Hefting the lantern high, Gage inched his way through the tunnel, twisting from side to side to sweep the darkness for any movement. I followed a short distance behind, my shoulders up around my ears as I periodically glanced behind me, mistrustful that something was tailing us. As before, the cloying scent of mold and must surrounded us, reminding us how old these buildings were, and how long they’d been exposed to the elements.
When we reached the other side, Gage still did not put his pistol away, but kept it at the ready. I wondered if he felt the same uneasiness I did. We searched the rooms to our left and to our right, open to the elements, and then the ruins of the refectory directly in front of us. The soaring western wall of the room remained mainly intact, with its beautiful twelve-lighted rose window.
Turning to the right, we climbed the chipped flight of stairs up to the cloister.
“Mind your step,” Gage told me.
I hefted my skirts, trying to recall where the uneven patches of stone were from descending them earlier that day.
At the top we turned to survey the open grassy area just as the moon passed behind a bank of clouds. I shivered, clinging to his side and the ring of light cast by the lantern. Everything was silent, save for the gust of the wind and the creaking of the lantern.
And then a short tapping sound reached us, like that of metal against stone.
We turned as one to stare at the doorways to our right opening off the cloister. Side by side we moved forward, listening for the sound. It was several moments later, as we were considering entering the Chapter House, that we heard it again, coming from a room farther down the wall. We paused at the entranceway to the library and then realized it was emanating from the next door. The one leading to the room we had not searched earlier that day for fear that it looked too dilapidated. The vault.
Gage lifted his hand, telling me to stay back, and then inched closer to the door. The sound had stopped, likely because whatever was making it had seen the light of our lantern approaching.
“Is someone there?” he called.
I could not hear an answer and so inched closer to be able to see around Gage’s shoulder inside the blackness of the open doorway.
“We mean you no harm,” he tried again. “But if you do not come out, I will come in after you. And I warn you, I am armed.”
Several seconds passed, and I began to worry that Gage would indeed have to go in after them, when suddenly a form in gray seemed to materialize out of the darkness.
I gasped and shrank backward, pressing a shaking hand to my mouth.
When the visage before my eyes began to take on more depth and texture, I realized it was human. An old woman, to be exact, with long, flowing gray hair and a wrinkled face that still managed to retain some of the great beauty it must have shown at a younger age. She stood with her hands wrapped in the folds of her coarse gray garments, silently observing us as we observed her, the only difference being that her countenance appeared unconcerned, even accepting of our presence.
I took another step closer, drawn by the serenity and sorrow that seemed etched into the lines of her face, almost at odds with one another. Her eyes were a pale crystalline gray, like the ice at the edge of a loch. They regarded me, first with indifference and then growing curiosity, as if she saw in me more than she expected.
“You’re the woman they call the Nun of Dryburgh,” I said, interested in her reaction to the sobriquet.
But there was none. “I am.” Her voice was oddly flat, but still pleasing.
“My uncle, Lord Rutherford, suggested we speak with you.”
“About the diggers.” It was a statement, not a question.
I turned to look at Gage to see his reaction to the woman before us. He had dropped the pistol to his side, but had not replaced it in his pocket. And his eyes, they seemed . . . muddled, as if uncertain what he was seeing. But when he caught me looking at him, he righted himself, his gaze turning firmer.
“You saw them then?” he asked her. “On Hogmanay. The men disturbing the late earl’s grave.”
Her eyes trailed into the vault through which she’d emerged, and she spoke, not to us, but to herself or perhaps someone else. “I told you to be buried here. Where you’re safe. But you did not listen.”
I glanced at Gage again, not knowing what to make of her words.
He shook his head. “Did you get a good look at these diggers? Did you hear any of them speak?”
She turned to look at us, her expression resigned. “No. It was best to stay away.”
I couldn’t argue with her about that—not when poor Dodd had been shot to death for disturbing them—but it was still frustrating to hear.
“So you noticed nothing that would help us identify them?” Gage persisted, aggravation stretching his voice. “The type of clothes they wore? The number of men?”
Her head tilted to the side as she studied his features more closely and answered abstractly. “Four. They spoke oddly. It hurt my ears, so I didn’t listen.”
What that meant, I couldn’t have guessed, though he tried.
“You mean, they didn’t speak English?”
“No. It was English. Just not the way I speak it. And not like the man with cotton in his nose.”