The Silver Stag of Bunratty Read Online Free PDF

finger to his lips. Perhaps Fat John was keeping silent so that they would think he had left and open the door? But as the silence continued Cliar shook her head and Gile – for that was the puppy they had rescued – stopped whimpering.
    ‘He’s gone,’ she whispered. ‘He smells terrible, and now the smell has gone. He’s given up.’
    ‘So it’s safe to go out? Will we open the door?’ Tuan looked around, and they all nodded.
    He lifted the latch and pulled. The door was jammed shut. Even with the four of them pulling as hard as they could, the door would still not open.
    ‘He must have jammed the latch with something,’ said Maude.
    ‘I didn’t hear him do anything,’ said Tuan.
    ‘Does it matter?’ said Matthieu dolefully. ‘Whatever he did, we’re stuck in here until he lets us out.’
    ‘Unless we see what’s in the tower,’ said Tuan. ‘Maybe there’s another way out.’ He looked up where the spiral staircase led upwards into the gloom.
    Cliar shook her head. ‘This staircase leads to Dame Anna’s chamber,’ she said. ‘There’s no other way out.’
    ‘The witch’s chamber?’ Matthieu’s voice was no more than a squeak. ‘They say she eats children and sucks their bones!’
    ‘That’s rubbish!’ said Cliar. ‘She’s a healer and a wise woman and she knows lots of things. She won’t do you any harm.’ Her voice trailed off. She was not quite sure if Dame Anna would welcome uninvited strangers into her tower.
    ‘Well, we really don’t have a choice,’ said Tuan. ‘Let’s go on up the stairs. I’ll lead the way, if you like.’
    ‘No,’ said Cliar. ‘I’ll go first. She knows me.’
    Tuan stood back to let her lead. Maude followed, then the boys. They began the long ascent; round and round they went, growing dizzy from the climb. Through the narrow, slitted windows they could catch glimpses of the fields and woods around Bunratty.
    ‘You have been here before?’ Tuan called up to Cliar.
    ‘Yes, lots of times. Dame Anna needs plants from the river meadows and the forests to make her cures and simples. She tells me what she wants and I gather them forher. She has even shown me how to make some of her potions.’
    ‘So she is a witch! And you, you’re a friend of hers … Fat John called you “witch child”! I suppose I’d better be nice to you or you’ll turn me into some kind of horrible beast?’ said Tuan, grinning.
    ‘You won’t have far to turn,’ muttered Maude, and Tuan grabbed the thick, dark plait that hung down her back and pulled it hard.
    ‘I heard that!’ he said. ‘What makes you think you’re so much better than me, anyway?’
    ‘The fact that I’m a pure-blood Norman and you are an Irish savage,’ said Maude coolly, pulling her hair free.
    ‘Sssh!’ said Cliar. ‘We’re nearly there. I can hear the spinning wheel.’
    They all went silent and listened to a soft, humming sound. The hairs on the back of Maude’s neck were beginning to rise. She wondered where the kitchen maid – whom she had often seen but never before spoken to – was leading them. There was a strange, sweet smell that seemed to be coming to meet them on the stairs. It reminded Maude of the incense the priests used in the church and that her nurse in the east had burned to put them to sleep when they were babies. Now there was another noise, the soft murmurof doves and pigeons. They had reached the top of the stairs and before them was a door with the faint silvery sheen of old birchwood. Cliar stopped and raised her hand, but before she had time to knock, the door swung open gently.

    As Cliar led the way in, the three other children gasped. They had never seen anything like the room they had entered. It was a round room, with windows on all sides, all of them open so that the many birds could fly in and out freely. There were curved wooden shelves against one wall, covered in bottles of all colours – blue and green and red and purple and yellow. On a table there