The dirt path turned to cobblestones, a new wooden fence to their right to prevent people slipping down the steepening grass to the rocky beach. The craggy grass in front of the castle gave way to steeper, broken rock on their right, the mossy, gray stone walls of the castle itself looming high above them.
They hurried past a small group of tourists ambling ahead of them, and then the path turned sharply back on itself. Beyond, the land was flat and grassy, and then seemed to drop off a large step to more grass and the ocean beyond.
“Down there are the island’s famous lime kilns,” Rose said, remembering previous trips. “Right on the water’s edge. We’re above them up here.” She barked a short laugh as another recollection came to her. “The lime kilns at Castle Point on Holy Island are among the largest, most complex and best preserved lime kilns in Northumberland,” she quoted. “Honestly, it’s ridiculous the kind of information my museum brain retains!”
“Impressive,” Crowley said. “But I think we need to go the other way.”
To one side were four wooden sheds. One large and regular shaped, the other three designed like half boat hulls flipped upside down. The smoothly cobbled way that doubled back on itself became a series of irregular long steps, climbing steeply up against the castle wall. The largest, normal-shaped shed was the reception and ticket office. Cameron ran ahead of Crowley and Rose, pulled money from his pocket.
He returned with three tickets and they hurried up. The castle had but a single external entrance, a door in the south side of the building. As they reached the door, something flashed through Rose’s mind, momentarily blinding her. She heard screams and howls, saw flames flickering against a night sky, then the sound of rapid footsteps on stone. Voices shouted. Her vision swam into a dark corridor, vaguely lit with the flickering orange light of flaming torches. Nausea rose and her knees buckled.
She felt hands grab under her arms, haul her back upright.
“Rose!” Crowley’s voice was sharp, concerned.
“Landvik and his idiots have just pulled up next to our car,” Cameron said.
Rose’s vision swam back. She saw Cameron looking out over the small area with cars down below, Crowley’s face much closer to her, his expression one of stress and worry.
“I’m all right,” she said. “Sorry. Something happened. I saw… something.”
“You can carry on?” Crowley asked, the unspoken problem clear in his tone if she said she couldn’t.
“Yes, I can. Let’s go.”
A large wooden door, with vertical bands of black iron, stood open before them. Stone steps under an arched ceiling led up a few meters to the lower battery of the castle. They ran up onto a wide open, flag-stoned area, crenellated walls with old gun emplacements making a curve of one end. Behind them another door led to the entrance hall.
“Come on!” Crowley ran for it, Rose and Cameron on his heels.
“Won’t we be trapped in here?” Rose asked, though she knew, somehow, that they needed to be here.
“We might be,” Crowley admitted. “But what choice do we have?”
“Did Landvik and his goons see us?”
They pushed past another small group of tourists, muttering apologies as they went.
“Who knows? Regardless, they won’t have much trouble figuring out where we’ve gone. The question is, what can we do while we’re here? And how can we make a stand against them?”
Chapter 49
Thick stone columns divided the entrance hall into three distinct areas, white-painted ceiling arching above. Over the large fireplace almost filling one end of the room was an ornate wind indicator. It depicted Lindisfarne Island with a compass over the top, marked into sections with ships sailing all around. One hand like a clock’s pointed currently just past North West.
Off to one side of the entrance hall lay a large kitchen, and beyond it the scullery. From the doorway, Rose saw a mechanism for lowering the portcullis that she knew from previous visits could still be used to bar the entrance below. It was an appealing idea to keep Landvik and his men at bay, but the tour guides nearby would certainly not allow it.
She blinked, dizzy at flashes of strange visions, bubbling up through her mind like air bubbles from a SCUBA diver’s regulator. Strobe-like flickers of memory flashed before her eyes. Crowley and Cameron hurried through the castle, looking for places to hide, to set an ambush, ignoring the bemused looks from the handful of other tourists enjoying the sights. They talked about what they might improvise as weapons, something better than the simple knives they both carried. For Rose, every room, every passageway, sparked a new memory. A sudden string of images made her stagger, flashes of descending beneath the castle, interspersed with more recent memories of the ritual Landvik performed on her.
“I’ve been here before,” she whispered, but the others didn’t hear her.
The castle accommodation formed an L-shape and they hurried down the long arm of the L, through a passage that seemed almost carved from the rock of the crag itself. They ran to one side, into a vaulted dining room, dominated by a large fireplace at one end and a wall painted bright blue at the other. A large oval table filled most of the space. Like all the rooms so far except the entrance hall, this one was small, almost cramped. This was a castle of urban home dimensions, like a castle in miniature. But nowhere seemed to afford a good place from which to mount their assault against men with guns and murder in mind. Crowley and Cameron grew increasingly frantic.
Rose staggered again, more flickering memories obscuring her vision. She called out, falling against one wall lest she collapse to the floor. Crowley and Cameron rushed back, crouched either side of her as she slid down the stone to sit on the cool ground.
“Are you okay?” Crowley asked.
“I’ve been here before,” Rose said again.
“What?”
She grimaced, frustrated at Crowley’s bone-headed focus and her own inability to order her thoughts. “I have been here before,” she said for a third time, injecting more certainty into her tone.
“That’s good,” Crowley said. “Any idea where we might hide?”
She shook her head, and then stopped when it only made her dizzier. “That’s not what I mean. I’m talking about previous lives. Yes, I’ve been here as a tourist, and as a professional researcher, but I’m having different memories now, ancient ones.”
Crowley sat back on his heels, lips pursed. “Rose, I’m not sure we have time for this.”
She shrugged. “I think it’s important. I’m generally as skeptical as you are, but I have no other explanation for this. Landvik's ritual brought the memories back, and like I said before, they were more than memories. They were lived experiences. And it’s happening again. But different. I see Ragnar Lodbrok, but I have Aella’s life memories, not Ragnar’s. Of course, I know his intent, from the things he told me during the blood eagle.” She winced, the recollection of pain flooding her again, and arched her back with a soft cry.
Crowley put a concerned hand on her shoulder.
“I’m okay. I remember the things Ragnar told Aella, I mean. What he wanted. And what I subsequently told Landvik. At least, some of it.”
“So what exactly do you know?” Crowley asked. “Can it help us now?”
Rose breathed deeply, tried to calm her mind.