Page 100 of The Falcon Laird
“Dhia,” she breathed out. “Gavin, look!”
“Gold,” he said.“All of it. Gold.”
“The very walls,” she said.
Gavin scanned the room, holding the lamp. They stood in a cave-like space chiseled from solid rock, a room as large as a bedchamber. And every surface—walls, floor, ceiling—was veined in gold. Sparkling, glittering, the pale quartz walls reflected the lamp light in a dazzle of sunburst yellow and ochres.
“It is a gold mine,” he said, stepping forward to touch his hand to the wall. The cool surface was slightly gritty beneathhis fingers. “Gold ore. Silver. Iron as well. My God,” he said, his voice hushed as he turned. He laughed softly as he looked at Christian. “You did say Kilglassie’s gold was melted into the very walls.”
“But I did not know about this,” she said. “The legend only said that the gold was hidden away in the heart of Kilglassie.”
“Then this room must be the very heart of the rock, rather than the storage chamber,” he said. He drew his fingers along the delicate veins and arteries of gold, and the darker channels of silver and iron. “There is a vast treasure here,” he said.
“Can it be mined out?” she asked.
“No doubt. It was mined once, long ago. See these marks here, and there, where ore has been removed.” He frowned. “This may be why the walls in the towers above have been cracked for so long. The mine would make the supporting rock unstable in places.” He glanced at her. “When was the well dug?”
“Long before those stone towers were built, when Kilglassie was but a wooden fortress on top of the promontory rock,” she said. “Mayhap the well was dug at the same time as the tunnels in the rock.”
“This chamber was sealed off deliberately, along with the corridor,” Gavin said. “The dovecote was once accessible through the stronghold, because the corridor leads toward the castle. But some laird made certain that all of this was hidden away.”
“They placed the well there, and sealed this off in the well wall,” Christian said.
He nodded. “They meant to protect the gold. Perhaps those who knew about the mine were killed or captured by enemies. Somehow the secret was lost, and the legend began.”
“No one ever noticed that the doves were roosting here,” she said. Then she gasped. “The legend says that Merlin sent wild doves to find the treasure that had been hidden by the wee ladyof the fair folk. The birds found it, Gavin. They have been here all along.”
Shaking his head in astonishment, Gavin went back to the little pile of objects and knelt again, setting the lamp on the floor.
She joined him and reached out to pick up a brooch from the jumble of pins and pendants. “This design is similar to the pendant that I have always kept,” she said. “The one that Hastings took.”
“Likely all these things are made from gold mined here,” he said. He lifted a small glittery stone and turned it in his hand. “These little rocks are golden nuggets. I have heard that the Celtic people were skilled at mining and working gold. Look at this sword.” He pulled it loose from its secure wrappings of leather and cloth. The grip, wrapped in gold wire, looked like a spool of golden thread, topped by a pommel of gleaming polished amber set in gold. When he lifted the sword, his arm muscles tensed with the weight of the iron blade, but he found that the weapon was beautifully balanced and still sharp. He could have used it easily.
“What is in the casket?” Christian asked. She lifted the small box, its glittering golden surfaces intricately worked and inlaid with emeralds and garnets. Christian picked at the latch. “It is locked.”
“Mayhap the key is over the door lintel,” he teased.
She shook the box. “It is very light, and does not rattle inside. It might be empty.”
“This will do for a key,” he said. Picking up a small silver-hilted dagger that lay beneath the jewelry, Gavin twisted its point in the latch and sprung the casket open.
“A parchment?” Christian sounded disappointed as Gavin pulled out a small piece of rolled vellum, yellowed and tied with a leather cord. “Only a bit of parchment,” she said. “Likely some prayers for someone’s saint’s day, or a few psalms.”
Gavin unrolled it very carefully. The thinly scraped vellum was old and very brittle, its edges crumbling a little in his hands. There was writing on it, a few words in an unfamiliar language, and some stick-like symbols he did not recognize.
“What does it say?” she asked.
“It is not Latin or any language I can read,” he said, handing it to her. Christian took the translucent parchment gently and peered at it, tilting it toward the lamp light.
“These signs are ogham script, an old Druidic form of writing,” she said. “I have seen it on old stones. And these words are old Gaelic. I cannot read it, but there are some words I know—rì, which is the ancient form of king. And this phrase here”—she pointed—“means small hawk, or merlin. Merlin!” She looked up at him in excitement. “What does it mean, do you think?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “We might show it to Fergus.”
“We will,” she said, rolling it carefully and replacing the leather tie. “He will understand the Gaelic and mayhap the ogham as well.” She put the roll reverently in the little golden box and closed the lid. Then she gazed around the room. “It is magical, this place, truly a treasure. The very heart of Kilglassie.”
Gavin nodded. “Now what shall we do with it?”
She looked at him, startled. “It belongs to Scotland. The legend says that the treasure of Kilglassie will support the throne of Scotland. We will tell Robert Bruce, of course.”
