CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I open my mouth to speak but, before I can get a word out, there’s a creak from the top of the stairs, followed by a brief flash of light and the sound of the wooden door being pulled closed.

‘You’ll see,’ I murmur to Reeve, who says nothing but turns to face the stairs.

There is a soft swish of skirts on the steps and then a pair of sturdy boots, worn as lightly as dancing slippers, appears.

‘Ah, Maven,’ says Myra, her smooth, silvery voice like music to my ears. I met this woman only one day ago, but she emanates a soothing calm that is both rare and instantly trustworthy – even for me. It’s also totally at odds with her outer appearance, I acknowledge, taking in her wild curls and ragged, patched gown.

‘And you, young sire?’ Myra continues, her glance skipping over Reeve’s face before landing on my own, the questions obvious in her startling green eyes. ‘It is a long time since one such as you has graced this room.’

I bow my head, knowing that I have stretched a very new friendship by bringing Reeve here. ‘I had no choice but to bring him,’ I say. ‘I was worried for his safety.’

‘My safety? What are you talking about? And how do you two know each other?’ Reeve sounds torn between outrage and bewilderment, but I say nothing until Myra indicates with a small smile that I should answer.

I open my mouth, then close it again, worried about how much to reveal. How much more to reveal. Myra seems to sense my hesitation.

‘I think we can trust the young squire with our secret,’ she says to me. ‘After all, he has trusted me with one of his.’

Reeve blanches, and even I can hear the underlying tenor of threat in Myra’s statement. What does she know of him, and why would he be so worried about it? I file the questions away for later, but ask them I will. I have given Reeve my secrets, and I will be safer if I hold his in return. But for now it is enough that Myra knows them.

‘I’ll begin with your question about safety,’ I say, getting to my feet and walking alongside the length of the table as I speak. ‘You found a dead man on the road, Reeve, and without thought or caution hurried towards him. What if the killer was still there, hidden in the bushes beside the body?’

I turn in time to catch him flinch. ‘Or what if,’ I continue, strolling as casually as I can back towards him, ‘it had not been me who found you, but another, less trusting, person who decided that you were the killer? Had you considered that? What defence would you have given?’

Myra’s face is impassive, but Reeve’s mouth has tightened into a grim line as he considers the implications of my narrative.

‘The Airl and Sir Garrick charged me with finding the Fire Star,’ he says, sounding stubborn. ‘I would have explained that I was carrying out my duties.’

‘And as I explained to you on our way here, you have no allies in that castle, Reeve. Not yet. You are dispensable, and they have no reason to trust that you did not kill Sullivan yourself and pocket the stone. At the very least, they would carry out their threat to send you back home to your father, your dreams of a knighthood up in smoke.’

As Reeve flinches at my words, I can see Myra’s lips purse as she takes in the full picture of his situation, filing it away. Members of the Beech Circle well know the power of observation and information.

‘So, I brought you here to hide you while we considered our next moves,’ I continue, ‘and waited to speak to one who knows this area, and its people, very well.’

Myra acknowledges my words with a tilt of her chin.

‘But you haven’t explained how you even knew this place was here, or how you know Myra, despite arriving at Rennart Castle so recently,’ Reeve says. Despite his still-polite demeanour, his growing impatience is unmasked by the rapid beat he is tapping out with his forefinger on the table.

I sigh, seeking Myra’s reassurance before I continue. It goes against the edicts of our Circle to tell him more, but Myra nods again.

‘I told you this is a meeting place,’ I begin, and now I come to sit back down in my chair opposite Reeve. It is imperative that he understand the seriousness of what I am about to say.

‘There is a . . . group of girls and women,’ I continue, ignoring the wrinkle that appears between his brows at my words and forging ahead. ‘We do not all know each other but we are . . . connected.’

The wrinkle deepens. ‘Connected?’ Reeve echoes.

‘We look out for each other,’ Myra says, and I sit back, relieved that I will not have to explain it all. For how can I possibly sum up the Beech Circle?

‘We look for ways to help each other,’ Myra goes on.

