He had decided to start by taking Libby to the temple of Hagar Qim. This was, he explained, just one of the many ancient temples on the island, and one of the most complex. 'Puts Stonehenge in the shade,'
he remarked, and when they reached it Libby saw what he meant.
She got out of the car and looked with awe at the great megaliths, some of them over twenty feet high, still in the formation of the rooms and apses that had made up the original temple. Keir led her through the entrance and she stared around at the uneven blocks that formed the facade, the walled passages and the altar slabs. This must have been even more impressive when it was first built, and she tried to imagine the people of the time, labouring with no more than primitive tools to raise a temple to their god.
It was open to the sky now, but she supposed that there had once been a roof, perhaps even a higher storey. How long had it taken to build, she wondered, and for how many centuries had men worshipped there?
'It dates back to 2400 to 2000 BC,' Keir told her as they roamed around the complex, peering through niches and into unexpected alcoves. 'Around four thousand years old, in fact. Not all that long when you think of man's time on earth. They'd had time to learn quite a lot. They weren't by any means primitive-their society must have been highly-structured to have envisaged and undertaken such a project as this.'
'And I suppose their society stayed the same for quite a long time,' Libby said thoughtfully. 'It's only in the past few hundred years that there have been really rapid changes-and in this century particularly.'
'That's right. Before that, you could probably have roamed about in time over quite a few thousand years and not seen very much difference.'
Libby paused and looked out, past the great stones, to the sea that danced and sparkled its way into the distance. The whole of Malta was a fortress, a rocky bastion standing alone in the ocean, rising sheer from the ocean floor to end abruptly in towering cliffs hundreds of feet high. The people who built this temple must have thought it impregnable; but it was its very impregnability that had made it such a coveted jewel. If you held Malta, you could command the Mediterranean, she had heard, and she could believe in the truth of that. No wonder it had been such a prized possession, and no wonder so many nations had tried to possess it.
Afterwards, Keir took her down a winding road that led breathtakingly to the foot of the cliffs to a tiny inlet, surrounded by towering rocks, with a small beach where people were still swimming even though the sun had almost gone. This, he told her, was Ghar-Lapsi and it was still used as a fishing-harbour, though there was nothing there but restaurant and a car park.
'You'll see the fish brought in here during the day being sold in the markets in the evening,' Keir said. 'Or perhaps in the streets, early in the morning-s-there's a woman who walks through Zurrieq every day with a pram full of fish, calling out for people to come and buy. That's the time to shop, incidentally-at six in the morning. The women get up early to go to church and shop on the way home, before the heat of the day and while things are still fresh.'
'But it isn't too hot now,' Libby remarked. 'And it's been lovely this afternoon.'
'Ah, but this is October, almost November. You'd find it a good deal hotter in August. And it can get quite chilly in the middle of the winter, though Malta never gets the frost and snow that England suffers from. '
They walked along the cliff paths until dark, then turned back and went into the restaurant for a meal. It wasn't a restaurant of character, like the one in Valletta, but the food was good and the view across the moonlit sea was tranquilly beautiful. Libby could feel her stretched nerves relax; perhaps after all she had done right. She smiled across the table at Keir and wished she could take away that shadow that still lurked behind his eyes.
But it was too soon for that. Instead, she said: 'Tell me more about these ancient temples. How many are there?'
'Eight major ones, accessible to the public,' Keir answered. 'You've seen one of the best at Hagar Qim.
They seem to be shrines to some kind of fertility cult remember I told you about the figures that were found at Hagar Qim, the "fat lady" and other fertility symbols they appear at the others, too. There's a very fat lady indeed in the temple at Tarxien, and some rather Disney-like piglets having their breakfast.
But those aren't the only prehistoric sites. There's an underground temple, the Hal-Saflieni Hypogeum, in Paola, not far from Valletta; it's very similar to the other temples, but it's been carved out of rock rather than built-an even greater achievement, I'd say. I'll take you to see it.'
