Flame

Chapter 20

20

Margaret’s hands grabbed at her own throat, strangling the anguished cry that was trying to escape her, as she watched the long blade of the dirk arc viciously through the air and rip into David’s back.

The stable lad’s head twisted about in an unnatural way as he tried to look back at his attacker, but the sharp ledge of the chasm, only a step away, was all he would ever see.

Pressing her back rigidly against the ice-cold walls of the cave, Margaret watched in mute horror as cold, sure hands reached out and pushed David hard over the edge.

Margaret shut her eyes, trying to block out the vision of the flailing arms of the stable lad as he went over.

If only I were blind, she prayed, sobbing. Oh Blessed Virgin, strike me blind.

Margaret sank to the ground, her eyes closed, but she couldn’t shut out the sickening sound of the young man’s crunching fall deep into the bowels of the earth.

And sitting there, stunned and alone, she could not shut out the sight of the b****y dirk in the hand of one whom she loved.

In the hand of a killer.

“I want you to know you’re a complete failure as a guide, Athol. In fact, I’m beginning to think you’re either a liar or a thick-headed oaf.”

Flushing crimson, the earl glared menacingly over his shoulder at Gavin. “Simply because I cannot find one damn panel, you have to attack my character.”

“Aye.” Gavin pushed the man aside and moved in next to him. The two of them stared at the open space of what was once John MacInnes’s study. “There is no way anyone can come through this panel and make their way to the hearth. By Saint Andrew, I found this panel by myself the second day I was here. There must be another passage that opens up next to that chimney.”

“Well, I know of no other,” Athol growled.

“That’s the first admission of ignorance you have made today. There may be hope for you yet.”

“Nay, I take back what I said. There is no passage up there.”

“You’re wrong. There is,” Gavin snapped. “This is your thick-headedness coming through again. You might as well just admit defeat.”

“I shan’t.” Athol turned angrily into the passageway they’d just left. “By His Bones, I swear I’ll find the damned passage.”

“Not today,” the laird said wearily, following the other man through the darkness to a creaking old ladder. “There is something else that may be far more valuable. Something that might add useful facts to the fairly worthless information you have gathered so far.”

“You’re a miserable, gruff, ill-mannered dog of a villain...even for a Lowlander.”

“Aye. All of those things.” Gavin slapped him hard on the back. “But an understanding one. You told me so yourself.”

Athol turned and glowered at him. “Which side of hell do you want me to take you to now?”

“Not hell, blackguard. The crypt.”

“In the kirkyard?”

“Nay. Och, you’re a dung-headed fool. The one beneath this keep.”

Athol frowned, suddenly putting aside all interest in their verbal parrying. “Why in the devil’s name do you want to see that place?”

Gavin picked up the wick lamp that they’d hung on the wall and looked back at his guide. “How long has it been since you have been there?”

“By the devil, I’ve never gone there,” the Highlander blurted. “Even as young lads, we always were sure to stay clear of those vaults...and that part of the caverns.”

“Are you telling me you’re afraid of the place?”

The earl considered for a moment before answering. “What you don’t understand, you stay away from. Even as lads, we had that much sense. We knew that vault had only women buried within it. Only women went there, and it has always had an air of...I don’t know...unwelcome is the only way to express it.

Gavin frowned. “Has anything ever happened to a man for going in there? Or is all of this, again, just a part of this nonsense about the curse?”

Athol shook his head. “I don’t know, Gavin. Although there were always tales of painful deaths suffered by those foolhardy enough to trespass, I myself never knew of anyone who tried.” He shrugged his shoulders in acceptance. “The fact that John MacInnes would never go in there himself was reason enough for me to stay clear of the place.”

“So then, my good lord earl, this day has been a complete waste?” Gavin challenged. “Now that you have failed to show me the way from my chamber to the south wing, you’re telling me that you cannot even find your way to the crypts?”

“Nay, my wee, dainty bull. I can take you, nuisance though you are,” Athol retorted in response.

“The same way that you took me to the panel beside the hearth?”

The Highlander glared threateningly before turning and starting down the passageway. “All we need to do is head east...which would be this way. From what I remember, any one of these tunnels should take us in that direction.”

“East,” Gavin muttered disgustedly as he fell in beside the man. “Well, at least when we reach Jerusalem, I’ll know we’ve gone too far.”

To Joanna, the beat of her heart, hammering loudly and treacherously in her chest, seemed to echo through the crypt. Cursing the very sounds of her breaths, she crouched, hidden in the darkness behind one of the stone tombs.

