Wrapped

by Jennifer Bradbury

  He nodded solemnly, scratching the back of his neck. “A snarl, I admit. But only if you accept the supposition that all three texts were engraved at the same time.”

  The thought had never occurred to me. I looked at Caedmon in admiration. “I suppose you have a reason for supposing otherwise?” I asked excitedly.

  He rummaged on the table next to him and produced a magnifying glass, which he handed to me. “I wouldn’t have noticed it had I been working only with the rubbed copies, but the hieroglyphs are a bit shallower than the other markings. Look.”

  He grabbed the candle and tilted it toward the demarcation between the pictures and the curves of the demotic script. I leaned in, acutely aware of his eyes on me, willing me to see what he had. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed that the rock behind the glyphs was not completely black, instead reflecting tiny pink glints back in the candlelight.

  They did look a bit fresher, but it was hard to apply such a word to something as ancient as any of the markings I was looking at.

  Caedmon replaced the candle in its stand. “If the hieroglyphs were added later, it’s especially curious, considering the fact that hieroglyph usage was supplanted by the rise in popularity of the other two languages.”

  It was odd listening to him talk about the Stone. As if it demanded a whole new vocabulary of him. It seemed the slang that colored his speech dropped away as he slipped further into his description of his theory, as he delved into the science of his work. It gave me a new appreciation for him, for the way he could be as at home in the street as I imagined he might be with the most vaunted scientists. I looked again at the contour of the jackal glyph. “Then perhaps they added the carvings in order to hide something?”

  He nodded and leaned on the Stone. “We’ve unearthed so many relics associated with the line of Ptolemy, it’s queer one of the most important could be missing.”

  “Maybe grave robbers took the standard?”

  He shook his head. “A bit of iron or bronze would likely have been shucked aside in favor of something that might fetch a higher premium from a collector. And if someone did know of its power, they would have used it or sold it to someone who would have used it.”

  He was right. An item that could potentially render its bearer invincible and allow him to raise an army of ghost warriors would certainly have merited historical mention.

  “But why would Ptolemy hide it and deprive subsequent pharaohs of this power?”

  Caedmon shrugged. “These folk sealed countless treasures into tombs. He could have planned to take it with him to the next world. Or decided that it was far too dangerous to leave lying around. Might have waited until he was certain the empire faced no threat, and then tucked it away until it was needed again by him or one of his descendents.”

  I nodded. “Very clever.”

  “Any pharaoh who spent more than a few years on the throne had to be a bit cagey.”

  “I wasn’t speaking of the pharaoh,” I said. Even in the faint light of the candle’s glow, I could see that he was not immune to my praise of his work.

  “Only a theory,” he said, rubbing a spot on the Stone’s glossy black surface.

  “But if you’re right, then all we have to do is compare the Greek and demotic, make an inventory of these intentional mistakes you’ve observed, and then use those and the text themselves to unlock the hieroglyphs.”

  “All of which may take a mite longer than a random search of the entire holdings of the museum,” he said, his forehead sinking to the Stone.

  “True. But we must try,” I said. “Show me.”

  He propped himself up on his elbows, the candlelight catching the smile on only one half of his face. “You bear the bell, Agnes Wilkins,” he said. “I mean, I knew you were clever, but you absorbed all this so easily.”

  I suppressed my own smile. “You explain it very well, Caedmon.”

  “But you’re willing to credit it. Outside of Deacon, I’ve been too afraid to tell anyone what I’ve been working on. It’s not just that I was scared of ridicule, but that I could be right and might have my hard work stolen away.” He paused again, staring at me. “It’s nice to have a partner.”

  I let the word settle between us. A partner. An equal. I knew others used it to describe marriage. To describe the relationship between husband and wife. Mother and Father certainly fit the definition. But I wondered, would I dream of applying it to Showalter and myself? Would it ever feel as natural as it did when Caedmon spoke it of us?

