Sleeper’s Castle: An epic historical romance from the Sunday Times bestseller. Barbara Erskine

scowled at him. ‘I remember nothing,’ he said hoarsely.

      Catrin slid from her pony’s saddle and pulled the reins over its head, hitching it to a tree. She looked grimly at Edmund. ‘You tell me.’

      ‘He had a dream.’ Edmund glanced at Dafydd.

      Catrin’s heart sank. ‘What happened?’

      ‘I was sleeping in the great hall with a couple of dozen other men. At least, I thought I was sleeping,’ Dafydd said at last. ‘I was wrapped in my cloak. It had been a good evening. Sir Reginald never appeared. Nor did most of his household. They said he was away, as was his steward. It didn’t matter. There were others there. At first there was some hostility when they realised I was Welsh, but I sang in English and it went well. They enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. We settled down. I slept. I remember no more.’ He glanced at Edmund again.

      Catrin’s eyes were fixed on his face. ‘That is not true, Father. You always remember your dreams,’ she snapped.

      ‘They told me he was snoring peacefully, but then he grew restless,’ Edmund put in. ‘Then he began to shout in his sleep. He was in great distress. They couldn’t wake him so someone came to fetch me.’ He hesitated. ‘I have never seen anything like it.’ He stopped again as if he were unable to go on. ‘He was screaming. He sat up and threw off his cloak. His eyes were open, staring, but I knew he was seeing nothing. At least …’ he waited as if hoping Dafydd would speak, ‘he was seeing nothing outwardly. And he was yelling and shouting. Luckily he was speaking Welsh so they understood nothing. Lord Grey’s household is English. I doubt there are any Welsh speakers there. I hope not,’ he added fervently. ‘He was seeing something in his dream, something so bad—’ he broke off as Dafydd straightened his shoulders.

      Dafydd looked at Catrin. ‘I was seeing blood,’ he said slowly, dragging the words out of the inner depths of his soul. ‘I was seeing fire. I was seeing death. I was seeing this nation torn apart.’

      Catrin felt a trickle of ice crawling through her body. Blood. Fire. Death. Those were the words he had written and then scratched out again and again on that scrap of parchment back in the spring.

      ‘He woke everyone,’ Edmund went on as Dafydd lapsed back into silence. He ran his hands through his hair. ‘As I said, I doubt if many, or any of them spoke Welsh, but I’m pretty sure they got the gist of it.’ With a sigh he looked round at the thick undergrowth in the distance. Alongside the road the cover had been scythed back, and there were sheep grazing on the shorter grass. Ancient oak trees sheltered the coverts where no doubt the Lord of Ruthin enjoyed good hunting. There was no sign of anyone else on the road.

      Catrin was staring at her father’s face in bewildered concern when abruptly Edmund put his hand on her arm. She jumped. His fingers tightened. ‘Get back on your pony and ride slowly on,’ he whispered. ‘Now. Don’t look round. There are horsemen in the shadow of the trees over there, in the distance. A lot of them. I don’t know who they are, but I don’t intend to find out. Just act casually. You too, Master Dafydd.’ He looked anxiously at him. ‘Follow her. I’ll walk to the tree and relieve myself. It will serve as a reason we have stopped, and it will give me a chance to look round again, then I will follow on. I don’t know if they have seen us, but with luck they won’t do anything about it if they have. Hopefully they will know we were guests in the castle and leave us alone.’

      Catrin obeyed him without argument. Her mouth dry with fear, she untied her pony, scrambled onto the saddle and turned back onto the road. Her father followed. Neither of them looked round. Catrin’s fingers tightened on the pouch in her pocket that Lady Grey had given her. She hadn’t even opened it. If it were stolen now she would never know what was in it.

      She heard the click of hooves behind her. Edmund was following with the mule. Somehow she managed to keep herself calm. If the horses sensed her fear they would start to play up. She kept her eyes on the track ahead to where it curved out of sight between thick stands of trees.

      She almost cried out in fear when she felt a hand on her stirrup. Edmund had caught her up. He pressed the lead rein of the mule into her hand. ‘Ride on slowly. They can’t see us now but they can probably hear the hooves on the stones. I’m going to double back and see what they’re up to.’

      ‘No!’ Catrin reached out to him but he had gone, flitting like a shadow across the broad grassy verge and into the undergrowth.

      ‘Stupid boy,’ Dafydd muttered. ‘He’ll get us all killed.’ He seemed finally to have gathered his wits. His eyes had cleared and he was sitting straight on his horse. He looked at Catrin. ‘We have to go on. I have to speak to Lord Owain. This concerns him.’ He shivered. ‘This concerns him absolutely.’

      There was nothing for it anyway but to ride on as though nothing had happened, first through soft loam under the scattered trees then onto a stony track, then on again, intensely aware that any moment a band of men might erupt out of the undergrowth behind them. There was no sign of Edmund.

      ‘Perhaps he imagined it,’ Catrin broke the silence.

      ‘I don’t think so. That boy is quite acute,’ Dafydd said.

      Catrin could feel her shoulders tense beneath her cloak as though expecting any minute to feel an arrow between her shoulder blades. Her stomach was tight with fear.

      ‘It would be more normal to talk,’ Dafydd said testily.

      Catrin gave a wan smile. ‘It would indeed. Are we on the right road?’

      Her father nodded. ‘We should be near Llangollen by noon. Edmund says Sycharth is another half-day’s ride south from there.’ He glared round. ‘If we are spared.’

      Catrin leaned forward to pat her pony’s neck. ‘They would have accosted us by now if they were going to.’ She breathed a quiet prayer to the Blessed Virgin that her confident words were right.

      ‘So, where is Edmund then?’ Dafydd grumbled. ‘He is supposed to protect us.’

      ‘He hasn’t done a bad job of it so far.’ Catrin screwed up her nose. ‘Perhaps he went to distract them before they saw us.’ She was not going to admit how exposed she felt without his solid presence beside them. He might irritate her unbearably and drive her to distraction with his plodding gentleness with the horses and with her father, but now he was gone she felt bereft and very vulnerable.

      ‘Keep going. You know what he said,’ her father muttered beside her.

      She did not realise she had allowed the horses to drift to a standstill. Her pony put its head down and tore at a clump of grass. She jerked at the reins. ‘If he doesn’t come soon we’ll stop at the next brook to water the horses and wait for him for a while.’

      Her father was squinting into the distance. ‘We are coming out of the deer park here. The road will be more open soon. If they were going to attack us they would have done it by now,’ he said.

      She looked around nervously. In her heart she knew he was right, but even so she felt uncomfortable. She could feel a strange prickling at the back of her neck. They were being watched, she was sure of it. ‘I wish Edmund would come back.’ She regretted saying it as soon as the words were out of her mouth.

      Her father gave a humourless laugh. ‘So he’s not so bad after all, eh? All your head-tossing and indignation and resentment, but you can’t do without him when you get scared!’

      ‘I’m not scared!’

      ‘Well you should be. There are outlaws in these woods. They were telling me last night.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘In the pay of the Lord Glyndŵr, so they said.’

      ‘And you guided us onto this road.’ Catrin stared at him in horror.

      ‘It is the way to Sycharth,’ he protested. ‘How else are we going to get there?’

      She was speechless. The fact that her father could be so careless of their safety was beyond horrific.

      ‘So,