Further inside is damp and smells of mildew, and drips of water land on her head, running down the back of her neck. She shivers as she edges along, tripping over loose stones in the dancing light. The ground levels out and then suddenly there’s a wall of rock before them. The tunnel seems at an end.
She looks to John, who holds the candle high and points to a small hole in the rock directly above.
‘That’s the way in?’
‘It leads straight into the castle. Me and the boys have been along it.’
‘Oh John, you laddies were fortunate not to be caught, or killed.’
‘Hah!’ he puffs his chest out. ‘We are warriors, and it will take more than a few soldiers to catch us. The Castilians are stupid, they think God’s on their side so they don’t keep proper watch on their counter-mine; and the soldiers are stupid because they think the Castilians are clever, when actually they’re very sick, and those who aren’t are very lazy.’
‘You’ve been inside the castle?’
‘Only a littleways. They have had the pestilence and we didn’t want to catch it.’
‘Did you see Will, is he sick?’
‘No, we are clever warriors. We see no one and no one sees us. Are you climbing up or not, because the candle will burn out soon?’
She stands debating what she should do, clenching and unclenching her fists. If she goes home she’ll be married off and end up the property of the Wardlaws. She won’t do it. Not when she knows Father, without Mother’s insistence, would have been persuaded to wait. The siege may soon be over, but then again the Castilians have resisted every attempt to expel them – God surely is on their side.
‘Hurry up.’
She stares up at the hole in the rock. ‘You’re certain I won’t get stuck?’
He sighs long and loud, the sound echoing, followed by a silence so complete it is as though the stones have sucked the noise in. She knows he’s aware of her fear of confined dark spaces. Will once shut her in a kist and she couldn’t breathe.
John echoes her thoughts. ‘Remember when Father whipped Will for shutting you in that kist?’
‘I’d rather not think about the kist right now.’ But she hears the satisfaction in John’s voice at the memory of Will being whipped, and somehow it steadies her.
He insists she hold the candle and clambers up the rock face to show how easy it is.
‘See, place your foot here and then here,’ he says hanging over the edge and pointing. ‘It is only a short climb, so stop girning like a bairn.’
She cannot help but smile and sees, in the flickering light, John grin back at her.
‘Here, pass up the candle.’ He hangs over the edge so his whole upper body is mid-air and grabs it.
‘What’s that smell?’
‘The scunnersome thing is burning my jerkin.’ He beats at it with one hand and she hears him sigh, no doubt at the prospect of yet another thrashing for the burn hole.
She tries to climb, holding her skirts.
‘Girls and their stupid skirts,’ he says.
He drips some wax onto a rock and sticks the candle in it, which makes it difficult to see in the shadows, but frees his hands. Fortunately it’s a short climb, barely three times John’s height, and he reaches down, finds her hands and hauls her into the counter-mine.
It is so low she must bend double; this section was dug with little care and greater haste. He detaches the candle. They crouch and creep up the narrow trench carved down the middle. The tunnel climbs and curves, and she’s eternally grateful for the candle keeping the darkness at bay.
Suddenly there’s an opening on the right. She stumbles and nearly falls, but John tugs her into it.
‘What is this? Did they dig a second one.’
He shrugs but then she remembers Richard Lee’s earlier false starts as he tried to work out where the besiegers were tunnelling in. It must have happened again.
‘I can’t go any further,’ he says. ‘They’ll see the light if I go around the corner, and I will not douse the candle for then I cannot easily find my way back.’
She draws him to her, and hugs him. ‘You have been a loyal and true brother.’
They don’t speak of the brother who has been neither, but they’re both thinking of him.
‘When you get to the end, which is close, there’s a mound of rubble you must climb over to get out, but I’ll wait here for a wee whilie in case they’ve filled it in – which would have been wise,’ he mutters. ‘If you don’t soon return I will leave, but Bethia, be brave and climb quickly. I cannot stay long for the candle is near finished.’
She hugs him again and stumbles on like a confused mole. The light fades as the tunnel curves and rises. She bumps into a wall of rubble and realises she’s reached the end. She feels with her hands, it’s much easier to climb than the clumsy joining of the mine and countermine, for it is a mound rather than a rock face. There’s a light above – someone is coming.
Laying against the rocks she hopes it is someone who’ll recognises her, best of all Will, otherwise she may have escaped Wardlaw to a worse fate. A face appears holding a torch aloft. There’s an exclamation and a voice says, ‘Bethia Seton, by God’s good heart. What are you doing here?’
A hand reaches down and hauls her out. She staggers as she tries to stand. He places an arm around her for support and she looks up into the sweet-natured face of James of Nydie.
Part Five
Will & Bethia
July 1547
Chapter Forty-Four
The Castle
The besiegers have got their cannons atop St Salvators and more on the abbey tower: fourteen in total, Bethia tells the Castilians. It is as they suspected and, when daylight comes, it is confirmed. The garrison cannot even harry them, for all cannons are set high. Leslie questions her about this Strozzi from Florence, but again, there isn’t much she can tell.
‘A man who knows what he’s about, much like our Richard Lee did,’ says Leslie.
‘We should never have let him leave,’ mutters Carmichael, scowling at Bethia as though she was somehow responsible.
The bombardment begins and Will tells her to move from the Cardinal’s apartment. ‘There is nowhere safe and you have fled from danger into greater peril,’ he says, as they duck their heads at yet another explosion, followed by the rumble of falling masonry. ‘But the Sea Tower is, at least, further from their cannons.’
She is shivering but growls back at Will. ‘I would still rather be here and risk the cannons than have Walter Wardlaw force himself upon me.’
‘I am sure, as Father told you, Norman would protect you.’
‘And I am as sure that he would fail.’
She covers her ears with her hands.
Will glances to the ceiling as the room shakes. ‘Let’s go, quickly.’
She stays in the Sea Tower, cowering as the castle is pulverised. Arran’s guns take out the East block house, and damage the great hall. It’s clear the garrison cannot withstand for long, so depleted are they by bad food and sickness; and men escaping.
Will returns and stands before her as she crouches in a corner.
‘Norman Leslie is strangely silent,’ he says. ‘He knows it’s he who is seen as the ring-leader. He was called to Edinburgh to answer when we first took the castle and he was named in the Great Cursing; we are only the aiders and abettors.’ He rubs his forehead hard. ‘I think he is afraid, and I must go and help. We will resist as best we can, but I do not think it will be for long.’