By Blood Undone
“Dash it all.”
The words hung in the dry air for a moment.
“Dash it ALL!”
The halls of Wormstead were as wide as they were long, which rendered pinpointing the source of any sound close to impossible – but the second of the antiquarian’s exclamations was loud and sharp enough to bring his young ward scurrying straight to his study.
Red of brick and broad of edifice, the old Wormstead house had been home to the Atwell family for the last 150 years. Socially-speaking, it was considered moderate in size. Stately enough to need a small battery of staff – including a butler, housekeeper, scullery maid and groundsman – but compact so as to ensure it was overlooked by most recitals or events in the society calendar.
Historically, it had a reputation for shunning most things to pique the interest of the wider world and this fact made any commotion in the halls all the more exceptional.
“I heard your shout,” the red-faced boy puffed excitedly, “Is there anything I can help you with cousin?”
“Ahhh, as I live and breathe, the young Thomas Forbes!” the antiquarian smiled suspiciously, “Have you happened upon my letter opener at all? Blasted thing has gone walkabout. You haven’t been using it in one of your games again, have you? I’ve told you before – it’s not for hacking at your toy soldiers or torturing Mrs Miller’s cat, you know that…”
Despite it’s redness, Thomas’ young face showed not the faintest glimmer of guilt, even when he deliberately overplayed the gravity of his reply by placing his right hand on his heart and, with the solemnity of an officer, declared: “I promise you, George Atwell, on my honour, I have not laid these mortal hands upon your precious letter opener.”
The trace of a smile crept into the corner of Thomas’ mouth.
“Well, not for a good number of weeks at least!”
George sighed.
“Well then, it’ll be another of life’s little mysteries one shouldn’t wonder,” he said and, finding the loosest edge on the envelope in his hand, slid his finger within and jaggedly tore along the seam to liberate the contents.
“There’s always another way, Thomas – remember that!” he added.
It had hardly been a year since Professor George Atwell - as he was known in some of the more reputable academic journals of the time – had taken his younger cousin into his home at Wormstead.
The untimely demise of Thomas’ parents at their home in Hertfordshire had led to this event.
‘A brazen and reckless robbery gone wrong’ was the cause and the scoundrels responsible had been caught swiftly. A brace of ne’er-do-well drifters who had passed out in a nearby field after their drunken attack on a family home.
Of course, they denied everything.
They tried and failed to convince the constables on the scene, followed by the judge and a courtroom of Englishmen good and true, that they had played no part in the whole affair.
They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
That’s what they said.
What they kept saying.
They pleaded on the mercy of the law, of the grieving family, of king and country and – in a final act of desperation – to God on high.
“We ne’er got furth’r than the outta fence, let ‘lone done ‘em good folks in!”
But their pleas and their wails and their tears were met with stony faces and the judge did not hesitate when he reached for his black cap, placing it silently and solemnly atop his wig before sentencing both men to a short sharp meeting on the gallowman’s stage.
And soon enough it came to pass that Master Forbes was placed in the care of his cousin.
George was after all his closest living relative and a firm family friend.
As with any relationship tempered in tragedy, it could have been a difficult and rocky affair, but George had been close with his uncle, Thomas’ father. They were friends and contemporaries, both held in similarly good stead and they had even spent the last few years prior working on various digs together.
Thomas, being an adventurous and studious child himself, was cut from the same cloth as his father and was readily acquainted with the world of antiquities. The world occupying his cousin’s working – and indeed waking – hours.
Very soon Thomas was being encouraged in George’s musings, activities and investigations, with the latter treating him as a young apprentice, whenever opportunity saw fit.
Moments like those arising around them, as the gifted academic stood in his overflowing study and read from the letter in his hand.
“By jove!
“Well, I must say…
“It’s about bally time…”
As he read down through the letter, George punctuated the still air with these exclamations.
Then silence.
His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched tighter.
Reaching the end, he puffed his cheeks out wide and let the air whistle through the gap in his front teeth.
“What is it, George?” Thomas enquired, his head cocked inquisitively.
The boy was fearless - ‘born with the family’s recklessness coursing through his veins’ so his late mother has often opined - and it was no surprise he yearned for adventure, even one lived vicariously.
