I’ll have to find some clothes.” She regarded Kit’s furry trousers and laughed. “How do you feel about a monk’s robe?”
They moved into the corridor, where a few curious brothers had gathered outside to catch a glimpse of their unusual visitor. Brother Lazarus called to the onlookers and conducted a brief conference while Wilhelmina steered Kit away.
“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “He’ll take care of everything. He has a fair bit of seniority around here. They all love him and trust him completely. You’ll like him too.”
Kit nodded. They reached the vestibule and stepped out into a balmy evening where the stars were just beginning to kindle for the night. The ethereal sound of singing reached them on the soft night air-the monks were chanting evensong. Once out of sight of the others, Wilhelmina looped her arm through Kit’s and pulled him close.
“Are you really a nun?”
Wilhelmina laughed, her voice full of delight. The sound was delicious in the evening twilight. “Don’t be silly. It’s a role I play when I come here. The habit just makes everything so much easier.” She gave his arm an affectionate squeeze. “A lot less explaining to do.”
“It suits you.”
Indeed, she was more attractive than ever-and it showed in her figure as well as her face. She had filled out a little and now had curves where before there had been only angles. Her dark eyes fairly gleamed with health and well-being. “You look wonderful.”
“You think so?” She smiled, enjoying the compliment. “There’s a lot to be said for the convent life. What about you-what’s the explanation for what you’re wearing?”
“What do you mean? This is the height of fashion where I’ve come from.”
She laughed again. “Look at you! I hardly recognise you under all that hair. You look like a big old bushy bear. What-they didn’t have clippers or razors where you were?”
“Actually, no,” Kit said, running his fingers through the tangles of his beard.
“And those muscles!” she hooted, giving his biceps a squeeze. “No more puppy fat. You’re positively brawny-a lean, mean fighting machine,” she said approvingly. “Whatever they were feeding you, it didn’t do you any harm.”
“Thanks, I guess.” He looked down at his torso. Beneath the layer of smudgy dirt he could see the ripples of a six-pack, and his arms were corded muscle. Now that she mentioned it, he supposed he had trimmed down and bulked out a bit.
“Oh, Kit, it is so good to see you and have you back safe and sound. I’ve been worried about you. Where have you been, anyway?”
“You won’t believe the half of it,” Kit replied. “I’m not entirely sure I believe all of it myself.” He fell silent, thinking about where to start, or even how to begin to frame an explanation.
“Well?” she said after a moment. “Are you going to keep a girl in suspense?”
“No-no, I don’t mean to, it’s just… I don’t even know where to start.”
“Well,” she said, “the last time I saw you, Burleigh was hot on your tail. He chased you and Giles out of the city, and you made for the river.” She went on to describe the chain of events as she knew them. “Giles is okay, by the way. The bullet did no irreparable harm, and as soon as he could move, I took him home. He should be good as new very soon, if not already.”
“Good. I’m glad he’s okay,” mused Kit, and explained how he had come under gunfire but found the ley and made the jump, landing in the place Mina had told him about. “But the time was all off, and I ended up in what I guess you could call the Stone Age.”
“That would explain the fur trousers.”
“I was found and, well, more or less adopted by a tribe of peopleRiver City Clan, I call them. They live in this enormous gorge-”
“The one I’ve visited,” surmised Mina.
“The same one, but in a different time-far different. Anyway, they are the most amazing people. They don’t speak much-they have a very limited vocabulary. They communicate mainly by a sort of telepathy-kind of like a mental radio.”
Wilhelmina gave him a sideways glance.
“It’s true,” he insisted. “I could hardly believe it the first time it happened. But one of them, this incredibly old chieftain called En-Ul-he’s a master at it, and he taught me how to-”
He stopped walking-so abruptly that Wilhelmina took two more steps without him. She turned, and he blurted, “Mina, I’ve been to the Well of Souls.”
“You what?”
“The Spirit Well,” Kit said, his voice ringing in the empty plaza. “I’ve been there, Mina-I know how to find it.”
CHAPTER 24
The death of Arthur Flinders-Petrie could not have come at a worse moment. The land was in upheaval, and it was all Pharaoh’s fault. If the crisis did not pass soon, the kingdom would descend into civil war.
“You had the misfortune to die at a very bad time, my friend,” Anen sighed, then smiled ruefully at the foolishness of his own thought. For the young and healthy, death always arrived at a bad time, did it not?
As senior priest of the Temple of Amun he had scores of minions at his command, yet Anen took charge of the funeral preparations himself out of respect and honour for a friendship that had spanned decades. In his mind, there was no question but that Arthur’s body would be embalmed and a suitable tomb made ready. The embalming procedure-from the ritual washing of the corpse with water from the Nile to its nitre bath and the final anointing with oils and swathing in linen-would require seventy days. Under the circumstances, it would not be possible to build a tomb in such a short time; therefore, an extension of Anen’s personal tomb would be carved out and painted, and a wooden sarcophagus constructed to hold the earthly remains of the late Arthur Flinders-Petrie.
This would also give time enough for young Benedict to return to his home world and break the sad news of his father’s decease to his mother. The two of them could then return to attend the grand funeral ceremony and oversee the entombment. As head of the Flinders-Petrie family, Benedict would host the funeral feast. This is how it was done. This is how it had always been done since time out of mind. Observing the rituals of life and death in proper order-including the time-honoured rites of embalming and entombment-brought order to the affairs of men, which in turn led to order in the universe.
Satisfied that he had thought of everything, he summoned the boy and, through the use of signs, communicated to Benedict all that must be done in the days ahead. Benedict appeared to understand, whereupon Anen ordered a mild sleep-inducing herbal infusion to be prepared and commanded his personal servants to see the grief-stricken lad to his rest. He then turned his attention to readying Arthur’s corpse for transfer to Per-Nefer, the House of Embalming, to begin the process of readying it for life in eternity. As the shroud was being wrapped to secure the body for transport, however, commotion erupted in the courtyard-accompanied this time by angry voices from beyond the wall.
Anen stepped from the House of Wholeness and Healing; the moon was high and bright, spilling light into the sacred enclosure. In the moonlight he saw priests and temple soldiers milling about the gates. He hailed one of the servants just then hurrying past. “What is the reason for this uproar?” he demanded. “I was given to understand that the mob had gone away.”
“They dispersed, my master,” answered the servant. “The temple guards drove them back to the river.”
“Well?” demanded Anen, as if this should have been the end of the matter.
The servant lifted his palms. “They have returned.”
With a flick of his hand Anen sent the impertinent fellow on his way and proceeded to the gate, where a group of priests and servants had gathered. “Where is Tutmose?” he demanded, scanning the crowd quickly for the
