Sands of Time Read online

  They were suddenly aware of footsteps outside on the cobbles. Feet ran lightly up the steps to the door and it was flung open. ‘Did I hear someone call?’ A boy stood in the doorway – tall, red-haired, handsome, his eyes transparent grey. Louisa gave a gasp of recognition. This must be one of Lord Carstairs’s sons.

  ‘Indeed someone did call.’ Sarah pushed in front of her and confronted him indignantly. ‘I couldn’t open the door. It was locked.’

  ‘Locked?’ He looked puzzled. ‘Indeed no. I opened it just now without any bother, Lady Douglas.’ He gave a gentle apologetic smile. ‘Why would it be locked?’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’ Sarah stepped towards him. ‘Would you ask Mr Dunglass to fetch our horses. We have seen enough.’

  ‘But Mrs Shelley doesn’t want to go yet.’ The boy looked straight at her. ‘Surely she hasn’t had enough time to sketch the head-dress which she came to see. My father told me to come over specially and make sure she had everything she needed.’

  ‘Your father,’ Sarah drew herself up to her full height, ‘is not here. I fail to see how he could have done any such thing.’

  ‘I assure you he did, Lady Douglas.’ The boy smiled, and suddenly Louisa could see the likeness to his father and understand, perhaps, Dunglass’s obvious antipathy. The outward charm, the handsome good looks, masked an icy watchful control. This boy was dangerous.

  It had taken her several seconds to compose herself enough to speak, but now she stepped forward. ‘You are quite right, young man. I haven’t had time to do all I wanted. Perhaps you would allow us a few more minutes and then we will call Mr Dunglass ourselves.’ She took a deep breath. ‘You are very like your father. He must be very proud of you.’

  The boy looked startled, and for the first time they saw a hint of doubt in his eyes. ‘I don’t believe so, Mrs Shelley. He constantly complains of my behaviour and that of my brother.’ He shrugged. ‘It is only when we do small services for him, such as passing on this message, that he recognises our existence.’ He looked so crestfallen for a moment that she felt quite sorry for him, but then the self-confidence returned and once again she saw his father’s arrogance looking out from those young eyes. With a small bow, he turned and retraced his steps across the yard. To Sarah’s relief he left the door open.

  ‘Give me a few minutes. There is something I want to find,’ Louisa whispered, ‘and I must do a few quick notes which I can work into sketches later, then we’ll go.’ Leaving Sarah standing by the door she ran back into the Egyptian section of the room. There must be something there she could take. Something she could use as a lever against him; something he would really care about. She glanced along the shelves at statuettes and pots, carvings and pieces of broken tile. It had to be something valuable but something that would not immediately be missed. Although Dunglass did not look like the kind of man who knew or cared about what was in his master’s collection beyond the few show pieces he had described for them, that shrewd young boy would not be so easy to fool. She glanced at the glass cases around her. In one there was a selection of jewellery. Gold and enamel necklets and bracelets. Rings. She tried the lid of the case. To her surprise it wasn’t locked. It lifted easily. Reaching in she took a heavy gold ring – small and half hidden by a larger item she doubted if it would be missed by anyone except Carstairs himself. With a grim smile she lowered the lid gently back into place, slipped the ring into the pocket of her habit and turned back towards the door.

  4

  It was late before Louisa made her way at last to her bedroom that night. Two neighbours of the Douglases had come to dine and entertained them at the piano with a succession of Scots songs before riding home at last under the brilliant moon. Tired and content Louisa let herself into her bedroom. The lamp as before had been trimmed and lit and the soft light fell across the bed where earlier Kirsty had turned down the bedclothes.

  Curled up on the pillow was a huge snake.

  Louisa’s scream brought the Douglases running, closely followed by several maids, a footman and the housekeeper. Sir James strode into the room, a silver-topped cane raised in his hand. ‘What is the matter? What is it?’ He was staring round enquiringly.

  Louisa pointed at the bed. Her heart was thudding so hard she could barely breathe.

  ‘What? Where?’ Sir James marched across and stared down at the bedclothes as his wife put her arm around Louisa’s shoulders.

  ‘A snake!’ Louisa could hardly speak.

