“It’s me, Garrett. Are you all right?” Then he called out to Anne. “I’ve found him! We are over here!”
The duke’s lips were blue. His teeth chattered and he shivered uncontrollably. “I’m cold. How did I get here?”
Garrett glanced down at his father’s bare feet. “Do you not have a candle or a lamp?”
The duke shook his head.
“How in the world did you reach this place in the dark?”
“I don’t know,” the duke answered. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the tunnels beneath the chapel,” Garrett repeated. “But do not be concerned. Everything’s going to be fine. I’m going to get you out of here and take you home.”
“I’m c...cold,” he said.
“I have a blanket for you, but first we must get out of this space.”
It was too tight and narrow for Garrett to wrap the blanket around him.
“Which way?” the duke asked.
“Go forward, to your right. Only a few more feet and the corridor will widen.”
“But I’m frightened. I don’t want to die. Not here.”
Garrett spoke in a calm, reassuring voice. “Everything’s going to be fine, Father. I am here beside you and I won’t leave you, I promise. All you have to do is take a few steps to the right. Can you do that?”
The duke nodded and managed to move shakily along the wall until the corridor opened up again. Garrett pushed his way out and immediately set the lamp down on the ground to wrap the heavy woolen blanket around his father’s shoulders.
“Good God, you’re freezing,” he said, taking him into his arms and rubbing his back. “We need to get you warm again.”
The duke inhaled a few shuddering breaths while Garrett felt the alarmingly thin, boney structure of his father’s spine and shoulder blades. He was so frail compared to how Garrett remembered him. In his younger days, he had been a large and powerful man who knew how to punish and terrorize—could do it with just a single cold, scathing look down the intimidating length of his nose.
“I c...can’t feel my f...feet,” the duke said.
Garrett looked down. His father was standing in a puddle of water.
“Take hold of my shoulders,” he said. “I will carry you on my back to another door where we will meet Lady Anne. Do you remember her?”
Leaving the lantern on the ground, he bent forward, lifted his father up, and started walking.
“Is she pretty?”
“Yes, she’s very pretty,” Garrett replied. “She has green eyes and dark hair.”
“Is she your wife?”
“Not yet, but she will be soon. We will be married on Christmas Eve.” His father clung tightly to Garrett’s neck. “We’re almost there, Father. Look, see? Here we are.”
He reached the rough-hewn wooden steps and set his father down. “Stay here, don’t move.” He hurried back to fetch the lantern and returned, sat down, and removed his own boots and stockings. “Put these on.” He handed his stockings to his father. “They will warm your feet.”
With shaking hands, the duke pulled them on and gathered the blanket more tightly about his shoulders while Garrett pulled his boots back on. He was going to need them himself to get his father out of here.
“It’s cold,” the duke said, still shivering. “What is this place?”
“We’re in an old set of tunnels beneath the palace. They were dug out long before you and I were born. Do you remember coming here before?”
He knew for a fact that his father was well acquainted with the catacombs. It was he who had first introduced Garrett and his brothers to the secret door in the chapel when they were children.
“No,” he replied, shaking more violently now.
Garrett slid closer and wrapped his arms around him again. “Anne will be here soon. She knows a way to avoid that narrow section. I’m going to call out to her now.”
His father nodded.
Garrett shouted as loud as he could. “Anne! I found him! Are you there?”
Like an echo, she replied. “I am almost there!”
Soon, a bright yellow glow illuminated the passageway to the right and he heard the sound of her rapid footsteps splashing through puddles.
When she appeared and stopped breathless before them, he met her gaze with concern.
“He’s freezing,” Garrett said. “We must get him back to the palace. Can you take both lanterns?”
“Of course. Follow me.”
Garrett stood and scooped his father up again, this time in his arms, not on his back. They moved through one dark corridor after another.
“Are you sure it’s this way?” Garrett asked as they took a sharp left turn.