“One moment, if you please, Mr Darcy,” said Paul, his eyes lighting on a new frieze that had been painted onto the wall. “This is unusual. I do not think I’ve seen this style before.”
Darcy held the torch up and they looked at the drawing. Paul was right; the painting was not like the other richly coloured ceremonial pictures which described the progress of two high status Egyptians into heaven, but was altogether more businesslike. The pigments were brown and red and seemed to be concerned mainly with two characters. One figure was twice the height of the other, a man with a crook and a flail in his hands. The other figure, depicted several times, always kneeling and in thrall to the first, was a woman, her beauty still clear for all to see but now less terrible than the many other representations they had seen of her.
“Aahotep!” Elizabeth breathed.
The likeness to the first time they had come across her painting back at the British Museum was unmistakable. She even seemed similar to the little doll Margaret had carried everywhere. But now the expression on Aahotep’s face was no longer proud and vengeful. The woman in these paintings looked frightened and humbled and even a little tired.
“It seems she has been made to pay for her sins,” said Sophie.
“The artistry is fascinating,” Paul added, handing his sketchbook to Sophie so that he could trace the painting with his fingers. “She seems genuinely terrified of this character.”
They all looked at the stern features of the man leaning down over Aahotep.
“What was it Sir Matthew said?” Darcy continued. “Aahotep was doomed by the magician Ptah to walk the earth until she had learned the error of her ways and made amends. This must be Ptah.”
Edward nodded. “It makes sense. See here, he’s surrounded by the head of an ibis, representing Thoth, the god of wisdom; the feather of Ma’at, goddess of justice; and the crown of Isis, who represents magic.”
“Wisdom, justice, and magic,” Darcy repeated. “It seems that Ptah has used all three to sentence Aahotep.”
“And these symbols here,” said Paul, pointing to the crook and flail the magician held. “They are usually carried by Osiris, the god of the dead.”
“Aahotep must find a way to make amends,” said Edward, almost in a trance.
He bent down, but Sophie was there before him as something gold caught their eyes. She bent down to pick up something which proved to be a necklace.
“How odd,” she said. “It is the same necklace as the one round Aahotep’s neck in the picture. I have never seen anything quite like it.”
Elizabeth shivered as an eerie feeling washed over her. Darcy put his arm round her instinctively, just as a terrifying crack rent the air and the ground seemed to open up beneath her. Darcy pulled her back from the brink, but Sophie was not so lucky.
“Sophie!” Elizabeth cried, as Sophie teetered on the edge, her face a mask of horror.
Sophie swayed for a moment as she tried to regain her balance, and it seemed she would do so, but then she fell, throwing up the sketchbook and necklace as she reached for the sides of the pit.
Paul and Edward both lunged forward.
Paul threw himself at his sketchbook while Edward threw himself at Sophie, falling at full length on the ground in his effort to catch her as he let the necklace fall into the pit.
“I have you,” said Edward as he looked into her panic-stricken eyes with his own suddenly clear ones. “You are safe. I will not let you go.”
“My fingers are slipping,” she said.
“Give me your other hand,” he urged, reaching out for it.
But even as he spoke, her fingers slipped through his grip, and he could only watch in anguish as she hurtled down into the pit and landed with a sickening thud at the bottom.
“Noooooo!” cried Edward.
“Sophie!” Elizabeth called in horror. “Sophie, are you all right?”
She knelt beside Edward as Darcy thrust the torch downward to illuminate the pit. The dancing light revealed Sophie’s face, now an unhealthy white in the weak illumination of the torch. Her eyes were closed and she made no reply.
“Sophie!” Edward shouted.
“Please, speak to us!” cried Elizabeth.
Slowly Sophie’s eyes flickered open. She groaned and began to struggle to sit up, but then cried out with pain and sank back down again.
“Lie still, Sophie. I will soon be with you,” said Edward, before pulling back and sitting up then rising to his feet.
“That pit is at least twelve feet down,” Darcy said quietly. “It is a miracle she is still alive. The sides are smooth and without any footholds. I don’t see how we can get down there, let alone bring her up.”
“I am going down,” said Edward in a tone that brooked no dissent. “I brought this upon her and I am not going to leave the woman I love alone in that hellish pit.”
“So, you love her,” said Darcy.
“Yes, I do, and when we get out of this situation I mean to ask her to be my wife.” Adding under his breath, “If she will have me, which after today’s misadventure I very much doubt.”
Quickly he retrieved three of the remaining torches from their original resting place near the entrance to the tomb and returned to the pit, lighting them from their one glowing torch and handing them to Paul and Elizabeth.
“I was wrong about there being no footholds,” said Darcy, taking advantage of the better light as he peered down into the pit. “If you look carefully, you can see there are some stones sticking out around the wall. I will hold onto you for as long as I can. When you are at the bottom, I will throw a torch down to you.”
Edward nodded and began to inch his way tentatively downward. Elizabeth held the torch as near to him as she could in order to give him as much help as possible in seeing stones to balance on and crevices in which to slide his feet, while Darcy took a firm grip on his shirt.
“Be brave, Sophie,” Elizabeth shouted as Edward cautiously descended. “You will soon have company.” But this time there was no answering call, and she and Darcy exchanged worried glances.
There was a frightening moment when Edward slipped, but at the last minute he managed to regain a foothold. He jumped the last few feet and they heard the echoey thump of his boots on the packed earth before seeing him gather Sophie into his arms. He pulled her closer and as he kissed her, Elizabeth nudged Darcy’s hand so that the torch no longer shone on the young couple.
“If you see Edward kissing her, you will have to speak to him sternly about it,” she said. “They are not yet betrothed.”
“But if I do not see it?”
“Then you will not have to object!”
Then Sophie’s weak voice could be heard as it echoed round the walls, saying, “You ignored the necklace. You saved me!”
“And you saved me. When you fell, it cut through the strange obsession which has gripped me these past few months. I knew I did not care if I never saw another tomb again, but I could not live without you. Sophie, this is neither the time nor the place, but I cannot wait any longer. Will you marry me?”
And around the walls reverberated the echo, “Yes… yes… yes.”
Elizabeth glanced at Paul, and for a moment he looked downcast, but then a look of calm dawned on his face and Elizabeth thought, He loves her but he loves his art more, and now he realises it and he has accepted it.
After giving the newly engaged couple a little more time, Darcy called down, “Are you ready for the torch, Edward?”
“Yes, cousin.”
Darcy threw the torch down and they saw Edward hurry to pick it up before it was completely extinguished. In the flare of light from the pit they saw that Edward was now examining her.