River of Destiny

by Barbara Erskine

  Lots of love, Manda.

  PS in your shoes I would climb aboard the lugger!!

  Zoë smiled in spite of herself. Did that last cryptic comment mean what she thought it meant? She looked round again. So, where was Ken? Suddenly she didn’t want to know.

  She grabbed the torch out of the drawer, reached up and turned off the master switch for the floodlights, then she opened the door.

  Picking her way across the grass, she headed for the hedge which separated their garden from that of The Threshing Barn next door. She glanced up at the Formbys’. All the lights there were off. The Watts’s car was outside The Summer Barn and the lights there were on behind the drawn curtains, so at least Jade wasn’t alone. She wondered what had happened to Jackson. She hoped Rosemary was OK. Following the beam of her torch she went towards the gap in the hedge and it was then that she spotted the long metal shape lying half hidden under the leaves. She paused and trained the beam on it, then she squatted down and reached out to pick it up. She knew at once what it was. A sword.

  The sword.

  Leo laid it reverently on his worktop and reached for a magnifying glass from one of the shelves. He had locked the door after she came in and drawn the blinds. ‘We don’t want any more small eyes peering in at the windows, making trouble,’ he said. He pointed at a stool and she perched on it obediently.

  ‘It is a sword, isn’t it?’ she said after a long silence.

  He was carefully examining the blade in front of him. It was rusted and corroded but the basic sword shape was clear to see. ‘I can see carving here and traces of inlay on the hilt,’ he breathed. ‘This is, or was, exquisite workmanship.’

  ‘Is it like the ones they found at Sutton Hoo?’ she whispered.

  ‘It might be. My guess is that it came from the burial mound out there; and that it is a burial mound with a pretty rich and important guy buried in it.’ He laid down the magnifying glass and looked at her. ‘How on earth did it get into your hedge?’

  ‘Rosemary? She mentioned a sword. And she mentioned you, Leo. She said you would know what to do with it. As they were putting her into the air ambulance.’ She shrugged. ‘Do you think she found it when she was poking round in Dead Man’s Field? Either that or she saw it in her hedge and recognised it. Perhaps someone else had hidden it there. Perhaps they meant to come back for it.’

  ‘Jackson?’

  ‘Maybe. Or one of the walkers this afternoon.’ She leaned forward and touched it tentatively with a finger.

  There was another long silence. Leo reached for his magnifying glass again. ‘This shouldn’t have been removed from wherever it was found. It is probably unbelievably valuable. It needs research. It needs restoration.’

  She gave a faint smile. ‘And let me guess. You’re the man to do it, right?’

  He laughed. ‘I would love to, in theory.’ He shook his head. ‘But this is very specialised work. And I would need a proper forge. Something I don’t intend to have ever again. And a laboratory of some sort, I would think. No, I fear we are going to have to hand this over to the experts.’

  With a sigh he stood up and walked across to the window. ‘It’s so dark out there. The whole place is deserted.’

  ‘Not quite. Sharon and Jeff seem to be back, thank goodness. Poor things. What a catastrophe to come back to.’

  Picking up a paper bag from the worktop he put it on the table. ‘Doughnuts,’ he said, sitting down. ‘I bought them this morning and forgot all about them. Have one.’ He bent over the sword again. Zoë rummaged in the bag and took one out. She was ravenous, she realised.

  ‘I had a call from Bill, just before you came,’ Leo said suddenly. ‘Steve rang him from the hospital.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Rosemary is in intensive care. She is in a coma and will almost certainly need brain surgery.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Zoë looked up at him. She put down the doughnut. ‘Supposing she doesn’t make it?’

  He shook his head sadly. ‘Let’s hope for the best. That’s all we can do.’

  Flecks of rust and soil had crumbled off the sword as it lay on the table and there was a litter of dead leaves and dried plant stalks lying around it as Leo lifted the sword up, turned it gently over and began to examine the other side. Zoë watched as he picked up the magnifying glass again. He held the blade angled so that the light from the lamp caught it. ‘It’s hard to see, but there are inscriptions on the blade; the pommel is in better condition. It is clearer here.’ He squinted as he looked more closely. ‘It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship.’

