Peter Tremayne - The Leper's bell

Where was Eadulf now? And little Alchú?

She groaned again. Tears were still welling in her eyes when merciful sleep overcame her again.

Holding the oil lamp high, Eadulf peered around his prison.

The sand beneath his feet was wet and a few strands of seaweed lay discarded on it, along with some broken shells. A movement in a corner caught his eye. It was a crab cowering in the shadows. A cold chill caught Eadulf as he continued his examination. The stone walls were dark with water stains and a tiny green moss clung to the blocks. The waterline stretched almost up to the ceiling. He turned to examine the base of the walls. There were three apertures in one of them, but they were tiny — a man’s head might be placed in them but there was no way anyone could crawl through. As he peered into these holes, he became aware of a strange sighing sound. He bent to listen. It did not take him long to realise that he was listening to the sighing of the sea some way beyond the apertures. Peering along the tiny tunnels, he thought he could see some reflected light.

He swallowed hard.

Beyond the small tunnels was the restless, brooding sea. That’s what Uaman meant! High tide! At high tide the sea would come rushing in through these holes and into this prison chamber. There was no escape. He would be drowned, for there was no way out.

Eadulf became aware of a new noise: a muffled sound. It seemed to come from high above him. It sounded like a knocking. Masonry began to fall into the confined space from a point high in one corner. Concerned, Eadulf moved to the opposite corner. Was there some new torture in store for him? A heavy block of stone suddenly plummeted down on to the sandy floor with a thud.

A faint light showed above him, not the light of a lamp but a dull white glow. Something moved in the aperture. It was someone’s head and shoulders.

‘ Kairongnothi! ’ came a cry of triumph.

Eadulf stood still, peering upwards. There was a scrabbling as the head and shoulders emerged a little further through the aperture.

‘ Dos moi pou sto kai ten gen kineso! ’ grunted a male voice in satisfaction.

Eadulf recognised the phrase from Archimedes. Give me a place to stand and I will move the earth! The voice was speaking in Greek.

‘Stay there!’ he cried out. ‘Don’t come any further or you’ll fall!’

He realised he was calling out in his own tongue. Then, trying to summon up his knowledge but realising it was confined to the Greek of the sacred texts, he tried again, but by this time the person above him had seen the danger as the oil lamp Eadulf held illuminated the four-metre drop into the cell below. There came a stream of Greek that Eadulf could only presume was the owner of the voice expressing his disappointment in voluble terms. Then there was a pause.

‘Do you speak this language?’ came the voice at length.

‘I have only few words. Do you speak the language of the Éireannach?’

‘No.’

There was another pause. The man above must have been examining Eadulf in the gloomy light of the oil lamp.

‘I see that you wear a Roman tonsure. What of the Latin language?’ asked the voice in that language.

‘I speak it well enough,’ Eadulf replied, feeling relief.

‘Are you a prisoner too?’

Eadulf caught the emphasis of the word ‘too’.

‘So you are a prisoner? Indeed, I am a prisoner of Uaman, and if I am not mistaken, I am a prisoner not long destined for this world. I have been put in this place to die.’

‘How so?’ demanded the voice.

‘I was told that I had until high tide. From the look of this cell, I believe that when high tide comes, it floods up to roof level. The walls are damp and thick with moss and seaweed.’

The voice muttered something in Greek that he took to be an expression of surprise. Then the man spoke again.

‘I thought that by removing a few stone blocks in my cell, I would be tunnelling out to a place from where I might escape.’

‘You were escaping from your cell, then?’

‘I was.’

‘And where is your cell?’

‘Just behind me. The floor of my cell is just above what appears to be the level of this roof.’

‘Where is the light behind you coming from?’

‘Ah, I have a small barred window that looks out on the sea.’

‘Are you sure that you are above the sea level?’

‘I have watched the tides,’ came the response. ‘At high tide, I am just above sea level. Certainly the stone walls and floor of the cell that I am in keep out the waters.’

Eadulf felt a sudden surge of hope.

‘Then if I could somehow climb up to you and into your cell, I would avoid being trapped and drowned down here.’

‘You would be merely exchanging one cell for another. I have been trying to escape these last few days. I thought I had when I forced a way through into your cell.’

‘Well, better your cell than mine.’ Eadulf smiled in the gloom. ‘At least, from what you say, I won’t drown there.’

He peered up, trying to figure out distances by the light of his lamp. If the aperture was four metres from the floor, as he estimated, then it might as well be a million. The stone was too wet to climb and clammy with seaweed and lichen. There was no hope of even attempting to scale it. It would be far too slippery.

‘Perhaps when the water starts to flood in, I might be able to rise up with it,’ he suggested.

‘Dangerous, my friend,’ warned the voice above him. ‘Wait.’

Eadulf was about to rejoin that he would not be going anywhere, but the head and shoulders had disappeared.

An interminable time passed. He heard strange sounds, a tearing noise. Then the head and shoulders appeared again.

‘Stand by!’

Something came snaking down. It was a series of strips of torn linen knotted together. It came to just above his head.

‘Can you reach the end, my friend?’

‘If I put down my lamp and jump.’

‘In that case, do so. I think it will be strong enough. I have tied the end to the wooden cot here so I think it should hold.’

Eadulf put down the lamp. At his second jump his hands closed over the end of the strip and for a moment he swayed, crashing into the side of the cell and grazing himself on the stone blocks. He hung for a moment and then, slowly, he began to haul himself up hand over hand. The man above encouraged him and it did not seem very long until his head drew level with the aperture high in the wall. It was not large, but big enough to thrust his head and shoulders through.

His companion had started to back through the space before him. Eadulf realised that the mouth of the aperture gave on to a small tunnel-like hole which stretched upwards at an angle for a little more than a metre. The man backed upwards and out of the hole while Eadulf managed the difficult task of heaving himself over the edge into the inclining tunnel. A few moments later he was through and lying on the stone-flagged floor of his new-found companion’s cell, recovering from his exertion.

After a few moments he glanced round. His rescuer was hauling in the makeshift ‘rope’ which had been tied to a wooden imda , a bed frame. In fact, this was the only piece of furniture in a stone-walled, stone-floored cell. There was a thick wooden door at one end and in one wall a small barred window which, when he later examined the view, looked out on to the seaward side of the island.

Eadulf turned to his companion and grinned.

‘At least I am given a respite from a watery grave.’

The man facing him was older than he was. He was tall, and fairly muscular, with black hair that receded from his forehead and an abundant beard. He had a sallow, olive skin, and his brows and eyes were almost as black as his hair, which he wore without a tonsure. He met Eadulf’s grin with an equally humorous expression and shrugged.