CHAPTER 34 #3
She had lived in and visited castles all her life, many of them with secret tunnels that were not so secret, so she ought to be able to figure out how to find him.
This room was actually just a landing, with one door opposite the secret panel and a dark, narrow set of stairs on either side, one going up and one down.
These were not the stairs used by the Earl of Caithness, his family, and guests, but rather a back stairwell used by servants and perhaps guards. The dungeon would be below, in the bowels of the castle. That’s where Finn would be.
If he’s still alive. She forced that thought out of her head.
After a quick glance over her shoulder, she took a candlestick from her pocket, lit it from the torch in the wall sconce, and started down the steps.
Partway down, she came to another landing, with an arched door on her right.
Judging from the wind blowing under the crack, it led outside.
She continued down the last steps until she reached the bottom and what she hoped was the dungeon.
“Who’s there?”
She jumped when the deep male voice came out of the darkness.
“So my father has finally relented,” he said. “Quickly now, get these irons off me!”
It had not occurred to her there would be other prisoners, though it should have. She surmised this prisoner must be one of the Sinclair chieftain’s sons. She held up the lamp to light the rest of the dank, cavernous room, looking for Finn. But there were no other prisoners.
“You’re the ghost Finn sees in his dreams,” the prisoner said. “Get away from me! Go!”
Fear shot through her. His shouts could bring the guards. She blew out her candle and ran up the stairs, but partway up, she stopped. The prisoner mentioned Finn. He was here.
But if Finn was not in the dungeon, where was he?
She climbed the stairs back to where she had started.
Rather than go up the next set of stairs where the bedchambers would be, she eased the door off the landing open a crack.
The backs of two men blocked most of her view, but she could see that the room was the castle’s great hall.
At this hour, warriors and servants were asleep on benches and the floor.
The two men with their backs to the door were talking of women, as men do.
Just as she was about to look elsewhere, she heard Finn’s name.
“Finn took it well, ye must say that for him,” one of them said.
“He deserved a few lashes,” the other said. “But it didn’t sit well with me to see him lashed senseless, not after he fought for Orkney with our last chieftain.”
Lashed senseless. Margaret’s stomach dropped, and her hand went to her mouth.
“Aye,” the first one said. “I wanted to cut him down, but I feared the chieftain would do the same to me.”
“Ah well, Finn will be out of his misery soon. He won’t last the night.”
Finn was still alive. She had to find him soon, but where was he?
“Tied like a dog in the rain and cold,” the other man said. “Ach, that’s no way for a fine warrior like Finn to die.”
Margaret flew back down the stairs to where she had noticed the wind whistling beneath the low arched door.
When she pushed the door open, she was met by a curtain of rain.
Shielding her eyes with her hand, she searched the enclosed courtyard, looking frantically left and right.
A single torch outside the door and protected by an overhang provided barely any light at all.
When she did not see Finn, she wanted to scream. Against the far wall, she could make out an upright wooden beam… Her heart went to her throat. A limp form hung from the beam like a stag hung after a hunt.
She slid in the mud as she ran across the courtyard to reach him.
“Finn! It’s me,” she cried, falling to her knees beside him. “I’ve come for ye.”
But Finn did not even lift his head.
What had they done to him? She wanted to wrap her arms around him and weep. Instead, she pressed her ear to his chest. Finn’s heart still beat! Praise God. But how would she ever get him into the castle and up the stairs?
“I’m taking ye home, my love,” she said, holding his head up between her hands. “But I need your help.”
Her tears mingled with the rain pouring down her face as she kissed hm.
Finn’s eyes fluttered open. He looked confused for a moment, then he smiled. “Maggie? Ach, I must be dead or dreaming.”
“Nay, I’m really here,” she said. “But we have to go. We’re in danger.”
“Danger?” He struggled to get up. “O shluagh, ye shouldn’t be here.”
“I have a boat waiting. We must get to the secret tunnel,” she said. “Can ye walk?”
“I’m chained to this damned post,” he said. “I can’t reach the hook, and I can’t pull out the post either. I’ve tried.”
“I’ll find something for ye to climb onto.” She peered into the dark recesses of the courtyard, desperate for something, anything she could use. It was too dark, and they had no time. She dropped to her hands and knees. “Stand on my back.”
“I’m too heavy,” he said.
“For heaven’s sake, I won’t break. Your life’s at stake!” When he still hesitated, she said, “And so is mine.”
Finally, she felt his foot on her back and braced herself to take his full weight.
“What do we have here?” A voice came out of the darkness, sending a chill of ice-cold fear through her veins.
She scrambled to her feet. A few yards away, she could make out the outline of a man. No, there were two.
“I brought a drink for the prisoner,” Margaret said. “I’m on my way back inside now.”
“The chieftain would be angry if we told him,” one of the men said. “No one is supposed to go near this one.”
“Ye wouldn’t want us to tell, now would ye, lass?” the other said.
The men were moving closer. Margaret’s fingers itched to reach for the blade hidden in her boot, but she had to wait.
