The Spirit Well

CHAPTER 10

"You are him, aren’t you,” Wilhelmina maintained, growing more certain by the moment. “You are Fra Giambattista.”

“Do not be absurd, young lady,” he scoffed. “What a ridiculous notion!” He gave a choked little half laugh. “Utter nonsense.”

Wilhelmina said nothing. His protest sounded contrived, and that fine, mellifluous voice had become pinched and tight.

“The very idea is preposterous,” he blustered, shaking his head. “Absurd.”

“Why?” asked Wilhelmina. “Why is it absurd?”

“Brother Beccaria lived in Italy, long ago. If he were alive today he would be”-he paused to do a rough calculation-“well, it is impossible.” The monk made a dismissive wave and offered what was supposed to be mirthful chuckle. “Preposterous. Young people are so credulous.”

“Yet I do not hear a denial,” she observed. “Why is that?”

“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?”

“What did you do?” asked Wilhelmina, chin on hand, fascinated.

“Well, it was obvious, no? Brother Beccaria could not go on. One spring, I received permission from my abbot to go on a pilgrimage to Montserrat, and on arrival to stay and use the observatory. Of course, I had been here before, but none of the brothers at Sant’ Antimo knew that. Once here, I contrived to become ill, and reported this to my brothers. Eventually, I sent back a message that poor Fra Giambattista had succumbed to his maladies and gone to his heavenly reward.”

“Fra Giambattista died,” Mina concluded, “and Brother Lazarus was born.”

“A deception, I admit. But all this has been confessed and God will forgive, for my heart is pure and the work I do, I do in the service of the Almighty.” He nodded, satisfied with this arrangement. “After that I travelled many years in Germany, learning the language and reading physics, talking to my colleagues and studying, studying, all the while studying.” He brushed a bit of fluff from the lap of his fine black robe. “When I had learned enough, I came back here.”

“As astronomer?”

“Oh no. All my contemporaries here had passed away by then- that was part of the plan, you see. Fra Giambattista was remembered, of course. But no one then at the abbey knew “Brother Lazarus.” I worked in the gardens at first and helped at the observatory. In time, I became assistant to the chief astronomer and climbed my way up the ladder once more.” He put a rough gardener’s palm on Wilhelmina’s hand and confided, “Patience was ever a virtue.”

Wilhelmina’s first visit extended to more than two weeks. Every other day or so, she met Brother Lazarus in the cloister garden to discuss some particular aspect of ley travel, its uses and attendant problems and implications. The astronomer monk proved himself a thoughtful and erudite instructor; his study of astronomy and physics embraced cosmology, philosophy, and, being a priest, theology as well. As a patient and capable teacher he was second to none, and Wilhelmina, the eager and willing student, was soon firmly under his spell. His enthusiasm, she suspected, derived from the fact that he had previously had no one with whom he might share his greatest discoveries and insights. In Wilhelmina he had at last found someone who not only understood but could partake in the wonder of the enterprise at the deepest level. And inasmuch as her experience of ley travel, although undisciplined, was no less extensive in its way than his own, Wilhelmina was someone who could help further his inquiries. Nor did it hurt that he genuinely liked her and enjoyed her company.

That first fortnight passed in a blink. Wilhelmina could have stayed much longer, but to do so would draw unwanted suspicion. Instead the two conspirators agreed that she should leave soon, but return in the spring when they could continue Mina’s education to the point where she could eventually collaborate on Brother Lazarus’ work of mapping the intersecting dimensions of the cosmos.

“Many people make annual pilgrimage to the abbey,” he said. “Your presence need not draw suspicion-and if anyone should ask, you can always say it is in fulfilment of a vow for answered prayer.”

“That is nothing more than the truth, after all,” Wilhelmina decided.

The day of departure came and she took her leave-but not before learning the whereabouts of the nearest ley and how it connected with Sant’Antimo. “What about the circle in the sanctuary atrium?” she remembered asking. “Is that a ley threshold?”

“There is a force there, very powerful. I have measured it, but never attempted to use it. I believe it to be unstable, unpredictable. It must be studied further. Besides, it is too public,” the monk told her. “Nevertheless, these mountains are seamed through and through with lines of power-these leys, as you call them. The one nearest the observatory-the one I showed you? — that one joins Sant’Antimo.”

“That is how you got here the first time.”

“Exactly.” He raised a finger in warning. “Use it, but use it carefully. We never know who may be watching.”

Wilhelmina thanked him for his care and departed, returning the next spring and then again the following autumn-a pattern that was to repeat until she became a familiar sight around the monastery grounds. Her friends there were happy to see her, and she slowly became attached to the place.

“Do you know Thomas Young?” Brother Lazarus asked Mina on that first visit. “A physician in London? Have you ever crossed paths with him at all?”

“I feel certain I would know if I had,” she replied. “But no. Is he a fellow traveller?”

“I have never heard that he was, but it would not surprise me. His experiments in 1807 established the foundation on which the edifice of quantum physics is constructed.” Brother Lazarus went on to explain, in almost reverential tones, about the man who had discovered the dual nature of light as both particles and waves. “If that was not enough, he also helped establish archaeology as a science and in 1814 succeeded in cracking the code of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.”

“He sounds fascinating,” she concluded. “He lives in London, you say?”

“He did.” The monk nodded. “A most fascinating man is Thomas Young.”

That was the first time Wilhelmina heard of Dr. Young. It would not be the last.