“I thought that all of the stone circles in Britain had been recorded,” said Calloway. “But I’ve never heard of this one.”
“No,” said Wayt. “Not many outsiders have. Successive landowners have been very tight-lipped about it. It was only after the war that it was discovered. Pure chance, really. An RAF spotter plane was testing some new kind of camera by taking a series of coastal photos. They got some very good shots of the site. There was nothing classified about the pictures and so the pilot passed them to his elder brother who published a specialist magazine. The archaeological world went wild. I was still a student at the time and my imagination was certainly fired.
“Every university in the country made a bid to get a team in here, but despite all the pressure brought to bear on him, the late Sir Peter remained adamant. Nobody was allowed onto his land. He kept armed gamekeepers here for a few years and I think that quite a number of eminent men found themselves picking shot out of their backsides.
“Of course, all that was a long time ago, and eventually most of the archaeology departments gave it up as a lost cause and forgot about it. I never did. I kept tabs on the place through the years, even taking the trouble to research into Sir Peter’s family so that I knew who his heir was. As soon as the old boy snuffed it, I had a cablegram on the way to Australia. Anyway, come along both of you and see for yourselves.”
As we neared “Dad,” I noticed that the lower slopes were thickly covered not only with the short, scrubby olive-coloured grass common to the southern chalklands but also with a profusion of gorse, brambles and wild flowers. I expected our ascent to be heavy going.
And then Wayt pointed out a well-beaten pathway of hard-packed, dusty earth. With young Porter leading the way and Wayt bringing up the rear, we began to climb. The path was as firm underfoot as any concrete pavement.
“Now this is peculiar,” mused Calloway. “Here’s a place supposedly banned to outsiders for God knows how long, and apparently avoided by the locals, yet this pathway is so well established that it’s completely devoid of plant growth.”
“Very peculiar,” agreed Wayt. “I think that this path is hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. On the other hand, it hadn’t been used for many years before our arrival. When we came here, the path was invisible, well camouflaged by interwoven grasses and brambles. All the way to the treeline you can see where we had to cut the growth back. We found the path quite by accident. We were nosing around, trying to find the easiest way up, and one of the students stumbled across it.
“From the shape of the brambles along the edge of the path, I’m disposed to think that they were not the result of random growth but that they were purposely trained to cover the path. Probably the work of the misanthropic Sir Peter.”
Although the rise was not excessively steep, our conversation died away as we trudged higher. At last we reached the upper limit of the grass cover where the path disappeared into the lower edge of the forest. We halted for a breather.
“You’ll have to take it easy going through here,” warned Ken Porter, “the tree growth is very thick.”
He was right. It was apparent as we entered into their shade that the woods had completely escaped the predations of man. From bright daylight we found ourselves suddenly enclosed in green-shadowed dimness, and we constantly ducked and weaved to avoid the weighty solidity of ancient limbs. The path itself was now much softer to walk upon, being carpeted with the mulch of countless years of dead leaves. And then almost as quickly as we had entered the forest we reached the crest of the hill and were dazzled as we moved out into the bright sunlight.
The downward slope on this side was much more gentle and only about one-third of the height we had just climbed. To east and west, long arms of land inclined gradually down to a cliff edge, forming from the plateau between them a natural, horseshoe-shaped amphitheatre. Beyond the ragged brink where the land finished, the dark brown-green swell of the English Channel crawled towards the horizon. In the distance, to the west, I could see a misty patch which I guessed was Beachy Head jutting out into the sea.
The stone “circle” was more of an oval, the barrow a prominent wen in the centre. All around were signs of excavation and a number of young men and women worked at a variety of tasks, digging, scraping, sieving, cleaning. Even from where we stood we could hear the pleasant hum of good-humoured conversation punctuated by occasional shouts of laughter.
“They’re happy in their work,” I observed.
“I’m an easy taskmaster,” said Wayt. “They’re all volunteers and if they’re contented I get far more out of them. Come on, let’s go down.”
