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Chapter Six A
The wait for RiffRaff’s return seemed to Ailyth to last longer than the whole of their imprisonment, and she felt an unexpected revival of energy whilst he was gone. Pacing around her small quarters she imagined every possible danger that he might have to face until, after twenty-four hours had passed, she heard his voice call her from beyond the door.
“I’m here,” she said, somewhat redundantly. “Did you get it?”
“No problems,” he replied, though the fact he could scarcely talk betrayed the fact that he had obviously run all the way back. “I think it’s the right key. Did you know that the Baroness sleeps without any clothes on?”
Ailyth grimaced. “I didn’t need to know that,” she said. “Come on, let’s get you back in here.”
“I’ll repeat my earlier question,” RiffRaff said. “How?”
Ailyth thought hard, then hung her head out of the hatch, leaning forward so that her hair came to a rest a foot or so above the ground. “Put the key in your mouth,” she said, “and jump onto my hair. I’ll pull you up.”
“I could climb up, your hair’s so matted,” RiffRaff responded tartly, but he did as he was told and they were soon trying the key.
“It’s a little stiff,” Ailyth said, pushing against the door with her whole body, “but I think it’s the right one. Yes, it’s turning, it’s working.”
As she leaned her slender body against the door the wood gave a slight creak, then slowly swung open.
They stared at the empty corridor before them, frightened now that freedom was upon them. Quietly, they took a step out of the cell, waiting for the Baroness to pounce out at them from nowhere. It didn’t happen. There was no-one there.
It was a strange sensation, to creep down the normally frantic corridors in the castle, to meet no scurrying maid, or wandering servant, or even a serf visiting the castle to plead help to the Baron. Instead, they were met with an unnerving silence and, even as they went to the main hall, they didn’t see a single soul.
“This isn’t right,” Ailyth said nervously as they went into the kitchen to find no cooks, no kitchen-boys, a fire burning itself out and no signs of a feast having been made to welcome the men at war home. “Was it this quiet when you came looking for the key?”
RiffRaff gripped his claws gently into Ailyth’s shoulder and shook his head. “It wasn’t what I’d call busy, but there were people.”
Solemnly they opened the pantry and Ailyth took out handfuls of food, picking up a dusty sack from the floor and cramming it with everything she could lay her hands on.
“Are we going somewhere?” RiffRaff asked.
Ailyth didn’t reply, and instead looked around, waiting to see if this was all a joke being played on her. The chopping knife had been left on the board, surrounded by onion slices that were now attracting flies. A shank of meat had been left out to rot, dirty pots remained on the tables. The kitchen staff had left, and in a hurry. A tight feeling of sickness clutched at Ailyth’s throat.
“It’s started,” she said. “What I’ve been dreading...whatever it is, it must have started. No-one would have normally left the kitchen looking like this.”
She clasped firmly onto the bag and ran out of the room. The corridor leading to her chamber was also devoid of life but, looking out of the window, she could see people, many people, moving around in the grounds and the village that lay beneath it. Why had the castle been abandoned, and not anywhere else?
She didn’t have to search for answers for much longer as, just when she opened the door to her own room, Elfrida stepped out from it. She looked tired, as though she hadn’t slept these past few nights, and her eyes looked red and sore.
“Ailyth!” she cried, faltering a little and smiling. “You escaped! How did you...?”
“I’ll have to tell you some other time,” Ailyth said wearily, trying to edge past her friend to get into her room. Her maid gave her a curious look. “Where is everyone?”
Elfrida paled slightly as she saw the confusion written in her mistress’ face. “Matthew came home,” she said, looking back into the room. “But he wasn’t well. They said he hadn’t been well since he left France. He was hot, and sleepy, and a little feverish at times. We...his mother and I...we took him back to your room to recover, but he’s getting worse. I...Oh, Ailyth don’t go in there!”
Ailyth opened the door and looked at the bed. Matthew lay in agony, his skin running with sweat and his mouth encrusted with blood. Underneath both of his armpits were large, red-black blisters, the size of crab apples, and every few minutes he painfully raised his arm and tried to swat away an imaginary assailant. He looked tortured.
“What’s happened to him?” Ailyth asked with horror. Elfrida shook her head, tears in her eyes.
“Even the Jewish physicians don’t know,” she said. “They try to pretend that they do, but nobody does. Oh, can’t you see the pain that he’s in? And...and that’s not the worst of it. Seventeen other men have also started showing these symptoms and...and his mother too. She took ill with fever just a few hours ago. The physicians keep brewing spices and forcing them down their throats, and they’ve been bleeding the demons out of them, but it doesn’t work. They’re dying. My Matthew’s dying! And there’s no-one who can help us.”
Ailyth could see the fear in her eyes, the fear that the man her life revolved around would die so soon after being returned to her, coupled with the fear that she too had now caught this strange new disease, and suddenly she understood why it was that the castle had been all but deserted.