Continuing her daily effort of digging at the trenches on the floor, she had been startled by the sound of a cough emanating from somewhere down the tunnel passages. Quickly, she had covered her work with straw and hidden herself behind the crypt, just as the intruder’s footsteps could be heard at the vault’s entrance.

In a moment the light of another wick lamp flickered and came to life. The source of this new light moved across the floor, the shadows of the great stone pillars making their way across the wall behind the hidden woman. Joanna heard the sound of the top being removed from the keg of oil. Whoever was here obviously had been given the charge of preparing the crypt for the upcoming meeting of the women. A hot flash of panic coursed through her at the thought that the woman’s efforts might include some duty regarding the individual tombs. If it did, Joanna knew, she would be discovered.

“Ah, you’re here at last.”

Joanna froze, recognizing Mater’s voice at once. When, from the vault’s entrance, the sound of a low moan came in response, Joanna slowly crouched into a ball once again and listened.

“There are more reeds and brush that need to be brought in from outside that door. And why have you not brought down more oil? Why are you standing there?”

There was a pause, and silence filled the crypt. A silence so deep that it chilled her soul.

“What is it, Margaret?” The older woman’s voice rose in pitch, as a sudden concern eclipsed her original tone of cold superiority. “Are you crying?”

Joanna wished she had the courage to move and peek out at them. But instead, pressing her head against the cold stones, she tried to focus on any sound the mute woman might make. She heard Mater’s feet move across the floor toward the entrance.

“Why are you acting this way? Why do you move away from me?” Mater’s voice was suddenly sharp, reproachful. “I only want to see if you’re hurt.”

Knowing the two women were far enough away, Joanna summoned up her courage and edged to one side of the stone tomb until she could peer out around the corner of the crypt. Margaret stood next to the entrance, her back pressed against the wall, her pale face stained with tears and dirt. As Joanna watched Mater try to approach her again, the weeping woman’s hands shot out and made a waving motion in the air, warding the older woman off.

“What is it, Margaret?” Mater entreated gently, pushing through the mute woman’s hands before succeeding in enfolding Margaret’s shaking shoulders in her embrace. “What has come over you, my sweet?”

Joanna watched in astonishment as Mater held the other in her arms. The two women stood together—one middle-aged, one older—and Margaret seemed to melt in the abbess’s embrace. The serving woman continued to shake and she was beginning to sob audibly—a strangled, unnatural sound. Yet even as Joanna watched, Margaret visibly yielded to the comfort of Mater’s soothing words and gentle hands.

For a lingering moment, the memory of another Mater came alive—the Mater whom Joanna had respected and trusted so long ago. The wise and ever protective Mater.

But behind the vision and the memory, Joanna could not erase the thought that this was the same Mater whose very life served to ignite the flames of death.

“Did any one hurt you, my love?”

Surprised, Joanna watched as the crying woman shook her head in response. How many in the castle thought Margaret was deaf as well as mute? Watching what was happening between the two women here, there was no question in Joanna’s mind that Margaret could hear and understand perfectly well.

“It tears at my heart to see you suffer.” Mater ran her gnarled fingers down the tear-stained face of the other. “My beloved sister.”

Joanna held her breath, trying to comprehend the abbess’s address of the mute woman.

“Och, what have I done to you?” Mater said softly as she continued to pat away the other woman’s rolling tears. “Why is it that I’ve been able to walk away from my suffering, and yet you—with so many years having gone by—still must bear the agony of a useless tongue and tormented soul?”

Margaret shook her head in protest as she grabbed one of Mater’s hands tightly in hers and brought it to her lips. After placing kisses on the wrinkled skin’s back, she placed her wet cheek against it, like a child taking comfort in the strength of an adult.

Joanna edged back into her hiding place behind the tomb. Sitting there, she channeled her fingers through her hair and pressed her palms to her temples, trying to quell the sudden pounding in her head. How could it be that now, after so long, she suddenly felt such confusion? Why, so late in her plans, was she flooded with second thoughts? Damn Gavin for making her doubt what she had seen with her own eyes.

Leaning her head back against the cold stone, Joanna tried to force herself back, in her mind’s eye, to the charred wreckage of the south wing, to the smell of burned flesh, and the cloud of death suspended in the air. It was there. She could see it. Feel it. The sadness and anger tightened its grip on her heart. Her eyes flew open, and tears began to stream down her face. Nay, she thought adamantly. She would not doubt. She could not forget.

Behind her, the two women began to move about the chamber, and Joanna continued to listen to everything Mater said. In a short while their preparations were completed, and nothing more was revealed to the young woman.