As we reached the bottom of the incline, one of the students called out to Wayt and our host excused himself. Calloway ambled away towards the far end of the circle and I tagged along.
“Don’t go too near the edge,” yelled Wayt. “It could be unsafe and it’s several hundred feet to the beach.”
Calloway waved a placatory hand and continued on to the flat slab at the point of the oval. Its surface was not truly flat but gently convex, worn and pitted and mossy and with deep channels gouged into the sides and the head.
“I think Wayt’s right about this. Sacrificial stone.” He cupped his hands to light a cigarette. “The grooves are evidently to drain away blood.”
“Human, I suppose.”
Calloway shrugged. “Depends on how big a favour the priests would want from the gods,” he opined. He waved again to Wayt. “Our friend’s anxious for us to take a look at his tomb.”
As we sauntered back, I looked with interest at the standing stones. They were not large, say about the size of those at Avebury in Wiltshire although fewer in number, but that notwithstanding each must have been an immense weight. One could only marvel at the ancient men who had laboured to bring such columns over immense distances and nigh-impossible terrain.
“Didn’t mean to sound like a nursemaid,” Wayt apologised as we joined him. “Erosion is a serious problem along this part of the coast. Some of the cliffs nearer to Hastings are losing several feet each year with rockfalls. That’s another reason I was always so keen to get to this place. I wanted to uncover its secrets before it goes crashing into the sea.”
He took a large flashlight offered by one of the students and we trailed after him as he went down into the dug-out barrow. The entrance was low and we crouched down as we went through. I felt for Calloway who was not built for such exercise. It was no better inside, for we had to squat and shuffle along. After five or six yards of a thigh-stretchingly painful journey we were stopped by the great rock which blocked the way into the tomb. It was still intact despite the signs of hard work to clear the dirt packed in around it.
“You can see that we haven’t managed to breach this yet,” said Wayt. “But we’ll get there sooner or later.” He swivelled the torch’s beam to one side. “And this is one of the sculptures you know of, Calloway.”
The photographs could not possibly have conveyed the skill of the mason who had carved the figure. In the torchlight, limned by black shadows, that stone image seemed imbued with strange life and I half expected it to struggle and scream upon its cross.
“It’s... disturbing,” I said. Wayt smiled, pleased with my reaction.
Calloway reached out and placed a gentle hand on the carving. “Extraordinary,” he murmured.
Wayt directed the torch at the opposite jamb, onto the identical figure carved there. “Right, Calloway, you’re the expert on strange things—have you any idea what these carvings signify?”
“Never seen anything like them before,” lied Calloway.
“I see.” Wayt sounded disappointed. “There’s something else,” he said, flicking the beam onto the lintel. “Since I sent you those photographs we’ve been able to clean away the dirt from up there. It now looks fairly certain that the tomb itself is Roman.”
Chiselled deeply into the lintel were the words:
HIC JACET PRISCVS
“I kno
w a lot about Roman Britain,” said Wayt. “But the name of Priscus isn’t familiar to me. And yet he must have been of some importance to merit a tomb like this.”
“Perhaps a common soldier,” I suggested. “His importance being symbolic, even if his name is unknown to historians. You know, the eternal warrior, the universal soldier.”
Wayt shook his head. “No, Father Shea, the Romans would not have honoured their common soldiery by giving them distinctive tombs, not even concealed tombs such as this. Nor would they have bothered to record a common soldier’s name on his tomb.”
“A pity,” I said. “Great occasions in history belong to ordinary people as well as the eminencies. I think we should know more of history’s bit players. For instance, I would like to know the name of the centurion at Calvary.”
“It was Ducus Waynus,” muttered Calloway, who had a taste for bad epic films. To Wayt he said in a bored voice, “This could be some sort of battle standard, I suppose, perhaps belonging to a mercenary legion. Now I am getting out of here before my legs lock and you have to summon a bulldozer to extricate me.”
