“King Arthur’s Holy Grail?”
“Is there another?”
Charmed by the idea, she gave a small laugh. “Why should I ask about that?”
“That is what everyone wants to know!” he cried. “We have no end of seekers looking for the Grail of King Arthur-and the brothers always send them to me. Legend has it that the fabled cup is buried here on Montserrat.”
“Is it?”
“I have no idea!” Fra Giambattista laughed again and was his former self. “Why ask about my German?”
“As you say, we must begin somewhere.” Mina took a drink of wine. “Who knows where we shall end up? Well?”
“It is obvious. All the best physics is German,” he declared. “I learned it in order to read and converse with my fellows in Bonn and Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna… ” He shrugged. “It helps to know a little of the language of science.”
“I can well appreciate that,” agreed Wilhelmina. “How did you discover ley travel?”
“ Ley travel?” he wondered. “Is that what you call it?”
“It is how it was described to me,” she answered. “I suppose you could say I fell into it by accident.”
“Dear lady,” offered the priest with a smile, “there are no accidents.” He took another sip of wine and refilled their cups. “But I know what you mean. I suppose I came to it in the same way. In the course of my various experiments, I had become aware of the lines of force operating beneath Sant’Antimo. In the course of mapping them for further study, I was caught in a storm, and in trying to run to shelter inexplicably found myself… ” His voice trailed off, remembering.
“Where?” asked Mina after a moment.
“Here!” he said. “At Montserrat.”
“The two places are connected, you mean.”
“Indeed they are. Of course, I thought I was going mad,” he chuckled. “It took me years to work out what had happened and still more to learn how to manipulate it for my purposes-as much as anyone can ever impose one’s own purposes on such an elemental power.” He shook his head again. “That was a very long time ago, yet I remember it all as if it were yesterday.”
They talked then, sharing their observations of, and experiences with, the unconventional properties of ley travel. And the more they talked, the more Wilhelmina was convinced that she had found someone who could do more than simply provide her with information. In Fra Giambattista she had found a mentor, someone whose knowledge was extensive and who could capably guide her search.
“Why did you change your name?” Wilhelmina asked. They had moved their conversation to the cloister garden, where they could be seen by those who cared to notice-this was to avoid any discussion about a nun visiting a monk in his quarters.
“Well, dear lady,” he had replied with a laugh. “It was because I was living so long! You see, travelling between worlds affects the aging process. I was outliving all my contemporaries, and it was beginning to be noticed.”
“I can see that would be a problem.”
He nodded. “One day-after the funeral of our dear old sacristan, and in the company of everyone-the abbot of Sant’ Antimo was heard to remark, ‘Brother Giambattista, you must have more lives than Lazarus!’ Everyone laughed, but I got the hint. Something had to be done.” The priest spread his hands. He gazed up at the clear, cloud-speckled sky for a moment, then shrugged. “What could I do?”
“What did you do?” asked Wilhelmina, chin on hand, fascinated.
“Well, it was obvious, no? Brother Beccaria could not go on. One spring, I received permission from my abbot to go on a pilgrimage to Montserrat, and on arrival to stay and use the observatory. Of course, I had been here before, but none of the brothers at Sant’ Antimo knew that. Once here, I contrived to become ill, and reported this to my brothers. Eventually, I sent back a message that poor Fra Giambattista had succumbed to his maladies and gone to his heavenly reward.”
“Fra Giambattista died,” Mina concluded, “and Brother Lazarus was born.”
“A deception, I admit. But all this has been confessed and God will forgive, for my heart is pure and the work I do, I do in the service of the Almighty.” He nodded, satisfied with this arrangement. “After that I travelled many years in Germany, learning the language and reading physics, talking to my colleagues and studying, studying, all the while studying.” He brushed a bit of fluff from the lap of his fine black robe. “When I had learned enough, I came back here.”
“As astronomer?”
