All that day and through the night driving rain poured relentlessly through the holes in the walls and roofs of the castle buildings and the courtyard turned to a quagmire. After a sleepless night, during which she had smothered hot, shameful tears in her bolster, Deliverance leaned on the castle wall in the grey, dreary light of another dawn looking out over the enemy encampment. She took some consolation in the equal misery the weather imposed on the besieging force. Rain had dampened their powder and the cannons had fallen silent. “Mistress Felton,” She turned at the sound of Melchior's voice, hearing a note of urgency in it she had never heard in the usual phlegmatic steward. “Melchior?” He stood behind her, his chest rising and falling as if he had just run to find her. Sudden fear gripped her. Melchior Blakelocke never ran. Her hand instinctively went to her throat. “What is it?” “It's our food supply, Mistress Felton,” Melchior said. “What about it?” “I think you need to come and see for yourself,”
