Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
The storm approached from the south as if bearing a personal grudge.
Elizabeth had been observing the sky since midday.
Clouds gathered on the horizon with the disciplined precision of an army lining up.
By late afternoon, these ranks had moved overhead.
The wind changed from the warm, herb-scented breeze she was used to into something sharper and colder.
It brought the scent of rain, along with a metallic sharpness suggesting that when the rain came, it would be intense and not gentle.
“We should secure the tower,” she said.
They secured the tower by tying down the sailcloth curtain, wrapping dried figs in cloth, and placing them on the highest shelf.
They brought the firewood inside and covered the cistern with a flat stone they had specifically cut for that purpose.
Moving efficiently, having endured three previous storms—each less intense than the last—the tower had proven its resilience.
Their preparations were methodical and routine.
The storm was not routine.
The first gust took the sailcloth curtain completely off the wall. It did not happen gradually; there was no polite negotiation of wind against rope. It was a single, violent act. The ropes snapped, and the fabric tore free, vanishing instantly into the dark.
The rain continued, but it was not the gentle, steady rain of earlier storms; instead, it came as a horizontal onslaught.
The wind pierced every crack and gap in the tower's walls, exploiting them with the relentless precision of a creditor.
The fire was extinguished within the first ten minutes.
The smoke hissed and vanished, leaving the lower room engulfed in complete, unforgiving darkness.
Elizabeth and Darcy pressed themselves against the wall, avoiding the archway, the main entry for rain and wind. The Mediterranean storm seemed intent on unleashing its complete, unrestrained fury on their small island.
“This is worse,” Elizabeth said.
“Yes.”
“Significantly worse.”
“This is no ordinary squall,” Darcy said.
The wind screamed through the tower's upper level. She had no comparison for the terrible sound; the air was being violently compressed through the stone channels, producing a deafening, continuous roar.
There was a sharp, percussive crack from above, followed by a terrible grinding sound.
She felt the vibration through the stone wall against her back before she fully registered the noise.
She looked up, though the dark was quite impenetrable.
Darcy's arm tightened around her shoulders as they waited for the roof to give way.
The northeast section of the roof—the part they had repaired with her flat stones—suddenly gave way.
It was not the entire roof, perhaps only a quarter of it.
The stones and the wooden beams beneath them collapsed into the upper level with a tremendous crash, sending a cloud of dust and sharp fragments hurtling down the stairway.
“Move,” Darcy commanded. He pulled her violently sideways along the wall, dragging her away from the stairway and into the farthest corner.
He kept his arm tight around her as her feet scrambled for purchase on the wet flagstones.
They wedged themselves into the corner. The stones held, and the collapse did not continue.
The rain poured through the new gap. She could hear it hitting the upper floor, drumming violently against the flagstones. The water would soon find the stairway and begin pouring down upon them. They had perhaps twenty minutes before the lower room entirely flooded.
“The overhang,” she said. “The rock overhang above the spring.”
They fled the tower and ran directly into the storm.
The driving rain hit them with bruising force.
The path down the hill had become a rapid stream, the water washing over rocks and turning the soil into treacherous mud.
Elizabeth's bare feet slipped twice, and only Darcy's desperate grip on her arm kept her upright.
The rock overhang was hardly a shelter. It was merely a ledge of stone jutting from the hillside above the spring.
It created a cramped space, perhaps six feet deep and three feet high.
The ground beneath it was relatively dry, protected from the direct downpour, though the wind-driven spray and the bitter cold easily found them.
The utter darkness made both the wet and the cold far harder to bear.
They huddled beneath the overhang, her back against the rock while his arms encircled her tightly.
The confined position was very uncomfortable; their bodies felt warm where they touched but remained freezing elsewhere.
Above, the storm continued to rage relentlessly, fueled by days of escalating fury.
The storm lasted for three hours at its utmost fury before moderating into a steady, heavy rain that continued through the night.
For three hours, the wind and water shrieked around them, violently rearranging the island without the slightest regard for the tower, the herb garden, or the two people huddled beneath a rock.