George eyes continued to flick over the paper in his hand for a moment, before he sharply looked up at his cousin, his eyes sparkling with a strange lustre.
Leaping to his feet, George started excitedly: “Thomas, you remember your father and I went and got into a fair few scrapes together, yes?”
Thomas nodded.
“Well, this letter relates to one of them,” George continued to pace the room, prowling like a captive big cat, “I mean, this all started before you were even born. This was back in the summer of ’21, yes, and providence has taken us from here in England all the way to the Mediterranean, North Africa and into the heart of Egypt, if you can believe it? Your father and another fellow from the Institute had been given a tip-off about a discovery that would’ve changed everything. ‘A treasure beyond any mortal measure’, or so we had heard.”
“We started out with excitement and trepidation in equal measure. We had been told that a gang of bandits had been caught on the outskirts of some lesser-known holy city, with their pockets bursting at the seams with items of such rare beauty and clarity that they must’ve once been in the possession of someone exalted beyond any other ruler who walked the earth, before or since.
“Under prolonged and sustained duress at the hands of the local militia, every surviving member of this band of thieves cracked entirely, spilling their secrets. They had, by untold – no doubt nefarious – means come into possession of a seemingly modest manuscript, which nonetheless proclaimed the whereabouts of a lost tomb of Smenkhkare. A tomb to put all others to shame and render worthless all the riches already found across every ancient kingdom put together.
“The bandits had located and breached one of the entrances, explored the first few yards of dusty passages and relieved the tomb of its first armfuls of timeless prizes.
“More than enough for them to live handsomely for the rest of their days.
“But as ever, these thieves wanted more.
“They had hoped to use these ancient trinkets as a way to encourage the sale of the map itself – the proverbial sprat to catch a mackerel - saving themselves a dirty job with the threat of the long-since-dead looking over their shoulders, as well as giving them a generous finder’s fee as a bonus.
“However, drunk on greed, they approached the wrong person and ended up on the less favourable side of an officer’s sword.
“Luckily, we were some of the first experts to hear of their tale. There was your father and I of course, and we were joined by Lawson. He was one of your father’s former business partners and a bit of a strange old fish, but his knowledge was never to be put in doubt.
“And so it was the three of us who, before too long, found ourselves stood outside the tomb entrance itself…”
Thomas looked awestruck, mouth agape and eyes wide, as he often did when his father – and latterly George – told him these tales, of heart-racing excitement and derring-do that regularly put his beloved Penny Dreadfuls in the shade.
“My word, George!” he said enthusiastically, “I don’t believe I ever heard father speak of this adventure!”
George’s open face collapsed and crinkled as he frowned.
“Well, I suppose this isn’t a tale for weak hearts or children. Sorry, old sport, I’m not sure your parents would approve of me telling you this…”
He watched Thomas deflate.
George coughed, unsure on whether he was about to embark down an irresponsible avenue of parenting.
“I suppose,” he spluttered, Thomas’ form stirring back to excited life once more, “I suppose if you are to live here then you should be part of all the things going on and about. And let’s not be worried now Thomas. It’s a fine old romp to a point. It’s just the end where you need to be wary of a fright or two…”
“Oh I don’t frighten easily, George,” Thomas chipped in, “You know me!”
George smiled knowingly: “Alright then my boy, we shall see! So where were we? The entrance of the tomb? Oh yes, quite right.”
“Well, we made camp outside of the entrance, with our guides standing watch to ensure no stragglers from the bandit gang came back to sneak the treasures out from under our noses.
“Sunrise the next day, we made our way inside. Your father, Lawson and I all clambered way down, down, down. We squeezed through tight, airless passages, fighting the irrational chill of stale death that accompanies you when you enter such places.
“The bandits’ tale seemed true enough. The first 30 or 40 feet of bleached stone had been picked clean, like a bone found by one of the desert vultures forever circling overhead. Nothing remained. Every surface scarred by the blades and picks that had carved out every crumb of worth, every breath of history.
“But their greed hastened our transit along and down into the belly of the tomb itself, past where the thieves had stepped before and into the welcoming unknown beyond.
