The Skin Map be-1

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  “We cannot leave him like this,” said the coachman. “We should do something.”

  “Come on; we can put him in the sarcophagus.”

  Together they lifted the body and carried it to the huge granite coffin in the centre of the room; they gently lowered it in, carefully placing it beside Cosimo. They then straightened the nobleman’s limbs and folded his hands across his chest. “Friends in life,” said Kit. “They can keep one another company in death.”

  Even as he spoke, the sound of light footsteps on the stairs leading down into the tomb echoed from the vestibule beyond. Whoever it was moved quickly and quietly.

  Kit rushed to the iron grate. “Burleigh! Let us out. Killing us makes no sense. This is madness! Let us out.” He paused to listen. The footsteps faltered as the intruder entered the vestibule and paused. Then there was the quick patter of feet as the newcomer hurried across the empty chamber. “Burleigh! Do you hear me?”

  “Kit? Are you in there?”

  The voice was soft and feminine, and despite all that had transpired since he had left the only world he had ever known that day in an alleyway off Grafton Street, Kit recognised it instantly. “Wilhelmina!”

  And there she was: Wilhelmina, tanned and radiant, gazing back at him through the grate. Dressed in a zippered military jumpsuit with a desert camouflage pattern, her long hair was upswept and tucked beneath a sky-blue scarf that she wore in the manner of the Egyptian women. Tall and slim as ever, the dark circles were gone from beneath her eyes, and her skin glowed with robust good health. She held a small oval-shaped brass object in one hand and a large iron key in the other. The object was emitting a soft turquoise glow. “Had enough of Burleigh’s hospitality?” she asked with a smile.

  “I can’t believe it,” said Kit. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve come to break you out-you and your friends.” She put the key in the lock and jiggled it around.

  “Mina! Mina, I was trying to find you. I never abandoned you-you have to believe me. I didn’t know where you were, or how to reach you. Cosimo went back for you, but you weren’t there, so we asked Sir Henry to help. That’s what all this is about-trying to find you.”

  “And here I am, finding you,” she said, smiling sweetly. “We’d better hurry. We don’t have much time.”

  “But how-?”

  Giles put his head around the corner. “Sir?”

  “Oh, Giles, step up here. This is Wilhelmina Klug,” he said. “Mina, Giles Standfast.”

  “Glad to meet you, Giles,” said Wilhelmina.

  “An unexpected pleasure, my lady,” replied Giles.

  Wilhelmina jostled the key again, gave it a twist, and the lock clicked. She pulled, and the heavy iron grate swung open, releasing the two captives. Kit stepped into the vestibule and into Wilhelmina’s arms-their embrace the slightly hesitant and awkward clasp of familiar strangers. Kit understood in that moment that she was no longer the woman he knew; the change was fundamental and profound. “Thank you, Mina,” he whispered, holding her close, trying to recapture something of their old intimacy.

  “My pleasure,” she said, releasing him. “We’d best be off.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “About losing you, getting everyone mixed up in this… I’m sorry about everything.”

  “Don’t be,” she said brightly. “It was the best thing that ever happened to me.” She turned and started for the stone staircase. Kit hesitated. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Cosimo and Sir Henry-they’re dead,” Kit told her, gesturing to the tomb behind him. “We can’t just abandon them-walk away as if nothing happened.”

  “Oh.” She stood in the dim light of the chamber for a moment, gazing through the open grate and into the tomb; she made no move to enter. “I’m sorry, Kit, I really am,” she said at last. “But if we don’t leave now we will join them. There’s nothing more we can do. We have to go.” She softened then, adding, “Look at it this way-what better resting place than a royal tomb?”

  Giles came alongside him. “She is right, sir. The gentlemen are beyond our help, and it avails us nothing to remain here. ‘Let the dead bury the dead’-so it is written, is it not?”

  “I suppose,” allowed Kit, still unpersuaded. “It just doesn’t seem right.”

  “If we go now, there is a chance we can come back and make it right,” suggested Wilhelmina. “But we do have to go.”

