Chapter Ten
After Aubrey readied his belongings and collected his trinkets in the dark, the two of them emerged from the bedchamber.
Unable to wait outside amidst such danger, Dermot had dutifully stood while Aubrey undressed at the other side of the room, unable to watch but stirred by the sound of laces coming undone.
Fine fragrance struck him; faint floral like a man would find in nature, totally unlike Thorne’s cloying scent.
‘Where do we go?’ Aubrey murmured, tucked into Dermot’s side.
Dermot wrapped his arm around the boy’s back. It was, despite the possibility of an execution looming, one of his life’s few joys.
‘Down,’ Dermot said, clutching Aubrey as they descended the servants’ staircase.
‘It is steep, careful not to fall.’ At Aubrey’s first gasp, he held him firmly, their forms pressed tightly against one another.
He felt nothing but wonderment then, none of the evil lust that coiled around him with Maldred.
Walking together, they mastered the steps well enough, though more than once he pulled Aubrey back to prevent a tumble.
‘Here,’ Dermot said, the two of them finally in the cold damp of the ground floor. ‘There is a passage out through the maids’ quarters, though we must be quiet. The women’s supervisor is a devil.’
Aubrey giggled, doubtless imagining some wicked crone.
As they advanced, Dermot hid behind stone corners, keen to ensure they weren’t discovered.
Stephen would be in bed, he was sure, and their safety depended on whether Robert intended to let his whore stay the night.
His heart lurched miserably at the thought; throughout his life, Will was the only person he’d called friend.
The dank musk growing stronger, Dermot hurried forward, careful that he stepped lightly on the ground.
Mercifully he, unlike Robert, did not saunter about in high-heeled boots.
The guardsmen must’ve been holed up somewhere playing cards.
He observed no one patrolling the castle.
Robert’s enemies still hadn’t materialised and were likely still readying their boats.
That was another reason he’d been eager to get Aubrey out; soldiers drooled at the prospect of noble blood.
And while Dermot would’ve enjoyed watching Robert and Tristan skewered on some sword, he could not abide the same fate befalling Aubrey.
Discerning yellow hair lit by candlelight at the end of the corridor, a silhouette so like Will’s that Dermot drew back in horror, he flinched as the figure faltered, causing the broom in their hands to collapse onto the ground.
‘Who goes there?’ Amy whispered. Back fixed against the wall, Dermot recognised her at once.
‘Peace,’ Dermot said. ‘It’s only me.’
‘Dear God!’ Amy said. She fell beside her broom, crouched against stone as she clutched the handle. ‘Stop your tricks, Dermot. Do you know the horrors these guardsmen have been inflicting on us? No, forgive me, of course you don’t.’
Flinching, for Dermot had no inkling of this, he said, ‘Please, just let us pass.’
Amy got to her feet and moved closer until she teetered on her heels, peering at them. ‘Who…?’
‘Say nothing about it. He is in danger here. I need to get him out,’ Dermot said.
Amy’s blue eyes, so like Will’s, watched him inquisitively. ‘I can’t believe it. Some feared Lord Aubrey dead after… well. It does not bear thinking on. But how can you get him out? The castle has never been so well guarded. All these awful men, skulking about.’
‘We will have to leave through the serving girls’ quarters,’ Dermot said, struggling to articulate his plan as he made sense of it. ‘Then we will escape by purchasing a fare on some cart.’
Amy bit the quicks of her nails as her lips twisted into a frown. ‘The guards are outside the gate. They’ll discover you at once.’
Putting weight onto one foot, then another, Dermot squirmed uncomfortably at the young woman’s judgement. Aubrey had changed into plainer clothes. Many of the newer men, having recently joined them, had not yet seen the boy.
‘I know you can’t be so stupid,’ Amy said, rushing towards them. ‘Come with me, please, at once. If you are found with him, if they know you’ve stolen him away, they will put you to death.’
‘But what can we do?’ Aubrey said.
With the boy shivering at his side and Amy watching him with her arms crossed, Dermot shrank back. He had thought his plan the only sensible recourse. Now, with every breath, Robert might’ve stirred and noticed his boots on the cupboard.
‘Shush!’ Amy said. She urged them on, manoeuvring them further into the women’s quarters, a place Dermot had seldom been.
‘Where are we going?’ Dermot said. He earnt another chastisement there and, daring to do no more than count cracks on stone as they crept forward, jerked back on hearing the cry of another woman.