“Lawson and your father led the way, picking up any loose or discarded items and rolling them in their hands in wonder. The light of their torches cascaded in every direction, bursting forth from every facet of the jewels with a perfect clarity. And all the while they barked descriptions over their shoulders to me, such was my position as the junior member of the party. I noted everything diligently – until my pencil was blunt and their voices were coarse and cracked from the dry tomb air.
“Every square inch of every wall was an ode to Smenkhkare, but the tone and meaning was not at all clear. They were clearly a ruler of utter power and glory, but the respect went beyond royalty or deity and into something more sinister. A primordial fear, borne of ancient rites and magic, superstitions transcending time through the pictograms covering every wall.
“Despite picking up only a fraction of the treasures we passed, our satchels were already starting to bulge, and the air around us started to change.
“It tightened and thickened, the stagnant flavour of death flooding our lungs and shackling our progress, as though we were journeying through an unseen cloud of tar and ash.
“But as our minds begged with us to turn back to the surface, we were blessed with good fortune.
“A breeze, soft and gentle and fresh. It swept across the main passage in front of us as if guiding us, willing us deeper into the very heart of the tomb.
“The air whistled towards one of the walls, where a small entranceway was recessed, slightly out of plain view. The gap didn’t look entirely intentional. The brickwork was ragged and unfinished, at odds with the main passageway’s ostentatious decoration that beckoned visitors deeper, further.
“The room beyond was not especially large, but it was festooned in ways that would have made other pharaohs cower in embarrassment. Precious metals dripped from every surface, while a myriad of jewels glittered and skittered a rainbow of light across the riches strewn deeper within.
“In awe, we manoeuvred our way through the tributes, making our way to the fallen Smenkhkare’s sarcophagus and thereupon found ourselves laughing – yes, laughing Thomas! – at the realisation of the importance of our discovery, something so critical to the progression of our craft, so important to our careers.
“Our eyes now growing sore from the half-light and a long and arduous day of dusty exploration, we gazed upon the golden tomb and each laid our trembling hands on its shimmering surface. With unspoken agreement, we all pushed, sliding back the outer lid with an echoing clang and releasing a cloud of dust thick enough to choke even the strongest constitution.
“Spluttering and rubbing our eyes, the tomb lay still, revealing the final resting place of our unknowing host.
“There was Smenkhkare.
“Lawson, being the kind of chap who puts his best foot forward and knowing more than his fair share after studying under Champollion for a semester or two in his youth, acted first.
“He stepped forward, peered in and reached down, rubbing the fallen dust of millennia from a deep inscription on the figure’s belt.
“Lawson’s face flushed and then he repeated the words carved into the tomb.
“BOUND THROUGH BLOOD AND BY BLOOD UNDONE.”
On hearing this part of George’s story, young Thomas bounced on the spot.
“My goodness, cousin! What a tale! True as I’m the King of France no doubt, ha ha!”
Thomas laughed, but George did not join in.
His face remained earnest and sincere.
“I promise you, young Thomas,” he said stonily, “There is nothing false about this tale. It is as true as I am sat here in front of you this evening. As tall as it may seem, it is as true now as when I lived it.
“The words were there, on Smenkhkare’s death chamber. They were left as a warning and a curse to those who would disturb their eternal slumber - whether it be for power or for riches or for glory.
“I even remember Lawson saying “jolly rum thing to leave as your epitaph, what?” as he leaned in to get a closer look at the craftsmanship of the headpiece inside the sarcophagus.
“And we all pawed at the riches around us, our minds spinning further and further at the value – the sheer value, Thomas – of the treasure before us.
“We decided to end the day there, planning for a full evening’s rest to ensure we were able to continue our exploration the following day. At least, that is what I had thought. We had long overrun and outstripped our initial plans, and were running on the final vapours of our vigour, but Lawson and your father had other plans.
“They sent me back to the mouth of the tomb, to inform the guides keeping vigil at the camp of their plans.
“Once there, I was to remain with them outside to write up the notes I had documented during the day. Meanwhile, Lawson could not be tempted to leave – nary even for the promise of a sound night’s sleep, blanketed under the stars. Your father, being the dedicated sort he was, felt inclined to remain with that silly bugger Lawson in case of a tunnel collapse or the old chap passing out from sheer agitation.
