“I insist you go away before we both say something we will have need of confessing.”
“My conscience is clear,” Wilhelmina told him. “Is there something you would like to confess?”
The priest became very still, then slowly rose to his feet once more, stood, and turned to face her. He studied the woman before him closely, his eyes moving over her face and form. “Who are you?” he said at last.
“My name is Wilhelmina Klug,” she said.
“Fraulein Klug, I think. Despite present appearances, I suspect you are not a nun, nor ever have been,” he remarked. “Am I right?”
“I believe we are both somewhat other than we appear.”
“Please, do me the courtesy of a truthful answer. Are you a sister of the order?”
“No,” Mina told him. “I am… a traveller.”
“A traveller.” He made a face, dismissing her claim. “You are disingenuous,” he replied. “Traveller… ha!” He raised a hand to her, and Wilhelmina thought he meant to send her away once more but thought better of it. Instead he asked, “How did you learn about Fra Giambattista?”
“I was visiting the abbey at Sant’Antimo in Tuscany,” she replied. “I saw the name on a placard. One of the brothers told me he had been appointed astronomer here, and that he was buried here.” She cast an appraising glance over the man before her. “But that is not true. There is no grave because he never died. In fact, he is standing here before me.”
Astonishment, horror, but also relief played across the priest’s round, good-natured face. “But how could that possibly be?” he said, his voice growing small.
“How could it be that you are that old?” she wondered. “Or how could it be that I know this?”
“Either,” he mumbled, rocking back on his feet. “Both.”
“It is possible,” she replied, taking a step closer, “because you are a traveller too-like me. And like me, your travels are not entirely confined to this world.”
“Madre di Dio!” he said, making the sign of the cross over his chest and kissing his clasped hands. Without another word he darted to the door of the observatory tower, put his hand on the brass knob, and pushed open the door. Wilhelmina expected that, fleeing her presence, he would shut her out. But as he disappeared inside, he motioned for her to follow.
She mounted the steps and entered a tiny vestibule; a narrow corridor led straight ahead to a pair of doors, and a staircase led to upper levels. Brother Lazarus went to the door on the left-hand side of the corridor and passed through. Wilhelmina followed him into a tidy little kitchen with a simple woodburning stove, a square wooden table, and four chairs. A curtained window opened to a view of the surrounding peaks and the lowlands beyond. The room was tidy and well kept; there were flowers in a chipped pottery mug on the table, and the rag rug on the floor was clean.
The flustered monk went directly to the little cupboard and removed a short glass beaker, a cup, and a jug of wine, which he carried to the table. He gestured to one of the chairs. “Sit.”
Wilhelmina obeyed and was presented with a tot of wine. The priest sat down across the table and, taking his cup in both hands, guzzled down a healthy slug. He looked at Wilhelmina, who raised her beaker to him, then sipped, and he took another great gulp. “So! I am discovered at last.” He shook his head slowly. “What is to happen now?”
“I really don’t know,” replied Mina gently. “I certainly did not come here to frighten you, or harm you in any way.”
“Why did you come here?”
She did not know where to begin to answer that-there was just too much. She wanted to know how to manipulate the leys, how they worked, what caused them, where they led; there was the nagging matter of Kit and getting in touch with him again so that she could tell him to stop worrying about her; and then there was the whole business of the Skin Map and the Burley Men, and so on. Wilhelmina decided to skip all that for now and settled for a much simpler, “I came here seeking knowledge.”
“Knowledge,” repeated the monk. “What do you want to know?”
Wilhelmina gazed at the wine in her glass. “There is so much-I hardly know where to begin. I have so very many questions.”
“Pick one,” replied Fra Giambattista. Perhaps it was Wilhelmina’s soft-spoken assurance, or the soothing influence of the wine, but the priest’s fractured attitude seemed to be on the mend. “It does not matter where one starts; it is where one finishes that makes all the difference.”
She seized on one of the many questions wheeling around in her head like a flock of noisy seagulls. “For an Italian living in Spain, why do you speak such good German?”
He laughed, some of his former good humour returning. “That is what you have come here to ask? I thought it would be about the Holy Grail.”
“King Arthur’s Holy Grail?”
“Is there another?”
Charmed by the idea, she gave a small laugh. “Why should I ask about that?”
“That is what everyone wants to know!” he cried. “We have no end of seekers looking for the Grail of King Arthur-and the brothers always send them to me. Legend has it that the fabled cup is buried here on Montserrat.”
“Is it?”
“I have no idea!” Fra Giambattista laughed again and was his former self. “Why ask about my German?”
“As you say, we must begin somewhere.” Mina took a drink of wine. “Who knows where we shall end up? Well?”
“It is obvious. All the best physics is German,” he declared. “I learned it in order to read and converse with my fellows in Bonn and Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna… ” He shrugged. “It helps to know a little of the language of science.”
“I can well appreciate that,” agreed Wilhelmina. “How did you discover ley travel?”
“ Ley travel?” he wondered. “Is that what you call it?”
“It is how it was described to me,” she answered. “I suppose you could say I fell into it by accident.”
“Dear lady,” offered the priest with a smile, “there are no accidents.” He took another sip of wine and refilled their cups. “But I know what you mean. I suppose I came to it in the same way. In the course of my various experiments, I had become aware of the lines of force operating beneath Sant’Antimo. In the course of mapping them for further study, I was caught in a storm, and in trying to run to shelter inexplicably found myself… ” His voice trailed off, remembering.
“Where?” asked Mina after a moment.
“Here!” he said. “At Montserrat.”
“The two places are connected, you mean.”
“Indeed they are. Of course, I thought I was going mad,” he chuckled. “It took me years to work out what had happened and still more to learn how to manipulate it for my purposes-as much as anyone can ever impose one’s own purposes on such an elemental power.” He shook his head again. “That was a very long time ago, yet I remember it all as if it were yesterday.”
They talked then, sharing their observations of, and experiences with, the unconventional properties of ley travel. And the more they talked, the more Wilhelmina was convinced that she had found someone who could do more than simply provide her with information. In Fra Giambattista she had found a mentor, someone whose knowledge was extensive and who could capably guide her search.
“Why did you change your name?” Wilhelmina asked. They had moved their conversation to the cloister garden, where they could be seen by those who cared to notice-this was to avoid any discussion about a nun visiting a monk in his quarters.
“Well, dear lady,” he had replied with a laugh. “It was because I was living so long! You see, travelling between worlds affects the aging process. I was outliving all my contemporaries, and it was beginning to be noticed.”
“I can see that would be a problem.”
He nodded. “One day-after the funeral of our dear old sacristan, and in the company of everyone-the abbot of Sant’ Antimo was heard to remark, ‘Brother Giambattista, you must have more lives than Lazarus!’ Everyone laughed, but I got the hint. Something had to be done.” The priest spread his hands. He gazed up at the clear, cloud-speckled sky for a moment, then shrugged. “What could I do?”