  Kit accepted this assurance and put aside his qualms. “Lead the way, Mina.”

  Crossing the chamber in quick strides, she paused at the foot of the steps to listen. Hearing nothing from the wadi above, she started up the stairs. “Stay close,” she said, her smile beguiling. “You really don’t want to get lost.”

  EPILOGUE

  The stranger paused before the porter’s lodge and rang the small bell attached to the doorpost. To the square-hatted head that poked out from the tiny window, he said, “Bursar Cakebread, if you please.”

  “And who might you be?” demanded the porter.

  “Flinders-Petrie.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed the stubby little man. “Very sorry, sir. I did not recognise you.” He bustled from the lodge. “This way, sir, if you please to follow me.”

  The visitor was led through the gate and along the inner quad to the Office of the Bursar of Christ Church. The porter knocked on the door, and a voice from inside said, “Enter!”

  The visitor thanked the porter, removed his hat, and opened the door. “Cakebread, is it?”

  “I am, sir. I am. Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing, if I may be so bold?”

  “I am Douglas Flinders-Petrie,” declared the visitor. “I think you will have had my recent correspondence.”

  “Ah! Mister Flinders-Petrie! To be sure, sir. I received your letter only yesterday. Please, do come in and sit down.” He escorted his visitor into his snuggery of an office. “May I offer you some sherry wine?”

  “Thank you, no. My visit to Oxford is regrettably all too brief. I must leave again within the hour, but I wanted to see you before I go.”

  The bursar sat down behind his table, heaped high with account books and papers. “How may I be of service to you, sir?”

  “As I communicated in my letter, I have come into a considerable inheritance and wish to endow a chair at an Oxford college, to be named after my late grandfather, the philosopher and explorer Benedict Flinders-Petrie. Perhaps you have heard of him?”

  “And who has not, sir? I ask myself-who has not heard of the illustrious Flinders-Petrie? His benefactions to this very institution are well known, sir-well known.”

  Douglas smiled. “As you can imagine, I will require the aid of someone strategically placed in the college to help guide the process. To steer the application through the proper channels and keep it from running aground, as it were.” He reached into a large leather wallet and pulled out a bag of coins, untied it, and began counting gold sovereigns into his palm. “Naturally, I am prepared to reward the person who undertakes this charge on my behalf.”

  The bursar gazed in wonder at the gleaming coins. “It goes without saying, I hope, that I stand ready to aid your enterprise with all dispatch.”

  “Splendid,” replied Douglas. “I am so glad to hear it.” He placed a neat stack of coins on the table. “We will consider this but the first blush of appreciation,” he said, pushing the money toward the bursar. “Naturally, once the chair is established, I will require someone to aid in its maintenance-and for this I am prepared to be even more appreciative.”

  “Say no more, sir. Say no more!”

  “Good.” Douglas Flinders-Petrie rose to go; he leaned over the desk, his lanky form towering over the squat bursar. “I knew I could count on you, Mr. Cakebread-even as I know I can count on your complete discretion.”

  “It goes without saying, sir-goes without saying.” He rose and followed his guest to the door. “Was there anything else, sir? Anything at all?”

  “No, I do not believe-” began
Douglas, who paused and, as if on sudden inspiration, added, “Now that you mention it, I believe I will have need of someplace secure to keep various items-important documents, charters, and the like-which will be used to support my application for the endowment chair.”

  “Certainly, sir,” said the very agreeable bursar. “I have just the place.”

  “Could I see it now, do you think?”

  “To be sure, sir.” Bursar Cakebread jumped to his feet. “I can show it to you straightaway-it is in the chapel crypt.”

  Douglas was led to the college chapel and down into the crypt where, in the flickering light of a hastily lit torch, he saw a small, dry room with a table surrounded by wooden chests and ironclad strongboxes. “Yes,” he said appreciatively. “This will do nicely. Is there a chest I might use?”

