lurching nightmare of the last three days.
A hand touched his arm, and he turned to Rebecca. She was dressed in jeans and an IMU T-shirt. “Feeling better?” she said. Jack nodded, smiling. Her accent was American, and her voice was developing the depth that Jack had found attractive in her mother. Rebecca was black-haired, as Elizabeth had been, but had Jack’s blue eyes. There was a sadness in them, a sadness that would always be there, and Jack’s heart went out to a child who had experienced the loss of her mother, and had grown up apart from her real parents. Jack had only known he was a father since the appalling circumstances of Elizabeth’s disappearance and death in Naples less than a year before. Elizabeth had left him sixteen years earlier when she had succumbed to family pressure to return to Naples, and Jack realized she could only have known she was pregnant once she had been sucked back into the dark underworld from which she never found an escape. She had not wanted to risk bringing up her daughter in that world and had sent her to New York. Rebecca had grown up strong and confident under the guardianship of her mother’s friends, and when Elizabeth had explained to her the reasons why, the dark backdrop of her life in Naples, she had understood as only a child could, absorbed in the excitements of her own life. But the death of her mother had been devastating, and after Jack had first met Rebecca in New York, his friends at IMU had become a second family to her. Jack had gone with her to Naples for the commemoration held by her mother’s colleagues from the archaeological superintendency on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, overlooking the Roman site that had been Elizabeth’s lifelong work, and the modern city whose dark tentacles had taken her life. Jack knew they were still there, those who had used her, worn her down, even among her own family, but there was to be no retribution; that cycle had been the poison that killed her. His choice, the one Elizabeth would have craved, was to walk away and take their daughter with him, to create a new and exciting world for Rebecca that would help her package the past in a place where it would never threaten to take hold of her. Jack would never know whether Elizabeth had intended to tell him about their daughter, but he could not afford to dwell on it. His responsibility now was Rebecca’s happiness. He put his hand on hers. “I feel fine,” he said. “I just needed some off-time.”
“For three days? You? Dad.” She had only just begun calling him that. “It’s me, remember? You don’t need to play the hero.”
Jack gestured at what she was holding. “What’s the book?”
“A guy called Cosmas Indicopleustes. That means Cosmas, sailor of the Indian Ocean. He was an Egyptian monk who came here in the sixth century AD. I was doing background reading, like you asked. Being your research assistant. I found this in your library.”
“What does he say about Sri Lanka?”
She opened the book and read:
“The island being, as it is, in a central position, is much frequented by ships from all parts of India and from Persia and Ethiopia, and it likewise sends many of its own. And from the remotest countries, I mean Tzinitza, it receives silks, aloes, cloves and other products, and these again are passed on to marts on this side. And the island receives imports from all these marts which we have mentioned and passes them on to the remoter ports, while at the same time, exporting its produce in both directions. And farther away is the clove country, then Tzinitza, which produces the silk. Beyond this there is no other country, for the Ocean surrounds it to the east.”
She closed the book. “Okay. Tzinitza is China, the clove country is Indonesia. What he’s saying is that Sri Lanka was a kind of clearinghouse, midway between two worlds. Captain Macalister suggested I look at the Admiralty chart. I saw how treacherous this strait is, a deathtrap
A hand touched his arm, and he turned to Rebecca. She was dressed in jeans and an IMU T-shirt. “Feeling better?” she said. Jack nodded, smiling. Her accent was American, and her voice was developing the depth that Jack had found attractive in her mother. Rebecca was black-haired, as Elizabeth had been, but had Jack’s blue eyes. There was a sadness in them, a sadness that would always be there, and Jack’s heart went out to a child who had experienced the loss of her mother, and had grown up apart from her real parents. Jack had only known he was a father since the appalling circumstances of Elizabeth’s disappearance and death in Naples less than a year before. Elizabeth had left him sixteen years earlier when she had succumbed to family pressure to return to Naples, and Jack realized she could only have known she was pregnant once she had been sucked back into the dark underworld from which she never found an escape. She had not wanted to risk bringing up her daughter in that world and had sent her to New York. Rebecca had grown up strong and confident under the guardianship of her mother’s friends, and when Elizabeth had explained to her the reasons why, the dark backdrop of her life in Naples, she had understood as only a child could, absorbed in the excitements of her own life. But the death of her mother had been devastating, and after Jack had first met Rebecca in New York, his friends at IMU had become a second family to her. Jack had gone with her to Naples for the commemoration held by her mother’s colleagues from the archaeological superintendency on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, overlooking the Roman site that had been Elizabeth’s lifelong work, and the modern city whose dark tentacles had taken her life. Jack knew they were still there, those who had used her, worn her down, even among her own family, but there was to be no retribution; that cycle had been the poison that killed her. His choice, the one Elizabeth would have craved, was to walk away and take their daughter with him, to create a new and exciting world for Rebecca that would help her package the past in a place where it would never threaten to take hold of her. Jack would never know whether Elizabeth had intended to tell him about their daughter, but he could not afford to dwell on it. His responsibility now was Rebecca’s happiness. He put his hand on hers. “I feel fine,” he said. “I just needed some off-time.”
“For three days? You? Dad.” She had only just begun calling him that. “It’s me, remember? You don’t need to play the hero.”
Jack gestured at what she was holding. “What’s the book?”
“A guy called Cosmas Indicopleustes. That means Cosmas, sailor of the Indian Ocean. He was an Egyptian monk who came here in the sixth century AD. I was doing background reading, like you asked. Being your research assistant. I found this in your library.”
“What does he say about Sri Lanka?”
She opened the book and read:
“The island being, as it is, in a central position, is much frequented by ships from all parts of India and from Persia and Ethiopia, and it likewise sends many of its own. And from the remotest countries, I mean Tzinitza, it receives silks, aloes, cloves and other products, and these again are passed on to marts on this side. And the island receives imports from all these marts which we have mentioned and passes them on to the remoter ports, while at the same time, exporting its produce in both directions. And farther away is the clove country, then Tzinitza, which produces the silk. Beyond this there is no other country, for the Ocean surrounds it to the east.”
She closed the book. “Okay. Tzinitza is China, the clove country is Indonesia. What he’s saying is that Sri Lanka was a kind of clearinghouse, midway between two worlds. Captain Macalister suggested I look at the Admiralty chart. I saw how treacherous this strait is, a deathtrap
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