Trojan Gold - Elizabeth Peters [107]
“Isn’t that a little romantic for J. S. Bach?” I asked.
John was trying to play the oboe obbligato on a tissue-covered comb. He broke off long enough to remark, “Your theology is deficient, duckie. It’s not a love song, it’s all about the marriage of the faithful soul to Christ.”
“It sounds like a love song.”
“So it does,” John said agreeably. He returned to the comb.
I fell asleep in the middle of a long lecture on horticulture—I remember he waxed eloquent on the subject of double digging, a technique on whose details I am hazy, but which, he said, his mother insisted upon—and did not waken until he moved to put more wood on the fire. I rubbed my eyes. “Sorry. I’m so tired….”
“You’ve had a busy day. Why don’t you lie down?”
“The floor’s too cold,” I mumbled.
“Come here, then.”
He was still holding me when I woke again to find that the darkness had been replaced by gray gloom. At first I thought the bright yellow streaks across the floor were paint.
“Sunlight,” I muttered.
“It’s morning,” said John. “‘Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon.’ Come on—be a big, brave girl—don’t topple over—”
I was so stiff I could hardly move. Stiff, cold, hungry…I looked up at him from under my hair. He had risen to his feet and was methodically flexing his arms, grimacing as he moved them.
“Did you sleep?” I asked.
“How could I? ‘my strength is as the strength of ten,’” John chanted, stamping his feet in cadence, “‘because my heart is pure.’”
The truce had lasted only one night, and the barriers were up again. I had expected it, but that didn’t keep me from resenting it. Silently I extended my hand; briskly he pulled me to my feet, turned me around, and gave me a hearty slap on the backside.
“Dusty,” he remarked. “Let’s have a look outside. At this moment, I’d trade you and the gold for a hot breakfast.”
I stood for a moment, stretching creaking muscles and looking around. The ruined building had been stripped of all portable objects, but even in its prime it had lacked the exuberant charm of the local Catholic churches. There was nothing to be seen except a bare floor littered with pieces of the fallen pews, bare stone walls, and boarded-up windows. Sunlight stretched long fingers through the cracks, and drifts of snow marked breaks in windows and roof. The fire had died to coals.
I pushed through the swinging doors and found myself in a narrow vestibule. The outer door was ajar, held open by a heap of drifted snow. John must have had to force it. No small feat, in that howling storm, with muscles already half frozen and my dead weight encumbering him. His footprints led up and over the drift. Shrugging into my jacket, I followed.
I had to shield my eyes with both hands. The world had changed overnight, into something so beautiful I forgot physical discomfort in sheer wonder. The sky overhead was a pure, cold blue, but behind the eastern mountains the bright shades of dawn framed the frosty peaks. The shadows on the white slopes were not gray but ravishing tints of pastel—pale rose, blue, lavender. The blanket of new snow dazzled like cold fire—swan-white, angel-white, glittering with billions of tiny sparkles.
My sunglasses were in the pocket of my jacket. After I put them on, I dared to open my eyes, and then I saw John. He was knee-deep in snow, even though he stood under the porch eaves where the