Page 48

“Very good, your grace.” Parry was still out of breath. "I hope that you will find everything to your liking."

In the background, a procession of footmen was unloading his luggage from the carriage and carrying it across the hall to a staircase. There was a sudden commotion in the courtyard. Some of the footmen glanced back anxiously. West heard tense voices outside. “Is something wrong?”

Frowning, Mr. Parry turned to face the disturbance. “I shall ascertain that, your grace.”

West didn't wait. In a few strides he was outside. The footmen had paused in their work and were discussing something in low voices. “What has happened?”

They jumped and stopped talking instantly. He suspected that the old duke had terrorized the servants to such a degree that now, none of them wanted to be the one to give him bad news. “You. What is your name?”

Wincing, a young footman turned to face him and bowed. “I beg your pardon, your grace. I am Robert.”

“Thank you, Robert. Will you please tell me what has happened?”

“Begging your pardon, your grace, but I—I only know what we heard. One of the stable boys had it from one of Mr. Bray’s men. They… they are saying that something has happened at Clee Pit. The mine, your grace.”

“What has happened?”

“I—I do not know, your grace. But something terrible.”

West and the groom he’d brought to show him the way picked their way down the road. It was in poor repair, as though nobody from the castle had bothered to come this way in some time. Years, perhaps. Despite the lantern the groom carried, in the dark the rough sections were treacherous.

West’s eyes were fixed on an orange glow in the sky ahead, as though it could reveal what they were about to find. And then, as the road dipped into a valley and they emerged from the trees, he saw it: A towering metal and timber frame on the slope above, illuminated by the light of torches against the dark sky.

They turned up the road that led to it. As they climbed a barren slope covered in loose rock and drew nearer, he saw that the frame stood above the entrance to the mineshaft, over a huge windlass. Around it, men, women and children were surging back and forth in a human tide, working furiously in a near silence that was somehow more terrible than frantic shouting would have been. They were hauling huge tubs of broken rock off the platform under the windlass, and dumping them down the slope.

Nobody had noticed his arrival. They were all working too hard.

He slipped off his horse and made his way closer. A worker carrying a tub of rocks stumbled. West's hand shot out reflexively to help steady it. The worker looked up. In the torchlight the whites of his eyes were startling against his face, black with coal dust. To his shock, West saw that “he” was a she—a girl of perhaps twelve or thirteen.

This was how his mine was being run?

“Give it to me.” He took the tub of rocks from her. “Go and rest.”

She stared at him a moment, as though she was too exhausted to make sense of what he’d said. He dumped the tub of rocks where the other people were emptying theirs and handed the empty container to a man who stretched out his hand. Before he could ask what to do next, a man behind him elbowed him in the side and shoved another heavily loaded tub toward him. He took it, and emptied it down the hillside.

He didn’t see where the girl went. There was no time to look, or to think, or to ask anyone why they were doing this. There was only a terrible, unspoken sense of urgency.

Grab a tub. Dump it out. Pass the empty tub back. Grab another tub. In a few minutes his palms began to burn and then to blister. All the while, the windlass was creaking, bringing up more tubs of rock. The lines of workers seemed more like one creature than individual people.

The basket arrived at the surface, this time with men clinging to the rope above the huge basket. He saw them stagger and sink onto the ground around the minehead. Around him, the people in the bucket brigade straightened and exchanged glances, uncertain and anxious. The operation seemed to falter. There were no more tubs of rocks to pass back.

Two of the men who’d come out of the mine clambered to their feet and went to confer with another man. West saw them shake their heads.

He straightened his aching back. The men talking to each other appeared to be in charge. He went forward. They turned to look at him. “Yes?”

“I beg your pardon. I have only just arrived, and have not been told the details of what has happened. I should like to know what is the best way that I may help.”

The oldest of the three men squinted incredulously at the coal-dust coated figure before them. “You what?”

The younger man was more polite. “I beg your pardon, sir, but... who are you?”

“I am Gabriel West. The duke of March.”

For a moment they both simply stared at him. The older man was the first to speak. “Then I will tell you, your grace.” He very nearly spat the words. “The roof of the main road has given way. As I said that it would.”

Main road. That was the main horizontal passageway leading back from the mineshaft toward the coal face. He'd learned that much.

The younger man made a bow. Even under the coal dust West could see that he had a pleasant, open face. “I—I beg your pardon, your grace." He glanced nervously at the older man. "I am Bray. George Bray. And this is John Davey, the foreman at this mine, and Jack Quick, one of my assistants. We have been working to reach them, but there has been a second collapse”