Sands of Time. Barbara Erskine

      ‘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 valuable 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