CHAPTER 34 #2
In the blackness of the dungeon, he could not tell if it was night or day. He’d tried at first to gauge the passage of time by counting how often the guards came to feed John, but he’d long since lost track and had no notion how long he’d been here.
He had no real hope of ever escaping Girnigoe Castle. But he made up his mind to survive as long as he could, rather than give up the long conversations he had with Margaret in his head. He lay on the cold ground and imagined it was her lap, and she was running her fingers through his hair.
The next time the guards came down, Finn did not bother attempting to lift his head.
“The chieftain wishes to see ye,” one them said.
“I knew my father would relent,” John said, and held out his hands for the manacles to be removed.
“’Tis Finn he wants to see,” the guard said, and turned to Finn. “He wants ye alert.”
The guard set a bowl of mush and a large cup of ale.
Apparently, George did want something from him after all.
Finn drank the ale greedily, careful not to spill a single precious drop.
Though he was ravenous, he took his time and ate only a few spoonfuls of the mush, knowing his shrunken stomach would rebel against more.
The guards waited patiently until he set the bowl aside and drank the last swallow of ale that he’d saved for last.
Finn’s chains clanged against the stone steps as the guards hauled him up the first set of steps and through a low arched doorway that led outside to the courtyard where the Murray hostages were executed.
George Sinclair was waiting for him there with a whip in his hand.
“Tie him up,” George said. “And leave us.”
###
When the news came that Finn was taken as one of the hostages, Margaret knew his life was in danger.
The Gordon guards assured her the hostages would not be harmed so long as the Murrays kept the peace.
Even the Sinclair chieftain, they told her, would not dishonor himself by violating that Highland custom.
Margaret did not believe them. The guards would not help her, but Una knew some Sutherland fishermen who were willing to take Margaret where she wanted to go.
The outline of Castle Girnigoe was barely discernable through the night fog.
The fortress rose straight up from the sea atop a long point with sheer sides.
Though Margaret was wet and freezing on the open boat, she was grateful for the fog and drizzle because they hid the moon and stars.
The warriors inside the castle were less likely to see their small fishing boat before it turned into the inlet just before the one that bordered the castle.
Margaret held her breath until they entered the narrow inlet and were hidden from view. After the men hauled the boat ashore, she told them to wait for her there.
“Ye must leave well before dawn,” she said. “If I’m not back before daylight, go without me.”
There was no point in endangering these men more than she already was.
If her plan failed and she was caught, the Sinclairs would search for the men who brought her.
Even if they were fighting men, rather than fishermen, they could not resist the vast number of warriors in the Sinclair chieftain’s stronghold.
She stood on the wet sand of the cove, replaying Finn’s description in her head from that night on their journey north when he told her about leaving Girnigoe by a secret tunnel, with the help of Mary Sutherland Sinclair. He’d said it came out into a cave halfway up the bluff… There, she saw it!
Wind and rain whipped her hair across her face as she climbed the slippery black rock.
She slipped and banged her knee and got up again.
Once she finally stood inside the cave at the entrance to the tunnel, she reached inside her cloak and ran her fingers over the onyx brooch pinned inside her bodice.
Then, taking a deep breath, she plunged inside.
She used her fingertips along the rough-hewn wall to guide her.
She had thought the night was dark, but inside the tunnel it was so utterly black as to be disorienting.
Fearing that Finn was in greater danger every moment, she wanted to run, but the floor of the tunnel was littered with loose rocks, forcing her to move slowly.
She barely stifled a scream when something slithered over her foot.
As the tunnel climbed higher, she heard beating wings.
Bats! She felt the whoosh as one grazed her hair with its wing.
Did Finn say the tunnel was this long? She began to wonder if this was not the tunnel after all, but a long cave. As the walls seemed to close in on her, she feared she would be lost forever in an endless cave. But she kept going.
When her foot struck something solid, she knelt down. She felt one, two, three steps—and then her hand slid up a solid piece of wood.
