by D C Macey
Having looked again at the survey results, he had chosen a small target that had a slight mystery to it. This morning they would start their investigation. Too small and self-contained to represent any sort of building, it was also quite remote from most of what he considered to be the more significant readings, which they had spent the past fortnight working on. Because this was a small-scale signal, it was manageable in the little time they had left. It might prove of no interest. It might possibly be a cist, a small simple burial spot, or it could be any number of other things. In any event, it was small enough to ensure a conclusion, giving the students an opportunity to see the process through from start to finish, and hopefully with some real questions to answer in the process.
Helen watched Sam and the students disappear from camp. A spontaneous but ragged burst of the Seven Dwarfs’ marching song reached back to her from over the dunes. The students’ spirits and sense of fun were clearly up. She smiled and as the sound faded, hurried to tidy the camp.
Chores done, Helen jumped into the minibus. Following her regular routine, she planned to pick up fresh provisions from Saint Andrews and had a list of requests from the students too; something they managed to put together for her most days. At first Sam had objected, she was not their servant. But she had brushed his concerns aside. It was not a problem for her to pick up chocolate and crisps or whatever else was asked for; she was going into the supermarket anyway.
Some days she also treated herself to a personal tour, exploring and sightseeing along the coast. It was a beautiful part of the country, remote, quiet, peaceful. Sometimes she would just park the minibus and wander off into nowhere in particular, relishing the tranquillity. Some places had been breathtaking, others mysterious.
She had felt a real and unexpected thrill on discovering Lower Largo. The name carried a hint of mystery and she had found herself drawn down the slope into the village. A sign caught her attention, announcing the village as the birthplace of Alexander Selkirk: the Scot whose experiences had inspired Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe. It was a story she had read avidly as a girl and acted out countless times with her big brothers though she had always ended up as Friday.
The isolated village sat low against the sea, its breakwater creating a little safe haven, a harbour to shield local fishing boats. Built right on the breakwater and jutting out defiantly towards the sea stood the local hotel. There she had treated herself to lunch and spent an hour just soaking in the atmosphere, allowing herself to be transported back in time. Eyes closed, she had visualised scenes from long past lives; waves breaking against the hotel walls on stormy nights, roaring fires, smuggling, Crusoe, and who knows what.
Immediately beyond the village, the coast arced away into the distance, a magnificent run of sandy beach regularly punctuated by ragged rocky outcrops. It was a place from another age, beautiful, mysterious, yet comfortably approachable.
On her trips, she had found a dozen other little gems scattered along the coast, each village unique and with its own story to tell. No touring today though, just the now familiar short journey into Saint Andrews. She drove past the Old Course Hotel sitting proudly beside the famous golf course, the home of golf. Together with the ancient university, they defined much of the town’s character. Moments later, she was in the town centre and searching for a parking space.
Today the mission was shopping, a nice coffee and then what she had labelled some big game hunting. The students had frequently regaled her with tales of Hamish McHamish the mysterious Saint Andrews cat. She had suspected a wind-up at first. But led by Davy, they had convinced her of the story and her subsequent conversations with locals had confirmed it was true: a cat with the freedom of the town, who probably thought he owned the town. A friend to all, snoozing here, wandering there, fed by all, and the traffic stopped to let him cross the road. She had been disappointed to learn that Hamish had died but intended to find the commemorative statue and send a photograph back to her family in the States. It could only happen here!
As she strolled through the town, Helen mused on the field trip and how things were developing with Sam; she felt good about both. Somehow, she felt he was a good fit for her; she hoped he felt the same, though he wasn’t exactly one for baring his deepest emotions. She had to read between the lines in that department and reckoned she was really starting to get a handle on things now.
What did worry her were the other developments in Edinburgh and she regularly exchanged texts with Grace who was keeping her up to date with events. There had been a nasty murder just before she set off from Edinburgh; the victim, Archie Buchan, she knew of only by reputation. He had been close to both John and Elaine. Things were clearly difficult. Helen had twice phoned John, offering to return to Edinburgh. But he had insisted she finish her trip, there was nothing she could do anyway. She took his insistence at face value though had warned Sam she might need to leave early, but the days had passed and she had not been called back.
