Princess Annie (42 page)

Fear threatened to swamp her. Rafael might already be dead, and her father too, for that matter. Even if they weren’t, what could she do to save them?

Annie didn’t have a single plan in her mind, but her heart wouldn’t let her turn back without trying to effect a rescue. Rafael was her husband, the father of her child, and Patrick Trevarren had given her life. She wasn’t about to abandon either of them.

Taking care not to be seen, Annie made her way toward the castle. The place seemed unnervingly quiet, almost deserted.

Crossing one of the overgrown gardens, Annie frowned, recalling the tunnels Lucian had shown her that day when they’d gone exploring together. She would find one of those, she decided, crawl through it, arm herself somehow and find Rafael.

She stopped and looked around, spotting a small stone building on the other side of a thicket of blackberry vines. Thorns tore at the legs of her breeches as she hurried toward it.

The door was heavy, and when Annie pulled it open, the hinges creaked loudly. She ducked inside, heart pounding, breath rasping in and out of her chest, only to feel two steely arms close around her from behind. A hand covered her mouth and, though she struggled fiercely, it was soon clear that she wouldn’t escape.

Her captor closed the door and latched it before releasing her with a flinging motion of one arm. Before she’d righted herself, light flared in the tiny, filthy room, and she saw the grim face of Edmund Barrett looming in the glow of a kerosene lantern.

“You,” he marveled, with heavy resignation. “I don’t believe it.”

Annie was half-sick with relief, and she saw no need to defend her reasons for returning to St. James Keep. She folded her arms. “Where is Rafael?”

“In the dungeon,” Barrett answered. “They plan to hang him tomorrow morning.”

Annie’s stomach did a slow roll, and her knees threatened to give way again. Leaning against the wall, she fought to keep her composure. “Have you seen my father?”

“No,” Barrett said, “but this is a big place. He could be anywhere.”

“How do you know the rebels plan to hang Rafael?”

“They’ve set up the scaffold in the courtyard,” he replied, averting his eyes. It seemed an eternity before he went on. “They’ve already executed Lucian.”

Annie swallowed a scalding rush of horror. “My God. Why?” she whispered. “He was one of their own, wasn’t he?”

“No one likes a traitor,” Mr. Barrett said, and though he spoke without apparent emotion, Annie knew he regretted Lucian’s tragedy.

It was then, in her need to look anywhere but at Barrett’s face, that Annie saw the gaping hole in the center of the shed’s long-rotted floor.

“A tunnel,” she said moderately. In silence, she felt a certain grim pride that her guess had been right. “Does it go all the way into the cellars?”

Barrett uttered a heavy sigh and shoved a filthy hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I tried to get through, but the passage is too narrow.”

“For you,” Annie clarified, stepping toward the pit, ready to lower herself into it, rats, spiders, moles and all, without the slightest hesitation.

Rafael’s friend stopped her forcibly. “No, Annie. Rafael would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you.”

Annie wrenched free, and her desperation caused her to speak in a fierce whisper. “Rafael won’t
survive
to forgive you if we don’t do something!”

Barrett swallowed visibly and murmured an expletive. “Just be careful,” he added, on the next breath.

Eagerly, Annie dropped into the hole and got down on her hands and knees. She couldn’t see anything, it was so dark, but the smells of dirt and rodents and roots filled her nostrils.

“I mean it, Annie,” Barrett’s voice echoed after her. “Don’t take any foolish chances!”

Annie was already moving toward the castle as fast as she dared move, and she didn’t trouble herself to answer. As she crawled, trying not to think of the things she heard skittering and cheeping in the gloom, she wept for Lucian St. James. He might have been so much more than he was, so much better, if it hadn’t been for his jealous and cunning nature. He died so young, and had he lived, he might possibly have come to see the error of his ways.

She had traveled a considerable distance when she came to a section of the tunnel that had partially collapsed. Breathing was difficult and it was hot, and Annie figured her chances of success were slight. For lack of a better idea, she cleared the passage as best she could and squirmed onward.

In places, the ancient dirt walls were so close to each other that she feared being stuck. With her vivid imagination, it was only too easy to picture her bones being unearthed and exclaimed over in a century or so.

