Mythology Abroad (9 page)

“Keith, let me take one picture of you,” Holl suggested, when Keith stopped to reload. “That way, you’ll have at least one piece of proof you were here along with your camera, instead of it having a nice vacation on its own.”

“Great idea,” Keith said. “Let’s go back up the road so you can get most of the castle into the frame with me.” Together, they trotted over the rise and up toward the road.

They gazed appreciatively around them at the scenery outside of the castle grounds. In the thick grass on the roadside, small blossoms of pink and yellow grew abundantly. Urquhart Castle was downhill from the road, so they had to walk some distance from the grounds to where they could see it again.

“I have to have you take a picture so it looks like I’m holding the castle on the palm of my hand, or my father’ll be disappointed,” Keith explained. “It’s an old family tradition.”

“Ah,” Holl acknowledged, amused. “How about seeming to pick it up between your thumb and forefinger? It’s already a ruin. You can do it no more damage.”

“Ha, ha,” Keith said. He posed, and Holl snapped the picture.

“How are you feeling now? It’s only been about three days since you got out of bed again. I haven’t given up on trying to find your flowers for you,” Keith said solicitously.

“I’m well enough,” Holl replied. “I’d prefer that you didn’t go charging up fairy mounds and the like again.”

“Well, if I see one, I’ll go up it myself, with you out at a safe distance,” Keith insisted, “in case there’s something mean that just doesn’t like other magical folk. I guess I’m immune to whatever hit you in the first site, so you point, and I’ll fetch. Okay?”

“Okay. So where’s your monster?” Holl asked teasingly, gesturing with a sweep of his arm. “Now that we have seen the amazingly over-painted model, we know what to look for.”

“I’ve got the bait right here,” Keith said, pulling half of a cheese sandwich out of his pocket and unwrapping it. “Just you wait. Here, Nessie, Nessie, Nessie,” he called, hurling a corner of it out over the loch. A seagull came out of midair and snagged the scrap of food. “Whoops. Took my bait. I’ll have to try again.”

Holl grinned sheepishly. “Oh, you can’t be serious, Keith Doyle.”

“Never more than half,” Keith assured him, unquenchably, breaking off a piece of the sandwich and giving it to Holl. “But wouldn’t they be amazed if it worked?”

“You’ll never die of hypertension, that’s certain,” Holl said. “Your frivolity is quite an act. You give an amazing imitation of a grasshopper, Keith Doyle, but I have always suspected you of being mostly ant.”

They threw crumbs into the loch for a while, in no hurry to go back to the castle and rejoin the tour.

“I wish I could drive a car over here,” Keith said wistfully, watching the spare traffic race past the lay-by in which they were standing. “If we’re going to have a lot of time to kill, I want to get out and see some more of the countryside. It’s beautiful here.”

“It is,” Holl agreed, taking a deep breath of the fragrant air. “I wish I could show some of the others more of the world. They wouldn’t be so fearful of going out into it once in a while.”

Keith made a noise that sounded sympathetic and derisive at the same time. “It could be 99 percent wonderful, and they’d hate it because of one percent of things that would be off kilter.”

“You’ve shown more than one percent of going wrong, and they still accept you,” Holl pointed out.

“By the way, I hope you notice I’ve been good, not trying out you-know-what in front of other people,” Keith said defensively.

“And for which I’m grateful. Such behavior deserves reward, is that your thought?” Holl asked shrewdly. “Never mind. It’s all right with me. Since Enoch isn’t here to continue your education, I’ll give you the next lesson. I’ve wanted a quiet moment to listen for home. You may as well learn something about that.”

“What do you mean?” Keith asked eagerly, sitting down on a low boulder at the edge of the road and pulling his knees up. He glanced around. Behind him, it was almost a sheer drop to the Loch. He scooted forward, keeping as much of the rock between him and the precipice as he could. Holl sat on a rock next to him.

“Concentrate and sit quietly, and think in the direction that the Folk are,” Holl instructed him, closing his own eyes. “Send your knowledge toward them. See them.”

“With your third eye?” Keith inquired, screwing his eyes shut.

“No, you innocent,” Holl said, rapping him on the head with his knuckles. “With your heart. Think of the ones dearest to you to make the best link.”

“Well, you’re my best friend and the one I know best. Hmm. I don’t think I can use the Master as a focus. I think he’d disapprove.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Holl agreed. “How about Maura? You know her well.”

Keith thought for a second, looking uneasy. He cracked one eye and peered at his friend. “Maybe not. I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on her with you here.”

“Eh?”

“Well, it’s like homing in on your date,” he explained lamely. “I may flirt, but I don’t poach.”

