Page 91 of Outlaw Ever After

He’d start in the undercroft and work his way up to the solars.

He slipped out of his doublet and back sheath. Slipped his documents from the treasurer into his belts, along with a taper and flint. Slipped open the hatch covered in a rug beneath his bed, and eased himself down into the darkness before pulling the hatch closed again.

Last night, the tin he and Aulay had once stashed, containing a set of castle keys, had proven to be undisturbed beneath the floorboards. He patted through the darkness, sifting through dust and cobwebs, until he found it and wedged open the lid.

He withdrew the keys.

He inched through the crawl space, reaching the narrow stairs barely wide enough for his shoulders, and scooted down on his rear until he reached the first floor. He took up the key ring to a tiny door, one of many that led to the escape passages of the castle. Pushing outward against the resistance of a tapestry concealing it, he peered his head through the crack.

The corridor was empty, the sounds of fanfare louder here.

Closing the door behind him, he straightened the tapestry and moved along the shadows to a servant stairwell, through another passage past the laird and lady’s chambers. In and out of the walls, he traveled like a ghost, until he found himself in the undercroft packed with furniture in storage.

He’d made Seamus painstakingly pry up the renovated tiles that afternoon to assess the materials used in the foundation repair from damage long ago, and they still had yet to be resealed. The iron crow Seamus had used was still propped in the corner. Striking his flint, he lit the taper and affixed it in the wall scone. He heaved the tiles up, one by one, revealing heavy pavers underneath. Taking up the crow, he pried between the grooves of the pavers, hoisting them up, one at a time, his pulse rising. Was this going to be the moment he came face to face with his sire again? Except…

Nothing but hard bedrock lay beneath.

Disappointment, and yet, relief, sagged his shoulders. He replaced the pavers, then the tiles, blew out the taper, and took the iron crow with him.

He crept through the castle to the pantries, doing the same. Storage lay beneath those tiles, but each crate proved to hold only household goods. He eased himself into the lady’s solar. The lingering scent of rosewater hovered in the darkness, a vestige of Peigi sitting here today. Using the bar, he pried each board up—the boards creaked as the metal fasteners pulled loose…

Footsteps shuffled in the corridor.

He froze. Listened, as the footsteps passed the chamber by. He exhaled. Pried up the next. Nothing.

That left the solar: where lairds exacted their power and rubbed it in the faces of others, such as defeated foes . He’d chased Peigi to the kitchens before Seamus had shown him the solar.

Alex crept past the lady’s chamber to the solar door and inserted one of the olden keys into the lock. It clanked open, and Alex did his best to muffle the sound. Blessed be, the locks were still original.

He slipped inside, closed the door, and eased the key back into the lock, resecuring it. Embers rolled in the hearth from an earlier fire. He maneuvered to it and ignited his taper against a coal. Holding it aloft, he looked around.

The desk his sire had crafted sat in the middle. He removed his records and reviewed them. Chipped masonry and a new panel above the mantel, fashioned as both decorative and a storage door. He removed the crossed swords over the hearth. It was new wood compared to the plastered stone wall that it had once been. It was a large wooden panel bearing the blazon of the Grant carved in relief. He found the handle on the side. Would this be the place? Was he ready to come face to face with his sire, after all this time? None of the other chambers had yielded results. Nothing else in the castle looked renovated.

He gritted his teeth, swung it open, holding his breath, and…discovered a newly masoned niche within where wood and tinder for the fire were piled.

Disappointment plummeted. This was the last renovation…

Footsteps thudded in the corridor again. Alex slowed and listened, when another key was inserted into the lock—

“Mi laird,” a man said.

“What do ye report, man?” came Seamus’s reply, the key pausing.

Damnation! Alex blew out the taper and fanned the air, swinging shut the blessedly-oiled hinges. He lunged for the swords and rehung them over the Grant blazon, careful, so careful not to clank.

“The renegade is finally abed. His rustling died down some time ago,” replied Sir Donegal.

“Good. See that he remains there.”

As Donegal continued his report, Alex snatched up his records, the iron crow, and scanned the darkened chamber—shadowy from the embers—for something behind which to hide.

The oaken desk was where Seamus would go if he intended to work.

A shelf upon which sat parchments, scrolls, and writing accoutrements was still upon the far wall, but wasn’t deep enough for hiding.

The door slipped open an inch as Seamus’s arm, latch in hand, stretched into view.

“Do ye think he’s dangerous?” Sir Donegal asked. “He’s been kindly enough. The folk here seem to like him, nay to mention Lady Peigi.”