The Skin Map (27 page)

Upon rolling into Oxford, they paused as before at the Golden Cross coaching inn and—while the horses were fed, watered, and rested—they enjoyed a hearty meal of good greasy pork chops, turnip mash, and boiled greens. Giles took his meal with the other coachmen in the yard, gathering information on road conditions and where to spend the night in Banbury. Then, as the sun was high and bright, they decided to stretch their legs and so walked around taking in the sights of the university town, watching the students flapping from place to place in their long black robes and mortarboard hats. Kit exulted in being seen with the lovely lady by his side—a new experience for him, and rare enough in the streets of staid Oxford. It was all he could do to keep the swagger out of his stride.

Leaving Oxford, they struck out on the road to Banbury, where they planned to spend the night—to be within reach of their destination at the crack of dawn when, according to the green book, the portal atop Black Mixen would stand open. It was well after dark when they arrived in the little market town, and the solitary inn above the Fox and Geese Inn had only a single room to let. Lady Fayth took that, leaving Giles and Kit the choice of spending the night in the tavern hall in chairs by the fire, or in the stable. They chose to sleep in the coach with the horses in the stable, which was warm enough and comfortable, if redolent of straw and leather, horseflesh and manure. Giles woke them while it was still dark, and they donned their travelling clothes: both Kit and Giles put on heavy lace-up shirts and breeches, stout shoes, and wide-brimmed felt hats; Lady Fayth wore a pair of breeches, a man’s shirt over her own smock and stays, sturdy stockings, and somewhat questionable high-topped shoes. They all wore loose jerkins of fine, thin leather.

She had protested that the clothes made her look like a man—a view that Kit vigorously rejected on the grounds that no trifling pair of breeches could ever make her appear in the least way mannish. The fact that he found her comely form all the more fetching in simple clothes, he kept to himself. Fortunately, since she did allow that her costly silks and satins were wholly unfit for the work at hand, his opinion was not required.

Thus outfitted, they continued on their way, jogging easily through a dark and deserted countryside, reaching their destination as the eastern sky blushed with the rumour of dawn.

“There it is,” said Kit, indicating the unnaturally symmetrical flat-topped hill. It loomed into view through the early-morning mist like the black prow of a gigantic ship cleaving white waves, all ghostly and silent in the fast-fading night. The sight of its menacing bulk sent an involuntary shiver through Kit as he remembered what had happened the last time he had been there.

He was well down the road to rueing the decision to pursue this ominous undertaking when Lady Fayth exclaimed, “
That
is the dread Black Mixen?” Her tone left little doubt that she thought the sight highly overrated. “From your description, I imagined it a grim and desolate mountain, plagued by rampant evil and grotesquery of every kind.”

“Don’t let its looks fool you,” Kit muttered. “That is one ornery tump.”

“That, sir, is the merest hill,” she scoffed. The coach rolled to a halt, and Giles called out that they had come as far as they could go, as the coach wheels were sinking into the soft earth. Lady Fayth opened the carriage door and bounded toward the dark flank of the hill, her long hair flouncing in the brightening breeze—the very picture of an exotic bird at last released from its gilded cage and exulting in its long-awaited freedom.

“My lady! Wait!” Kit called after her. “We must all stay together.” Stepping from the coach, he looked up to Giles on the driver’s bench. “Let’s get the food and weapons up there. We don’t have much time.”

“Right, sir.” Climbing up onto the seat, Giles reached onto the roof and untied the bundles fixed there, passing them down to Kit one after the other. “After you, sir,” he said, shouldering the larger of the two parcels.

Kit started off, then halted, turned back, and said, “What about the coach and horses?” He was still that much oblivious to the conventions of the age in which he found himself that it was the first time he had spared a single thought for the animals.

“I have already made provision for them, sir,” Giles assured him.

“Really? When?”

“At the inn last night. The landlord will send a boy to collect them. The carriage will be taken to the inn and the horses stabled until we return to claim them.” At Kit’s expression, he added, “Never fear, sir, I did not let on what we were about. For all they know, we have gone hunting in the woods hereabouts.”

“Well done, Giles. It completely slipped my mind.”