'I've heard of the catacombs, but I'd never heard of that,' Libby said. 'And Hagar Qim seemed much more complex than any of the temples I've seen in other countries. '
'Oh yes, they're all unique to Malta. They may even have influenced other European building quite a lot of people believe that they date from rather earlier than I told you this afternoon. But they aren't the only curiosities, you know.' And he went on to tell her about other strange things to be found on the island-the dolmens, the rock tombs used over five thousand years ago and, most mysterious of all, the so-called cart ruts-long, parallel grooves in the bare rock believed to have been made by 'slide-carts'. These, he said, were thought to have been parallel poles with a platform in between. The ends of the poles would have been 'shod' with stone, thus wearing the grooves through constant use; but nobody had ever discovered just what method of traction had been used.
'They're all over the island,' he told Libby, pouring more wine into her glass. 'Sometimes there are so many that they look like a railway siding-one group's even called Clapham Junction. Nothing like them has ever been found anywhere else in the world, so whatever method of transport the Bronze Age Maltese had evolved, it was something nobody else thought of. Or perhaps the peculiar geology of Malta has preserved the ruts for us to see, where in other countries they've simply worn away or been buried.
Malta is mostly rock, with just a thin covering of soil, and most of that has eroded over the centuries. '
Libby listened, fascinated. If only Keir would go on talking like this. It gave her a chance to get accustomed to being with him again, without having to worry about her emotions-and his. But she couldn't avoid the look in his eyes, even when he was talking about the history that was at present his main interest. It was a hungry look, full of yearning, and it set up a responsive hunger in herself. It wouldn't take too much to make her give in-and that, she knew, could be disastrous.
Libby was already beginning to recognise that the danger was greater than she had supposed. She was all too likely to give in to Keir-but she knew that by doing so she would be risking any peace of mind she might have for the rest of her life. For once she allowed Keir to love her as he wanted to, she would be totally and irrevocably committed; whether or not he regained his memory, and whatever he might feel about her if he did.
They were having breakfast on the balcony next morning when Jeremy Brooke arrived. He came in without knocking, breezing through the living-room to the balcony and greeting Libby with a cheerful smile before helping himself to coffee. He didn't seem a bit surprised to see her, she thought, but then Keir had probably confided in him. Maybe he'd kept out of the way for the past two days from a sense of delicacy-though he didn't look the sensitive type, with his shaggy brown beard and his bluff, hearty manner.
'This is Libby,' Keir said, introducing them. 'She's decided to stay on for a while-help us with the research.'
'My side or yours?' Jeremy asked, and Libby noticed that he had bright, twinkling brown eyes. 'Don't say I'm to have company in my stuffy archives!'
'No, you're not,' Keir told him bluntly. 'You just keep your head down amongst the documents, Jeremy.
Libby's going to tag around with me and see the sights. But I might let you come with us sometimes, just for a change of scene.'
He broke off another piece of bread from the flat round loaf he had collected from somewhere in the village that morning. 'As a matter of fact
, you can have Libby's company this morning if you like-I want to write up some notes. Then you can come back here for lunch and a siesta, and we could all go to Rabat this evening. Have a meal in Medina, perhaps.'
'Can't manage that,' Jeremy said ruefully. 'I've got a date with that man at the Grand Master's Palace. But I'll be happy to entertain Libby this morning.' He gave Libby a bow and she couldn't help smiling back.
Jeremy Brooke, she thought, would be a very easy man to like.
'Oh, please,' she said quickly, 'you don't have to feel you need to entertain me. I'm quite happy to potter around on my own. I'll have a look around Zurrieq, and perhaps-'
'Any pottering around you're doing will be done with me,' Jeremy told her firmly, sounding like an A. A.
Milne poem Libby vaguely remembered from her childhood. What was it? You must never go down to the end of the town, if you don't go down with me. She smiled at the thought, then looked up and caught Jeremy's bright eyes twinkling at her. 'We'll go and see the Blue Grotto,' he went on persuasively. 'Keir will never take you there, it's nothing to do with his history of Malta, and it's full of trippers. But very pretty all the same.'
