were merely too common to be afforded attention.
They followed Turl Street to the end and turned onto the High, joining the ley line as it ran towards Carfax. Here Douglas paused. “Ready, Snipe?” he asked. “Do not be afraid, and do not make a fuss. You have done this before. Remember?” When this brought no response, Douglas gave him a light slap on the cheek. “Remember?”
The surly youth shook his head.
“Good. Then hold on.” He extended his hand to the lad, who gripped it tight. “Here we go!”
They began walking very quickly along the street, and Douglas counted off the steps. As he fell into the optimum stride, he looked for the marker he had chalked on the base of Gill the Ironmonger’s shop a few meters from the corner. As they approached the crossroads, a gaggle of students-either hastening to their studies or returning from the night’s revels-straggled by. Douglas’ first instinct was to turn and flee-to have his sudden and inexplicable dematerialisation publicly witnessed seemed far too risky. He wavered on the brink of abandoning the attempt.
That impulse was swiftly jostled aside by another: What did he care if a passel of bleary-eyed scholastics got an eyeful? What did it matter if they talked? What difference would it make?
He saw the chalk mark and stepped up his pace. A sound like a banshee howl reached them, falling through the upper atmosphere. In the same instant, a stiff wind gusted out of nowhere, driving a sudden rain shower. The street and buildings, the bus and its passengers, all the world around them grew misty and indistinct. Then they were falling through darkness-but only for a moment, the fractional interval between one heartbeat and the next- before striking solid earth again.
Snipe stumbled upon landing and went down on hands and knees; his lips curled in a curse that was interrupted by a gagging sound as his stomach heaved. Douglas, too, felt the incipient nausea. Bile surged up his throat, but he swallowed it back down. Resisting the urge to shut his eyes, he tried to maintain contact with some physical object, fixing his gaze on the steeple of Saint Martin’s church rising like a dagger blade pointing towards the heart of heaven.
The queasy sensation passed, and he drew fresh air into his lungs. “Breathe, Snipe,” he advised the heaving boy beside him. “Don’t fight. It will pass.”
He glanced quickly around. A pair of figures moved among the shadows a short distance away-too far to have seen them arrive, he thought. Indeed, the only living thing to have seen the translocation was a scrawny dog standing in the road a little way off, its head lowered and hackles raised. Douglas kicked a dirt clod in its direction, and the animal scurried off.
The light was dim-but was it early morning or evening? He looked to the east and saw only darkness, yet the western sky still held a glimmer of light. Nightfall, then. “Stand up, Snipe,” he commanded. “Wipe your mouth. We made it. We are here.”
The youth climbed to his feet, and the two moved slowly on towards the church. Douglas paused at the crossroads to look both ways up and down each street, getting his bearings. Much of the town that he knew was here-in a general sense, as old Oxford of the medieval period remained in the outlines of the modern city-and he recognised it. He knew where he was, now to find out when. That was the first item of business-to find out the exact date and time.
As the two travellers hurried across the road, a monk carrying a large candle appeared in the doorway of the church. The fellow proceeded to light the torches in the sconces either side of the door. He turned, saw the strangers, and called to them in a language Douglas assumed was some local dialect. He had his reply ready. “Pax vobiscum,” he said, folding his hands before him and offering a small bow from the waist. Summoning his practised Latin, he said, “May grace attend you this night, brother.”
The monk responded likewise. “Peace, brothers.” He made to retreat into the church once more. “May God be good to you.”
“A moment, brother,” called Douglas, striding forward. “We have just arrived in this place and have need of information.”
The monk turned back and waited for them to come nearer. “Have you travelled far?” he said, his Latin tinged by his broad, oddly flattened accent.
“Far enough,” replied Douglas. “I am charged with a duty to find one known as Dr. Mirabilis-a fellow priest, I have it, whose writings have reached us in Eire.”
The monk rolled his eyes. “You and all the rest of the world!”
“Am I right in thinking that he reside hereabouts?”
“He does,” replied the monk without enthusiasm. “He has rooms in one of the university inns-I cannot say which one.” He turned and started into the church.
“Perhaps you can tell me how best to find him?” Douglas called after him; he put on an expectant expression in the hope of coaxing more information from the reluctant fellow.
“I must beg your pardon, brother, but no,” replied the monk over his shoulder. “However, that is no hardship, for unless you are supremely blessed, you cannot safely avoid him.”
CHAPTER 9
T he rumbling growl of the young cave cat announced the arrival of the new day, waking the sleepers. The Burley Men roused themselves and set about their allotted daily chores: one to feed Baby, one to make breakfast, one to see to the prisoners. Dex had drawn that last straw. So, slipping his feet into sandals and pulling on his desert kaftan, he shuffled out of the tent. The sun was up, though still so low that the early-morning light did little to penetrate the shadows of the wadi. He drew a deep breath of clean morning air and, yawning, started for the tomb entrance.
Since Burleigh had ordered that no more food or water was to be given to the captives until they agreed to talk, he did not bother filling the water can or food pan. Nor did he bother firing up the generator for the lights. What he needed to learn could be discovered in the semidarkness of High Priest Anen’s tomb.
Pressing a hand to the stairwell stone, he descended the narrow steps into the tomb’s vestibule, paused a moment to allow his eyes to adjust, then proceeded into the first chamber. He crossed the empty room to the door of the smaller second room, wherein lay the remains of the great granite sarcophagus that had once contained the coffin of the high priest. This room was secured by an iron grate. All was quiet in the darkened chamber.
He approached. No one stirred at his arrival.
Dex stood listening for a moment, but heard nothing-neither the brush and rustle of men moving about, nor even the intake and exhalation of sleeping men breathing. The tomb was silent.
“Wakey! Wakey!” he called, his voice loud in the emptiness. “You’re wasting the best of the day!” He smiled at his little jest.
There was no response.
“Are you dead in there?” he called and considered that this was only too likely to be the case, and that the captives had succumbed in the night, following Cosimo and Sir Henry-two right royal pains in the arse if ever there were-into the grave.
Splendid, now he would have to go and fire up the generator, turn on the lights, and then get the key and come back and deal with the bodies. Bloody bother, muttered Dex inwardly. But before he went to all that trouble, he decided to make sure the two remaining captives were not merely sleeping after all. Thinking to rattle the iron with a sound loud enough to rouse them, he put his hand to the grate and gave it a shake.
The door swung open at his touch.
The Burley Man pushed it open and stepped inside. He could dimly make out the great bulk of the stone sarcophagus in the centre of the room, but the rest of the chamber remained steeped in darkness. He could not see into the corners, but a heavy stillness lay all about and the air reeked with the sickly pungent sweet stench of death.
Pressing the back of his hand to his nose, Dex turned and fled the room. What are we doing in this awful