“Oh no. All my contemporaries here had passed away by then- that was part of the plan, you see. Fra Giambattista was remembered, of course. But no one then at the abbey knew “Brother Lazarus.” I worked in the gardens at first and helped at the observatory. In time, I became assistant to the chief astronomer and climbed my way up the ladder once more.” He put a rough gardener’s palm on Wilhelmina’s hand and confided, “Patience was ever a virtue.”
Wilhelmina’s first visit extended to more than two weeks. Every other day or so, she met Brother Lazarus in the cloister garden to discuss some particular aspect of ley travel, its uses and attendant problems and implications. The astronomer monk proved himself a thoughtful and erudite instructor; his study of astronomy and physics embraced cosmology, philosophy, and, being a priest, theology as well. As a patient and capable teacher he was second to none, and Wilhelmina, the eager and willing student, was soon firmly under his spell. His enthusiasm, she suspected, derived from the fact that he had previously had no one with whom he might share his greatest discoveries and insights. In Wilhelmina he had at last found someone who not only understood but could partake in the wonder of the enterprise at the deepest level. And inasmuch as her experience of ley travel, although undisciplined, was no less extensive in its way than his own, Wilhelmina was someone who could help further his inquiries. Nor did it hurt that he genuinely liked her and enjoyed her company.
That first fortnight passed in a blink. Wilhelmina could have stayed much longer, but to do so would draw unwanted suspicion. Instead the two conspirators agreed that she should leave soon, but return in the spring when they could continue Mina’s education to the point where she could eventually collaborate on Brother Lazarus’ work of mapping the intersecting dimensions of the cosmos.
“Many people make annual pilgrimage to the abbey,” he said. “Your presence need not draw suspicion-and if anyone should ask, you can always say it is in fulfilment of a vow for answered prayer.”
“That is nothing more than the truth, after all,” Wilhelmina decided.
The day of departure came and she took her leave-but not before learning the whereabouts of the nearest ley and how it connected with Sant’Antimo. “What about the circle in the sanctuary atrium?” she remembered asking. “Is that a ley threshold?”
“There is a force there, very powerful. I have measured it, but never attempted to use it. I believe it to be unstable, unpredictable. It must be studied further. Besides, it is too public,” the monk told her. “Nevertheless, these mountains are seamed through and through with lines of power-these leys, as you call them. The one nearest the observatory-the one I showed you? — that one joins Sant’Antimo.”
“That is how you got here the first time.”
“Exactly.” He raised a finger in warning. “Use it, but use it carefully. We never know who may be watching.”
Wilhelmina thanked him for his care and departed, returning the next spring and then again the following autumn-a pattern that was to repeat until she became a familiar sight around the monastery grounds. Her friends there were happy to see her, and she slowly became attached to the place.
“Do you know Thomas Young?” Brother Lazarus asked Mina on that first visit. “A physician in London? Have you ever crossed paths with him at all?”
“I feel certain I would know if I had,” she replied. “But no. Is he a fellow traveller?”
“I have never heard that he was, but it would not surprise me. His experiments in 1807 established
the foundation on which the edifice of quantum physics is constructed.” Brother Lazarus went on to explain, in almost reverential tones, about the man who had discovered the dual nature of light as both particles and waves. “If that was not enough, he also helped establish archaeology as a science and in 1814 succeeded in cracking the code of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.”
“He sounds fascinating,” she concluded. “He lives in London, you say?”
“He did.” The monk nodded. “A most fascinating man is Thomas Young.”
That was the first time Wilhelmina heard of Dr. Young. It would not be the last.
CHAPTER 11
In Which Tracks Are Made and Covered
I agree it is something of a coincidence,” allowed Lady Fayth judiciously. “Then again, why should this bakery woman not go wherever she likes?”
“I find it highly suspicious,” declared Burleigh. “On the eve of receiving our dinner invitation, she picks up and flees the city. Coincidence? I think not.”
