Chapter 16
“ W e’re never going to be able to escape because they keep switching out the guards for new ones.” Charles watched from the front of the cell. “They also keep two guards posted, so they’re never going to fall asleep. Mayhap this is a bad idea after all.”
“Nay,” Maggie told him. “We’ve got to try something to save ourselves.” Maggie held her sleeping daughter in her arms. She’d finally been able to get Emma to stop crying and go to sleep. The little girl held tightly to the broken doll, hugging it like a lifeline. Maggie could only hope the wire from that doll really would prove to be a lifeline. They needed to get out of here before morning or they were all going to lose their lives, and she could not allow that to happen.
Maggie kept hoping to see Evan coming to their rescue. But since he didn’t even know where they were, that was going to be more of a dream than reality. She couldn’t blame him. She was the one who left and never even gave him a chance to talk with her. Especially after he’d told her that he loved her, and she had been too upset to tell him that she loved him too.
“Mayhap I can knock out the guards so we can get past,” said Charles, pacing the floor of the cell.
“Nay, Charles. It is too risky. I don’t want you to get hurt. If you go up against an armed guard, they’ll most likely kill you tonight after all.”
“Maggie, I’m scared,” said Charles. “Are we really going to die here? All of us?”
“Nay, of course not,” she said, wanting to believe it was true but not seeing how they were going to get out of his horrible situation. “We just need to come up with a plan to stall the execution until Evan arrives.”
Charles looked forlorn. “He’s not really coming, is he?”
“I will never give up hope and neither should you. Now, let’s think. What can we do?”
They waited until there was only one guard out in the outer room while the other left to be switched out. It was late into the night and they’d only have a few minutes before another guard arrived. Maggie looked over to Charles, feeling so scared because this was either going to work or get them killed earlier than planned. Still, they had to try something.
“Are you ready?” she asked, having used their cloaks rolled up to make a fake person which she’d placed in the shadows of the cell against the back wall. It was too dark to see that it wasn’t really Charles lying on the floor, unless a guard would actually come into the cell to look.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Charles told her, using the wire to pick the lock once more. The lock twanged and her heart jumped. Maggie’s eyes shot back to the guard’s room but thankfully the guard hadn’t seemed to hear it. “Here I go,” he whispered, slipping out of the cell and slowly closing the door almost all the way, making sure to leave it open just a crack.
The plan was that Charles would hide in the shadows while Maggie called the guard over, telling him that Charles was ill. When the guard walked up, Maggie would throw the door open, hitting the guard to distract him, while Charles took the heavy torch from the wall and hit the man over the head, knocking him out. Then Maggie would join Charles with Emma, and somehow they’d sneak out of the castle, hopefully before the replacement guard showed up.
It might not be the best plan, she realized, but it was all they had right how.
“Call him over,” mouthed Charles from the shadow.
“All right,” she whispered back. She still held her sleeping daughter in her arms. She’d have to carry Emma out of here, and prayed that the little girl wouldn’t wake up and start crying and alarm the rest of the castle. “Oh, guard!” she called out. “My brother is ill. Please, he needs help. Come quickly.”
Unfortunately, speaking so loudly woke up her daughter. Emma stirred.
“Is Charlie sick, Mama?” Emma looked over at the bundle of cloaks on the floor across the cell.
“Shhh, Emma. Close your eyes and go back to sleep,” she told the little girl. “Stay quiet.”
“What’s all the shouting about?” grumbled the guard, coming to the cell.
Maggie saw Charles sneak over to the torch.
“It’s my brother. He’s ill and needs your help,” said Maggie.
Emma’s head popped up and she looked around.
The guard came closer, and Maggie glanced back at Charles and almost died. He was trying his hardest, but couldn’t get the torch out of the wall. He tugged and pulled but it wouldn’t budge. Without the torch they’d have nothing to use to hit the guard over the head. She didn’t think things could get worse, but of course they did.
“Is that door unlocked?” asked the guard, at the same time Emma spotted Charles and called out.
“Look, Mama, Charlie is outside the cell over there.” She pointed to Maggie’s brother. The guard spun around drawing his sword.
“What the hell,” the guard ground out.
Still holding Emma with one arm, Maggie took a hold of the cell door with the other and pushed it hard into the guard.
“Ooomph,” spat the guard, stumbling forward. However, he never dropped his sword. “Prisoner escape!” the guard shouted, going after Charles.
“Nay! Leave him alone!” shouted Maggie, lunging from the cell with a crying Emma in her arms.
“Maggie, help me!” screamed Charles, putting his hands over his head as the guard’s sword came down right at him.
“It’s not nice to fight an unarmed boy,” came a voice from the dark. To Maggie’s surprise, Evan emerged from the shadows, grabbing the guard’s raised sword from behind him. The guard spun around, pulling his sword with him and raising it up toward Evan now. Evan used his sword to block the guard’s blow.