'All right,' Libby agreed, and as soon as they had all finished breakfast she went to her room and changed from her shorts and T-shirt to a full blue skirt with a yellow sleeveless blouse. She brushed her short dark hair into a cap of feathers, touched her eyelids with a silvery eyeshadow that brought out the clear grey of her eyes, and added a flick of pink lipstick and a dab of flowery perfume. .
'Very nice too,' Jeremy approved as he led her out to his car. 'Afraid I don't have a very grand carriage.
Nine-tenths of the hire-cars on Malta look as if they've been on one of these moto-cross rallies. Battered but willing, that's the best you can say of them. But I don't think it will actually fall apart on us, so if you're willing to risk yourself in it . . .'
'If it'll carry you, I'm sure it will carry me,' Libby said with a glance at his huge figure, which seemed to have been built on a pattern more usually reserved for grizzly bears. She slid into the front seat and the whole car sighed and settled closer against the ground as Jeremy heaved himself in the other side.
'Well, it's not far down to Wied-iz-Zurrieq-that's the little harbour where the boats go from to the Blue Grotto. It is a bit tripperish, but not too bad there's not much there to spoil! And the Grotto itself doesn't get crowded, only two or three boats can go in at a time.'
They drove out of the maze of streets that made up Zurrieq. Some of them were almost too tiny for the car to squeeze through, and Libby could see how hire-cars, driven by people unused to the twisting alleys, would soon achieve the battered look of the little car Jeremy referred to with wry affection as Beat-up Bertie. Maltese drivers who did know their way and raced through with blithe disregard for other traffic, using bumpers and mudguards to shoulder a path through and overtaking, where there was room, on right or left as the mood took them, complicated negotiation of the narrow passages.
'Why ever did they build the streets this narrow?' Libby asked as a lorry, painted bright blue, decorated with red and yellow scrolls and with the name of Our Lady of Sorrows in ornate script on its bonnet, missed them by inches. 'They must have had mule-carts, or donkeys-didn't they need just as much room for them?'
'Almost certainly; but remember that Malta's history has never been particularly peaceful. At the time of the Knights of St John there was always the chance of a Turkish invasion. The country villages weren't fortified, except for central towers like the one at Qrendi-that's the next village to Zurrieq, you'll have gone through it yesterday on your way to Hagar Qim-so the intricate maze of narrow streets was a fortification in itself. The locals could confuse and baffle an invading army, lead it into dead-ends or round in circles, then attack it from the rooftops. Simple and effective-and they didn't have to worry about traffic-jams in those days.'
They had left the village behind now and were driving along a cliff-road that wound along the side of the valley visible from Keir's flat. Libby twisted in her seat to look back, wondering if he might be watching them, but she couldn't be sure which was the right building and she turned her attention instead to the increasingly beautiful views as the road ran above the sapphire sea and the cliffs twisted themselves into spectacular formations far below.
'Those are the Blue Grotto caves,' Jeremy told her, stopping the car so that she could take in the incredible view. 'See, there's a boat going round now-they go back and forth all day, when it's calm. This is the best time of day to see the caves too, when the sun's on them. They really are worth seeing.
Malta's claims to natural beauty aren't very great, in my opinion-too stark and bare, I like some trees and greenery myself-but the Blue Grotto really is something. '
They continued on down the steep, winding road to the little harbour of Wied-iz-Zurrieq and Jeremy parked the car. It was a colourful scene--just enough tourists to bring life to the minute village--and the inlet itself was more like a fiord running into the steep valley, its tossing waters bright with the gaily-painted boats that waited to take visitors to the caves. Libby followed Jeremy down the rocky steps and into a boat with half a dozen other people, all festooned with cameras. Libby felt regretful at not having brought her own, but she just hadn't thought to pack it. When she had answered Keir's letter, she hadn't looked on her trip to Malta as a holiday.
Her mind went back to Keir as the little boat set off, leaving the shelter of the harbour for the open sea that surrounded Malta, washing endlessly in a blue and white spray against the foot of the towering white cliffs. No wonder Malta had been a fortress for so many different warrior nations, she thought, craning her neck to see to the top, where cars drove like miniature toys along the road from Zurrieq. From this coast, at least, it was impregnable.
