reply. With a look of grim determination on her face she simply continued to pull the girl into the maze of corridors within the castle. She didn’t stop when Ailyth tripped, and the girl had to try and stand whilst still being hauled across the floor. Finally they reached a door, and the Baroness produced a key from around her waist.
“Your new home,” she sneered as she opened the door to reveal a dark and dank cell. “Scream all you like, no-one will hear you. It’s all the same to me.”
And with the slamming shut of the dorr, Ailyth was alone.
***
For the eighteenth time that day, Ailyth stood on her tiptoes to look out of the slit of a window that let a little light into her cell.
“It’s about midday,” she said to RiffRaff. “Somebody should be bringing us something to eat soon.”
Only nobody came. Ailyth had been locked up in her cell for a little over twenty-four hours and had seen nobody in that time. This hadn’t bothered her as such as she’d grown used to having little company, but it felt like something was gnawing on her stomach. She couldn’t wait any more to have something to eat. It was only when darkness filled her cell that she realised she wouldn’t eat that day.
“I can’t believe she’s put me in here,” she said to herself. “The woman’s mad - quite mad.”
Or if not mad then certainly very clever, for something had clearly happened that meant Ailyth needed to be kept out of the way.
“Maybe my parents have come to visit,” she wondered.
As soon as the thought had entered her head, she dismissed it. Her father would be in France too by now, fighting for God, and her mother couldn’t leave Topsham Manor unattended. What then?
“She can’t possibly intend to keep me here,” she told RiffRaff, who was scrabbling through the straw looking for food. “That would be murder.” Not that she thought that Baroness de Monbardier was above a little case of murder. She froze at the thought. What if she intended for Ailyth to die, in case she should tell people how she had been treated? If her father ever found out...he would probably just think that it was her own fault. The Monbardiers seemed to share the same views on marriage as her parents.
The cell was small; too small to walk around in without getting dizzy and too small to stretch out in when lying down. The ragged walls with their jutting stones dug into Ailyth and ripped the skin from her back if she moved against them too quickly, and they ran with damp and mildew. The floor was covered in filthy straw and mud and, although she hadn’t investigated it fully, she was certain that that was a skeleton she could see propped up against the shadowed walls in the corner. If she stretched enough, Ailyth could just see out of the window, but she couldn’t do that for long without hurting her back. Every now and then she thought she could hear voices but, no matter how loudly she shouted, nobody came to rescue her. What she would have given to have had Heloise’s charms, but she knew full well that they were locked up in a chest in her chamber.
She didn’t know where she was, just that it was in a tower; not too far from the ground, yet far enough so that no-one could hear her. At one point - she didn’t know when - she thought she had seen Elfrida from the windows but, even though she tried to shout, the maid hadn’t heard her creaking voice. She had glanced up, but Ailyth could tell from her reaction that it wasn’t because she had shouted.
“Ok,” she said to RiffRaff on her second day, “it is possible that we might die here.”
She felt calm, despite this. Deep down inside she couldn’t really imagine ending her days in a grimy cell, the prisoner of a Baroness’ grudge, not when Heloise had said so much had depended on her. It would be wrong, plain wrong, to die in the cell when she had to save the isle.
After three days, Ailyth could no longer tell the time of day. Everything seemed to blur into one, and she didn’t feel hungry at meal times any more. She felt hungry all of the time. And thirsty. Her mouth felt as though she had been eating sand, and even the little rat had started eating the mud in an attempt to stop the pain.
Ailyth was eyeing RiffRaff and wondering whether raw rat would kill her when she heard a rattling noise and a hatch on the door swung open.
“I didn’t know where you were,” a voice whispered through the hatch on the door. “Every time I mentioned your name to anyone they just pretended they hadn’t heard me. I had to search the whole castle looking for you.”
Ailyth almost wept. “Oh, Elfrida!” she cried, scrambling to her feet and leaning against the wall. “What’s going on? I don’t know what’s happening to me, no one’s been here...does she intend to keep me here? Is she trying to kill me?”
“Slow down,” Elfrida said. “I don’t have any answers. I’m sorry, I don’t know. She doesn’t even grace me with the time of day.”
She disappeared from view for a few seconds and re-emerged with a bag. “There’s food in there, and a skein of spiced ale, but eat it slowly; you’ve got to make that last ‘til tomorrow.” She glanced over her shoulder nervously. “I’ll bring you something whenever I can, but I can’t stay long. I can’t be caught here, or there’ll be trouble.” She held the bag through the gap in the door. “Quickly, take this,” she said. “I have to go.”