• • •
Having left the campsite behind, Sam worked his way through the dunes, leading the students towards his chosen target in the trough between two dunes. The students sectioned off the new dig site, photographed it and made a start on the digging. The rough dune grass and top layer of sand was cleared and then they began to move away the sandy material beneath, slowly, layer by layer.
‘Watch every scrape, check every trowel, you never know what will turn up,’ said Sam. He spoke with enthusiasm, both because he felt it and because he knew these practical experiences were the ones where enthusiasm was instilled, where the good habits of a lifetime were formed. He was not really expecting to see anything too startling, but he watched too, sharing in the experience and ensuring all the students appreciated the importance of diligent care.
Only three students were digging at a time, others sifted the sand or took breaks to relax and just watch the activity for a while. Davy had been given the job of recording events with the departmental camera. He was taking plenty of pictures, so many pictures that the camera battery had faded and he had now switched to using his phone; he could transfer the pictures later.
Many of the pictures managed to include Julie, one of the students currently digging away in the trench. She was steadily moving sandy earth when her trowel struck against a solid object. ‘I’ve hit something, I’ve hit something,’ she shrieked. The initial stir of excitement grew after Sam had knelt down to examine the find. It was the top of a skull, facing up. A burial of some sort? Davy kept busy snapping away.
The rest of the day was devoted to clearing the skeleton, recording every stage and indulging in lots of speculation. By the end of the afternoon, Sam had decided it was no burial but a violent death, captured in and preserved by the dunes: a story held locked in for centuries until they had come along to find it. The news had caused a real stir of excitement amongst the students. It was a great lesson in the importance of persistence and they were all thrilled by the discovery.
They had even been able to make out the hilt of a sword, still gripped in the skeleton’s hand. The blade had long since transformed into a heavy bar of rough rust, but from its size there was no doubt this was a big sword, a real killing machine. This was a man who had gone down fighting; his left humerus was chopped half through close above the elbow. Sam highlighted the now very degraded but still clearly unhealed bone edges, indicating the wound had been inflicted around the time of death. An arrowhead forced right through the shoulder blade and embedded in the rib behind showed that, whoever the man was, he had experienced a hard death.
Around the skeleton’s neck ran a heavy linked gold chain that was threaded through a gold signet ring. The face of the ring was engraved with an ornate cross and had a small ruby offset to one corner. It was a stunning find topped off with a further mystery. In the sand immediately beside the skeleton was a slim lead box, around eighteen inches long, a little over six wide and perhaps one inch deep. It was closed tight and stamped with the same ornate cross
marking. Sam had the students bag the metal finds; they would be kept safe in his tent overnight. He did not want to leave them unattended, just in case. Finally, they laid a sheet of polythene to cover the trench and skeleton and weighed it down before heading back to camp, hungry for their dinner and eager to share their news with Helen.
Dinner passed in a frantic hum of excited speculation. Midway through, Sam had slipped off to make a private phone call to his head of department at the university, leaving Helen with the students.
‘You should have seen it, Helen, the skull was this big,’ said Julie, as her hands described a watermelon.
‘The jaw though, did you see that?’ Davy leant across and squeezed the soft flesh of Julie’s underarm. ‘I thought it was going to grab your arm and pull you right into the sand after it!’
Julie squealed in mock fear. ‘Stop that Davy,’ she shrieked and allowed his arm to slide round her shoulder. ‘I wonder who he was,’ she looked around, eyes shining. ‘He had golden jewellery and weapons and went down fighting. And then was just abandoned in the sand, it’s so sad.’
‘I wonder why whoever killed him didn’t take the gold though, it doesn’t make sense to me,’ said Davy. ‘I mean, looking at his wounds they put a lot of effort into killing him, why not take the reward?’