Holl snorted. “You’re amazing, Keith Doyle. I wish everyone had your scruples. How about Dola? She’s fond of you.”

“Okay. I’ll give it a try.” Keith concentrated, letting his body relax. He knew that thousands of miles to the southwest, sort of along the axis of the Great Glen, across the ocean in America, lay the village. He thought for a moment that he could see an infinitesimal golden spark on the horizon that felt right, in the correct direction. “I think I’ve got—what did you call it—a link? But there’s something like radio interference in the way. I’m not sensing anybody particular. Of course, I haven’t got tons of magical energy to use.”

“All you need is practice, widdy, not tons.” Holl closed his eyes again and let his muscles go slack. After a few minutes, he sighed. “You’re right,” he said, disappointed. “We’re so far away I can’t touch them properly. There’s too much of the world between us. Something’s in the way.”

“Ireland,” said Keith wisely. “Ireland’s that way, too.” They sat for a moment, quietly concentrating. Holl’s forehead was drawn down and troubled.

After a long silence, Keith spoke up. “That sounded significant, the part about scruples,” he put in gently. “That reminded me: when you were talking to your mother, you sounded angry. I didn’t know what was up.”

Holl clicked his tongue. “It was rude of us to speak in a different tongue in front of you.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I felt like a jerk eavesdropping on you anyway. Something I can help with?” When Holl hesitated, he insisted. “Go on, you can confide in me. All discussions become privileged information here at Uncle Keith’s Lonelyhearts Club, Fish Market and Filling Station.” He presented earnest hazel eyes for Holl’s inspection.

Holl turned his head away, and looked out over the loch. “Keith Doyle, do you feel right, going out drinking every night with the others?”

“Well, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. You notice I’m not trying to match them drink for drink, after all. It’s the way they socialize over here. The pub really is a great invention. I wonder why nobody has ever tried to import them to the U.S.” Keith made a mental note to find out more about pubs.

“What about flirting with the waitresses?” Holl pressed.

“Oh, ho, is that’s what’s bothering you?” Keith demanded. “It’s nothing serious. If it bothered her, I wouldn’t do it, but I’m just being friendly. Why?”

“She might have an intent of her own,” Holl said significantly.

“If she didn’t want me to joke around with her, I assume she’d tell me to flake off,” Keith said confidently. “Just because I’m a customer doesn’t give me any special rights to move in on her.”

“Oh. So you’d expect her to send you on your way, if she had someone of her own.”

“Usually.” Keith threw another crumb into the loch and waited. Holl was silent for a while, then sighed.

“It would seem that I have a rival,” Holl said at last. “No sooner did I leave the farm than the village is full of talk about Maura spending all her time walking or sitting with Gerol. You know him?”

Keith pictured a strongly built, broad-shouldered elf with a moustache and a sweep of black hair across his forehead who specialized in heavy construction. “Yeah. Nice guy. Reminds me of Ernest Hemingway without the alcohol problem. He’s Bracey’s brother, isn’t he?”

“That’s right. I thought he was a friend of ours, but now, what can I think? What can I think of Maura? We had an understanding, or so I believed.”

“Have you talked to Maura?” Keith pressed.

“No. It isn’t something which I can talk about on the telephone, only face to face. I’m not even supposed to bring up the subject of marriage without the Master’s approval. I should go home. Shouldn’t I?” Holl looked up helplessly into Keith’s face.

“I can’t make that decision for you,” Keith said sympathetically but firmly. “I’m on your side, you know. If you want to go home, I’ll even drive you to the airport, but you have got to be the one to tell me what you want to do.” There was a long pause. “Well?”

“Well,” Holl stared mournfully at the waters of the Loch. “I’ll stay for now,” he said, unsure of his own resolve. “But why isn’t she sending him on his way?” Holl burst out.

“Maybe she’s lonely,” Keith said. “Did you take her aside and tell her why you were going away?”

“No. If I failed, I didn’t want too many hopes raised and dashed.”

“Did you ask her not to date anyone while you were gone?”

“No. I would never have thought I had to,” Holl said sadly. “It’s been an understanding between us, all our lives.”

“In my vast and far-reaching experience,” Keith said in a ponderous voice that made Holl smile even in his misery, “assumption is the mother of all disappointments. I’ve heard it phrased differently, but that one’ll do for now.” That made Holl look even more depressed. “Look, if you’ve had an understanding all these years, why should she throw it over now? You love her, right?”

“Right,” Holl said.

“She loves you, right?”

“Well, I’ve always thought so.”

“
Right?
”

“Right,” Holl acknowledged listlessly.

“So what’s the problem? You can’t do anything from here. Except trust her.”

