Spiral: Book One of the Spiral in Time (32 page)

“Well? Tell me. She must have been crushed.”

Conan felt the one eye boring into his back. His skin shivered as though it had been touched by ice. He turned around and faced the man who owned him.

“Yes, she is alive. But in a deep coma.”

“Is she brain dead?

“They don’t think so. The doctors remain hopeful.”

“Too bad,” Lord Dorset said in a cool voice. “It would have been much easier without her. Now show me what you found.”

This will change the game, Conan thought, as he laid the prize, carefully wrapped in paper, on the desk. He uncovered it and heard the sharp intake of breath from his lordship.

A gold brooch, showing a hawk in flight with wings spread wide and hooded, dark amber eyes, lay nestled in the white tissue. Meant to hold a cloak in place, the hawk looked as though it might take wing and fly away. The gold was breathtaking in the morning sunlight, a fine example of the Celts’ love of display. It was a most unusual piece of Celtic jewelry—quite rare, in fact,—for there was something inscribed on it. The angle of the sunlight cast shadows that highlighted and changed the straight lines of Greek lettering into words. And the words proclaimed a name.

I AM SABRANN blazed across the body and wings of the hawk.

It was a message from a past so distant that the world rarely thought about it except in clichés like white-robed druids or bloody barbarians and headhunting Celts. Motionless, Lord Dorset stared at it.

He whispered something. His hand reached out to touch it and then drew back in a quick gesture. He shook his head and moved away from the desk.

“Yes, it is real,” Conan said, oblivious to the real cause of Lord Dorset’s highly visible response. “The first and only example of writing ever found in prehistoric Britain. And that will ensure its fame.”

Conan gave a wide grin as he picked up the gorgeous piece. In the palm of his hand the hawk’s wingspan measured almost four inches wide. It was meant to be worn prominently and noticed, its owner powerful and prestigious enough to own such a valuable piece.

“There is no reason to doubt its authenticity,” he said. “The dating is somewhere around 450 BC, based on the context of the other finds. I sent pieces of wood from the burial chamber up to ORAU, and they did the radiocarbon dating and dendrochronological studies. They all came up mid 5
^th
Century BC.”

Lord Dorset gave a brief nod. They both knew that if anyone could correctly date the finds from the site it was ORAU, the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit.

“I knew you would want to see this first.”

“I am speechless,” Lord Dorset said. His hand hovered over the gold brooch, then fell to his side.

Conan said, “There’s something more, and at least as good. Look at this.”

He rolled out a piece of cotton and placed a tarnished bronze cylinder on the desk. One capped end was sealed shut with some resinous, black substance, but the other end had been pried open. The cap fit snug; it was an effort to pull it away. He slipped on a pair of white, cotton gloves and then drew out a slim scrap of papyrus and gently unrolled it. A smell like old smoke and a whiff of pitch hung in the air for a second, then disappeared. The papyrus was dark cream color, brittle, and cracked in several places. Altogether the piece measured about four by eight inches. Something was written in brownish ink across the smooth-edged top. The script was Greek, written in an unsure hand with some letters incorrectly formed. Many words were blurred and smudged, a few obviously missing.

“My Greek is a little rusty,” Conan said, “but I think this is close to what is written.” He read aloud:

“The Teachings of Cathbad, Archdruid of Albion.

Read and say no more. Nor on fate of death give to those unworthy. I mark these things as true of the Druid ways passed from Druid to Druid since time before memory that these secret words and their power may last beyond me and ...”

And there it ended.

Lord Dorset gasped. “Where is the rest of it?

“This is all there is.”

Lord Dorset looked agitated and picked up a large, magnifying glass from his desk. He held it over the scrap of papyrus.

“No. Look! There’s more. The edge of the papyrus is frayed as though it was torn, and I see faint traces of another line of writing ...” His voice quavered.

“Lost, no doubt,” Conan said. “But this in itself is a tremendous find. Imagine! It has been closed tight for 2,500 years. Nothing has touched it since the day it was sealed.” He gently held the papyrus by the corners.

“No archaeologist ever thought fragile papyrus could last this long here in our cold and wet climate. But there is a new precedent. In 1990 a Roman ship was excavated off the Tuscan coast, and a surgeon’s medicines—handmade medicinal pills, scraps of papyrus affixed to small glass bottles with herbs inside—were all found dry and safe in a sealed container after 2,000 years underwater. And now this. I think the truth is apparent. Given the right conditions and sealed tight, many things will last long past what we thought possible. Even papyrus.”

“Over 2,500 years,” said Lord Dorset, his face drained of color. “This I will keep ... I must have it. And the part torn off must be found.”

Thinking fast, Conan said, “It might be possible.” He always humored Lord Dorset.

But not likely, he thought. Germaine O’Neill had found the inscribed brooch and knew what it said. She might know about the papyrus even if she hadn’t mentioned it; things had happened too fast just before the chamber collapsed. Now she lay unconscious and might not recover.

Conan held up the gleaming, gold brooch, and the amber eyes blinked in the sun, as if alive. “Dr. O’Neill knows about this. She called me when she found it.”

“I don’t care about that.” One long finger tapped the edge of the desk. “The papyrus is what I want.”

“She might know about that, too,” Conan said. “If she recovers, it will be hard to conceal.”

“Why did you let her go in first? I told you that night to send Ian in first.” Lord Dorset was angry, shouting. He usually never raised his voice. “Now the damage is done. We can only hope she doesn’t recover!”

All sound seemed sucked out of the room by his angry words. The room felt still, airless.