Reeve sits back in his seat. ‘Ways to help each other what?’

‘Escape,’ I answer. ‘Become something other than a possession to be traded to the highest bidder in marriage.’

Reeve blinks. ‘You would run from everything you know?’

‘As far and as fast as I can,’ I confirm. ‘But where can I go? Without family blessing I have no money, without money I have no choices. A girl in Cartreff today is at the mercy of the fates, and the fates are decided by those around her.’

Reeve thinks a moment. ‘You don’t live like that,’ he says, turning to Myra. ‘From what I have heard, you live as you please.’

Myra smiles gently at him. ‘That’s because it pleases me to live simply, on the edge of the forest owned by the Airl, surrounded by nature. They leave me alone, for now, because I have the skills to help them birth their children and mend their broken bones. But I also know that my very precarious existence is at the whim of the Airl, and that he can end my freedom at any time. It is not a life many are born to, or would choose.’

Reeve says nothing, seeming to digest her words. ‘But you are not witches?’ he asks, uneasily.

Myra laughs, and I join in. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Not unless witches are just women who choose to ask questions.’

I can see him trying to process all we are telling him, and Myra, too, senses his discomfort. ‘Would it help you to know that we count noblewomen among our number? A lady or two whose names you may know well,’ she says, her voice soft.

Reeve gasps and his eyebrows are nearly in his hairline, but he is not as surprised as I am. For Myra to share that information with Reeve, she must be very sure of his secret.

‘What?’ he all but shrieks. ‘No! Lady Rho–’

‘No names,’ Myra interrupts.

‘But I have seen no sign of any such thing,’ Reeve says, shaking his head. ‘My – one particular lady I have in mind is not book learned. The Airl, er, her husband would not stand for it.’

Myra laughs again. ‘You will never see a sign unless you know what to look for. And some have arranged their lives in such a way that they are able to conduct it much as they wish. Not all are fortunate enough to have two separate residences and a husband who avoids country life.’

Reeve looks pained at that specific detail. ‘I had never thought of it that way. When I thought about it at all, I assumed it was, er, her husband who liked his lady safe at . . . in the country.’

Myra chortles. ‘And I think that the particular lady is very happy to have the world think that way.’

But Reeve has other questions. ‘Are there other meeting places like this one? Near Harding, for instance?’

Myra shakes her head. ‘Not like this one,’ she says. ‘There are only four like this in the whole kingdom. But we do not need a room like this in which to meet.’

‘I don’t understand how this works at all,’ Reeve says, raking his fingers through the blond stubble on his head. ‘How many of you are there?’

I wonder just how much Myra will tell him, and am unsurprised when she simply shakes her head again. ‘No, young sire,’ she says. ‘To know more puts us – and you – in great danger. Suffice that you understand that we are here to help Maven and Cassandra – and now you – in whatever way we can.’

She turns to me. ‘I assume it has gone wrong?’

I quickly fill her in on the true disappearance of the Fire Star while Reeve watches on, arms folded across his chest.

Myra frowns as I speak, shaking her head sadly over Sullivan’s death. ‘Someone has told,’ I say, winding down my story. ‘Someone must have heard of our plans.’

Myra stares along the table and down into the deep, dark space beyond the arch. I know that the doorway leads to a warren of rooms carved out of the sandstone, some furnished with iron beds to house women and children looking for refuge, others stacked to the roof with stores.

The Beech Circle may not be known to Reeve, but it has existed for generations, providing secret care and community for girls and women in need.

‘I don’t know how,’ Myra says. ‘The only people here yesterday were you, Cassandra and I, and I can’t imagine you two have spoken of your plans within the castle walls?’

I shake my head fervently.

‘Then someone saw,’ Myra says, with a toss of that wild hair. ‘Someone must have seen the precise moment that Sullivan took possession of the stone and decided they wanted it for themselves.’

Reeve makes a strange choking sound. ‘I was in the courtyard and I saw nothing,’ he says. ‘Everyone was looking up at the Lady Cassandra.’

