so that he could close the door. Panting, he rested his cheek a moment upon the splintery wood. If he had felt a hundred years old earlier tonight, he was up to three hundred now and counting.
The temptation to sit down and go to sleep was so strong he could barely fight it off. Rubbing his eyes, he took the torch from Sophia and pointed at the stairwell.
She hesitated. “What about this man?”
“Leave him.”
“But he may-”
“Just leave him,” said Noel angrily. “We don’t have time.”
She climbed down the ladder awkwardly, balancing the bird that fluttered and fussed on her arm. Noel followed and shut the trapdoor, closing them in.
The torchlight filled the small well at the bottom, showing him smooth walls on all sides, but no tunnel.
“What is this?” he demanded. “A dead end?”
“Hush,” she said sharply. “I must think.”
She closed her eyes and held out her right arm. Counting slowly, she swung herself to the right, nearly striking Noel, who dodged.
“Here,” she said, and opened her eyes. “Push on the wall where I am pointing. Push as high as you can reach. Yes, isn’t there a depression in the stone?”
He groped, cursing softly to himself because the stretch awakened the soreness in his ribs. After a few moments he found the depression. He pushed, and it gave slightly as though fitted to a spring.
“Now straight down near the floor,” she commanded.
He found that one and pushed.
There came a sharp click and a narrow section of the wall sprang open. Noel caught the edge of the door with his hand to keep it from closing again.
“Marvelous stone masonry,” he said. “I couldn’t see the lines at all-”
“Never mind,” she said now, stepping into the passage ahead of him. “Hold the torch high and let us go through quickly. I hate this part.”
He soon found out why. The tunnel was apparently hewn directly into the mountain. The ceiling dipped low in places, making him stoop to get through. The floor was rough, and Lady Sophia stumbled more than once. In places water seeped through the walls. The tunnel had the damp, mossy smell of wet rock. He knelt and sampled the water once, letting it trickle into his palm.
It tasted like cold crystal and numbed his teeth. Sophia drank also and gave some to her bird. It cheeped mournfully beneath its hood.
“How far?” asked Noel, keeping an eye on how much torch they had left.
“Far. We must hurry.”
She led the way. There were branching tunnels, but Sophia never hesitated and Noel trusted her to take them safely through. This time they really did go a mile.
“Here,” she said at last and ducked beneath a low overhang.
Following, Noel straightened on the other side and found himself in a small, natural-looking cavern filled with a storehouse of riches.
Iron-bound chests displayed mounds of gold coins. Small caskets of jewels stood stacked everywhere. Bronze or marble statues from antiquity lined the walls. Cups and plates of gold, jewelry set with precious stones, gold death masks, lifesize hounds carved from silver… Noel stood and stared, unable to believe his eyes. It was a jumble of precious relics spanning several centuries. It was a priceless treasure trove. It was an archaeologist’s dream.
He picked his way over to a marble Kourus statue of a young man, long hair rippling down his back, with an owl carved upon one shoulder and a serpent coiled upon the other. The statue’s vacant eyes stared into eternity. His faint, mysterious smile seemed to say that he knew all the answers man could ever seek. The colors painted upon him looked as fresh as though the sculptor had just finished.
In wonder Noel ran his fingers over the cold, smooth surface, feeling the depth of the carving, experiencing the skill. He had never seen a statue representing this symbolism. He hoped the recorder on his LOC was getting everything.
“Sir Magnin would take this wealth and spend it,” said Sophia. She dipped her hand into a chest of coins, each stamped with the head of Caesar, and let them spill from her fingers. “Just spend it. He would never count the beauty. He would never consider the wonder of how such things were made. The little lady would be melted down.”
Sophia glanced at Noel and smiled for the first time. The expression transfigured her face, made her seem younger and even more beautiful. “Come and see,” she said.
They made their way to the rear of the cavern. There, resting upon a squared stone about waist-high, stood a small statue of a nymph fashioned of solid gold. Poised on her toes, she stood with her back arched, one hand lifted to the heavens, her head tilted up as though in ecstasy.
“She is a pagan thing,” said Sophia quietly. “Very improper, but I love her so much. She is dancing, you see? She looks happy as though all the sunshine in the world has poured itself into her heart.”
Surprised to hear Sophia say such a thing, Noel looked up. “She is exquisite,” he said quietly. “I have never seen her equal.”
“So many statues of the old times are broken up now,” said Sophia. “The priests say we must destroy all things pagan. I understand why, but still it is sad to ride through the ruins of their temples and their houses, sad to see floor mosaics where perhaps a baby or a little girl played happily long ago. They were just people, as we are people. Surely they were not as evil as we are told.”
“They weren’t evil at all,” said Noel. “They weren’t any different from you or me. They lived, and loved, and went to war. They got married and had children and lost their teeth in old age. They tried to worship as best they understood. And some of them made art like this.”
He traced his fingertip along the side of the little nymph, wishing he could take her home with him. But she’d only be incarcerated in a museum, a glass case erected around her, security beams scanning constantly. He liked to think of her here, at home in the mountains where she belonged.
“Thank you for showing me this, my lady,” he said with a smile.
Sophia’s gaze softened. For the first time she looked at him with warmth and possibly liking. “Thank you for understanding what kind of treasury this really is.”
“I do.”
“Come. We have farther to go.”
The tunnel meandered on beyond the little cavern. Once they had to crawl several feet on their hands and knees to pass through. The torch burned lower and lower; its light grew steadily more feeble despite Noel’s efforts to nurse it. He should have brought two, but he hadn’t known it at the time.
“It’s going out,” he said grimly, worried about becoming lost in these caves forever.
“I see the stars,” she said and hurried ahead of him.
He stumbled after her, anxious not to be left behind. The torch failed with a final pop, and for a moment he couldn’t see anything. He blundered forward, then he too could see stars and the moon going down into a bank of clouds on the horizon.
They emerged through a narrow cave entrance and stood on the side of Mt. Taygetus, overlooking the ravine that divided it from Mistra.
The ravine, thought Noel, where he had nearly ended his life yesterday.
He braced himself against a rock and gazed out into the night. Wolves howled in the distance, whether in triumph or hunger he could not tell. Below them, torches flared upon the ramparts of Mistra. He smiled, feeling good despite his tiredness. Across the broad valley the stars shone down, their constellations so clear he felt as though he could reach up and scoop them into his hand.
Sophia unfastened the jesses and drew off the hood of her falcon. She threw the bird up, and with a cry it unfolded its wings and caught the wind currents, sailing out into the night.
“My lovely Sian,” said Sophia with a sigh. “She will follow us. Do you remember the way to the Milengi camp? We must find Theodore without delay.”
Noel stared up at the black, forbidding shape of the mountain. “Let’s rest first.”