As Ailyth took the food from Elfrida’s hands, the maid slowly swung the hatch closed and she was alone once more. “Elfrida!” she called, flinging herself against the oak door, “please find out something! Find out why she’s put me in here. Get me out, in sweet Jesus’ name. She wants me out of the way...”
There was no reply. The maid had already fled, and Ailyth was left standing on her own, in fits of tears.
The food was rich; not just bread and water but chicken and pork knuckles and even a few scraps of jellied pears, which Ailyth loved. Casting her eyes to the heavens she said a silent prayer of thanks to God, and asked that He look after her friend. The girl had been kindness itself. Ailyth knew that Elfrida had every reason to hate her, every reason to be angry for sending Matthew to war, but she held no grudge. Mayhap she hadn’t realised the part Ailyth had played in his departure. She hoped so. She had betrayed the maid for her own gain and that was a terrible thing to do.
RiffRaff sat close to the girl, creeping forward every time his stomach gurgled, licking his lips. The chicken looked so good; greasy and grey, just as he liked it. The only problem was that Ailyth seemed to have forgotten about him.
As she guzzled down most of the skein of spiced ale, he hopped onto her knee. Clearing his throat a little, he said, “Can I have some of that?”
Ailyth dropped the skein and stared at him in astonishment. “What did you say?” she asked, thinking that somehow she had heard wrong.
“I said: ‘can I have some of that?’” RiffRaff replied, looking vaguely annoyed. “And you’ve spilled the ale. May I?”
He crept forward and began lapping it up, smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth
Ailyth stared at him for a few seconds before slumping against the wall and laughing. “A talking rat!” she giggled. “I’m trapped in a cell, with a mammoth task ahead of me, apparently, and what does the all-powerful, magical Heloise give me? A talking rat!” She sniggered a little while longer then said, half to herself, “God’s teeth, I’ve only been here a few days and I’m going mad.”
“Well, you might be mad,” RiffRaff said. “You did drop the only drink we’ve had since we were thrown in here.”
But was it madness? Surely she wasn’t hearing voices. And she did know now that there were things that existed beyond her understanding. Her laughter ebbed away as the memory of what had happened before she left her home returned. Talking squirrels, nursemaids with different faces, white harts. Why not a talking rat? Heloise had said that the rat was charmed. It was also a widely known fact that solitary confinement in creepy prison cells, with the possibility of death via lack of food brought about hallucinations, madness and the general unbalancing of the humours.
“I have gone insane,” Ailyth whispered aloud as RiffRaff continued munching on his feast. “The last few months have been a strain. I’ve brought a terrible curse to England, lost my true love, been married to a violent and offensive oaf, been removed from my home and all the people who I hold dear and now I’ve been imprisoned and starved by a vengeful woman who has been using me as a slave. Who wouldn’t go mad under all of that stress?”
RiffRaff paused. “Well, when you put it like that,” he said, “I’m surprised that you’ve managed to hold onto your sanity for this long.” He jumped up onto her shoulder and smiled a toothy grin at her. “My dear,” he said, “I was just teasing you. You’re not mad.”
“No, no, I think I must be,” Ailyth protested. “You see the thing is...well...you’re a rat. And rats can’t talk.”
“Oh!” the creature said. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realise. No, you’re right, we can’t talk. I must have got it wrong.”
“You’re mocking me, aren’t you.”
“It would seem that way, yes. Whether you want to believe it or not, Ailyth, I’m talking right now and believe me, it’s not a hallucination. Or a trick.” The rat licked his lips and jumped back to his food.
Ailyth stared at him incredulously. “Ok,” she said slowly, as though waiting to hear a punch-line. “I’m not mad and you can talk...I’ll believe that much.”
“Very wise,” the rat said, “considering that we’re having a conversation.”
“How can you talk?”
“I don’t know,” RiffRaff replied. “I’ve never really thought about it. I just open my mouth, and words come out.”
Silly question really. Heloise’s must have magicked it. A thought occurred to Ailyth. If it could talk, she thought, perhaps Heloise had magicked other powers into it, to help on the quest. “What else can you do?” she asked.
The rat thought for a moment. “Well, I can fetch a bobbin - you taught me that one yourself.”
Ailyth frowned at him and wondered again what rat tasted like. “That isn’t what I meant,” she said. “I just thought that you might have some sort of magical faery powers. Perhaps...” She rested her head in her hands, the only way she could think without having to worry that her brain would fall out with confusion. “I don’t know, perhaps Heloise told you something about this thing I have to do.”
He tilted his head back for a second and Ailyth could see that he was thinking too. “No,” he said finally. “No, I’m just a rat.”