“She can hardly be said to have fled the city,” Haven countered smoothly. “The baker said she had business in Vienna. There is nothing odd about a woman of commerce travelling on business. Some would say that such an eventuality was an inevitable consequence of trade.”
Burleigh’s expression hardened. “Why are you always taking her part?” His tone was dark and insinuating.
“The way you talk.” Haven sighed lightly and rolled her lovely brown eyes. “I take no one’s part, my leery lord. I merely point out the folly of your insistence on viewing even the most perfectly innocent event as part of some vast conspiracy to overthrow your plans.”
“Watch your mouth, girl,” growled Burleigh. He glared at her. “I grow sick of bickering with you over every step I take.”
Haven knew she had pressed the matter far enough. It was time to make amends. “Oh dear, I have angered you,” she said, suddenly contrite. “I am sorry.” She lowered her head in a submissive gesture. “Offending you was the last thing I intended.”
“Get out!” he shouted. “I cannot think with you simpering on like that. Go to your room until I call for you. I will decide what to do.”
Without another word she turned and moved to the door, glad to escape the Black Earl’s foul mood.
“Do not imagine that I will forget your insolence,” he called after her.
“No, my lord,” she answered, shutting the door behind her. To herself she added, “I imagine you will soon have cause to long remember it.”
She stalked off down the corridor, seething with rage: against Burleigh, against wicked circumstance that forced her to behave like a debauched wanton, against the guilt she felt for abandoning her uncle and the others to die in the tomb-rage against the powerlessness and humiliation she felt every moment of her waking day. It was bad enough that she had been made into a plotter of plots and a schemer of schemes-it was the price paid for joining the quest, so be it-but that she must travel with the brute, be seen by one and all as his confidante, nay, his paramour. The sound of his voice, his supercilious manner, his handsome features-which might have been admired in a better man-turned her stomach.
The pretence of obedience was wearing on her. She detested the odious man and his bestial morality, and it was now almost impossible to hold her tongue in his presence. Burleigh himself sensed that all was not as it seemed with her; soon, if not already, he would decide to sever their partnership, and she would become another victim sacrificed to his insatiable ambition.
Aside from simple survival, she had hoped to learn from him-at the very least learn his methods, plans, his ultimate aims. But beyond Burleigh’s obsession with the Skin Map, she had learned very little. What he wanted, why he drove himself, what he hoped to gain from his ruthless exploitation of everyone who crossed his path she still did not know. But she sensed she had learned all he was willing to teach her. Now, as she stood in the darkened corridor staring at the door to her room of this fetid, bug-infested inn, she knew she had reached the end of her endurance.
The inn, the grandest Prague had to offer, was insufferable; the stink, the noise, the squalid surroundings did not befit a lady of her station. She refused to spend one more night listening to cats rummaging through garbage in the street beneath her window, listening to the drunk and snoring sleepers in the rooms on either side of hers, smelling the slops as they were sluiced into the gutters.
The moment she closed the door behind her, she changed into her travelling clothes and, taking only her coat, crept from her room. Once in the corridor, she slipped like a sprite down the stairs and tiptoed across the inn’s hall, risking a glance into the common room to see that Burleigh was still sitting where she had left him, brooding, a drink at his elbow. She moved to the entrance and, with a last look around to see that she was unobserved, departed.
She moved through the streets of Prague, descending the palace hill towards the old town and the city walls rising beyond the square. The sun was already down, but the sky held a glimmer of light. She hoped there would be no difficulty in departing the city; she did not care to leave behind any witnesses who might be interrogated later. This, as much as the fact that her German was nowhere good enough to concoct a plausible story for inquisitive guards, determined another, slightly less desirable course of action. Quite simply, she would linger in the shadow of the gates until a departing wagon or coach rumbled through. Using the vehicle to shield her from view, she would slip through and then disappear into the countryside.