  Finally I spoke, “Well,” I said, surprised at the catch in my voice, “what kind of partner would I be if I delayed us any longer? Shall we?”

  His gaze lingered on me a moment longer before he cleared the papers from the Stone, folding and tucking the lot of them into his waistband at his back. “I started with the dates and numbers. I noticed that the Greek and demotic reference the fifth Ptolemy—the Stone itself is a decree by the priests of his royal cult. He was only thirteen at the time of the inscription. This date,” he said, pointing at a squiggle near the top of the demotic inscription, “is 332 AD. But this one . . .” He moved his finger to the Greek characters below.

  “323 AD,” I said.

  “Nine years off. It seems to me that if one were going to all the trouble of inscribing something on a stone, you’d take care to get the numbers straight.”

  I nodded.

  “And if you reckon that the name Ptolemy occurs as frequently in the glyphs as it does in the other two scripts, this cartouche must represent the king.”

  He pointed to a squarish oval set on its side in the middle of a line of hieroglyphic characters. The oval contained a series of carvings—a couple of shapes that might have been feathers, a snake, an ankh like Rupert had found on the mummy, and other shapes and squiggles.

  “This is a name?” I asked.

  He nodded. “More or less.”

  “The oval acts like some sort of punctuation, or calling someone Mr.?”

  “Near enough,” he agreed. “But note the differences between this one”—he scanned his finger across the Stone toward the corner where I’d found the outline of the dog’s head last night—“and this one.”

  “There is an extra marking here,” I said, falling under the spell that had so captivated Caedmon. I knew the joy of puzzling out a new language, but never before on a scale as grand as this.

  “I reckon it’s a number,” he said.

  “Nine?” I whispered.

  He nodded. “And note its position?”

  “Beneath the broken glyph of my jackal’s head,” I said.

  “And the ninth Ptolemy is the last one reported to have used the standard in battle.”

  I stood. “Then that must narrow the search somewhat, mustn’t it?”

  “I—,” Caedmon began.

  Footsteps approached from the south hall. Silently Caedmon snuffed the candles and licked a thumb and fore-finger to quench the ember. I was helpless now in the dark, but Caedmon grabbed my hand and led me back the way we’d come. “Quickly,” he called, his whisper calm but barely audible. I realized this wasn’t the first time he’d nearly been caught.

  When we reached the corner containing the sarcophagi, the footsteps abruptly changed direction. Now they were coming at us from the hallway we’d used to enter the rooms.

  I realized I was holding my breath. Realized that I was hoping desperately it was merely another late nighter like Caedmon. Because if it wasn’t, if we had been followed . . .

  We had no clear line of escape. Without a word, Caedmon pulled me to the darkest corner bearing the largest of the coffins. “Inside,” he whispered.

  I obeyed, stepping over the edge and into the granite box. Caedmon followed, and I vaguely thought it funny that we were now testing my earlier observation that the sarcophagus seemed built for two.

  Fear and joy proved a potent combination as Caedmon settled in next to me, and we lay on our sides facing each other. Now the walls of the stone box seemed even high
er, a blessing since we would have been unable to lift the bulk of the lid even if we weren’t trying to be utterly silent.

  The footsteps drew nearer, and the glow of a light crept over the edge of the coffin like a slow sunrise, but did not trail down far enough to reveal us.

  I forced myself to breath slowly, evenly though my nose, concentrating on the contour of Caedmon’s chin, the smell of his washing soap, the feel of his body stretched out facing mine.

  It was a moment before I realized that a second light had joined the first.

  Two intruders. I longed to peek up over the edge, but doing so would have meant leaving our protected shadow. The voices were unrecognizable, their speech indiscernible. They spoke only a moment before the footsteps resumed, fading away in opposite directions.

  All was dark and quiet once more.

  We lay still for several minutes. Finally Caedmon whispered, “I think it’s safe for us to get up now.”