The thought of her mother, crawling through a similar tunnel beneath a sultan’s palace in Riz gave Annie the courage to go on. Charlotte Trevarren had survived and prevailed, and so would she.

It was, after all, something of a family tradition.

A long time had passed when Annie struck something solid with the top of her head. After a few moments of mild profanity, she raised both hands and pushed, praying she wouldn’t find a pack of rebels on the other side.

Something enormous crashed to the stone floor, and so much dust billowed into the tunnel that Annie was momentarily blinded. She crawled, coughing, into the light pouring in from a high window, and found herself in an empty cellar. The heavy cabinet she’d overturned lay shattered before her.

She waited, half expecting an enemy guard to burst in and arrest her, but no one came. Annie went to the door and pressed her ear against it, listening for voices or footsteps but, again, there was nothing. She couldn’t be sure exactly what part of the keep she was in, since the underground passage had taken so many twists and turns, but she hoped she was near the dungeon.

It was evident, when Annie tried to push the outer door open, that no one had used that particular chamber in years. Finally, when she thought she had no strength left, the hinges screamed and she gained the hallway.

The passage was dark, since there were no windows, and Annie wished for a candle or even a match. She felt her way along the wall, flinching when a spider’s web fell across her shoulders like a gossamer cloak. Finally, she found the light again, and recognized her surroundings. She and Lucian had passed this way while they were exploring, she was certain, and the dungeon was nearby.

Biting her lip, Annie proceeded, boldly but with prudent caution. By that time, she’d lost her cap, and her hair fell down her back in a dusty tangle. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d been in greater need of a bath, even during her illustrious career as a tomboy.

The sound of voices made her stop and hold her breath. She would have held her heartbeat, too, if that had been possible.

“Why go to the trouble of hanging him?” a man asked. “He wouldn’t know what was happening anyway, with this fever.”

Annie swallowed a cry of panic and stayed in the shadows.

“It’s a matter of principle,” answered another voice, also male. “Someone has to pay for the crimes of the St. James family.”

“Well,” came the reply, “we’ll see if he survives long enough to mount the scaffold, won’t we?”

Annie flattened her back against the wall, hands outspread, and waited. The men continued to talk, and the length of the shadows changed, and still the vigil went on.

She did not know how much time had passed when the guards finally ambled away to have something to eat. As soon as they were gone, she hurried out of her hiding place and tried Rafael’s cell door. It was soundly locked, and she saw no sign of a key.

The prince was nothing but a shadow, flung carelessly into a corner.

“Rafael,” Annie whispered desperately, “where is the key?”

He didn’t move or answer.

“Rafael!”

The prince groaned, and Annie wanted so badly to touch and comfort him that she extended one arm through the bars and strained to reach him. In her terrible fear, she took several seconds to realize the effort was impossible.

Wildly, she searched the guards’ table for the key, but it wasn’t to be found. When she heard the voices of approaching men, she was forced to hurry back into the unused passage and hide herself in the shadows.

Another set of guards had arrived to replace the others. They settled at the crude table, ignoring Rafael, and began to play cards.

Annie waited for a long time, but she didn’t have another chance to get close to Rafael. In the end, she was forced to go back to the tunnel and crawl back to the shed, where Mr. Barrett was waiting. Perhaps she would be able to find her father, and ask him to help.

Before she’d even reached the shed, however, Annie had discarded that idea. If Patrick Trevarren learned that his daughter was inside St. James Keep, he would drop whatever plan he’d formulated to help Rafael and take her back to the
Enchantress
. In the meantime, the rebels might well drag Rafael to the scaffold, put a noose around his neck, and hang him.

“Did you get inside?” Mr. Barrett asked, the instant Annie stuck her head out of the pit.

She fought back tears of frustration and fear. “Yes,” she said. “You were right—Rafael is in the dungeon.” Mr. Barrett lifted her easily from the hole, listening in silence when she went on. “He’s hurt or sick—I called his name, and he hardly stirred.”

“I’m going in,” Barrett said, moving toward the hole in the floor.