Upon approaching the gatehouse, she slowed her pace, keeping to the far side of the street, watching the activity and trying to determine the whereabouts of the guards. She found a narrow alleyway within sight of the gate, crept in, and, perching herself on an upturned crate beside a rain barrel, settled back to wait for her chance. A short time later she heard the clip-clop of horses’ hooves on the cobbles. She eased herself off her perch and moved to the mouth of the alley. The torches had been lit on either side of the big timber doors, and one of them was open. A wagon loaded with barrels was just then negotiating with the guards to open the other half to let the wagon through. Plucking up her courage, Haven darted from her hiding place, moving alongside the boxy vehicle just as the driver flicked the reins and called to the horses to walk on.
Both Haven and the wagon passed through the portal out onto the road at the same time. To the best of her knowledge, the gatekeepers had not seen her, nor had anyone else. Casting one last glance over her shoulder, she satisfied herself that she was indeed free, then turned and hurried to the jumping-off place-the site Burleigh used to reach Prague. She had memorised the location and had no difficulty finding it again.
A brisk walk through the chilly grey countryside brought her to a secluded spot in the hills north of the city. There, amidst farms of beets and turnips, was a preternaturally straight crease-a shallow ditch marking the boundary between two fields. These were ancient features, she knew; her uncle called them Hollow Ways, and they were older than the farms and fields they marked; as old as the hills themselves, Sir Henry said.
At the fleeting thought of her beloved uncle, Haven felt another stab of guilt for having failed him. “I am so sorry, Uncle,” she murmured, then shoved the feeling aside. Revenge, she decided, would drive her from now on. She would avenge her uncle’s death and punish the Black Earl for his needless cruelty and for the humiliation he had inflicted on her.
The stars were alight in the eastern sky when Haven reached the ley. Without a moment to spare she hurried across the high-furrowed field to the Hollow Way, stepped down into the ditch, and aligned herself with one of the stones that served for field corners. Then, putting her feet in the centre of the path, she started down the narrow trail. Within four determined paces, she felt the familiar tingle on her skin. A breeze gusted over the crest of the bank and swirled around her long skirt. Three more steps carried her to the next stone marker. The banks of the Hollow Way grew hazy. The twilight dimmed, and she felt the path fall away bene
ath her feet. For an instant her ears were filled with the howling screech of the void, and misty rain spattered her face and neck. By now a more experienced ley-leaper, she was ready for the awkward lurch as the trail came up beneath her once more, the ground level slightly higher this time. Taking the jolt in her knees, she managed to remain upright, took two more steps, and stopped to look around.
The world around her had changed. The gentle hills and ploughed fields of Bohemia were gone, and in their place was a chilly, mistcovered wilderness of wide valleys and treeless heights-somewhat like Yorkshire, she thought. But it was not Yorkshire-as least not the one she knew. Burleigh maintained that it was, like so many other worlds, only a connecting place, a waypoint between one dimension of the multidimensional universe and another. Two more leaps would bring her back to England.
Haven had no doubt she could reach London, but there was some uncertainty in judging the leap just right in order to achieve the desired time. Without the benefit of the Black Earl’s little device to aid her, she would have to rely on her native wits. Nevertheless, she was happy to have successfully made her escape and to be on her own at last.
The next ley line was some distance away-a peaty upland nearly half a day distant on foot, and, as this was a remote and deserted landscape, there was nothing for it but to walk. She started off at once, making what time she could. Likely she would have to wait for sundown once she got there, but she would rather wait than miss it and have to spend the night out on the desolate moor.
As she walked along she rehearsed in her mind what she would do when she got to London, and how she might proceed to further the quest. Clearly she could not conduct the search for the Skin Map alone. No doubt she should have made plans to meet Wilhelmina in London. Thinking of it now, that would have been the perfect solution-they could have evaded Burleigh and furthered their alliance. But in the urgency to get out of Prague, neither of them had thought of that.
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