Resting his forehead against the post, he considered the other end. The post was fixed into a square into the ground. If he could pull it out…
Each time he pulled on the post, he was blinded by the pain from his torn back. Still, he tried again and again until he blacked out and collapsed. He woke and pulled himself up and tried again.
He fell a final time and lay with the side of his face against the cold, wet ground. He drank like a dog from the puddle beside his face. But he could rise no more. His only comfort was knowing he had provided Margaret and Ella with a home of their own, as Margaret had always wanted.
She and Ella were safe.
###
Margaret put her ear to the door but could hear nothing. She had no way of knowing if that meant no one was on the other side or that the door was so thick it blocked the sound. Biting her lip, she pushed on the door, gently at first. When it did not budge, she pushed harder, to no avail.
There had to be a latch. The way Finn had told the story, the secret door was disguised as a panel, which mean the latch would not be in plain sight. There must be a knob or something to press. But what if the latch could only be worked from the inside? Tunnels like this were made for escape.
She felt all along the edge of the door with her fingertips, searching for a thin break in the wood or in the stone that framed it. Panic made her hands shake when she still could not find it. To be so close to Finn and not reach him!
She refused to give up. She was not leaving without him. Once again, she started at the top of the door and methodically worked her way down every inch. Her nail caught on a tiny crack. With her fingertip, she followed the crack as it made a one-inch square. Using both her thumbs, she pressed on the square, and the door moved.
She had done it. The door shifted just enough for a thin line of light to seep through, outlining the edge of the door. Quickly, she scraped the mud off her boots, removed her cloak, and tidied her hair under her head covering as best she could in the dark. She wore the simple servant’s clothes she had stolen from Holyrood Palace in what seemed like another lifetime.
The household should be in bed, except for a few guards. If she ran into anyone, she hoped to pass unnoticed, just as she had at the palace. Most people saw what they expected to see, and they would not be expecting her.
Heart racing, she eased the door open far enough to peek through, and saw a small, empty room dimly lit by a torch fixed into a wall sconce. If anyone saw her coming through a secret doorway, there would be no mistaking her for anything but the intruder she was, so she had to do this quickly. Before she could dwell on the danger, she pushed through the door and shut it behind her.
In her haste, she closed the door harder than she meant to with a resoundingclump. She let her breath out when no one appeared. Now to find Finn—without getting caught.
She had lived in and visited castles all her life, many of them with secret tunnels that were not so secret, so she ought to be able to figure out how to find him. This room was actually just a landing, with one door opposite the secret panel and a dark, narrow set of stairs on either side, one going up and one down.
These were not the stairs used by the Earl of Caithness, his family, and guests, but rather a back stairwell used by servants and perhaps guards. The dungeon would be below, in the bowels of the castle. That’s where Finn would be.
If he’s still alive. She forced that thought out of her head.
After a quick glance over her shoulder, she took a candlestick from her pocket, lit it from the torch in the wall sconce, and started down the steps. Partway down, she came to another landing, with an arched door on her right. Judging from the wind blowing under the crack, it led outside. She continued down the last steps until she reached the bottom and what she hoped was the dungeon.
“Who’s there?”
She jumped when the deep male voice came out of the darkness.
“So my father has finally relented,” he said. “Quickly now, get these irons off me!”
It had not occurred to her there would be other prisoners, though it should have. She surmised this prisoner must be one of the Sinclair chieftain’s sons. She held up the lamp to light the rest of the dank, cavernous room, looking for Finn. But there were no other prisoners.
“You’re the ghost Finn sees in his dreams,” the prisoner said. “Get away from me! Go!”
Fear shot through her. His shouts could bring the guards. She blew out her candle and ran up the stairs, but partway up, she stopped. The prisoner mentioned Finn. He was here.
But if Finn was not in the dungeon, where was he?
She climbed the stairs back to where she had started. Rather than go up the next set of stairs where the bedchambers would be, she eased the door off the landing open a crack. The backs of two men blocked most of her view, but she could see that the room was the castle’s great hall. At this hour, warriors and servants were asleep on benches and the floor. The two men with their backs to the door were talking of women, as men do. Just as she was about to look elsewhere, she heard Finn’s name.
“Finn took it well, ye must say that for him,” one of them said.
“He deserved a few lashes,” the other said. “But it didn’t sit well with me to see him lashed senseless, not after he fought for Orkney with our last chieftain.”
Lashed senseless.Margaret’s stomach dropped, and her hand went to her mouth.
“Aye,” the first one said. “I wanted to cut him down, but I feared the chieftain would do the same to me.”
“Ah well, Finn will be out of his misery soon. He won’t last the night.”
