Keeping calm was more easily said than done, however, for Rachel had always had a sneaking fear of the dark. She bit her lip and thought of Cory trying to catch her before she fell, and reassured herself that he would dig her out soon, just as together they had dug out Sir Arthur and Lady Odell when a trench had collapsed on them in Wiltshire. The memory made Rachel feel a tiny bit better, until she thought that perhaps Cory had also been injured in the landslide and was even now lying unconscious, or buried like she, or washed away by the Winter Race as it burst its banks…
Rachel gave a little sob and stifled it furiously. Action, not thought, was the key to helping herself now. Cautiously, she started to feel about her, running her hands over the rocks beneath and to the side of her in order to ascertain the dimensions of her trap. That she was in some sort of cave seemed certain, and also that it had opened up as a result of the torrential rains, only to be sealed like all the tombs about it when the fall of mud and sand had swept away the bank. She started to crawl forwards gingerly, feeling her way, each inch seeming a mile, each fresh brush of sand against rock making her heart beat faster in case it presaged another landslide. The air was heavy and warm and Rachel felt light-headed, with panic only a heartbeat away.
She had no notion how far she had crawled before her hands came up against a lip of rock that seemed to stretch upwards, and then another beyond it, rising up in the darkness. Rachel’s fingers clutched at the steps and her heart clutched at the hope, for steps led upwards, towards the light and the fresh air. Towards escape.
She stood up. The roof was high enough to stand here and slowly, following the line of the wall, she slowly followed the line of shallow steps upward. Was it her imagination, or did the stifling air become a little fresher here? And was that not a faint sliver of light that she could see ahead of her, as though down the end of a long, dark passage?
When she finally reached it, it was disappointing enough. She was in another, larger chamber and the light came fitfully through what looked like tiny cracks in the earthen walls. Rachel tried to visualise where she could be, but she had lost her sense of direction almost immediately and could not guess which of the many barrows she had come up into. It was one that Sir Arthur and Lady Odell had not yet started to work upon, for there was no evidence of digging or disturbance here. Nor, to Rachel’s immense relief, could she see any bones or burials, nor smell the unmistakable scent of decay. In the dim light the chamber seemed completely bare.
Rachel went over to the earthen wall and put her face up to the nearest chink of light. She could see nothing, but she felt the chill of the fresh air against her skin and the stray coldness of rain against her lips. She scrabbled at the wall with her fingers, but it was more sturdy that it looked. It would take her hours to dig herself out.
There was a sudden rush of air and a rumbling sound as the whole of the tomb shifted behind her and another wall of mud and sand pressed down, closing the steps up which she had so recently come. Rachel caught her breath and pressed more closely to the wall. And as she opened her mouth to shout for help, she heard the scrape of movement and felt the shift of the walls, and drew back in fear again in case the whole edifice was about to collapse.
A moment later, when she heard the scrape of a shovel on stone, she realised that it was not another landslide that had caused the noise, but human hand. Cory had come for her, as she had known he would. Suddenly Rachel felt as though all the stuffing had been knocked out of her. She sat down heavily on the earthen floor and tried to quell the trembling in her limbs.
‘Rachel?’ Cory’s voice echoed about the tomb, bouncing off the roof. ‘Are you there?’
‘Cory!’ It came out as a rather pitiful squeak. Rachel tried again. This time it was a high-pitched shriek. ‘Cory! Help! The chamber is filling with sand.’
The movement stilled.
‘Rachel? Thank God! I’ll get you out of there soon. Stand back.’
Just to hear his voice was reassuring. She could see him now, a darker shadow against the slim sliver of light. The spade bit into the earth, sending a shower of soil tumbling into the tomb.
‘Rachel?’ She scrambled across to the widening gap. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘No,’ Rachel said. ‘Just a little bruised and shaken. Please be quick, Cory.’ Her voice shook a little. ‘I think the whole tomb is going to collapse!’
