Kerry Greenwood - Urn Burial

‘I’ll lever, you slide,’ she said, holding her breath.

The lid resisted for a moment, glued fast with mould. Then Phryne managed to lift it enough for Lin to grasp the edge and pull it towards himself. It screeched as the worked edges scraped across each other.

Phryne and Lin bent to look inside.

At that moment, the light went out and cellar door clanged shut with a hollow boom.

Dark hair said to gold hair, ‘It’s happening.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘The train of events that will bring us together – my love, my dear love.’

‘What have you done?’ said gold hair to dark hair, both hands on a serge-clad chest, resisting the embrace.

‘I have done what I had to do.’

‘For us?’ asked gold hair.

‘For us,’ said dark hair tenderly and this time gold hair accepted the kiss.

‘Phryne?’ Lin asked. He let go of the stone lid, which balanced on the edge of the coffin. Phryne stretched out a hand, touched his hair, and slid down to grasp his wrist.

‘Well, here we are,’ she said excitedly. ‘Someone doesn’t want us to find out what is in this box. I must be getting somewhere. It’s most gratifying.’

‘Gratifying?’ asked Lin Chung.

‘Absolutely. Now, if you can come towards me, around the coffin, we should be about three paces from the stairs.’ She moved slowly, sliding her feet across the slippery floor, anxious not to collide with anything. Her groping touch found a wall.

‘Good. I’ve got a reference point.’ Lin came to stand beside her. ‘Now all we need to do is walk along this wall until we reach the stairs.’

‘The door is locked,’ Lin pointed out. ‘Do you have the key?’

‘Yes, of course. Or rather, no. I left it in the door, on the other side. Dammit. We’re locked in. But at least we can have some light and there must be a way out of this cellar.’

‘We will need to find it,’ said Lin imperturbably out of the darkness.

‘Oh, why?’

‘Because the floor, dry enough when we came in, is now an inch deep in water. That well, as youre call, floods the cellar. If the water rises high enough . . .’

‘It won’t. Tom would never let his precious wines get wet. There, there are the stairs. Follow me up,’ she said, as he placed his hand on her waist. They splashed through the cellar and up the castle stairs. Phryne counted. Five steps and a turn. Five more and another turn. Then she stood up with one hand on her guiding wall and flailed for the light cord. She caught at spider webs, but otherwise there was just empty air.

‘Lin, I can’t find the string for the light.’

‘He could have brought it along the ceiling and jammed it in the door.’

‘So he could. Further up. Here’s the door. You take that side, I’ll take this.’

They groped around the edges of the cellar door. It was a thick, solid wooden door, studded with iron nails with large heads. Phryne did not like their chances of chopping through it, even if they had a battleaxe. Though there might even be a battleaxe in the cellar of Cave House, probably along with a full set of fourteenth-century plate armour and the knight who wore it.

Lin said, ‘There’s no cord. He must have cut it.’

‘Never mind. There’s a little light; my eyes have got used to it now. Hinchcliff knows where we are. Someone will come and rescue us.’

‘However, since it might take them a while to miss us, we might make some arrangements for our comfort,’ he suggested.

He felt his way down the stairs again and Phryne heard him floundering in the dark, swearing in Cantonese, and splashing in what was evidently rising water.

He came up again and she felt him sit beside her on the broad top step.

‘A bottle of wine,’ he said, setting it down. ‘Champagne, by the cork. I’ve also got the case-opener, which we might try on the door, and the cellarman’s cushion for his port, when it was brought here in the dray. I fancy that it is an old bedcover. Are you cold?’

‘Yes.’ Phryne accepted half of the quilt, which stank of mould, and snuggled closer to Lin who was always warm. He bent to kiss her and she felt him shudder.

‘Are you cold, too?’

‘No. It’s not the cold. I . . . I don’t like this place.’

‘Neither do I,’ she agreed.

‘I mean,’ he said with exquisite embarrassment, ‘I do not like confined spaces and I especially do not like confined dark spaces.’

‘I see. Well, no point in sitting here, then. Come on. Let’s heave at that door.’

Lin found the lock and tried to force the claws of the case-opener into them. After a few minutes, he grunted, ‘No good,’ and gave the implement to Phryne.

‘It’s a well-made door,’ she agreed after a moment’s struggle. ‘It’s perfectly fitted and the lintel is of stone, curse it. It’s no good, Lin dear, we shall just have to bang on the door until someone comes and lets us out. You can take first shift.’

Lin swung the iron bar against the unmoving portal and it clanged.

After about a minute, a partially deafened Phryne took the bottle and the quilt and removed herself to the bottom of the stairs. Her foot splashed down into water that was now at least ten inches deep and she withdrew two steps, suppressing her exclamation of disgust. The water was stagnant and foul with floating debris. She shook her wet foot like a cat who has put a paw into an unexpected puddle, squeezed water from her sock and trouser leg and dried her hands on her jumper.

Then she unwound the wires and popped the cork of the champagne, taking a deep gulp. Now was probably not the time to wonder aloud to her claustrophobic companion about what was actually in that sarcophagus.

The noise filled the cellar and echoed dully. After about ten minutes, Phryne called, ‘Come down and have a drink, Lin. I don’t think they can hear us.’

He laid down the bar and the noise stopped. Phryne swallowed and her hearing, in some measure, returned. She shared her musty cloak with him. He was panting with effort.

‘It’s embarrassing, Lin dear, not catastrophic,’ she said quietly. She felt him gasp a little as he gulped the rather good champagne – French, Phryne was sure, though not Veuve Cliquot – and he sat still and began to control his breathing. The heart which had been racing against her cheek slowed and firmed.

‘I am forgetting my training,’ he said into her hair. ‘My master always said I was impetuous. ‘‘In the true way there is only calm’’, he said. I can hear him saying it.’

‘Master?’ asked Phryne encouragingly.

‘Yes, Master Wu. I studied at the Temple of the War God in Peking. Only for a couple of years. Long enough to learn some discipline, I would have thought, but I have always been afraid of being locked in the dark. When I was a child I had a nurse who used to shut me in a cupboard if I displeased her. I’m ashamed, Silver Lady, to show such weakness.’

‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of. If you aren’t afraid, you can’t be brave.’ She knew that this was insufficient and gave him something very close and secret. ‘I’m afraid of fire.’

‘Fire?’

‘Yes. The pain of a burn hurts me more than anything else – the brassy taste in the mouth, that cold pain. If we were facing a fire, I’d be scared half to death, whereas a little cold, wet and confinement does not worry me unduly, though when I find whoever shut us in I’ll do him an injury. Don’t worry, Lin. I don’t think any less of you. We’re all afraid of something.’

‘And you are a warrior,’ mused Lin, pulling the quilt closer. ‘Li Pen said so, and he would know, being one himself. He came out of that temple after ten years, Silver Lady, a complete fighter and hunter. That is why my father engaged him. He protects me, as well as irons my shirts and makes sure that I do not forget that I am Chinese.’