‘But what about their son?’ Olivia asked. ‘Shouldn’t she have tried to live for his sake?’
‘Her son had been rescued by the family. If she’d gone after him she would only have led the soldiers to him. Her choice was either to die in flight, or die at Renshu’s side. To her there was really no choice at all. They knew what was coming. That’s why they left those writings behind. They wanted to tell the world while there was still time.’
Olivia gazed at him in wonder.
‘You speak as though you knew them, as though they were real people here with you this minute.’
‘Sometimes that’s just how it seems,’ he confessed. He gave her a wry smile. ‘No doubt you think that’s ludicrously sentimental, you being such a practical person!’
‘But you’re a practical person too,’ she pointed out. ‘How could a doctor not be?’
‘Yes, I’m a doctor, but that doesn’t mean I only believe in things that can be proved in a test tube.’
‘So a doctor can be as daft as anyone else?’ she teased.
‘Emphatically,
He broke off abruptly and she guessed the reason. He was moving faster than her, so fast that perhaps he even alarmed himself.
But her alarm was fading. With every minute that passed the conviction was growing in her that this was right. She didn’t know what was lying in wait for them, but whatever it was she was ready, even eager, to find it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AT LAST he said, ‘If you’ve finished eating I think we should go upstairs. We need plenty of sleep.’
At her door he bid her goodnight with a brief kiss on the cheek before hurrying away, leaving her wishing he’d stay the same person for five minutes at a time.
She went to bed quickly and read some more of the book until finally she put it down and lay musing. After their talk that evening Renshu and Jaio seemed strangely real, and she had the feeling that tomorrow she was going to meet them. Face to face she would hear their story, about their life, about the love that was stronger than death. And perhaps she would understand a little more about the man whose existence had sprung from that love at a distance of two-thousand years.
Olivia turned out the light and went to the window. Opening it, she stood gazing out at the mountains that were just visible in the moonlight, and a thin line of silver where a river followed a curving course.
In the room beside hers, Lang’s window was closed. She could see that his light was still on and, by leaning out, she could just see his shadow coming and going. She was about to call out to him when his light went off. She hurried back to bed and was soon asleep.
She awoke early, going to sit by the open window to breathe in the cool air and enjoy the view over the mountains now bathed in early-morning light. On impulse she took out her laptop and set up the connection with Norah. In England it would be mid-afternoon, not their usual time, but she might still make contact.
She was in luck. Almost at once Norah’s face appeared on the screen. When the greetings were over, Olivia said, ‘We’re going to see the terracotta warriors.’
‘I’ve heard of them. They’re very famous.’
‘Yes, but we have a special reason.’
Briefly she told the tale of Jaio and Renshu. As she’d expected, Norah was thrilled.
‘So Lang is descended from a warrior and a concubine. What fun!’
‘You’re incorrigible,’ Olivia said, laughing. Then something made her stop and peer more closely at the screen. ‘Are you all right? You look a bit pale.’
‘I’ve been out doing some shopping. It was nice, but very tiring.’
‘Hmm. Come closer, so that I can see you better.’
‘Stop fussing.’
‘I just want to take a look at you.’
Grumbling, Norah moved until Olivia could see her better.
‘There,’ she said. ‘Now stop making a fuss.’
Suddenly there came a knock on Olivia’s bedroom door.
‘Don’t go away,’ she said, drawing the edges of her light bathrobe together and heading for the door.
Lang was standing outside in a towel robe. He too pulled the edges together when he saw her.
‘Are you all right?’ he said. ‘I heard you talking, and I wondered if anything’s wrong.’
‘I’m talking to Aunt Norah by video link. I promised her I’d stay in touch. Come and meet her.’
She showed him to the window chair and made him sit where the camera could focus on him.
‘Here he is, Aunt Norah,’ she said. ‘This is Dr Lang Mitchell.’
‘How do you do, Dr Mitchell?’ Norah said formally.
‘Please, call me Lang,’ he said at once, giving the old woman his most charming smile. She responded in kind and they beamed at each other across five-thousand miles.
And I’m Norah.’
‘Norah, I can’t tell you how I’ve looked forward to meeting you.’
‘You knew about me?’
‘Olivia talks about you all the time. At our very first meeting she told me that you said if she ever shut up she’d learn something.’
Olivia gaped, outraged, and Norah beamed.
‘And I have to tell you,’ Lang continued confidentially, ‘that after knowing her only a short time I realise what a good judge of character you are.’
The two of them rocked with laughter while Olivia glared.
‘You can leave any time you like,’ she informed him coolly.
‘Why would I want to leave? I’ve just made a new friend.’
He and Norah chatted on for a few minutes and Olivia regarded them, fascinated by the way they were instantly at ease with each other.
At last Lang rose, saying, ‘It was delightful meeting you, and I hope we talk again soon.’ To Olivia he said, ‘I’ll see you downstairs for breakfast.’
He left the room quickly. He needed to be alone to think.
The Chinese had a saying: ‘it is easy to dodge a spear thrown from the front, but hard to avoid an arrow from behind’.
In Lang’s mind the spear from the front had been the moment he’d arrived to collect Olivia and found that she’d already left, ‘for ever’. For a few blinding, terrible minutes he’d been convinced that she’d changed her mind and left him, even fled the country, and that he would never see her again.
The moment when she’d appeared was burned into his consciousness with searing force. She hadn’t left him. Everything was all right. Except that now he’d glimpsed a future that didn’t contain her, and it appalled him.
He’d coped. He’d known already that his feelings for her were running out of control. It was only their extent that shocked him, and which had made him ultra-cautious in their talk over dinner the night before.
Harder to cope with were the arrows that struck unexpectedly. One had come out of nowhere earlier, giving him a bad fright.
He’d heard Olivia’s voice as soon as he’d opened his window, and had smiled, thinking she was on the telephone. But the words, ‘you look a bit pale’ had told him this was no phone call. And while he’d been trying to take in the implications she’d added, ‘Come closer, so that I can see you better.’
The idea of a video link hadn’t occurred to him. He’d tried to stay cool, not to jump to the conclusion that she had a man in the room, but no power on earth could have stopped him knocking on her door to find out. Now he was feeling like the biggest fool of all time. Yet mixed in with embarrassment was delight that he’d been wrong. All was well.
The arrows would keep coming when he least expected them. He knew that now. But nothing could stop his mood rioting with joyful relief, and in the shower he gave vent to a yodelling melody. When he joined her
