A resourceful escape

Before Charlotte could come to grips with her rapidly changing reality Black Brand was gone, leaving her shackled to his bed with only the dull roar of the falls to keep her company. Charlotte waited a few minutes hardly believing that he had left her, but in time she turned her attention to the heavy iron band around her slender calf and the chain that held her to the bed. There was space for only three of her fingers between the cold iron and her skin, and it was immediately apparent that there was no chance to slip the ring over her ankle. The locking mechanism was as effective as it was simple, the square headed screw that tightened the band around her leg was far too stiff to turn without the key, and that was nowhere to be seen.

Refusing to admit defeat Charlotte examined the heavy chain that linked the two manacles together. Had she been a smith with a hammer, chisel and anvil she might have been able to cut through the forged rings, but in her current predicament she may as well have wished for fairy dust to magic the iron from its grip. The other band of black iron was fastened around the cross bar at the foot of the bed, the heavy beam was four inches in diameter and seated firmly into the corner posts. It would take a saw or axe like the one by the fire to cut through the hardwood bedframe, however the small hand-axe that she needed to free herself sat over five yards from the bed.

Charlotte next tried to move the whole bed, sliding one end at a time closer to the firepit, but even as strong as she was, she just couldn't move the heavy four poster across the rough surface of the cavern floor. After what felt like hours of **** labor, but was probably actually only twenty minutes Charlotte collapse onto the firm mattress shaking in anger, frustration and exhaustion - she had moved the bed less than three feet. A thin sheen of perspiration coated her skin and her hands and forearms were covered with the grime that accumulated on the bedframe - for all the effort Black Brand spent on making this hide-a-way comfortable he could have spent a little time keeping the place clean!

Charlotte scanned the cave looking for anything that could help move the bed; by her calculations even if she lay out on the floor and stretched as far as she could she would still be four or five feet short of the axe she needed so desperately. A small pile of Black Brand's clothing lay in a dirty heap at the foot of his bed, she checked the pockets of his trousers hoping to find something that she could use to open the irons, nothing. A heavy woolen cloak hung from a hook in the wall and she checked it as well before tossing it to the floor next to the other clothing. After a second round of wrestling with the massive frame of the bed proved hopelessly futile she sat again on the bed close to tears. A fishing pole (also frustratingly out of her reach) finally gave her an idea that might work. She tore three strips of the sheet from the bed and braided them together into a serviceable line, the hook that the cloak had hung from came from the crack in the stone wall with surprising ease and in less than ten minutes she had assembled a makeshift fishing line.

Dozens of failed attempts at grappling the hand axe left her feeling increasingly ****, but at last the hook caught on the wooden handle of the axe near the head and she was finally able to draw the tool into her reach. Ten minutes of awkward chopping left her smooth hands blistered and sore but she was rewarded with the beam breaking free and after that it was simply a matter of pulling the other end of the shackles free and she was no longer chained to the hated bed.

It took less than a minute to find her boots and pull them onto her feet; luckily the iron ring around her ankle had just enough play for her to pull it over the thin blue leather of her boot, it was a relief to not feel the cold iron against her soft skin. All together she estimated that Black Brand had been gone for a little over an hour by now, but she had no idea how much time that gave her.

She was ready to go when something caught her eye just as she was about to make her escape.