“There is no reason why it should have concerned you, my lord. The coach and horses are my responsibility.”

They hurried to catch up with Lady Fayth, who had found the spiral path leading to the top and was already striding her way swiftly toward the summit. The two men toiled along in her wake and reached the top to find her tapping her foot with impatience.

Kit dropped his bundle, the better to catch his breath. “The marker stone is beyond those trees,” he said. Glancing away toward the eastern horizon, he saw the sky pinking up in a line above the wooded hills in the distance. “It will be light soon.”

“Then we must by all means hurry,” said Lady Fayth, starting off toward the trees.

“Wait, my lady,” said Kit, drawing a cutlass from his bundle. “Let Giles and me go first—in case any of the Burley Men are about.” Before her ladyship could mount a protest against this line of reasoning, he started toward the Three Trolls, whose black silhouettes soared against the steadily lightening heavens.

Keeping a wary eye peeled for any movement that might betray the presence of intruders, he passed beneath the spreading branches of the great old oaks and made for the place where he knew he would find the square marking stone.

There was no one about. They had the place entirely to themselves and, as the sun began to peep above the horizon, Kit found the square, flat stone. “Here it is,” he called, waving the others to him. “Hurry! The time is upon us.”

Giles and Lady Fayth quickly joined him. “Stand on the stone,” he instructed, pulling them closer. “Now, everyone join arms. Whatever happens, do not let go.” He linked arms with Giles on one side and Lady Fayth on the other. “I repeat,” he cried, “whatever happens,
do not
let go!”

“Why are you shouting?” asked Lady Fayth.

“The wind!” hollered Kit—and then realized the anticipated storm had not, in fact, materialized. The air remained dead calm. “Strange,” he said. “There was always wind before.”

They stood for a long moment looking at each other. The sky grew lighter. Still, nothing happened.

Kit thought back to the day Cosimo and Sir Henry had disappeared. An image floated into his consciousness: his great-grandfather standing on the stone with his arms raised over his head as a prizefighter in a pose of triumph. “Um,” he said, “let me try something.”

He raised one arm and instantly felt the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand up. The atmosphere was charged with static electricity. Raising the other arm, the eerie feeling increased. The air seemed to have become leaden, thick, and difficult to breathe.

“Hold on to me!” he shouted again, and this time with good reason, for a roar erupted out of nowhere to fill the sky directly above them. A wild wind swirled, tearing at their clothes, and they were enveloped by an unearthly blue glow. The world around them—hilltop, the Trolls, the hills beyond—faded, becoming watery and indistinct as with a sort of luminous heat haze. The roar became a scream.

“Don’t let go!” shouted Kit, trying to be heard above the whine. It was increasingly difficult to hold his arms aloft—as if the drag of a dozen gravities hung from each upraised arm. He had not accounted for the immense, almost crushing pressure. It felt like the entire tump was balanced on his upraised fists. His muscles burned, and he began to falter. Then, when he thought he could not hold up under the strain, he felt Lady Fayth tighten her grip and slip one arm around his waist. He glanced into her face and saw neither fear nor alarm, but pure, elemental exhilaration; a wild and exultant fire lit her eyes. She returned his gaze with something approaching admiration.

The look renewed his strength. He gave out a cry and rose up on his toes. “Jump!” he shouted, and as he did so he felt his feet leave the ground.

It was only a small hop, but he came back down with a jarring bump that travelled up from his ankles, through his knees, and all the way to his hips.

And that was it.

Between one breath and the next, the sound and fury died. The weird blue shimmering haze simply ceased. The static-charged air gave a puny, apologetic pop and fizzled. Glancing down, Kit saw they were all still standing on the marker stone. His heart sank.

“I guess we’ll have to try again this evening when—” he began, then broke off abruptly. “Ow!”

Lady Fayth’s fingernails were digging into the flesh of his side. Her eyes were wide with wonder and her face and auburn hair aglow with the light of a golden sunrise. He turned his gaze to see that what had so absorbed her attention was a long, straight, stone-paved avenue: an avenue lined with a double row of sphinxes.

