Chapter Twenty-Two #2
To Alys’s utter and complete dread, the lock in the doors began to scrape.
She pressed her bound arms against the back wall of the wardrobe, prepared to launch herself in attack.
She would be bested, helpless as she was, but before she died, that redheaded bitch would know forever more that a Foxe never surrendered.
Both doors swung wide, and Alys opened her mouth to give a battle cry.
Her “Aagh!” quickly turned into a shout of “Ira?”
The old man, stingy as a leather strap and twice as tough, stared back at her mildly. Layla launched herself at Piers’s grandfather, and Alys had to give the old man credit when he caught the monkey deftly and hefted her to his shoulder.
“You’re welcome,” he said gruffly, nodding once at Alys.
“Alys,” another voice called, and even as Alys was turning her head to take in the person standing slightly behind and to the side of the old man, she couldn’t believe it.
Her eyes traveled up the worn leather boots, rough woven leggings, long tunic that was frayed and stained.
The leather coif hid the hair that was beneath it, but the face, the sparkling eyes …
“Sybilla,” Alys choked on a sob, and then her sister was there, catching her, holding her.
“Her hands, Ira,” Sybilla said over Alys’s shoulder, and Alys heard the ripping of the linen binding her.
“Sybilla, how did you find me? What is Ira doing here? If Edward learns that you are in London—not to mention his very home—he’ll have you arrested!”
“I would not let another come for you in my place,” Sybilla said calmly. “As for the rest, I will answer you when we are safely away. We must hurry.”
Alys’s elbows fell free from each other and she gave a soft cry, bringing her arms around before her gingerly and rubbing at them. She looked down at Ira, who was releasing the bonds from her legs as Layla clung to his head like a skullcap.
“Have you seen the lad?” Ira asked, his eyes flicking up at her.
“Piers is here, but I don’t know where,” Alys said. Her eyes went to Sybilla’s. “Judith Angwedd and Bevan were using me to force Piers to relinquish his hold on Gillwick Manor. They’re planning to kill him!”
Sybilla shook her head matter of factly.
“No. Ira will find him and tell him that you’re safe.
There is no need to retract his claim. Once in the king’s court, he will be free to tell of their dastardly plans.
Thank you, Ira. You’re free now, Alys. Let’s go.
” Sybilla took Alys’s elbow and began pulling her toward the door.
“Night has fallen, and if we can escape the castle undetected, we’ll be through the city gates in moments. ”
Alys began to resist, but then quickly acquiesced. “Alright, I’ll go with you to the gates, but then I’m returning.”
Sybilla halted, spun to face her, the laces from her assumed coif whipping across her cheeks. “You’re not returning.”
“Yes, I am,” Alys insisted. “I will not leave Piers here to defend against such wolves with no other witness save a woodland rebel. Forgive me, Ira,” Alys tossed to the old man with a sympathetic look.
“You will be thrown in jail, after which guards will be set to my trail back to Fallstowe, finding me in the open. Do you wish to see Fallstowe ripped from us?”
“No!” Alys said, and pulled her elbow from Sybilla’s grip in order to seize both of her sister’s hands. “Once you are through the gates, I will hide myself—somewhere— until the morn. You’ll be too far out of Edward’s reach by then.”
“Hide yourself? In London?” Sybilla sighed. “Alys, this is no gentle city. You’d be set upon by the parasites that prowl the streets, looking for an innocent young girl to feed upon. You’d be dead by sunrise—or wishing you were!”
“I’m not a girl,” Alys said calmly. “I’ll go with Ira then, help him find Piers. Piers will protect me.”
“Protect you like he did in the forest? When Judith Angwedd kidnapped you?”
Alys’s face burned.
Sybilla gave her no time to speak. “You couldn’t re-enter the palace alone without revealing your identity. Ira’s not leaving, so he only needs not be caught while within. You are coming home, with me, right now.” Sybilla began to pull again.
Alys jerked her hands free. “No, I am not.”
Alys could feel the fury radiating from her sister, and she wanted to step back, but she would not.
