I rose and went to the panel, working the mechanism and steeling myself for the task ahead. I scrutinised it carefully, looking it over without expectation of what I might find. I knew too little about Egyptology to draw any proper conclusions, but it seemed to be precisely what it appeared: an authentic coffin, earlier than the Greco-Roman period judging from the lack of portrait mask, and in very good shape aside from a piece of crushed wood at the top. It had been propped just below the hole provided for ventilating the priest’s hole, and it looked as though moisture had dripped down, corrupting the wooden case. On the front, a cartouche was engraved with a series of hieroglyphs, a funerary inscription, no doubt, perhaps a sort of incantation for the afterlife.
I fetched the knife again from the desk and applied myself to the lid. It took several minutes and a great deal of effort to pry it open, but at last it came free, and I wrestled the lid aside. I peered more closely at the mummies. They seemed in exquisitely good condition.
Swallowing down my squeamishness, I peered more closely at the tiny, linen-wrapped forms. Someone had taken exquisite pains to make certain these children were suitably prepared to enter the afterlife, I reflected. I realised then more than just the coffin was damaged. From the little neck down, the upper mummy was undamaged, beautifully wrapped and perfectly dry. The head was a different matter. The bandages had rotted away where the coffin was pulpy, and I felt my stomach churn as I put out a hand to touch the shredded linen. I meant to tuck one of the bandages in more securely, but it was rotten and fell away in my hand. I saw the top of the child’s head, and jerked backward, dropping the linen scrap.
Instantly, I replaced the lid, working feverishly until the babies were tucked safely behind the panel, hidden from sight, but not from memory. I knew I would never forget what I had seen, so long as I lived. I had endured a postmortem with Brisbane, examining the body of a man who had had his head crushed by a candelabrum, but nothing could have prepared me for the shock of what I had seen in that small coffin. The skin had dried and darkened, pulling taut across the baby’s brow in a grotesque imitation of life.
But it was not this that had shocked me. Just above the brow I had seen the child’s hair, beautiful hair, perhaps an inch long. It had been loosely curled from the damp, and was gold—the bright, pure gold of a blond child.
THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER
Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles.
—William Shakespeare
Macbeth
My first thought upon finding the blond child was to go to Brisbane, but even as I replaced the lid upon the coffin I remembered that Mrs. Butters had told me he was busy in the sheep pens with Godwin. Dipping was a vile and messy job. He would not be finished for hours, and in the meanwhile, there were things I could do.
My hands were shaking, and I paused to take several deep breaths and think. What did I know? Nothing, for certain. I knew the child with the damaged wrappings was blond, but nothing more. It was tempting to speculate that the baby was English, but I had no proof, I told myself severely. I had myself seen a red-haired mummy at an unrolling. True, the majority of Egyptians bore the traditionally dark, Mediterranean colouring, but the Macedonians had introduced some fairer strains into their society. This child might have been of Roman or Greek colonial parentage, in spite of the coffin’s distinctly Old Kingdom appearance. And there was no way of determining the origins of the child without a proper examination of both the baby and its coffin, as well as the other child. The person best qualified to do so was Brisbane, and I would simply have to curb my curiosity until he was present.
I wiped my hands on my skirts and collected a few items to take to my room. I had a mind to peruse a volume or two on Egyptian funerary customs to see if I could add to my store of knowledge before I spoke with Brisbane. I took Redwall’s diaries, the ones Ailith had given me, and a book on hieroglyphs. The latter was almost an afterthought, but it had occurred to me that I might be able to read the inscriptions on the coffin’s cartouche if I knew the symbols. I took the notebook and recorded the cartouche swiftly.
I worked the rest of the afternoon in my room, not even noticing the deepening gloom of the oncoming evening until Minna came to fetch me for supper.
“I am sorry to disturb you, my lady,” she said, dropping a quick curtsey. “Mrs. Butters wondered if you would prefer a tray.”
