The Blighted Cliffs (45 page)

'I
shall see you presently,' said Cunningham.

The
gate slammed shut.

19

I
N
THE PAST FORTNIGHT I HAD BEEN ACCUSED OF MURDER, subjected to
constant gibes by my superiors, assaulted in a churchyard, knocked
unconscious in battle, deceived by a woman and thrown in gaol -
twice, now. I was becoming a true connoisseur of self-pity. Alone in
that cell, with only the distant light of the outer doorway to break
the darkness, I finally gave full voice to my accumulated sorrows. I
wept; I trembled, first with fury and then with terror; I cursed
everyone I had ever met in Dover, from the coachman who'd driven me
there to the poltroon who'd fallen over the cliff to the sadist who'd
kicked me into this foul hell of a prison. I spared some peculiarly
vicious thoughts for Squires, for being so wicked as to escape our
captivity and blame it on me. If I ever met the villain again, I
promised myself, he would be sure to suffer for it.

I
cursed Isobel for lying to me, for manipulating me, and then I
realized how much I wanted her, and felt even more wretched. I
wondered what the morrow would bring, whether Crawley would win the
triumph he so craved, and whether he would remember me when I was
hanging from a gibbet and he on the quarterdeck of a frigate in the
Mediterranean. I remembered my uncle's ultimatum, now only two clear
days away, and shook with the chill knowledge of certain failure. I
kicked the floor and beat the walls with my fists and wept again.
None of it helped me feel remotely better.

The
light in the doorway began to dim. The occasional sounds from the
market square beyond became more sporadic, then ceased altogether.
The last dregs of light vanished. Cocks crowed; a cart rumbled past.
All my hatreds and regrets, bitterness and recriminations swarmed
about my head in a frenzy of pity. Perhaps I slept; in complete
darkness, and alone, I could scarce tell whether my imaginings came
with my eyes open or shut. I saw Isobel, arching her naked back as
morning light fell on her through the window; I saw Crawley, shouting
for more canvas on a heaving deck; I saw Vitos, leaping off a cliff
and flying like a bird; and I saw Webb, walking out of the waves with
seaweed for hair and cockle shells for eyes. I saw Mazard silhouetted
against a blood-red sun in his glass cage, laughing, and I saw a
strange, flickering face chanting dark incantations in my ear.

I
shook, and started. This last vision, I saw, was no dream but
reality, a soft face inches from my own, whispering urgently at me.

'Martin.'

The
voice was insistent, but curiously pleasant for that. Not unlike…
'Martin You've not got much time.'

My
dazed eyes at last began to fathom my surroundings. The blackness of
the dungeon around me had been rolled back by a candle, its flame
sputtering as much from the unsteady hand which held it as from the
shifting prison vapours. And the person attached to that hand, whom
no amount of incredulous blinking could dismiss, was Isobel.

'Come
on,' she whispered, her dark eyes cast even rounder by the erratic
shadows.

'They
caught you, did they?' I asked dully. 'Well, I had nothing to do with
it.'

'I
came by myself.'

I
began to feel the urgency in her voice, the almost desperate
impatience.

'I'd
recommend the
Crown
and Anchor
over this piss-hole, actually, if it's amusement you're looking for.
Or even the
Red
Cow
.'

Despite
my straitened situation, or perhaps because of it, I had become
strangely facetious. 'Or perhaps you have some work you should be
doing on a dark, deserted beach this evening.'

Holding
the candle deftly to one side, she leaned forward and smacked me hard
across the face. With Stubb's grazes still fresh on my cheek, the
brusque sting of it was agonizing - an agony to which I gave full,
uninhibited voice.

'Be
quiet!' said Isobel sharply. 'Do you want to escape or not?'

'Escape?'
The impact of the word was almost as bewildering as her slap, but
with an edge that at last began to clear my muddied consciousness.
Hope welled within me, but as quickly hardened into brittle
suspicion. 'And how do you propose that?' And, more to the question,
why?

But
Isobel had withdrawn from the conversation - in view of my boorish
off-handedness, I supposed - and taken the circle of light that
surrounded her across to the far corner of the cell. As the darkness
covered me again, I lost all resistance. I suddenly felt, more
desperately than ever, my overwhelming need to escape that gaol, and
I suddenly recognized that Isobel, here and now, would likely be my
best, perhaps only, chance. Limping and hobbling with the weight of
my chains, I stumbled after her before the light vanished.

But
the light was drawn to a halt in the corner. Isobel had set the
candle down and was scrabbling about the floor with her fingers, like
a dog hunting its bone.

'Help
me,' she said hurriedly as her hands came to a pause. Astonishingly,
she seemed to have levered them into the very fabric of the floor.
'In here.'

I
went down on my knees beside her, and for a second glimpsed a strange
image of us both in a pew in church together, my father preaching
over us. Then she was whispering hurriedly, gesturing at the crack
she had opened in the flagstones and urging me to get my fingers into
it. Too dazed to resist, I did as she said, shuddering a little at
the slime oozing against my skin.