Sometime during the third hour, Darcy went to check the tower.
“Stay here,” he said.
“Do not tell me to stay here.”
“Elizabeth, the path is flooded and the visibility is nonexistent. One of us should remain in a known safe location while the other assesses the damage.”
“Then I will assess and you will remain.”
“You are not wearing shoes.”
“I have not worn shoes in three weeks.”
“The path will be covered in broken stone and debris. We have no surgeon and no clean bandages. If you cut your foot in the dark, an infection would be deadly.”
She angrily conceded the point. She was far too cold and wet to argue the matter gracefully.
He left her in the dark. She listened to his footsteps sloshing on the muddy path until they grew faint.
Then, she was left to listen only to the rain, the wind, and the sound of her own rapid breathing.
Her pulse was racing towards sheer panic, and she forced herself to breathe slowly, demanding composure.
He was gone for twenty minutes. They were the longest twenty minutes she had experienced on the island, far worse than the agony of watching the ship pass, or the terror of the raft sinking.
Those events had contained action; these twenty minutes contained nothing but blind, helpless waiting in the dark.
Finally, he returned. She heard him before she saw him; his breathing was terribly laboured, and his footsteps dragged heavily on the wet ground. When he crouched beneath the overhang, she could barely make out the shape of his face in the dark, but she instantly knew something was wrong.
“The tower is intact,” he said. “The upper level lost a section of roof. The lower room is flooded but the walls held.”
“You are hurt.”
“A broken branch on the path. I could not see it in the dark.”
“Where?”
“My side. The same side.”
Her hands blindly searched for him in the dark. His shirt was wet and torn. Beneath the fabric, her fingers found his skin, and traced along the familiar scar on his ribs. Just below it, she felt a new, jagged wound. It was covered in a warm wetness that was quite distinct from the rain.
“How bad?”
“I do not know. It is bleeding. The bleeding is steady but not heavy.”
“Lie down.”
He lay down upon the cold ground beneath the overhang, and she knelt beside him.
Her hands explored the wound in the dark with desperate, systematic attention.
She had no medical training, no supplies, and no light.
She tore a long strip of fabric from the ruined hem of her dress without a second thought.
She pressed the wadded cloth hard against the wound. He hissed sharply. It was the sound of a man attempting to suppress his agony and failing. The failure was strangely reassuring; silence would have meant he was unconscious.
“Hold this,” she said. She placed his hand over the cloth, pressing. “Pressure. Do not release it.”
“I know how to apply pressure to a wound.”
“Then apply it and be quiet.”
She tore another strip of fabric, wadded it, and layered it directly on top of the first. Using a much longer strip, she bound the makeshift bandage tightly around his torso.
She tied it as securely as she could manage in the pitch black with her wet, shaking hands.
She refused to name the rising terror in her chest.
The fever started before dawn.
She knew because his skin, which had been cold and clammy for hours, became intensely hot.
It was the dry, radiating heat of a body fighting a severe infection.
The battle was visible in the violent shaking that began in his shoulders and spread to his limbs, until she could no longer hold him still.
“Fitzwilliam.”
His eyes were open, but they were not seeing her. His gaze was turned wholly inward, lost to whatever delusions the fever had constructed. He was somewhere she could not follow.
“Fitzwilliam. Look at me.”
He looked at her. He found a sudden moment of clarity, his eyes focusing on her face in the grey pre-dawn light that had finally penetrated the overhang.
“Elizabeth.” His voice was rough, scraped. “The tower.”
“The tower can wait. You cannot.”
“The fire.”
There is no fire; the previous one drowned. Everything is soaked. I will start a new fire once the rain ceases.
“The rain.”
“Is still happening. Be quiet.”
She cradled his head in her lap. The ground was cold and damp, and her back ached from sitting in such a cramped position, but she paid no attention to her discomfort.
Her only concern was the scorching heat emanating from his body and the intense shaking of his limbs.
She couldn't see the wound clearly or clean it properly, so all she could do was apply pressure with a cloth and maintain a fierce, focused determination not to let him die.