I must have mumbled a reply, for a little while later Minna appeared again with a tray of soup and bread. She laid it carefully onto the writing table and took a moment to light the rest of the candles in the room. I was deep within the book on hieroglyphs, just beginning to crack the first of them.
Nothing in Redwall’s diaries had mentioned the coffin or the mummies, either their purchase or their shipment home.
And then with a moment of breathtaking clarity, I realised there was one person in the house who must have known about them.
“Minna, is Godwin taking supper downstairs?” I asked suddenly. Too suddenly, for the girl jumped and put her finger into the flame. She sucked it, nodding.
“Yes, Lady Julia. He is alone. Mr. Brisbane is supping in his room as well. He did not wish to be disturbed.”
I waved aside the mention of Brisbane. I would deal with him later. “Tell Godwin I would like to speak with him before he leaves. He can send you up to tell me when he is finished with his supper.”
She curtseyed again and fled, leaving me to my excellent soup, or what would have been excellent soup had I remembered to eat it. I had two or three spoonfuls before I pushed it aside, too enthralled with my reading to finish. The hieroglyphs were not tremendously difficult, particularly as I found the very inscriptions on the coffin’s cartouche in the book.
“Most unusual,” I murmured. How was it possible that ancient inscriptions on a lady’s coffin had come to be replicated in a modern text on hieroglyphs? Either the inscription was a standard one, or the person who had inscribed the coffin had read the book.
I slammed it closed, very nearly certain of what had happened. I rose and hurried downstairs. Godwin was in the hall, standing close to Minna.
“My lady, I was just about to send Minna to you,” he said, straightening and giving me his most winsome smile.
Minna flicked me a quick, sideways glance, then scurried back to the kitchen. I motioned for Godwin to join me in the old great hall. He took up a candlestick and followed. The candle threw up odd shadows, touching the mouldering tapestry of Allenby names with a spark here and there where the thread shone gold. Other shadows, thick and black, danced over the ceiling, and over Godwin’s face. The light played peculiar tricks with his bone structure, making him look angelic one moment, devilish the next.
“What is it, Lady Julia? Is there aught I can do for you?” he asked, his gaze moving meaningfully over my face.
“Yes, you can answer a question,” I told him repressively. “You said you unpacked all of the crates Sir Redwall sent from Egypt. Did you ever handle a lady’s coffin? Or mummies? Tiny ones?”
He shook his head slowly. “No, not from Egypt.”
I sagged a little. I had been so certain.
“But there was a lady’s coffin here before he left,” Godwin added.
“Before? How did he acquire it?” My eagerness was back.
Godwin shrugged. “’Twere his grandfather’s, old Sir Alfred’s father. He had a mummy, a lady. That were what started Sir Redwall on his foreign studies. That coffin were his most prized possession.”
“You’re quite certain?”
“Oh, aye. He had a great unrolling of her, when he came into his inheritance. His grandfather, he would never unwrap that mummy. Said it was sacrilege or blas-blas—”
“Blasphemous?” I offered.
“Aye, tha’ were the word. When Sir Redwall finally became master, he unrolled it in front of the whole household. I remember it because tha’ were just when old Samson, the master’s old saddle horse, had bitten my hand clear to the bone.” He raised his hand to show m
e the curved scar, pale against the weathered skin of his hand. “I would have lost a finger without Rosalie Young’s care. And tha’ were the year the mine closed. I remember it well because I rode Samson to the village and fairly had my head bashed in when they realised I were on the old master’s horse, and them with hardly any food to feed their children.”
I brushed aside his village gossip and posed my next question.
“Godwin, what happened to the mummy? The lady?”
“She were rotten, through and through. Sir Redwall said she’d not been prepared proper, but he were tha’ furious. He had her thrown into Grimswater up tha’ moor. Folk said Grim himself did not like it, and tha’s why the Allenbys have done so poorly since. Lady Allenby told him not to bring any others home. She were quite firm, told Sir Redwall it were unChristian to keep folks from a proper burial. She told him to buy all the animals he wanted, but he were never to bring home a person.”
