‘Stay there!’ he cried out. ‘Don’t come any further or you’ll fall!’
He realised he was calling out in his own tongue. Then, trying to summon up his knowledge but realising it was confined to the Greek of the sacred texts, he tried again, but by this time the person above him had seen the danger as the oil lamp Eadulf held illuminated the four-metre drop into the cell below. There came a stream of Greek that Eadulf could only presume was the owner of the voice expressing his disappointment in voluble terms. Then there was a pause.
‘Do you speak this language?’ came the voice at length.
‘I have only few words. Do you speak the language of the Éireannach?’
‘No.’
There was another pause. The man above must have been examining Eadulf in the gloomy light of the oil lamp.
‘I see that you wear a Roman tonsure. What of the Latin language?’ asked the voice in that language.
‘I speak it well enough,’ Eadulf replied, feeling relief.
‘Are you a prisoner too?’
Eadulf caught the emphasis of the word ‘too’.
‘So you are a prisoner? Indeed, I am a prisoner of Uaman, and if I am not mistaken, I am a prisoner not long destined for this world. I have been put in this place to die.’
‘How so?’ demanded the voice.
‘I was told that I had until high tide. From the look of this cell, I believe that when high tide comes, it floods up to roof level. The walls are damp and thick with moss and seaweed.’
The voice muttered something in Greek that he took to be an expression of surprise. Then the man spoke again.
‘I thought that by removing a few stone blocks in my cell, I would be tunnelling out to a place from where I might escape.’
‘You were escaping from your cell, then?’
‘I was.’
‘And where is your cell?’
‘Just behind me. The floor of my cell is just above what appears to be the level of this roof.’
‘Where is the light behind you coming from?’
‘Ah, I have a small barred window that looks out on the sea.’
‘Are you sure that you are above the sea level?’
‘I have watched the tides,’ came the response. ‘At high tide, I am just above sea level. Certainly the stone walls and floor of the cell that I am in keep out the waters.’
Eadulf felt a sudden surge of hope.
‘Then if I could somehow climb up to you and into your cell, I would avoid being trapped and drowned down here.’
‘You would be merely exchanging one cell for another. I have been trying to escape these last few days. I thought I had when I forced a way through into your cell.’
‘Well, better your cell than mine.’ Eadulf smiled in the gloom. ‘At least, from what you say, I won’t drown there.’
He peered up, trying to figure out distances by the light of his lamp. If the aperture was four metres from the floor, as he estimated, then it might as well be a million. The stone was too wet to climb and clammy with seaweed and lichen. There was no hope of even attempting to scale it. It would be far too slippery.
‘Perhaps when the water starts to flood in, I might be able to rise up with it,’ he suggested.
‘Dangerous, my friend,’ warned the voice above him. ‘Wait.’
Eadulf was about to rejoin that he would not be going anywhere, but the head and shoulders had disappeared.
An interminable time passed. He heard strange sounds, a tearing noise. Then the head and shoulders appeared again.
‘Stand by!’
Something came snaking down. It was a series of strips of torn linen knotted together. It came to just above his head.
‘Can you reach the end, my friend?’
‘If I put down my lamp and jump.’
‘In that case, do so. I think it will be strong enough. I have tied the end to the wooden cot here so I think it should hold.’
Eadulf put down the lamp. At his second jump his hands closed over the end of the strip and for a moment he swayed, crashing into the side of the cell and grazing himself on the stone blocks. He hung for a moment and then, slowly, he began to haul himself up hand over hand. The man above encouraged him and it did not seem very long until his head drew level with the aperture high in the wall. It was not large, but big enough to thrust his head and shoulders through.
His companion had started to back through the space before him. Eadulf realised that the mouth of the aperture gave on to a small tunnel-like hole which stretched upwards at an angle for a little more than a metre. The man backed upwards and out of the hole while Eadulf managed the difficult task of heaving himself over the edge into the inclining tunnel. A few moments later he was through and lying on the stone-flagged floor of his new-found companion’s cell, recovering from his exertion.
After a few moments he glanced round. His rescuer was hauling in the makeshift ‘rope’ which had been tied to a wooden imda, a bed frame. In fact, this was the only piece of furniture in a stone-walled, stone-floored cell. There was a thick wooden door at one end and in one wall a small barred window which, when he later examined the view, looked out on to the seaward side of the island.
Eadulf turned to his companion and grinned.
‘At least I am given a respite from a watery grave.’
The man facing him was older than he was. He was tall, and fairly muscular, with black hair that receded from his forehead and an abundant beard. He had a sallow, olive skin, and his brows and eyes were almost as black as his hair, which he wore without a tonsure. He met Eadulf’s grin with an equally humorous expression and shrugged.
‘A respite only, my friend. That is, unless we can make a new tunnel and find a means of escape.’
Eadulf went to look at the hole his fellow prisoner had made. A large block had been lifted to one side immediately under the bed, which disguised it from anyone making a quick examination from the doorway. The man shrugged.
‘I saw the stone was loose and prised it away. Then I saw the tunnel beyond. Well, not tunnel exactly. You saw that it was scarcely a metre long. I think it must have been an air vent when they first constructed it. However, I had hoped it would lead into another room or give me some means of egress. I little dreamt that I would be entering a cell far worse than mine. Had you not been there, I might have attempted to climb down, broken my leg or worse and then wound up drowning myself.’
Eadulf gave an affirmative nod. ‘You have my thanks for your intervention, for what my thanks are worth. It seems that they may not be worth much. Once our captors discover they have not drowned me, they will come here. But my thanks for this moment of respite.’ He reached out a hand. The dark man took it. His grip was warm and firm. ‘My name is Eadulf of Seaxmund’s Ham.’
The man raised his eyebrows a fraction. ‘A Saxon?’
‘From the land of the South Folk?’ Eadulf nodded.
‘Truly, my friend, you are far from home.’ His companion smiled.
‘I would say that you must be even farther from home,’ Eadulf pointed out with an answering grin.
The man responded with a chuckle.
‘Forgive me, my friend. I am called Basil Nestorios.’
‘A Greek?’
‘A healer, but from Jundi-Shapur.’
Eadulf shook his head. ‘I do not know of that land.’
‘Ah, it is a city, my friend, in the kingdom of Persia. The hospital and college of Jundi-Shapur hold first place in the world of medicine and science. Do you not know that all the great courts of the kings of the world recruit their physicians from Jundi-Shapur? Pupils from all the nations of the world gather there.’
Eadulf smiled softly at the pride in the other’s voice.
‘Persia is a long way from this land, Basil Nestorios.’
‘I do not doubt it, for have I not travelled every metre of the path here? A long journey only to end in this fashion…’ He gestured disdainfully to the stone walls. Then he looked at Eadulf. ‘What are you doing here, and why have you been imprisoned by the Evil One?’