by Paul Finch
The archaeologists moved in straggling single-file, but Clive and the professor strolled ahead, savouring every new moment. In their many years working in the faculty, they’d been together on field-trips all over the British Isles, and, perhaps in true kindred-spirit fashion, had at length become lovers. This was an unspoken fact of life back on campus, though few would openly acknowledge it for fear that it might reflect on the twosome in professional terms, not that those who didn’t know them would automatically believe it. At first glance, Clive wasn’t the sort of bloke you’d expect to win a woman like Professor Mercy. He was big and ungainly, and, with a constant sleepy grin on his face, looked disarmingly like a teddy bear. But, as all his students knew, he had hidden depths. As well as possessing a nice, easy-going character, he was a good conversationalist, had an infectious sense of humour and knew his subject inside-out. He was also, like the woman in his life, completely at home in the great outdoors. What Clive didn’t know about the basic lore of the British countryside wasn’t worth knowing.
“Very different from the Western Isles, isn’t it,” he commented, as they roamed along. “The Western Isles are generally treeless. Soil’s too poor, rocks too porous.”
“This place is a natural bowl,” Professor Mercy replied. “Even though it’s limestone, the rainfall gathers, keeps everything well-watered.”
Slightly behind them on the path, David Thorson had observed much the same thing.
“Funny no-one’s ever settled on it,” he commented.
“Well they did, didn’t they,” Craig put in. “Speaking of which … I wonder whereabouts that cave actually is?”
“I was wondering when someone was going to mention that,” Alan said.
Craig shrugged. “Well … it’s only a story, of course. There might not even be a cave.”
David was interested, however. “What’re you guys on about?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Craig replied with a grin. “It’s bugging Alan.”
Alan turned and gave him a look. “Tell him, if you want. Doesn’t bother me if he ends up shitting bricks afterwards.”
Craig sniggered, so Nug took up the story: “In 1115, some Irish monks tried to settle here, but according to the chronicle they didn’t last a month.”
“Why?” David asked.
“We’ve only got their word for it, of course, but apparently they went home again telling stories about strange noises … snuffles, snarls. They even wrote that the devil left his claw-marks on the door to their hermitage.”
David gave this some thought as they plodded along. “Probably just that there weren’t any altar boys to shag,” he finally said.
“Very cynical for someone so young, David,” Alan replied.
“Well it’s a crock, isn’t it?”
“I sincerely hope so,” Craig said.
David didn’t say anything else, and a few minutes later he’d stridden off ahead, catching up with Clive and the Professor.
Alan shook his head. “Told you he’d end up crapping himself. He probably hasn’t even camped before, apart from in his mum’s back-garden.”
“I’m sure he’ll have his uses,” Craig replied.
Alan nodded. “Oh yeah. He’ll ensure we get the funding to come back again in August.”
Nug hooted with laughter. “Now who’s being a cynic?”
3
The cave-mouth was a dank black aperture under thick tufts of mat-grass. As an entrance-way, it was roughly triangular, about seven feet by eight feet at its highest and widest points. Nothing stirred inside it, but a smell of earth, roots and damp, decaying leaf-rubble exhaled from its deep and hidden recesses. It could have been any cave-mouth had it not been for the crude mark of a cross, scored on the high stone lintel.
“They actually lived here?” said Alan, with a shiver.
Beside him, Nug gazed with fascination into the dripping depths. “In winter they’d probably need the shelter. I don’t suppose they had much choice.”
Alan glanced around. “I wonder what happened to this door the devil supposedly left scratches on?”
“Give us a break, man. It was 900 years ago. Probably turned to dust by now.”
