Spiral: Book One of the Spiral in Time (10 page)

Germaine felt a wave of excitement and grinned at Aubrey. She felt like shouting! Those slivers of wood were valuable. They might be the key to dating the site. With sophisticated Carbon-14 dating methods, they could identify the date of the hoard and, therefore, all the artifacts found in context.

She felt happy, for the first time in months. This was why she loved archaeology—discovering things last held in hands from thousands of years ago. She only wished the artifacts could talk to her about their owners, or the men and women who created them.

Conan took countless photographs. Germaine felt the warmth from his body next to her and tried to ignore him. She filled up pages with drawings of the hoard placement, as each piece was lifted up and placed in a carefully marked, plastic bag.

Then she stuck her trowel deep into the loose soil and hit something hard. She brushed the soil away and a line of stones emerged. The base of something. Or, possibly, a wall.

They all pondered the stones for a few minutes.

Germaine stood up. Her thumb slowly rubbed the ring on her left hand. Intense curiosity made her want to keep digging. She looked at Aubrey, her eyebrows raised in question. They did not want to disturb the context of the site. He raised his eyes to the circle of sky above the pit.

Finally, he said, “We’ll take a photo and get on with it.”

No one spoke. The only sounds were the scratch of the brush, the rasp of the trowel, and the swoosh of Conan’s broom, sweeping dirt into buckets to move out of the way.

Aubrey’s voice broke the silence. “They used to keep rabbits up here in the 19
^th
Century. Rabbit was a common part of their diet. This might be part of a wall from one of the warrens they built. The rabbits would live and mate down here and when they wanted to catch one for food, they would just close up all the openings except one, and voila, dinner would come running to them!”

“And the rabbits had swords?” Conan said, with a wink at Germaine.

“Oh! Oh! Look at this,” She was crouched down, her face close to the stones. Some had come loose. Just barely visible was a small portion of a timbered wall.

“Well, if this is a rabbit warren, someone went to a lot of trouble for their dinner,” Conan said.

No one wanted to stop. The possibility of a new discovery was too seductive. They were all hunters now, eager to find what was hidden. Aubrey took photos as Germaine measured and scraped away the chalk. Conan hauled buckets of debris up the ladder to be saved and carefully sifted through by his crew of shovel bums, and then sent to floatation tanks, where plant seeds and other microscopic remains would be analyzed. Everything found in the excavated dirt would have a meaning, even the smallest fragments.

Aubrey frowned. It had grown steadily warmer and clouds of fine chalk floated in the air, coating everything with a powder. Germaine frowned, too, and wiped her forehead. Her hands turned white with chalk dust. She sat back on her heels, wiped a dusty hand across her pants, and drew a deep breath.

“This is not a rabbit warren. I’m beginning to think it is a burial,” she said. “Look at the hoard of precious artifacts. The bones and the skull. The sacred cutting of the sword. I think there was a sacrifice made to protect someone very important. This timbered wall reminds me of one I saw in France at the burial mound of a prince of the Marne. There was a double walled timbered enclosure that made a secure room for the burial and all the valuable things that went with the deceased. Then they covered it with rocks and dirt so it was watertight and dry, and nothing would damage the burial.”

“Not so fast, my dear. What’s a Marne burial doing here? We’re in England, not France. Let’s not leap ahead so fast. We still have to see what’s inside,” Aubrey said, in a wheezing voice. It was the same strange sound in his voice she heard earlier. Now, he was having trouble breathing. She reached over, touching his forehead: he was hot. What was happening to him?

Aubrey leaned back against the side of pit and closed his eyes. “I’m not feeling so well. I guess the climb really wore me out.”

“You need to go up above and lie down. This can wait.” Germaine tried to keep the panic out of her voice and was surprised when he agreed. Something was really wrong.

They helped him climb the ladder out of the pit. He was staggering when he finally reached one of the tents and collapsed on a cot. One of Conan’s crew raced down the ramparts to get a doctor.