  “This one here is empty, sir,” replied the bursar. He fumbled with a large iron ring for the key.

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Douglas, relieving him of the ring. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting for me upstairs, I’ll find it myself.” He smiled, backing the bursar towards the door. “I won’t be but a moment. I’ll rejoin you in your office.”

  “As you wish, sir-as you wish,” replied Cakebread. “I’ll wait for you upstairs, then. Please, take your time.”

  Closing the door behind the bursar, he listened until he heard the man’s footsteps on the stairs, then went directly to a chest in the corner. After a few trials, he found the key that worked, unlocked the chest, and opened it. There, amongst some bundled parchments and scrolls, he spied a cloth-wrapped bundle tied with black ribbon. “At last,” he whispered. “I’ve moved heaven and earth to find you.”

  He lifted the roll and placed it on the nearby table. There, fingers shaking with suppressed excitement, he untied the ribbon and drew away the cloth to reveal a long, irregular roll of parchment so papery and fine as to be almost translucent. Carefully, carefully, he unrolled a portion of the scroll to reveal a number of bright blue symbols etched on the surface of the scroll.

  “How do you do, Grandfather?” he said. “Am I pleased to meet you? You have no idea.”

  Then, as if fearing to be overheard, he pulled a roll of heavier parchment from an inside coat pocket and quickly wrapped it, retying the ribbon. Replacing the substituted scroll, he locked the chest, tucked the purloined parchment into the inner pocket, and left the room.

  Bursar Cakebread was waiting for him when he emerged from the crypt. “I hope you found everything to your satisfaction, sir.”

  “It was nothing less than I expected,” Douglas replied, passing the key back to the bursar. “I will return one day soon. I trust you will keep my visits to yourself-until such time as the announcement of the chair is made public.”

  “My lips are sealed, sir.”

  “Then I will wish you a good day, Bursar Cakebread.”

  “And to you, sir-and to you.”

  Upon leaving the college, Flinders-Petrie walked up the road toward Cornmarket Street. As he neared Carfax, he saw that a crowd of people had gathered in the street around a small one-horse chaise. He slowed as he drew near and saw that there had been an accident: a small boy had been hit and knocked down in the street. The little fellow was bleeding from a cut to the side of his face and was crying, but he was sitting up and some of the townsfolk were ministering to him. A little to one side stood another small boy, and it was this lad’s remarkable appearance that piqued Douglas’s interest.

  The boy, barefoot and dirty-faced, dressed in filthy rags, had a head two sizes too big for his small sturdy body. That, along with pale flaxen hair and tiny eyes the colour of slate, gave him an almost supernatural appearance. He stood glowering at the injured lad, clearly hating him with every fibre of his little being, for all he could be not more than six or seven years old.

  His interest piqued, Douglas stopped. “What’s happened here?”

  One of the nearest bystanders replied, “That one there pushed t’other in front o’ t’carriage, the little devil. Like to have killed ’im. Lucky thing t’driver saw ’im an’ pulled up.”

  “Is he hurt?”

  “Don’t think so. Got a nasty jolt, I reckon.”

  Then, even as they were discussing the situation, the odd-looking ruffian stepped forward and kicked his young adversary in the head. The injured boy collapsed, and his attacker kicked him again-and would have gone on kicking him in full view of the bystanders if he had not been roughly pulled away. “Here, you!” shouted the man restraining him. “Stop that! Someone call the bailiff!”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Douglas Flinders-Petrie, pushing through the crowd. “I’ll take responsibility.”

  He moved quickly to the smouldering youth, interposing himself between the boy and the crowd. “Listen, you little guttersnipe,” he hissed, bending over him. “Come with me now if you want to stay out of gaol.” Then, taking the boy by the hand, he began leading him away.

  “Oi! You there!” called one of the citizens. “You know that boy?”

  “Yes,” called Douglas over his shoulder. He kept walking. “It’s all right.”

  “Are you his father?” called another onlooker.

  “Yes,” he answered, then added under his breath, “I am now.”

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