We wriggled our way out of the barrow and spent long minutes gingerly easing aching leg muscles. I wondered how a miner felt at the end of an eight-hour shift. Calloway took out his cigarette case and lit up. “Sorry that I can’t help you, Wayt. Thanks for the chance to see the tomb, though; it’s been interesting. We’ll have to leave now, we’ve a long drive ahead of us.”
The archaeologist smiled ruefully. “Ah well, the most enjoyable mysteries are those which take a lot of solving. You’ll excuse me if I don’t see you off personally. I’ll stick around and see how my team’s been doing today. Ken will take you to your car.” He shook hands and turned away.
When we gained the ridge I looked back. Wayt was already hard at work, and apparently giving a lecture to a rapt audience as he laboured. I guessed that he would make a good teacher.
While I was unlocking the Land Rover’s door, Calloway said to Porter, “You think a lot of Wayt?”
“We all do.”
Calloway took a card from his pocket and handed it to the young American. “I’m not happy about this dig,” he said. “That’s where you can reach me. I want you to contact me if anything on this site, anything at all, gives you cause to worry. If I’m not around, leave a message. But don’t mention this to Wayt. I don’t want to give him any cause for concern.”
“Are you expecting something to go wrong?” I asked as I turned the vehicle.
“Perhaps.” He lit another flat Turkish cigarette.
My friend smoked in silence for some minutes then said, “At least I now know what happened to Priscus.”
“Not a common soldier?” I asked.
Calloway wound down the window and threw out his cigarette stub. “Far from common.”
I waited for more, then grew impatient. “You’d better tell me what you know.”
Calloway nodded. “In the first century AD, during the reign of Vespasian, the family Priscus was wiped out along with all retainers and slaves, and their names were expunged from the records, even from those archives going back to the early Republic. And all because of Vitellius Priscus, whom I believe to be the occupant of that tomb back there.
“If any professional historian has heard of Priscus, it will only be as an unsubstantiated legend. But within certain occult circles his story is well known.
“Vitellius Priscus was a patrician and a high-ranking army officer. He was a good soldier and unlike many of his class he chose not to linger in the decadence that was Rome. He loved to campaign in distant lands, he loved to see action. He had a reputation as a scholar, too, and was once a protege of Petronius Arbiter, although he sensibly ended that friendship when Petronius fell foul of Nero.
“As long as he could avoid offending any of the more insane Caesars, his future was assured. In time, he was awarded an assistant governorship in Egypt.
“It was there that Priscus changed. His scholarship and natural curiosity led him into a study of the occult. He fell in with a strange and clandestine sect of Egyptian priests and became their most willing pupil. It is said that his was one of those rare talents that climbs swiftly and without hindrance into the highest occult grades. And like most who experience this effortless rise, he chose to follow the path of evil.
“His occult legacy is The Twenty-one Essays, in which he claimed to have lived and experienced abominations repellent even to the most jaded of Roman voluptuaries. The book was proscribed and further military advancement curtailed. At the time, his family still had influence sufficient to ensure his survival, but Priscus was banished to Britain.
“Simultaneously, there was gossip about Priscus, whispers that he was changing physically, becoming a ‘demon’.
“The last thing that’s known for certain is that Priscus arrived in Britain. He was never heard of again and his family was eliminated.
“With what we have seen today, this is what I think must have happened. Somehow, while in Egypt, Priscus had become infected with an alien strain, just like the Innsmouth people. Priscus was crucified and interred in that barrow—I imagine that the Romans and the druids colluded to destroy what both saw as a menace.
“And there you have it. Now, Roderick, if you don’t mind, I am going to have a nap. Wake me when we get to Southdown.”
***
I went away after that for a couple of months, going to a monastery in France to aid an independent investigation into certain alleged malpractices.
