Peel Castle, Isle of Man, Autumn 1446 #2
I have a rope and the linen gag and my Manx cloak – nothing else – and I have to clear the floor of this crypt.
It is filthy work. Straw has been thrown on dirty straw for years and never cleaned.
Shrinking with disgust, I use my booted feet to shuffle it in one long strip from the back wall to the seawall, and then I kick it back into place, in case anyone comes in.
Then I clear a strip diagonally across one way, and a diagonal in the other direction.
Nothing. I start a strip a few feet in from the entrance door, and this time, I feel my foot brush against something and hear the little muffled clink as I kick something made of metal.
I drop to my knees and clear the straw with my hands.
It is a metal ring. A metal ring set into one of the stones of the crypt floor.
I have no doubt that this is the entrance to the vaults below, built long ago by the cathedral builders to store the coffins of dead bishops, and last opened by Dolyn and his father, the Manx stonecutters.
I am never going to be able to raise it, unless it is counterweighted.
I have nothing to use as a lever, and I doubt I can simply haul it up.
I clear the straw from all around, and I use handfuls of straw to clear the joints of old dirt that might make it stick.
I clean the ring itself; I get my fingers underneath it and claw at it till it stands upright.
I thread the rope that tied me through the ring and look around.
If there was a ring in the ceiling, I could perhaps haul on it – but there is nothing.
I look to the iron door handle, but the rope will not stretch that far.
I stand over the ring, and I grasp the doubled rope tightly.
I heave. Nothing happens. I strain to the point of pain but it is worth hurting myself for this; this is my only chance.
I drop on the dirty straw beside the clean swept stone, and I rest for a moment, and then get to my feet again.
All the time, I am thinking: is there a better way to do this?
Is there anything else I can do? I sit on the floor and dig in my heels and try to pull the ring sideways, as if it might slide.
I try every point of the compass, and then – like a miracle – I feel it yield just a little and make a little clicking noise.
The metal ring is not for pulling; it is a latch for turning.
It is not a slab to lift up; it is a stone door, hinged to open inwards.
I twist the ring to the right, like turning a latch on a door.
There is a tiny movement, but it feels stuck fast. I take my hands off and rub them together; then I grasp the latch again through the woollen cape and turn witch-wise, widdershins, to the left.
It shifts – there is a scrape, and then the whole slab opens like a door into the darkness below me, and I can see stone stairs going down.
I am so exhausted by the heaving and so elated and frightened at the same time that I gasp for breath and hold my belly and feel bile rising in my throat.
I shoot a glance at the arrow-slit window: the sun is setting; I am losing light.
I must go from daylight into the darkness now.
I want to escape – God knows that I want to escape – but God knows that I am afraid of this stair that goes down to the burial vaults of unknown men and leads to the long barrow of ancient graves.
I sit on the edge of the vault and let my feet rest on the top step.
I think for a moment, with a shudder, that there may be some mechanism that closes the slab behind me and I will be trapped below ground and die here.
I look around for something to wedge it open – as if there is anything here but dusty straw!
I reach down and tie the rope to the ring and let it down into the darkness.
It hangs like a line into unknown deeps, but at least I have something to hold on to as I go down.
I move my feet down one step and sit on the top step, like a child.
I bump down another step and another, till my face is level with the floor of the crypt, and then I go down another step so that my head is under the floor, down one more, till I am below.
Something catches my eye. The hinged slab is on my left with the dangling rope, but to my right is a hole carved in the darkness of the rock, a little shelf, and on the shelf is a tinderbox, a genuine little tinderbox, and two tallow candles.
I cannot believe my luck. I sit and stare at the box and the candles, as if St Patrick himself had come to the island that carries his name and given them to me.
Disbelievingly, I reach out, take the box, and lift the lid.
There is a flint, a striker, some tinder, and a couple of short spills.
Of course, I don’t know how long it has been here, nor if the tinder is damp.
But I can always get straw from the crypt above – one thing I have in abundance is dirty straw.
I am so afraid of dropping the flint or the steel into the darkness below that I close the box tight and take it in my hand, back up the stair, and sit on the floor of the crypt.
Shading the flint from the golden light of the sunset as it falls through the arrow slit, I watch for the spark as I strike it against the steel and blow the spark on the tinder over and over again, completely patient – over and over again until there is a little red glow which eats up the tinder.
Carefully, I sprinkle tiny bits of dried straw, and they catch flame.
I hold the candle wick into the flame, gently, carefully, making sure that the wax does not drip on the flame and put it out.
It sparks a little, as if it is damp; it will not catch.
I twist it and hold the other side; I slant it a little more.
I am holding my breath so as not to blow the flame away, and then it flickers and flares and it is alight.
I press a fold of my cloak down on the embers in the tinderbox to put them out, and I put the lid on the box.
I must not lose this; I have never owned a more valuable treasure.
I tuck it into the neck of my gown and feel it cold and hard like a jewel between my breasts and my shift.
But I can’t delay; I have only the time of two candles to go along the barrow.
They should be good for hours, but I dare not delay now that I have the first one lit.
If I am not through the barrow by the time it has burned down, I will light the other and turn back.
I tuck the second candle in my belt, and with the light bobbing against the darkness before me, I go down the steps one at a time, seated like a frightened child, down and down and down.
The rhythm of my slow progress calms me, so that it is a little shock to slide my feet forward and find no edge.
I have reached the bottom. It is not pitch black; this is a cave carved from the sandstone underneath the castle, the steps cut from the side wall, and tiny, almost invisible slits cut high up into the opposite wall that faces out over the sea, to admit stripes of light and the eerie whistle of the sea wind.
Their light and the flickering candle show me a small round room with deep shelves carved out all around, like store cupboards.
With a squirm of horror, I realise they are not ordinary store cupboards: most of the shelves hold a stone box.
I can only see the end that faces the cellar, each end about two feet square: these are stone coffins, made of the local green slate.
They hold the bodies of dead bishops and dead priests from the time the cathedral above was built – hundreds of years ago.
I grit my teeth; I am in a charnel house, a tomb – but this is not the worst of it.
I have to go further back in time, to walk past the ancient dead and their ghostly guardians.
The shafts of sunlight are bright in the west wall, and I know the barrow to Horse Hill must run eastwards.
I turn my back on the little gleams of light and hold up my candle to the opposite side.
There is a great wooden door in the east wall with an iron ring latch.
A few tattered ribbons trail from wax seals; I imagine the door was locked and sealed by the bishops and then broken open by Dolyn and his grave-robbing father.
Those two common men had the courage to go through; I have the courage too.
I turn the latch and lean against it. It is heavy, but it slowly yawns open, well-hung on iron hinges.
I pass through and leave it wide open behind me: I am more afraid of being shut in than anything else.
My candle flame dips and flickers as the colder, damper air of the tunnel breathes towards us, and I pause and shield it with my hand and check that my unlit candle is in my belt and my tinderbox safe in my shift.
Pausing for a moment, I can smell old seaweed and salt on the air.
It is the smell of the seashore at the edge of the castle.
Perhaps this tunnel is blessedly short, running directly under the wadeway and coming out in a sea cave on the mainland at Horse Hill, perhaps a hundred steps will take me to freedom.