Others nodded and the speculation sparked more animated conversations. By the time Sam had finished his call and rejoined them, the mystery skeleton had lived and died a hundred different deaths. Everyone quietened as he sat down and the students looked to him for informed comment.
‘The boss is coming over tomorrow with some of the department’s technicians and staff. Seems you lot have caused quite a stir,’ he said, grinning round at the group. Yet deep down he knew they would be feeling a sense of disappointment at the news so many seniors were coming. The first year students would be quickly relegated to messengers and helpers, and probably packed off back to Edinburgh early. Their find would not be theirs for much longer. Sam felt a little bit the same.
‘Look, I’m going to take the minibus down to the village and pick up some drink. Why don’t we have a bonfire and a party right here to celebrate the find and the end of our private dig? What do you say?’ The offer of alcohol and a party pulled the students’ spirits back up.
Davy stood up and shouted. ‘A wake. Let’s give our warrior a proper send off!’ The others cheered and Sam quickly found himself en route to the village with a couple of helpers on board. The rest of the camp set off to gather in driftwood for the bonfire.
Under Helen’s supervision, the students built up a great campfire and then carried three of the benches across from the kitchen area, arranging them into a horseshoe around the fire. Behind the middle bench was placed one of the trestle tables, stacked with beer and wine and a range of snack foods she had laid on. On the other side of the campfire was the huge driftwood stack the students had gathered, enough fuel to keep the fire burning well into the night.
• • •
The evening had gone well, plenty of drink and the excitement of their find kept everything bubbling along. Sam’s identification of the cross as a Templar sign had sparked more interest. When had he died? Was he alone? What was a Templar Knight doing out here anyway? The questions kept tumbling out one after another.
Two of the students were from Hong Kong and did not know very much about the Templar Knights and a Kenyan student had heard they were racists. Sam tried to dispel the misconceptions and explain a little about their history and role and eventual betrayal. As twilight finally surrendered to night, the darkness was broken only by the leaping flames that cast a constantly changing mix of shimmering light and dark shadow across the faces of the group while they followed Sam’s story.
‘Of course, don’t think of our knight set in the world we know today. In the ancient world there was no America, no Australia,’ he paused, looked around the group, picking out eye contacts and moving on with a knowing nod. ‘No,’ he stamped his foot and pointed down at the ground around their feet, ‘this was the end of the world. From Africa northwards, from Asia westwards, right through Europe, the ancient world ended here in the British Isles. And Scotland was the wildest, remotest part of the islands. Whatever he was doing here, our Templar really did die at the end of the World.
‘This is an old place. You know from your lectures that there are buildings up at Skara Brae way older than the pyramids.’ Heads nodded and a murmur of ascent rolled around the fire as Sam continued. ‘Scotland has a full blown 10,000 year old stone calendar. Come on! Mesopotamia, eat your heart out. This place is old. Old places are bound to have some mysteries and secrets, and that’s what we’re here for, what you’re learning to do: to unravel the past.’
Fuelled by the drink, the atmosphere, the excitement of the day’s find and Sam’s stories, several of the students shivered and imagined they could almost sense the ancients moving in the shadows beyond the campfire. Julie had been sitting close to Davy throughout the evening. As if by magic, the gap had finally vanished, their arms wrapped behind each other’s backs.
Sam took another drink from his beer bottle. ‘So, this was the edge of the World. Over time, things spin out from the centre. The best of peoples, the worst. The victims, those searching for refuge, those hunting the refugees, eventually this is as far as they all could come. But this was no empty land.’ As he talked he walked round the fire, picked up some driftwood from the stack and threw it on the flames, then continued his story amidst the shower of flame and sparks that soared up. ‘People lived here, and this was no soft touch place. You had to be tough. Hard. You had to struggle to get established here, to make your mark, to come in and survive. And for every good that arrived an evil came too. Anyone here heard of Jekyll and Hyde? Holmes and Moriarty?’
