Betrayed (21 page)

Connor thought back to when he had stripped down to only his breeches and allowed Antonio to slather him
in lamp oil. At the time, he had thought it was a ridiculous idea. How tight could the shaft get? Now he could only hope that Antonio's idea of greasing him up like a stuck pig would make the difference.

“Aye, Na'gu'set. I'm ready.”

“Wiggle your toes when you are completely out of air,” Na'gu'set instructed.

Connor didn't have to blow for long. The rocks were already constricting his breathing so much that it only took a second for the air to run out. He wiggled his toes. Grabbing onto a seam in the shaft, he pulled. A sharp, searing pain erupted from either side of his chest. If he had any air left in his lungs, he would have cried out in anguish as his ribs cracked, the sharp noise echoing in the floodway. Suddenly, Connor shot forward a couple of feet. He came to rest in a slightly wider cavity. Gritting his teeth, he allowed the tears to flow freely as his sides ignited with fiery pain.

“Connor! Are you hurt?”

“I think I cracked my ribs,” Connor groaned, “but I am through.” He tried to regain control of the pain in the still darkness as both young men contemplated their situation.

“You are thinner than I,” said Na'gu'set, finally. “I don't think I can follow you any further. Can you go the rest of the way on your own?”

His aching sides were crying “No!” but there was no turning back now. He forced himself to ignore the fire in his ribs as he slid forward several more inches. “I reckon so.”

“Then may the Great Manitou be with you, Connor. Here. Take the rest of my water. You will need it when you reach the end.”

An invisible hand tapped his foot through the opening.
Connor reached back and took the small water skin from his friend.

“Thank you, but what are you going to do?”

“I will slide backwards to the narrower passage behind us and try moving in that direction. We must hurry, Connor. Prince Henry said that we do not have much time. They will be setting the traps very soon, which will put our floodway permanently underwater.”

“Then I will see you on the other side,” replied Connor.

Gritting his teeth against the searing pain from his ribs, Connor looked into the nothingness that lay ahead. Grabbing hold of a crack in the floodway, he slid himself forward a few more inches.

Robertson was furious.

“We told Grand Master Douglas that the culverts would be flooded yesterday! At this pace, we'll be lucky if we even get a crack in the coffer dam by sunset! For the love of God, put your backs into it so that we can all go home and see our families!”

Robertson stood at the highest point of the curved coffer dam looking back at the shore line. Huge jets of spray shot up into the air behind the dam, giving the disgruntled foreman the appearance of an angry sea god. Robertson, however, cursed the strong winds and huge ocean waves that had delayed his efforts to finish the project. Unfortunately, this dam had not been designed to collapse quickly like the one on the other side of the island. Bringing this one down had required hours of backbreaking work and excavation
to ensure that several seasons of Atlantic storms would remove any evidence of the dam's existence.

“You know we want to get back to our families as badly as you, Master Robinson,” piped a filthy worker. “But we can't help the weather. If we had been out here yesterday, half of the crew would have been swept out to sea!”

Red-faced, Robertson screamed, “Instead of flapping your lips, why not put your energy into tearing down the dam!”

Although he was bellowing like a madman, Robertson was indeed enjoying the moment. Black Douglas had put him in charge of the whole operation. With the death of Prince Henry, Black Douglas had decided to sail ahead to New Jerusalem with Princess Sarah. The vast majority of the sappers, craftsmen, engineers and designers were already en route for Europe. Robertson was left in charge of the final ship and a skeleton crew of workers to finish the job at Oak Island before sailing home to Scotland.

The temporary town of tents had been taken down, the remaining acorns had been planted in the open fields and all that was left to do was reduce the two coffer dams to sea level. The natural eroding action of the waves would handle the rest. Robertson looked around the island with satisfaction. In twenty years, no one would ever know that one of the greatest engineering feats in the world lay underneath this tiny island.

He glanced skywards. The high position of the sun told him it was just after midday. He felt that if the weather did not get any worse, they could finish the job of breaking down the dam and setting the ingenious trap before sundown. Then it would take just another two days to finish
off the remnants of the second dam that once protected the entrance to the Temple. By the end of the week, they could all go home.

The thoughts of welcoming women, mutton and freshly brewed ale beckoned him from beyond the horizon. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and inspected the five stone culverts that fanned out into the bay. Once in the sea, the culverts would run saltwater to the trap above the temple.

“Easy, lassie,” he mumbled to his masterpiece of engineering. It looked like the hand of a stone giant resting in the mud of the bay. “You will get the chance to soak your fingernails in just a little while.”

His daydream of success was broken by a sudden commotion. A young worker's leg was pinned by the tumbling of a large boulder. The worker was screaming, and several men were running to his assistance. Robertson was just about to chastise the clumsy oaf for furthering the delay of their departure when a slight movement at the opposite side of the bay caught his eye. Something was happening at the end of the middle finger of the culvert. The exotic stuffing of coconut husks that Prince Henry had discovered in the warm southern waters of this new land was a perfect filter for the culvert. The husks amazingly refused to rot in salt water. But something was pushing the husks out of the end of the floodway tunnel! For a second, Robertson thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but then he saw the husks move again.

