Sir Henry raised a shaking hand to stroke his niece’s cheek. “You should not have come,” he said, and coughed again. Kit heard the deep rattle in his lungs.
Giles found a jar and bowl in one corner; he filled the bowl and brought it to his master.
“Drink a little,” said Lady Fayth, taking the bowl and raising it to Sir Henry’s lips. He took a sip, then slumped back against the chamber wall. “What has happened here?” she asked.
“Where is Cosimo?” asked Kit, already knowing, and fearing, the answer.
Sir Henry, his skin pale and waxy, stretched out his hand and pointed to the sarcophagus in the centre of the room. Kit rose and approached the open stone coffin, dread making his heart thud; he looked inside to see the body of his great-grandfather, flesh pale and bloodless, eyes closed, hands folded across his still breast. Kit tried to speak, but his voice faltered. Giles stepped beside him and peered into the sarcophagus with him. Both men drew back as the noxious perfume of death rose from the corpse; their eyes watered and their stomachs squirmed.
“I am sorry,” rasped Sir Henry. “He died in the night.” The words set off another fit of coughing, worse than the first. “The rogues put him in there…” He gulped air and continued. “Terrible thing. I must soon follow him.”
“We are here now, Uncle,” said Lady Fayth. “We will help you.”
“No, no.” Sick sweat beaded on Sir Henry’s forehead. “Listen to me,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. “I have much to tell you.”
Kit, sick at heart and woozy with the smell, staggered back from the sarcophagus and marshalled his scattered faculties to listen to what Sir Henry was trying to say. “Do not stay here,” he whispered. “Use any means to get away… something in the air…” He coughed, and Lady Fayth helped him take another sip of water. When the coughing subsided, he continued. “There-on the wall…” He pointed to a particular painting. “Just before nightfall, the sun will shine through the doorway. You must…” He gasped, swallowed, and forced himself to go on. “… must be ready.” He began coughing again and this time refused the drink. Giles and Lady Fayth eased him the rest of the way to the floor and made him more comfortable lying down.
“Be ready for what, Sir Henry?” asked Kit, kneeling beside him.
“Copy… the map.”
“The map?”
“The Skin Map.” The nobleman gestured vaguely at the painting. Kit moved to it for a closer look. The panel depicted a bald Egyptian in ceremonial kilt and ornate jewelled chest plate, holding a curiously shaped flat object in one hand and pointing toward the heavens with the other. The object in the Egyptian’s hand looked a little like a scrap of papyrus that had been decorated with a random scattering of hieroglyphs. Kit held his face closer and recognized the tiny whorls and line-pierced spiral designs. “Copy them,” urged Sir Henry. “Use them to further the search.”
“We will copy them, Uncle,” said Lady Fayth. “But you must rest now. Do not speak. Save your strength.” She offered the bowl again.
“Ah,” he sighed. “Thank you, my child.” He seemed to be sinking further beneath the illness that was killing him.
“The symbols on the map, Sir Henry,” said Kit. “We don’t know how to read them. Can you tell us?”
“He died peacefully,” said Sir Henry, almost dreamily, “knowing he had passed the torch to you. He put all his hope in you, Kit. He was content.”
“The symbols, Sir Henry,” persisted Kit. “Can you tell us what they mean? We don’t know how to use them.”
But the nobleman had closed his eyes. “Sir Henry?” There was no reply.
“He is sleeping now.” Lady Fayth pressed his hand and then rose. “We will let him rest.”
Kit turned to Giles. “We have to find some way to copy the symbols,” Kit told him. “We can put them in the green book, but we have to find something to write with.”
A quick search of the chamber failed to turn up a single useful item and, with great reluctance, both men turned towards the sarcophagus. “Do you think he might have had something, sir?” asked Giles.
“Maybe,” allowed Kit doubtfully. “I suppose we should look.”