That of course made sense, though standing as they now were, confronting hard evidence that at least part of the legend about Craeghatir was true, it was hard not to wonder if other stories were as well. Joseph Sizergh, a mariner ship-wrecked here in 1798, had never been rescued alive. His diary was found floating in the sea by a fishing-boat. For the most part, the bloodied, water-logged pages had been unreadable, though enough was gleaned from them to divert the boat to Craeghatir, where he appeared to have endured several months of “ungodly horrors”. A search was duly mounted for the castaway, but in vain. No trace of Sizergh was ever found. The modern theory held that, driven mad by desolation, he’d finally attempted the perilous six-mile swim to the Scottish mainland, and inevitably, had failed; though others wondered if something more sinister than loneliness had been the cause of his suicidal bid to escape.
Since then, mainly from the days when the lighthouse was manned, other weird stories had emerged; concerning unfamiliar runes cut into tree-trunks, and curious items – bones, shells, dead seabirds and the like – found set out in bizarre but deliberate patterns. At least one lighthouse keeper had lost his mind on Craeghatir, throwing himself from the lantern-gallery, while another had reported a dirge of odd howls, wolf-like in tone.
“I wonder if this cave goes to any depth?” Alan finally said.
Nug shrugged. “Can’t go too far, can it. I mean, we’re on an island.”
Alan mused on this. “Well … only one way to find out.” And he switched on his torch.
Light stabbed forwards, at first showing only the dirt floor and its rubble of dead leaves and dried pine-needles, though gradually the other dimensions of the cave became visible. The twosome pressed into it. The walls were of stippled limestone and dripping with moisture. Tangles of roots and rank vegetation hung down from above. There was a rich loamy smell, tainted slightly by decay. Beneath their feet, the forest-type rubbish petered out and soon they were walking on stones and hard-packed earth.
“How far are we going in?” Nug asked.
“Dunno,” Alan mumbled. “I thought it would’ve stopped before now.”
And then, abruptly, they came to the back of the cave. The ceiling sloped down with such suddenness, that Alan almost cracked his head on it. He stopped sharp and shone the light around … to find a complete dead-end.
“This seems to be it,” he said. “Good, let’s go back …”
Nug sniggered. “Hang about. We’ve got to check for hidden doors first; secret passages.”
Humouring him, Alan roved the torchlight over every possible nook and cranny. “Doesn’t do any harm to check, I suppose.”
“Better check what you’re standing in, too,” Nug added. “This is probably the part of the cave those monks used as a crapper.”
Alan looked slowly round at him. “Nice.”
His buddy shrugged. “Hey, there wasn’t much hygiene back in …”
Then he sensed the presence. They both did. The sudden, unexpected presence of a figure standing directly behind them, silent and still in the darkness.
“What the …”
Both turned violently round, fists clenched and ready.
But it was only Linda. Regarding them critically.
“Jesus, Linda!” Alan snapped. “You crept up!”
“No I didn’t,” she replied. “I walked.”
“Hmm.” Nug glanced around at the low ceiling and damp walls. “Poor acoustics in here, probably.”
Linda appraised them both by the light of the torch … and found them wanting. “Fearless fellas, eh? I’m really impressed,” she said after a moment. “Anyway, assuming you two haven’t discovered anything intere
sting – the idea of which was a bit of a laugh in itself in my opinion – the Prof wants you at the camp.” She turned and set off back.
Rather awkwardly, the men followed.
“Why?” Nug asked her as they emerged into daylight. “Something come up?”
“Mission briefing, apparently,” she said. “The Prof wants to make sure we’re all singing from the same song-sheet.”
From the cave mouth, they walked back together, carefully picking their way around the 200 yards or so of bog and pool, until they’d reached the first cover of the trees, where the rest of the party had pitched their tents and were now starting a small cooking-fire. They had opted to bivouac here, at the western end of the glen, because it was well protected from rainfall by the spreading boughs of mature pines, was close to fresh water though in itself located on higher, dryer ground, and at the same time sheltered by the island’s inner north-western slope from the perishing, often wringing-wet Atlantic winds … but also because Professor Mercy had spotted the monks’ former hermitage, and suspected that this place might well be “the historic heart of the island”, as she put it. As experienced outdoors folk, they’d each of them brought a single tent, all made from nylon and double-skinned, which helped reduce condensation within and was proof against insect infiltration. They’d erected them in a circle around the space cleared for the fire, but not too close to it, for obvious reasons.
