Chapter 30 #3
Or perhaps she was losing her mind. She was almost convinced of it in another moment.
The men loading the dray had begun a good-naturedly bantering exchange of insulting jests about each other’s mothers.
As she stole a glance around the must-scented edge of her bale her eyes for some reason swept toward a far group of barrels, and while she watched, Henry Cork rose to the shoulders from one with a barrel lid on his head.
Merry sat back with her eyes tight shut, taking deep breaths.
“My mind’s snapping,” she breathed.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Raven grated under the covering thunder of barrels.
“Keep your head down, or we’re dead, lovey.
If those rascals catch an eye of those feathers of yours, it’s all the world to a handsaw that they’ll know they’ve got either a female back here or an ostrich.
And let me tell you, it’s more than probable they’ll want to explore out which. ”
Pushing down her offending plumes, Merry peered again at the far barrels, saw nothing, blinked, and when a time passed with no further appearance, decided that the shadow of a soaring gull must have combined with some errant fancy of her imagination to serve her eyes such a trick.
It took a further half hour for the yard to clear. The heavily loaded dray rattled off into an alley; the warehouseman and his helpers disappeared into a near door speaking eagerly about sharing a flagon or two of porter.
Another opportunity might not come soon, and another wagon might arrive at any moment to gather cargo or discharge it, so there was nothing for Merry and Raven to do but dart across the yard, dodging heaps of discarded packaging fabric, frayed twine, and broken cooper’s hoops.
The immense oak double door was locked, but it would have taken a gem of the locksmith’s art to resist the insistent mangling of Raven’s dagger.
He dragged open one dark, dust-grouted panel of the door, glanced inside, thrust Merry within, and followed quickly.
She had time for only a glimpse of a wide room lined in pitted stone, and a plunging staircase beyond before Raven drew shut the doorway.
The closed portal blocked out daylight with eerie efficiency.
A bitter chill pervaded the atmosphere, its bite sharper than even the unheated stone and the autumnal briskness outside.
She shivered, digging her hands deeper into her muff as she listened to Raven locate by touch the lantern and tinder on a small bench against the nether wall that he had marked on his first glance inside.
“Why is it so cold?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. It would seem to be coming from down the stairs.
” His voice was muffled as he bent over the tinder.
He added hopefully, “If you’re beginning to take fright, we can leave.
No telling what’s down there, I’m sorry to say.
Ghoulies, belike, and werefolk and devilkins that chew the flesh of ladies.
I shouldn’t wonder if we’ll run in upon all manner of spookish things. We’d better give it up.”
“That’s not going to work!” she retorted with dignity, though her knees were no longer offering her firm support.
The frigid air was crawling over her skin like the expelled breath of a winter cloud; her eyelashes were soft cold threads against her cheeks.
As a thimble of flame grew inside the tin lantern her spirit for this adventure plummeted like the dipping shadows around her.
But she said, “If you’re frightened, then I’ll go to the front. ”
Pale light fell on Raven’s suddenly laughing eyes. “Are you all in a rush, then, to be et? Well, all right, paladin. To the stair! But side by side, if you please, and catch hold of my hand. You may be a lion, but I’m every bit aquiver.”
The steps led down a short tunnel that opened dramatically into a monstrous abysm.
Raven’s tiny light left most of its great size undiscovered, but the giant stone walls dwarfed Merry and Raven.
Immense sheer cliffs burgeoned from the floor.
Their lamplight caught in thousands of glittering facets in these colossal structures of ice, giving them a fantastical grandeur. The motionless air was dry and arctic.
“An icehouse! Isn’t that what it is, Raven? A vault where they store commercial ice?”
“It looks like,” Raven said, tilting the lantern in a way that sent light spraying deeper into the pit.
“I’d heard these places were big, but I didn’t realize the half of it.
Cold enough to freeze two dry rags together, ain’t it?
One thing’s sure—Michael Granville couldn’t’ve been making this his safe house from Devon, or the chill would have—Stay!
Did you hear that? It sounded as if a man cried out. Merry! Lovey, no!”
But fear had clamped without mercy on her senses, and she had grabbed up her skirts in a rude arrangement, her running footsteps pattering on the shallow steps.
Her blood was as cold as the air without.
