Chapter 2 – Down and out
The stairs were dark and damp, but just like Bellonda had said on the twentysecond step Claire found a leather bag and an iron-clad oil lamp. She searched the bag for the tinderbox, lit the lamp with it, and stuffed it back. Then she swung the bag over her shoulder and lifted the lamp high.
A surprising calm had come over her. All thoughts of panic for her present situation, or sadness because she’d most likely never see Bellonda again, had just been pushed to the background by a great urge to act as seemed best. She had not often experienced this state of mind, but had to admit she kind of liked it. She was focused, clear-minded, and ready for anything.
After what seemed an age of carefully descending the stairs, she reached the bottom and in the faint light of her lamp saw the door. She looked at it closely, figured out how to open it, then doused her lamp and put it into the bag. Slowly and carefully, with as little sound as possible, she pushed to open the door a little and peered through the crack. It was dark outside, only a little lighter than it had been on the secret stairs. As she didn’t see nor hear anyone close, she opened the door a little further and sneaked through. Pressing against the cold stone of the tower she had just descended, she silently closed the secret door again; it fitted perfectly in the stone wall.
She took a few moments to rest and clear her head, then looked around again for human presence. She heard the faint clamour of fighting in the tower she was leaning against, but that was all; it seemed the force of villagers had not been as huge as Bellonda in her fear had believed. Maybe they even had a chance to drive them off, but that was of later concern. As Claire didn’t see anyone near, she looked forward. She saw the darker outline of the lumberjack’s shed perched against the wall on the other side of a broad causeway. Taking a deep breath, she pushed away from the tower and darted straight for the shadows of the opposite wall.
She dove into the pitch-black shadows of the hut, fell down to her knees and waited, breath held. For almost two minutes she sat unmoving, without making a sound, waiting for the shouts of alarm of peasants who had seen her; but none came. After a while she stood silently, still all muscles at the ready. As there still came no sound, she sneaked to the wall and started feeling around for the secret door in the wall. She closed her eyes while doing so; she couldn’t see anything in the dark shadows even with her eyes open, and closing her eyes helped her concentrate. Suddenly she felt a tiny fissure in the wall; it ran vertically from the ground up to four feet high, then suddenly stopped. Claire smiled a little as she felt around and noticed an indent in the rock, almost like a door handle.
She tried to pull the door open, but it didn’t even move. She tried with two hands, putting as much strength behind it as she dared, but nothing moved. She kept trying for a few minutes, then remembered the secret door at the base of the tower wall. She grinned to herself and tried push the door instead of pull it. It grinded a little at the base, but open it went. Claire looked around one last time, to the castle she had grown up in, then slipped through the door and pushed it closed again. This one, too, blended in with the stone wall perfectly, but Claire had no time to wonder who had prepared such secret doors. She looked ahead: the Western Wood was over six miles away and she had no idea when or where she would meet the nobles Bellonda had spoken of. She took a deep breath, shouldered her bag a little higher, and started walking.
About an hour later, Claire met her first serious obstacle: a river. She had of course known it was there, she would swim in it when Bellonda would allow – or was looking the other way – but just hadn’t thought of it being under constant worry. Now, at night, with only one set of clothes she wouldn’t dare to swim across. She hesitated, looked upstream and downstream for a bridge but saw none. Then a deep voice sounded from somewhere close by and made her jump two full feet into the air.