The Executioner's Daughter. Jane Hardstaff

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       CHAPTER FIVE

       River Thief

      The roof of the passage was low. Several times she banged her head. Mud and water sloshed round her boots. The light was distant and grey, but it was enough to follow. Moss ran her fingers over the walls. They were earth and rock. She hardly noticed the flints in the mud as they nicked her thin-soled boots. The noise was louder now and there was a rhythm to it. Like breathing. It mixed with the short gasps that stuck in her throat. Excitement. Fear. She didn’t know what. All she could think about was getting to the end of the passage. The further she went, the brighter the specks of light became.

      Moss stopped, feeling rock ahead of her. She looked up. There was a shaft of brightness coming from above. She scrambled up towards it and gripped the rough walls, pulling herself on to a ledge a few feet above the base of the tunnel. In front of her was a hole blocked with large stones, grey light filtering through.

      Carefully, Moss dislodged the stones. She stuck her head out of the hole and almost tumbled backwards. Above her were the creaking planks of a wharf. And through the murky half-light was a band of shimmering silver, spreading as far as she could see.

      It was the river. She could hardly believe it. She was outside the Tower. She was . . . free.

      Her heart was beating so fast she thought it might burst from her chest. The passage was a tunnel ? A tunnel from the garderobe drop all the way under the moat to the riverbank.

      Moss was shaking now, her ears pounding with blood and crazy, mixed-up thoughts. For years she’d listened to Nell’s tales. Of ghosts and witches and old passageways and siege tunnels dug by fearful kings. And she’d never known whether to believe the tales or not. Of course, Pa had scorned them. They were just stories dribbled from an old lady’s lips. But this tunnel was real. As real as the mud beneath her feet.

       She was free.

      On her lips, the tang of salt and riverweed. The sweetest thing she’d ever tasted.

      Moss looked around. She could wade out from under the wharf and, if the water wasn’t too deep, make it along the wharf ’s edge to the bank. She could see that the tunnel would probably be flooded at high tide, which would account for all the water and mud. She reckoned she had an hour, maybe two, before it flooded again. Her head was bursting and all the while she felt a tug-tug, deep inside, drawing her to the river. She had never been this close to it. Before she was even aware of what she was doing, Moss had hitched up her dress, crawled through the hole and dropped into the water.

      It wasn’t very deep at all. She waded swiftly, enjoying the tingle of icy water as it rinsed round her boots. With a few strides she was out from under the wharf. The water was deeper here, up to her thighs. Beyond the wharf, she could see waves lashing the shingle bank, peeling back in a snarl of froth. The wind was picking up and she felt the pull of the current now, tearing at her legs. Her boots were slipping on the shingle bed. She stumbled and steadied herself. The current was strong.

      She carried on wading, the murky water driving against her body. She staggered as her foot struck something large. And at that same moment, her legs were whipped from under her and she stumbled sideways, flailing into the deeper water of the river.

      Instantly a fist of current snatched her under.

      She felt her body barrel under the waves, over and over, cracking her head on something hard. She tried to open her eyes, but all she could see was a wall of dark. Panicking for breath, she gulped and felt saltwater fill her lungs, while useless legs thrashed against the flow that towed her as easily as a piece of rope. Her head was numb in the freezing river. She was seeing things now. Dizzy, flickering pictures, of Pa raising his axe, Two-Bellies leering at her, the swirling crowd on the hill. Then the images sank away, deep down into the silt, and Moss was bursting, her chest a choked balloon of salty water. Which way was up? Which was down? Both were gone, dissolved in the hideous pull that sucked her into darkness. That was when she saw the face.

      A woman. Her hair wispy and coiling, like smoke. A pale, frozen face, lit by strange eyes, with no expression, no smile or frown. Around her, seaweed fanned out. Her bare arms reached up towards Moss. A poor drowned soul, lost to the river. And Moss knew, sure as rotten teeth on a rich man, that she would soon be joining her. The suck of the current stopped. She felt her dress billow as her feet tipped upwards.

      Without warning, there was a sudden jerking at her legs. She felt the dead weight of her body being dragged from above. Beneath her, the woman shrank backwards into the black river.

      Feet first, Moss felt herself hauled through the waves until her head broke the surface in a splutter of foam. Arms were pulling her now, dragging her body until it cracked СКАЧАТЬ