The Whirling Girl by Barbara Lambert

surely she could bushwhack her way home with the help of that moon. But the young Dane, Anders, came up beside her, proffering a platter of red, oozing bruschetta. He stared at her with such alarming intensity that she wondered if he was going to ask her to read his thesis. Instead, he started telling her how keenly he had been following the work of Geoffrey Kane, how he looked forward to talking to her about it when they could find a quiet opportunity. She took a slice of bruschetta and held it, trying to control herself enough to speak.
    â€œHere,” Anders finally said. “I will give you this.” He reached into the pocket of his shirt for a newspaper clipping. “Please remember, I am the one
simpatico
you can trust.” He strode into the house.
    He had given her an article from the
International Herald Tribune
. By Fufluns. Her uncle really had used the name of the Etruscan Dionysus.
    To find herself holding that bit of yellowed newspaper was one thing too much. She shoved the clipping in her pocket, wheeled around, and took a blind step towards escape.
    SHE FOUND HERSELF GLUED to a stocky weathered man, with the tomato-garlic thing oozing between them.
    â€œYou’re supposed to eat it, not wear it,” he said as they peeled apart. “Just a little Italy tip. When in doubt, treat anything they hand you as food.”
    He was very tanned, but shaggy; he made her think of a shaggy lion. His eyes were so blue she wondered if he wore contact lenses.
    He would be the archaeologist who worked for Sir Harold Plank. The giveaway? The half-unbuttoned shirt, the chest hair.
    â€œYou must be the niece of Kane,” he said.
    It was marvellous and pathetic how one’s mood could turn around. A vain, grizzled man looking at her in a carnivorous way. She found herself laughing.
    â€œThe niece of Kane? And this is the mark of Kane?” she said, looking down at her shirt. “What a mess. And yours too!”
    â€œDon’t give it a thought. I was wondering how to introduce myself.”
    â€œI’m leaving. We’d better pass like mess-ups in the night.”
    â€œTerrible idea.”
    â€œWe’d have to stand with our faces to the wall.”
    â€œWe’ll face them together.” He doubled his fists, pummelled the air. “We’ll say we were attacked by errant comestibles and had to beat them off with sticks.”
    â€œThat could work.”
    He dropped the fists and looked weary, as if the nonsense had taken more out of him than it deserved. He turned to gaze out over the valley in a Lion Rampant sort of way. He might have been a blocky statue, if Clare were to ignore the hot-hide smell pulsing through the lemony aftershave. The silence extended. She studied his big hands braced on the stone wall. Wide fingers. A battered ring twisted to form a snake with a ruby eye. He was consciously letting the silence harden, she thought. She could feel silky currents sideslipping in the dusk
    â€œI’ve seen your book,” he said. “Your friend Sir Harry tells me you’re tackling Tuscany now. Where to after that? Karnak, I suppose.” She tried to remember where Karnak was. “I’m not sure that fits my schedule.”
    â€œWhat? Not see that famous wall which records of the spoils of Thutmose the Third, from his campaigns in Syria!” His voice shifted into the singsong. “
And My Majesty saith, all these plants exist in very truth. My majesty hath wrought this, in order for them to be before my father Ammon, in this great hall forever and ever.
”
    He turned sideways, one hand above the other, palms down, like a figure in a frieze. “Carved in hieroglyphics, of course.”
    â€œTHIS GUY TRIES TO sound erudite, but don’t be fooled.” The brassy-voiced woman who’d come up beside them made Clare think of one of those ballet figures by Degas: a short tulle skirt, platform sandals laced like ballet slippers, black