CHAPTER 24
In Which an Understanding Is Reached

T
he air was still, the heat of the day abating as the sun drifted westward. The Mirror Sea was living up to its name, its surface as smooth as molten glass, reflecting a pale, cloud-dappled heaven. Arthur Flinders-Petrie gazed absently at the splendid prospect of the harbour and the crescent sweep of the bay spreading out below him; his thoughts were troubled and his heart heavy. The last weeks of convalescence, spent largely in the company of Wu Chen Hu’s spirited daughter, Xian-Li, had revived him in many more ways than one.

Now it was time to go.

Had the choice been his alone, he might have tarried indefinitely. But the trading season was ending, and by decree of the Chinese authorities all foreigners must leave the country—the same as every year; nothing had changed in that respect. All ships would be sailing within the next few days. Ordinarily, he would be glad to return to England as fast as the winds could carry him; but this year Arthur discovered he had a reason to stay.

“I will miss you, Xian-Li,” he said, a note of longing rising in his voice.

“And I will miss you, my friend,” she replied, touching his arm shyly. She smiled. “But you will come back one day.”

“I will—and soon,” he told her. “I promise.”

“And until then, I have these beautiful shoes to remind me of your visit.” She smiled and lifted her hem and pointed the toes of her delicate, unbound feet so that he could see the glistening blue silk of her pearl-beaded slippers. “Thank you.”

“It is I who stand in
your
debt, Xian-Li,” said Arthur, regarding the slender, dark-haired young woman beside him: how her red gown shimmered, how her black hair shone. “Alas, it is a debt I can never fully repay.”

“Do not talk of debt and repayment,” she chided lightly. “What I did, I did for the honour of my family, and—” She halted, dropping her head demurely.

“And?” Arthur asked, feeling her hesitancy.

“And for the sake of your friendship with my father.”

“Only that?” A surge of emotion welled up inside him then. Time grew short; he could not leave without knowing. “Is there nothing else?”

Xian-Li did not look up. Arthur gazed upon her bowed head, her long black hair falling in a curtain. He could not see her face to know what she might have been thinking or feeling at that moment. “Please, Arthur,” she said at last. “There can be nothing more. Do not ask it of me.”

“But I do ask, Xian-Li,” he said. “I ask because in the short time we have had together, I have grown to love you very much.”

“You will always be my dear friend, Arthur,” she replied, her gaze still lowered. “Always.”

“Yet, I would be more,” he said. Then, casting his customary diffidence to the four winds, he added, “Marry me, Xian-Li. Become my wife.”

She glanced up quickly, her expression stricken. “Arthur, no . . . please, no. It cannot be.”

“Why not?” he said, emboldened now that he had spoken his inmost heart. “What is to prevent us?”

Her face clouded with unhappiness. “Must you make me say it?”

“I love you, Xian-Li. Marry me. We can be together always.” He reached for her hand. “I need you, my love. I cannot foresee a life without you.”

She shook her head gently. “I am Chinese. You are English. It is forbidden,” she said, but she did not pull her hand away.

“There is no power on earth to keep us apart if we do not wish it,” he assured her.

He saw the love and hope kindle in her great dark luminous eyes, and pressed for an answer. “Come, Xian-Li. You know I speak the truth. We can be happy together, you and I.”

She seemed to tremble on the edge of assent, but could not make the leap. “They will never allow it,” she said, dropping her head once more.

“Then we will go somewhere else—a place where no one will mind our differences.”

She shook her head, tears falling to the floor. “You do not understand, Arthur. I cannot leave China. They will never allow it. I would be stopped at the harbour before I could ever set foot on your ship. They would punish both of us—me most severely.”

“Xian-Li,” he said softly. “All obstacles can be overcome, if you will it. Come, give me your answer. Will you marry me?”

Without looking at him, she clasped his hand again. “I cannot,” she said, her voice breaking into a sob. “It is forbidden.”

She gave his hand a last squeeze and then turned and started away. He watched her go, certain now as never before that more than anything in the world, this—this union—was what he wanted. It will happen, he thought to himself. I will it.

He let her go, remaining on the promontory above the bay to think and watch the sun go down. One by one the evening stars appeared as tiny lights in the sky, but Arthur did not stir. Later, when his feet turned back toward White Lotus Street, it was with a resolute and determined step.