Germaine sat by the cot, holding his hand. He was propped up with several pillows and blankets. His face was white, and now, his hands were cold.

The army sent up a doctor who insisted on taking Aubrey to hospital—they would send in a Medic helicopter. “Just for some tests,” the doctor said, trying to reassure Germaine. “His blood pressure is very high. And, of course, we need to check his heart.” The doctor attached an oxygen line and started an IV needle in one arm.

His heart, oh, dear god. Please let him be well. He can’t leave me now.

As they lifted Aubrey onto a stretcher, he grabbed her hand.

“You’re in charge until I get back, my girl. Don’t worry. I trust you.” He was wheezing heavily. “That scabbard and sword are very interesting. Use your Aubrey sensors. Top secret technology, eh? And remember what I told you yesterday. Be careful.”

CHAPTER 5

“So it’s you and me now,” Conan said with a dazzling smile, then frowned. “But not for long. Look, we have company coming.”

Nicholas Greenwood limped across the grass toward the site, leaning heavily on his cane. Today, his dark, unruly hair was clubbed back with a leather tie, and he was not wearing Druid robes, though she still wondered what his role was with the Druids in the carpark. He was clearly their friend.

Conan folded his arms, looking intently at Greenwood. He didn’t seem pleased to see him.

“I need to talk with Sir Aubrey about the burial,” Greenwood said. He spoke to Germaine, but Conan pushed forward and answered before she could say anything.

“Sir Aubrey’s not here; he’s been taken ill. Dr. O’Neill is in charge until he returns.” Conan turned and smiled at her.

“We don’t know if it really is a burial. One bone is not necessarily a burial,” she said in a crisp voice. Nicholas Greenwood didn’t know yet about the other bones they had discovered. She motioned for him to sit down as the cook came in with mugs of tea. The scent of Assam tea perfumed the air.

“Well, the Druids think so.” He smiled at her as he sat down and stretched out his leg. “They don’t want you to remove any Druid ancestor bones. Or any bones. They’re all sacred to them.”

“Why?” Germaine said, annoyed at this new problem. Aubrey was more than enough to worry about. “If it is a burial, it’s already been disturbed by the explosion. I think it’s better to take any bones found out of harm’s way. And besides, who said it was a Druid?”

“No one. But they think so. It’s still a burial to them. Many times, only one bone or even just a few were buried. No one knows why people in the prehistoric age did that. One or many, it’s all the same to the Druids, HAD, or any of the other pagan groups. They want you to leave the ancestors alone. ”

“And is it the same to you?” Germaine asked. “Is that why they sent you?”

Greenwood leaned back in the camp chair. He looked tired and pressed a finger to his right temple. He looked straight at Germaine with his clear, intense gaze.

“They know me and have seen how I don’t disturb any burial sites I find at Tavistock Farm, or anywhere else. So they trust me around matters of death. I have great respect for the dead. They deserve a sacred place in the earth. That is why HAD and the Druid fellowship asked me to be their messenger.”

How could she respond to that? She dealt with burial sites all the time, but had never encountered this problem. Germaine nervously twisted the ring on her finger and saw him watching her hands. She clasped her fingers together.

“It’s difficult to answer you right now. Sir Aubrey is very sick and ...” Her voice trailed off for a moment. “I will need to talk with him.”

Conan looked annoyed with the whole conversation. She knew he had no love for the Druids or any group associated with them.
Honoring the Ancient Dead
, or not, it was clear he resented the group’s interference.

“What will they do?” She asked Greenwood. Obviously, he knew them well and could speak with authority.

“Make a big media fuss, most likely, which will halt your excavation. It’s worked before. It would certainly cause a lot of negative publicity.”

And delays, with more angry crowds. She felt sure the people at English Heritage would want to avoid any more attention from the media—it was bad enough dealing with the explosion. She had to think clearly, sort things out. She felt surrounded by the unknown: the voices she kept hearing; a boy with a slingshot aiming at her. And then, Aubrey becoming seriously ill.

