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them congregated outside their rooms, McLeod glanced at his watch and moved into the
doorway of the room he had been allotted.
 We d better see about getting some sleep, he muttered, glancing sternly at Peregrine.
 And you, laddie - you ve no business casting calf s eyes at Miss Caitlin. Are you
forgetting you re engaged to be married? So taken aback was Peregrine by this comment
that a snort of embarrassed laughter escaped him.
 Of course I haven t forgotten. Julia s a super girl. I assure you that my interest in the
lovely Caitlin is entirely chaste. I m more fascinated by her past than by her present.
 Well, if you re going to dwell on the past, you d be better advised to concentrate on
Bonnie Dundee, McLeod said, and closed his door behind him. The abruptness of his
retreat left Peregrine speechless, and he glanced at Adam for reassurance.
 Don t take it personally, Adam said.  He s getting a bit nervous, and who can blame
him? He doesn t often have advance warning that he s going to have to function as a
medium, or knowledge of who it s likely to be. No matter how experienced one is, it has
to be somewhat daunting to know that, if we achieve what we re setting out to do, an
alien intelligence is going to take him over, body and soul. After all, what if the  guest
chose not to leave? It isn t likely, I ll grant you, but the part of the human mind that isn t
rational - simply isn t rational.
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Peregrine nodded.  I hadn t thought about that aspect of it. I guess I d be edgy too. He
glanced at his watch.  What time do you think we ll start?  Probably not until ten or
eleven, Adam replied,  so you have time for a substantial nap. I expect someone will be
around to knock on our doors about half an hour before. Incidentally, in Sir John s
tradition, it s customary to bathe before embarking upon a ritual, as much to cleanse the
mind of inappropriate thoughts and distractions as to cleanse the body. It s possible the
bath will be lit by candlelight, so don t be surprised. It s intended to help create the
proper mind-set.
Peregrine nodded.  Fair enough. I guess I ll see you later, then.
 You will, indeed. Do try to sleep.
Peregrine s room was directly opposite Adam s, a pleasant, airy chamber with walls
panelled halfway up in seasoned oak the shade of dark honey. As he closed the door
behind him, he saw that his overnight bag and his artist s satchel had been set on a carved
chest at the foot of the elaborate tester bed. He loosened his tie as he walked over to the
wide, bowfront window, glancing out at the walled Elizabethan herb garden below,
fragrant with beds of sage and rosemary and thyme, planted around a green bay tree at
the center. Even from two floors up, Peregrine could hear the drone of bees among the
patches of sweet lavender along the borders.
Breathing deeply of the garden s sweetness, he doffed his blazer and draped it on the
back of a chair. Then he closed the curtains on the bow window and kicked off his shoes
before lying down on the bed, setting his glasses on the table beside. With so much to
think about, he was inclined to lie awake, but mindful of Adam s instructions, he touched
the stone of his dragon ring briefly to his lips, then closed his eyes and set himself to go
through a series of breathing exercises designed to compose the mind and relax the body.
After a while, his brain began to clear of questions and images. Not long after, he settled
into dreamless and restful suspension between sleep and trance. He was roused some time
later to a knock at the door.  Who is it? he called, sitting up and groping for his glasses,
for the room was dark now.
 It s Noel. I m done in the bath, and yours is running.
 Thanks, I ll be right there, he replied.
He turned on the bedside light to discover that someone, probably Linton, had been in
the room while he slept, and had laid out a light blue terry-cloth robe at the foot of the
bed. Taking that as a hint, he stripped down and donned it before poking his head into the
corridor and then padding past McLeod s door to the bathroom. It was, indeed, lit by a
candle, and while he lay back briefly in the warm water, he spent several minutes gazing
into its flame and letting the flicker focus his thoughts toward the work ahead.
When he returned to his room a quarter hour later, he found it lit by candlelight as well,
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his own clothes hung up in the wardrobe and a dark swath of black silk laid out on the
bed that turned out to be a caftan-like robe with a hood. The cincture beside it, when he
held it closer to the candlelight, proved to be red.
Since he clearly was intended to wear the garment, Peregrine doffed the terry-cloth robe
and slipped on the black one, shivering slightly at the slither of the silk against bare flesh.
Except for the hood and the color, it was similar in style to the soutanes of sapphire blue
that members of the Hunting Lodge wore when working formal ritual in the chapel in
Strathmourne s cellar, but he was not sure he liked wearing black for working ritual. As
he was knotting the cincture around his waist to close the robe, a light rap at the door
made him look up. At his word of acknowledgement, the door opened and Adam entered,
also robed in black.
 I see you re about ready, he said.  I expect we ll be called downstairs very shortly.
Have you any questions before we go?
 None that I can think of offhand, Peregrine said. He indicated the cincture around his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]