“I’ll stay,” Holl said, more certainly.

“Good,” Keith cheered. He heard voices, and leaned over the edge of the bank. A couple of men were sitting on the footpath below them, fishing in the loch. Their creels sat beside them, as did a nearly empty bottle of Scotch and a couple of lunchboxes.

“Hey, Holl, how’d you like to help me with magic practice?”

Holl looked out across the vast expanse of water, and returned a questioning gaze to Keith. “What, a finding? A calling?”

“Nope,” Keith replied with glee. He parted the tall grass with a quiet hand, and showed Holl the two men quietly fishing. “A forming. On the surface of the water. I don’t have enough
oomph
to do it myself.”

“It wouldn’t last long,” Holl warned skeptically, but his own eyes were twinkling. He was getting caught up in the idea in spite of himself. “It’s flowing fairly fast.”

“That’s okay,” Keith assured him. “It doesn’t have to last.”

“You’re a bad influence, my boy.”

“Aw, let down your hair a little,” Keith returned innocently. “You’re just doing your part for Scottish tourism.”

“Ah, there’s no harm in it, I suppose.” Holl thrust his arm forward. “Lay your arm next to mine, and lend me your strength. Concentrate. There, that’s the way. You’re not half bad at it, for a beginner.” With his other hand outstretched toward the water, Holl drew on the air a half loop, a whole loop, and another, and another, and finished off with a sharp little gesture like an apostrophe.

“Beautiful,” said Keith admiringly, staring at the loch below. “I want to be just like you when I grow up.”

“You’re never going to grow up, Keith Doyle,” Holl retorted, but he chuckled, too. “It is good, isn’t it?”

“Look!” cried a voice below them, highly excited. “There’s
Nessie!
”

O O O

Michaels reported to his chief over the telephone that afternoon from Drumnadrochit. “I can’t help it if you don’t believe me, sir. You’ll be seeing the report on the evening news. I wasn’t the only one who spotted her. That’s right, Nessie. I was observing O’Day and his accomplice. There it was, large as life on the waters of the loch, and neither of them were paying the least attention to it. Very strange, sir. What’s that?” Michaels sighed. “Aye, sir. I assure you, I saw it, as plain as I can see … well, this telephone here. What was it? It was a sea serpent, or as close as makes no difference to me. There has to be a logical explanation for it. But it’s curious, sir. I can’t understand why they weren’t excited by it. It’s as if they never saw it. They’re up to something, sir, and it must be something
big.
”

***

C
HAPTER TEN

Tuesday morning dawned with further instructions from Dr. Stroud not to come to the dig site. So did Wednesday. At the end of the week, the group was allowed to attend for a couple of days. They assembled for the coach to pick them up, radiating excitement and relief.

The settlement under investigation lay to the southeast of Inverness, near where the late-Neolithic Clava burial cairns had been discovered long ago. “It’s bound to be fruitful,” Miss Anderson advised them. In terms of distance, the location wasn’t far from the city, but it was slow going on the roads, which swooped unexpectedly into ravines, and took hairpin turns which the bus could barely negotiate. Amid broken slabs of rock, deep streams of brown water flowed noisily beside the narrow roadway. It looked pretty, but provided no maneuvering room for the ungainly vehicle. There were only a couple inches of clearance for the coach’s tires.

“One slip and we’re fish bait,” Keith stated, peering out the window. He was acting as lookout. A low swinging gate appeared ahead across the road. “Your turn, Max.”

Low gates like that were common in the area, dividing property in the rural area to allow sheep grazing on both sides of the road. Max swung himself out of the coach, and ran down to open the gate. The coach eased through it. Max relocked the fence, and dashed ahead to climb back on. “That’s the last one! Here we are at last,” said Miss Anderson, sitting up poker straight to see better. The coach ambled into a pleasant valley with a gentle, almost imperceptible rise toward the distant hills. The group’s anticipation was almost palpable as the coach rolled to a gentle stop at the roadside behind a line of automobiles parked on the verge. They piled happily out of the coach. Charles and Edwin both ran to open the field gate for the party.

The sound, or lack of it, nearly stopped them altogether in surprise as they approached the work area. Compared with Dr. Crutchley’s small band, the large team working here was a mob, but a quiet one. Thirty or forty men and boys were scattered in the fenced field, working absorbedly on their tasks, hardly speaking to one another. Some were in shirtsleeves, but most were bare-chested and pink to the waist with exertion. Only low conversation blended with the sounds of excavation and the clink of stones hitting sorting pans.

