“They have gone now – ” Venetia murmured more to herself than to the old man. “Will you please look after my horse while I go up and try to enter the tomb the same way as you did?”
She took off her riding coat as she spoke and put it down beside him.
“Now just you be careful, Your Grace, as it be very dark inside.”
Venetia had not thought of that.
“Do you have a lantern?” she asked him.
“There be one in the kitchen. All you’ll see be a coffin lyin’ on the floor and a lot of things as they says ’e took from the ’all circled around ’im.”
He found he was speaking to himself as Venetia had already run into his cottage.
She found the lantern by the kitchen window. It was the usual candle lamp that most cottagers used when they went out at night.
She picked it up and lit it from the fire
