Although the sky seemed clear and the day mild enough, they accepted the old fisherman's advice, and prepared to spend the night idly drifting in the sluggish river current. After supper, Cait soon lost interest in listening to the sailors trade sea tales and watching the knights drink wine; she summoned a complaining Alethea and went below deck to bed. In her sleep, she dreamed that she and her father had completed the pilgrimage and returned home. She awakened when she felt the ship begin to move again and went up on deck to find what at first sight appeared to be a dream come true: they were back in Caithness.

The sky was thick and dark and low; clouds lay on the hilltops and it was raining gently. The hills themselves were green and steep, and covered with splotches of yellow gorse and the criss-crossing patterns of sheep trails etched in the thick turf. The rounded bulges of granite boulders broke the smooth surface of the hills, like the tops of ancient grey skull-bones wearing through their moss-green burial shroud.

White morning mist searched down the slopes, twisting around the stones with long, ghostly fingers.

In all, the landscape of Galicia evoked her homeland so suddenly and solidly that before Cait knew it, tears were running down her cheeks. More mystified than melancholy, she nevertheless felt the inexplicable pull of her far-off homeland and marvelled that this place should appear so remarkably like Scotland.

'Here, my lady,' called the old pilot from the helm, 'I never saw a place looked more like home. If I knew no better, I'd say we were come to Caithness.'

'He is right,' remarked Olvir. 'I was thinking the same thing.'

Cait nodded and moved quickly to the rail so that Haemur and the others would not see her crying; she stood wrapped in her mantle gazing at the mist-covered hills as they slid slowly past. When the knights came on deck to break fast, she was dry-eyed once more and ready to embark on the next stage of the journey.

It was after midday when the ship came to the small river town of Iria. 'There is a hostler at the crossroads in the town. You can hire horses from him,' Gines told them. 'Compostela is not far, and you will soon be there.'

As it happened, the hostler had only two horses left for hire. Not wishing to wait until others became available, Cait took the two: for herself and Rognvald. The others, she decided, could remain behind with the ship, and she and Rognvald would travel more quickly without a crowd to slow them. Thus, they set off early the next day and undertook the ride through thickly wooded countryside. The road was old and straight, a Roman road, but well-maintained and busy, passing through several little hamlets and holdings in the valley bottoms.

They rode through forests of beech and oak, damp from the rain and heavy with the smell of ferns. As the day progressed, the clouds parted and the sun grew warm. They began to pass bedraggled travellers on foot, some cloaked in brown and stumping along with long wooden staffs, wearing wide-brimmed cockle hats. Most of those they passed had scallop shells sewn on their hats and on their cloaks. No doubt, she reckoned, these were some of the pilgrims Abu had mentioned; but what the crude symbol might signify, she could not imagine. They also overtook farmers carrying braces of chickens, trudging along beside their wives lugging baskets of eggs, or bunches of onions, or carrots, or bushels of beans, and once an oxcart piled high with turnips, and another with yellow squash as big and round as heads.

They made good time and reached the walls of Compostela before sunset. The city gates were still open and upon passing through, they immediately entered a wide stone-paved street leading to a great square, in the centre of which stood an enormous basilica. On this pleasant summer's eve, pilgrims without number thronged the square; those who were not waiting their turn to go into the church were either encamped on the bare earth of the square, or crowding around one of the scores of booths and stalls which had been set up to sell food, clothing, or trinkets-such as painted scallop shells, brass badges, drinking gourds, or sandals-to the restless pilgrim population that ebbed and flowed through the city like a brown, beggarly tide.

'He must be a miracle man, this saint of theirs,' observed Rognvald in amazement at the hordes. 'I have not seen anything of this kind since Jerusalem, and even there it was not like this.'

Besides the holy wanderers, there were traders, moneychangers, merchants, vendors of food and drink and the produce of the surrounding fields, and labourers of every kind. For the precinct of Sancti lacobi was rapidly becoming a town in its own right; with a dozen or more grand buildings in various stages of construction, the square seemed more like a building site than an ecclesiastical precinct.

In the streets surrounding the square numerous inns had been built to serve travellers of better means. Cait decided on a small establishment with a red rose painted on a placard above the door. 'This is the one for us,' she said, and Rognvald went in to enquire about rooms for the night.

'They will have us,' he reported, 'for two silver denari a night -each. There are others who will take less.'

'I am content,' she replied. Lord Rognvald signalled a young man who came at a run to take their horses; as he led them away, Cait and Rognvald went in to make the acquaintance of the innkeeper, a small bald man with a large moustache and a swollen jaw from an abscessed tooth. He was wearing a poultice of herbs soaked in vinegar and wrapped in a cloth tied to the top of his head. 'Peace and comfort, my friends,' he said thickly, trying to smile through his pain. 'I am Miguel. Welcome to my house. Please, come in and sit while I make your rooms ready. There is bread on the table and wine in the jar. I also have ale, if you prefer. Supper will be served at sundown.'

He heeded off, pressing a hand to the side of his cheek, and Cait and Rognvald found places at one of the two large tables in the centre of the hall-like room, one side of which was taken up by a great hearth on which half a pig was sizzling away over a bed of glowing coals. Owing to the cost of the rooms the inn was not crowded, and the guests were of a higher rank than the mendicants who swarmed to the monastery porches and hospices. Their fellow-lodgers were merchants and wealthier pilgrims for whom a visit to the shrine of the blessed saint was not a particular hardship.

Still, after the fresh air of the open sea, Cait found the smoky confines of the inn almost suffocating and was heartily glad when, after a supper of roast pork, bean soup, mashed turnips, and boiled greens, she could at last leave Rognvald and the travelling tradesmen to their stoups of ale and news of the world and retire to her room. Not much larger than her quarters aboard ship, it was swept clean, and the box which made the bed was filled with fresh straw and the coverings were washed linen.

She undressed, hanging her mantle and shift on a peg on the door, and happily sank into the bed-only to spend an all-but-sleepless night scheming how best to get Archbishop Bertrano to reveal the secret of the Mystic Rose. She had had plenty of time to ponder this since leaving Constantinople. But as many plans as she had made, that many had been discarded along the way. Now it was time to decide, and she was still far from certain what to do.

The following morning, as they walked across the busy square, an anxious Cait schooled a thoughtful Rognvald in the necessity of gaining the cleric's confidence before broaching the true subject of their visit. 'He must not suspect we are anything but genuine pilgrims,' she said. 'We will get the measure of him first, and then decide how to proceed. Understand?'

'Aye,' replied Rognvald, absently, 'I understand.'