I returned home one afternoon, weary and looking forward to a few days of relaxation. My immediate plans included a hot bath and an early supper, followed by an evening in my favourite armchair with The Pickwick Papers and a glass of The Glenlivet. I pondered taking a few days off, perhaps to go fishing, for I had worked hard while in France. My curates were able men and could well carry on without me.
I had barely started to unpack when there was a sharp rap at my door and in stalked the housekeeper.
Mrs. Byrne’s usually jovial face was compressed with vexation.
“It’s himself! Professor Calloway!” she announced. “Demanding to see you and will not take no for an answer.”
“Not busy, are you Roderick?” boomed Calloway as I walked into the study. “I’m sure you can spare me a few days, three or four at the most.”
“Really, Reuben,” I protested. “I’ve only just returned from France. I have a parish to run and I can’t go dashing off again.” My conscience nudged me, a reminder that I had intended to do exactly that.
“Rubbish!” snapped my friend. “Young Father What’s-his-name, or the other one, they’ve managed all this time without you. They’ll cope for a little longer.”
“It’s hardly fair to them...” my voice tailed off as my guilty conscience again reminded me of my intentions.
“Look, I’ll just go and wait in the Rolls while you pack a few things,” said Calloway, knowing that he had won with very little trouble. “Keep it simple and casual. Oh, and dark and hard-wearing.”
Minutes later I climbed in beside Calloway and threw my small holdall onto the back seat, where there was already a compact bundle.
“Thank you, Roderick,” said Calloway, as he attempted to steer onto the main road and light one of his dreadful cigarettes at the same time. “It’s good to have someone with me whom I can trust.”
“Where are we going?”
“Oh, didn’t I say? We’re going to Lower Bedhoe.”
“Something has happened at the dig,” I said.
He nodded. “Last week I had a call from that American lad, Porter. He’s not at the dig any more and he’s anxious about what might be going on there. I got Porter to come and see me and I recorded what he had to say. Listen.”
Calloway loaded an audio cassette into the car’s unit and pressed the play button. Ken Porter’s voice came from the speakers, hesitant at first as if unused to speaking into a microphone, then gaining in confidence as he proceeded.
“It was about a month after your visit that we broke through into the tomb,” Porter started. “That may seem a long time to a layman, but in archaeological work you must go carefully so that you don’t damage anything important.
“The earth was packed solidly around the boulder which sealed the tomb and when we had cleaned all the dirt away we found that the gap between the stone and the portal was sealed with some form of cement which was in good condition and very hard.
“It was decided to concentrate at first on removing a small section of the seal, perhaps about five or six inches. Once we had broken through that we should be able to see if there was any danger of damaging the tomb’s contents. If the area behind the seal seemed to be clear, then we could remove the remainder with more vigour.
“When we started to chip away, we found that the cement was quite thick. It took several of us, working in relays, a couple of days to get through. You have been in that cramped, stuffy place and so you can probably guess what it was like. Doctor Wayt stuck it out well, staying down there most of the time to supervise.
“At last we judged that there was the thinnest layer of the seal left to remove. We all agreed that the honour of the final breakthrough should go to Doctor Wayt. He demurred, but it was his dig, which his persistence had made possible, and so we persuaded him.
“As many of us as possible huddled into that confined space before the sepulchre, all waiting eagerly for the great moment, while the remainder crowded about the entrance to the barrow.
“Wayt took a hammer and chisel and carefully tapped round the edges of the remaining piece of the barrier. It gave and fell into the tomb and there was a small crashing sound as it shattered on the inside ground. ‘Sounds like they must have gone to the trouble of constructing a stone floor in there,’ Doctor Wayt told us. ‘Somebody pass me a flashlight and I’ll take a look.’
“He held the light high and to the right and put his face as close to the freshly-opened gap as was possible. Then we heard a sort of puffing or hissing noise and Wayt cried out before falling back in a swoon. There were a few startled shouts and some muted panic, and I heard someone say, ‘He must have inhaled bad air!’
Shadows Over Innsmouth Page 31