  ‘Snake?’ Sir James took a step back.

  ‘There.’ She pointed, but already she knew they would find nothing. Carstairs was far too clever for that.

  ‘Look, James.’ It was Sarah, gently pushing Louisa aside, who stepped up to the bed ‘There, on the pillows. You can see the indentation where it lay. And there – ’ She pulled the covers back. ‘Sand.’

  ‘Sand?’ Sir James looked bewildered.

  ‘Mr Graham.’ Sarah turned to the butler who had appeared somewhat belatedly, his jacket awry as if he had hastily pulled it on. Judging by the slight aroma of whisky on his breath the disturbance had caught him relaxing in the servants’ hall. ‘Take two of the lads and search the room. How big was it?’ She turned to Louisa.

  ‘Big.’ Louisa’s mouth had dried. She could barely speak.

  ‘We’ll put you in another room.’ Sarah hugged her again. ‘Kirsty can make you up a bed, can’t you, Kirsty? You can’t possibly stay in here.’ She shuddered. ‘Oh, how horrible.’

  ‘I don’t understand this at all.’ Sir James was staring round the room thoughtfully. ‘The windows are shut. How on earth could a snake get in here? What kind of snake was it, Louisa? An adder? A grass snake?’

  ‘It was a cobra,’ Louisa whispered.

  ‘A cobra?’ Sir James glared at her, clearly disbelieving. ‘What nonsense. Are you sure you didn’t imagine the whole thing? Perhaps you had fallen asleep and were dreaming.’

  ‘She can hardly dream on her feet, James,’ Sarah put in quietly. Behind them the servants were staring round, Mr Graham clearly of the same opinion as his master, the young women looking frightened. ‘And we had said goodnight only moments before, if you remember.’

  Sir James snorted. ‘All right. Go and make up another room for our guest, girls, and the rest of you search in here. Carefully. If it’s a cobra they are poisonous.’ His glance heavenwards was not missed by the others in the room. Clearly Sir James did not believe in the creature’s existence.

  It was an hour later when Louisa found herself alone once more. She was in another of the plentiful guest rooms, comforted by two lamps and a cup of hot milk and the knowledge that the room had been searched as had the rest of the house. Nothing had been found in her original room, nor anywhere else, save for those few enigmatic grains of sand.

  Before she returned to her room Sarah had caught her hand. ‘Will you be all right?’

  Louisa nodded. ‘He took me by surprise. This time I shall be ready for him.’

  ‘Be careful.’ Sarah eyed her doubtfully.

  ‘I will.’ Louisa leaned forward and kissed her. ‘Goodnight.’

  Once the others had left her, Louisa glanced round nervously. This room too looked out over the back of the house. This room too had tall windows opening onto the long balcony. Taking a deep breath she walked over and throwing back the curtains she pushed open the casement. The moon was shining across the garden and parkland throwing deep shadows under the tall trees. Nothing moved.

  ‘So, my lord,’ she whispered. ‘Have you used the last of your strength with that performance? Have you nothing else to frighten me with?’

  In the distance she heard the eerie cry of an owl. She shivered. The night was uncannily still. She held out her hand, touching the stone balustrade. On her forefinger she was wearing the heavy gold ring she had taken from the case in Carstairs Castle. It gleamed softly in the moonlight.

  ‘I have one of your treasures here, my lord, do you see? It’s very beautiful. Very valua
ble no doubt.’

  There was no response from the darkness. There was no sign that anyone had heard her challenge.

  Taking off the ring she weighed it in the palm of her hand. ‘Do you remember my little scent bottle? The one you wanted so badly for your collection? You thought it contained the tears of Isis and I threw it in the Nile to stop you getting it.’ She paused turning the ring over in her hands. ‘But someone rescued it, and it came back to me. I still have that little bottle. And now I have your ring as well. And tomorrow perhaps I shall return to the castle and take something else. And then something else. And then again.’ She paused and smiled, staring out into the darkness. ‘Checkmate, my lord.’

