Page 98 of The Falcon Laird
“Ach,” John said, looking up as he hung on to the iron rung just below where they stood. “Kiss the lassie and put her on the boat, if ye are going to. The bairns are hungry and beginning to howl.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gavin would nottell her what he knew, and it aggravated her. She felt cold, and tired, hungry, somewhat annoyed. But Gavin hushed her, put his arm around her, made her sit quietly beside him curled in the tunnel. He wrapped his cloak around them both. They slept, finally, leaning together. When dawn came, its new light shining through the mist and fresh, cool breezes stirring her face, Christian woke with Gavin beside her. She smiled to herself, snug there.
He stood and went to the edge of the entrance, standing there for a while, looking out and listening. Christian waited, wondering. He turned his head, his golden hair wafting in the breeze as a shaft of sunlight touched his head.
He looked at her. “Just there—do you hear that?”
All she heard was theshooshof the loch against the promontory, the chitter of birds, the sullen rumble of her stomach. She stood and went to him. He rested an arm around her shoulders. “Now we may discover one of Kilglassie’s secrets,” he said quietly. She stood there, hearing wind, water, birdsong. “The doves,” Gavin said. “Listen.”
Then she heard it—the burbling, contented sound of hundreds of doves. The cooing seemed to come from overhead somewhere. “They sound so close!”
“There must be nests on the ledges,” Gavin said. “We saw a flock of doves flying up from the rock yesterday. They roost somewhere nearby. Remember what Patrick and Robbie said?”
She nodded. “They saw daylight and heard birds behind the stone wall in the well.”
“Aye. The birds must have found a way into the castle through the cliff side. They have found a kind of dovecote nearby, just as in the southeast tower. If we can find that opening, we can find a way back into Kilglassie.”
“And find the treasure?”
He shrugged. “If it exists. You have always said that Kilglassie’s gold is gone.” But he smiled. “Robbie would be pleased if his suggestion led us to the gold.”
She smiled at the thought, and glanced toward the misted shore, edged with dense forest past the stony beach. “They are far away by now, I hope. Warm and safe.”
“And well fed,” he said. She laughed ruefully, feeling the unhappy tremors of her own stomach; she was so hungry she felt almost ill with it. The few dried apples she and the children had eaten from the storage barrels had not gone far for her.
“Do you think Fergus will send word to my cousin?”
“Aye. Robert Bruce will surely be interested to know what has happened here at Kilglassie.” Gavin turned then, and stepped down onto the top rung in the rock. Holding on with one hand, he leaned back as far as he could, looking all around the cliff face. “Once the birds stir and fly out, we’ll know which one of these crevices holds their dovecote.” He scanned the promontory, his hair and cloak tossed by the breeze.
Christian clung to a handhold of the rock and leaned out as far as she dared so that she could look around as well. After a few minutes, she heard the soft steady flap of wings, then again, and again, until the air was filled with a soft, rapid thunder of wings.
High overhead, wild doves poured out of the rockface, rising toward the sun in a steady stream of dazzling white, wings tipped with brilliance in the dawn light.
“Oh! They look like angels flying up to heaven,” she said in awe.
Gavin leaned back. “There is the entrance,” he said, pointing. “Tucked behind that fold in the rock. We’ll have to climb. Can you do it?”
“Climb up there?” She craned her head around, straining to see the tall, narrow crevice out of which some doves still flew. The sun struck a protruding wedge of rock. From where she stood, the doves’ hideaway was to the left, at least a hundred feet above her head.
Far above that, on top of the promontory, the high walls of Kilglassie soared above the rock and caught the new sun like a rosy golden citadel.
“If you do not care to climb, you can wait for Hastings to let us back into the castle through the storage chamber,” Gavin suggested.
“I’ll climb,” she said quickly.
“Kilt up your gown, then, and come on,” he said.
She took off her heavy cloak and her new silver fret and put them on the tunnel floor. Then she stuffed some of her gown and linen undertunic up into her belt, lifting the hems to her knees. Gavin moved down another two rungs, and she climbed down to cling to the first iron bar.
“It is not difficult,” Gavin said. “There are ledges there, see, cut almost like steps, and natural handholds all the way up. I wonder if your ancestors intended for that crevice up there to be approachable from the loch, as this tunnel is.”
“It does not look very approachable to me,” she muttered.
Gavin stepped to the left and began to climb up a series of ledges, grabbing on to protrusions in the rockface. She watched his graceful, athletic advance up the cliff. Then she followed more slowly, grasping cold, rough stone, bumping her knees and grazing her legs, climbing past soft green clumps of fragrantmountain plants just beginning to flower. She went upward almost as easily as he did, as long as she did not look down toward the dark, deep loch far below.
At one point Gavin gave a little whoop of triumph, and motioned to her that he had found an iron rung driven into the rock, and another placed above that. He quickly pulled himself up, and stepped lightly on to the shallow platform of rock at the entrance.
