Page 58 of The Trials of Alaric
“Is that where we will find the hidden doors?” Tarquin wondered.
“Possibly,” Alaric agreed. “The only other clue that might be intended to give us a location is ‘uneasy sleep,’ which might mean one of the bedchambers.”
“Let’s look at the watchtowers before breakfast,” Luke suggested. “What about the last two lines? By the way, the three clues I’ve seen only had four verses.”
“All of the other clues had four verses,” Alaric confirmed. “They were all about famous love stories. Romeo and Juliet. Odysseus and Penelope. That sort of thing. What is the lesson learned? Most of them had tragic ends.”
“The trove you seek is Claddach’s heart,” Eloise repeated. “The heart of Lord Claddach? Or theisleof Claddach?”
Her. The answer to that part of the clue was Bea herself. Her father had made it clear from the time he began to train her as his successor that he, his predecessors, and his successors were the heart of Claddach. But perhaps the line had other meanings and, besides, Bea couldn’t refer to herself as the “heart of Claddach.” Alaric might believe he had to win her heart, and the truth was, he already had it.
“We shall meet by the front door in the morning,” she declared. “If that suits you all? At seven?”
They agreed, and just in time, for Dashwood approached with Lucy on his arm to say they were returning to the drawing room.
Their time to conspire on the clue was over for the evening.
*
Alaric was notcomfortable. His bed had always been narrow, and high, but until tonight, he had slept well enough. Tonight, it seemed as if the mattress had developed hard lumps. Or, at least, a hardlump.
He had wriggled around until he was able to avoid it, but as soon as he fell asleep, he shifted, and the lump woke him again. In the early hours of the morning, he gave up, lit a spill from the embers of the fire to light a lamp, and went looking for whatever had got into his bed.
After stripping off all the blankets and sheets, he had a bed base and a stack of mattresses. Very thin ones, all filled with down. No wonder the bed was so high! He had never seen so many mattresses all piled one upon another.
Finding the lump with his hand, he used the other hand to search between the mattresses. He found the object threemattresses down and pulled it out. It was a ring of keys. Two large metal keys and a small one, all of the old-fashioned sort.
“Till opened by uneasy sleep,” he repeated. The keys to the hidden doors? He certainly hoped so!
Now to find the doors. Alaric remade the bed and slept soundly for the rest of the night, but the keys did not leave his hand.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Well before seven,Alaric was up and dressed. He walked through the castle, carrying his boots so he did not wake anyone else. The tallest tower on the seaward side was little used, but Claddach’s housekeeper was conscientious and each room he came to as he climbed the stairs was clean and tidy. He saw no hidden doors, but then he wouldn’t, would he? If they were hidden?
So, he came back down the stairs, stopping at each room to run his hand over panels and examine floorboards. Still nothing. It was nearly time to meet the others, and Bea didn’t think this tower was the one in the verse, but Alaric would come back if they found nothing in the other towers.
He hurried from the tower to the main door, and found Bea, Ellie, and Luke all waiting. Tarquin and Eloise arrived before he’d had time to say more than, “Good morning.” Bea nodded to the footman who was standing by to open the door, and they all thanked him as they passed out through the door and into the fresh, crisp morning that waited beyond.
“I was thinking about the verse,” Luke announced. “I think we should start with the north tower. It is closest to Scotland, and by the time of the knights, Scots pirates were a great danger to English shipping. Irish pirates were more active in Tudor times, which is probably a little late for the Earl of Claddach to have knights in his watchtowers.”
“It is a good point,” Bea noted. “I was thinking of the Vikings, but that is a little early for knights, is it not? In any case, Vikings would most likely have come here from Scotland or Wirral in England. Even if they came from Dublin, they were as likely to round Claddach from the north as from the south.”
They all looked to Alaric, who shrugged. “North it is,” he said. “We have to start somewhere.”
Bea had brought the key for the watchtower door. She opened it, and Alaric said, “Let’s start at the top. I imagine that would be where the knights kept watch, since they could see more of the sea on the other side of the bluff from the highest point.”
The others set off toward the stairs that spiraled up from one side of the ground floor room, but Bea stopped. “I had forgotten. The very top door has always been locked. For as long as I can remember.”
Alaric pulled the ring of keys from the pocket of his coat. “That might explain why I found these under my mattress last night.”
They all stopped to look at the keys dangling from his hand. Bea was the first to speak. “The locked door is a good sign then. Let us go and see if one of the keys is a fit.” She was the first to reach the stairs, and the others followed, hurrying up them as fast as they could.
The tower had eight levels, and the stair spiraled through the immensely thick stone walls, with openings into the interior on every level. They climbed past empty room after empty room. The run had become more of a walk by the time they reached the top floor. The stair spiraled on up. “The top of the stair opens onto the roof,” Bea explained. “From up there, you can see for miles. But the view from the room below is nearly as good—or, at least, it is in the watchtower at the far end of the inner wall,which is in every way the same as this one, so I do not see why the top room would be different.”
“Try the key, Alaric,” Tarquin said.
The second of the larger keys fitted and turned. Alaric stepped back and asked Bea to open the door. She did so, and stepped inside, followed by the others.
