closer and looked down into a deep trench that, as the lawyer had said, was carved into the underlying tufa. The trench was perhaps twenty feet deep and no more than eight or ten feet wide, and it ran along the natural fold of the hill.
“The local people call them Spirit Roads-or Ghost Roads.” He shook his head gently as he peered into the shadowed trench. “They were considered sacred, but how they were used no one knows. It is one of the Etruscan mysteries.”
“Can we go down there?”
Lorenzo hesitated. “Getting down is no difficulty.” He smiled. “Getting out again-that is the problem.” He looked down the length of the Sacred Road. “You might have to walk many miles before you find a place to climb out again. I would not advise it.” He stepped back from the edge. “Perhaps another time.”
“I did not hear that!” came the shouted reply. “You’ll have to speak up!”
When de Ponte turned back, Burleigh was nowhere to be seen. He stepped to the edge of the trench and saw the young earl’s face smiling up at him.
“Sorry,” he said. “Couldn’t resist.” He looked around. “This is extraordinary. Might as well explore a little as long as I’m down here.”
“I would not take too long,” the lawyer suggested. “We do not wish to delay the coach.”
“You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that,” Burleigh confessed casually. “I’ll just walk along here a little way and see if I can find a place to climb out.”
“Yes, that would be best.” Lorenzo cast a hasty glance in the direction of the road, still empty. “Perhaps I should go back and wait for the coach. I don’t see it yet, but it could be along any minute.”
“Right-o,” Burleigh agreed. “We don’t want to miss it.”
“Unless you think you will need help climbing out.”
“No, no, I should be able to manage that easily enough,” Burleigh said. “I’m just going to walk along here a little way and find a good place. I think I see one a little way ahead. You go on and hold the coach.”
“Very well, if you insist.”
“I do insist,” Burleigh told him. “You run along now. I will join you in a moment.”
Lorenzo hurried off and returned to the roadside, where he spent an idle twenty minutes watching the highway for the horses and carriage and searching the countryside for the earl. As he feared, the coach, with its newly shod lead horse, appeared first. The driver slowed the carriage as the Italian gentleman hurried to meet it.
“Signor de Ponte,” called the driver as he brought the horses to a halt. “Where is our other passenger?”
“He will be coming along shortly,” answered the lawyer, and went on to explain about the earl wishing to explore the sunken Etruscan road. “Please wait here, and I will go and bring him now.”
“By all means,” said the driver. “But hurry, please, or we shall be late arriving in Florence.”
“Don’t worry. He is just over there. I will fetch him at once.”
Lorenzo began walking rapidly along the side of the trench, calling out for Burleigh as he went. When he failed to receive a reply one way, he turned around and walked a fair distance the other, calling for Burleigh every few yards or so. There was never any answer to his repeated cries.
“I fear something ill has befallen our friend,” de Ponte announced upon his return to the coach. “I called as loudly as I could, but there was no answer. He might have fallen and struck his head. I think we must go down and search for him.”
This is what they did. The driver and his assistant climbed down into the deep-cut road and proceeded to search for the lost passengerone going north, the other south along the ancient pathway. They ended up searching the entire two-mile length of the sunken causeway, but failed to turn up so much as a muddy footprint.
So, after leaving word of the young man’s disappearance with local farmers, Lorenzo reluctantly agreed that there was little more to be done, and allowed the coach to continue on to Florence, where he immediately informed the authorities of his companion’s strange disappearance. To be sure, a formal investigation was begun at once. The next morning a search party was organised, the ancient Etruscan road scoured end to end, and flyers distributed throughout the area in case anyone should stumble upon a lost or injured foreigner. None of these efforts met with any success. And although the case remained officially open, without any new evidence there was nothing more to be done-save inform the British Embassy. This they duly did, allowing for the more relaxed attitude of the Mediterranean temperament. Then the polizia and carabinieri, and Lorenzo de Ponte, settled back to await further developments.
Sadly, no news was ever forthcoming. No one involved in the whole curious affair ever learned what had happened to the Earl of Sutherland.
CHAPTER 6
Kit followed the little band of hunters along the frozen river as it wound in great, curving arcs towards the south and west. There were eight in all, seven clansmen and Kit, led by Dardok, forging a path through the snow lining the riverbank. They walked by day beneath low, heavy-laden skies, sometimes with a little wind at their backs, which seemed to urge them on their way. Ice narrowed the river margins, and chunks of snow and slush floated downstream.
They walked in a constant fog produced by their own breath crystallising in the frigid air, pausing every now and then to scan the rock walls of the gorge for any sign of predators. All the while, the snow fell lightly but steadily-small, hard flakes that dropped like frozen grit and squeaked underfoot. The air was cold, stinging all exposed flesh, but the exertion of the trek warmed him well enough, and after days lounging around the fire, the exertion felt good. Kit was reminded yet again of the clansmen’s natural hardiness-their strength, stamina, and endurance far exceeded anything he had ever encountered in his own species, and as the day lengthened he hoped he would be able to keep up.
Eventually they came to a place where they were forced to scramble up a steep incline to a higher plateau. At the top Dardok paused, and Kit, puffing from the climb, joined the hunters as they stood gazing down into the gorge now far below. Kit thought they were looking at the river, but upon joining them, saw that Dardok had spotted a herd of the shaggy, long-horned bison that usually roamed the reaches of the higher forests. The beasts were moving slowly and laboriously along the river, forging through the snow. Kit experienced a visceral thrill at the sight and caught something of the band’s instinctive urge to go after good meat on the hoof.
They watched for a moment as the dozen or so brown, humpbacked creatures ambled along; then Dardok, turning his head this way and that and sniffing deeply, gave out a little grunt. Kit followed his example and caught the merest whiff of a sharp sour scent on the air; the others murmured softly, having also recognised the smell. Kit looked to the Big Hunter for an explanation, and Dardok extended his finger and pointed to a stony outcrop across the gorge a little above the riverbed. Squinting his eyes against the white, Kit made out the pale grey muscular form of an animal he recognised as canine-a beast easily two times the size of a normal wolf: a dire wolf.
The creature was watching the bison herd traversing the valley and, no doubt, licking its chops. Dardok pointed again, and Kit saw another, slightly smaller wolf watching from a stone ledge below them. Clearly, the predators were tracking the bison, stalking the herd and awaiting a chance to make a kill.
Silently as shadows, the hunters edged away from the overlook and moved on. The river valley, which had been bending ever farther westward, now began swinging away to the south. The ground continued to rise, and the woodland closed around them, becoming a tangle of brush and close-grown trees with no clear path through. Progress slowed to a laborious crawl. The party strung out single file, and Kit, falling farther and farther behind, had begun to fear he would lose sight of his companions when Dardok suddenly came to a halt. The hunters quickly gathered around him, and Kit hurried forward to see what had happened. He found them all squatting in the snow, transfixed by something they saw there.
Peering over the head of the nearest hunter, Kit saw the tracks of a large and heavy animal in the snow. “Bear?” he asked, then remembered to use their word for the animal. “Gan-gor?” He held the image of a large black bear in his mind.
