“We’re going to have to run for it,” Arthur advised his son. “Don’t let go of my hand.”
Anen was struck next, receiving a grazing blow to the side of his head. Blood oozed from the wound, drawing a cheer from the crowd. Priests, frightened and confused, charged the labourers blocking the way. Some of the workmen stood aside-only to strike at the holy men as they passed. Others challenged them outright, shoving them or swinging hammers and fists.
The retreat became a rout. Everyone ran for the gate and the barges waiting at the wharf.
“Now!” shouted Arthur, pulling Benedict with him. “Run!”
Dodging and weaving through the angry throng, they scrambled. The mob closed in behind them, pelting the fleeing priests with stones and bricks. They gained the gates and, pushing past the last of the workers, were free. Once beyond the city walls, they paused to wait for Anen and the High Priest.
When they failed to emerge, Arthur pulled Benedict close. “Go! Get on board,” he ordered. “I’ll join you in a moment.”
“I won’t go without you.”
“Obey me, son. Go!”
Arthur released his son and pushed him towards the barge. He had only just turned and started back into the crush at the gates when a brick sailed out and with uncanny accuracy struck him on the left temple. The blow spun him sideways and he fell, unconscious when he struck the ground.
“Father!” shouted Benedict. He ran to his father’s side and knelt, taking the wounded head onto his knees. There was little blood. The brick had barely broken the skin, but already an ugly red-blue welt was rising.
“Father, wake up!” urged the youth, cradling the wounded head. “Can you hear me? Father? Can you hear me? Wake up.”
Priests were running past them. Benedict called out, “Help!”
One of those running past stopped.
“My father is hurt!” shouted Benedict. “Help me!”
The priest realised instantly what had happened; he snagged one of his fellow priests and, with Benedict’s help, lifted the unconscious Arthur and dragged him to the barge, where they laid him carefully on the deck.
The next events would always be something of a distant confusion to Benedict. He remembered other priests joining them on the deck, and Anen himself taking command and directing the wounded man to be carried to the roofed pavilion in the centre of the barge and laid upon the cushioned platform there. When Benedict looked around again, the barge was already under sail and the royal city receding into the distance.
CHAPTER 9
With Lady Fayth’s timely warning to crystallise her thoughts, Wilhelmina decided her best course of action. She had been itching to put the new model ley lamp through its paces and discover its full potential; leaving Prague for a few days was the perfect excuse she needed and, having made a clean breast of it with Etzel, she was now free to travel whenever she pleased: much as before, of course, but now without the nagging guilty conscience for misleading her partner, her champion.
For indeed, dear Engelbert could not have been any more gallant a defender if he had worn a suit of shining armour and carried her colours into the joust on the back of a galloping steed. Never had she known anyone who so selflessly and consistently took her part and put her welfare and interests first.
Etzel did all that and more, and Mina had no doubt that when the quest for the Skin Map was finished, she would happily settle down to life in the Grand Imperial with him. Indeed, the more she thought about it, the more certain she was that she wanted nothing else.
Just now, however, she had other duties and entanglements that he could not share. First on the list was to elude Burleigh. Then she could devote herself entirely to discovering what had happened to Kit. The first task was simple and easily accomplished, thanks to Haven’s timely warning. For the second chore, she would need help. Having come to the end of her own expertise, she determined it was time to go back to the one who had helped her find Kit the first time: Brother Lazarus.
With any luck at all, she might still be able to stay a step or two ahead of Burleigh and his brute squad. The chief problem, among many, was the risk of exposure. Knowing how Burleigh’s new device worked, she now realised just how vulnerable she would be when ley travelling. If the treacherous earl ever took an interest in her specifically, the result could well be catastrophic.
Once the decision was made, Wilhelmina wasted no time in putting her plan into action. She bade Etzel farewell, promising to hurry back as soon as humanly possible, and then set off. The ley she needed was half a day’s journey from Prague, and from previous experience Mina knew it to be particularly time-sensitive-that is, offering only a very narrow window of activity twice each day, a few minutes either side of sunrise and sunset. Miss either opportunity, and the ley traveller would have to wait until next time. This was not unusual; many ley lines and portals operated in a similar fashion, she had found. Some were more lenient and forgiving, some less so. Why? Wilhelmina had no clue.
With the hostler near the city gates she arranged for a carriage and driver to take her to her destination: an empty stretch of countryside a kilometre or so north of the tiny farming village of Podbrdy. Her plan was to disembark outside the settlement and walk to the ley unobserved, if possible. Two further jumps would put her in the southern Pyrenees within a stone’s throw of her destination. Once there she would assume the guise of a nun on pilgrimage and seek out her mentor. In accordance with his wishes and her most solemn and sacred vow-he had made her swear on a hand-copied Bible not to reveal either his identity or whereabouts to another living soul-she had never breathed a word of Brother Lazarus’ existence to anyone. The cautious monk was, in effect, her very secret weapon. A quaint arrangement, but it suited them both.
Wilhelmina dozed through much of the coach ride to the village so that she would be well rested for the next leaps in her journey. In the end, she need not have bothered because she arrived too late and the ley was dormant; she had to wait until sunrise. She begged a bed for the night in the barn of a nearby farmer and spent a pleasant, if odorous, evening with two cows, four ducks, and a black-spotted pig.
Just before sunrise she returned to the ley and made the leap; the next two were accomplished without incident and, pausing before the last jump, she took refreshment at a small cafe on the Via Bassomondo, the dusty road winding down the gently sloping hillside to the abbey of Sant’Antimo. She was, she thought, somewhere in the last century-1929, perhaps? Wilhelmina couldn’t tell. Her Italian was strictly confined to Buongiorno, Signor Rinaldi! Un cappuccino e una brioche, per favore.
She drank her coffee and ate her pastry, making comparisons with her own brew and baking, paid the bill from her little stash of coins obtained on her various travels, and then walked on to the next ley, which ran through the valley outside the abbey. This part of the journey was always her favourite, and Mina often lingered a little while to enjoy the sublime view of the broad olive-groved and cypress-lined valley. Tradition had it that Emperor Charlemagne had been a major benefactor of the monastery in earlier days, and often used it as a convenient stopping-off place on his various journeys from Rome to his palace at Aachen.
Sometimes, when she had time to spare, she paused to take in the abbey church itself, a handsome Romanesque structure in rough white limestone with beautiful carvings inside and out. The location had been chosen because, like so many sites that now hosted churches of various kinds, it had been a holy place long before the monastery had been contemplated. That it remained a pilgrimage destination worked to Wilhelmina’s favour in that the monks were used to strangers in their midst and welcomed them as best they could. Thus Wilhelmina blended in with the general comings and goings of the place, and her odd appearances and disappearances went unnoticed and unremarked. More importantly, however, it was at Sant’Antimo that she had first learned of the man to whom she owed much of her acumen and skill in ley travel.