“But a rat who can talk.”
“Yes,” he said. “You do seem rather fixated by that, don’t you.”
Useless, Ailyth thought. He was trouble enough when he was just a rat, but now that he talks... She stood up and walked to the window. “Thank you, Heloise!” she shouted. “I hope you’re not relying on me too much! It looks as though I’m going to be stuck here for a while!” She simply could not believe that the faery woman who had lived so long as her own nursemaid could have messed up so spectacularly when giving her a charmed animal that might have been, should have been, more useful.
“Yes, shouldn’t we do something about that?” RiffRaff asked. “I’m a bit concerned that, in the grander scheme of things, your nursemaid didn’t expect us to be holed up in some cell. We should be out there, fighting the bad guys!”
“What ‘bad guys?’” Ailyth asked, returning to her pile of straw. It took a few moments for his words to sink in. “What bad guys, RiffRaff?” she asked. “Do we have to battle dark forces? Are there people trying to do something evil, is that what my quest is about?”
RiffRaff shrugged his shoulders, and Ailyth sighed. “I definitely preferred it when you didn’t talk.” She stared at him for a few seconds. “Actually, why didn’t you talk before?”
The rat grinned with long orange teeth. “Didn’t want anything before, did I?” he said, and hopped onto her lap.
Ailyth shook her head. “I’m so glad to be of use to you,” she murmured, taking him off her lap and pulling her legs up under her chin.
RiffRaff seemed happy enough, not at all concerned about their fate. In that respect, he was lucky. No-one was going to go out of their way to kill him, although he had as little chance of escaping as she did. Again Ailyth turned her mind to why she had been thrown in the cell. Clearly the Baroness didn’t want her to reveal to anyone the way she had been treated since Matthew left, but reveal it to whom? Someone important must be coming to the castle, and she was a secret who had to be hidden away, but why didn’t the Baroness just kill her?
“I think that might have been her intention,” RiffRaff said softly, putting a cold paw gently on her hand. “If Elfrida wasn’t feeding you...well, no one else has been to bring you food, have they?”
She nodded glumly, realising that she must have spoken out loud. She wouldn’t cry though. She would be stronger than that. She couldn’t admit that the Baroness had won, even to herself. No, she would be brave, and she would think of a way out of this mess if it was the last thing she did. It might very well be the last thing that she did... Turning against the wall, with uncomfortable thoughts filling her head, Ailyth bit her lip until it bled.
The next morning Ailyth woke up and immediately felt her shoulder, to see if RiffRaff was still there. He wasn’t, and she looked around the cell for him. Perhaps, she thought, Heloise meant him to be useful in other ways. Perhaps she knew I’d just need a friend. She looked around for the little rat once more, worried, before he suddenly lunged out of the darkness towards her face, his teeth bared in an evil snarl. Ailyth screamed and cried out “Benedicte, no!”, before closing her eyes in anticipation of the rat’s sharp teeth sinking into her skin. A thousand thoughts ran through her head in quick succession, and they all centred around curse words, fear, and betrayal. It was only when she opened her eyes that she realised RiffRaff was no longer hurtling towards her, and was instead sitting on her lap chewing on a spider.
“It was on your chin,” he said through a mouthful of crunchy legs. “Thought I’d add a bit of variety to my diet.” He pulled a leg out from between his teeth. “I’ll share it, if you want some,” he offered.
Ailyth stared at him in disgust, a grimace on her face. “No...thank you...” she said slowly, her lips wrinkled.
They spent the rest of the day in silence, Ailyth unable to think of anything more she could say to a rat. From time to time she thought of Heloise but she couldn’t do this for long, as more often than not a ball of guilt would rise from her stomach to her chest, and she’d begin to sweat as she thought of her task, and how she had been stopped before it had even begun.
I’m letting her down, she thought. I’m letting England down.
When this started to bother her, she tried to remind herself of Tristran, and for a moment she felt happy, remembering the way he looked at her and the way her insides felt when he kissed her. But as night drew near her thoughts turned to that day in the forest, the start of all this mess, and the argument they’d had over Meg...and the way her world crumpled when Heloise had told her he was dead.
RiffRaff sensed that she was feeling morose, and he quickly pounced onto her hand and try to wrestle with her. Ailyth knew now that no, he wasn’t attempting to bite off her fingers, and played with him back, but it couldn’t distract her for long. Tristran was still dead, she was still in a cell, the ‘bad thing’ might well have already started and the first fact, the most important fact to her, would never change.
