downstairs, he was still lightheaded.
‘I can see that Norah and I are going to be the best of friends,’ he told her.
‘Ganging up on me at every turn, I suppose.’
‘Of course. That’s half the fun. Did she say anything about me after I’d gone?’
‘Not a word,’ she declared loftily. ‘We dismissed you from our minds.’
‘As bad as that?’ he said, nodding sympathetically.
‘Worse. I couldn’t get any sense out of her. She just wittered on endlessly about how handsome you are. Where she got that idea, I couldn’t imagine.’
‘The video quality is never very strong on those links.’
‘Well, she likes you enormously.’
‘Good. I like her too. Now, let’s have a hearty breakfast and get revved up for the day.’
An hour later the coach called to collect them, plus several others from the hotel, and soon they were on the road to the warrior site.
‘The thing I loved about it,’ Lang said, ‘was that they didn’t build a separate museum and transport everything to it. They created the museum on top of the actual site of the dig where the figures were found.’
She saw what he meant as soon as they entered. The museum was divided into three huge pits, the first of which was the most astonishing. There in the ground were hundreds of soldiers standing in formation as though on duty. A gallery had been built all around so that the visitor could view them from every angle. This was exactly the place where they had been discovered and, as Lang had said, it made all the difference.
Not only men but horses stood there, patient unto eternity. After burial they had had only a short existence, for less than five years after the Emperor’s death they had been attacked, many of them smashed and the site covered in earth. For over two-thousand years they had remained undiscovered, waiting for their time to come, silent and faithful in the darkness.
Now their day had dawned again. Some had been repaired and restored to beauty, although thousands still remained to be unearthed. Now they were world-famous, proud and honoured as they deserved to be.
Although Lang had been here before he too was awed as they walked around the long gallery.
‘We’ve only seen a small part,’ he said as he left. ‘When we visit the rest you can study some of them close up. It’s incredible how they were created so skilfully all that time ago-the fine details, the expressions.’
When Olivia saw the figures that were displayed in glass containers she had to admit that he was right. Not one detail had been skimped on the armour, and the figures stood or crouched in positions that were utterly natural. No wonder, she thought, that historians and art experts had gone wild about them.
But she wasn’t viewing them as a professional. It was as men that they claimed her attention, and as men they were awesome, tall, muscular, with fine, thoughtful but determined faces.
‘It’s incredible how different they all are,’ she mused. ‘It would have been so easy to give them all the same face, but they didn’t do it the easy way. How many of them are there?’
‘Something like eight thousand when they’ve finished excavating,’ Lang said. ‘And I don’t think they’re all precisely individual. If you hunt through them you’ll find the same face repeated now and then, but it’s a long hunt.’
Their steps had brought them to a glass container with only one figure. He was down on one knee, but not in a servile way. His head was up, his back straight, his air alert, as though his whole attention was devoted to his duty.
‘Whoever this was based on had a splendid career ahead of him,’ she murmured. ‘And he gave it all up.’
‘You’ve decided that this was Renshu?’ Lang asked, fondly amused.
‘Definitely. He’s by far the most handsome.’
Before finishing the tour, they went to the pavilion where there was a teahouse to refresh them.
‘It’s so real,’ she said. ‘I hadn’t expected to find them so lifelike. You could almost talk to them and hear them talk back.’
‘Yes, that’s how I felt.’
‘You know that story you told me-how he might have seen her when he was escorting her, or later in the palace-well, I’ve been thinking, and they could both be true. Renshu saw her face accidentally on the journey, and after that he knew he had to see her again, so he connived to get assigned to palace duty.’
‘That’s a very romantic suggestion,’ Lang exclaimed. ‘I’m shocked!’
‘All right, I’ve weakened just a little. Now I’ve seen what a fine, upstanding man he must have been, I can understand why she fell in love with him.’ Olivia laughed at the sight of Lang’s expression. ‘It’s this place. Somehow the whole story suddenly seems so convincing. I can’t wait to go back in.’
They spent the afternoon going over everything again, fascinated by the semi-excavated parts in pit one, where broken figures lay waiting to be reclaimed, and the places where they could study the work in progress. The day finished in the shop that sold souvenirs, and Olivia stocked up on books and pictures. Lang also was buying extensively.
‘But you’ve got that book,’ she said, pointing. ‘I remember seeing it in your room.’
‘It’s not for me. It’s a gift for my friend Norah.’
‘That’s lovely. She’ll be so happy.’
Some of the other tourists were from their hotel and they all made a merry party, exchanging views on the way back. It was natural to join up again over the meal, and the evening passed without Lang and Olivia having a moment alone.
‘When will you talk to Norah?’ he asked later.
‘Early tomorrow morning.’
‘Make sure you call me so that I can talk to her.’
‘Can I tell her you’ve bought her a present?’
‘Don’t you dare! I want to do that myself. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight.’
She contacted Norah early next morning and found her bright-eyed with anticipation.
‘Where’s Lang?’ was her first question.
‘Good morning, Olivia, how nice to speak to you,’ Olivia said ironically. ‘I gather I don’t exist any more.’
‘Let’s say he rather casts you into the shade, my darling.’
‘All right, I’ll go and knock on his door.’
‘Knock on his-? Do you mean he’s in a different room?’ Norah sounded outraged.
‘Yes, we have separate rooms,’ Olivia said through gritted teeth.
She hurried out, unwilling to pursue this subject further. After the way passion had flared between herself and Lang, it seemed inevitable that they would take the next step. But suddenly he seemed in no hurry, and hadn’t so much as hinted that he might come to her at night.
Perhaps she had mistaken him and he wasn’t as deeply involved as her, but both her mind and her heart rejected that thought as unbearable.
He returned with her and she witnessed again the immediate rapport between he and Norah as he showed her the gifts he’d chosen. For most of the conversation she stayed in the background.
‘It’s not like you to be lost for words,’ he teased her when they had finished.
‘I didn’t want to spoil it for you two,’ she teased back. ‘You get on so well, I’m beginning to feel like a gooseberry.’
‘Can you give me her address so that I can mail her present before we leave?’
She did so, and they parted, not to meet again until it was time to leave for the airport.
On the flight to Chongqing they fell into conversation with passengers on the other side of the aisle who were headed in the same direction, and before long several more joined in. Olivia brought out the catalogue showing
‘That sounds just right,’ somebody observed. ‘Big enough to be comfortable, small enough to be friendly.’
‘Yes, it’s going to be nice,’ Olivia agreed. She showed the catalogue to Lang. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think the restaurant looks good,’ he said prosaically. ‘I hope we get there soon. I’m hungry.’
When they landed a coach was waiting to take them the few miles to the river. Lang had fallen into
