flared. "I've killed to protect you, and that's more than you've ever done for me, you ungrateful pig, so don't you dare call me harmless."
"All right, you're not harmless," he said angrily. "What would you do, once inside the castle?"
Aliena's anger evaporated. What would I do? she thought fearfully. To hell with it, I've got at least as much courage and resourcefulness as that pig William. "What did William do?"
"Kept the drawbridge down and the gate open long enough for the main attacking force to get inside."
"Then that's what I'll do," Aliena said with her heart in her mouth.
"But how?" Richard said skeptically.
Aliena remembered giving comfort to a fourteen-year-old girl who was frightened of a storm. "The countess owes me a favor," she said. "And she hates her husband."
They rode through the night, Aliena and Richard and fifty of his best men, and reached the vicinity of Earlscastle at dawn. They halted in the forest across the fields from the castle. Aliena dismounted, took off her cloak of Flanders wool and her soft leather boots, and put on a coarse peasant blanket and a pair of clogs. One of the men handed her a basket of fresh eggs packed in straw, which she slung over her arm.
Richard looked her up and down and said: "Perfect. A peasant girl bringing produce for the castle kitchen."
Aliena swallowed hard. Yesterday she had been full of fire and boldness, but now that she was about to carry out her plan she was scared.
Richard kissed her cheek. He said: "When I hear the bell, I'll say the Paternoster slowly once, then the advance party will start out. All you have to do is lull the guards into a false sense of security, so that ten of my men can get across the fields and into the castle without causing alarm."
Aliena nodded. "Just make sure the main group doesn't break cover until the advance party-is across the drawbridge."
He smiled. "I'll be leading the main group. Don't worry. Good luck."
"You too."
She walked away.
She emerged from the woodland and set out across the open fields toward the castle she had left on that awful day sixteen years ago. Seeing the place again, she had a vivid, terrifying memory of that other morning, the air damp after the storm, and the two horses charging out of the gate across the rain-sodden fields; Richard on the war-horse and she on the smaller mount, both mortally afraid. She had been denying what had happened, deliberately forgetting, chanting to herself in time with the horse's hoofbeats: "I can't remember I can't remember I can't I can't I can't." It had worked: for a long time afterward she had been unable to recall the rape, remembering that something terrible had happened but never recollecting the details. Not until she fell in love with Jack had it come back to her; and then the memory had so terrified her that she had been unable to respond to his love. Thank God he had been so patient. That was how she knew his love was strong; because he had put up with so much and still loved her.
As she came closer to the castle she conjured up some good memories, to calm her nerves. She had lived here as a child, with her father and Richard. They had been wealthy and secure. She had played on the castle ramparts with Richard, hung around in the kitchen and scrounged bits of sweet pastry, and sat beside her father at dinner in the great hall. I didn't know I was happy, she thought. I had no idea how fortunate I was to have nothing to be afraid of.
Those good times will begin again today, she said to herself, if only I can do this right.
She had confidently said The countess owes me a favor, and she hates her husband, but as they rode through the night she had thought of all the things that could go wrong. First, she might not get into the castle at all: something might have happened to put the garrison on the alert, the guards might be suspicious, or she might just be unlucky enough to come across an obstructive sentry. Second, when she was inside she might not be able to persuade Elizabeth to betray her husband. It was a year and a half since Aliena had met Elizabeth in the storm: women could get used to the most vicious men, in time, and Elizabeth might be reconciled to her fate