“Bloody varmints,” spat Robertson to himself. “One of those stupid groundhogs must have got caught.”

Robertson watched with disgust as the husks were pushed further out of the pipe. Then the unimaginable
happened. Instead of the head of a large, furry creature appearing in the gap, a human hand reached through the muck and into the bright sunshine!

“Impossible!” Robertson gasped as he broke into a run along the top of the coffer dam.

“Stay with that injured man!” he shouted down to the crowd below. “I'll go and get more help!”

Robertson watched in horror as a head, then shoulder and finally a body oozed out from the culvert. Although soiled from head to toe, Robertson recognized the figure at once. It was the boy from the Kirkwall sea fortress! He had been trapped with Prince Henry within the underground temple.

“Good God,” he hissed, as he broke into a sprint, “that means they're still alive!”

Connor, blinded by the sudden brilliance of the sun, stopped and sucked in a glorious lungful of fresh sea air. After weeks of darkness, he had never experienced anything as wonderful as this moment. It was as if he had been reborn! Sea spray tickled his face, and the boom of the breakers on the rocks echoed right down to the bottom of his soul. Praise God, he had made it!

Blinking, Connor pulled at the coconut strands that were tangled around his legs and prevented his full escape. Starving and thirsty, he forced his battered body to crawl through the mud and up onto the rocky shore. He staggered into a standing position, but his head spun from the effort. His legs wobbled. In the midst of collapsing backwards
onto the beach, someone grabbed him by his arms and steadied him.

“I can't believe it! Is it you, Connor?”

Never had another human voice sounded so lovely. Connor managed an exhausted nod.

“What a miracle this is! Here, let me help you off this beach, lad. My Lord in Heaven, you look awful.”

Connor tried to take a step forward but nearly collapsed again.

“Here, how about I just carry you?”

Robertson swung a powerful arm up underneath the half-naked boy, caught him under the legs and lifted him clean off the ground. Connor yelped as his ribs exploded in protest. Robertson nervously looked over his shoulder. The workers were still busy tending to the wounded worker, and the crashing waves had masked the sound. It seemed that only he had noticed the miracle of Connor's emergence. Robertson breathed a sigh of relief. He shivered as he imagined the slow and painful death he would receive should the truth of his involvement in Prince Henry's attempted murder be revealed to the other workers.

Robertson almost ran with Connor across the rocky shoreline and into the protection of a small glade. Glancing back, he realized that a clump of thick cedar blocked any view from the dam and the other workers. He lay the injured boy down onto the soft needles and stole a second look towards the shore to ensure they were not being followed.

“Water?” Connor managed to whisper.

“Did you say water, lad?”

He nodded weakly.

It seemed only appropriate to allow the boy a final
request. Robertson threw him the small skin of water he had hanging over his shoulder.

“Take it. Drink all you like.”

Connor took the water skin and ravenously placed it to his lips. He let the cool, liquid trickle down his parched throat.

“Would you like some bread as well?”

Connor nodded enthusiastically. Taking a chunk from the foreman, he happily chewed on the best tasting bread he had ever put into his mouth. Almost instantly, a rush of energy revitalized his cold and bruised body.

“Thank you, Master Robertson,” Connor croaked.

His rescuer kneeled down beside him. “Are you able to talk about what happened?”

Connor nodded.

“After all of these days missing, how did you end up coming out of the culvert?”

Between chews, Connor explained how he, Prince Henry and his friends were trapped inside the Temple by the sudden rush of water. He then described how they had built the scaffolding in the cavern in order to reach the culvert system. Finally, he blurted out all of the details of his painful crawl to the outside world. Robertson shook his head in admiration.

“An amazing tale, my lad,” said Robertson. “Didn't think such a journey was possible. I helped build those culverts myself.”

“I didn't think it was possible, either. But I have the cracked ribs as proof that it is.”

“And the good Prince Henry is still alive . . .” he muttered.

Connor smiled. “Yes! He's alive and well. But he needs our help!”

Robertson looked uneasily back towards the ocean. “Is he crawling for the surface as well?”

Connor shook his head, thinking about Na'gu'set. “No. I was the only one small enough to make it through. But he does have a plan. We need all of the other workers to make it a success. Can you take me to the knights so that I can explain it to them?”

Robertson stood up and frowned. “I'm afraid that will be impossible.”

Connor looked at him, confused. “Why? I don't understand.”

“Because,” Robertson explained, unhooking a hammer from his belt, “Prince Henry was supposed to die in that chamber, and if we do nothing, then he will still die as planned . . . that is, as long as there isn't anyone alive to tell of his survival.”

Robertson raised his hammer for a fatal downward thrust onto the young man's skull. Instinctively, Connor rolled to his side and released a vicious kick to the back of Robertson's knee. The man cried in agony as his leg collapsed. Ignoring the burning pain from his damaged ribs, Connor continued to roll away from the master, creating some distance between them. He then lunged sideways for a thick branch and staggered to his feet. Connor would have given anything at this very moment for a decent shield. Robertson recomposed himself, flexed his injured leg, and moved forward, hammer at the ready.