  ‘So, it is very old?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He lifted his head and smiled at her. ‘I am pretty sure it is Anglo-Saxon. It’s pattern welded. That means the blade is made in a particular way; it made them very strong. And these are runes. I’ve seen enough of them in the museums – and at Sutton Hoo, of course. I don’t know how one dates it, but it must be at least a thousand years old.’

  They both sat and stared at it. ‘I would so love to keep this, just for a while. Do some research on it myself,’ Leo went on. There was a wistful note in his voice.

  ‘It can’t have just been lost, so it must have been buried with its owner,’ Zoë said at last. ‘Do you think he was a king?’

  Leo shrugged. ‘I doubt it. There is only one burial mound down there, as far as we know, isn’t there? And it isn’t very large. It couldn’t have had a boat in it. Could it?’ He looked at her again and smiled.

  ‘No, but it could be to do with that ghost ship, couldn’t it?’ Zoë replied after another pause. ‘Oh, Leo, it might be all tied up in some way.’

  As she looked down at the sword, the phone in her pocket chimed. She pulled it out and glanced at it. ‘It’s from Ken. He’s not coming back tonight,’ she said.

  ‘Does he say why?’

  ‘The project he’s working on in Ipswich; apparently they phoned him and asked him to go over there urgently.’

  ‘Do you believe him?’

  She sighed. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But it means you can stay here.’

  For a moment they held each other’s gaze, then she smiled. ‘Yes, please.’ She switched off the phone.

  ‘Excellent.’ He grinned.

  They both looked down at the sword again. Zoë could see the remains of the engravings now her eyes were getting used to interpreting the corroded blade with its nodules and grooves and ragged edges.

  ‘It seems awful for it to be taken away from the man who owned it. It must have been his most treasured possession.’ She sighed. ‘I am always a bit sad when I see things in museums which have been removed from graves. It seems wrong to treat somewhere sacred as if it were a treasure hoard.’

  He nodded. ‘It has always been that way. Remember Egypt? The tombs in the Valley of the Kings were robbed as often as not by the very men who dug them.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean we have to rob this one, though, does it?’

  He held her gaze and after a moment, he laughed. ‘Are you suggesting we take this back? Rebury it?’ He looked back at the sword. ‘It is so special. Imagine how it looked when it was new,’ he said. There was a touch of awe in his voice. ‘I wonder if that would be the right thing, to rebury it?’

  ‘I think so.’ She nodded. ‘Have you got a camera? You can take lots of photos of it for your research, but I think it ought to go back with its owner.’ She gave a sudden quick shiver. ‘It feels wrong to have taken it away. I think that’s what Rosemary meant.’ She reached out to it again, then withdrew her hand without touching it. ‘Supposing it is cursed, Leo. Supposing anyone who touches it is cursed?’

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘Is there a reason you are saying that? Can you feel something?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ For a moment she looked almost miserable. ‘Yes, I suppose I can.’

  ‘It could be true, of course,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘In all kinds of cultures they would use magic to protect the dead – either to discourage people from
grave robbing, or to make sure the dead stayed dead and didn’t come back to haunt the living.’

  ‘Like poor Dan.’

  He looked startled. ‘Ah, Dan, the ghost in your barn. You don’t really believe that, do you? Ouija boards?’

  ‘No,’ she heard the uncertainty in her own voice. ‘I don’t think so, but it was strange. It was so – definite. So real.’

  ‘Well, your so-called psychic friend has gone, so we’ll never know on that score.’ He paused. ‘We need someone who can read the runes.’

  ‘Are they clear enough to see?’ She came closer.

  He looked up, reached across and kissed her. ‘You taste of sugar.’

  ‘Eat yours, then you will too.’

  He reached into the bag and added a shower of sugar crystals to the mess of soil and rust on the newspaper in front of him.