  I was beginning to understand why Mother and Father and everyone else was so careful not to allow young men and women near each other. Beginning to understand how quickly feelings of excitement or longing could get the better of me. Because lying there next to Caedmon was the single most alarming and wonderful thing I’d ever experienced. It was strange to be so close to him, yet so oddly familiar, as if the space between his chin and chest were contoured exactly to provide a place for my head to nestle.

  “Agnes?” he repeated. “I think we’re safe.”

  Safe. We most certainly were not. I pushed myself up and over the edge before I lost my head.

  He clambered from the coffin after me.

  “I think I’d better see you home,” he said, patently avoiding my eyes.

  I consented to allow him to lead me from the room, back down our staircase, and outside.

  At the street, he found a coach for me.

  “Tomorrow?” I said, climbing in.

  “It is tomorrow,” he pointed out. “But given your—”

  I cut him off. I didn’t want to hear all the very good reasons he might have prepared. I didn’t want to argue. I didn’t have the strength.

  “Good evening,” I said, thumping the roof of the coach, ordering the driver to move before I could change my mind.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Clarisse’s entrance the next morning came painfully early.

  “Busy day, mademoiselle,” she said, crossing to my table.

  By the time the coach had dropped me near home, and I’d climbed back up the trellis, returned David’s clothes to his wardrobe, and deposited myself in bed, there were but few hours left until daylight. Most of those I’d squandered thinking about Caedmon, remembering what it felt like to have him look at me, what it felt like lying next to him.

  I groaned, tossing the sheet from my legs and swinging my feet to the carpet.

  “Though not nearly so busy as your evening?” she whispered slyly.

  I could no more stop the smile that burst across my face than I could change the color of my hair.

  Clarisse glanced toward the door to the hall, and then back to me. “You must tell me all,” she ordered, “but not now. Your mother is already up and dressed. You are to be downstairs as soon as possible.”

  “Downstairs for what?” I asked, stretching, letting Clarisse slip the cotton dressing gown over my head. It was the most recent of my gifts from David, one he’d picked up when his ship resupplied in Morocco.

  She shook her head. “You have forgotten him completely, have you? Your other suitor?”

  I sprang from the bed. “Showalter!” I recalled, wondering how I’d spent the entire evening dreaming of Caedmon but hadn’t managed to remember that Showalter was taking us to the museum this morning.

  To the museum. “Oh, no,” I said.

  Clarisse laughed. “You have a problem, I do not doubt.” She led me to the chair in front of the dressing table and began to work on my hair.

  She couldn’t imagine. Caedmon would be at the museum—he might not even have left last night. And Showalter would likely parade us through the Egyptian gallery, eager to show off how his largesse had made the collection possible.

  “Love is always full of problems, n’est-ce pas?” she teased, reaching into her pocket. “But perhaps the morning’s post will cheer you.”

  I took the letter from her outstretched hand.

  “From David!” I said, tearing into the folds.

  “Your mother had one for the family, but that one came special to you.”

  I nodded.

  “Look up, please,” she said. I obeyed, unfolded the letter in my lap, and lifted it to my eyes.

  “What is this?” she asked, pulling back the tangles with the brush, revealing the sad little stump of hair I’d sawn off in my haste last night.

  I glanced up from my letter and saw the ragged edge in her hand. “Oh, yes . . . that.”

  She shook her head. “Generally when a young lady wants to give her beau a lock of hair, she favors something a bit smaller,” she muttered, “especially if she’s bound to marry another.”

  I ended Clarisse’s inquiry by burying myself in David’s note.

  My dear Aggie,

  Chin up.

  Yours ever,

  David

  I let my hands and the letter fall to my lap.

  “He is well, miss?” Clarisse asked as she piled the braid she’d just woven onto the top of my head, securing it with pins.

  “Better,” I said. “He is brave.”

  “Of course, miss.”

  I prayed for my brother as the conversation we shared on the day he arrived echoed in my mind. I had work as important as David’s to do.

