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Moving with an agility that surprised me, she turned the cart once more and set off at a brisk pace. She angled the conveyance so that it, and her own body, seemed to fill the hallway. “You, there,” she shouted at the soldiers, who were now only a few yards away, “don’t put those muddy boots on this clean floor. We have guests walking these hallways.”

“How can we get this old cow out of the way?” one of them shouted.

I missed her sharp retort, because Sebastianus pushed open the wooden door and pulled me inside, closing it firmly behind us, shutting out the light from the corridor. In the darkness of the steep, narrow stairwell I touched the cool stone of the wall.

“There’s nothing else to do at this point,” he whispered. “We just need to go forward.”

I was breathing hard, but I managed to say, “Yes. We go on.”

His hand grazed mine as he ran his fingers along the worn surface of the wall. “This stairway is old. Come on.”

We began to descend.

xxxi

WE MADE OUR WAY CAREFULLY DOWN THE NARROW, winding steps, Sebastianus leading. My pulse was quick, and my heart thumped so loudly in my ears that I was surprised there was no echo of it in the space around us.

“Laundry is carried up and down all this way?” he asked as we crept slowly from step to step.

I marveled at how calm he sounded. “Yes. Flavia has a troupe of boys who do the carrying.”

We reached the bottom and emerged into the cavernous room. A single lantern was lit. I dropped the dirty bundle I had been carrying and used a burning scrap of cloth to ignite several other lamps. Our eyes adjusted gradually to the dim light. It was just as I remembered it: linen drying on ropes, water dripping inside the well.

Sebastianus prowled, putting his hands on the hewn stone walls, on the damp cloth hanging everywhere, on the rough boards and stones that helped to rub fabric clean. He examined the pail of goat’s urine mixed with water that was used to remove stains. I was finally seeing the explorer, the man who crossed the continent making discoveries.

“This room is very like a cave,” he said, “more so than I imagined. And here’s the well, just as Straba wrote.”

He touched the stone lip of the well reverently, as though marveling that he stood in the same place the ancient geographer once had. “All of this is very old, and this place is remarkably dry for an underground space with water.”

I tugged him over to the little shrine. One votive was still lit, although the others had gone out. I pictured Flavia lighting it reverently before finishing her work for the day.

Sebastianus contemplated the finely carved statue of the Goddess, her rounded belly and breasts, her solemn face, her raised arms. “This has got to be absolutely ancient,” he breathed.

A faint image was carved into the rock wall just above her head. I hadn’t noticed it before. I picked up the votive and held it up, as close as I could to what was chiseled there. “Seb, look at this.”

He moved closer.

I studied it intently. “I think it is a carving of a full moon. What if this is what Straba meant when he said, guided by the Mother and the full moon? Maybe he meant exactly this, right here. This statue and the carving above it.”

He took the little candle from my hand and peered at the shape etched into the wall. “I think you could be right.”

“We misinterpreted the clue,” I said.

Sebastianus moved the small flame around the surface of the wall, looking for other markings.

I reached up and ran my fingers over the small carving. “Perhaps he didn’t want just anyone to find it.”

We were so intent on our investigation that I was startled to hear a loud grunt close to my ear and a heavy thud. Sebastianus dropped to the floor of the cave without so much as a cry.

Clemens Fabius stood beside me. “He has no peripheral vision,” he said simply, lowering a piece of rock.

I was frozen to the spot. There was blood just above Sebastianus’s ear, trickling onto the floor and congealing into a little pool.

Clemens Fabius looked me up and down and then surveyed the altar. “This is very interesting. The two of you, back here. Why? I know Sebastianus is still hunting for the caves, trying to diminish my glory. I had understood he was headed to Carrac. I was going there myself, as it so happens, thinking he might have learned something I didn’t know, but then I saw Comitissa Klaudia on the road. I followed her to Corlivo, and sure enough, the Archidux was here. Then a few moments ago Valentina mentioned that you were here also, and that the two of you were conspiring in the hallway above. How strange. I thought I’d come down and see. I had never noticed that little door before.”

My eyes darted all around, looking for a way out. There was only one entrance: the staircase down which we had come. Behind me were just the shrine and a stretch of hard wall. Sebastianus was sprawled out on the floor, bleeding, pulling my thought and focus. Clemens Fabius loomed in front of me.

He took a step nearer. “I once thought you might have discovered something interesting and told him about it. Why else would he spend so much time and money on you?” He gestured toward the statue. “But this is only superstitious nonsense.”