Sentence The Sixhundredandninetyfourth

And as they followed the river upstream, towards the distant hills, Christiane found her mind playing tricks: she remembered that the original British tribe which had controlled south-east of Scotland, and part of Northumberland was the Votadini but had no idea of the original names for the various settlements which had existed before the Romans arrived, and when they gave the name Trimontium to the Three Hills and their Camp between the North Hill and the River, there was no record of their previous, British, names, so she simply made them up or used the names familiar to her from her Own Time – wondering if this was to be her Own Time for the rest of her life (and she recalled the imago of her father, her father! she had idolised him, as a child she wanted to marry him – without thought of what her mother might say about it – and it was probably this which as an impressionable boy, then girl, still with the hateful male genitalia in those days, which had brought her to the attention of Larry, who became the next Father Figure for her and Ralphy who was like Uncle, Father
and Santa Claus rolled into one: "we call the river, Tweed," she said blithely, and showed him a place where two drove roads divided, "this is 'Shipinn', and this part of the valley is known as Maelros, it's a place where drovers take a rest, buy food and ale from the locals, before moving their flocks on," watching him make notes on one of the wax tablets he always carried with him, to be written up when they returned to the Camp, little did she think of the consternation this would cause when, near 2,000 years later, the scroll would be discovered in a metal box and it's contents translated, giving The Ship Inn and it's manager Rusty Irons not just 15 minutes of fame, but huge profits for years to come, as tourists flocked to 'The Oldest Pub in Scotland' famed even in Roman Times and before! and little did either of them know about the two pairs of eyes which had them under constant observation as they rode through the quiet countryside, following the course of the river toward it's source, while Christiane pointed out The Elwyn Glen on the opposite side, the Gala Water and Gala Hill, "the shieling is called Gallae, probably a corruption of: An Geal Àth, which is the name in the ancient tongue," she said, not knowing whether Gaelic was yet spoken or still to come, but who could contradict her? warming to her subject and wondering if anyone in the future would realise that it was she who had first given these places their modern names? perhaps Marcus would name her as the source in his account of Caledonia to The Two Emperors? and he said "look, Christiane, at the sky. . . . ." as her eyes followed the length of his arm and the direction of his pointing finger she saw a gleam, as the sunlight transformed the sky from palest blue into pink and flame red: "a chatoyant sky," murmured Marcus, brings good luck, and Christiane chanted the rhyme from childhood: "red sky at night, shepherd's delight, red sky in the morning. shepherd's warning," as Murcus slipped his arm around her waist and kissed her gently on the lips and she felt herself melt into his embrace, a

faint ripple as of silk seemed to brush across the back of her neck, but it was one thousand eight hundred and fifty four years later on the same day of the year. that Jasmine Juniper-Green, standing close beside Ludmilla Lermontova at that very spot, had cast her scarf around her neck brushing against Christiane Lauderdale at one of the thinnest skins of the Space/Time Continuum, and asked
"could we use logarithmancy to plot the Ley Lines and perhaps forecast where in the Past or Future they might conjoin?" and Ludmilla gave her a smacker of a kiss and said: "у вас есть это, дети, вы его получили!" and dancing hand in hand, the swung each other round in circles and almost collided with the couple who, still embracing, continued to gaze at the sky, oblivious to the two pairs of eyes watching them with ill-disguised contempt from the shadow of a tree on the opposite side of the valley!