“Aye. A secret passage. The entrance is right there.” He gestured at a section of wall that looked the same as the rest, then confirmed what Janna had said. “The messenger has taken me daughter-in-law through it and is headed out to Greenweld’s men with her. I want this passage blocked. Set Ebba and Giorsal on the wall to watch the Sassenach, then fetch all the men who are left and begin bringing boulders from the bailey up here.”

“Boulders?”

“Aye. I would have this entrance and the one in me own room blocked. The English’ll not use it to sneak up on us.”

Nodding, Rabbie moved past Janna toward the door as the woman asked, “What of Lady Iliana? Greenweld’ll use her to try to force us to surrender.”

Angus was grim-faced. “We shall stall fer as long as we can.”

“And when we can no longer stall?” Rabbie asked from the door.

“Then we shall pray. Do as I ordered.”

Nodding, the stablemaster left the room.

Her captor’s curse was the only warning she got before Iliana found herself stumbling into his back as he stopped. It seemed to her that they had been inching their way through this hellish passage for hours. Completely sightless, she had stumbled along, dragged behind the man by a hand on her arm. She had tried to come up with a plan of escape as they had traveled. Unfortunately, nothing brilliant had come to mind. The floor, as far as she could tell, was smooth, uncluttered by rocks or boulders that she might have used to club him over the head. Not that he really gave her any opportunity anyway, not even when they had traversed the set of slippery steps hewn into the rock near the beginning of this journey. That had been a terrifying ordeal in itself.

Sighing, she straightened from his back and waited. They were near the end of the passage; her nose told her that. The smell when they had first entered the tunnel had been stale and dusty. But for the past several minutes that smell had given way to the rich, dank scent of earth. She was positive that they were near the end of the passage, and she felt a mixture of relief and anxiety.

She sensed her captor feeling around on the wall for something, and realized he must have set his sword aside to do so. Before she could take advantage of that fact, a portion of the darkness around them moved and light surrounded them. The light was like two arrows to her eyes after the darkness they had endured for so long.