‘The entire riverbank is washing away,’ Cory said. ‘I am doing what I can, Rae, but I cannot work too quickly for fear the roof will come down on you.’
Rachel stifled a sob. ‘I understand. Just be as quick as you can…’
It was another couple of minutes before the gap was large enough to pass the lantern through.
‘Take the light,’ Cory said, pushing it through the space.
The brightness made Rachel feel much better in some ways and worse in others. She could see her prison now, with its two sturdy walls to the south and west, where Cory was digging. On the northern side, where the river ran, the sand had completely blocked the steps down to the lower chamber and the roof sagged perilously low. The rest of the tomb was as bare as she had initially thought, but for what looked like a small, empty ledge on the eastern wall that looked as though it was intended as a shelf for a vase or chalice. There were no bones or offerings, or artefacts of long-dead kings, for which Rachel thanked God. She pressed herself to the western wall and prayed for Cory to be quick.
The gap widened and Cory’s face appeared, lit from beneath by the lantern. It was dirty, creased with worry, his hair tumbled across his brow.
‘Rae-another few moments only…’
There was an ominous rumble of sound from below, then a swirl of water swept across Rachel’s feet. The steady thud of the spade filled the tomb above.
‘Cory! The water is coming through!’
‘Hold on, Rae.’ Cory’s voice was a little out of breath but remarkably calm. ‘I am nearly there. Pass me the lantern-’
What happened next was quick and confusing. As Rachel held the lantern up there was a grating roar and the back wall gave way. In the lantern light, Rachel saw the little shelf appear to slip and slide sideways, revealing a large cavity beyond. It was full of wooden brandy casks. In the lamplight they appeared ghostly white with cobwebs clinging like glue. They were tumbled on the floor and stacked against the wall. A few were broken and the jagged wooden edges showed in the light.
Rachel stared, transfixed. Then icy water swept up to her waist and clinging mud dragged on her skirts. Cory was pulling her through the gap, but the whole roof was coming down and it threatened to take him with it. Rachel scrambled to safety and turned desperately to see Cory fighting for his footing as the ground gave way beneath him. With a superhuman effort she caught his flailing arm and pulled so hard she was afraid she would dislocate his shoulder. They rolled over, Cory dragging Rachel beneath him, his body arched over hers for protection and her cheek against his chest. They fell over and over in a tumble of limbs and brackish water, finally to lie still.
Rachel uncurled herself slowly. Her hands were spread against Cory’s chest and she could feel the beat of his heart, slowing now to its normal pace. Her mouth and nose were buried against the wet material of his jacket. She could feel the rain still falling in sheets, running down her face, but she lay still, clinging to Cory as though she never wanted to let him go.
‘Rachel?’ Cory shifted, his mouth pressing against her temple.
‘I am all right,’ Rachel said. She reluctantly moved a little away. ‘You?’
Cory nodded.
‘Thank you,’ Rachel said, her voice breaking a little. ‘Thank you for rescuing me.’
Cory smiled. ‘Any time, Rae. And thank you. I rather think I would have been washed away by now without you.’
Rachel raised a hand and rubbed it against his lean cheek. ‘You have mud on your face…’
They stared at each other for a second and then Cory’s arms went around her again. Their lips met in a tingle of rainswept cold, and it was heaven, and then Cory had crushed her close and Rachel gasped in pleasure against his mouth. They could have been standing at the gates of hell itself and neither of them would have paid the slightest notice.
Eventually Rachel freed herself from Cory’s embrace slightly, grabbing his arm again as her knees threatened to give way. ‘Come inside the house,’ she said. ‘Quickly, before we are both drowned.’
Clasping the lantern, and staggering like a pair of drunken sailors, they wended their way towards the house. Though it was barely four o’clock the sky was completely dark and heavy with unshed rain and the house had a shuttered, quiet air that felt very different from the atmosphere of suppressed tension between them. It seemed to