'Now,
lift.'

Isobel's
thin arms went taut, straining upwards, and quickly I joined the
effort. With a low, grating rumble, I felt the stone in my hands go
loose, then lift out of the floor. We pulled it forward over the lip
of the adjoining slab. Then, panting slightly, I looked down at the
pool of darkness we had uncovered.

'Get
in,' whispered Isobel. 'And fast. We've not been as quiet as we
should have.'

I
could not begin to understand what was happening, but I could see
enough to realize that this must be the escape she had offered. Yet
still I dallied. Until now I had at least had the comfort of my
innocence to sustain me. If I lowered myself into that hole, I would
be surrendering that advantage, and with it all hope of absolving
myself.

Isobel,
however, had no patience with such niceties. 'Come on' she hissed,
sensing my hesitation. 'Sir Lawrence can only hang you once, and he's
set to do that anyhow.'

She
was, of course, entirely correct, though that was scant comfort.

'I'll
fare little better with your smuggling friends,' I objected. 'We
may share a common enemy, but they'll hardly clasp a naval officer to
their bosom, no matter how disgraced he might be.'

I
felt my spirit stutter as I contemplated the full hopelessness of my
condition. To be stabbed by the smugglers or hanged by Sir Lawrence -
who could make a choice like that? But Isobel would allow me no time
for pity.

'We're
not going to the smugglers,' she insisted. 'I'm here on my own, to
help you escape, if only you'd let me.'

'Do
you think I'll believe that? I saw the brandy, you may recall.' 'No'
Her black hair flashed in the candlelight as she tossed her head
angrily. 'I carted round a few tubs for them, and snitched on what
Sir Lawrence was up to, too, back when I worked for him, but you'll
not find a man or woman or a child even in Dover who'd done less if
it was asked of them.' She fingered the cut on her cheek. 'You know
as well as I do, Martin, that they don't ask kindly, and they don't
ask more than once when they want something. But I never snitched on
you, and I never meant you harm. And now, if you'll let me, I'll risk
a lot of trouble to save you. If you're not so set on going to the
gallows an honest man.'

There
was much I could have said, but before I could begin to find the
words there came a loud thump from the far end of the gaol, as of a
door or a window closing.

That
was enough for Isobel. Despairing of my doubts, my indecision, she
put a palm on my back and shoved me forward. I half fell, half jumped
into the hole before me, banging my tender ribs on the edge, and
landed in darkness again. Above me I could hear Isobel tugging the
flagstone back into position. When it had half covered the opening
she appeared above me, and handed down the candle.

'Get
clear,' she hissed. 'Over there.'

I
stumbled cautiously forward, keeping my head well down and my arms
out in front of me. Everything around me was dark, but while I could
feel stony walls to my left and right, ahead the way seemed clear.

Isobel
slithered down behind me, reached for a ring in the underside of the
stone above us and pulled it across what remained of the opening. The
slab flopped into its groove, dislodging a cloud of dust and pebbles
onto us. Then we were alone, in silence.

Isobel
took back the candle, though there was no room for her to squeeze
past.

'Straight
on,' she whispered. 'I'll tell you when to turn.'

We
walked a long time in darkness, my fingers trailing over the
crumbling walls on either side to guide me. Sometimes my hand would
lose the surface, presumably where side tunnels branched into our
passage; in other places I saw thin beams of dusty light filtering
through what must have been the floorboards of parlours or drawing
rooms above. Always there was the sound of Isobel behind me,
whispering to herself and counting off the turnings as we passed
them.

'Here,'
she said at last, tugging on the back of my coat. 'Left.'

I
felt my way into a narrow side tunnel and almost immediately yelped
as my shin encountered a solid barrier barring my way.

Fortunately,
the eerie silence of the surroundings stifled my cry
enough to draw only a half-hearted 'shhh' from Isobel. She reached
the candle past my waist so that I could see what was before me. A
wooden ladder was propped against the rough wall that abbreviated
this branch of the passage, leading up through the roof of the tunnel
into a small stone box. In which there must have been a crack, for
when Isobel pulled back the candle I could see a thin slice of light
carving through it.

'Where
are we?' I asked. 'And where am I expected to go from here?'

'Somewhere
you've been before,' said Isobel briskly. 'Except you were six feet
up then. Unlike most of them you get around here - they're all six
feet under.'

With
a shudder, I saw that our little candle did not just shine off rock
and earth. There were bones embedded in the walls.

'We're
under - within - a churchyard,' I hazarded. The air around me seemed
suddenly much fouler, much thicker.

'St
James's. Just around the corner from Miss Hoare's, and exactly under
that big statue of bad old Cal Drake. Which, you'll find, isn't half
so solid as it looks.'

I
stared again at the stone box capping the ladder. It must be the
plinth, I realized, the base of Cal Drake's whited monument,
'Dedicated to his memory by his loving brother, and all who knew
him,' I recited, the words forming effortlessly in my mind.