“With your permission, sir,” said Giles, moving to the coffin. Kit nodded, and the coachman began going through Cosimo’s pockets. He quickly finished and reported that he had found nothing.
“Then I guess that’s it.” Kit sighed. He ran his hands over his face as a tremendous fatigue drew over him. “What a mess I’ve made of this-this whole thing.”
“You were not to know, sir,” Giles told him.
Evening came on and, as Sir Henry had said, a shaft of sunlight through the vestibule illumined the interior of the tomb. Kit, feeling helpless, stood before the painting and tried to memorise the dozen or so symbols on the painted map so that he might reproduce them later. Giles and Lady Fayth joined him, each taking a section of the painting; but there were too many and the opportunity all too brief. They were able only to commit a paltry few to memory before the sunlight faded, gradually dimming away until darkness claimed the tomb of Anen.
Sir Henry continued to sleep, his breath heavy and laboured. Kit, fatigued by the shocks and alarms of the day, began to hurt. His ribs ached, his head throbbed, the muscles in his neck and arms burned, and he seemed to have been peppered all over with bruises. He settled into a convenient corner and found himself next to Lady Fayth. “So,” he said, sliding down beside her, “your name is Haven. I didn’t know that.”
“A lady does not give her Christian name to just anyone,” she replied primly.
“But we’ve known each other for days and days.” He could not decide whether to be offended or by how much, but in any case was too tired to protest further.
“You were wonderful,” she told him, and he heard her sigh. “So very gallant.”
“You weren’t so bad yourself,” replied Kit, a sudden warmth spreading through his aching limbs. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”
“I have two elder brothers.”
“That would explain it.”
“I am so sorry about your great-grandfather,” she said. Kit felt her fingers on his arm. “So very sorry.”
“Thanks,” he said. Overcome by an oppressive exhaustion, he yawned, and the movement brought instant pain to his jaw. When the pain subsided, he whispered, “Good night… Haven.”
“Good night, Kit,” she whispered back. He closed his eyes, and it seemed that he had just drifted off when he was being nudged awake again. “Hmm?”
“Shh!” hissed Lady Fayth. “Someone is coming.”
Kit made to sit up, and the effort renewed all his aches and pains. “Ohh…”
The chamber was still dark, but less dark than it had been before. A thin light trickled into the cell from the vestibule beyond. The light grew brighter, and then there was a lantern being held up to the grate. “Well, well, well-what have we here?” The booming voice resounded in the bare chamber. Kit came fully awake. He turned to look at Lady Fayth, who was on her knees beside him. “Looks like everyone is present and accounted for now.”
The face at the grate, as revealed by the lantern, was vaguely attractive in a broad sort of way, with a luxurious moustache and large dark eyes; but there was a ruthlessness about the mouth that gave the lie to the overall genial impression.
“Let us go, Burleigh,” said Kit, climbing to his feet. Giles rose and came to stand beside him.
“So, you know who I am. And I know you. Isn’t this splendid?”
“Keeping us captive won’t get you anywhere.”
“It may surprise you,” replied Lord Burleigh, “but I am rather inclined to agree with you. Oh, I must say, the atmosphere down here is most foul! However do you put up with it?”
“That’s all your fault. Cosimo is dead, and Sir Henry here is-”
“Yes, yes,” interrupted Burleigh quickly, “it is all very grim. So, let us not waste time wallowing in blame and recrimination. I propose we work this out between us. The simplest thing would be for us to join forces to work together for the common good-one hand washing the other. Help me find the Skin Map. Pledge yourselves to my service, and I will set you free.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“You will rot in here just as your great-grandfather did, and as Sir Henry soon will. It’s the miasma of the tomb, or the mummy’s curse, or some such thing, you see? Carries one off just like that!”
“We’d be crazy to join you,” spat Kit. “Murderer!”
“So be it,” replied Burleigh with a shrug. Withdrawing the lantern, he prepared to leave. Then, turning back,
