Timeline - Michael Crichton [31]
“I’m all right,” he said, a little sulky. He brushed dirt from his chin and faced her, managing to smile.
As always, he was struck by her beauty, especially at this moment, her blond hair backlit in the afternoon sun so her perfect complexion seemed to glow, setting off her deep violet eyes. Sophie Rhys-Hampton was the most beautiful woman he had ever met in his life. And the most intelligent. And the most accomplished. And the most seductive.
“Oh, Chris, Chris,” she said, brushing his face with cool fingertips. “I really do apologize. There, now. Any better?”
Sophie was a student at Cheltenham College; twenty years old, four years younger than he. Her father, Hugh Hampton, was a London barrister; he owned the farmhouse that the project rented for the summer. Sophie had come down to stay with friends in a farmhouse nearby. One day she had come round to collect something from her father’s study. Chris had seen her, and promptly walked into a tree trunk.
Which seemed to have set the tone for their relationship, he thought ruefully. She looked at him now and said, “I’m flattered I have this effect on you, Chris. But I worry for your safety.” She giggled, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “I called you today.”
“I know, I got tied up. We had a crisis.”
“A crisis? What constitutes an archaeological crisis?”
“Oh, you know. Funding hassles.”
“Oh yes. That ITC bunch. From New Mexico.” She made it sound like the ends of the earth. “Do you know, they asked to buy my father’s farm?”
“Did they?”
“They said they needed to rent it for so many years ahead, they might as well buy it. Of course he said no.”
“Of course.” He smiled at her. “Dinner?”
“Oh, Chris. I can’t tonight. But we can ride tomorrow. Shall we?”
“Of course.”
“In the morning? Ten o’clock?”
“All right,” he said. “I’ll see you at ten.”
“I’m not interrupting your work?”
“You know you are.”
“It’s quite all right to do it another day.”
“No, no,” he said. “Ten o’clock tomorrow.”
“Done,” she said, with a dazzling smile.
In fact, Sophie Hampton was almost too pretty, her figure too perfect, her manner too charming to be quite real. Marek, for one, was put off by her.
But Chris was entranced.
After she rode away, Marek charged by again. This time Chris got out of the way of the swinging quintain. When Marek trotted back, he said, “You’re being jerked around, my friend.”
“Maybe,” Chris said. But the truth was, he didn’t care.
The next day found Marek at the monastery, helping Rick Chang with the excavations into the catacombs. They had been digging here for weeks now. And it was slow going, because they kept finding human remains. Whenever they came upon bones, they stopped digging with shovels, and switched to trowels and toothbrushes.
Rick Chang was the physical anthropologist on the team. He was trained to deal with human finds; he could look at a pea-sized piece of bone and tell you whether it came from the right wrist or the left, male or female, child or adult, ancient or contemporary.
But the human remains they were finding here were puzzling. For one thing, they were all male; and some of the long bones had evidence of battle injuries. Several of the skulls showed arrow wounds. That was how most soldiers had died in the fourteenth century, from arrows. But there was no record of any battle ever fought at the monastery. At least none that they knew of.
They had just found what looked like a bit of rusted helmet when Marek’s cell phone rang. It was the Professor.
“How is it going?” Marek said.
“Fine, so far.”
“Did you meet with Doniger?”
“Yes. This afternoon.”
“And?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“They still want to go forward with the reconstruction?”
“Well, I’m not sure. Things are not quite what I expected here.” The Professor seemed vague, preoccupied.
“How’s that?”
“I can’t discuss it over the line,” the Professor said. “But I wanted to tell you: I won’t be calling in the next twelve hours. Probably not for the next twenty-four hours.”
“Uh-huh. Okay. Everything all right?”
“Everything is fine, André.”
Marek