“Welcome,” a man called, coming up to greet them. He was in his early thirties, of a bull-chested build and fair coloring. Keith had seen a hundred just like him in Inverness. He shook hands with everyone in the party. “I’m Thomas Belgrave, the professor’s assistant. I’m happy to see you. Let me give you a quick tour around before we begin. We’ve had some good fortune here, and we’re rather proud of it.” He led the way to a pavilion tent.

Matthew’s eyes gleamed hungrily as the group was given a tour of the team’s gleanings thus far. Among its findings were scaled jars which once contained grain. One of the lids had been replaced with clear plastic film so that the contents could be seen without exposing the team to bacteria or other organic parasites that might be living in the rotted remains of cereal.

“There was a helicopter reconnaissance of the site before we ever put shovel to turf. The village millstone was practically the first thing we tripped over,” the assistant confided. “From the air, one could see a dimple in the earth over its resting place. It had come to rest on something soft, like chaff or straw, which deteriorated over time. We more or less expected the typical village outline, animal bones, broken crockery, but never this much, abandoned
in situ.
No one had any idea that such an extensive remnant of this settlement still existed near here. The jars must have been abandoned when the settlement burned. They were in a pit inside the largest hut. We still haven’t guessed why the people didn’t return for their possessions after the fire went out.” He pointed out scorch marks on the stones and clay items, and brought them to where vestiges of the original circular hut walls remained, standing in narrow knee-deep trenches cut around them in the earth by the archaeological team. The assistant lifted the sheet of plastic covering one as a medical examiner might pull back the sheet on a dead body.

“Dr. Stroud suspects that it was a new colonization, hardly settled yet, as there are none of the characteristic stone buildings of the age, not even a barrier wall. The ditch and bank were only partly formed. Thus vulnerable, they were victims of an enemy attack.” The man paused, and grinned long-sufferingly. “As always, he wants more data.”

“How sad that it was all destroyed,” said Mrs. Green, squatting on her heels to peer down at the walls. The group tried to picture the village as it might have been, wooden walls thatched with brush.

Household items had been found in plenty, and lay on a table in the pavilion, tagged and numbered. There were also a number of what the guide described as children’s toys, though to the newcomers, they looked no more than broken bits of junk. A few pieces of jewelry and other small items had been unearthed practically as good as new. The Educatours students were impressed. It was indeed a rich find, and the assistant displayed an excusable degree of smugness.

“What a lot of flint you have here,” Miss Anderson said, turning over a stone hand axe. “Wouldn’t its presence suggest to you a late Neolithic settlement rather than early Bronze Age?” she asked. “Surely this is part of the Inner Moray Firth culture.”

For answer, the young man shrugged his shoulders significantly and jerked his head over toward the team leader.

“You might argue also that the presence of vaissils for storing wheat would place this in the latter grouping,” Belgrave said apologetically, his diction occasionally falling into broad Highland Scots. “He says it’s airly to tell yet.” The teacher raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.

Most of the group were given the task of sieving pans of earth already removed by Dr. Stroud’s regular team. Huge amounts of it lay in heaps beside each of the excavations, since the floor of the settlement was a few feet under the modern surface. Four of the others, Keith among them, were assigned to help clear the earth inside the boundaries of one of the large huts using brush and trowel. Carefully, they set their new tools down on the grassy edge outside, and stepped down into the knee-high pit. The assistant admonished them not to bump the trenches guarding the exposed walls, and to call for help immediately if they uncovered anything. It got to be monotonous, since Edwin was nearly on top of an ‘axe factory store,’ a collection of knapped stone and flint, that lay almost waist deep within the earth along one wall, and kept revealing the edges of new pieces. In time, the assistant assigned to the group grew used to them, and was able to keep from hovering while they worked.

Dr. Stroud never spoke directly to any of the tour group. He made side comments to his associates in their presence that he didn’t care if they overheard, about moneyed dilettantes wasting everyone’s time. He was especially upset that Holl, a child, should have been foisted off on him. The group worked hard, but it never seemed to dent the contempt he showed for them. Matthew and Keith, who were serious about learning more, felt personally affronted by the professor’s attitude, though they managed to hold their tongues.

Max was finding it difficult to move the full pan of scraped earth without losing his trowel or brush. Without a third hand to steady his burden, he had to move the heavy pan very slowly to the edge of his patch and over the stub of wall. The brush squirted suddenly out of the crook of his thumb and shot into the grass. Max flailed for it, and accidentally let go of the pan. It slipped awkwardly to the ground, spilling soil everywhere, most of it right back into his patch. He looked up to see the professor glaring down upon him.