“Elfrida, please, bring me my chest of clothes,” she begged, hanging back in the hallway.
As Elfrida slid back into the room, almost broken by her grieving, Ailyth felt her heart thump in her throat. She knew this pain, yet didn’t. She had been spared the agony of knowing that Tristran was going to die, no matter what she did, and of wondering whether it would be this day or the next. She hadn’t had to watch him weakening, hurting, fading, and she knew that this anguish would soon be played out in every household in the land, again and again.
“This is it,” she said to RiffRaff. “This is it, I know it. This is what Heloise was talking about.”
As her chest was returned to her, Ailyth tore off the lid and threw it on the floor, along with nearly all of her clothes. The only things that she kept were the charms that Heloise had given her, a chemise and a tanned leather riding tunic, and a body-length, dark green hooded cloak. There was no time for sentimentality.
“I’ll need to saddle a horse,” she told her maid. “As soon as possible. I have to leave.”
“Where are you going?” Elfrida asked, looking startled.
“Exactly,” muttered RiffRaff.
“I have to go home,” she said quietly. “I can’t stay here.”
Elfrida’s eyes began to shine, and she dropped to the floor and grabbed Ailyth’s hand. “You can’t leave us like this!” she cried.
Ailyth looked at her friend sadly and touched her reassuringly on her shoulder. “I have to,” she said. “I’m sorry. I have family at home. I need to see that they’re ok. Matthew doesn’t need me, he needs you. You’ll look after him better than I ever could.”
Elfrida mouthed a reply, but no words came out. Her throat was too choked to make a sound. Matthew would die, she knew that. There was no way he could suffer such pain and live. How could Ailyth leave her at such a time?
“I need you,” she mouthed. Ailyth’s heart broke, and she looked away. Elfrida would never leave Matthew, not while there was breath in his body, but Ailyth couldn’t wait for her husband to die, not when Heloise had given her strict instructions to go back to Topsham Manor as soon as the bad thing started. Castle Cary was finished and, she knew with a sinking feeling, so was Elfrida.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, unable to look at her friend. “I have to go.”
They started running towards the stables, Ailyth pulling her bag of food behind her. As they expected, many of the horses were gone, along with their noble owners, and she found herself choosing between a white stallion and a black mare. It wasn’t a difficult decision to make; the black horse would make travelling through woodlands and at night far safer, as she was less likely to be spotted by rogues and villains.
Elfrida silently strapped the food to the steed, lost in her ending world, as Ailyth herself got changed into her travelling clothes. It soon became obvious that fast riding would be impossible in a flowing skirt, so she rummaged around for some riding hose and slipped into them. In just a few minutes she was ready to be gone.
As they led the horse from the stables, they saw a stable boy of no more than ten years old. He was wandering in the yard, disorientated and confused and, as the maidens approached him, he fell to the floor in a convulsion. Both girls instinctively stepped back, as though being near him could somehow make them ill. The boy would die too. Ailyth closed her eyes, the sick feeling returning, and Elfrida gave out a sob.
The air around the Castle seemed to be thicker somehow. Ailyth felt dizzy as she looked around her. There was death everywhere; in the stone walls, in the trees, in the muddied courtyard. She could feel it, hazy and warm, and the putrid stench of the grave was filling her nostrils. For a moment she was struggling for breath and she turned to Elfrida to see if she felt it too, but she only looked as frightened and as dejected as before. She could not feel the decay in her lungs.
I have to go, now, Ailyth thought, feeling her legs weaken beneath her. This is an arid place.
She looked to the highest peak of the castle, to the place where a gargoyle gazed down at the village, and thought she saw it move, shifting its wings like the Angel of Death.
“Come with me,” Ailyth cried suddenly, turning to her friend. “Please. Leave here. I don’t want you to get ill.”
Somewhere, from within the castle, a cry of torment was let loose, and a look of terror crossed Elfrida’s face.
“I can’t,” she shrieked. “I can’t leave Matthew, not when he’s so sick.”
“But he might die. You might die. Please!” Ailyth begged, clutching her. “You have to come with me, save yourself!”
“No!” Elfrida screamed, pulling away violently from Ailyth’s grip. “I won’t leave him!”
Like an animal blinded she staggered towards the castle door, hearing her beloved roar in pain and desperate to somehow save him.
“Elfrida, please!” Ailyth sobbed, watching her friend go to her death. “Please come with me!”
But there was no reply; whether Elfrida had heard her or not, she had made her choice. Ailyth stood watching the door, desperately praying that she would change her mind and weeping as she realised that she wouldn’t.
Eventually RiffRaff lifted his head from under the hood of her cloak. “Come on,” he said gently. “She’s not coming with us. We have to go.”
As Ailyth left Castle Cary, with tears in her eyes, she didn’t look back.
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