  The stonework was cool under her hands, fragments of lichen catching against her skirt as on a far away plain a white man stepped out of his tepee and bowed to his hosts before sitting down by their fire. The elders of the tribe bowed back and silently resumed their scrutiny of the flames. This was a man with whom they felt at ease. A walker between the worlds like themselves, a medicine man of extreme power. A man comfortable in the presence of the Great Spirit. They did not know where it was their guest travelled under the influence of the peyote god nor did they care. That was his business and his alone.

  He wasn’t coming. Leaving the windows open onto the hot night Louisa went back inside the room. She drank her milk, then, turning off the lamps which were surrounded with fluttering moths she began to undress, half of her relieved that all was peaceful, half angry and tense with nervous anticipation. Pulling on her nightgown she unpinned her hair and reaching for her hairbrush she wandered towards the window, attracted by the beauty of the moonlight. She had put the ring on the table by the lamp; it lay there, gleaming gently as she stood drawing the brush through her long hair.

  This time when she saw him his chest was bare. He wore the buckskin trousers and there were strings of beads around his neck as he stood staring in through the double windows with those strange colourless eyes. He bowed. ‘Tonight you were expecting me, I think.’

  The ring. She had taken off the ring. Squaring her shoulders she looked him in the eyes. ‘Why did you send a snake to my room?’

  He smiled. ‘To act as your body guard should you need one. You knew it wouldn’t hurt you.’

  ‘So, you still serve Isis? For all your wanderings in India and in the Americas, your heart is still in Egypt?’

  He was watching her intently, his eyes probing. ‘As is yours, I suspect, or have you at last forgotten your native paramour?’

  Clenching her fists, she took a deep breath. ‘I shall never forget Hassan, my lord. Nor the fact that you killed him.’

  He laughed, the sound quietly chilling. ‘He was killed by a snake, Louisa. Even my worst enemy would find it very hard to believe I could have arranged such a deed, and you surely are not my worst enemy.’

  ‘No?’ She looked at him through half-closed eyes. He wasn’t real. This man, solid as he appeared, was some kind of phantasmagoria conjured by his mind and perhaps hers in a strange drug-induced union. His body was far away in the Americas, or perhaps in Egypt or India. Wherever it was, his soul had learned to step outside it and travel around the earth. And his soul was nothing but a shadow; a ghost; a dream.

  She smiled, reassured by the thought.

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Something amuses you, Mrs Shelley?’

  ‘It does indeed. I was reminding myself of your insubstantial nature.’ She drew herself up to her full height.

  ‘Insubstantial, but nevertheless satisfying,’ he said. There was a mocking gleam in his eye and she felt herself blush violently.

  ‘A dream, my lord. Nothing more.’

  ‘But what a dream!’ He took a pace forward and reflexively she stepped back away from him. ‘A dream of ecstasy and abandon,’ he went on, ‘one would find very hard to resist.’

  ‘Don’t take another step!’ She put up her hand to ward him off and her fingers met hard smooth skin.

  He looked down into her eyes. ‘An excellently real dream, Mrs Shelley, you must acknowledge.’ He was so close now she could feel the touch of his breath on her cheek and smell the bittersweet smokiness of that distant ceremony. ‘You enjoyed our encounter last time, did you not?’ His hand came up to stroke her hair and suddenly she found herself unable to move. Desperately she tried to step away from him, but she couldn’t. She wanted nothing so much as for him to touch her, to hold her and pull her close once more. Slowly she felt her ability to fight him die. She raised her face to his and closed her eyes as he bent to kiss her. Her whole body responded to the touch of his lips with a thrill of excitement; her knees grew weak; she longed to give herself to him, to throw herself down and pull him with her, to abandon herself totally to the ecstasy of his love-making.

  His quiet chuckle as he sensed how close he was to victory brought her to her senses. With a small exclamation of alarm she ducked away from him and ran to the bedside table. Scooping up the ring she turned with a cry of triumph. ‘No, my lord. Winning me over is not that easy. Do you see this? One of your treasures, my lord. Egyptian gold. Something no doubt you value highly.’ Behind him the moonlight had moved from behind the great cedar on the grass outside her window. It streamed in across the floor throwing his shadow before it, a shadow that was as substantial as hers.

  ‘So?’ He looked amused. ‘My treasures are at your disposal, my dear.’

