‘I wouldn’t be so sure,’ Bill said, shaking his head. ‘Something’s not right about all of this. It sounds too easy.’
‘Will you stop worrying for once? Let’s just go with it and see what happens. Worst case — the old monk doesn’t have a clue how to get up the rock-face and we’re back to square one.’ He stared across at Bill, studying his closed expression. ‘Is this about earlier today? She was pretty harsh about the antibiotics but…’
Bill frowned. ‘I don’t give a shit about the antibiotics. It’s this whole situation. We’re looking for a route up and suddenly, here she is, all smiles and bargains.’
Luca thought for a second, then the corners of his mouth curled into a smile. ‘You know what I reckon it is? I reckon you’re just pissed off because an attractive girl came out of the middle of nowhere and tore a strip off you.’
Bill didn’t rise to the comment but instead remained motionless, staring into the embers of the fire. Luca inhaled deeply, then raised an eyebrow.
‘Why don’t you just give her the benefit of the doubt? And besides, its not like we’ve got a whole load of other options.’
For a long while Bill didn’t speak. Eventually he nodded his head in agreement.
‘Guess you’re right,’ he said. ‘Right now, I suppose she’s all we’ve got.’
Chapter 26
The four of them stood with their heads bent back, eyes following the old monk’s grubby forefinger as it traced a line down the sheer wall of rock.
In the misty morning light, the buttress of the mountain resembled the knuckles of a giant’s fist, scoured with cracks and fissures, seemingly impenetrable. But as the monk’s finger traced a line down the rock face, Luca’s vision blurred as it had done the day before and he suddenly realised what the old man was trying to show them.
‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ he muttered under his breath.
‘What is it?’ asked Bill, standing just behind him.
‘That crack he’s pointing to… look at it again.’ Luca cocked his head to one side as his eyes swept up along the contour of the rock-face. What had appeared to be a large crack running from the base to halfway up the rock-face was, in fact, a narrow ledge. Like staring at the inkblots of a Rorschach test, Luca’s eyes suddenly reversed their focus and what had simply been a fissure in the rock, now became something wide enough for a human to stand on.
Bill shook his head. ‘I can’t see it.’
‘You have to kind of unfocus your eyes,’ Luca answered distractedly.
After a few moments, Bill began to smile. ‘Jesus, yes. I see it now.’
Luca shook his head in disbelief, turning to where the old monk stood.
‘How the hell did you find that?’
The old man smiled then looked pointedly over at Shara who stood staring up at the cliff-face, her expression unreadable.
Luca turned back to the cliff. Even with the ledge, it was still going to be one hell of a climb. Not for the first time since last night, he wondered if they would be able to keep their side of the bargain. After they had decided to accept the monk’s condition, the four of them had talked more over breakfast that morning. They were to get Shara above the cliff and on to the flat of the glacier beyond. Once there, they would set up a base camp from which they could tackle some of the nearby peaks and she, in turn, would be able to collect her herbs. A week later, they would all descend together.
As Luca stood there, staring up at the route, he felt a tap on his shoulder. Bill motioned for him to step away from the others and the pair of them moved closer to the cliff. Opening their rucksacks, they began laying out ropes and hardware on the ground in neat piles.
‘I’m still not sure about this at all,’ said Bill in a low voice. ‘Are you buying this whole rare herb thing? We’ve been up in the mountains a thousand times and nothing grows at that altitude.’
Luca shrugged, squatting down to count the pile of climbing bolts.
‘Maybe it’s possible you get lichen or something up there. Who knows?’
‘It just doesn’t make any sense. I got the feeling last night that the whole charm offensive happened because the old fella had forced her into making a deal with us.’ Bill scratched the side of his face distractedly. ‘I wonder why that would be?’
Luca stopped counting and looked at him impatiently.
‘Bill, the bottom line is that I really don’t care what she is doing up there. All that matters is that we’ve been shown a route up and we’re one step closer to finding the pyramid mountain.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t see the connection between…’
Luca stood up, pulling two climbing harnesses from the rucksack. He looked at the deep frown lines running across his friend’s forehead.
‘Come on, mate. Give it a rest. We came here for the pyramid mountain. That’s all that matters. In a few days’ time, we’ll have found a route through these mountains and be standing at its base.’
He handed a harness across to Bill.
‘Piece of piss,’ he said, the beginnings of a smile on his face.
Bill stared down at the harness for a moment before reaching forward and taking it. He went to say something more, but Luca swivelled away from him, staring out towards the distant mountains. Low on the horizon, faint wisps of cloud were gathering on the peaks.
‘We should get moving,’ he said. Then raising his voice to include Shara and Gyaltso, ‘We need to be on top of this cliff before the wind picks up.’
Shara took in the crisp morning air and clear skies. She cast a doubtful look towards Bill.
‘Trust him on this,’ Bill confirmed. ‘The weather is the one thing Luca always gets right.’
‘The one thing?’ queried Shara, an eyebrow raised.
While Bill and Luca finished preparing the ropes, the old monk led Shara away and started talking to her. They kept their backs to the men as they looked out at the mountains. Luca was in the middle of uncoiling two of the eight-millimetre ropes when he glanced over and noticed the old monk reach into the small satchel slung across his shoulder. He pulled out something wrapped in a piece of cloth. Luca only saw it for a split second before Shara slid it quickly into her own bag.
She put a hand on the old monk’s arm, seeming to reassure him about something, before walking over to where Luca was standing.
‘Are we ready?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, we’re ready.’
He studied her for a moment, impressed by how calm she appeared before the climb. She stood with her hands on her hips, the strong bones of her face emphasised by the way her hair had been pulled back in a ponytail. Instead of the dirty tunic of the previous evening, she wore a thick cream jumper with a high neck. It was pulled tight around her waist by a leather belt. The felt boots she was wearing were laced with twine, in similar fashion to the herders’ but of much better quality.
A green canvas bag with metal clasps and padded shoulder straps lay by her feet. Earlier that morning he had seen her pack a thick sheepskin jacket and several pairs of tightly knitted woollen gloves. Looking down at the bag, he wondered what it was that the old monk had given her.
‘It’s going to be a hard climb and you should travel the lightest,’ Luca said. ‘Why don’t you put some of your stuff in my pack and I’ll carry it for you?’
Shara gave him a quick smile. ‘I should be all right. It’s not too heavy,’ she said, raising the bag a little to test it.
‘Up to you,’ said Luca.
Bill walked up to them with a loose bundle of slings in his hand.
‘We didn’t have a spare harness,’ he said to Shara, ‘so I’ve rigged this up for you. It’s not pretty, but it’ll hold.’
Luca swung the ropes round, tying off two figure-of-eight knots into his own harness and then signalled to Bill to start belaying him. He was about to move on to the narrow ledge and begin climbing, when the old monk stepped up to the cliff-face and approached him. Luca stood in silence as he old man placed gnarled hands on his cheeks and began mumbling a long stream of rolling syllables. Resisting the urge to pull his head free, Luca waited until he had finished, feeling awkward with the sudden solemnity of the situation.