A God in Every Stone Read Online Free Page A

never told anyone.
    Tahsin Bey sat back on his elbows and looked at her, amazed.
    â€“ Well, you did. So – disappointed?
    â€“ Disappointed? The impatience of the English! One day, I’ll hold the Circlet in my hands. Why must it be today? And anyway – how can anyone feel disappointment here?
    Tahsin Bey unfurled his long limbs and stood up, his arms spread wide to encompass the Temple complex, the plains of Mylasa below, the mountains around, and the Halicarnassus peninsula in the distance.
    â€“ Caria! Vivian Rose, if you’re going to give your summers over to excavating one of its most sacred spots you must know the rest of it as well.
    There had been no talk until now of Viv’s participation in future digs, no talk of next month, let alone next year. But she stood up beside him, ignoring the annoyed bark of Alice who disliked it when the tininess of her own legs was brought to her attention.
    â€“ I want to see all of it before I go. Mylasa, Halicarnassus, Alinda, Caryanda . . .
    â€“ That English impatience again. Here’s an idea – if you’re willing to cut short your time in Constantinople, why don’t you travel up the coast with us? We’ll see some of Caria, and places beyond. Ephesus. Troy!
    â€“ Us? You and Alice?
    â€“ No, no. Wilhelm and Gretel and me. You’ve heard us talk about it.
    â€“Yes, of course. I am sorry. Of course you wouldn’t have suggested . . .
    â€“ Of course I wouldn’t! Your father – !
    â€“ He’d never speak to either of us again.
    â€“ Either that, or he’d force us to get married to preserve your honour.
    She would have thought it a joke if not for his own startled response to the words out of his mouth. He picked up Alice, mumbled something she didn’t catch, and hurried down the slope towards the sound of spades and chisels, leaving Viv in the silence of the plane-tree grove, breathing in the sacred air of Labraunda, trying to understand the rapid staccato of her heart.
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    The dig ended. The archaeologists disbanded with promises to meet the following summer; the foreman and his team picked up their spades and walked single file down the mountain towards the construction work that awaited them; Alice was sent ahead to Tahsin Bey’s home in Bodrum, along with Nergiz the cook and her family, and the donkey train carrying the season’s finds. Several of the archaeologists including Anna and Mehmet departed for Constantinople. Viv, Tahsin Bey, Wilhelm and Gretel set off on horseback towards the coast of Anatolia.
    They rode in single file or two-by-two. The configurations changed at first, but soon a pattern was established: the two Germans together a little way ahead, Tahsin Bey and Viv following. When they stopped to walk around a town or a site, it was the same – the Germans striding away, the other two moving at a slower pace. At first the atmosphere between Tahsin Bey and Viv was strange, due to the absence of the pug. Alice had always been the diverting presence to whom they could turn when the silence between them lengthened and threatened to change shape. But soon they learned to be as comfortable in silence as in conversation, and Viv’s suspicion that no one in the world was more interesting than Tahsin Bey became conviction. In Labraunda they had spoken mainly of the site and its discoveries, but as they rode she saw there was nothing he didn’t hold in his mind – the story of every ancient stone, the calls of individual birds, the plays and sonnets of Shakespeare, the overlap and contrasts of the Bible and Qur’an, the history of the tango.
    One afternoon, they stood on a low cliff overlooking the Aegean Sea, the salt of it in their mouths and on their skin while the Germans waded in the water below. It was their last day in what-had-once-been-Caria.
    With the toe of his shoe Tahsin Bey – almost daintily – drew a shape in the sand on the clifftop.