“Too bad we can’t take the bike. How was the ride with Anni?”
He backed up, swung around, headed down the bumpy drive toward the road. “There’s a village about eight kilometers off the route I took. It has a couple shops. I’m still wondering how she talked me into turning off and stopping.”
“She has breasts.”
“She’s another man’s woman.”
“Who still has breasts. And a whole truckload of charm.” She shifted to take the weight off her left hip.
“You took a good spill toward the end of hand-to-hand.”
“Sasha’s craftier than she used to be. My mistake for holding back.”
“Bran could have taken care of any bruises.”
“You don’t have a few bruises, it wasn’t a good fight.”
The world was beautiful here, she thought. Untamed and rugged even with the rolls of green, the bundles of cropping sheep. It had a wild, timeless feel that had always spoken to her.
The farmer in the field with his tractor—hadn’t his ancestors cultivated that same field with plow and horse? And the simple art of those stone walls. Hadn’t those stones been dug and pulled out of those same fields by hands now buried in graveyards?
Take away the paved road, the cars, the scatter of modern houses, and it wouldn’t look so very different from when Doyle had lived here. Which was something, she thought, he was bound to feel.
Above, the sky had gone from soft blue to sulky with clouds. They drove into rain, then out again.
“Biggest invention or discovery.”
He spared her a frown. “What?”
“What’s your pick for most important invention or discovery—since you’ve seen a bunch of them in three centuries—to date.”
“I’m not looking to take a quiz.”
“It’s not a quiz, it’s a question. I’m interested in your opinion on it.”
He might have preferred silence, but knew her well enough now to know she’d keep at him. “Electricity, as it opened the door to other advances that needed it.”
“Yeah, a big leap. I
go with fire—the discovery. But for technology, can’t argue with electricity.”
“If you’re going back to the dawn of time—which is well before mine—you’d have the invention of common tools, the wheel.”
“Discovering salt and its uses,” she added. “Herbal medicines, learning how to make brick, cut stone, build wells and aqueducts. Did you go to school? You’re going to want to take a left on the road coming up.”
He made the turn, said nothing.
“It’s tough for someone in my line of work not to have some curiosity about a man who’s lived through eras I’ve studied. That’s all.”
“I had schooling.”
“I wondered if, given the amount of time and opportunities, you’d gone for more education.”
“I learned when something interested me.”
“Uh-huh.” The road narrowed, wound, and snaked. She loved these kinds of roads, the quick turns, the hedgerows, the blurry flash of a dooryard garden. “Languages. You’ve got a good head for languages.”
“I’ve been looking for the stars longer than you’ve been alive. Longer than your grandmother’s been alive. So I’ve traveled. Traveling’s more productive if you speak the language.”