means of getting from one ley to another.” He walked on a little farther, then continued, “The next ley is a few miles distant, and between the one we have just used and the next one there are no towns or villages, farms, or what-have-you that I have ever seen.”
“How did you know to come here?”
“My dear,” he said, offering her a sardonic smile, “I am not without resource, you know. I have been about this business for some considerable time. The parts I know, I know very well.”
“Such as those in Egypt.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Egypt in several of its epochs—at least, the ones that interest me.” He walked on a few steps, then added, “So far.”
Although Lord Burleigh did not use any external references for travelling to places he knew, Haven was making her own map. Using Sir Henry’s green book as an inspiration, she had begun writing down descriptions of the places she had visited, the locations of the leys, and any salient features she deemed important to remember. As yet it was a fairly wordy affair with directions and orientations for setting and location and such, but she was working on a way of coding the information in a more compact and precise form.
It was a good mental exercise, and she had the distinct feeling that it would prove useful in days to come. If nothing else, it filled the idle hours when she was alone—which happened more frequently than she liked. Burleigh did not take her everywhere; most of his journeys were made without her and for reasons he kept to himself. For despite whatever he might say to the contrary, the earl maintained a fierce secrecy around his plans and doings. Far from discouraging her, it only made her the more determined to discover what he knew that he did not care for her to know, or was not prepared to share.
What Burleigh hoped to gain from their liaison was also something of a mystery. As yet, he had not made any untoward demands or advances on her; he seemed content to allow their rapport to develop in its own good time—an expectation Haven was happy to encourage so long as it proved a useful ploy.
They walked along beneath a low grey sky into a freshening wind. The air was clean and cool and laden with the scent of rain. At the edge of the wood they came to a rise, which led up and out of the shallow river valley and onto a grassy plain. Far in the distance a range of low hills rose in a ragged line, but on the plain itself there was nothing to be seen save the grass undulating in waves like a wide green ocean.
Haven took one look at the formless expanse and asked, “However did you find a ley out there?”
“I have my ways, my dear.” He put his head down and started out into the prairie.
By that she thought he meant a map, though she had never seen him use one. She followed in his wake, listening to the swish of their feet through the tall grass. After a time, they came to a narrow crevice—a vee-shaped cleft in the ground like a miniature fault line running west and east, cutting through the plain in an unwavering line.
“Here it is,” Burleigh said, holding out his hand. “Hold on. This won’t take long.”
She took his hand, and they walked a half-dozen steps. While physical contact was not strictly necessary, she had learned that it made for more accurate leaps. Or at least lessened the chance that they might become separated. Why this should be, she had yet to discover.
In the space of those first steps, the sky seemed to dim and the prairie grew hazy around them. The wind gusted, flattening the grass, driving down along the fault line. Rain spattered, sharp and heavy. There came a shriek from a great height—as if the sky were being torn—and then all turned black.
She landed with a jolt that sent a tremor up through her bones. The gorge rose in the throat, but since she had nothing to throw up, she gagged it back, swallowing hard. She wiped the rain from her eyes and looked around. The landscape was dark, the evening stars bright in the east. They seemed to have arrived on a promontory above a crescent bay. There were boats lined up on the beach below, and at the point of the cove some distance ahead she