“And so I scrambled my way back. I was sorry to leave the bewildering glory of Smenkhkare’s bounty, but glad of the fresh, chill breeze of the desert night and the promise of clearing my lungs of that stale air.
George rubbed at his temple and looked at his young cousin.
“What follows on from there, Thomas… that’s a trickier prospect. It comes bound with our combined exhaustion, the day’s excitement and the tragedy that unfolded.
“Sleep came well enough and on waking early the next morning, I took coffee with the guides before venturing back into the passages leading back to Smenkhkare’s resting place.
“When I reached the crossroads leading to the burial chamber, I pulled up abruptly. There was no noise to greet me. No movement or scuttling as one would expect from our type waking up in such a place. If one had even gone to sleep at all.
“Nothing.
“Not even the soft sound of sand filtering down through the tablets of stone.
“As I steadied myself on the doorway, I looked into the chamber beyond to see both men laying on the floor, quiet and still.
“Going first to your father, I placed my hand on his shoulder and, with a shudder, he sat bolt upright, looking bewildered and terrified, as if being pursued for his very life. This soon softened with the recognition of my face, but he remained breathless and startled.
“I also noticed a small nick on his cheek, the kind you get from the errant swish of a barber’s blade, but placed much more deliberately. It was neat and cruciate in form, as if made by some precise but vicious surgical hand. You may remember yourself that he had a little scar there, just under his eye, that never quite healed properly…”
Thomas nodded sadly, tears of fresh remembrance starting to well.
“That scar was from this very adventure,” added George, before continuing.
“I asked your father how he was feeling, given the start he had just had, and after a fashion he told me was good enough, although his sleep had been fitful and if anything he felt more tired now than he had at the tail of the previous day’s adventure.
“It was then we both looked over at our man Lawson, who had remained at rest throughout all the preceding commotion. Still hunched over, we scurried over to his side of the room, crouching over his prostrate form to rouse him – not knowing when he retired, given his obvious professional joy of our discovery.
“However, on our approach a realisation crept over us, that something was not right and Lawson had fallen foul of fate during the night.
“With my hand on his shoulder, I attempted to gently shake Lawson from his slumber.
“No response.
“I shook a little harder and placed my other hand around his torso to gently life him to a sitting position.
“But as I attempted to raise him from his spot, his head lolled back, his eyes rolled white and his tongue wretched and serpentine. I dropped his torso back down with a sickening thud. The sand beneath where he had been laying oozed dark and sticky with his blood and surely whoever had struck him down would have been equally soaked with his sanguinary essence?
“Your father, lord bless him, was the only living soul within striking distance and – save for that wound on his cheek – had not a spot of blood on his person.
“At first we surmised some unpleasant creature had snuck in during the night and, with steps as light as a spirit, glided by our men – if it wasn’t on them, of course! – disturbed an exhausted Lawson at his work and ended him in a fit of panic.
“But, of course, where were the bloody footprints? Where were the remnants of such a struggle? How could no one have seen or heard? No, no… it could not have been committed in such a manner.
“And as these things often do, an answer revealed itself soon and plainly enough. When we came to move Lawson’s body we saw, caught underneath, one of the glittering treasures. A short shaft of glittering gold, encrusted with rubies and sapphires wrought from where the Niles stretches down in the bosom of Africa. As if to contradict this decadence, a simple, sleek shiv of metal projected out of the opulence. Both hilt and blade were covered in Lawson’s blood.
“I remember so clearly, your father turned to me and said “Bound through blood indeed – looks like Smenkhkare got their revenge after all!” and I told him “More like the poor old fool has dropped off while he was cataloguing and ended up snuffing out his own flame in the process!”
“And that was what the local physician said upon our return to town, and what was noted in the official reports. That Lawson, driven by a ripe old mix of exhaustion and elation had fallen to his own hubris, inadvertently severing an artery in a clumsy and undignified manner, collapsing and losing all his blood into the sand while the camp slept.
“Awful way to go, truly awful. Poor chap.
George cleared his throat.
“Anyway, once we had settled all the formalities of the case, we swiftly booked passage back home with the first of our treasures in tow – a trunk each for us both – so we could catalogue our discovery and share it with the world.