“Frankly, it sounds like a problem for English Heritage to solve,” Conan said. “It’s their site. But that can be a bureaucratic morass. If you want me to, I can ring up Lord Dorset. I’ve worked with him many times, and it might be the fastest way to resolve this. He’s on the Board of Commissioners, so he does have a lot of influence at English Heritage.”

Germaine gave him a grateful look. “Yes. Can you do it now?”

He stood and bowed to her. “At your command, Madame Director.”

She moved to the tent’s door, watching Conan as he stopped to talk to one of the crew. The light of the sun gave his hair a golden glow. He turned then and waved. This was going to be difficult; with Aubrey gone, she was in charge of the dig. And that meant Conan, too.

She heard a soft sound and found Nicholas Greenwood standing behind her. His presence so close was unsettling, and she didn’t know why.

“I’ll have an answer shortly,” she said.

He frowned and shifted his position in an awkward movement. She wondered if his leg bothered him after the climb up the ramparts. Was he in pain? Somehow, she wanted to make up for her behavior when she met him at the conference.

“I could use a drink. Would you like one while we wait? Aubrey always carries a flask.”

She fished around in the pockets of Aubrey’s safari jacket and pulled a monogrammed silver flask from an inside pocket. She opened it and sniffed.

“Scotch? It’s good. Aubrey drinks Glenlevit.”

“No, I’ll stick to tea, but you go ahead, and please call me Nicholas.” He gave her a smile and settled into a camp chair. “This must have been a trying day for you.”

“Yes. Aubrey means everything to me. He is like my father.”

Aubrey’s illness terrified her. Anxiety washed through her. She prayed nothing happened to him and whispered a silent plea to any god or goddess who might be listening.

Germaine emptied her tea mug and poured some scotch. She took a healthy sip. It burned its way down her throat and felt fiery when it hit her empty stomach. She remembered the untouched breakfast; she needed something to eat soon. A little unsteady, she went to the door, and called to the cook to bring some sandwiches.

Nicholas put his hand under her arm, gently guiding her back to her chair. She felt dizzy and sank back into the folding chair. His touch was reassuring. Perhaps he was a well-meaning person after all.

“I’ll stay with you until Conan returns,” he said.

She held her arms tight and leaned back. Even though Nicholas Greenwood was a messenger of bad news from the Druids, she was glad to have his company. She gave a quick side look at her companion. His composed attitude was soothing. He sat, relaxed, sipping his tea, telling her about life at Tavistock Farm. Just his presence stopped her from spiraling into desperation about Aubrey.

But her heart pounded with a steady thump that sounded loud in her ears. Hysteria lurked just beneath the surface. If someone touched her she would scream. And, soon, she would have to deal with the English Heritage people and all the demonstrators in the car park.

“Sometimes it helps to focus on your work,” he said quietly, as if he heard her thoughts.

His calm voice grounded her, stopping a whirlwind of emotion. Her heartbeat slowed a little. She looked up and acknowledged his advice with a thankful nod and a faint smile.

There was a chill in the air now. When she reached for Aubrey’s jacket, she saw the forgotten pack of books. Aubrey’s last words came to mind—“use your Aubrey sensors.” She emptied the bag on the table and opened the large book by Sir Mortimer. It was full of the countless diagrams and excellent drawings that so delighted Aubrey. She turned to the fold-out page that showed the section where the explosion had occurred. Just as Aubrey predicted, there were many grain storage pits indicated by various sized circles. They were all around the explosion site. But that wasn’t too unusual. Pits to store grain and even as burial, or sometimes sacrifice, were well known in the Iron Age.

Was there something else she just wasn’t seeing? She opened another book recently published by English Heritage, presenting the findings from the modern excavations. Nicholas came to her side, his thick eyebrows raised in question.

“What are you looking for?”