Page 29 of Lord of Deception

Chapter Twenty-Three

Only Kit’s leather jerkin had prevented him from being totally drenched. His hair hung lank and straight, dripping down his back, and his shoes were wet through and probably beyond repair. Rain ran down his face and splashed off his shoulders to join the teeming flow on the highway below. This itself was rapidly becoming a sea of mud and would render travel impossible for some days.

None of this perturbed him or could distract him from his purpose. He stood by the hollow oak tree he’d found yesterday, listening intently. Yes! He could hear it, down below him, a noise faint compared to the rainstorm, but quite distinct to the avid listener. He knelt and clawed at the dead leaves choking the base of the old tree.

A searing flash of lightning illuminated a plank of wood beneath his searching fingers. Wait—several planks, like the top of a barrel, forming a trapdoor. This he heaved up, then found a fallen branch with which to prop it open. A yawning void was revealed, from which issued the sound of water slapping and splashing against solid walls.

He was right! By flooding the property, he’d located the tunnel, the Spaniard’s hidden access to Selwood Manor. Dropping a stone into the void, he heard it plop into the waters not far beneath. With any luck, his mission was very near completion. Buoying up his courage, he slipped down into the darkness.

The water came above his shoulders—surely there must be enough of it to disrupt the plotters’ communications. Once again, he thanked God for the inspiration which had come to him earlier that day. It had softened the blow of his argument with Alys, made him feel less guilty. Lord, but she’d be none too pleased with what he had wrought this night!

He struck a spark from his tinder box, grateful he’d thought to tie it high around his neck, and lit the lantern he’d brought with him. The flickering light revealed a low, brick-built tunnel, like a culvert to carry a stream underground. He saw the ceiling was free of cobwebs, so the tunnel must have been used a lot, and recently. Holding the lantern above his head, he counted out his paces until, after about a hundred and fifty, his way was blocked by a wooden door. The boards glistened where the floodwater had soaked into them, but he could see the level was going down already—he didn’t have much time.

He had to pick the lock on the door, not easy to do below the water but, eventually, he was through, and into the undercroft.

When he held up his light to examine the cellar, he was tempted to extinguish it again. Bobbing about on the dark waters were several small kegs which he feared might contain gunpowder—he was going to have to be very careful moving about amongst such volatile material. Hanging from pegs on the wall were a number of arquebuses, above which a shelf held tin boxes of black powder with which to fire them. Breaking open a straw-filled wooden box, he discovered shot.

There was no time to get help before the waters receded. If he didn’t disable this arsenal himself, many lives besides the queen’s could be lost. Could he make it look as if the flood, and not a human hand, had done the damage?

His body buzzing with tension, he loosened the weapons, and rammed one up against the shelf, precipitating both it and its contents into the water. He didn’t worry about the gunpowder—by the time that dried out, all the conspirators would be behind locked doors.

Hearing a noise coming from the other end of the cellar, Kit decided he’d done enough and hurried back to the door he’d come through, making sure to lock it behind him. It was only as he was scrambling out of the tunnel entrance beneath the roots of the ancient tree that he wondered if it would have been wiser to prime and take one of the guns with him.

Now, if he were discovered, he had nothing more than a gardener’s knife with which to defend himself.