Timeline - Michael Crichton [181]
He turned to Kramer.
“Sorry,” she said. “If there’re no shields, nobody comes back. That’s final.”
01:01:52
Crouched beside the trapdoor, Kate got slowly to her feet. She was standing in a narrow space, no more than four feet wide, with high stone walls on either side. Firelight was coming in from an opening to her left. By its yellow light, she saw a door directly ahead of her. Behind her was a set of stairs, going steeply upward to the top of the chamber, some thirty feet above.
But where was she?
Chris peered over the edge of the trapdoor, and pointed to the firelight. He whispered, “I think we know why they never found the door to this passage.”
“Why?”
“It’s behind the fireplace.”
“Behind the fireplace?” she whispered. And then she realized he was right. This narrow space was one of the secret passages of La Roque: behind the fireplace of the great hall.
Kate moved forward cautiously, past the wall to her left—and found herself staring out from the back wall of the fireplace in the great hall. The fireplace was nine feet high. Through the leaping flames, she saw Oliver’s high table, where his knights were sitting and eating, their backs to her. She could not be more than fifteen feet from them.
She whispered, “You’re right. It’s behind the fireplace.”
She looked back to Chris, then beckoned him to come forward. She was about to continue to the door directly ahead when Sir Guy glanced back at the fire as he tossed a chicken wing into the flames. He turned back to the table, resumed eating.
She thought, Get out of here.
But it was too late. Guy’s shoulders twitched; he was already turning back again. He saw her clearly, his eyes met hers, and he shouted, “My Lord!” He pushed back from the table and drew his sword.
Kate ran to the door, tugged at it, but it was locked, or stuck shut. She couldn’t open it. She turned back to the narrow stairs behind her. She saw Sir Guy standing on the other side of the flames, hesitating. He looked at her again, and plunged through the fire toward her. She saw Chris coming through the trapdoor and said, “Down!” He ducked down as she scrambled up the stairs.
Sir Guy swung at her feet, narrowly missing her, his sword clanging off the stone. He cursed her, then looked down at the opening to the passage below. Apparently he didn’t see Chris, because immediately afterward she heard him coming up the stairs behind her.
She had no weapon; she had nothing.
She ran.
:
At the top of the stairs, thirty feet above the ground, was a narrow platform, and when she reached it, she felt a thicket of cobwebs clinging to her face. She brushed them away impatiently. The platform could not have been more than two feet square. It was precarious, but she was a climber and it didn’t bother her.
But it bothered Sir Guy. He was moving very slowly up the stairs toward her, pressing his shoulder against the wall, keeping as far from the edge of the stairs as he could, clutching at tiny handholds in the mortar of the wall. He had a desperate look and he was breathing hard. So, the valiant knight was afraid of heights. But not afraid enough to stop, she saw. If anything, his discomfort seemed to make him angrier. He glared at her with murderous intent.
The platform faced a rectangular wooden door, fitted with a round view hole the size of a quarter. The stairs had clearly been built to lead to this hole, allowing an observer to look down on the great hall and see everything that occurred there. Kate pushed at the door, leaning her weight against it, but instead of opening, the entire rectangle fell through, dropping onto the floor of the great hall below, and she half-fell through after it.
She was inside the great hall.
She was up high, among the heavy wooden beams of the open ceiling. She looked down at the tables thirty feet below her. Directly ahead was the enormous central rafter, running the length of the hall. This beam was crisscrossed with horizontal rafters every five feet, which ran out to the walls on both sides. All the rafters were elaborately