“I’m not sure I follow,” said Kit, missing the link in her logic.
“If our eminent forebears were not in direst danger,” she explained, as if instructing a backward child, “they would not stand in need of rescuing, and it would not fall to us to save them.”
“Well, yes,” granted Kit, “but that doesn’t lessen the danger to ourselves. We still-”
“Take courage!” she told him. “All will be well.”
“I’m glad we got that settled.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I feel so much better now.”
Sarcasm must not have been in fashion in the seventeenth century, apparently, for his remarks were taken at face value, and Lady Fayth favoured him with one of her incandescent smiles. “I am happy for you. We shall leave at once. I shall inform Villiers of our plans and have the servants prepare the things we require. Kindly inform Giles to ready the coach.”
“But we haven’t deciphered the book,” Kit pointed out.
“We can do that on the way. You said it will take three days to reach this leaping place, is that not true?” At his admission that this was the case, she placed the book in his hand and concluded, “Then we must not waste another moment.”
Having made up her mind, Lady Fayth was across the room and almost out the door. “Wait,” called Kit, “there is one other thing.” He hesitated, uncertain how to put it.
“Yes? What is it?”
“Your clothes, Lady Fayth. Forgive me for saying it, but I sincerely doubt that you can make a leap dressed like that,” he said, indicating her dress.
She glanced down at her elegant satin gown. “Marry, what is wrong with my attire?”
The defiant expression her face gave him to know that he was skating on very thin ice. “It is not, ah-functional,” he offered.
“I suppose you would have me wear nothing at all!”
The mere suggestion of her lithesome form arrayed in its natural splendour proved so distracting that Kit, with heroic effort, pushed it promptly from his mind and tried his best to explain in a way that would not be taken amiss. “My lady, we cannot know what we’re leaping into-it might be rough country, a jungle, a desert, anything,” he told her. “Also, there is the matter of time. We might be years or centuries ahead of the current date and age, or behind. In short, we simply cannot know what the people we encounter will be wearing wherever it is we’re going. We must try not to be too, um… different.”
“Such disconformity could draw unwanted attention to ourselves as travellers,” she concluded. “I understand. By my faith, your counsel is wise. I will find something more fitting to the purpose.” She turned again to go. “Further to that, we will require money, I expect, and weapons.”
“If you can get them…,” Kit began, but she was already gone. He stood gazing at the empty doorway. Faith, my counsel is wise, he reflected happily, his misgivings flittering away like dry leaves before the balmy breeze of her good opinion, if only for the moment.
They would return in force, but by then the would-be leapers were already beyond the outlying hamlets of London in a carriage loaded with three days’ worth of food and drink, several changes of clothing, a purse full of gold sovereigns, two slightly rusty cutlasses, and a serviceable flintlock pistol. At Kit’s suggestion, Giles, who agreed willingly, was brought into the plan. They departed as soon as the equipment and provisions could be loaded onto the coach and they were soon clattering through the northern suburbs and out into the belt of farming settlements ringing the city.
During the hours of good light, Kit applied himself to the study of the green book, poring over page after page of Sir Henry’s crabbed text. The book itself was as handsome a specimen of the binder’s art as could be found anywhere: tight pages of fine paper, gold-edged, with a place marker of black silk ribbon, all smartly bound in lustrous jade green kidskin, and so well made that it opened absolutely flat and closed with a satisfying snap. After properly admiring the craftsmanship of the tome, they had got down to studying the contents. Kit could not easily read Sir Henry’s idiosyncratic hand, but Lady Fayth, whose eye was more accustomed to the mode of the day, seemed to have little difficulty. Under her instruction, Kit began to gain some mastery of the script.
Much of what he gleaned was so far over his head it might as well have been Japanese for all the impression it made. The language was arcane when not archaic, and the concepts discussed assumed a knowledge, or at least a vocabulary, Kit lacked. However, by dint of perseverance, and with Lady Fayth’s patient help, he was able to tease out a few useful nuggets of information from Sir Henry’s theorizing about the nature of ley travel, its purpose, its mechanism, and its possible uses. There was much mention of the Skin Map, and a lengthy discourse on its curious markings, with one or two examples, along with a few suggestions about the meaning of the symbols. There were also meticulous diagrams of ley lines and detailed directions to their locations, including maps.
From his study of Sir Henry’s little green book, Kit learned that, temporally speaking, it made a very great difference where one crossed over on the ley. He shared this observation aloud to Lady Fayth, who confessed to being utterly confused.
“I think it means you have a choice not only where to leap, but when,” he explained. “He seems to suggest that it’s like a road-like the one we’re travelling on now, with signs and mile markers along the way, see?” He pointed out the coach window to a pale white milestone they were passing just then. “Well, if this was a ley line, then each of the mile markers would correspond to a different time in the otherworld location connected to that particular ley.”
“If you insist,” replied Lady Fayth hazily.
“Now, suppose that milestone we just passed corresponded to the 1500s in the otherworld, then the next one might be the 1600s and so on,” Kit told her, waving the book in one hand. “Depending on where you make the leap, you end up in different times in the development of the world you’re leaping into. Incredible!”
Lady Fayth was blase. “It sounds needlessly complicated to me.”
“Perhaps,” granted Kit. “In any case, it means that we must be far more precise in our calculations to have any hope of ending up where we want to go.” He thumbed a few more pages in the book. “Precision-that’s the key. And that is why we need the Skin Map.” Lady Fayth’s perfect lips formed a perfectly puzzled frown.
“Look at this,” said Kit, leaning near her in his zeal. He indicated one of the strange signs Sir Henry had copied there-a curious semicircular whorl with two almost parallel lines crossing it, one of which sprouted a barb like that of a fishhook at the end; a row of tiny dots lined the outer edge of the whorl.
“This is one of the symbols from the map.” He leaned closer still, holding the book to her. “Sir Henry indicates that this little symbol tells not only where to find a particular ley, but also where that ley leads and the location of the milestones along the line to help navigate the time.” He beamed with this revelation and felt the visceral thrill of the nearness of her warm flesh. “You’ve got to hand it to old Flinders-Petrie: he thought of everything.”
Lady Fayth accepted this appraisal coolly. “Those obtuse jots and tittles communicate all of that?”
“Apparently,” allowed Kit. “Of course, one has to know how to read the symbols. That’s the chief difficulty-they’re written in a sort of shorthand-”
“I do beg your pardon? With a short hand, did you say? However does the length of a person’s hand enter into it?”
“Ah, yes.” Kit regrouped and started again. “I mean-a code. They’re written in code, or a secret symbol language. One must possess the key in order to unlock the secret of the symbols.”
Lady Fayth gave a nod toward the book. “And is this key of which you speak to be found amongst Sir Henry’s pages?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t read the whole thing yet.” He glanced at the book in his hand. “Maybe. I hope so. It would make things a whole lot easier if it did.”