Alan walked between them and picked up the saucepan lid.
‘The hunt grooms will to be here with their lorry at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, Master,’ he said soothingly. ‘We’ll all be on hand to see to it. There’ll be no harm done.’
‘We’ll have the colt loaded and on his way before you’ve even bothered to get yourself out of bed,’ said Caz.
Sir Jonas rapped his stick on the floor, raising his voice again. ‘I cannot, and will not, tolerate further exposure of our prime bloodstock to the prying eyes of the equestrian confederacy!’
‘But it’ll cost a fortune to change everything now, Master,’ Alan pointed out.
‘I don’t give a hoot about the cost! We simply cannot afford to have such people setting foot on the estate! Our position must be made quite clear!’
‘Hunt servants don’t need telling about position!’ snarled Caz.
‘They are spies! They are all spies! Those whores were just the first move in their vile conspiracy to snatch Valkyrjan from our midst!’ He jabbed his stick at Caz. ‘You have been unforgivably careless in her management!’
Caz grabbed the stick. ‘Take that back!’ He forced the trembling old man up against the wall with the stick against his neck. ‘You take that back! Do you hear me? Take it back!’
Blue yelped and slunk under the table, snarling. Sir Jonas felt bitter breath on his face and a burning blade at his throat. A cold voice rasped: ‘She holds to her own exalted purpose, old fool. There is only one Master.’
He screamed, terrified. ‘I am his servant!’ The grip loosened and he bolted down the passageway to the study.
Caz threw the stick to Alan. ‘Freyja doesn’t deserve to have to do Hag Night with that,’ he spat the word, ‘on her back!’
‘Calm down, boy. I’ll go and set him to rights. There’s nothing that a good shot of brandy won’t soften. The colt will be gone in the morning and that will be the end of it. Meantime, get your gear on and go and fetch the pretty lady. Meet me in the garden by the old shed on the east wall in about twenty minutes. There’s something I want to show you.’
CHAPTER 75
The lights were on in the shed and the double doors were wide open when Kyri led the mares along the garden path. Alan closed the doors behind them and hung the key up on a hook on the wall, pointing it out to Caz as he did so.
‘Just so you know where it’s kept,’ he said.
He shut off the light and pulled a heavy lever. Freyja snorted and stamped, and Rúna pressed close to Kyri as the solid wooden cladding against the wall slid away to reveal a brightly lit, underground passageway.
‘What’s all this?’ asked Caz.
‘You’ll see,’ replied Alan. He showed Caz a similar lever on the other side of the partition. ‘Make sure you always close up as you go.’
‘Another Guardian thing,’ said Caz.
‘Yes.’
The mares followed Caz into the passage. The heavy panel slid silently back into place behind them. The wide space at the bottom of the slope was no longer empty. A mountain bike and a small two-wheeled cart, purpose-built to be towed behind it, were parked against the wall. Several bales of hay and straw were stacked in one corner. Caz noted the tethering rings set into the walls… the long harness hook let into the ceiling… the water bucket under the tap. There were no stalls.
Why would horses be tied up here? he wondered.
Alan took the bike. ‘This is my transport. You might want to make use of yours, but you’ll have to keep your head down. They didn’t reckon on producing the likes of the pretty lady in those days. The password’s easy.’
He tapped V-A-L-K-Y-R-J-A-N on the security screen. An almost invisible door opened in the far wall.
Caz sprang onto Kyri’s back. ‘This is Sir Saxon’s old tunnel, isn’t it? The one you told me fell in?’
Alan nodded and laughed. ‘Welcome to the Medustig!’
‘The what?’
‘The Path to the Mead Hall in the old language, or the Mead Hall Path or just the Path, whatever you fancy calling it.’
The mares surged forward into a brick-lined passageway lit at intervals with cleverly concealed strip lighting. Just before it turned the first corner, Alan pointed to a section of the wall on the right-hand side of the passage with a door and another panel beside it. ‘I’ll give you a passkey to get in there. It goes straight into the security room.’
