“An opera, darling. There’s no Cecil B. alongside. Wish that was me on there. Those divine costumes. And just dwell on that gorgeous vision with the cloak over his shoulder. Risqué as Lord Byron. Bet he goes off with a bang!”

“Well, they’ve upstaged us,” was the rejoinder.

“Let’s get some canapés. Ooh, isn’t your dress gorgeous, sweetie.” The first voice drooled at Lucy as they flounced off.

Lucy hadn’t taken in their remarks, nor noticed that Alex had moved just behind her. Her mind and her entire being were focused on the group on the barge. They, in their turn, stared back—right at her, she thought—their eyes and faces riveted on Lucy and the boat. A dark, velvet-robed man held Lucy’s gaze magnetically. They were like parted friends. For an eternity of seconds they locked together, unable to free themselves.

He was heavily accented when he spoke, as the magnificent barge came almost abreast of the gunwales of her boat. She could smell an exotic mix: roses, and limes, as well as cats and drains and dinners. Bizarre. She heard the words toll from him like a rounded bell: “Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas.”

He pronounced them in her mind as clearly as if he was standing beside her. The two vessels swung past each other and on at speed, sweeping through the uneven water levels that momentarily brought the Scylla to the Thames. There was a sucking, eddying current between the two boats; then they were parted by the moving tide. The barge straightened and headed for what Lucy perceived in a descending darkness to be a set of steps on the foreshore, with a garden, and a lane just visible between some houses leading toward a church further inland.

Lucy’s heart thumped, actually thudded; her immediate world sounded hollow, as when your head dips under water, with a resounding echo filling in the space. The people on her boat appeared in limbo, though she could feel the heat of Alex’s physical presence somewhere close to her. She could see clearly to the shoreline. A large bearded man, dressed like a robed academic, followed by others, came running through the garden, and the occupants of the barge began to spill onto the steps. The clarion call came again, but now it clanged instead of ringing out sweetly, like a cracked church bell. What an astonishing retinue—an amazing party. They were all in perfect period costume, the trumpeters in their bright red still sounding a fanfare; and the robed professorial man bowed before the princely being who had been on the barge. The foreign man—a monk, perhaps, though more grandly attired—with whom she had locked eyes, disembarked, as did several finely clad noblemen, and a number of other people of seemingly less importance. They turned back toward the river for a second, saluting her discreetly, before moving across the grass in the disappearing light.