But was anything truly impregnable? For two years, knowing that she had sent Keir away, killed his love for her with the bitterness she had allowed to come between them, she had thought that his heart too was an impregnable fortress-at least, to her. And now he had sent for her, he wanted her again. What did it mean?
Should she take what Keir had offered her-his heart and his love on the old terms? Heaven knew, she wanted to! And there was, surely, every chance that he was right in saying that what he felt for her must be real, whatever had happened since. Even if-when-he did remember the past two years; he believed he would still feel the same for her. So couldn't she accept that and take the risk?
Libby turned her head and looked at Jeremy, his big bear's head warm and shaggy against the harshness of the rocks. Perhaps he could help her. She didn't know how long he had known Keir, but it had certainly been since before the accident. So wouldn't he be able to answer some of her questions?
Before she could speak, the Maltese guide at the helm of the little boat began to tell them about the cliffs and the caves, and the other tourists began to crane their necks and take photographs. In any case, she told herself, this was neither the time nor the place to begin questioning Jeremy; it would be better left until they were ashore again and could talk privately, perhaps over a coffee or cool drink. And it would be churlish, when Jeremy had given up his morning to bring her here, not to show pleasure and interest in what he clearly considered beautiful.
And it was beautiful-there was no doubt at all about that. The warm air caressed Libby's cheek and bare arms as the boat crept closer to the cliffs, which reared like solid grey walls above them. Great spurs of rock curved out like the paws of a gigantic lion, toes dipped in the clear blue sea which moved on a gentle swell underneath them. And, as the boat drew closer, Libby could see the dark mouths of the caves themselves, cool and mysterious.
'Look into the water,' Jeremy murmured as they floated slowly into the dome of one of the caverns not huge, not intimidating, but strange and almost unearthly, its curving roof lit by the blue reflection of the water. 'See the sponges? Just outside, in the sunlight, you can see all their different colours. And here d
ip your hand in the water and see what happens.'
Curiously, Libby did so, and uttered a squeak as her hand turned an almost fluorescent blue under the water. Fascinated, she dipped a little further, watching the same colour stain her slender arm; then she withdrew it, half relieved to find her skin its normal colour while sparkling drops fell back into the dancing waves.
The boat came back out into the sunlight. Other boats followed as they explored the rest of the caves and then turned to go back to the harbour. Libby sat back in her seat, glad to have seen the beauty of the caves, and grateful to Jeremy for bringing her. Grateful, too, for the fact that she now knew the big researcher a little better and felt easy about asking him her questions. After all, she had a right to the answers-hadn't she?
'Well, yes, I do agree that you have a right to know what's been happening-up to a point.' Jeremy poured Libby a glass of fresh, iced orange juice from the jug between them. But he didn't look directly at her; his glance was directed towards the sea from the little cliff top cafe where they were sitting, and Libby was disconcerted to see that he was frowning slightly, as if unsure what to say.
'Up to a point? What do you mean?' Libby's voice was edged with anxiety. 'Jeremy, I'm in an impossible situation-I'm no better off than Keir himself. All he remembers is what happened between us two years ago -and that's all I know, too! Surely it would be better if I had some idea what's been happening in that time? And you're the best one to tell me.'
'That's true enough,' he agreed. 'I've been with Keir for practically all that time, acting as researcher and general assistant. And I've enjoyed it a lot. Got to know Keir pretty well, too. But I'm not sure about telling you-I'm not even sure what you want to know.'
Libby was silent. She sipped her orange juice, wondering how to put it. She knew well enough what she was really asking-and she had hoped that, as Jeremy told her other things, her own specific questions would be answered along the way. But it didn't look as if Jeremy were going to talk quite so readily. And she didn't feel able to put her question quite so baldly. After all, how could she ask Keir's researcher and friend just what women there'd been in Keir's life? And that was what she really wanted to know. .
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