easier. In his search, he conjured before him the faces of all his male ancestors—all those he could remember, alive or dead—to see if any of them had qualities he admired and whose names he might borrow and commemorate. This proved a useful exercise, but all the time devoted to the project failed to bring him any closer to a final decision.
When, after four days had passed, Xian-Li asked him what he was thinking, he was forced to admit that while he had begun drawing up a list, he had not yet chosen a name. He told her what Turms had said about refraining from conferring a name until seven days had passed. She accepted this, but warned, “Ponder as much as you like, but you have only four more days.”
His ruminations carried him to the final hour of the final day. “The king has asked me to inform you that tomorrow morning at sunrise we will hold the naming ceremony,” the king’s chief housekeeper told him. “I am to come and wake you at the appropriate time.”
“Ah,” replied Arthur, wondering where the days had flown. “Thank you, Pacha. Please, tell the king we will be ready.”
So, as the night ended and the moon began to set over the Tyrhennian Sea, Arthur and Xian-Li walked down the moonlit path to the little temple at the bottom of the hill. Xian-Li carried the infant asleep in her arms. It was the first time she had been out since the baby was born, and it felt good to move and feel the soft night air on her face, and to see the world once again. Turms had come to see her several times since the birth, and she wanted to thank him for his thoughtfulness.
When they reached the temple, however, he was not there. In fact, no one was about except a young acolyte, who had been charged with the task of informing them that the naming ceremony would not take place in the temple. “I am to ask you to follow me,” he said. “It is not far. But there is a donkey ready if you would like to ride.”
“It feels good to walk,” Xian-Li said when Arthur had relayed the offer.
“Thank you, but we will walk,” Arthur told the youth. “Lead the way.”
They continued along the path towards the town and soon came to a small pillar standing to one side. The acolyte paused here and, turning to them, said, “They are gathered at the king’s tomb. It is on the sacred road.” Indicating the little pillar, he said, “You are to wash before you enter the sacred way.”
The top of the pillar had been hollowed into a shallow depression, and this was filled with water. The young man demonstrated how to make the symbolic gesture by dipping his hands and then passing them over his head and face. “Also the child,” he said when they had done as instructed. Xian-Li dipped her fingertips in the water and, pushing away the unruly shock of hair, dampened the child’s forehead and wet his curled little hands.
The young acolyte led them off the path towards what appeared to be nothing more than the edge of a small defile—a place where the ground had crumbled away, or where a stream had cut through the soft earth over time. They quickly discovered, however, that it was not a natural feature at all, but man-made. Steps had been cut in the soft tufa stone that lay beneath the ground.
This hewn staircase led down and down, passing between narrow walls until they could no longer see the surface they had left behind. At the bottom, the steps joined a passage wide enough for two horses to pass abreast; the passage stretched away on either hand. Torches had been lit and set in simple sconces carved into the towering stone walls.
“This is the sacred road,” the young man informed them.
“Where does it lead?” asked Arthur.
“It joins other sacred ways in other places,” replied the acolyte. “There are many such throughout the land.”
They walked along, the passageway cast in deepest gloom though the sky above held the faint glimmer of the rising sun. They passed an elaborate doorway that had been carved into the tufa; columns, also carved, supported a triangular pediment that bore the sculpted image of a man in long robes lying on a low couch. There was an inscription, which seemed to be a name carved into the architrave. The doors were of stone and