She watches him go, so very tall and now broad-shouldered – and surprisingly calm, resigned even. Her little brother is become a man. He returns soon, bringing her some food.
‘What is this?’
‘Try it,’ he says grinning.
She nibbles a corner. ‘It’s quite… tender.’
‘Aye, rat-meat isn’t too bad.’
She goes to spit it out, then thinks better of it and keeps eating, trying not to retch.
Will’s smile fades. ‘Kirkcaldy of Grange has stepped up and taken charge. He says we are to surrender and we must do it quickly, before the castle is taken. This way we may survive, for the condition with any surrender is that our lives are spared. Kirkcaldy, amidst all his cares, has thought of you – he says you must be hid.’
‘Why can I not surrender along with you?’
‘Our terms are that we must be transported to France, at Arran’s expense, and if it does not suit us there, then we are to be transported to whatever country we desire, but not back to Scotland. Kirkcaldy says you are a gentlewoman and it is safer for you to stay hidden, else who knows what may happen to you. And I agree.’
He turns to leave and she grabs his jerkin. ‘We could escape, Will, through the tunnel.’
He shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry Bethia, but it is too late – otherwise I would have sent you back already, since I could not leave my fellows now. It’s a pity you chose this moment to come through, but Kirkcaldy ordered it blocked when he knew how you entered, and there’s been no shortage of rubble to shovel down it. That escape route is now closed and, if I were you, I would heed Kirkcaldy’s wise advice and hide.’
She picks at the skin around her thumb nail, already red raw, as she follows Will across the rubble-strewn courtyard. It seems the few other women, servants and whores, are not spared a thought, so she’s touched that Kirkcaldy considers her, amidst all his cares. But when they show her, in the flickering torchlight, where she is to be hid, she balks.
‘I will be trapped. I will die down there for no one will see me, or hear me.’
‘That is what makes a good hiding place, to be neither seen nor heard,’ pleads Nydie, and Morrison beside him nods in agreement.
‘Come, Bethia, be a good girl and do as you are told. We do not have time for this,’ growls Will, shifting from one foot to the other. She doesn’t want to embarrass him, can see he’s exasperated; but he, of all people, should know her terror of confined spaces. Already she’s finding it difficult to breathe and she’s still outside the pit.
All is suddenly silent; they’ve stopped firing. Everything seems to be moving slowly, as though in a dream.
Peter Carmichael struts over. ‘Either climb down or we’ll throw you in. You should never have come here, you’re nought but a nuisance.’
She flushes, but it is with fury. They didn’t think she was a nuisance when she brought Lee information about the mine.
Nydie steps between Bethia and Carmichael, but Carmichael sneers ‘You think you can take me in a fight. Try it, son, just try it.’
‘Enough,’ shouts Kirkcaldy as he ducks into the room. He wipes his face with the back of his hand, water dripping onto the floor from his cloak.
‘Make up your mind, lassie, we cannot wait all day while you dither. The East block house is rubble and we won’t hold out much longer. The rain is only a wee delay and as soon as it lets up they’ll start firing again. If we don’t surrender then they’ll take the castle, and it’ll be the end of us all. So you have a choice, you can surrender with us, or hide. But if it was my sister,’ he nods to Will, ‘I would be for hiding her, for who knows what they’ll do to a bonny young lass.’
Will nods in agreement. ‘Come on Bethia, please.’ He grabs her arm and hauls her towards the edge.
‘Stop, Will, stop,’ she cries. She digs her nails into the back of the hand gripping her.
‘Get down that ladder,’ he shouts, thrusting his red face into hers.
‘But if I go down, how am I ever to get out?’
He drops her arm and rubs his face, spreading the dirt further around it.
‘The lass is right,’ says Kirkcaldy. ‘She’ll no be able to climb out without help, and it’s better she has someone to aid her escape. You must get in there with her.’
‘Yes, Will, stay with me, please.’
Carmichael laughs. ‘Aye Seton, in you get, and we’ll bring you a gown and a shawl and you can be twa lassies the-gether.’
Will is still. She wonders what he’ll do and if she should get between them.
‘You sound jealous, Carmichael. Maybe a gown and shawl would suit you better.’
She would cheer him for those words, if she were not so afraid.
Carmichael punches Will in the chest, but he barely moves. In the midst of her fears Bethia wants to laugh; what can Carmichael be thinking, Will towers over him. He places his hand on Carmichael’s forehead and pushes. Carmichael staggers back and sits down, blinking. Will shoves past James and Morrison, and strides out of the guard-room. She hears the thud as his head cracks on the low archway but he doesn’t stop, or even reach up to rub it.
‘Enough,’ says Kirkcaldy. ‘Nydie, you will get in there and, when we have surrendered, you will wait for dark and you will climb out, taking the lassie with you. That is an order.’
James nods.
Morrison takes the torch out of its sconce and peers over the edge of the pit. ‘It’s difficult to make out, but it should be possible for you to climb out. Fortunately our miners did not make the sides ower smooth.’
Nydie grasps the ladder and climbs down. She can see the white of his face in the gloom shining up at her as he searches for hand-holds checking they can climb out. He calls up. ‘There’s the start of a passageway here which we can tuck ourselves in. We will manage, Bethia is a stout lass.’
‘Fine,’ says Kirkcaldy. ‘I wish you well.’
She doesn’t feel much like a stout lass as she crawls backwards to the edge of the hole, and searches with a flailing foot for the first rung of the ladder, but then she’s got both feet on and is descending. She shrieks as the ladder slides sideways, but James steadies it, guiding her down one foot at a time – just as Geordie once did. It seems so long ago. Thankfully, she reaches the bottom and they stand unsteadily, looking up at Morrison’s face backlit by flickering torch light.
She cannot stop shivering and James strokes her arm. ‘Never fear, the Lord looks after his own true and faithful subjects,’ he whispers.
Her shivering slows.
They crouch amongst the rubble as another cannon ball crashes into the castle walls. Morrison tosses a blanket down and Bethia calls up a thank you. As they crawl into the culvert, she sees the bottom of the ladder disappearing. Now they are trapped. Perhaps it would’ve been better to surrender with the rest of the garrison rather than be stuck like a rat in a half-excavated mine – not like a rat, for a rat would find a way out.
They hear Morrison smashing the ladder to pieces, then all is quiet, apart from the vibration of cannon ball hitting castle. The sound is muffled from so far beneath the ground and soon it stops. It must be raining again, or perhaps the surrender has begun. She shifts trying to find the least uncomfortable position and rolls off a particularly jagged stone. They wait.
Then there is movement above them; someone running across the rubble. They huddle down together, but a voice is shouting for James…
Chapter Forty-Five
The Cardinal’s Remains
Norman Leslie is running around the courtyard like a lost dog when Will charges out of the guardroom, blinking in the light and pushing away the thought of his sister’s distraught face.