Lord Dorset sat down at the desk and leaned back in his chair. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he seemed himself again, back in control.

Conan had never seen him so anxious to possess one of their finds. But then, they had never found artifacts like these. One side of Conan’s mouth twitched as he tried to figure out how to handle this. There were many problems.

There was Germaine O’Neill and all she knew or might know. And, just as threatening, the artifacts were found on a government site. English Heritage controlled everything and anything about Maiden Castle. He had to be very careful. All the finds were subject to the government’s Portable Antiquities Scheme—a huge obstacle. There could be steep fines and long prison sentences.

Everything conflicted with what he had in mind: some careful extortion of a great sum of money from Lord Dorset, a large payback for years of service. He had earned it.

“They are real treasures,” Lord Dorset said. He gave Conan a strange look as he leaned back in his throne chair.

“And worth a lot,” said Conan. “I would say the papyrus is almost priceless.”

He put his gloved hand over the papyrus as Lord Dorset reached for it.

“
Almost
,” he repeated. “We’ll have to talk about the price on this. It’s worth more than anything I’ve ever found before. I’m sure a lot of people will want to own this.”

With a slow motion of his hand, he moved the papyrus out of Lord Dorset’s reach. He had never denied Lord Dorset any of the artifacts he found. But this was too rare and a chance to put their relationship on a more equal footing. Lord Dorset owed him a lot.

In the end, if not his lordship, Conan knew several private collectors, who would pay for the pleasure of adding this to their secret art collections.

Lord Dorset said, “Who else knows about this? Sir Aubrey? Anyone?”

“No one. So I am sure you and I can come to some satisfactory agreement. I’ve put a lot on the line to get hold of this and it should be worth a rather large bonus. I secreted it away from a government-sponsored site. That in itself is a criminal act according to the Treasure Trove Act of 1996 and probably the Portable Antiquities Scheme too.”

It could mean
seven years in prison! And an unlimited fine.
He felt a gut-twisting panic at that thought.

“But we’ll work it out, won’t we, Lord Dorset? We always have.”

Conan tried to ignore the fury in Lord Dorset’s face. He would have to be careful for Lord Dorset’s temper could be dangerous.

First, he would send the papyrus up to Oxford to ORAU and get an official radiocarbon dating. He would have to find some way to conceal the true origin of the find—maybe say it was from Saqqara in Egypt? That might be a good cover story. Scraps of papyrus were found there almost every day.

Then he would decide what to do about his other problem, equally as troublesome. Besides Lord Dorset and Germaine O’Neill, one other person did know about the artifacts and that was going to be much harder to cover up.

It had her name on it. I thought her gone forever.
Could the hawk still fly?
No.
She was dead and he was not.

Lord Dorset stood at the tall, French windows facing the driveway, watching Conan carry the treasures out to the car. He seethed in anger. They were
his
treasures. Only he knew their worth and understood how priceless they really were.

He watched the bearer of these prizes: charming Conan Ryan. Years ago, fortune had deposited this creature into his life. Conan had been a nothing, working for his father’s small construction company and doing odd, archaeology jobs on the side. A glorified shovel bum at a Roman dig on Lord Dorset’s property, he had a knack for turning up unusual finds and artifacts, some “liberated” from other archeological sites. Early on, he brought a Bronze Age hand axe to show Lord Dorset, and when Lord Dorset borrowed it and forgot to return the piece, Conan had no scruples about taking the extra bonus money that found its way into his weekly paycheck. It was all quite illegal under British law. The finds and bonuses became more frequent. A pattern was established. Now, almost a decade later, it had vastly expanded. His father’s small construction company became Conan Ryan’s successful rescue archaeology firm and was critical to funneling antiquities into the underground market and money to Lord Dorset.

Conan’s company, Britannica, Ltd., was now international, thanks in large part to Lord Dorset’s connections. Prehistoric and Roman finds from countries like Bulgaria and Romania found their way into the UK antiquities market or sold on the black market via the internet. It all provided a much-needed cash flow for Lord Dorset’s expensive life style.

And now Conan would extort money from him! He did not know who he was threatening.

And missing is the rest of that papyrus. I must find it
. It held all the teachings of Cathbad—if it still existed. No one else alive knew what that meant. An eternity of knowledge was in those words. Spells and chants that could change the course of a war, even kill from a great distance. If said with the right intonation, certain words could cause great physical harm—even death!—or change the weather, make a storm that would not end, a blinding fog.

They were never written down, only memorized, passed from Druid to student—until now. All those ancient and powerful secrets were thought lost when the Druid priests were annihilated by the arrogant Romans. They were afraid of the Druids’ power. He hated the Romans, who could only cast puny curses on their enemies, gouged on a soft lead, curse tablet. They were as primitive as a cave man next to the spells of a Druid of old.

A shudder passed through him, like a thought or warning sent from long ago. An evil as deep as the centuries of time crept through his body, sending a deep chill into his bones. His body swayed with a lust for the power that lay hidden. He wanted that power. He knew some of the teachings; the rest were denied him millennia’s ago. He would not let it go now. Perhaps it was hidden in the burial chamber.

And he knew who to send to search for it.

Still angry, he jerked the long, velvet curtains shut. In this new game, Conan acted as though he was in charge of everything and, right now, he held all the best cards. Lord Dorset knew any action on his part to punish Conan ran the risk of exposing their carefully built, black market antiquities business. He hated to admit he and Conan were almost equals now; that one could not do without the other.

The relationship was lopsided, all in Conan’s favor. Somehow, that balance must change. Lord Dorset moved to his desk and made a phone call.