“Evan!” Maggie shouted, just as a dozen more guards stormed in through the door. It was almost as if they knew Maggie and her family would try to escape and they were waiting to ambush them. Each guard had their sword raised, ready to attack. “Watch out!” she cried.
Evan’s sword clashed with that of a guard, and two more dark figures shot out of the shadows to help him.
“The odds against us are looking grim,” said Daegel, fighting alongside Evan.
“Watch out, my lord,” cried Giles, stopping a blow as the sword was about to sink into Evan.
“Maggie, come on.” Charles was at the door, waving her to him. “Sir Evan came in through some secret entrance. We can escape through there while they’re fighting the guards.”
Maggie stepped out of the cell with Emma in her arms. The broken doll hung from Emma’s fingers. The little girl was so scared that she stopped crying and hid her face against Emma, hugging the doll once again.
“Is Sir Evan going to die?” asked Emma, her face still pressed up against Maggie.
“Shhh,” said Maggie, not wanting to draw more attention to themselves.
“Maggie, take your family and leave. Quickly,” shouted Evan as he continued to fight. “There is a secret entrance at the far end of the dungeon.”
“Nay. I won’t leave you, Evan. I love you,” she screamed.
“Now is a hell of a time to tell me,” he mumbled, using the hilt of his sword to knock out a guard. Still, it was a dozen against three, and Maggie couldn’t see how they were all going to walk out of here with their lives.
“Let us out and we’ll help you fight them,” begged the seedy man who had grabbed her arm through the bars earlier.
“You tried to hurt me,” said Maggie. “Why should I trust you?”
“We will all help,” called out another man, followed by all the prisoners offering to help her. Maggie looked down the row of cells where the prisoners were all sticking their arms out through the bars, begging her not to leave them.
“You are all prisoners,” said Charles. “You belong behind bars.”
“Just like you, right?” asked one of the men. His words hit Maggie hard as she thought about her mother. Innocent people sometimes were executed and she knew that was the truth.
“They’re going to execute us all in the morning,” said another. “At least give us a chance to help you and possibly save our own lives too.”
“Come on, Maggie, let’s go.” Charles tried to pull her out of there, but Maggie wasn’t going to leave unless she knew Evan and the others were safe. She also felt bad for the prisoners. Mayhap this truly was the answer.
“Nay, Charles. Open the locks of all the cells, quickly. Let them all out.”
“What?” Charles blinked in confusion. “They’re cutthroats and bandits, Maggie. You can’t mean that.”
“We don’t know that. They might have been falsely accused just like us or like our mother. Let them help fight and try to save their own lives at the same time. If not, we all might be dead soon.”
“Yes. Listen to her,” cried the man who had grabbed Maggie.”
“These prisoners have just as much a right to live as anyone else.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Charles, managing to get the rings of keys from the guard and quickly unlocking one door after another, letting the prisoners escape. “Besides, we need to help Sir Evan.”
The escaped prisoners rushed out and helped Evan, Daegel, and Giles fight the guards just as they’d promised.
“What’s this?” Evan turned around in surprise.
“They’re helping,” Charles called out, finding another torch that wasn’t lit and pulling it out of the stone wall. Then he rushed forward into the commotion and hit a guard over the head and knocked him out. “I did it!” shouted Charles.
“Try not to kill any of them,” Evan called out.
“Why not?” snarled a prisoner. “They were going to kill us.”
“You kill them and you’ll be wanted for murder,” Evan told them. “I have a better idea.”
Maggie watched as Evan worked with the prisoners, Charles, Giles, and Daegel. They managed to knock out or capture all the guards without any of them or any of the prisoners being killed.
“Shove the guards into the cells and lock them inside,” commanded Evan.
“Great idea, Cousin,” said Daegel with a chuckle.
When all the guards were imprisoned, Evan waved his hand over his head. “There is a secret passage where all of you can escape,” he told the prisoners. “Follow me.”
“Wait. I want a sword,” said one prisoner, picking up the blade.
“I’ll take this dagger,” said another.
“If you take weapons, I warn you not to use them unless it is a last resort and in self-defense,” Evan called out. “You are all on your own now. Good luck.”
“Evan, you came for us,” cried Maggie, running to him with Emma still in her arms. She gave him a hug and a kiss.
“There will be time for this later, sweetheart.” Evan directed her toward the secret passageway. “Right now, my only concern is to get my family home safely.”
“Y-your family?” asked Maggie, so choked with emotion that she could barely speak.
“That’s right,” said Evan. “Because as soon as we get back to Saltwood Castle, I am going to marry you and make you my wife.”
“Really? I’d like that,” she told him.
He bent over and kissed her with passion and then turned her around and helped her to the secret passage. Maggie didn’t remember another thing until they were atop the horses and headed home, because thoughts filled her head of being married to Evan and it made her feel safe and happy all over again.