Alan was pleased to see that Linda had placed hers on the other side of the camp-fire from Barry’s, and couldn’t resist commenting on this as they strolled back together. “Glad you’ve only brought a one-man tent,” he said confidentially.
She stopped and looked round at him. “And what would it matter to you if I’d brought a two-man?”
“Well, it might be a bit distracting. All that noise at night.”
She gave him a withering look, then started walking again. “Don’t be pathetic, Alan. It doesn’t suit you.”
“Me, pathetic?” he said, irritated. “What about you? Shacked up with that Charles Atlas wannabe, just to make a point!”
“I’m not shacked up with anyone,” she replied heatedly.
“Does he know that?”
“It’s none of your business, is it!”
Detecting an atmosphere, Nug had walked ahead, but the warring duo were almost back among the tents now, so they had to lower their voices anyway. Even then, Alan didn’t feel he could let it go. “What do you mean, ‘none of my business’? Jesus, Linda! Didn’t we have something good going?”
“You’re the one who played away,” the girl retorted.
“A sodding one-off!” he hissed. “At a party, when I was totally pissed.”
They were now within earshot of the others, several of whom had looked curiously round.
“Let’s just drop it,” Linda said, flustered. “Enough people here know about it, without us embarrassing them all to death again.”
This time Alan bit his tongue. She was right. Another scene in public would not help in any way. He stood back, hands in his pockets, and watched helplessly as his former girlfriend went straight over to Barry’s tent. The big guy had just come out of it, and now put an arm around her shoulder as Professor Mercy called them all to attention.
Not for the first time, Alan wondered how he’d managed to lose a babe like Linda; more to the point, how he’d ever managed to lose her to someone like Barry Wood. The big lunk might have been the best number-eight in the college rugby union club, but he was a crude, hard-edged sort. His blonde hair and good looks belied the aggressive, loutish persona beneath. Alan couldn’t work out whether Linda had fallen in with such a shallow jerk simply because she was on the rebound, or through some deep insecurity on her part. Was she, for example, one of those desperate young women who need always to be adored come fair weather or foul? Or was she simply trying to get at him, openly punishing his infidelity by parading round with one of those he regarded as a lesser mortal.
Then again, Alan wondered – with his usual lack of self-confidence – what made him so special? He wasn’t a bad looking kid for 26, he supposed – dark haired, dark eyed, reasonable physique through years of self-imposed PT – but he’d never exactly been a lady-killer. Pairing up with Linda had been the highlight of his love-life thus far … but it wasn’t as though he’d deserved it. He certainly hadn’t been able to offer her any more than many of the other guys at college. Perhaps he should write the whole experience off as a hard lesson?; for a brief time, he’d got lucky – very lucky – and now that luck had run out.
And all because of a stupid one-night stand.
He shook his head ruefully. It wasn’t as if he even specialised in one-night stands; he had lost his virginity at 18, but even before Linda had come along, his assignations had been few and far between. If only he’d been …
“We’re not boring you, are we, Alan?” said Professor Mercy.
Alan looked up, startled.
Everyone was watching him. They’d formed a group at the far end of the camp about ten yards away, and were now seated on the ground. The Professor, standing in their midst, had evidently been about to let forth when she’d suddenly noticed him off in a world of his own.
He hurried to join them, mumbling an apology and something about having been up since the crack. The Professor, as was her way, nodded patiently, waited for him to find a place and arrange himself comfortably there, then continued: “Now … I think we all know what we’re doing. I’m sure four months of intricate planning won’t have slipped any of us by. But let’s just refresh …”
And she did.
In the quick, concise but oh-so compelling fashion that she, as Redditch University’s leading medieval historian and archaeologist, had made her speciality. In vivid fashion, she recounted the known facts about the object of their mission; Ivar Ragnarsson, also called ‘Ivar the Boneless’, an earl of the much-feared Danish clan Lothbrok, and probably the most famous Viking of his or any other age.