‘How come?’ Caz asked, surprised.
Alan grinned. ‘The wall opens up behind the screens, where the first Guardians’ old door from the vault used to be.’
The tunnel bent around another corner and the lights went out. Alan stopped to turn on the big headlamp on the front of the bike. ‘This is where the hard graft begins. All the rain we’ve had this summer has given me a chance to get down here and finish what I’ve been fiddling about with these last ten years. I’m not sorry to see it done. It’s been a tough job mining it all out.’ He grinned. ‘Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age.’
‘Why Medustig?’
‘Not all the staff were Guardians when this was dug out, and understandably Sir Saxon didn’t want them cottoning on. So, in the interests of security, the word tunnel was knocked out of the Guardians’ dictionary and Medustig put in.’
He leaned forward over the handlebars and began peddling hard, keeping ahead of the horses. The brickwork gave way to rock and the tunnel began to slope steadily upwards. Every move they made echoed in the underground passageway. Sometimes the roof dropped lower and Caz laid along Kyri’s neck, following the stocky figure clearly outlined in silhouette against the light in front of them… the hilt of the seaxe in the scabbard on his back… the even rhythm of his legs pumping the peddles… the edges of the heavy bag of practice weapons strapped to the rack behind him.
They came to a long, straight section where there were no signs of cracking or recent repair in the rocky walls. Caz tried estimating the distance they had already come. He called out. ‘Are we under the Beech Walk?’
Alan shouted back over his shoulder. ‘We’re just to one side of it. Sir Saxon never let any tractors go through there while the earth was settling and the horses always had to be walked. It worked right enough. This bit was always good. The trouble came further up, as you’ll see.’
The tunnel became steeper and rougher under foot. Alan was sweating when he got off the bike and turned the light into a dark opening where a large underground cave had been hewn out of the rock.
‘This is where we take a breather,’ he said. ‘The old Guardians called this the Selerest, literally the ‘rest in hall’. It’s a bit more than halfway up the line but we regulars call it the Halfway House, one of those old-style, high-quality establishments that still caters for horses. You’ll need to dismount and take care on the step down.’
He parked the bike and lit a hurricane lamp, hanging it on an overhead, central hook. An iron stove on a wide hearth stood in one corner, next to a stack of seasoned firewood. A kettle, an iron pot and more hurricane lamps hung on two other hooks let into the wall. A big metal water bucket had been filled under a tap attached to a long pipe connected to an underground spring. Several bales of hay and straw were stacked up under a flight of wooden steps that disappeared into a narrow chimney of rock in the roof.
Kyri’s eyes were glowing. She drank from the water in the bucket under the tap. Caz broke open one of the bales and gave each of the mares a wedge of hay. He refilled the bucket. Freyja drank deeply. Alan filled it again for Rúna, and smiled. ‘Looks like they’re set straight for the evening, doesn’t it?’
Caz grinned. ‘So where’s the bar?’
Alan pointed to the new feed bins next to the steps. ‘Full menu. Specials on request.’
‘I meant for us, not the horses.’
‘It is for us. Old Dais had me get all this sorted. She had a notion of coming up here with us when I showed it to you, but she didn’t reckon with breaking her arm just as it was all finished.’ He lifted
the lid on the nearest bin. It was packed full of tins and boxes and bottled preserves.
Caz was astonished. ‘It looks like the old man really is getting ready for a war!’
‘No, it’s for you. It was Daisy’s idea. You need never fret about getting caught out up here again. You can feed yourself, stretch out on a couple of bales for a nap and the pretty lady can put herself down right beside you. You could lie up here for days and no one would ever know.’
‘It’s amazing!’ Caz climbed the steps and put his head into the narrow opening. There was a big wooden trap door at the top.
‘Is this another way out?’ he asked.
‘Yes, and it’s well tucked away. Even your brother at his best would have to be pretty canny to nose out this one.’
‘Where does it come out?’