“Inexperienced muggins,” he sneered to one of his team that happened to be passing by. The assistant looked startled, and Stroud cocked his head toward Max. “Bloody paying guests.” Max reddened. Leaving his tools propped against the pan of spilled dirt, he picked himself up and sauntered to the roped-off area at the edge of the dig site which served as No-Man’s-Land for the smokers in the group. Very deliberately, he shook a filterless cigarette from a pack in his shirt pocket and lit up. He didn’t return to the hut for the rest of the day.

The atmosphere on the coach was far different than it had been in the morning. Several of the boys were ready for an argument, and everyone was out of temper. By then Max had run out of cigarettes, and was rebuffed in his efforts to borrow one from his friends. The refusals made him cross all over again. Blank faced, Narit kept her eyes on her lap all the way back to the guesthouse. Keith had noticed that there were no women on the site except for the three from the tour group. He guessed that the professor had made some disparaging comment in Narit’s hearing that hurt her feelings, and felt sorry for her. Stroud probably didn’t like women. Mrs. Green and Mrs. Turner also seemed unusually quiet. Miss Anderson said nothing, but watched them and waited for reactions.

“He’s a bully and a louse,” Keith said at last, breaking the silence. “The only reason we’re taking his crap is because we thought we could learn something from him. Also, he probably thinks it’s a crime we see what he does for a living as fun. It’s only another week, and then we never have to see him again. I’m not going to let him drive me away.”

“Bloody cereal isn’t all that’s rotten there,” Matthew grumbled, but he concurred with Keith.

Grudgingly, everyone agreed to try and hold their tempers, and peace was maintained over the weekend. Keith and the others saw more of Inverness, but spent most of their free time in the pubs carefully not talking about archaeology.

The next weekday, the coach came off the main road into the lane nearest the site and rolled to a stop. Before any of the tour could alight, Dr. Stroud detached himself from his team and strode through the gate toward the coach, waving his arms and shouting.

Miss Anderson swung out of the door and went to meet him. They had an argument in pantomime, since the thick window glass of the coach prevented anyone inside from hearing what the two were saying. Pink cheeked, the teacher returned to the coach and gave instructions to the driver in a low voice. Her lips pressed together, Miss Anderson sat down.

“I’m sorry,” she said tightly. “I have tried, but he pointed out that our contract cannot guarantee us access to the sites. He feels that the presence of non-professionals could jeopardize the safety of artifacts, or accidentally muddle clues. I’m sorry.”

“Well, what’s wrong with the silly bugger?” Matthew shouted. “Don’t these old codgers talk wi’ one another? We did a sterling job in Glasgow.”

“Aye, we did. Did we make a single mistake on Thursday or Friday?” Edwin growled. “We did not.”

“Perhaps one of us did,” Mrs. Green suggested mildly, glancing sympathetically at Narit.

“No!” “It’s not us, it’s him!” Unable to contain their frustration any longer, the others started a shouting match among themselves. There was a consensus that they couldn’t blame Miss Anderson or the tour company for their exclusion, but that she ought to be able to do something.

“I think Stroud’s a snob and an ass,” Martin stated, folding his arms. “I’m not sure I’d go back even if he let us.”

Miss Anderson let them shout themselves out, and resumed in a quieter voice. “I remember a group I was leading to South Cadbury where we were similarly driven off. The team leader feared that the ‘crazed Arthurians’ among us would inadvertently destroy precious and delicate artifacts. In the end, of course, there was little to see but the placement of the walls, buildings and wells. We were fobbed off elsewhere.

“I’m sorry to say that it’s a game of chance. Educatours gives an honorarium to the archaeological teams for letting us visit and participate, but it isn’t much. In some cases, not enough to stir any consciences when we’re denied what was agreed to under contract. Sometimes they give it back if they change their minds.”

“Has Dr. Stroud given the money back?” Matthew asked, narrowing one eye. “You deserve a refund from him.”

“We’ll most likely get it all back in the end,” Miss Anderson said deprecatingly. “I believe that Dr. Stroud has a powerful corporate sponsor, so he doesn’t need our few pence.”

“Oh, I see,” Max said acidly. “Well, why doesn’t he just label every fossil with his little corporate logo? That’s what I want to ask. That way we’ll know what we’re dealing with.”

“The company has started to negotiate a refund, but that’s nothing for you to fret about. But hold on,” she requested, extending her hands to them. “I promise that the Isle of Lewis will be nothing like this. In the meantime, Educatours has considered this eventuality, and is putting the coach at your disposal for local touring. Tomorrow,” she said, looking around at them brightly, “we’ll have a day out at the Official Loch Ness Monster Exhibition and Urquhart Castle. I’m sure you’ll enjoy that.”

Keith and Holl looked at each other, and exchanged resigned grins.

***