Myra turns to him. ‘I wasn’t,’ she says, and he blushes, making me wonder all over again about this secret they share. ‘You think that everyone was because you were. But there were at least fifty people in that courtyard.’

My heart sinks. ‘Fifty,’ I repeat. ‘Then how can we ever find out who took the Fire Star?’

‘Not we,’ Myra says, smiling. ‘You and Reeve. Together. I will tend to Sullivan. You two will go back to the castle and you will ask the questions, seek the answers and find the truth.’

She places a steadying hand on each of our shoulders. ‘After all,’ Myra says. ‘You both have a lot to lose if that jewel does not turn up, do you not?’

Reeve and I look at each other. I wonder if he feels as reluctant as I do. I am used to working alone to solve my problems.

‘Then the time to begin is now,’ says Myra, drawing us both to our feet and giving us a gentle push towards the stairs. ‘You can hide down here no longer.’

I want to tell her that I’m not hiding, but the truth is that, from the moment I realised the Fire Star was not in Sullivan’s pockets, all I wanted to do was to run and to keep running. But now I must go back to Lady Cassandra and tell her that the Fire Star has truly gone.

And with it, her last chance to escape her fate.

Reeve is also dragging his feet. I do not envy him having to face the Knight Protector and the Airl to tell them he has precisely nothing.

‘Come on, you two,’ says Myra with another little push. ‘You can do this. If you need help or have news, send a message. Maven, you know how.’

I nod, thinking of Polly, the tiny scullery maid who has big dreams of escaping her life of drudgery in which time is measured by the rumbling of other people’s stomachs. Members of the Beech Circle stretch across all facets of Cartreff life, each with a role to play. Polly’s regular visits to the wyld woman in the woods for herbs are the perfect cover to keep Myra abreast of castle news, without Myra having to be seen too often within its walls. The Airl is, to be fair, more tolerant than many in his position when it comes to a woman like Myra. Perhaps it is Lady Rhoswen who helps him to see that Myra’s knowledge of plants and herbs is a help to the people of Rennart, not a threat to its ruler? But Myra is careful not to push that tolerance too far.

‘Come on,’ I say to Reeve now with more certainty than I feel. ‘We can do this.’

I head up towards the door, hearing him on the stairs behind me, the heavy sound of his boots a dull counterpoint to the rapid beating of my own heart.

‘Ah, there you are,’ Lorimer said, striding into the kitchen where Reeve was hastily finishing a cup of mead. Reeve had been surprised to discover on his return to the castle that he’d been gone less than two hours, and had taken the opportunity to gulp down a late lunch before reporting to Sir Garrick.

It felt as though a lifetime had passed since he’d innocently ventured through the gate in search of Myra, and Reeve needed time to consider exactly what form that report would take.

His head was whirling with information, but Reeve could share none of it with Sir Garrick, or the Airl. Maven may not have recognised Myra’s threat to reveal Reeve’s little problem for what it was, but Reeve had. If Reeve revealed either the truth about the Fire Star or a hint about their secret Circle, Myra would ensure Sir Garrick knew that his new squire couldn’t stomach the sight of blood. And there would go Reeve’s dreams of becoming a knight.

If, on the other hand, Reeve went back to Sir Garrick with no updates at all, his dreams of becoming a knight looked precarious anyway.

At this point, the only thing that Reeve knew for sure was that Maven was at the heart of all his troubles – had she and her mistress not cooked up a scheme to spirit away the Fire Star, Reeve wouldn’t be in this mess at all. In fact, he’d have nothing more on his mind than the best way to charm Cook into cutting him another slice of ham.

Reeve pushed down the surge of anger that seemed to accompany even the faintest thought of Maven right now. Myra had made it quite clear that their problems were tied together, which meant they needed to work together – not that Maven seemed open to the idea. She had said little on their walk back to the castle, refusing to be drawn into revealing more about the secret club she was part of.

And Lady Rhoswen! Even now, Reeve shook his head at that particular revelation. How she had been involved in something like that all the time he’d served her, Reeve couldn’t even begin to imagine.

