The Bone House (6 page)

He did as she instructed, and Wilhelmina felt his ribs expand and contract as the breath went in and out of his lungs. “Again,” she advised, glancing back the way they had come. “Do you think you can walk? We have to move along. Burleigh’s men may catch our trail any moment.”

Giles nodded and dragged a sleeve across his mouth.

“Good.” She put her hand under his arm and helped him to his feet. “It really does get easier with practice.” She smiled. “But you’d better brace yourself. We have two more jumps before we’re in the clear. Right now, we have to get off this ley.” She turned and started into the trees lining the path.

Giles, on wobbly legs, followed.

They walked a fair distance before Wilhelmina paused to listen. There were no sounds of a chase, so she resumed at a slower pace, allowing her queasy companion to gain a little strength. “The next ley is in the valley beyond that hill,” she told him. “It is about an hour’s trek. There is a brook in the valley, and we can get a drink before we jump.”

Giles nodded again.

“You’re not one to wear out a person’s eardrums, are you.”

“My lady?”

“I mean, you don’t talk much.”

“No, my lady.”

“Please, call me Mina.” She smiled and extended her hand to shake his. “Just Mina.” She began walking again. “It’s this way.”

She led and he followed a half-step behind, so that she had to raise her voice to talk to him. “You were Sir Henry Fayth’s valet,” she said. “Is that right?”

“I was his footman and driver,” Giles corrected.

“And I take it you haven’t made all that many jumps?”

“My lady?”

At his blank expression, she rephrased her question in the more formal style of address of an earlier age. “Am I to understand that you have but limited experience in ley travel?”

“Yes, my lady. This was only my second time.”

“I see. Has anyone explained to you about the time slip—that’s what I call it. You know, the way time slips around when you make a jump?”

“No, my lady. But I know Sir Henry made many such leaps. He and Mr. Livingstone often travelled together, and I understand that the places they visited were not in the present day and time—if you see what I mean.”

“Yes, well, I just want to warn you that we will be returning to Britain—but it will not be the country it was when you left.” She cast a quick glance at her sturdy companion. “What year was it when you left England?”

“The year of our Lord sixteen and sixty-six, if I have it right.”

“Then it will have changed.”

“Are we going back to London?”

“Not just now. We’re going to Scotland—Edinburgh, to be exact. You should recognise many things—there is much that remains unchanged from one era to the next. But the Britain we are going to visit lies about a hundred and fifty years into the future—that is,
your
future.”

“Is that where you live?”

“No.” She smiled. “My home is—or was—three hundred years further still into that particular future. But, don’t worry, we won’t be going there . . . at least, I don’t expect we will.”

“Does a body always go to a different place?”

“A different world or dimension, you mean?” Mina considered this. “I think so,” she replied. “At least, so far as I know. Even so, it is possible to make a jump and remain in the same geographical area, so to speak. If Kit followed the instructions I gave him, he has made a jump that keeps him in Egypt—only it will be a different Egypt in a different time from the one he left. It took me a long time to work that out, but it is incredibly useful.”

Giles accepted this without comment. They proceeded up the long ramping incline of the hill to the top, where they paused to look down into the valley beyond. If there was an old straight track down there, it was well hidden. After taking in the view for a moment, Giles asked, “What is this place?”

“To tell you the truth, I don’t know. I have not explored this world. I only use it as a sort of stepping-stone to get from one ley to another. There are many such as these—unknown worlds, I call them.” She laughed. “Mostly because I don’t know anything about them.”

“Are there people hereabouts?”

“A few,” replied Mina. “Farmers and the like. I have seen them working in their fields beyond those hills just there. Once or twice I have encountered them herding sheep in the valley as well. I don’t know what country this is, or what language is spoken. I hope we won’t be here long enough to find out.” She pointed to the silver sliver of water coursing along the wide valley bottom. “The ley is just on the other side of that little stream. Once we reach it, we’ll be on our way.”

Soon their feet were swishing through the bracken that covered the hillside all the way down to the banks of the stream, where they stopped to refresh themselves before moving on.

“There it is,” Wilhelmina said, indicating a rough stone shaped like a magician’s hat rising from the weeds near the bank. “That marker is where it begins. You will see the line once you are on the path. It is not very long, so we must be in step and up to speed when we reach the stone.”

“And this ley will take us to Scotland?”

“I’m sorry, Giles, no. We must make two more jumps to get there from here.” She pulled from her pocket a small brass object shaped like a river stone, twisted a tiny dial, and held the thing in the direction of the marker.

Giles watched, and when nothing seemed to happen Mina cast a glance at the sky, observing the clouds and the position of the sun.

“I think we have an hour or two to wait before the ley becomes active,” she announced, stuffing the little device back into the pocket of her trousers. “We might as well rest and try to sleep a little. We may not have much chance when we get to Edinburgh.”

They rested then, and when Mina again tried the device a tiny blue light flickered on the brass casing. Satisfied, she said, “The ley is not yet at full strength, but it is active.” She explained that they must be in step and make the jump on the ninth pace from the marking stone. “This is important,” she told him. “If you feel that it is not working, stop at once. Do not take another step. We will hold hands so that we do not become separated.”

She saw his worried expression. “Relax, Giles. I won’t lose you.” She held out her hand. “Ready?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Then here we go.” She started for the stone in long, measured strides that, after three or four paces, Giles matched easily. They reached the stone and Wilhelmina counted off the steps. Between the fifth and sixth, the light dimmed as if a cloud had passed before the sun; at the seventh step, the wind whipped up; between the eighth and ninth, there arose a screeching howl and rain lashed out from nowhere. And then the ground dropped from beneath them and they stepped into thin air.

