Chapter 40

IT WAS at the transept end of the Temple of the Concourse that I found Thera, stooping over a spinning-wheel Knutsson had patiently carpentered together for her use. Her sandaled foot rested on the rocking treadle and the massed gold of her hair was luminous in the side-light that fell across her loosely-gowned shoulders. And her eyes, as she spun the rough native wool into threads, were remote and ruminative. There was something so elemental, so timeless, in that picture of her as she stooped over her purring whee…