There was a grinding sound as Isla turned the key in the lock. She stepped to one side as all the men filed out.
“Where to now, Fin?” Alex wanted to know.
Finlay said nothing but picked up the lantern the guard had left behind for Isla and told everyone to follow him. They walked past three more dungeon doors before they got to the last one. It was empty, and the door was slightly open. Using this as a guide, Finlay began feeling his way along the stone wall. The walls were inlaid with iron rings to where prisoners would be chained in times gone by. The wall opposite the last dungeon cell had a hole in the wall where an iron ring had once been, but the ring must have fallen out because the space was empty. Finlay reached his fingers inside the hold and felt upward. He found what he was looking for and pushed.
They heard a click, and a small section of the barred sluice grate at the bottom of the wall creaked. Alex bent down and pushed the bars on the sluice grate inward. A black hole gaped open.
“Dinnae fash, lads,” Finlay reassured them. “The entrance to the tunnel is small, but the tunnel widens once ye get inside the walls.”
“Make haste!” Isla urged the men, “it will nae take the guard long to find what I asked for!”
Finlay jerked his head, and his men began to crawl through the hole in the wall. He noticed Isla hesitating and gave the lower part of her back a small pat.
“Ye’ve been so brave to make it this far, lass. Will ye trust me one last time?”
Isla looked up at him. “But sir, it’s a sluice drain. God kent what sought of filth has been swept through it.”
“The dungeons have nae been used for naught but drunks an’ those who take pleasure in quarreling, Isla, an’ the privy holes drain out into the sea. Ye have nothing to fear.”
His words seemed to comfort her, so Isla ducked down and crawled through the hole. After checking the men were all out, Finlay locked the dungeon door again and placed the key back under the flagstone. When the guard returned and discovered that Isla was not waiting for him in the passage, he would not waste precious time checking if the other prisoners were inside; he would hightail it to the sentries at the gates and alert them. Then he would spend the rest of the night looking for her inside and outside the castle, by which time Finlay and his men would be long gone.
Finlay gave a small smile in the dark as he placed the lantern on the floor, leaving it there as he crawled through the hole. After hearing the bars click behind him, he crawled forward in the pitch dark, following the sounds of the scuffling prisoners in front of him.