“Who is he then?” RiffRaff asked one day, after she had woken from a dream that she could only half remember. Tristran...had Tristran been in the cell? She could still almost feel his touch on her face, and was it at all possible that she could hear his voice? She half-opened her eyes hopefully, but all that was looking at her was the black, dirty face of the rat.
“A man I loved once,” she said bitterly. “A man I still love. He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry,” RiffRaff said. Ailyth nodded, not caring whether he was sorry or not. He hadn’t known Tristran. What did his opinion matter? “He died thinking I hated him,” she said after a pause, feeling misery she had almost hoped had died welling in her heart. “I’ll never get the chance to tell him that I didn’t hate him. I mean, I almost hated him. I was angry with him, very angry.” She closed her eyes and leant against the wall, her head facing the roof of the cell. “But not angry enough to never see him again,” she said.
RiffRaff climbed up her arm and sat on her shoulder. “He knows,” he said plainly. Ailyth snorted.
“How could he know?”
RiffRaff just shrugged back and stood on his hind legs, resting his forepaws on Ailyth’s face. “If you loved him, then nothing will make you stop loving him,” he whispered in her ear. “I’m sure he would have known that.”
Ailyth gave a weak smile, and hunched herself back into a ball. Perhaps if she fell asleep again, Tristran would still be there.
There was nothing to do in the cell except sleep, and hope that dreams would take her to a happier place. Sleep, however, was not easy to grab when your stomach was threatening to tear you apart, and Ailyth tossed and turned a thousand times. RiffRaff didn’t have the same trouble. He was able to curl up on Ailyth’s lap and, as he had been able to supplement his diet with the hundreds of spiders and insects that crowded the cell, he was a able to fall to sleep quite easily. Ailyth watched him as he dreamt; his legs kicking out into the air, his ears flicking and his lips twitching. “I love you,” he murmured once or twice, and this made the girl smile, yet sad at the same time. Had he lost a little rat-girl when he’d been taken away from Topsham?
A pebble dropped a fraction of a centimetre and RiffRaff immediately sprang awake. His heart was racing and his eyes looked confused.
“Bna-wss-whatsat?” he blurted, and Ailyth patted him gently.
“Nothing,” she said. “You were just in a deep sleep.”
“Oh, right,” he said, and snuggled up to Ailyth again.
“You were dreaming,” she told him, desperate to know what he was dreaming about.
“Was I?”
“You were saying ‘I love you’.”
If rats could blush, RiffRaff would have turned red all over. “Really?” he asked. “That’s silly. I’ve never had anyone special in my life.”
Poor creature, Ailyth thought. Despite all the heartache of recent months, at least she’d had Tristran to love her. At least she’d had that. It must be terrible, to have never had anyone that loved you. As sleep finally crept up on her, Ailyth put a sympathetic hand on RiffRaff’s furry body and closed her eyes.
They dozed together for what may have been hours, and it was a new day before RiffRaff stretched out and yawned. There was a sound, a muffled beating noise in the distance, and he leapt from Ailyth to run to the window-wall to listen. After a few moments he ran back to the girl and gave her hair a gentle tug.
“What? What is it?” Ailyth said quietly. As she tried to stretch out her arms, she suddenly became aware of how weak she was. They felt as though, somehow, they weren’t actually hers and that they were floating. Dizziness invaded her head, and she felt faint
“Can you...” he started.
She hushed him and sat up, straining to hear the noise. As minutes passed the noise grew louder, until it became the unmistakable sound of drums being pounded, signalling the return of warring soldiers.
“I think your husband’s home,” he said.
Ailyth looked miserable. “It can’t be,” she said. “He’s only been gone for three months.”
“Either that or we’re being invaded,” RiffRaff told her. “Lift me up to the window so I can see.”
Ailyth rolled her head from side to side. “I can’t,” she said. “I haven’t the strength.”
RiffRaff hopped around for a few seconds. “We must know,” he said. “This might be our chance of getting out of here.”
These words had the effect on Ailyth RiffRaff had hoped for, and she dragged herself to her feet and staggered to the window. Lifting the rat up to the slit in the wall she asked, “Well?”
“I can’t see very clearly,” he told her, “but I think I see yellow and white dots moving towards us.”
“Matthew’s family colours,” she admitted. “They’re home.”
“So...?” RiffRaff demanded. “Aren’t you excited?”
Ailyth crawled back to her corner and curled up again. “It’s no guarantee we’ll be let out again,” she said. “Jesu’...I’m so thirsty.”
The black rat nudged her. “You have to think positively,” he said. “Don’t give up. We’ll be out soon, you’ll see. And that’s when we’ll have the real work to do.”