“As well as satisfying the traditional Viking image of looter, slaver, pirate, mass-killer on a terrifying scale, Ivar was also a military genius, without doubt the most successful Norse warlord of the ninth century,” the Professor reminded them. “After his father’s execution in the adder-pit at York, he launched a five year vengeance raid on Britain, in that time devastating vast areas of England, Ireland and the Scottish Isles. His ferocity terrorised even his own followers. Of course, he was reputed to be berserkir – a warrior possessed by the wolf-spirit, whose madness carried him past all pain and reason in the heat of battle, and whose victims were deemed direct offerings to the all-powerful entities that were the Norse gods.”
As always, Alan found it difficult not to be awed by his project-leader and personal tutor. Her combination of brains, knowledge and beauty was almost mystical. It seemed utterly appropriate that her expertise should centre on the so-called ‘Dark Ages’, that half-forgotten era between the fall of Rome and the rise of medieval Europe, when fact interwove with myth, and ‘civilisation’ meant the power of petty lords dependent entirely on the spears of their hearth-men and the wiles of their ‘wizards’.
“But in what way was he ‘Boneless’?” David Thorson asked. “Not very flattering, is it?”
“They reckon it was because he was really agile,” said Barry. “You know, could jump over spears and shield-walls and such.”
Alan snorted: “You got that out of a movie.”
Barry shrugged his big shoulders, as if it didn’t matter to him that much, which when he was close to Linda, nothing really did.
“No-one knows for sure,” Nug cut in. “Just one of the many mysteries that surround Ivar.”
“Perhaps it meant he wasn’t fully human?” Craig mused. “Like he was a spirit creature, or something. You know, had an astral self.”
“Well he was supposed to be a sorcerer as well as a war-chief,” Alan
conceded.
“Course … you’ve heard one outrageous theory,” Linda chirped up mischievously. “That he was gay.”
Instantly, there were snorts of derision.
“A theory formulated in the Sixties no doubt,” said Barry, as always stung by references to anything non-hetero.
“No,” she argued. “The story is that he was called ‘Boneless’ by his brothers, when he was young, because he couldn’t get it up for the girls. The nickname just stuck.”
“So how come he ended up having sons?” Alan wondered.
“Well that doesn’t mean anything,” she retorted. “Look at Barrymore. He’s got kids.”
There were more sniggers, more expressions of disbelief.
“No, but it’s unlikely,” Clive put in. “Being gay was frowned on but accepted by most pre-medieval civilisations, but the Nordics weren’t one of them. It’s true that their society was based on male-bonding, but to them, any man who couldn’t satisfy a woman was the scum of the earth – a failure, a total weakling.” He turned to Linda. “If your theory’s true, it’s impossible to see how Ivar could have risen to the prominence he did.”
There were more mutters about this, more arguments, until the Professor cleared her throat noisily. “As fascinating a subject as Ivar’s sexuality might be, do you folks mind if we just concentrate on what’s important for the moment? And on what we’re doing here.”
The group fell quiet again, and Professor Mercy resumed her lecture. She recalled how Ivar had died in Ireland some time in 873, but that no-one knew where or how. She then went on to the ancient Irish chronicles, recently uncovered and translated by a colleague of her’s at Cork University. Excitingly, those chronicles had described how “a tyrant called Inguar” had been laid to rest on “the island known as Crae”. This almost certainly meant Craeghatir; more to the point “Inguar” was a common Gaelic pronunciation of the Danish name “Ivar”. A resulting, rather tentative investigation had gone ahead and had quickly uncovered a previously unknown barrow located close to the single stone megalith for which the island was renowned, but horrendous winter weather had brought the mission to a premature end. Now, with summer finally here, and the permission of the Highlands Heritage Board secured in writing, a fuller expedition was being mounted. It was in Professor Mercy and her team’s remit to carry out the first phase, excavating the barrow and its surrounding area.