  ‘There is a shop in Woodbridge which sells runes and things in little bags,’ she went on. ‘They would have a book.’

  ‘No need. I’ve got books on runes somewhere,’ he said. ‘I studied Anglo-Saxon at university. But it was a long time ago.’

  She stared up at him again. ‘You are amazing. Is there anything you can’t do?’

  He laughed. ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘Let’s rebury it, Leo.’ Suddenly her eyes were shining. ‘It would be the right thing to take it back, wouldn’t it? Please. Then it is up to the ancient gods, whoever they were. If the sword is ever found again someone else will decide its fate.’

  ‘If we got caught it would take an awful lot of explaining.’

  She stood up and walked round the table to him, putting her arms round him. ‘No problem. We won’t get caught!’

  In the field the burial mound of the Lord Egbert and his servant Hrotgar lay unnoticed by the passing Danish horde. Under the soil the death treasure lay untouched, but Destiny Maker, the best and greatest sword made by Eric the swordsmith, was not there.

  After the ill-omened barbecue that afternoon John and Amanda had said they wanted to rest for a while, and as Zoë was asleep, Ken had walked up the fields away from the river. He needed to be alone. An awful lot had happened in the last twenty-four hours and his head was reeling. He walked for a long time, conscious that he was probably going round in circles, and found himself eventually in the spot where he had woken from his sleepwalking incident. He knew now it was a ruined church; he had traced his route on a local map. It was an Anglo-Saxon church and had been destroyed, so the legend went, during a Viking raid in the ninth century. It seemed odd that it had never been rebuilt, but then after the raid there was no village left any more.

  He sat down on a low pile of flints, the remnant of an ancient wall, and heaved a long sigh. The idyll he and Zoë had promised themselves was over almost before it had begun. He knew it and so obviously did she. His first wave of fury at suspecting she was having an affair with the man next door had begun to subside. After all, if he was honest the passion between him and her was long gone; he had been selfish persuading her to come here, trying to bully her into sailing when he knew she was frightened of the water, forcing her to abandon her job and her friends and – he had to acknowledge that was a part of it – the chance of a family. And what had he done when he arrived? He had found himself a girlfriend in Woodbridge. He smiled at the thought. Zoë hadn’t any idea, of course, but subconsciously perhaps she had guessed. Otherwise why would she turn to that man – what was it Jackson called him, the freak? – to comfort herself?

  Jackson.

  His thoughts turned to Rosemary. Poor woman. He wondered if she would make it. What a can of worms he had moved them into. And it had all seemed so peaceful!

  An hour later he had returned to the barn, seen no sign of any of the others, and tiptoed out to the garage. Collecting his car he headed off towards Woodbridge. Sylvia was home and he was in need of some TLC. The rest of them could go to hell. He would text Zoë later on the pretext that he was going to stay overnight in Ipswich and let her know he wasn’t coming home.

  After the accident the police had secured the scene with blue and white tape which fluttered in the breeze, and returned later in the afternoon with a team of investigators to try to piece together what had happened. It seemed straightforward. Jackson Watts had taken the tractor without permission, having imbibed a good deal of lager, and had driven it deliberately at a bunch of walkers with a view to scaring them off Mr Turtill’s field. The witness statements were all fairly consistent. He had driven without due care and attention and in order to intimidate but in all probability he had not intended to cause injury or loss of life. He had steered away from the group of walkers at the last moment and in the normal course of events he would have missed them. The injuries to Mrs Formby were caused by the plough which had swung loose behind the tractor. Engineers were checking the hydraulics which lifted the blades out of the soil, but it seemed clear that it was the erratic driving and the incorrect use of the machine which had caused it to lurch in the way it did.

