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postern gate would be safest. It was the way she had obtained entrance to the castle in childhood days when she had slipped out unbeknownst to anyone else to explore the countryside. Not that she had never been caught then, but it was a safer way than the main gate would be, and it was possible that the Welshman would not have seen the trick of the smaller gate and would have thought it safely locked and bolted.
    She had to follow the curtain wall by touch for some distance because she misjudged the exact location of the gate, which was set a few feet into the wall, but she found it at last, and saw that it was unguarded, although noises from the yard told her that there were guards inside. As she approached, she saw through the narrow slits in the iron-and-timber gate the glow of a fire some distance away, surrounded by low heaps that she soon identified by their snores as sleeping men.
    Moving slowly and with great care, she drew close to the gate and put her hand upon the main bolt. There was a small knob behind, which when turned upright, allowed one to draw the bolt from the outside, unless a counterlock had been tripped within. Her father’s steward had shown her the trick of it when she was but six or seven and too small, he had thought, to make use of it. But Alys was nothing if not resourceful. She had used her knowledge many times before her departure from Wolveston.
    Once the bolt was drawn, she moved even more carefully lest the gate’s hinges betray her by squeaking, but quickly realized when the gate moved in silence that they had been recently oiled. She wondered then if someone might have prepared the way for her brother, in the event that Roger successfully eluded the Tudor armies and made his way home.
    It was hard to breathe now, for the worst lay ahead. She had to cross a corner of the yard, and she knew that where many slept, some would be wakeful. Moreover, there might be roaming sentries as well as those who slept or guarded the main gates.
    The postern door, several feet away, was unguarded, and she slipped quickly inside. Clearly, the soldiers believed that no one would try to enter a castle of death, and blessing their confidence, she paused a moment to catch her breath, hoping now only that she would remember the way to her parents’ bedchamber well enough to find it in the dark.
    She found the spiral stairs and made her way up them more by feel than by sight, passing the main floor to the next, where she could see a glow coming from a chamber at the end of the gallery overlooking the great hall below. The moment she saw the light, she was certain it came from the room she sought, and hurrying now, hoping that whoever was within would be friend, not foe, she moved swiftly to the doorway and looked inside.

3
    A HIGH, CURTAINED BED stood against the right-hand wall of the room, and a fire burned brightly on the hearth opposite. At first there appeared to be no one inside other than the occupant of the bed, but then a rustling sound drew Alys’s attention to the inglenook beyond the hearth, and she saw a scrawny, elderly woman on a floor cushion, her knees hunched to her chin, dozing. Alys did not recognize her but decided she looked harmless. Alys entered the room and shut the door behind her.
    The old crone opened her eyes and lifted her head but showed no sign of alarm until Alys moved toward the bed. Then she said in a high-pitched, croaking voice, “Dinna uncover ’im, m’lady. He mun be kept full covered.”
    “You know me?”
    “Aye, tha’ dost be ahr young Lady Alys come home again.”
    “And you?”
    The old woman straightened a little but made no attempt to stand up. “Goody Spurrig, m’lady, from over t’ Browson village. I be the herb wooman. Nane other’d bide wi’ the auld lord.”
    “I thought there was a servant with him.”
    “Gone.”
    Alys had pulled back the bed curtains, and although she glanced over her shoulder at the blunt response, she said nothing before