  ‘Indeed.’ She was taken aback. ‘Yet you were prepared to kill for my little bottle.’

  His eyes held hers for a moment. ‘That was not quite the same, Louisa. The tears of the goddess, prepared by her temple priests, were irreplaceable. You destroyed not only a piece of history but a powerful link to the goddess herself. Something of inestimable value; something of power so great that it would have given its owner the keys to the world! It was an unforgivable act.’

  ‘But you seem to have forgiven me now?’ She raised an eyebrow.

  ‘No, I haven’t forgiven you.’ His voice hardened. ‘You amuse me. It is always a pleasure to take a beautiful woman; the more so if it makes her despise herself.’

  She closed her eyes for a moment, blanking out the sudden hatred she saw in his face; shocked at how much the knowledge that he had merely been playing with her hurt. ‘What if I told you the tears of Isis still exist?’

  He froze, staring at her. ‘What do you mean? I saw you throw the bottle in the Nile.’

  So. He was not all-seeing. The confirmation of the fact comforted her. ‘The bottle was wrapped in a piece of cloth which floated. My servant saved it and returned it to me.’

  She saw how every muscle in his body tensed. ‘And where is it now?’

  It was her turn to smile. Her weakness of a moment before had turned to something like triumph. ‘Nowhere you could find it, my lord. That is my secret.’

  His cry of fury was cut off short as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her violently against him. ‘If that little bottle still exists, I will have it. This time, Mrs Shelley, I will have it.’

  She found she could look up at him almost unafraid as she spat her defiance at him. ‘No, and that is my revenge, my lord. For Hassan’s death. You say you were not responsible for killing him, but we both know you sent the snake to that cave. It will give me enormous pleasure to know you realise the bottle still exists, but that you will never, never see it again. If I choose to destroy it, I shall. If I choose to keep it, I shall. But you will never set eyes on it.’

  She gave a small cry of fright as he pushed her violently backwards onto the bed, and climbing onto it after her, straddled her body with his knees. ‘I think I know how to persuade you.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ She was still clutching the ring. ‘I’m not afraid of you any more, my lord.’ To her surprise she realised suddenly that it was true. ‘And I have discovered your weakness. You say your treasures are at my disposal, my lord, but I doubt if you would be happy to see them lost or destroyed. In fact I think that would make you very angry. And very
sad. And I suspect, if you are really in America, they are beyond your reach. You see this?’ She thrust her clenched fist up into his face. ‘Your ring. I am going to throw it into the loch. See how easy it was to steal? And you can’t stop me, because as you have said you are not really here. And tomorrow I shall go back to your museum and I shall simper at your Mr Dunglass and flutter my eyelashes at your son and ask to paint more of your collection and they will let me in. And one by one I shall destroy your treasures. Your gold and silver. Your feathered head-dresses, your fragile mummy, and above all, that dry hollow skin which was once a snake! And you will be able to do nothing. Nothing! Because you are four thousand miles away!’

  He was staring down at her, his face impassive. Only his eyes seemed alight in the shadowed sockets. He smiled coldly. ‘So, don’t you believe I can communicate with my sons or my factor to warn them? Believe me, I can. Not easily, I grant you with Dunglass – the man is an idiot – but my sons have promise. They are receptive. They will listen to me.’ He was still, looking down at her almost thoughtfully. ‘But on the whole I prefer to deal with you. You are so open, so –’ He paused. ‘Eager.’ Releasing her wrist he put his hand to the ribbon at the neck of her nightgown and gently pulled it open. ‘You are still beautiful, for an ageing woman.’ He said it almost absent-mindedly then his expression changed to a cold sneer. ‘But your charms have suddenly diminished. You have revealed yourself to be a spiteful witch. And witches have to be dealt with.’ His hand dropped away and he sat staring down at her thoughtfully for a moment. ‘I wonder how. There are so many possibilities. So many ways to contain that spite.’ His weight held her immobile. She could feel the muscles of his thighs gripping her legs. He touched her cheek lightly. ‘Did you dream of revenge, Louisa, as Hassan died in the dust? Did you watch the poison from the snake bite spread through his veins and think of me? How gratifying.’