A bunch of hands went up.
From beyond the shadowy firelight, an English accented voice called out. ‘Don’t tell us, you Scots really do have monsters. Come on Nessie!’ This brought a round of laughs and lightened the mood that had quite unintentionally become increasingly dark as Sam told his tale. A couple took the opportunity to get fresh drinks from the table while a joker started to give a howling wolf impression.
The English accent called out again. ‘So is this really all about that Dan Brown stuff? You know, the Templar Knights, Holy Grails, Jesus stuff?’ The voice trailed off into a nervous laugh, waiting with the rest for Sam’s pronouncement.
Sam laughed too. ‘You’re right, you’re right, we don’t have beasties anymore, well none that I have actually seen. As for Dan Brown, well tells a really great story but we’re archaeologists, so let’s stick to the science please, yes?’ He looked around and saw agreement in the students’ eyes.
‘But, you know, I’m serious about the history, the place: a melting pot of good and evil, kind and cruel. It’s probably no accident that those fictional characters were conceived here, written by authors from here, and,’ he paused for a long moment looking around the group, ‘this country was the Templars’ last real refuge. Like so many others through the ages, this is where they came, the end of the World, the end of their world. Perhaps this was their last stand?’
There was a silence for a moment, broken by Helen as she laughed. ‘Sam, you really know how to kill a party.’
Davy chipped in. ‘Yeah, too right. Remind me not to ask you to the class Christmas night out this year!’ Others laughed, jeered their lecturer and the party atmosphere surged back, a student clicked on some music and the shadows suddenly seemed less impenetrable, the fire felt warmer.
Helen and Sam slipped off, leaving the students to their party.
CHAPTER 5 - THURSDAY 16th MAY
Early in the morning, well before any of the students had emerged for breakfast, Sam guided Helen through the dunes to visit the Templar’s last resting place. Once there, Sam removed the polythene coversheet and stepped back a few paces. He gave Helen space to do what she needed to do. She bowed her head and prayed for the dead Tem
plar, commended him to God and sent her blessing after him.
Sam watched respectfully. In the past he had professed loudly that he did not believe. There was nothing after death; science had clearly proven it beyond any reasonable doubt. His was a very common stance now and he was not about to surrender it, minister girlfriend or not. In truth, despite his public stance he was not really sure what he believed. It was unsettling to think of an eternal blackness, and deep inside he did sometimes think, or at least hope, that there might be something after he died. Something, anything rather than his consciousness simply vanishing into a void as though it had never been. But since adolescence he had increasingly struggled with so many of the strictures and apparent contradictions of Christianity; one day he found he had just left it all behind him. It had just become easier not to think about faith at all. It was just easier to be a nonbeliever.
He had finished his honours degree in modern languages, graduating as a fluent speaker of French, German and Spanish. Then Sam had joined the army on a short service commission in the Intelligence Corps. It had certainly been interesting, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes dark and quite scary. During his service he had made plenty of friends, forging bonds that he was sure would last a lifetime. But three years had been enough for him, and happily, enough time to satisfy family traditions too. He returned to Edinburgh to do a second degree in archaeology and then rolled on to a PhD. That was followed by spells teaching at university in Bristol and then in Naples, where his knowledge of Latin did not help much in the settling in, though his aptitude for languages ensured he quickly grasped Italian. Then a vacancy back in Edinburgh had brought him full circle and home.
That he did not share in Helen’s faith did not worry him at all. It had started with him just plain fancying her. Over these few months together, that impulse had grown into liking and respecting her. The respect had grown further as he saw the strength and goodness in her approach to life. He liked her kindness and consideration for others and her don’t mess with me edge too. Slowly, steadily, he had come to find a natural pleasure in her company, in what she said and what she did. He wanted to be in her company, which felt good and yet just a little unsettling at the same time. From time to time, Sam would catch himself thinking that if there really were good souls then she is certainly what they would look like.