The Island House (34 page)

“No offering stone?” Dan was weary—aching from all the digging and muscles long unused.

“No altar, if you like.”

He pointed to a corner of the stone block, then brushed away the remaining soil. “Have a look at this.”

Freya stared at the shallow carving. “An equal-armed cross inside a circle.” She sat back. “Christian.”

He nodded. “But it’s the same symbol.”

She was confused. “As what?”

“The lead box. Does that not have the same device on its lid?”

“So maybe this is just a spare bit of stone the monks used for practice.” She was trying to be pragmatic.

“You said it yourself. If it’s from the Abbey, how come it’s all
the way out here? A long way to carry something this big.” Dan grimaced. He could feel the stone’s mass in his muscles. “I’d not have liked to try, that’s for sure.”

“Hmmm. Why
would
you go to the trouble of carting it so far?” Freya sighed. “So many unanswered questions, who’d be an archaeologist?” She wiped her face with the tail of her shirt, smearing sweat and dirt across her cheeks.

Dan grinned.

“What?” Freya was suspicious.

“Nothing. You were saying?”

She stretched her back, a bit deflated. “It would be so great to lift the slab, see if there’s anything underneath, but not today. I need to document while we still have light.” She’d have to take Katherine and Dan back to Portsolly in the morning—they both had jobs—and she couldn’t move such a massive stone without help.

Dan tried to recapture their earlier, positive tone. “Should it be covered when you’re finished?”

Freya nodded. She picked up the bundle of ranging poles and slung the digital camera around her neck. “This won’t take long. Then we can see if Dad had any more field tents—or a tarp, if we’re desperate . . .”

There was smoke coming from the kitchen chimney as Freya and Dan trudged back toward the house.

“Katherine must have lit the stove; that’s nice of her.”

Dan nodded. “A bath—now there’s a thought.”

Freya said, dreamily, “Seconded, and that first beer won’t touch the sides.”

Dan nodded. They both sped up.

Freya was quite merry as she opened the door and clattered down the stairs. “Hello. Anyone home?”

Katherine called out from the big room at the front. “In here.”

“You have first go at the bath, Dan.” Freya headed across the kitchen as her guest negotiated the stairs behind her.

“I could start looking for a tarp if you like? Have a bath after that,” he replied.

“Okay, thanks. I don’t think there’s anything else in the barn, but you could see if I’ve missed anything, I guess.”

Dan, having reached the bottom, stifled a sigh and began the trudge back up.

Sitting at Michael’s desk, Katherine was waiting. She was wearing white cotton gloves, and arranged around her, in small piles, were leaves from the tiny manuscript.

“Hello, Freya.” Her face was faintly flushed.

“You’ve found something.” Freya knew, she just
knew.

Katherine nodded. Her voice quavered the smallest amount. “When your father began to dig the grounds of the Abbey methodically, he would often ask me to research particular details of religious life for him. That was some years after we first met, of course.” She did not look at Freya. “There was so much that was interesting in the old monastic chronicles—the histories of the times in which the writers lived, the rules that governed monastic life, all sorts of things—and I was always delighted to help. In fact, the work became a passion of mine. However, the marginalia, the little personal comments in the margins of the manuscripts, were most compelling of all to me. Real voices, personal opinions of actual people, and all so long ago—many of them frank and quite touchingly direct. And, too, with practice I found I could identify the broad time frame of a particular writer by the style and form of what was on the manuscript page—the way the letters were formed, for instance, whether the text was large or small.” She paused, then said, cautiously, “On that basis I am inclined to believe that this manuscript might be placed from around the end of the eighth century to mid–ninth century, Common Era. And it was not written by a monk.”

Freya frowned. “Who, then? A layperson?”

Katherine shook her head decisively. She tapped one of the little piles. “This was written by a nun, and it’s a diary of sorts.”

“But . . .” Freya pulled a chair up beside Katherine. “The diary form wasn’t invented in the West until hundreds and hundreds of years afterward—if you’re right about the date.”

The librarian handed her a single page. “Yes. And only men wrote diaries even then, because they were more likely to be literate and women were not. This is as far as I’ve got. My notes are in brackets.”

“What lovely writing you have.”

Katherine colored with pleasure. “A lost art.”

But Freya hardly heard the librarian’s answer, for rising off the page, like smoke, like mist, was the essence of a voice not heard for more than a thousand years.

FEAST OF PRISCA [JANUARY. VIRGIN
MARTYR OF THE EARLY CHURCH.]

Cold today. Ink frozen again. Many ill with flux and lying in caldarium but no meat to eat—this is a bad winter. I have chilblains, and Brother Abbot says it is punishment from God for my rebellious
[disobedient?]
heart. I am ordered to confess my sin in Chapter before my brothers and sisters.
[Double monastery? Celtic Church, therefore?]
I will do your penance gladly, Lord, but would be grateful for warm hands, for it is hard to grind the colors with cold fingers. I have the curse of Eve today, my belly gripes, and there is very little linen.
[The writer must be a young woman and unusually frank.]