Though no names had been mentioned, he’d been a bit surprised that Myra had even hinted at the lady’s involvement – until he realised that there was no one he could tell. Who on earth would ever believe him, a lowly squire in danger of being ousted from Rennart Castle? Not Sir Garrick or the Airl, that’s for sure.

But if there was even the slightest bit of truth in Lady Rhoswen’s involvement, then Reeve wasn’t going to be able to mention the Beech Circle to anyone, either. Exposing Maven and Myra might also harm his lady, and there was no way in the world Reeve would do that to the woman who had been so kind to him.

Reeve had been churning this over with his lunch – and wondering how members even recognised each other – when he’d been winkled out by Lorimer.

‘You were under strict orders to see me at once when you returned,’ the older man said now as Reeve jumped to his feet.

‘Oh, hush,’ said Cook, tapping her ladle on Reeve’s shoulder. ‘Surely, even you remember what it was like to be sixteen? A stomach on legs, that’s what they all are.’

‘I have always known my duty,’ Lorimer sneered, looking down his nose at her. ‘That’s why I’m where I am today – and why this boy is likely to end up back under his mother’s feet before too long.’

Reeve tried not to flinch at Lorimer’s threat. ‘Sorry,’ Reeve said, ‘I didn’t think a minute or two would make any difference. And I’m yet to see Sir Garrick.’

Lorimer’s lip curled again. ‘Surely you understand that your responsibility is first to the Airl, then to your master, then to me, then to your damned stomach.’

Lady Rhoswen had always told him that silence was often the best and most encompassing response, particularly when you know you’re in the wrong. Silence could be taken any way by another party and meant you were never required to admit or deny guilt.

So Reeve held his tongue and, as he’d suspected, Lorimer took this for acquiescence and gave Cook a smug look. The truth was that as far as Reeve was concerned, his first and only responsibility in this household was to Sir Garrick, to whom he was now bound.

Sir Garrick answered to the Airl, Reeve answered to Sir Garrick.

Lorimer was just someone that Reeve would need to learn to manage while he was here at Rennart Castle. And, from what Maven had revealed about the man, he might take careful management.

‘Now,’ Lorimer was saying, and the smugness had not left his face. ‘Sir Garrick is looking for you. It seems as though your, er, personal errand has extended beyond the bounds of what he thought was a suitable length of time. You’re to report to him immediately.’

Gulping, Reeve wiped his fingers and face on the napkin that the sympathetic Cook handed him.

‘Follow me,’ said Lorimer, turning about face and stalking from the kitchen. Reeve gulped again. He had only a few minutes to work out exactly what he was going to tell Sir Garrick – and what he wasn’t.

So deep in his own thoughts, filled with underground rooms carved with trees and birds and leaves, was Reeve that he followed Lorimer through the winding halls without even realising it.

‘Look lively, boy,’ Lorimer said under his breath before knocking on the door of Sir Garrick’s chamber.

Reeve breathed a sigh of relief – at least he hadn’t been taken to the Airl’s solar. He wasn’t sure he’d bear up under the scrutiny of both men with the scanty tale he was about to tell.

‘Come,’ said Sir Garrick, and Lorimer opened the door, all but shoving Reeve through it.

‘Ah, there you are,’ said Sir Garrick. ‘That will be all, Lorimer.’

Reeve thought he noted a small moue of disappointment on Lorimer’s stern face as he was dismissed. Reeve wasn’t sorry that the steward wasn’t going to be witness to what Reeve suspected would be a severe dressing down.

Sir Garrick waited until the door shut with a click before turning to Reeve.

‘Where is Neale?’ he asked. ‘What have you done with him?’

Reeve stared, his head spinning with the unexpected questions. ‘I don’t know where he is. Why would I do anything with him?’

Sir Garrick caught and held his stare. ‘I know Rhoswen wanted the squire role for you two years ago. Did she fill your head with nonsense and jealousy?’

‘What?’ Reeve all but shouted. ‘No! She explained to me that the Airl had chosen Neale over me. I was disappointed but I knew that Lady Rhoswen would ensure my future – if not with you, then with someone else.’