‘It opens up in one of the copses below Thunderslea and well out of the way of all the tracks and pathways. I put it in when I realised that there was still a good stretch of the old workings that we could use, at least as far as the house. But we could never figure out why the old Guardians had gone to all the trouble to make the tunnel as big as they did, or how they got rid of the ballast while they were doing it.’
‘Didn’t the old man know?’
‘Surprisingly, no. We only realised that they must have been putting horses and carts through here when he decided on having the office done out and we found the old trapdoor under the lino in the butler’s pantry. It had been nailed down and the passage underneath it had been bricked up. The work looked as though it had been done in an almighty hurry and a good long time back too. I would hazard a guess and say that it had something to do with Sir Edmund refusing the oath. The cave-ins followed soon after.’
‘So you know when the tunnel collapsed?’
‘That much is recorded, and that they tried repairing it, but it didn’t hold up. The whole thing was abandoned in Year 67 and stayed that way until I came along and started poking around it all again.’
‘When do I get to see these records?’
‘That’s for the Master to decide. They’re his responsibility and we have to respect that.’ Alan picked up the lamp. ‘Come on, the tour’s not finished yet.’
The tunnel veered to the right, sloping steeply upwards, following the gradient of the hill. Whole tree trunks had been used to shore up the roof at regular intervals, and long sections of the walls on either side had been rebuilt with rock and cement. Parts of the old brickwork appeared and the Medustig ended in an open space, similar to the Selerest but smaller and more basically equipped. A long rack against one wall had been crammed with freshly made up torches. There were several bales of hay, a bucket and a water barrel that could be filled from the spring.
Caz recognised the back of the planked door that opened into the tunnel to Thunderslea. He jumped down and investigated the contents of the single feed bin while Alan parked the bike and unhooked his bag.
‘There’re enough emergency rations in there to keep you going until you can get down to the Halfway House,’ he said.
‘And a first-aid box too, by the look of it,’ remarked Caz.
Alan shrugged. ‘Well, you never know.’ He shouldered the bag and grinned. ‘I reckon it’s time to say hello to the tree and get a fire burning to warm up his old heart.’ He slid the seaxe out of its scabbard and tapped the tip of the blade against Caz’s mailed chest. ‘Then we’ll see what these fancy new blades have to say for themselves.’
Caz laughed. ‘You’re on!’
CHAPTER 76
Lauren stood on the crowded platform waiting for the London train, edging into the huddle of people sheltering out of the rain when she saw Shriek running over the footbridge.
I’ll catch up with her in Manhattan, she thought sadly. It’s so unbelievable. My dear geeky cousin Robbie’s all lit up online like a Christmas tree, and I’m still waiting for my guy to call me. What is it with these English romances? What’s Robbie doing that’s so right and I’m getting so wrong?
The train came in. The doors opened and the crowd surged forward, carrying Lauren with them. She glanced out of the window. A tall figure in a long black coat was standing at the refreshment kiosk on the opposite platform. She pushed through the people and got out just as the doors were closing. The guard gestured angrily through the window. The train pulled away.
She ran over the bridge and came face to face with Caz.
‘Hey! Good to see you, Ghost Rider,’ she said, smiling. ‘Good hat.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Are you having a party?’ she asked, eyeing the large shopping bag stuffed full of boxes of pizza.
He shrugged and didn’t answer. His eyes were deep, sapphire blue under the brim of his hat. She knew he was angry, but she wasn’t going to be put off.
‘I’ve got some great news!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve been dying to tell you! My Dad’s got to be in Edinburgh for the whole of next summer. My mom’s staying home, but he says I can go with him.’ She dimpled provocatively. ‘It’s just a short hop on a plane to London. We can meet up whenever we want.’
People were gathering close enough for them to be overheard. He threw his paper coffee cup in the waste bin and put an arm around her shoulders, heading her down the platform. She shook out her umbrella and held it over them, daring to hope as he led her down the slope to the workman’s hut beside the fence and sat her on the bench under the shelter. The brazier was burned clean and black. It was surrounded by a thick circle of ash and looked as though it had been alight for many hours during the night.