“The journey back was long and perilous enough already, bringing so many extraordinary, irreplaceable trinkets from the gods – but over the course of the trip, your father fell deeply into a fever and, quite deliriously, started clawing at the mark on his face and repeating the words on the tomb.
“BY BLOOD UNDONE,” George roared theatrically.
“Over and over again he said those words. Poor chap was struck down by an infection and the doctors noted it was through months of foreign living, topped off by the repressed stress caused of the events that took Lawson’s life in Smenkhkare’s tomb.
“But he did of course recover and we made it to the safety of our homes. The swelling around his cheek faded with the months that followed and slowly but surely he was mostly back to his usual self, much to the delight and relief of your mother.
“You arrived into their lives less than a year after his return and it’s no underestimation that your presence steered his heart and his head out of darker thoughts and deeds.
“That’s not to say he didn’t have momentary relapses, of course. Sometimes, when I visited, I would catch him at his desk, looking wistfully at nothing in particular and rubbing at that scar absentmindedly. He would immediately snap out of it when I made my presence known and he never wanted to talk about it afterwards. Not once he had other thoughts to fill his mind. Not once when you were there to dote on.
“I – I do remember him doing this,” Thomas chipped in, “It was like an impossible weight had been placed upon his back. Some days… some days it distracted him more than others.”
Thomas looked out of the study window. Night was settling in and a mist was already blanketing the grounds with dew. He looked away and down to his shoes.
George was concerned his story had frightened his ward. The boy looked lost in the study chair.
He stood and leant over the desk, placing a reassuring hand on his young cousin’s shoulder.
“Thomas, I am sorry,” George started, “I should not have told you this story. The wounds are still too fresh for you and the last thing you want to hear about is some tall tale about how your father and I escaped a mummy’s curse.”
“Escaped?” queried Thomas, still looking down at the ground, his voice dull and flat. “What makes you think that either of you escaped?”
And with that, Thomas lifted his face to meet the gaze of his cousin – his eyes as black as hell with an unnamed fury boiling behind their utter stillness.
George recoiled in fear and horror, but the ghoulish spirit possessing Thomas had unfathomable pits of strength and snatched at his hand sharply, digging his nails in and keeping him fixed in place.
In one fluid motion, the boy slid a gilded letter opener from the sleeve of his blazer, clasped it in his left hand and struck one cold blow against his cousin’s throat, the weapon slipping from his fingers as he did so.
George staggered backwards, stumbling and slumping in his chair, blood gushing out from the wound in his neck. Thomas picked up the blade and placed it in George’s already weak and desperate hand, accompanied by the gurgling final pleas of his cousin.
He then silently slunk out of the study, locking the door behind him and sliding the key back underneath the door and deep into the room.
As expected, the next morning saw a great commotion flood over the house.
The heavy door to George’s study was rattled and shaken until frustration led the house staff to bang and smash their way through, splintering and smashing the barricade clean off its hinges.
The discovery of George’s lifeless corpse was heralded by a wave of screaming and wailing.
The housekeeper fainted on sight, with a tray of the academic’s preferred morning tea dropping to the floor with an unceremonious clatter.
Eastman, George’s butler approached the body solemnly and, swallowing hard through shock and grief, gave his former master the gift of dignity, closing his eyes and covering him with a blanket.
It was then that Eastman saw the note.
The letter George had received the previous day laid on the desk, mottled with his blood.
The letterhead showed it was from an auction house of some repute, which I shan’t need to name here.
If you had read it, the text outlined the Forbes treasures had been sold to an Oxford museum and the funds raised would be transferred across to the Atwell accounts by the end of the week.
However, it was what had been written on the letter that immediately caught Eastman’s attention.
With his dying breath, George had scrawled the word BLOOD with his own.
And so, steeling himself with a gritty grief, Eastman visited Thomas’ room to wake him and break the tragic news of his cousin’s apparent suicide.
Eastman thought Master Forbes looked so small in his bed, covered by the pristine white sheets.
Too young to be woken by more tragedy in his short life.
“Master Forbes. Master Forbes. Oh, my boy. I’m afraid I have some terrible news to share with y-“
He stopped, distracted.
“Ach, look what you’ve done. You’ve scratched at your cheek in the night. Let me fetch a cloth and I will see to that straightaway.”
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