Peel Castle, Isle of Man, Autumn 1446 #4
It is coming; the blast of air explodes through the tunnel, and I know the wall of water will follow.
I will not survive another drowning. I fall over something and crawl on, up the rough steps, my feet scrabbling, my arms outstretched, my eyes glaring wide, trying to see the black wet slate door against the stone wall in the dark.
My fingers find the wall; I crush them against the stone, questing for the door; then, suddenly, I feel the smoothness of the slate, find the tiny gap, and squeeze through, scraping against the chipped sides, tearing my wet gown, as the wave explodes into the barrow and races towards the door and bursts through in a spume of foam.
I don’t hesitate, even though I am through into the tunnel.
Even in the total darkness, I keep going, scrabbling along the floor on my hands and knees, sightless as a mole, as fast as I can crawl with the spout of water slapping down behind me, as if it is reaching through the door to grab at my feet.
I am blinded by the pain in my head. I can hear the long echoing suck of the sea ebbing and then the terrifying stillness as it turns for the next wave.
I have to get out of here. The tide is coming in.
I don’t know how high it will reach; I don’t know if this tunnel floods, but I am mindlessly scrambling away, crawling up the tunnel with the rush of the cave air funnelling after me.
Now I know how Dolyn’s father died – trapped in the barrow and drowned for his greed – and I am determined that I shall not roll around with him, my body shredded by the rocks like him until the tide sweeps me down and out to sea.
I FIND MY way back to the vault, crawling on my hands and knees up the low tunnel till I get to the great wooden door and slip through.
I was so terribly afraid in the drowned barrow that the vault, shelved with the coffins of the dead bishops, feels like a haven.
I sit there for a little while, shaking my head in wordless terror, while my heart steadies and the terrible images fade from under my eyelids, and then I cry, weakly.
It is pitch black now that the daylight has faded, and the full moon is not yet shining through the arrow-slits.
I feel my way in the dark all around the vault, my hands going over stone coffins, flinching when I touch a shroud, until I find the stairs that go up to the crypt.
I sit on the bottom step to gather my strength.
I shuffle upwards as I came down, seated, step by step, as if I do not trust my legs to carry me.
Slowly, as if everything is happening underwater, I reach the top step in the darkness, and stretch out my hand, blindly seeking the guide rope, the slab of stone door, and the ring handle.
I clamber out. It is hard to pull the stone slab into place, but I do it, straddling the hole and heaving on the rope.
I turn the latch, to lock it into place, lay the ring flat, and scuff the straw over it.
I am shivering with cold, soaked through with icy water.
The arrow slit blows a cold wind through the crypt and shows an eerie silvery light.
The sea outside, now at flood tide, pounds the cliffs and – as I know too well – rushes into every cave and bursts through every crack.
I lie down in the dirty straw like a drowned calf.
I fix my eyes on the night sky and the scudding clouds through the arrow slit, and I wait for morning to come.
THE CATHEDRAL BELL has chimed for Prime and four bells have rung for the first dog watch before I hear the steps on the stairs. I try to get to my feet, but I can only stand clinging on to the stone stair. I am shaking as if I were dying of an ague.
‘Christ save us!’ Glegg says, raising a torch and looking at me. ‘How are you so wet?’
I shake my head.
‘How are you so wet?’ he asks again. He looks at the arrow-slit window, at the garderobe. ‘What have you done?’
‘Nothing,’ I say, my teeth are chattering. ‘For pity’s sake . . . I will never do it again. Take me out of here.’
One of the guards, a local man, crosses himself and whispers to the other: ‘The Old Ones . . .’
‘Shut up,’ Glegg says furiously. To me, he says: ‘Follow me,’ and turns on his heel.
Nobody ties me. Nobody needs to: I could not run.
I can only get up the stairs from the crypt with a man pushing me from behind.
Glegg drags me past the red-stone wall and into the guardhouse tower.
I flinch as I am buffeted by the wind around the curtain wall.
The noise of the sea rises to a roar, as if it would come for me again.
‘Get in with you,’ Glegg orders and half-pulls me up the stairs to my room. The fire is lit; the new woman is waiting in the room. ‘Get her dry,’ Glegg orders her, ‘and then put her to bed. I’ll send some gruel and a glass of hot wine.’ He looks at me. ‘What did you do?’ he demands.
There is just a flicker of wickedness left in me, like a dampened light. ‘I flew out through the arrow slit, and I danced with the mermaids,’ I tell him, though my teeth are still chattering.
‘Christ’s blood,’ he swears and flings himself out of the room.