Rip looked around the room; there was a decanter on a table beside the bed and a goblet. He went over to it and took a sniff. Wine. He wrinkled his nose—he didn’t like wine unless it was well watered. But he was thirsty enough not to really care. He poured himself a draught and he took a swallow.
His eyes flew open. It was good! It spread a fragrant warmth through his mouth and down his throat all the way to his belly. From there it sped to warm his skin. He looked uncertainly at Neesa, then decided that she wouldn’t be harmed by just a little. No doubt she was as thirsty as he’d been.
‘Let’s eat,’ he said. Then bringing the decanter and cup with him, he sat down in the middle of the floor.
Mandy licked her lips, then nodded and fetched out the bread and cheese from her pillowcase. Neesa gnawed a chunk off the loaf with a look of fierce concentration that almost made Rip laugh.
‘We can’t eat here!’ Kay said, barely containing his whisper. ‘There’s a dead woman in there. We’ll die!’
Mandy snorted. She took the loaf from Neesa and broke herself off a piece. ‘We will not!’ she said. ‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You always eat when someone dies. Gran died, and we all ate these pastries and things; even Mother, and she was crying.’
‘Drink this,’ Rip said and offered Kay a goblet of the wine.
Kay recoiled, his face full of disgust. ‘I’m not going to drink that! It’s probably poisoned.’
Rip rolled his eyes. ‘It’s not poisoned. I just drank some, do I look like I’ve been poisoned?’
‘Besides,’ Mandy said, offering Kay a piece of bread and a chunk of cheese, ‘who would keep poison on their night table?’
‘I’ll take some!’ Neesa said, reaching out for the goblet.
Rip gave it to her. After she swallowed three times, Mandy forced her hand down and said, ‘Just another sip. Can’t have you passing out on us.’ Rip nodded. Like any farm-boy, he had witnessed the effects of too much wine on his father and the other men in the area during festivals and he knew it wouldn’t take much to get the small girl completely drunk.
Neesa seemed on the verge of complaint when Rip pulled the cup away, but kept her objections to herself. Kay reached, shamefaced, for the goblet.
‘Wait your turn,’ Mandy said and took it for herself.
Kay gave her a weak smile and backed off. He went to the window and looked out. ‘Could we get down from here if we knotted the sheets together?’ he asked.
Rip went over and looked out of the window. It was a sheer drop of perhaps forty feet onto a flagstone courtyard. He just looked at Kay and walked back to the others.
Kay turned from the window, pouting, and slid down the wall to sit in a crouch and eat his bread. After a moment, he began to sob, then to cry in earnest. He made a sad and unattractive sight, his face bright red, his mouth wide open, revealing half-chewed gobbets of bread.
Rip and Mandy looked at one another uncomfortably, uncertain how to react. This was so unlike Kay, who would have laughed unmercifully if one of them had broken down so completely. Neesa looked at Kay for a moment, then pushed herself up from the floor and went over to pat him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t be sad,’ she said.
After a moment Kay looked up at Rip, tears pouring down his face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice hoarse. ‘I’m sorry. But I am so scared.’ He leaned over, putting his cheek against Neesa’s head, and continued to weep.
Neesa frowned, then put her hand up to the top of her head. ‘You’re getting my hair wet,’ she accused.
‘Sorry,’ Kay said and lifted his head. He got his crying under control.
‘We’re all scared,’ Rip assured him. ‘I don’t like saying it, but I am.’
‘But what are we going to do?’ Kay asked, tears threatening to break loose again. He pointed to the inner door. ‘There’s a dead woman behind there.’ Then he pointed to the outer door, ‘And there’s a ghost in the hall. We can’t get out of the window. What are we going to do?’
Mandy pushed the goblet at him before he could go off again. ‘Drink,’ she said with ferocious emphasis. Kay did so and it seemed to help.
Rip stared glumly at the opposite wall. It was decorated with a carving of a plant in an urn. It was very elaborate, with all kinds of curlicues, not very pretty, but well done. As he stared, it seemed to him that something was wrong with that wall. From the way it projected into the room there should be a closet in it, but there wasn’t. And now that he thought about it, the wall in the corridor was straight and smooth. So why was the wall on the inside bent like that? Can it be a secret passage like King Akter used to escape the wicked uncle? he thought.
Suddenly Neesa said, ‘Yes!’ She stood and walked right to where Rip was looking, and went to the wall as if hypnotized and began pressing every berry and flower centre, tracing every curve of every frond, looking for something that might press in.
He hadn’t been too sure just what a secret passage was or how it worked when Emmet had told him the story, but he hadn’t seen a real castle then. They were so big. Could he actually be looking at one right now?