Freya met Katherine’s glance. They were both breathing rapidly.

FRIDAY FAST
.

Most dear God, may I serve you better. I do not like herring, but it is your bounty, and I am unworthy. Still cold in Scriptorium, but today I have learned to make a good green from salts of copper. Perhaps that will please my brothers.
[Why was a woman permitted in a scriptorium, in company with monks?]

Why indeed?
wondered Freya.

PURIFICATION OF THE VIRGIN
.

Coarse wool is hard to bear, but I have no shift—penance. Mother
——[name hard to read]
says acceptance of my faults is an important task for me. She helps me pray, and we ask for strength so that I may withstand my own nature. Gathered oysters for Brother Vidor. Shells shall be used to mix colors for God’s work here. My feet still numb from wading in the cove at dawn. Sea very cold. I saw my friend. We did not speak.

Freya put the page down. She was pale.

Katherine leaned forward. “Do you agree she’s a nun?”

Freya gazed at her unseeing. “Yes, I think she must be—except for the reference to ‘my friend.’ Nuns aren’t supposed to have personal relationships, are they? But this is the first time I’ve heard,
or anyone’s heard,
a woman’s authentic voice emerge this early from a convent. That’s just . . .” The word was hard to find. “It’s eerie.”

Katherine nodded. “And, if this is a double foundation, it’s most likely a pre-Conquest monastery of the Celtic Church. The symbol on the lead box may therefore be roughly contemporaneous with the manuscript.”

Freya paced the room but stopped with a jolt. “Would you like to take the manuscript back to Portsolly tomorrow, Katherine? You could translate the rest of it during the week.”

“Would I like to?” Katherine’s smile was fervent. “It’s a privilege. An honor.”

Freya said quickly, “And maybe you could come over here again next weekend? Would that be enough time?”

“Certainly, I should like that. And I can do more in the next hour or so too.”

“Excellent. I just need to cover the dig at the stones. Dan’s looking for a tarp.”

Katherine was already absorbed as she reached for the next tiny piece of vellum. She said absently, “Try the undercroft. Michael stored most things there . . .”

The beam from Dan’s flashlight splayed over the surface of the monolith. “Runes?”

“Yes, but I can’t read them. Frustrating.”

Dan grinned. “You hide it well. But what about the other symbols?”

Freya lifted a shoulder irritably. “I don’t know. No one does if they’re Pictish.” She was standing quite close to Dan; he smelled comfortably sweaty, and she must have as well. He didn’t seem to mind. “Their language has never been deciphered, though some symbols crop up all over the place in this part of the world. Serpents, double disks”—she pointed—“and one I find really odd—a hand mirror.” She smiled. “Ah, vanity; human nature doesn’t seem to change much.”

Dan stared at the enigmatic stone pillar. “I agree. We’re them, they’re us.”

Freya held her lamp higher and turned a full circle. “What I don’t understand—among so many things—is why the monks would allow this thing to stay here. A Pagan monument.” She
held her lamp higher. “Findnar is full of mysteries, that’s what Dad said.”

Dan eyed the Compactus. Beside it, beneath the windows, was a bank of low cupboards. Gray-painted metal, they were anonymous, in the style of locker rooms all over the world. “Might solve a small one if we look over there. The tarps?”

“Okay.” Freya strode to the first cupboard. It was unlocked, and on the shelves were neat coils of rope, aluminum tent pegs and, best of all, several groundsheets with rings inserted in the edges.

“Yes!” She hauled out a folded piece of plasticized cloth and gathered armfuls of pegs. “This looks big enough. I’ll rig it over the stone in case it rains tonight.” She took the staircase at a run.

Dan called after her, “Stone melts, does it?”

From the kitchen he heard her shout, “No, but if there’s anything underneath, water percolates and . . .”

A moment later, and her abashed face appeared around the door upstairs. “Sorry, Dan, that was rude. Take your time.”

He did not answer.

Spooked, Freya hurried down the stairs. “Dan?”

“Here I am.”

Freya could see his light now, swaying and bobbing as he limped toward her.

“Just wanted to explore a bit more. Have you seen the wall, by the way?”

“What wall?”

Dan waved the flashlight. “Come and have a look.” He was leading her away from the stairs into the dark. “It may be nothing, but . . .” He pointed the light. “This bit is different from . . .” He swiped the beam in an arc. “From this. See?”

Perhaps it was the way the flashlight played with the plastered surface, perhaps she imagined it, but there seemed to be a bulge in the wall. Freya nodded slowly. “Something’s been blocked up.”
Fear congealed in her chest. “I’d better do the tarp while there’s still light, though. Have that bath, Dan. Back soon.” She waved cheerily this time as she hurried away.

But Dan wasn’t fooled. Before he climbed the stairs, he turned and looked back. Freya had asked him to follow his instincts, and he had. Twice. Down here there was something. But what?