Her only chance would be to surprise them at the last moment and stick it into one of them from up close.
That would not help her against the second man, but she could not let herself think of that now.
If she and Finn lived through this, which seemed increasingly unlikely, she would make him teach her how to use her dirk.
When the men attacked, they moved so fast that they were on her before she could reach the blade in her boot. She kicked and bit and scratched at them, but in no time, one of the men had her arms pinned behind her back.
“You first,” he said to the other one.
###
Fury exploded inside Finn, giving him a burst of strength. He pulled on the post and staggered backward when it came free with a loud crack. As the man closest to him turned toward the sound, Finn swung the heavy beam and crushed the side of his head.
He started toward the second man, who was holding Margaret from behind. “Release her!”
“Ye can’t hit me with that post without hitting her too.”
While her attacker’s attention was fixed on Finn, Margaret raised her knee, pulled a dirk from her boot, and made a wild stab behind her.
She must have hit him because her attacker yelped in pain.
Without hesitation, Finn slipped his chain off the broken end of the post and ran hellbent at her attacker.
Before the man could react, Finn had the chain around his throat and was choking the life out of the bastard.
His strength was fading fast, but he gritted his teach and managed to hold on until the man stopped struggling and his body became a dead weight in Finn’s arms. Finn watched the limp body slide to the ground before darkness took him.
He awoke to his true love slapping him across the face.
“Put your arm over my shoulders,” Margaret ordered him.
Somehow, she dragged him through the doorway, where he collapsed again. He was shaking violently.
“I won’t make it. Ye must go, mo rùin,” he said, speaking in short gasps. “Take care of our Ella. Don’t die here with me.”
He had accepted his death hours ago—probably even before he left Helmsdale. He was so very tired. He tried to keep his eyes open so that he could watch her leave, but they drifted shut again until Maggie shook him awake.
“Go,” he told her again. “Save yourself. Do it for me.”
“I did not come all this way, Finlay Sinclair Gordon, to leave ye to die,” she said. “Now, you’re going to get up and walk up those stairs.”
“Can’t ye see ye must go without me?” he pleaded. “Why won’t ye leave me?”
“Because I need my husband, and Ella needs her father,” she said in a choked voice. “We need you, Finn. Now get up before I get good and truly angry with you.”
“All right, princess,” he said, because she could not stay here.
Every moment, she was in danger. Since she would not go without him, he had to find the strength to get to his feet and climb the stairs.
Pain seared his back as he struggled to pull himself up, but he made it.
He leaned against the stone wall to catch his breath before starting up the stairs.
“If only we had some whisky,” he said between clenched teeth, “I’d run up these steps.”
Margaret pulled a flask from inside her headdress, proving once again that she was the woman of his dreams.
Fortified by the liquid heat, he climbed the stairs with one arm around Margaret’s shoulders, and the other braced against the wall. His back was on fire, and yet he was so cold he could not stop shaking. They were almost to the door to the tunnel.
###
They were going to make it.
“Just a few more steps,” Margaret told Finn.
He was so heavy, and the long chain hanging from his wrists banged against her thigh with each step. But they were so close now that the torchlight from the wall sconce lit one side of the stairs. Another step up, and Margaret could see into the landing. It was empty, praise God.
C-r-e-a-k.
They flattened themselves against the wall of the stairwell that remained in shadow as the door from the hall swung open.
“Give me your dirk,” Finn whispered as he eased his arm and the chain over her head.
She did not argue. Even injured to the point of near death, Finn was better with a blade than she was. In the courtyard, she had done little more than scratch her attacker, but at least she’d had the presence of mind to hold on to the blade.
She prayed whoever was on the landing would go upstairs.
If he started down, he would see them. There was no time to run, even if Finn could have.
Margaret saw one large boot on the stairs and then another.
Finn struck so fast with the blade that the man went down before Margaret even realized Finn had done it.
Then Finn fell on top of the downed man and held his hand over the man’s mouth, stifling his dying scream.
“The two dead in the courtyard likely won’t be found till morning,” Finn gasped, as she helped him to his feet. “But we can’t leave this body here.”
Margaret did not know how Finn found the strength, but together they dragged the dead man up the last steps and through the secret door.
She leaned back inside to wipe up the streak of blood leading to the secret door with her skirts.
Finally, she shut the door and leaned her back against it for just a moment to recover.
They had made it out of the castle.
After his last burst of strength, however, Finn could barely stand. Holding on to each other, they began walking through the black tunnel. It had seemed long to her before, but it seemed ten times longer now.
Was it near dawn? She feared they were too late and that the boat had left them. Margaret felt as if she’d died a thousand deaths since she entered the castle and had lost all sense of time.
When she finally saw the end of the tunnel, her heart sank. The first streaks of dawn lit the sky. After all their efforts to escape, they had made it out too late. Struggling under Finn’s weight as he leaned on her shoulders, she stumbled to the mouth of the cave.
The boat was there. The good fishermen had waited.