  The photographer ducked under the tape, into the edge of the copse with his camera. He took pictures of the cut wire and the trampled nettles. It had to be remembered that these people were trespassing on private land. He leaned forward and took several more pictures, then he noticed the old spades. They looked as though they had been there a while. He leaned in and pulled one out of the brambles with a gloved hand. The rusty old blade was half buried and it tore up some grass with it, leaving a square of exposed soil. He leaned closer. A couple of twigs, bleached and stained, had emerged from the earth. And another. He caught his breath, and leaned down, gently filtering the soil with his fingers. They were ribs. He scraped a bit more of the soil and found several vertebrae. He worked his way upward slowly and there it was. A human skull. ‘No wonder it’s called Dead Man’s field,’ he muttered. He backed out of the undergrowth and looked round for his colleague. ‘Over here, mate. You are not going to believe this, but I’ve found a body.’

  18

  Zoë woke and for a moment she didn’t know where she was. She stretched luxuriously, then she remembered Leo. She put her hand out to his side of the bed but there was no one there. The sheet was cold.

  ‘Leo!’ She sat up in the dark.

  ‘It’s all right. I’m here.’

  She could see him now, a silhouette against his bedroom window. He was staring out into the night.

  ‘Couldn’t you sleep?’

  He turned away from the window and, coming over to the bed, sat down beside her. Leaning down, he kissed her long and hard. She put her arms round his neck. ‘Come back to bed.’

  ‘In a minute.’ He stood up again. ‘Zoë, there is something I want to discuss with you.’

  ‘What?’ She felt herself tense with apprehension at the sudden change in his mood.

  ‘I’ve been planning a trip on Curlew, the last of the season.’

  ‘And?’ She felt suddenly cold.

  ‘And, I haven’t mentioned it because I didn’t know how my work was going to pan out – there is always an element of uncertainty when one is a freelance.’ He moved away from her, back to the window. ‘I have a couple of weeks coming up. I want to go, get away from all this, and I want you to come with me.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘But I can’t!’

  ‘Because of Ken?’

  ‘Yes, of course because of Ken.’

  There was a long silence in the room, then he laughed quietly. ‘Zoë, you are in my bed, in my bedroom. Ken is not really a factor in this, is he?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Do you want to come?’ he said at last.

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘Even if it means sailing across the North Sea?’

  ‘In Curlew?’ It was a horrified whisper.

  ‘In Curlew. You could learn to be a pirate’s moll!’ He grinned. ‘Have you got a passport?’

  ‘Of course I have.’ Her brain was whirling. She pushed herself up against the pillows.
>
  ‘I’ll take you shopping in Holland; or we’ll jump on the train once we’re over there and go to Paris. Get you those gypsy clothes. Set the real Zoë free.’

  ‘Leo.’ She shook her head. ‘I would so love to. It sounds so exciting. Indiana Jones. Enid Blyton! But the truth is, I’m scared.’

  ‘No you’re not. You are a brave, gutsy lady. All you’ve been waiting for is someone to suggest it!’

  ‘But I hate sailing. You know I do.’

  ‘Not with me.’

  ‘With you it’s been in the river.’

  ‘And you’ve passed the test. Promotion. Leo’s sea school is next.’ He lifted the curtain and stared out again, then he turned back to her. ‘And I tell you what. If we decided to rebury the sword, that would be a test of our nerve and derring-do. How about that? Would that give you time to think? But it can’t be too long. The weather will change soon and then the chance will have gone.’

  Behind him down on the river the mist was growing thicker. In the silence of the night as the tide rose, carrying the deep sea water up the channel once more, the shadow of the great long ship headed in across the bar on its journey towards death and destruction.

  The bard was reciting a poem composed around the life of the Lord Egbert, gently stroking the strings of his lyre. The hall fell silent as the crowds listened with respect. In the two great hearths the fires crackled and smoked, and outside the wind strengthened. The guards, having thrown Eric, bound hand and foot, into the storehouse which served as a prison and fastened the door, came back to their posts. One of them, the elder, glanced out into the darkness with a tremor of unease. It was a dark night and set to be a stormy one, and there was an edge to the atmosphere out there which he disliked. He had heard Eric scream the word Viking. Like his colleague he had assumed the smith was trying to distract them. Vikings. Sea pirates. The word was guaranteed to instil terror in anyone who lived on the edge of the water.