The Blighted Cliffs (47 page)

I
sat there many hours, I think, trapped in the timeless day that must
have already turned into a Saturday. If I'd thought much about it, I
suppose I would have found it inconceivable that they hoped to invade
England with a battalion of Frenchmen and a few Kentish smugglers,
but I did not think much about it. I was happy enough to sit and
watch them work, stacking casks, whetting and oiling their blades,
priming muskets and going through the hundred miniature routines of
an army before battle. Once - it might have been around dinner time,
for all I knew - someone did think to bring me a few lumps of salt
pork and a mug of ale, and later a huge man with scorched hands came
to break off my leg-irons, but otherwise they paid me not the least
heed.

My
mind felt numb, emptied. For all the monstrous things I had heard and
seen that day, the outrageous plans that had been revealed, I had not
the strength to care for them. I was happy to observe in peace, with
the careless indifference of a child at a hanging.

Certainly
I noticed things: I noticed that there were other passages leading
from my cave, all apparently giving on to other parts of the
catacombs, and I noticed that many dozens of people moved like ants
through them. I noticed that of these men, the vast majority were
uniformed, and spoke in French. I noticed that Drake and Laminak
spent many hours in a small chamber just visible from where I sat,
poring over charts and conspiring quietly together. And I noticed,
some time later - well past nightfall, no doubt - that the activity
began to dwindle.

A
man appeared from an entrance not far from where I sat; the movement
caught my eye, and I craned my neck around to see him better. The
lean face and darting eyes were instantly recognizable, though he
wore fewer chains than when I had last seen him. Drake hurried to
meet him.

'They've
all gone from the castle,' Squires announced. 'Thousand
of
'em, easy. Reckon there can't be more'n a skeleton Crew left now.'

'Skeletons
is all they'll be, right enough,' Drake chuckled. 'Well done. You
must've spun them a right pretty story.'

He
walked away, moving slowly towards the front of the cave.

Behind
him, the white crossbelts and black boots which shone in the
firelight slowly organized themselves into two clear lines. A hush
filled the space. The distant roaring of the surf, which somehow
managed to seep through the rock, was the only sound now.

'Right,'
barked Drake, looking down the mingled files of soldiers and
smugglers. 'You knows what to do, and you knows who to stick it to.
None of us wants to be spendin' a life breakin' our backs with tubs
of geneva: do this one right, an' you'll all be rich as kings. Don't
spare them you can kill, cos it'll give us the castle a whole sight
faster. And soon as that's done,' he added viciously, 'the first
thing I'tl be doin' is takin' Sir Lawrence bloody Cunningham and
stringin' him up from his own gibbet.'

He
stepped back into the shadows to approving murmurs of agreement. Now,
Laminak took his place and made his own speech - longer than Drake's,
and in French. I caught the occasional word - la gloire seemed a
particular theme - but otherwise it made as much sense to me as to
the smugglers, who stood there in obvious, ill concealed boredom. At
length Laminak finished, to a chorus of dutiful French cheers.

'Alors
- al
lez!'

With
a rattling and clattering the men vanished, two by two, pouring out
of the cave and the chambers and passages adjoining it, under the
dark doorway and down the tunnel. They might not have been enough to
invade England, but it was a sobering length of time before the last
man marched past my forgotten little crevice. There was a pounding
and a banging in the distance - the last remnants of the wall to the
castle stairs being staved in, I assumed - and then I was alone. And
probably, I thought with surprise, the safest man in Dover at that
moment.

With
my distraction gone, nay mind, which had lingered in a resigned
torpor all day, began to work again. It was an almighty struggle,
forcing my thoughts around all I had learned, but at length I
reasoned out two choices. For one, I could sit out the battle where I
was, as safe as the mercy of Simon Drake would keep me, but although
there seemed little doubt he thought I might serve some later
purpose, I very much doubted I would enjoy his use of me. But if I
was to avoid that, and the prospect of living an abbreviated life as
an outlaw and highwayman, I would need to rehabilitate myself with my
country. And if I was to have any hope of doing that, I would need to
act quickly.

Pushing
my back against the wall - I could almost feel the blood squeezing
into the bandages that still bound my ribs - I stiffened my legs and
slowly squirmed myself upright. My wrists were tied behind me, but by
manipulating the rope through my fingers I managed to follow it to
the ring where it was fastened. I could bend my hands sufficiently
far back to get my fingers onto the knot, and desperately I started
picking at it. But it was too tight, and the rope too thick; after
ten minutes I had succeeded in fraying only my fingers, and splitting
open a nail. I tried for the ring itself. It was about an inch thick,
and I could just get my palms wrapped around it, but though I tugged
at it with all my strength, it gave nothing.

I
was still standing there, sweating from the heat of the nearby flames
and aching in my shoulders, summoning my strength for another, last
effort, when a new sound intruded on my isolation. Suddenly I was
slithering awkwardly back down onto the floor, trying to assume a
limp, helpless pose - not hard, after my exertions for I could hear
footsteps running down the tunnel on my left and coming steadily
nearer. I half closed my eyes. It would be a smuggler who'd forgotten
his cutlass, I supposed, though it did not seem the right direction.