‘There’s no time for this game any more,’ he told her.
‘No time for what?’ she asked playfully. ‘No time for avoiding each other any more?’
‘You’re leaving in a couple of weeks. Don’t waste any more of your life hanging around after me.’
She looked away. A great sob rose in her throat. ‘Am I hanging around after you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does it have to be so bad?’
‘Yes.’
She willed herself not to cry. ‘Would it be so bad if we were hanging around each other in Manhattan?’
He frowned. ‘What are you talking about now?’
‘My parents said I could invite you for Christmas. There’s a ticket with your name on it, first class, no questions asked. We do New Year at Thunder Ridge. We snowmobile, we ski, all that kind of stuff.’ She smiled bravely through the tears trickling down her cheeks. ‘How about that for a cool way to say goodbye?’
He shook his head. ‘Goodbye is the same wherever you say it, and it’s already been said.’
‘But it’s an all-in package!’ she cried. ‘Unconditional ticket, unconditional fun, unconditional me! It’s just for a couple of weeks! Is it so much to ask?’
She saw him clench both fists. He was staring past her at the brazier. She saw the rain falling, and black water dripping, puddling the piles of ash. He saw a hundred heads snaking around them and the old beggar woman’s face replicated on every one. She heard the traffic in the bus station… a clock chiming... the pseudo voice announcing a train. He heard a hundred voices screaming: ‘Heartbiter! Heartbiter!’
‘It can’t be done,’ he said thickly.
He left her sitting on the bench in the rain. She kept the umbrella in front of her face while she cried. There was another train due in half an hour. She crossed the footbridge mechanically, placing one foot after the other. The northbound platform was empty. There was a line of black, moulded plastic seats along a wall. She sat down, shivering.
The signal light showed green. A fast train whipped through the station in a blur. The light went red. Another train stopped at the opposite platform. The doors opened and closed. The train left. The man in the kiosk picked up a pen and ticked down a list in the newspaper he was reading.
The signal light went green again. Bright, yellow-white lights appeared where the tracks merged into the rain. The train came in. The doors opened. She found a seat by a windo
w in the first-class carriage. The train pulled away. By the time she got to London, she was livid with rage.
CHAPTER 77
Sir Jonas gave out the invitations for the midwinter party when most of the would-be guests were assembled in the kitchen for lunch. He had whispered reassuringly to Jemima when she brought his morning tea to the study and noticed the growing pile of much anticipated cream-coloured envelopes on the desk.
‘Considering the urgency of our need to maintain the highest levels of estate security in these difficult days, I thought it best to retain our commitment to invite only the family to celebrate the midwinter festival. I have consulted with Mister Laurence and he assures me that there will be no hard feelings should I exclude his current girlfriend from our little list. I am confident that your sentiments are of a similar persuasion with regard to your own affairs, my dear Lady Sibylla.’
Thus there were no tricky, shuffling moments to be endured when Jemima and Laurence accepted their invitations, and Tristan was doubly pleased when he was asked to deliver a similar envelope to Melanie.
‘Good one!’ he chortled happily. ‘Thank you, sir, very much! She’d be gutted to be left out.’
Sir Jonas looked momentarily nonplussed, before deciding that the inference of this peculiar expression was that Miss Melanie would be pleased to accept her invitation rather than find herself in danger of fatal evisceration.
Jasper immediately returned the favour. He patted the old man affably on the shoulder. ‘You need a decent night out, boss. It’s time you treated yourself to a bit of R & R. Lots of good nosh, plenty of booze, great company. Parade starts six-thirty sharp tomorrow in the yard. What do you say?’
Sir Jonas stepped hastily away from the threat of the all-enveloping arm, spluttering, ‘Ah, ah, thank you, Mister Jasper. I-II’m sure I couldn’t possibly spend an evening in a p-public house.’
As soon as they had finished work in the kitchen, Jemima and Sara ran upstairs to choose their dresses for the party.
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