  “All right, Miss Wilkins?” Clarisse asked, working to tuck in the last bit of what I’d cut.

  “Yes, thank you,” I said quietly.

  She squeezed my shoulders, hurried to the wardrobe, and withdrew a gown of fine pink linen.

  “Shall I help you dress, miss?” Clarisse asked.

  Finally I stood. “No, thank you. I’ll manage today. Tell Mother I’ll be down soon,” I added, summoning my resolve.

  “Very good,” she said, inching from the room. “And I will be expecting a lovely tale this evening,” she said, wagging a finger at me.

  I stared at my reflection in the glass. What would I tell her? That what I’d pretended to secure her cooperation for was coming true? At least for me? That perhaps it had been true since I’d first laid eyes on Caedmon that evening at Showalter’s?

  I was grateful I had more pressing matters to offer some distraction. Because anything less than a threat to England’s sovereignty seemed to pale in comparison to the questions troubling my heart.

  I failed to persuade Showalter to take us somewhere else for our grand morning out, and we found ourselves at the museum just after the doors opened. Showalter led us inside as if it were his own home he welcomed us into.

  “We haven’t been here in ages,” Mother said, looking round the entry hall. I caught the eye of the porter who admitted me the first morning I’d come, but looked away quickly, afraid he might give me away.

  “Then I’m sure you’ll be delighted by the wonders that await you. Despite the blockades, the museum has managed to keep a steady supply of acquisitions,” Showalter offered. “There are plans in the offing for an expansion. I’ve agreed to underwrite some of the costs.”

  “Shall we have a look at some of those newer pieces?” I asked, desperate to avoid the Egyptian collection, as apprehensive about seeing Caedmon now as I’d been eager last night. “I understand there are some new marble friezes from Athens—”

  Showalter waved a hand. “Nonsense,” he said. “We’ve come to see proper mummies, and that’s what we’ll do. You were so keen at the party, and I had so little time to address your adorable curiosity. Now we must make the most of this opportunity, mustn’t we?”

  I forced a smile as he pulled me up the stairs. He was being so kind. So accommodating. So attentive. H
e was a good man . . . too good a man for me to be slinking about at night with no thought of how he might be wounded were I discovered.

  I prayed silently that Caedmon might be occupied elsewhere, or even sleeping off the late night in a sarcophagus. But those hopes were dashed as we passed through the high doorway and into the now familiar room. Caedmon was occupied with his tray of tools, bent over another of the cases, cleaning and arranging as he had been that day I’d first encountered him here. In spite of the dread I’d been living in as I anticipated this moment, in spite of the circumstances of meeting him with my mother and my possible intended, my heart leaped like a fool pup yanking at a chain.

  “Now we’ll see if we can organize a proper tour,” Showalter said. “Excuse me?” he shouted to Caedmon.

  Caedmon rose and began to turn toward us. “Yes, sir.”

  He froze when he saw me, the smile starting at the corner of his mouth before he saw who accompanied me. His face blanched, the smile gave up, and he cut his eyes quickly to Showalter.

  “Sir,” he dropped his voice even lower, “how may I be of service?”

  I looked down, fixing my eyes on the tips of Caedmon’s boots.

  “Mr. Banehart?” Showalter asked. “I was hoping he might be available to escort us through the collection?”

  My head jolted up, panic arcing like lightning between Caedmon and me. If Banehart saw me again, he would surely—

  “Mr. Banehart is otherwise engaged,” Caedmon said, perhaps too quickly.

  “Engaged?” Showalter said. “Surely if he knew who was asking for him—”

  “He is in negotiations with a private collector,” Caedmon said, a bit calmer this time, “in Sussex. He returns tomorrow.”

  Showalter shook his head and surveyed the open case where Caedmon had been working. “Rotten luck,” he said. “Though I suppose you might be able to give us a bit of a show?”