And
then the new arrival was upon me, and I opened my eyes very wide
indeed.

'Isobel?'

For
the second time that day - or perhaps in two days: my reckoning had
slipped during those hours in the dark - I saw Isobel hurrying
towards me, her blue dress now covered in chalk dust but otherwise,
apparently, unharmed.

'I
thought you'd be here,' she said. 'And I hoped they'd kept you
alive.'

'For
the present. But I would not care to try their patience. Can you get
me out?' Again.

Isobel
looked at the rope that bound me, then reached a hand up her skirts
in a wholly undignified motion that would have made my mother faint
with shock. To the relief of my morals, and the confound of my
imagination, the hand emerged clasping a small dagger.

'Always
something up my skirt,' she said lewdly, crouching by me to saw
through the rope on my hands.

I
stiffened to be so close to the blade, but she was expert enough and
soon I felt the bonds fall away from my wrists. Before she could move
I indulged the new freedom of my limbs by wrapping an arm across her
back and pulling her in to kiss her on the lips. Ignoring the dire
emergency of the situation, I allowed myself to enjoy it for some
moments. She did not rebuke me.

'Thank
you,' I said, pulling back at last. 'For all you've done. You escaped
the smugglers in the tunnel, I presume?'

'Yes.
I've had time enough to learn these passages. It wasn't hard to skip
out from Drake's gang, even in the dark.'

'Good.'
I rubbed my wrists tenderly. 'So, do you know if any of them come out
near Saint Margaret's?'

'That
one there,' she said, quick as a cat, pointing to an anonymous side
tunnel. 'But you'll run straight into half an army if you go down
that way - half an army that thinks you're as treacherous as they
come.'

'I
know,' I said impatiently. 'Which is why I need you to go. Run as
fast as you can down to Saint Margaret's and find Captain Bingham.
You'd better make yourself plain to see or they might shoot you as a
smuggler - knowing no better, obviously. When you reach him, tell him
that the vanguard of a French invasion force has tunnelled into the
castle and, most, probably, seized it. Tell him he and Colonel
Copthorne must come at once if they wish to avert a full-blown
invasion.'

'Is
that true?' she asked, her face wide with disbelief.

'Of
course it's true,' I snapped. 'If he refuses to believe you, insist
on it, but on no account mention my name. If he asks how you know,
tell him ... tell him a man named Nevell sent you.' I gave a brief
description of Nevell, as well as I could remember him. I hoped it
would be enigmatic enough to be plausible. 'Tell the captain,' I
added, 'that there is a spy inside who will open the gates for him.'

Isobel
nodded. 'And who's that, then?' she asked, one eyebrow raised.

‘
ale.
But don't tell Captain Bingham that.'

'Why
not?'

'Because,'
I
said honestly, 'he probably won't believe you.'

As
I kissed her goodbye and started down the tunnel Drake and Laminak
had taken, I wasn't entirely sure I believed it myself.

21

IT
WAS NOT FAR TO THE STAIRS, AND HAVING PROCURED MYSELF A pistol which
the smugglers had left behind, I reached them quickly enough through
a brief chain of caves. Thick dust still filled the air, and there
was rubble spilled across the steps where the wall had been
demolished, but once I had picked my way through the shattered
opening I found the stairs smooth going, well lit by lanterns
recessed regularly into the walls. It remained nonetheless a
heart-pounding climb, and not merely from the exertion of it. My
right arm - my pistol arm - was pressed against the central spindle,
and my footsteps sounded horribly loud in the close space. The
staircase had the unpleasant effect of being one protracted blind
corner, and I climbed with the mounting terror that I would round a
bend to find a sword in my guts or a gun in my face, my adversaries
well warned by the noise of my feet, or my pained breathing.

So
intent was I on thoughts of ambush that I very nearly missed the end
of the staircase and was close to ramming my skull into the thick
trapdoor that capped it. Fortunately, my much-abused head had at last
begun to draw the lesson of its experiences, and seemed to have
developed an effective sense of unseen hazards close above.

I
looked up just in time, and stopped within a literal hair's breadth
of the ceiling.

I
paused. Then, with my left hand, I pushed tentatively against the
wood. It gave readily, and I inched it open a fraction, putting my
pistol to the crack. There was no challenge, but I halted nonetheless
as I heard voices filtering through and saw the muzzle-like ends of a
pair of cavalry boots pointing straight at my face. In the distance I
could hear much clamour mingled with occasional shots, and I had to
concentrate hard to discern the words that were being spoken above
me, all the while petrified that someone would notice that the
trapdoor was not shut fast. The light in the room was mercifully
faint, though, and the occupants too intent on their conversation to
look down.

'We've
got the keep locked tight.' I had not heard Drake's voice often, but
I had heard it enough, and in sufficiently memorable circumstances,
to recognize it at once. 'And Danny should have the outer walls
broomed out by now. If our luck's on the up, there'll be none that
got away.'