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
In Which Full Disclosure Takes a Drubbing
The 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