could see the lights of a village kindled against the gathering evening gloom.
“Time is against us today,” Burleigh said. “We’ll have to stay there tonight and get an early start in the morning. The ley is a few miles the other side of that headland.”
“The village,” said Haven as they started towards the lights, “does it have a name?”
“Trondheim, I think.”
“We’re in Norway?”
“They speak Danish—or some dialect of it, so far as I can tell—but we’re not in Norway . . . too far south. I suspect it is a trading colony established by Danish settlers—something like that. Fishing boats call in here for supplies and water. There are two inns and several taverns. The people are friendly enough, for all you can understand them.”
“What will they make of us?”
“Who knows? I pay in good silver, that is all they care about.”
True to form, they were welcomed at the inn and enjoyed a hearty supper of fish paté on brown bread, followed by stewed mutton and greens. They were given rooms at the top of the house, which was quiet enough, though Haven, alone in her lumpy bed, was kept awake by raucous singing late into the night. The two travellers slipped out of the inn and were back on the trail again before sunrise. Burleigh located the ley and, as the first rays of the new morning broke over the hilltop to the east, they made the leap to Bohemia.
Burleigh had marked the ley using small white stones in a line beside the trail, which was delineated by a standing stone, a burial mound, a notch in a distant hilltop, and, of all things, a gallows beside a lonely crossroads. The earl had calibrated the leap precisely—Haven heard him counting off the steps under his breath as they walked briskly along the line. There was a blur of cold mist and a screech of wind, and they landed on a quiet, sunny hillside a few miles from the city of Prague. They walked through a countryside of young green fields and arrived at the city just as the gates were being opened for the day.
Once on the road, they fell in with the ordinary traffic of merchants and travellers arriving for the day’s business; they passed through the city walls, down some narrow streets, and across a wide and handsome bridge, where Burleigh stopped at last.
“It is very like London,” observed Haven, gazing around approvingly. “Smaller, and better paved. Cleaner, to be sure. But not without similarities.”
“The palace is up on the hilltop,” he said, indicating the bulking eminence commanding the high point of the town. “Who is the emperor?”
“Rudolf the second,” replied Haven crisply. “Everyone knows that. I am astonished you should ask.”
“I was just making sure you knew.” He started off again just as the bells in the cathedral tower began to ring. Within moments, every other church bell throughout the city began chiming as well, urging the faithful to attend Mass.
“Will we see His Majesty?” asked Haven after a moment. “I should very much like to.”
“It is possible,” Burleigh allowed. “If he happens to hear that I have come for a visit, he may demand an audience. He fancies himself leading a renaissance of science and likes to keep a finger in every pie.”
“Is that why you have chosen Prague to have this instrument made?”
Burleigh cast a quick sideways glance at his companion. She was a quick-witted lass; beneath those russet curls was a mind as quick and supple as any he had ever met. “Very good, my dear. Yes, the science here is in its infancy, but their craftsmanship is more than adequate to my purpose. They are amenable and do not ask many questions.” He paused, then added, “Unlike yourself.”
“You flatter me, sir,” she replied brightly.
The street rose steeply before them and began winding its way up the hill to the palace precinct, passing rows of tidy houses and shops. The people going about their business seemed reasonably well-dressed and prosperous and, above all, clean. The front steps of the dwellings were washed, the windows too—even the streets were swept, and the rubbish left in neat little piles for the refuse cart to collect.
As they walked along, Haven kept an eye out for the coffee shop, hoping to inveigle Burleigh into stopping for a cup of the fashionable elixir. But she did not see it, and they climbed higher into the city, very soon arriving at the palace gate, which was open to allow