She’d found the door into the castle.
###
Finn swam through a black sea of pain and gasped as he broke the surface. He thought he must be dead. Then he wished he was.
The excruciating pain of the rain pounding against his shredded back must have been what finally woke him.
He had lost count of how many lashes George gave him before he passed out.
He tilted his head back to catch the rain on his parched tongue.
Then his mind went blank, but he woke and caught himself as he started to fall.
When he still was not dead after a time, Finn decided to take stock of his situation.
It was dark, and he was cold, which made his mind slow.
Eventually, though, he realized his arms and shoulders ached because he was hanging from the whipping post by the long chain attached to his wrists.
Gritting his teeth with the effort, he pulled himself to his feet, then leaned against the post, gasping for breath.
He thought of Margaret as he waited for death to take him. What a surprise that highborn lass had been. Despite his pain, he smiled to himself as he recalled how she’d fooled him into believing he was kidnapping her when she was using him to make her escape. His Maggie was a resourceful lass.
In his mind’s eye, he saw her and regretted how slow he’d been to trust her kind and generous heart. He was grateful for every moment he had with her. But he wanted more. And so, though it was foolish, he began to think of escape.
Squinting against the rain, he leaned around the post to see the hook on the other side that held his chain.
He tried again and again, painfully swinging the chain with his arms, until finally the chain lifted off the hook and fell to the ground.
But the chain holding his wrists was still around the post. Though he tried, he did not have the strength to climb the post to get the chain over the top of it and free himself.
Resting his forehead against the post, he considered the other end. The post was fixed into a square into the ground. If he could pull it out…
Each time he pulled on the post, he was blinded by the pain from his torn back. Still, he tried again and again until he blacked out and collapsed. He woke and pulled himself up and tried again.
He fell a final time and lay with the side of his face against the cold, wet ground. He drank like a dog from the puddle beside his face. But he could rise no more. His only comfort was knowing he had provided Margaret and Ella with a home of their own, as Margaret had always wanted.
She and Ella were safe.
###
Margaret put her ear to the door but could hear nothing. She had no way of knowing if that meant no one was on the other side or that the door was so thick it blocked the sound. Biting her lip, she pushed on the door, gently at first. When it did not budge, she pushed harder, to no avail.
There had to be a latch. The way Finn had told the story, the secret door was disguised as a panel, which mean the latch would not be in plain sight. There must be a knob or something to press. But what if the latch could only be worked from the inside? Tunnels like this were made for escape.
She felt all along the edge of the door with her fingertips, searching for a thin break in the wood or in the stone that framed it. Panic made her hands shake when she still could not find it. To be so close to Finn and not reach him!
She refused to give up. She was not leaving without him.
Once again, she started at the top of the door and methodically worked her way down every inch.
Her nail caught on a tiny crack. With her fingertip, she followed the crack as it made a one-inch square.
Using both her thumbs, she pressed on the square, and the door moved.
She had done it. The door shifted just enough for a thin line of light to seep through, outlining the edge of the door.
Quickly, she scraped the mud off her boots, removed her cloak, and tidied her hair under her head covering as best she could in the dark.
She wore the simple servant’s clothes she had stolen from Holyrood Palace in what seemed like another lifetime.
The household should be in bed, except for a few guards. If she ran into anyone, she hoped to pass unnoticed, just as she had at the palace. Most people saw what they expected to see, and they would not be expecting her.
Heart racing, she eased the door open far enough to peek through, and saw a small, empty room dimly lit by a torch fixed into a wall sconce.
If anyone saw her coming through a secret doorway, there would be no mistaking her for anything but the intruder she was, so she had to do this quickly.
Before she could dwell on the danger, she pushed through the door and shut it behind her.
In her haste, she closed the door harder than she meant to with a resounding clump. She let her breath out when no one appeared. Now to find Finn—without getting caught.