For as a cocksure boy, he had once made use of another exit. One that had resulted in a hiding from Casper and being sent to Eton the very next month.
Even now, his brother would doubtless tear a strip off him but…
He headed to the tap for a last splash of cold and then strode to the archway in the opposite wall which led to a smaller chamber. Here, the high-up slits cast light at a different angle, dissecting it with a single shaft.
All the instruments of torture had been removed long ago but gouges in the wall attested to horrors unknown, and staring at the rusted sluice gate level with the stone floor, he could vaguely sense the echoes of terror.
In bygone times, the blood and dirt of the owners’ sins had been washed away by opening this sluice gate to the moat, filling the dungeons with water to the fifth stone step of the staircase. Then the moat’s lower sluice gates had been cranked open and all the waters allowed to drain into the River Rushmore.
One drizzling day, years back as a bored lad, he’d dared himself to open this gate and swim through the tunnel forged through rock and castle wall, and hence into the moat.
An ancient tunnel that could easily have fallen in by now, and if so, he’d have to turn within the tight confines, swim back and wait upon the sixth step of the stone staircase, soaked and frozen.
The length of the tunnel was only a matter of twenty foot or so, but one had to wait till the water was high enough in the dungeons so that the inward gush had lessened enough to swim against, and foreboding thrummed his pulse, yet…
He had to get out of here. To ring the Wychmere bells for alarm, find Hebe and his horses. Expose Mary for the thief she was.
So without further thought, he commenced stripping off his shirt and boots, for if he had to return, then at least he’d have dry clothing, and he stalked to the other chamber, shoving them to the top step.
Clad in solely his breeches, and bloody chilly, he strode to the sluice gate and yanked at the hefty iron wheel that opened the top half.
It failed to move.
Grunting, and with every muscle stretching, he hauled at the wheel, straining and panting till…
Not a jot.
So he shoved his shoulder into it, shunting and thrusting and then…
It slipped a fraction, metal grating and cogs groaning.
He continued heaving until a trickle of water emerged through a slit, then a stream as he yanked at the wheel, conscious not to allow the flow to swell overmuch or he’d be knocked off his feet as he nearly had been as a nipper when the mechanism had been greased and effortless.
The rats skittered, climbing the rough-hewn walls for higher ground.
Forcing it wider – or he’d be here till nightfall – the water gushed and swirled, filtering over his toes and searching for escape in every crevice of both chambers yet finding none. But too slow and he twisted the gap wider, watched it pour, thundering like a torrent, angry and cold – to his ankles and shins – and he waded back and forth to keep warm.
When at his knees and no longer thundering but churning like a river, he yanked the wheel, the gate ratcheting all the way open, enough for a man’s body, and he watched it rapidly flood the chamber.
At last, the water reached the fourth step, would continue gushing until the same level as the moat, another step up, but Ernest lacked the time to admire this miraculous feat of medieval engineering.
He removed his spectacles and secured them in a seam pocket of his breeches. Then taking breaths, deep and measured, he sloshed water over his head and chest to prevent the shock of the chill clutching at his lungs.
It was no different to cleaning the moat sluice gates to the river, he told himself sternly, merely darker and…narrower. And possibly fallen in.
Breathing deep again, he focused. A mere twenty foot and he’d be in the moat and able to search for Hebe and Lord Jack.
With an inhale to the depths, he dived beneath the water and through the metal gate, still the shock of it pumping his heart to frantic. The current in the tunnel was still against him, yet he shoved himself forward into the pitch darkness, hands feeling the stone either side, using it for leverage as the moat water flowed in.
He kicked out with his feet, cursing as they scraped the tunnel roof, grazing skin and losing purchase, yet with determined strokes he fought onwards, lungs heating and eyes stinging with the cold.
And ahead.
There…
The faintest of light – a dulled green.
And he surged forward, scraping his stomach on fallen stone that he wrenched aside, palms hacking at the water, lack of breath now burning his chest.