Sybilla was her sister, and she had come for Alys by herself.
They did truly love each other. And, like magic, Alys finally understood the seemingly bottomless depth of that emotion in her sister: Sybilla felt things so deeply, so sincerely, her concern and her protectiveness came out as demands.
“I am risking my life for you at this moment—risking our very home—when it was your childishness that got you into this situation,” Sybilla accused.
“I will not further jeopardize Fallstowe, Cecily, or our people because of your girlish fantasies of fated love supposedly blessedby some goddamn ring of stone! Alys, you are so irresponsible—”
“I am not irresponsible!” Alys shouted, having enough of the listing of her faults. She knew them better now than Sybilla could ever guess. “I’ve only never had anything to be responsible for!”
The chamber was silent. Sybilla stared at Alys with no expression.
“Until now,” Alys said quietly. “I know the truth, and my station could lend veracity to Piers’s claim.”
“It will not change the fact that he doesn’t want you, Alys,” Sybilla said, and Alys could see the rare softening of her sister’s eyes.
“He wanted you to go home, to Fallstowe. He never meant for you to be captured by Judith Angwedd, but he did mean for you to be found. He knew I had been following you, and he thought it would be me that came upon you at your camp.”
Alys looked to Ira, whose head was tilted slightly to the side, eyeing her with pity. One bony finger combed through the hair on Layla’s arm.
“Ira?” Alys asked. “Is it true? Piers knew Sybilla was following us, and he left me for her to find?”
He nodded once. “He’s always wanted you to go home. I think you already know that though, do you not?”
The truth of it fell upon Alys with the crushing weight of an undermined tower. Since the night they’d met, Piers had done little else but try and persuade her to return to Fallstowe. He had not kept it secret. He had never played her false.
And now, she was ready to risk her family’s home, her own freedom and perhaps even her life, to return to the side of a man who had set her free.
In truth, Alys couldn’t even predict whether Judith Angwedd’s threat on her life would persuade Piers to disavow his claim.
He had been denied what was rightfully his his entire life and now it was within his reach.
Why would he forsake it all for a woman he never wanted in the first place?
Sybilla was right again. But this time, Alys was not bitter.
Perhaps, she thought, it was hard truths like this, the acceptance of them and the pain they brought, that gained a person wisdom.
She thought fleetingly of the enormous heartbreak Sybilla must be hiding.
And the idea of such untold pain horrified her.
“Alright,” Alys said quietly. “Let’s go then, before Judith Angwedd or Bevan return.”
Sybilla’s eyebrows rose and she drew her head back. Then her eyes narrowed. “Is this some sort of trick? You’ll wait until I’m in the corridor and lock the door behind me, like you did when you were a child?”
Alys smiled at the bittersweet memories that hung between them right then …
when you were a child. Perhaps at last her sister no longer thought of her in that manner.
“No, Sybilla. No tricks this time. Let’s go.
” She turned and held out a crooked elbow toward Layla, who still perched on Ira’s shoulder. “We’re off, girl.”
The monkey leaped the distance to Alys’s shoulder, and gained a firm hold by twisting her little fingers in Alys’s hair.
“I wish you well, Ira,” she said to the old man. “Both of you.”
Ira stared hard at her for a long moment. “As I do you. Both of you,” he clarified, his eyes flicking to Sybilla. Then his body seemed to spasm, jerk forward, and Alys realized he was bowing. “Ladies.”
Alys tried to restrain the sob that knotted in her chest. She stepped to the old man quickly, leaned up on tiptoe to press her cheek into his and grasp both of his shoulders with her hands.
“Take care of him,” she choked. “He has been alone for so long.”
His only answer was a quick nod.
“Alys,” Sybilla called gently.
Alys stepped away and swiped at her eyes quickly while she turned toward her sister. She saw her bag crumpled on the floor near the hearth and swiped it up with one hand.
Atop the deep, reddened grooves on her wrist, she noticed her pomegranate bracelet was gone, and it caused her heart to clench.
She did not look back as she followed Sybilla into the corridor.