The Librarian's Spell by Patricia Rice (reading eggs books TXT) 📕

lumber and bricks filled one corner of this front chamber. Men hauled down a few more timbers and added them to the pile, tipping their caps to her and hurrying back out.

She recognized Laddie and one of the stableboys emerging from the tower cellar’s interior. “What is happening? Is Max all right? Is anyone hurt?”

“The man Mr. Ives calls Cuz is down the tunnel,” Laddie answered, respectfully pulling on his cap brim. Laddie wasn’t a talkative sort on the best of days.

“Mr. Ives is climbing down to pull him out,” the other, older man with him said. “But it’s a right crumbly tunnel, iffen you ask me. And deep. Anyone fool enough to get himself in there ought to be left to get himself out.”

Cuz. His cousin? Max’s cousin had fallen into. . . what? A sewer? A cistern?

Lydia was trying not to panic when a suited gentleman blocked the outside light and started shouting, “Where’s my son? What happened to my son?” Entering, he startled at seeing Lydia—or any woman at all, presumably.

“Mr. Franklin?” She’d never been introduced to Max’s uncle, but she was good at putting two and two together.

“Where’s George? They told me George was hurt. Where is he? If that devil has harmed him, I swear, I’ll—” His face was nearly gray with fear, which didn’t go well with his fading blond hair.

“Max is apparently trying to save a fool who bypassed warning signs,” Lydia said, interrupting the tirade. Since he hadn’t bothered asking who she was, she saw no reason to explain. “I can’t say if the fool is your son. Unless you have knowledge of sewers and cisterns and the like, I’d advise you to stay out of the way of those who do.”

“Who the devil are you to talk to me like—”

The tall marquess dipped his platinum-blond head as he entered from the low interior door. He looked dusty and unhappy but spoke with respect. “Miss Wystan, good. The idiot is likely to suffocate if we don’t find some way of hauling him out. Max is going down with some equipment. He says to ask you if there is anything in the library about an oubliette?”

As if just noticing George’s father, the marquess nodded politely. “Excuse me for interrupting. You were saying?” His cold tone indicated he didn’t actually wish to hear Franklin finish his tirade.

Apparently recognizing the striking marquess, Max’s uncle wisely shut up.

“An oubliette?” Lydia shuddered. How would she ever find a book on an oubliette? “That’s a medieval torture device, isn’t it? Why would the library have such a thing?”

“Because the original tower was a fortress designed to protect its inhabitants from enemies. It was not a particularly civilized period. If you have any books at all on the construction of the foundation, those would be useful as well.” The marquess looked at her expectantly.

He didn’t know she couldn’t find anything.

“I thought I gave Max everything we had. I’ll bring down those books,” she suggested. “I don’t remember any mention of an. . . oubliette.”

“Max seems to think there may be a trap, at least. His cousin was apparently searching for imaginary silver and has fallen deeper than the drainage tunnel into a part Max has not explored. It’s apparently very tight.” He didn’t look at George’s father.

“Is Max. . . is Max in any danger?” Lydia asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

The marquess looked sympathetic. “The tunnel is not in good shape, but he’s knowledgeable. He has Simon Blair with him. They both know mining. They’re working at shoring up the sides. They were hoping a device might already be installed for pulling the prisoners out—or at least for lowering food to them. But they didn’t wish to dig through rubble to find out.”

“And if there is no device?” Lydia whispered, unable to imagine the dark grim place they worked in.

“Max plans to dig him out,” the marquess said. “But the walls in that section appear to be undermined from below. I’ll tell him you’re looking up the dungeon, and he’ll stick to propping up the walls a little longer. His cousin’s likely to suffocate if left in there too long.”

Max’s uncle moaned in despair.

Twenty-seven

More pebbles rained down from the drainage tunnel. Max wished for a hat. Why the devil was there a void beneath the damned sewer?

From the ragged opening in the ceiling, Simon lowered a brighter lantern so he could have a look at where Max was digging.

The light illuminated a narrow shaft with dirt and pebble walls and the remains of what might have been wooden supports. Wood that old could not support the stone sewer forever. The rubble indicated that what once might have been a mine shaft had been filled to provide a foundation for the more solidly-built sewer above.

Maybe this was where Cadwallader’s ghost had descended—a tunnel to the spirit world. Or a graveyard.

“Someone created this channel for a reason,” Max called to the men above.

Having disappeared into a void beneath the pebbles that Max couldn’t access, his cousin was ominously silent now that his cries had been answered. Max didn’t trust George, but he didn’t think a senseless bookkeeper like his cousin could build a trap in Max’s own damned cellar. George had just been his usual doltish self, assumed the warning sign meant Max was hiding something, and had gone where he didn’t belong.

“We’re looking for any signs of iron,” Simon called down. “They may have had chains to lower a cage. Have you found Mr. Franklin yet?”

“There appears to be a fresh pile of rubble over in the far corner. I want to prop up the walls before I risk going over there. The soil is slick with oil and water, and there’s likely subsidence that’s causing the dirt to give way.” Max had never mined shale, but Gerard had been right. This smelled like oil. “I figure George slid into that corner and the ground gave out beneath him.”

Or a rusted metal grate covering an oubliette had fallen through, which was why