But only for an instant. Their feet touched the ground with a jolt that carried up through the bones of their legs. Giles staggered, but Mina held him up and they walked on into the sunlight of a crisp autumnal morning beneath scattering grey clouds on a promontory above a wide, sweeping bay. The sea was dotted with whitecaps as the wind blustered out of the west.

The next jump took them to a barren desert in the middle of a storm; biting wind swept over a dune-filled desolation, kicking up gouts of sand and red dust. Thankfully, their sojourn in this inhospitable place was short-lived. The next ley was only a few hundred meters away and, guided by Wilhelmina’s homing device, they found it easily and were able to use it at once without waiting.

“Sorry about that, Giles,” she said upon completing the jump. “That was a shortcut. It saved us a lot of time.”

He coughed dust from his lungs and wiped grit from his eyes. “Where are we now?” he asked, taking in his new surroundings. They had arrived in what appeared to be a well-maintained parkland—a long green lane of mown grass between rows of mature elm trees. Rising behind them was the broad shoulder of a steep hillside; the rest of the park was obscured by the trees.

“Welcome to Edinburgh,” Mina said cheerily. “Or Midlothian, at least. Look at you,” she said, patting his arm. “You forgot to be sick. You’ll soon be a master of ley travel.”

Giles looked around, taking in his surroundings with a wary expression.

“Have you ever been to Scotland?”

“I have never travelled beyond the Cotswolds,” he told her. “Before joining Mr. Livingstone, that is.” He glanced around warily and confided, “But I have heard that the Scots are barbarians who eat their young.”

“Only in the Highlands,” she teased, and began walking down the wide grassy lane. “In the capital, folk can be most refined. You’ll see. The year is 1819, with any luck, and we have come to see a man called Thomas Young. He is a doctor, a physician with a practice in London—but he’s here with his wife, Eliza, visiting his wife’s sister and family.”

“Dr. Young is an important man?” wondered Giles, falling into step beside her.

“Yes, very. Besides medicine, he has gained an international reputation as a leading scientist. He speaks thirteen or fourteen languages and has written on everything from geometry, physics, medicine, and mechanics to philosophy, colour, and music. In short, he will become known as the last man on earth to know everything.”

“Is that why are we going to see him?”

“Indeed it is. Among all his other accomplishments, which are considerable in themselves, Dr. Young is also the world’s leading authority on all things Egyptian.”

They left the grassy lane and entered a more public area of the park, walking easily among trees and bushes coming into the full leaf of high summer. “Dr. Young is currently conducting expeditions to Egypt. He goes there every autumn to excavate and advance his studies into archaeology and hieroglyphs.” She glanced at the taciturn young man beside her. “You know about the Skin Map?”

He nodded.

“What do you know?”

“I know that Sir Henry set great store by it, my lady. And I know he and Mr. Livingstone were killed for it.”

“Yes, well, Dr. Young is going to help Kit find the Skin Map.”

“He knows where it is?”

Wilhelmina shook her head. “No, he doesn’t. But if the map is to be found in Egypt, he is the man to find it.”

The park run ended in a wide expanse of lawn behind a brooding baronial-style edifice—the house of a wealthy shipping magnate. “This way,” said Mina, turning away from the stately house. “They are a bit touchy about trespassers. We best stay out of sight.” She led them to a low iron fence, swung easily over it, and started down a rutted road. “We’re still a few miles from the city, but with any luck there will be a coach along and we can catch a ride.”

The expected carriage did not appear, however, and they reached Edinburgh through its grubby suburbs of low, mean houses, their whitewashed walls darkened by the smoke and soot of Auld Reeky—which in no way prepared Giles for the impact of the sprawling city itself. By the time they reached city centre the effect was complete; Giles took in the grand red stone buildings lining the streets and the citizens going about their business. A sprawling castle soared high above them on a sheer rock cliff right in the heart of the town, and Giles could only stand and gape in mute wonder.

“What do you think?” asked Wilhelmina.

“It is a fine and handsome place,” Giles concluded, looking around. “Greater even than London—more buildings of stone, and the carriages are bigger.”

“That’s just the beginning.” Just then a clock high up in the tower of a church at the far end of the street began striking the hour: three o’clock. “We best hurry along. We don’t want to disturb them at home over tea.”

Again the puzzled expression played over the young man’s broad features. “Do they not go to the teahouse?”

Mina sensed the cause of his confusion. “Oh, sure. There are still tea shops around—loads of them. But increasingly, people take their tea at home. Also, they take a light afternoon meal along with it.”

Giles accepted this explanation with his customary nod.

She turned to him and began walking at a pace along the street. “Speaking of meals—are you hungry? We have just time enough to grab a sandwich—” She regarded the blank look on her companion’s face and guessed its source. “Sorry, I forgot you won’t know about those yet. But don’t worry. You’ll like them.”

Three ham, cheese, and mustard baps, two mugs of milky tea, and a carriage ride later—the tea was drunk at a cab stand, and the sandwiches devoured in the back of the carriage by a ravenous Giles who pronounced the experience a very marvel—they arrived on the steps of a large stone house on Charlotte Street. Wilhelmina yanked the bellpull, and in a moment the black enamelled door was opened by a young woman in a serving maid’s blue uniform. She gazed at them impassively, but said nothing.

“We have come to see Dr. Thomas Young,” Mina announced. “I believe he is staying here.”

“I am to say that Dr. Young is with his family. He is not seeing patients today.”

“We are not patients,” replied Mina crisply. “We are fellow explorers. Rest assured, we would not disturb him unless it was of the highest importance and interest to him. Please inform Dr. Young that we have come from Egypt with important information about his forthcoming expedition.”