“You said that to show how unrelated things are; but he was a pupil of John Dee.” Lucy omitted to say how strongly Sidney resembled the man she’d seen that night on the barge on the Thames. She’d visited his several portraits at the Gallery—a man of many images, which testified to the cult status he acquired after his death; and the likeness was unmistakable. A nobleman, poet, critic, as arresting as Byron—indeed, the Byron of his age. But how could she begin to explain that strange Halloween experience to anyone who wasn’t there? No sane person would give it credit, though, she thought. Alex and Amel might not judge it so. They’d seen something too. “The words on one of the texts are Sidney’s, Simon,” she continued. “The other odd thing is, my name means ‘light.’ Do you remember the lines about the ‘Lady of Light’ starting her journey in the candle month? ‘Lucy’ is a lady of light; and my February birthday is the month of Candlemas. I was born on February the third, and my father ominously used to say, ‘The music died on this day, Lucy.’ That reference is the one I showed you on the flight, in one of the texts.”

Simon thought this crushingly sad, and wondered what it revealed about her past. “Yes, I remember now—the day of the plane crash, with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper and someone—in the fifties, I think?”

Lucy was nodding. She read the feeling in Simon’s look, but didn’t want to talk about it with him. She rushed on, “We come to Alex. Some clues point to Alexander the Great, and the Stafford knot, and roses. And one I haven’t discussed. One of the first texts, in the oldest batch, talks about the River Styx, going through the realms of the dead. That was my first real date with Alex, on Halloween. The cruise was called ‘The Spirits of the Dead from the Past,’ and I dressed as Ariadne.”

“That’s why you’re interested in the pet names! We should analyze each text until we find out which place you’ve reached, in the story. Then we’ll know how it resolves. And in the meantime, as we’re on Thirty-fourth Street, let’s indeed go ‘play tourists’ and look at the Empire State. It must be relevant.”

A FEW MINUTES AFTER SEVEN P.M., ALEX SWUNG THE CAR AROUND THE CORNER into Redcliffe Square and glanced at Siân’s apartment window. He relaxed a little when he saw her lights on, and made a circuit to find an empty space. Maybe she’d gone out for something. She hadn’t answered his call a short time before, and he was worried she’d reneged on their arrangement. He climbed out, pressed the key, and the lights flashed.

Walking around the square, he looked more closely at the bulk of St. Luke’s Church, its tall spire dominating the green. Since last night’s conversation with Grace about the architecture of Chartres, he found himself more concentrated on the Gothic Revival shape—which looked forbiddingly grim, however, in the still wintry March light. The arrival of summertime after the upcoming weekend would bring a welcome psychological shift.