Then, on their way out, Joanna heard Mater address Margaret one last time.

“Wait, sister. I want you to go back to the keep and get Allan. I’ll wait for you in the passages above Hell’s Gate.”

Margaret’s questioning response appeared, to Joanna, to carry a note of muffled protest.

“Go, Margaret,” Mater ordered. “I believe it’s time I reminded him again of his responsibility for caring for our precious younger sister.”

At the sound of another barely audible protest, Joanna peered again around the side of the crypt, only to see Margaret’s waving of hands at the older woman.

“You will do as you’re told, Margaret,” Mater scolded. “The three of us are all that are left. And though we are advancing in age, both Allan and I are quite capable of looking after our needs. But you...” Her voice cracked with the intensity of her feelings. “I’m not returning to the abbey, not until such time as our brother gives me his word that he’ll do a better job. Well, if he’ll not look after you more carefully, he’ll have to answer to me.”

Mater is their sister, Joanna thought in amazement as she slid silently back into the shadows.

The dank smell of the grave was all he could breathe, and he found it remarkably disagreeable.

There was no way in hell, Gavin swore, that he would let her return to these tunnels. To think that he had been foolish enough to accept her reasoning without having witnessed for himself the dangers that lurked at every turn. True, she had survived for six months without him, but during that time she had been able to take refuge in that tower room in south wing. She had told him that much herself, last night. But he, too drunk with the heat of their passion, from the excitement he felt in having her in his arms and at his side, had simply accepted her wishes.

Well, standing now by the edge of the deep chasm that Athol called Hell’s Gate, Gavin was more than ever before certain that he’d been a careless fool to let her have her way.

The seemingly bottomless cleft stretched the length of the cavern, disappearing beneath a sheer rock wall at one end and continuing on into the darkness beyond their ledge at the other. In breadth, it was far too wide to allow any one man to jump, and the ledge across was higher by the height of two men, at least.

Gavin eyed the ancient rope bridge dubiously and, reaching out, tugged at one of the ropes that stretched across the chasm. Behind them, the ends of the ropes disappeared into a hand-hewn tunnel. Following them back, he found the iron rings that protruded from the rock wall and supported this end of the bridge. With a frown, he returned to the ledge. Lifting his torch, he peered up at the stone slabs that had been placed at the edge of the opposite ledge. The ropes disappeared beyond, and Gavin guessed that the same means of anchoring the bridge existed there.

Looking over at Athol, he found the Highlander studying the bridge as well. As he watched him, the red-haired nobleman kicked a loose rock into the abyss, and they both listened as it struck the sides of the chasm as it dropped. It never did hit bottom.

“Hell’s Gate,” Gavin muttered, shaking his head.

“Aye. Aptly named, I would say.”

“Is this the only way to cross over, then?”

Athol shook his head, a mischievous grin creeping across his face. “Nay. There are other ways around, I believe...for the faint of heart.” Looking away from the scowling giant, the Highlander continued. “I myself never took any of them, of course. I believe there is a natural bridge that crosses this beast, in an area of the caverns we haven’t seen, yet. It’s down by an underground loch. A wee bit out of our way, but if you’re feeling a mite queasy about the bridge...”

“I’ve already spent more time down here than I’d planned. This rope bridge seems sturdy enough to carry our weight. Try not to fall off, though. I don’t want to be explaining this to your men.”

The Highlander shrugged good-naturedly as he gestured for Gavin to lead the way. “Remember, though, from here on my knowledge of these caves comes to an end.”

“Not that your knowledge was reliable to start with,” the Lowlander grumbled as he lifted the lamp and studied the way.

Athol snorted. “You’re a thankless blackguard, Gavin Kerr.”

“And you,” Gavin said, stepping onto the wooden slats and bouncing lightly to test the bridges strength against his weight. “You are an unhappy excuse for a guide, John Stewart.”

“This footbridge,” the earl said, laying a hand on the laird’s arm, “was built before the time of your grandfather—whoever that was. But even then it was meant to support calm walking—not any leaping about by baboons the size of you.” Pushing Gavin aside, he squeezed by and took the lead. “Say what you will, it’s clear I have more sense than you and all your kin put together...and I’m still the better man to guide you through these tunnels.”

John Stewart started across the bridge, and Gavin followed. But when they were almost halfway across, the laird paused to look past the Highlander. Just over the top of the ledge, something caught his eye. A movement.

Gavin raised his wick lamp higher as the rope on one side of the bridge gave way with a snap.