‘Amy!’ she called. At once fearing Mrs Aisling, Dermot crashed into the wall as the long, sharp face of Noelle came into view. It appeared these girls, much like himself and other scullions, shared their quarters.
Watching as Amy put a finger to her lips, the three of them moved forward until at last they were safe within. Two measly beds were pressed against the wall with linen piled neatly between them; tomorrow’s work waiting. The room was even smaller than what Dermot shared.
‘What is happening?’ Noelle asked. She was, as Dermot suspected, a woman in her early thirties with a calmer air than the rest of the women. It was her fate he feared; occupying a lowly position at such an age, trapped by few opportunities and paltry pay.
‘Dermot is rescuing Aubrey,’ Amy said. ‘We must help!’
Noelle looked between them all with a slow nod of the head. Dermot recalled her quick acting as Amy spilled the ink on Mrs Aisling’s desk; how she had rushed to help while Amy cried.
‘The guards may recognise him,’ Noelle said, going straightaway to her wardrobe. ‘I think you and I have precisely the same thought, Amy.’
The two of them strode away like a pair of mischievous nymphs. They spoke in whispers, gesturing wildly, until Amy at last flung a piece of fabric in front of Dermot. It was a dour black dress embellished with gaudy lace.
‘Here, he shall wear this!’ Amy declared.
Closing the wardrobe, Noelle said, ‘It is a loose thing that will disguise his figure.’
Dermot watched them, unable to believe their scheme was not in jest. Expecting to find the ill-disguised cruelty and malice that so often characterised women, he merely saw a pair of girls with wide eyes looking at him expectantly.
‘Is that right?’ Dermot said, not waiting for Aubrey’s reply.
‘Your plan is for the guards to take him as a woman? But then, his hair is not long like a girl’s, and…
’ He paused, unable to articulate the difference.
While Aubrey was pretty like a woman, he still retained the essentials of masculinity.
He had a strong nose with features that were not altogether gentle.
There could be no mistaking him for a woman; to compare the softness of a girl with the burgeoning beauty of a young man was blasphemy.
‘It is not a problem,’ Noelle said, stealing him from that reverie. She crouched beside her bed and procured a box from underneath, clutching a veil hidden within. ‘Pray that the guards do not look beneath. You must get him out as quickly as possible.’
It occurred to him that he knew nothing of these women, who he’d assumed to be placid and frivolous. Secrets sprung even from maids, and now Noelle had given this gauze to them without thought for how she might be perceived.
‘I am eternally grateful,’ Aubrey said. ‘It is my only regret that I can’t thank you properly.’
‘We need no thanking,’ Noelle said, tucking the veil into the garment and handing the cloth to Aubrey. ‘We wish only to leave ourselves.’
‘Then why not come with us?’ Dermot said immediately, cursing himself at once. The guards would never believe he acquired three women.
‘I can see precisely how a man like you would dare do such a thing. You must head to the boat immediately before a search party finds you, doing all you can to disguise yourselves on the way. He will not follow you to the mainland,’ Noelle said.
Only then did the ramifications of war occur to him.
Robert could not travel, he was bound to the island like the rest of them.
Dermot could hardly fathom this new, changing land.
If Robert were to pursue them, he might’ve been captured and hanged immediately upon reaching the mainland.
These soldiers he feared greatly, even if they were ideologically aligned, for every faction inevitably stooped to pillaging and rapine.
‘A woman cannot travel so far in reality,’ Amy said. ‘It would be a great danger to her.’
Grasping Aubrey’s shoulder, Dermot said, ‘Where shall he change?’
‘We will turn around,’ Noelle said.
Dermot stuttered a garbled response. Despite yielding to Tristan and Will, the maids always maintained decorum in public. He did not suspect whoredom. They hardly showed an inch of skin below the neck and kept their heads respectfully low outside of their chamber.
‘Do not fear for his modesty, we will not look,’ Noelle said, lips quirking as if to suppress a smile.
Realising the practicality of her suggestion, Dermot assented. Even speaking to a woman would’ve been an ordeal for him once and, if he were one of those men prone to journalling, he would’ve dedicated a page to the event.
Exchanging glances, Amy and Noelle stood at the far corner of the room. Each woman turned her back, so all that could be seen were Noelle’s tight bun and Amy’s flowing locks. They did not so much as giggle, instead seeming solemn and sad in their black dresses.