“One more thing, Godwin, and please think very hard. Do you remember if the lady’s coffin lid bore an inscription?”
He rubbed a hand over the rough stubble at his jaw. “Not tha’ I recall, but I am not a great man of letters. I can read well enough—”
“No, not English,” I said patiently. “Egyptian writing. It would have been a series of pictures in an oval on the front.”
“Ah, no. Tha’ were empty. I remember it because I asked Sir Redwall about the coffin and he explained the markings and such. He said it were quite unusual as the name had been rubbed off and the wood was smooth. Said it was a shame someone had bothered to chisel off the old inscriptions, but as they had, it made it less expensive and his grandfather could afford it, so he was not tha’ put out.”
“I see,” I said faintly. “Thank you, Godwin. I will not keep you.”
“Won’t you?” he asked, his voice soft, and his lips curved into an inviting smile.
“No, I will not.” I nodded toward the open door. I had left it open for propriety’s sake, and now I was glad I had. “Good evening, Godwin.”
He thrust the candle at me and strode off, touching his forelock as he left, a bit impudently. I ignored him, my mind racing with the implications of what he had told me. Redwall Allenby had inherited a lady’s coffin and an Egyptian mummy, which he had later destroyed. At some point, he had acquired a pair of mummified babies, blond mummified babies, I reminded myself, which he had secreted in a coffin whose cartouche he had altered. There was nothing else to be done then, except the thing I dreaded most: it was time to tell Brisbane what I had learned.
I hurried to Brisbane’s bedchamber, shuddering a little as I made my way through the study. I had closed the door softly behind me so we would not be disturbed. The door to his bedchamber was ajar, the soft gold light spilling into the study over the threshold. It was not enough light to prevent me from tripping over a chair, and I cursed as I rubbed at my ankle.
A shadow fell across the threshold, and I could make out Brisbane’s silhouette.
“It is I,” I told him.
“I told Minna I did not wish to be disturbed,” he said. He went back into the bedchamber and I followed, my ankle still smarting.
“I know, but I had to see you. It’s about the mummies, the babies,” I clarified.
He puffed out an impatient sigh. “There is no hope that you will leave me in peace, is there?”
“There is not.”
He waved toward the bed. “Then you might as well make yourself comfortable. I’ve a letter to finish. Can it wait five minutes?”
I nodded and perched on the edge of his bed, trying very hard not to think about the intimacy of sitting where Brisbane slept, scant inches from his pillow, while the gentleman himself was seated at his writing table, near enough to touch. Instead I glanced idly about the room, taking in the growing untidiness of his possessions since he had returned from Edinburgh. I had had occasion before to notice that Brisbane did not so much stay in a room as inhabit it. He had fashioned a little table next to the bed of books, unwieldy volumes on the care and feeding of sheep, Roman history, garden design, and even an atlas, an enormous thing bound in green calf. Nearby, the little chemist’s glasses were smouldering over a tiny flame, sending off little puffs of smoke and the occasional spark, although Brisbane ignored this entirely.
I turned my gaze to the hearth and smiled to see that Minna had forgot his supper tray. It rested on the hearth, the bowl of soup scraped clean and just a few stray mushrooms left congealing on the plate. I noticed he had had a decanter of wine and felt a little put out. Mrs. Butters only ever sent me tea. She must have subscribed to the theory that ladies should not drink spirits, I thought darkly.
I continued my inventory of the room, marking the addition of a little row of pots on the windowsill resting under bell jars. As yet there were no sprouts to be seen, but Brisbane had always had an interest in botany. Perhaps he had a mind to start some experiments to be carried out in the derelict gardens. As fastidious as he was, it must have pained him to walk through that sort of decay on his way out to the moor each day.
