The crystal cave - Mary Stewart [187]
One good thing the savage boiling of the sea did for us, its whiteness cast upwards again what light came from the sky. At last we saw, above our heads, the roots of the castle walls where they sprang from the rock. Even in dry weather the walls would have been unscalable, and tonight they were streaming with wet. I could see no door, nothing breaking the smooth streaming walls of slate. Ralf did not pause, but led us on under them towards a seaward corner of the cliff. There he halted for a moment, and I saw him move his arm in a gesture that meant "Beware." He went carefully round the corner and out of sight. I felt Uther stagger as he reached the corner himself and met the force of the wind. He checked for a moment and then went on, clamped tight to the cliff's face. Ulfin and I followed. For a few more hideous yards we fought our way along, faces in to the soaking, slimy cliff, then a jutting buttress gave us shelter, and we were stumbling suddenly on a treacherous slope cushiony with sea-pink, and there ahead of us, recessed deep in the rock below the castle wall, and hidden from the ramparts above by the sharp overhang, was Tintagel's emergency door.
I saw Ralf give a long look upwards before he led us in under the rock. There were no sentries above. What need to post men on the seaward ramparts? He drew his dagger and rapped sharply on the door, a pattern of knocks which we, standing as we were at his shoulder, scarcely heard in the gale.
The porter must have been waiting just inside. The door opened immediately. It swung silently open for about three inches, then stuck, and I heard the rattle of a chain bolt. In the gap a hand showed, gripping a torch. Uther, beside me, dragged his hood closer, and I stepped past him to Ralf's elbow, holding my mantle tightly to my mouth and hunching my shoulders against the volleying gusts of wind and rain.
The porter's face, half of it, showed below the torch. An eye peered. Ralf, well forward into the light, said urgently: "Quick, man. A pilgrim. It's me back, with the Duke."
The torch moved fractionally higher. I saw the big emerald on Uther's finger catch the light, and said curtly, in Brithael's voice: "Open up, Felix, and let us get in out of this, for pity's sake. The Duke had a fall from his horse this morning, and his bandage is soaking. There are just the four of us here. Make haste."
The chain bolt came off and the door swung wide. Ralf put a hand to it so that, ostensibly holding it for his master, he could step into the passage between Felix and Uther as the King entered.
Uther strode in past the bowing man, shaking the wet off himself like a dog, and returning some half-heard sound in answer to the porter's greeting. Then with a brief lift of the hand which set the emerald flashing again, he turned straight for the steps which led upwards on our right, and began quickly to mount them.
Ralf grabbed the torch from the porter's hand as Ulfin and I pressed in after Uther. "I'll light them up with this. Get the door shut and barred again. I'll come down later and give you the news, Felix, but we're all drenched as drowned dogs, and want to get to a fire. There's one in the guard-room, I suppose?"
"Aye." The porter had already turned away to bar the door. Ralf was holding the torch so that Ulfin and I could go past in shadow.
I started quickly up the steps in Uther's wake, with Ulfin on my heels. The stairs were lit only by a smoking cresset which burned in a bracket on the wall of the wide landing above us. It had been easy.
Too easy. Suddenly, above us on the landing, the sullen light was augmented by that from a blazing torch, and a couple of men-at-arms stepped from a doorway, swords at the ready.
Uther, six steps above me, paused fractionally