Annie prevented it. “You’ll never squeeze through,” she said. “I barely managed myself.”

Barrett was utterly still for a long moment. “I’ll find another way in, then, as soon as it gets dark. Stay here, out of sight, and I’ll bring you some food and water as soon as I can.”

Annie didn’t protest, for there was nothing to do but wait. She sat down on the floor, figuring she couldn’t get much dirtier than she already was, folded her arms across her knees, and rested her head on them.

Barrett cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose it means much, under the circumstances, but I’ve got to say it, Annie. You’re the boldest, most hardheaded female I have ever run across.”

She smiled, though she was near tears, and did not raise her head. “Life belongs to the bold,” she replied, in a muffled voice.

Mr. Barrett went out, without replying, and closed the shed door softly behind him.

Exhausted by stress and the tunnel exploit, Annie dropped off into a troubled sleep, and when she awakened Mr. Barrett was back. There was a candle burning on an upended crate, and he’d set a crude table with two dented metal plates and one cup.

Annie didn’t ask where he’d gotten the dried meat and bread he produced from a canvas bag. He had wine from a dusty bottle, while she drank well water from the single cup.

“I saw your father,” he said, after a long time.

“Where?” Annie demanded sharply. “Was he all right?”

“One question at a time,” Barrett scolded, with a weary smile in his voice. “He looked like a fine savage to me, though of course we didn’t speak. He’s pretending to be one of the poorer villagers.”

Annie was amused, in spite of everything. “Are you sure it was Patrick Trevarren you saw? He’s a notorious dandy, you know. His shirts are specially made in Paris, and he wears only the finest Italian boots.”

Barrett laughed. “His friends wouldn’t recognize him, then. I guess I noticed him because I know all the villagers.”

“I wonder what he’s up to,” Annie speculated.

Mr. Barrett’s mirthful expression turned solemn, and he took a long draught from the wine bottle. “Whatever your father’s plan is, Miss Trevarren, I hope to God it’s brilliant. Rafael’s life may depend on it.”

Annie’s throat thickened with tears, but she did not give way to them. “Yes,” she said, offering a silent prayer, in addition, that Rafael would not die of his fever before they could save him.

When they’d eaten, Mr. Barrett went out again, probably seeking a way into the castle. Annie was reluctant to leave the shed, not because she feared the rebels—which, of course, she did—but because she couldn’t risk encountering her father.

She waited several hours, growing more and more restless, and finally had to venture out to relieve herself in the bushes. She started back through the tunnel, wanting to be as close to Rafael as she could, even if she couldn’t reach him, but she hadn’t traveled more than halfway before the passage began to cave in in front of her.

She froze, terrified of discovery, while only a few feet away someone cursed and said, “These damnable tunnels. The whole place ought to be razed.”

Barbarian,
Annie thought, not even daring to breathe.

When dirt began to filter down on top of her, however, and she imagined being buried alive, Annie forced herself to move back along the passage. In the shed, she slept again, and when she awakened, it was with a horrible, wrenching sense of urgency.

It was almost morning, and Rafael was scheduled to be hanged first thing.

Perhaps, Rafael reflected feverishly, as he was hauled to his feet and half-dragged, half-carried from his cell, it would not be such a bad thing to die. He was very nearly dead already, as far as he could tell, and while he felt tremendous regret at leaving Annie, there was no fear in him.

Annie. He smiled, a little drunkenly perhaps, and did not resist when his hands were wrenched behind his back and bound at the wrists. Once or twice, he’d thought he heard her calling his name. It had been a dream, of course, for she was far away by now—God be thanked.

They got through the passageways, somehow, and up a staircase, and then they were in the courtyard. Torches burned, to guide the dawn’s light over the horizon, and there were surprisingly few spectators about. He wondered whether he should be flattered or insulted by that.

Now that the keep had been taken, he supposed, most of the rebel troops were occupied elsewhere.

A girl he recognized as Annie’s maid, Kathleen, approached, white-faced, with a cup of water. She lifted the rim gently to his mouth, and he sipped from it.

“God be with you, Your Highness,” she whispered, before his guards thrust him onto the first step.