Next to the washstand, his best boots were freshly polished and placed at a careful distance from the fire. There was a clean towel hung there, and I was glad to see Mrs. Butters had at least attended to that. His razor was dry, and I noted the fresh growth of beard at his chin. His whiskers were coal black, and I wondered how he would look with a beard. I loathed them, but it occurred to me that Brisbane might look rather piratical with one. I was just about to suggest it when I noticed the bottle on his washstand. Clear glass and full of dark ruby-red syrup—no, not full. At least an inch had been emptied from it, and I saw the spoon resting next to it.
I glanced back at Brisbane. He sat at the writing table, his profile sharp against the wall behind him. He did not look up as he wrote, his pen dashing quickly over the page in the bold hand I had come to know so well. Occasionally he paused to think, passing a hand over his brow or his jaw, and once he heaved a sigh, exhaling heavily as he scrawled his signature. He darted a glance at me, then folded the letter quickly, thrusting it into an envelope. He sealed it with a thick, old-fashioned wafer of wax and put it aside. There was no direction on the envelope, and I wondered to whom he had been writing so secretly. His colour was pale under the dark olive of his complexion, and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes, signs I had seen before when the headaches were upon him. He turned to me, his pupils quite small in the wide black iris.
“Well?” His tone was not encouraging. Doubtless he thought I meant to needle him about returning the collection to the Allenbys, and it was a mark of how well he knew me that he should think so.
“I do intend to persuade you to give the collection, or at least its proceeds to the Allenbys,” I told him, “but we can quarrel about that later.” I told him what I had found when I inspected the coffin, and what I had learned from my inquiry of Godwin.
Brisbane said nothing for a moment, pursing his lips. His booted legs were stretched out before him, one arm thrown over the back of the chair. “So Redwall kept the coffin, then found mummies to fill it, against Mama’s wishes,” he mused.
“Precisely,” I said. “But there is something else, something rather more disturbing.” I explained quickly about the inscription. “The cartouche was blank when Godwin last saw the coffin. At some point, Redwall Allenby chiselled an inscription, taking the text from a book on hieroglyphs, a chapter dealing with funerary customs, to be precise. He carved into the coffin a prayer for the dead.”
“You found the text?” he asked, his expression one of acute astonishment.
“I did. It was rather obvious when I knew what to look for. I was prepared to translate, one character at a time, which I know is a preposterously difficult matter for someone not trained in Egyptology, but I was determined. Imagine my surprise when I found the entire text printed in the book.” I preened a little at this point. I was immensely proud of my investigative accomplishments, but Brisbane wasted no time in praise.
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br /> “Show me,” he ordered. We moved into the study and he quickly extracted the coffin lid, placing it carefully onto the floor. I held a candle aloft and he ran his fingers over the cartouche, tracing the characters.
“I ought to have noticed this before,” he murmured. Then, to my astonishment, he began to chant in a language I had never heard, and after a moment I realised why: it was a language that had not been spoken in thousands of years.
“Brisbane! You speak Egyptian,” I said, feeling quite breathless.
He flicked me a glance. “As well as anyone could be expected to. It is a dead language, after all.”
I shook my head. “How do you know what that cartouche says?” I demanded, my astonishment rapidly giving way to anger.
“I conducted an investigation in Egypt,” he said blandly. “I had to pass for an Egyptological scholar. My speciality was language, hieroglyphs and hieratic. I still remember bits of it, but you know what they say about losing languages you do not practise.”
My hands were fisted at my sides. I forced my fingers to unclench, although I longed to throttle him with them.
“All this time, you have been letting me slave away in here in the dust and the grime, and you knew precisely what everything was. I never even needed to catalogue a single artefact, did I?”
He shook his sleek, dark head. “No,” he said, his tone remarkably cheerful.
“You have been through this room already,” I hypothesised. “You already knew every piece in this collection, didn’t you?”
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