Sir Garrick looked at him a moment longer. ‘I believe you tell the truth,’ he said, scratching the dark bristle on his chin. ‘But that does not negate the fact that Neale is missing. I have not seen him today.’

Reeve blinked. ‘He has been gone since last night. He was not waiting in your chambers after dinner. It was I who readied you for bed.’

‘Inasmuch as I was in a fit state to be readied,’ Sir Garrick muttered with a hoarse laugh.

There was a pause, and Reeve wondered if he was supposed to say something.

‘Gads, what a terrible day it has been,’ Sir Garrick said before sinking onto the edge of his bed. The movement of the mattress dislodged a chessboard on the side table, and half the pieces rattled to the floor. ‘I knew that this marriage would not be easy, but . . . it has not even begun.’

Reeve waited, but nothing more was forthcoming. ‘Sir Garrick,’ he ventured. ‘Where would Neale go?’

Sir Garrick reached down to pick up a pawn beside his boot, twirling the piece between restless fingers. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘He was unhappy at the prospect of sharing the squiring duties. His father is a friend of the Airl’s and made that quite clear. But I don’t think he would run . . .’

Reeve held his breath as Sir Garrick sprang to his feet, sending a bishop and a rook skittering across the floor. ‘The Fire Star,’ Sir Garrick breathed. ‘Perhaps . . . Oh no, surely not.’

Reeve gulped. Sullivan had stolen the Fire Star at Lady Cassandra’s request. Neale had had nothing to do with that, and, in fact, had been missing since before the Fire Star had vanished. So, technically, Neale had had nothing to do with the stone’s fake disappearance.

But . . . could Reeve discount the fact that Neale might have been responsible for Sullivan’s death and stolen the Fire Star for real?

‘You have no thoughts on this?’ Sir Garrick prompted. ‘What did you discover when you went to find your “person who may have seen something”? Did they see something? Was it Neale? Do not protect him if you know the truth.’

Reeve knew that silence was not the answer this time. ‘I do not know Neale,’ he said, choosing his words with care. ‘Why then would I protect him?’

Sir Garrick was not placated. ‘Some sense of misplaced loyalty to a fellow squire?’

‘I know nothing of Neale’s disappearance,’ Reeve said, happy to be able to state the truth on this point. ‘I was surprised that he was not here to receive you last night, and I am more surprised to hear that he is not here now.’

‘I believe you,’ Sir Garrick said, giving Reeve a long look. ‘But the fact remains that Neale is missing and so is the Fire Star. I need to tell the Airl.’

Sir Garrick brushed his hands down his side, seeming to gather himself. ‘Do you have anything further to add regarding your inquiries?’ he asked, and Reeve did not miss the note of hope in his voice.

Having to tell the Airl that Sir Garrick’s own squire was missing and was therefore, the number one suspect in the disappearance of the Airl’s family heirloom was clearly not a task to relish.

‘I –’ Reeve began. The truth was, he had much to tell Sir Garrick and the Airl. So much that would quickly ensure Reeve’s place at Rennart Castle. But to do that, he would need to expose Maven, Lady Cassandra – and Myra. And exposing Myra meant exposing Reeve’s secret – at which point any surety about Reeve’s future went up in a puff of smoke anyway.

‘Well, boy?’ Sir Garrick asked.

‘I do not,’ Reeve said, looking at his boots. ‘I did not find the person I sought.’

This was not strictly untrue – the sweeping man was unable to answer questions, and Myra was not the person Reeve had imagined her to be.

‘Let’s get it over with then,’ said Sir Garrick, gesturing towards the door. ‘I have an engagement for a stroll in the garden with the Lady Cassandra.’

He sounded as though he was being sent to the gallows.

‘I, er, you want me to come with you?’ said Reeve. ‘To the Airl, I mean.’

Sir Garrick smiled without humour. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And, as my only remaining squire, you will also accompany me to the garden. It should prove a punishing afternoon all round for both of us.’

Reeve could only bow acquiescence and lead the way, holding the door for the knight, trying to ignore the rolling sensation behind his belt as he did so.

Perhaps Lorimer was right. He should have waited to eat.