She arrived fighting for breath at the stair foot, with Raven just behind.
He tried to catch her arm, but his care to keep the lantern intact hampered him, and she wrenched free, running forward around the thick retaining wall, the sand floor sucking at her boots.
Behind the wall a solitary figure lay in a frost-riven clearing.
The stretching oval of light fell on red-gold hair, a dusty and torn buff coat.
Sinking to her knees beside the shining head, Merry turned the still figure with hands that quavered.
The face was young and marred by premature lining and a ragged growth of beard.
Damp sand clung in a paste over the closed lids and parched, gasping lips.
She could feel the man’s blazing fever through her gloves.
Behind her shoulder she heard Raven speak.
“Is it your brother?”
“Yes,” she answered numbly. “It’s Carl.” Tears came to her eyes in a sudden rush. “Help me. Raven, I can’t think.”
His hand rested briefly on her arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Steady, then, Merry. He’s alive, and that’s the prime thing.” He had set the lantern into the sand and was beginning to strip off his greatcoat. “The thing to do is to see what kind of hurt he’s taken and then get him out of here.”
The words, sympathetic and practical, stayed with her as she helped Raven carefully move and lift her brother, looking for wounds and shattered bones.
They released the rope around his knees and wrists and discovered the bruise on his temple that accounted for the hazed state of his brain.
It was hard to tell how long he’d been thus, but cold had descended to his lungs. His breath had a rattling sound.
Yanking the satin loop of the muff impatiently off her wrist, she laid it under his head as Raven wrapped him in his own greatcoat, and she was gently brushing the sand from his face with her bare fingers when she saw Carl’s eyelids move. He moaned.
“Carl? It’s Merry. Can you see? Here I am,” she said softly.
“Mer—ry?” The word was no more than a rasp.
“Yes, dear. I’m here.”
“Where? Yes, icehouse… few weeks, he’s kept me upstairs.
Upstairs… there’s a small room… contraband.
Merry—” The disjointed murmur dissolved in a harsh fit of coughing.
She held him until it subsided. “Came for you when we heard the Guinevere had docked in England without you.… Father sick with worry… affection… never showed it enough, e-either of us.”
Again and again she had to lift her hands from his face to strike the running tears from her cheeks with the back of her wrist. “Carl, you shouldn’t try to talk. You’ll need your strength. This is my friend Raven, and he’s going to help me take you away from this terrible place—”
As though she hadn’t spoken, he murmured, “Were afraid Granville might have harmed you. Dishonorable… Father says. Granville told me you’ve married St. Cyr.
H-he’s good man. Opposed Orders in Council.
” With the shadow of a grin, “Too bad… British.” The amusement faded into confusion. Then, “Have to leave… quickly.”
“So we will, matey,” Raven said in a low, soothing voice.
“You can nod right off again, old fellow, and leave the matter to us.” The assurance in the persuasive drawl, combined perhaps with Carl’s exhaustion, made the eyes that were so like Merry’s drift slowly shut.
For Merry’s ears alone Raven said in hushed tones, “Can you take the lantern? I’ll have to carry him.
There’s not a chance he’ll be able to walk in this con—” A noise from the staircase brought him urgently to his feet, dragging his pistol from his belt.
With Merry a rigid gold statue at his feet, he leveled his pistol at the edge of the retaining wall and snarled, “Come forward. But throw your weapon out first or be prepared to be fired on.”
A pleasant voice emanated from the stair, its tone chiding.
“If this is an example of the kind of hospitality you offer, don’t be surprised if I make this my last visit.
” Devon stepped from the shadows, his cool gaze assessing the clearing and then moving beyond to the mammoth structures of ice.
To Raven, “Uncock your pistol. You really don’t want to fire it here.
Look at the slant of the central stack where the tiers lean into the drain path.
Moisture must be seeping up from the floor, melting the base along one edge.
I don’t know how stable it is, especially if there’s a fault in the mass. ”
Obeying the polite command, Raven started joyously forward, relief brightening his eyes, but another voice, behind him, behind them all, brought his stride to a halt.
“Desolated as I am to contradict you, my dear, the pleasure of the host is mine. And let me assure you, I don’t share your qualms about firing in these circumstances. In fact, I see a charming set of nodding plumes that make a delightful target.”