Ravenspur: Rise of the Tudors Read Online Free

eel, perhaps.’
    Her eyes narrowed slightly, but in disdain rather than suspicion.
    ‘If Master Holt or the constable saw you using this old door, they’d skin you, you know that, don’t you? Honestly,
boys
! Too lazy for the long way round. Go on with you, then. I’ll lock it behind. Be sure you put the keys back on their pegs. And come back to the gatehouse. I won’t hear you knocking here, not with all this noise.’ To Henry’s surprise, the big cook reached out and ruffled his hair with fingers strong enough to bend an iron ladle.
    He felt his eyes threaten tears, though he could not remember the last time he had wept, not in all his life. There was a chance he would never set foot in Pembroke again, he realized. What passed for his family were all within the walls of that castle. It was true Mary Corrigan had beaten him three times for stealing, but she had once kissed his cheek andslipped an apple into his hand. It was the only act of kindness he could remember.
    He hesitated, but recalled the dark figure of the rider. His uncle had come for him. Henry’s resolve hardened and he nodded to her. The door opened with a draught of cold air and he closed it on Mary’s bright cheeks and perspiration, hearing the lock click and the woman grunt as she lifted the bar and put it back. Henry steadied himself, feeling the cold seep into him after the thicker air of the kitchen.
    The stairs turned immediately, so that no one who came up them would ever have room to brace himself and swing an axe. They dropped away into the cliff under Pembroke, twisting sharply. The first few steps were lit by cracks in the door, but that dim gleam lasted only to the second turn. After that, he was in blackness, thick as damp linen pressed against his face.
    No one knew if the cave had been discovered after the castle was built or whether it was the reason the first wooden fort had been raised in that spot, centuries before. Henry had seen chipped flint arrowheads recovered from the cavern floor, formed by hunters from a past too distant to know. Roman coins too had been found, with the faces of dead emperors set into blackened silver. It was an old place and it had delighted Henry when he’d found it first, during a winter of solid rain when every day had been a misery of tutors, bruises and damp.
    Some change in the echoes of his steps warned him before he struck the door below. It too was locked, but he felt for the key there and found it on a leather cord. It took all his strength to force the door open after he’d unlocked it, thumping his shoulder against the swollen doorjamb over and over until he fell into a much colder darkness. Panting from exertion and not a little fear, Henry shoved the door closedbehind him and held the cold key in his hand, wondering just what to do with it. It didn’t seem right to take such a vital thing. He could sense the huge cavern overhead – a different world, though he stood directly under Pembroke. The silence was broken by flutters of pigeons on the high stones, reacting to his presence in their mindless way. He listened harder and heard the river’s gentle breath.
    The darkness was complete as he stepped out, immediately knocking his shin on the keel of a rowing boat, no doubt dragged into the cave to be repaired. The existence of the cave was not the secret of Pembroke. The secret was the hidden door back in the gloom, that led to the heart of the castle above. Henry cursed and rubbed his leg, feeling the key once again. He hung it on the prow of the boat where it would be found and edged his way past on a floor that was as smooth as a riverbed.
    The last barrier to the river was of iron, a gate set into stone walls built over the natural mouth of the cave. Henry collected another key and worked it in the lock until he heard a click. He stepped through and stood outside in the darkness with his back to the river, relocking the gate and tossing the key back beyond reach. He did not do that for