“Don’t remind me,” Ailyth whispered. As she spoke those words, a key rattled on the other side of the door and both she and RiffRaff sat up. Someone was unlocking the cell.
“What did I tell you?” RiffRaff said.
The door opened and a dishevelled looking Elfrida swept into the room. Her eyes were red, and darted around her skull as though she were in a nightmare, terrified of being chased and caught.
“Take this,” she said, thrusting a food bag into Ailyth’s hands before she had even time to register shock. “Come on, get up,” she said, glancing back over her shoulder. “The army’s home, the Baroness is busy...she left her keys on the table.”
Ailyth stared up at her friend, not quite believing that what she saw was true. The cell was open. She was finally free. Elfrida, however, was looking panicked. It was clear by the way she kept looking back over her shoulder that she was terrified of getting caught. She had risked a lot.
“Come on Ailyth, get up,” she pleaded. “It won’t be long until she notices they’re gone...”
“I’d say about a minute,” a cold voice said as the Baroness appeared at the door. “A nice try girl, but you underestimated me. Why you thought I might suddenly let my guard down is beyond me, but no matter.” She strode towards Ailyth and cupped the girl’s dirty face in her hand. “Enjoying your stay, dear?” she said. “But my, don’t we look unkempt?” She crouched in front of her and let her face rest inches from Ailyth’s. “I have no intention of letting you out of here,” she spat, her blackened teeth set angrily under her lips. “My son will have to face the unfortunate duty of becoming a widower, but I’m sure somehow he’ll live with the pain. It will be the first thing I tell him, for I can assure you: you’re a dead girl.”
She spun around suddenly. “And you!” she cried, turning on Elfrida. “If it weren’t for Matthew’s misplaced affection towards you, I’d throw you in here myself. But I promise you; breathe a word of this to anyone, and it will be more than a cell you face. It will be the axe!”
Elfrida’s eyes widened like a deer’s as the Baroness grabbed hold of her pale arm and dragged her crying from the prison. Ailyth too was sobbing, pounding the freshly locked door until the sound of their urgent footsteps had long since died away.
The silence that followed throbbed in Ailyth’s head as she wept, her freedom so quickly snatched away from her. Even RiffRaff felt his eyes grow damp as he realised that he, too, would end his days starving to death in the vault. As night fell they both sat sullenly, waiting for death as everyone in the castle below them feasted in celebration of the army’s return.
“At least we’ve got food,” he said optimistically. The Baroness had failed to notice Ailyth’s bag, but the look Ailyth gave him as they ate silenced him for the rest of the night. When RiffRaff woke, he expected to see Ailyth either still asleep or still motionless in distress, but she was neither. Instead she was standing by the door, grinning, and she motioned the rat towards her.
“Look,” she said, lifting him up. “The hatch is open.”
The hole in the door gaped wide, and this seemed to make Ailyth happy. RiffRaff yawned, not quite seeing how this was at all helpful but, seeing that it made his friend glad, he managed a smile as well.
“So...we can shout for help?” he guessed.
“No,” Ailyth replied. “We can escape.”
RiffRaff eyed the small gap uncertainly. It was large enough for a face to be seen through it, but nothing else.
“I don’t know,” he said. “You’ll never fit through that.”
But Ailyth wasn’t listening. She was too busy reeling off her plans to him. “I’ve been awake most of the night thinking about it,” she babbled, full of excitement. “The Baron will be snug and warm in his castle now, and his wife will be distracted. She won’t notice little paws taking the key if she’s too busy gazing at her husband.”
“Little paws...” RiffRaff said suspiciously. “Oh no, I’m not doing it.”
“Please!” Ailyth begged, hugging the rat to her chest. “If you don’t, we’ll die. Both of us. You included.”
“And how do you know I won’t just run of into the night once I’ve gone through the hatch?”
Looking at him levelly, Ailyth said, “Because I trust you.” T
here was no time to lose. She swiftly gave him instructions on how to make his way to the main stairwell, and how to find the Baroness’ room from there.
“In sweet Jesu’s name though,” she said, “don’t be seen or we’ll both be done for. Then, when you get back here, call me and I’ll get you back in.”
“How?”
“We’ll think of something,” she said. She lowered him through the hatch as far as she could, and felt him jump to the floor. “Just be quick,” she whispered. “And be careful.”
RiffRaff glanced back up at her, and she could see he was scared; both for himself, and for her. If he should fail, the consequence would be more than just their deaths. The whole country would be threatened. He gulped once for bravery, before scuttling off into the shadows and disappearing from sight.
Stock credits for illustration:
Granny's Attic Stock: Click Here
Ailyth model: Click Here |
