Page 18 of Under a Spanish Sky

‘Yes, pretty unusual. Especially for a place like this that must get loads of snow each year. Tell you what, I’ll put the television on.

That might tell us a bit more.’ He looked around for the remote control and, to his discomfort, discovered it on the floor halfway between the bed and the TV.

Gingerly, shyly, he slipped out of the other side of the bed and retrieved it, acutely aware of his nakedness.

A quick glance at her face revealed nothing as he slipped back under the protection of the sheets. Not, that was, until she spoke.

‘Do you always sleep with no clothes on?’

He dropped the remote control onto the bedcover and very nearly knocked it back onto the floor again. He felt himself blush bright red.

‘Um yes, at least, sometimes.’ He cleared his throat and tried to affect a tone of normality. ‘How… why do you ask?’ His voice tailed off and the smile on her face broadened.

‘Do you really want to know?’ Her voice was full of pure mischief. She was enjoying herself now.

‘Um, I’m not sure I should, but yes, how did you know?’ He waited anxiously.

‘I didn’t.’ She giggled like a little girl. Her air of mischief increased even more. ‘Call it a wild guess, or divine inspiration.’

‘At least I see you have better taste in sleeping attire than I have.’ He tried to get the conversation back into less troubled waters. Once again there was the schoolgirl giggle.

‘This isn’t sleeping attire. I don’t wear these in bed. These are my clothes for wandering into strange men’s bedrooms.’

This time he was determined not to let her have the satisfaction of embarrassing him again. ‘Did you say strange? Am I that abnormal?’

‘If you’re abnormal, who wants normality?’

The expression on her face threw him once more into confusion.

He did his best to return to practical matters.

‘If it’s snowing like there’s no tomorrow, what are we going to do?

The Range Rover should get through just about anything, but I must admit I’m not that keen on a day of inching my way through thick snow, waiting for some moron to come sliding into the front of us. ’

‘Besides which,’ Amy answered immediately, ‘I imagine the snowploughs will concentrate on the main road. They won’t get round to the minor roads for a good while.’

He was interested. ‘What’s the significance of the minor roads? Isn’t there just one road out of the mountains from here?’ He hadn’t looked at the map for a while, but he seemed to remember just the one red road leading down from Jaca.

‘Ah, but that’s the obvious way. The way they would be expecting him to take. I think his big secret’s to be found at the Monastery of San Juan de la Pena.’ Once again the note of satisfaction in her voice. She had obviously had their invented story on her mind. He concentrated hard in his turn.

‘The Monastery of San Juan would be a hard day’s march off the beaten track. Why should the big secret be up there? And what is this secret anyway?’

She settled herself on the floor by the side of the bed, her head on her hands as she started to feel her way through her explanation.

‘I couldn’t sleep last night, at least it took me a fair while before I finally dropped off.

I spent ages thinking about our man, and our woman for that matter, and just what their mission might be.

Where are we?’ Pretty obviously she wasn’t asking about the Hostal Somport in Jaca.

‘We’re in the spring of the year 1314, aren’t we?

’ She didn’t wait for his reply. ‘The secret has to be somehow linked to the Templars.’ Her voice halted as she thought hard. He did his best to do the same.

‘Remember the Templars were supposed to have had close links with the Arabs. Arab culture was streets ahead of Western culture in those days, particularly as far as mathematics and the sciences generally were concerned. Maybe the big secret was the proof that the earth really goes round the sun, two centuries before Galileo, or that the earth wasn’t flat after all. ’ He looked down at her.

‘What about the cathedrals?’ She nodded slowly as she followed his line of thought.

‘It was around then that the broken-arch Gothic style hit Europe. Buildings suddenly started to be taller and taller. To most people it was a mystery the masons kept very close to their chests. There are those who would have the Templars as the source of the information. Yes, that might well be it.’ Her voice was more excited.

‘Maybe they were going to pick up a document of some kind. A theorem or a calculation. You could be right.’

‘Mind you—’ he was teasing her now ‘—it might have been an object. Don’t forget that the Middle Ages were the time of holy relics. Bits of saintly bodies were being carted all round Europe. How about a piece of the True Cross, straw from the stable in Bethlehem or a thorn from the crown of thorns?’

She turned her face towards him, her expression puzzled. ‘You’re right; it could have been anything like that. Wasn’t there a nun who bit off the finger of a mummified saint so she could take it back to her abbey? They were deeply into those things then. I wonder…’

He lay back and wondered in his turn, partly about their medieval man and his mission, but more particularly about his own situation.

He could smell the scent of her beside him and most probably she could smell him.

She was beautiful and very, very desirable.

In spite of all his good intentions, he felt a wave of emotion rising up in him.

And there was no getting away from the fact that it felt very, very good.

She was so close he could have reached out and taken her in his arms. She was silent at his side, happy and content and if she had any worries about being in the same bedroom as a naked man, she was keeping them well hidden.

For his part, he wondered what Father Tim would make of this scene.

Unsurprisingly, her mind was running along similar tracks.

‘I wonder what my guardians would think if they saw us now. It was bad enough getting them to agree to my coming on this trip with you. What on earth was I doing, travelling halfway round Europe with a strange man?’ She raised her head.

‘I suspect neither of them has ever been any further than Eastbourne. Shock, horror, shame. I was bringing the family name into disrepute, consorting with this ruffian.’

‘It’s the Irish blood on my mother’s side.’ He was grinning.

‘And now, here I am in his bedroom…’

‘I think I might be out of a job.’ His voice sounded strained to both of them.

She laughed, but it rang hollow. For an instant, Luke found himself imagining how he would feel if she were suddenly removed from his life. He swallowed hard. There was no doubt he would miss her terribly, even after less than a month together.

He watched her face. It remained expressionless. He found himself wondering if she was aware of his inner turmoil. Maybe this might be the right time to come clean about his background, his doubts and his fears. He cleared his throat, searching for words, but she beat him to it.

‘Well, if we’re not going anywhere today, I’m off to wash my hair. In fact I might even go out and get it done properly. I have to look my best for this evening after all.’ She jumped to her feet and he found himself asking why.

‘The date, Dumbo – 25 April. Mean anything to you, does it? It does to Father Tim and he told me.’ She stopped at the door and grinned back at him as he realised that it was his birthday. ‘I think a night out on the town might well be in order, don’t you?’