‘So these are houses?’ I gestured at the buildings closest to us. ‘How do they know?’
‘Well, for one thing, they’ve found the middens.’ He looked at me doubtfully. ‘You’ll know what a midden is?’
I nodded. ‘A rubbish heap. A garbage dump, in American terms.’
‘Yes. And in the middens they’ve found bones, from birds and deer and cattle. They’ve found shards of pottery, broken tools, even broken needles, and combs, and toys – everything you’d expect as the detritus of several hundred years of ordinary household living.’
‘Several hundred! Good heavens, how long did people live here? And how long ago?’
‘Ah, well, that’s part of what we don’t know yet. Carbon dating takes a bit of time, you’ll understand. But so far as we know now, the settlement we’re looking at now is a little younger than Skara Brae.’ He turned to Alan. ‘You’ve taken her to Skara Brae?’
‘Not yet. We only just arrived yesterday afternoon. We did drive past the Stones of Stenness.’
Andrew waved away the Stones. ‘Magic! Superstition! This –’ he gestured broadly – ‘this was real! Real people lived here. They had potters, man!’
‘Well, that, of course, indicates they had reached the pinnacle of civilisation,’ said Alan drily.
‘Damn right,’ said Andrew, the Harray Potter. ‘Now.’ He consulted his watch. ‘We’ve not got too much time here, so let’s go to the other end and look at the community centre.’
‘For the workers, you mean?’
‘No, for the village. High Sanday, they’re calling it.’
I was still mystified, but Alan and I followed, carefully picking our way around working areas where dirt was being patiently sifted for artefacts. I kept being distracted by one thing after another – a section of wall made of stones that looked as if they’d been painted, a stack of pottery shards that showed rather elaborate decorations – until Andrew stopped somewhere near the middle of the dig and pointed.
‘There!’
He proudly indicated an area that looked at first like a large gravel pit. Stones, large and small, were everywhere, scattered seemingly at random. Then my eyes adjusted, and I saw the patterns. I saw the thick outer walls enclosing an area roughly the size of two or three football fields. I saw the rough outlines, beginning to take shape, of thinner walls within the structure, rooms within rooms.
‘What on earth is it? Was it?’
‘We don’t know. We think it might have been a temple of some sort, but that’s little more than informed guesswork. We also think it might have had a very high roof, judging from the thickness of the outer walls. They could have supported quite a weight of slate. And we’ve found a great deal of slate in the ruins. It had to come from somewhere. Why not a roof?’
‘Is slate native to the island?’
‘Not now. But there are areas where slate could have been mined five thousand years ago, mined to the limit.’
‘So you’re saying the … the village, town – I don’t know what to call it – the site is five thousand years old?’
‘Ah.’ He glanced at his watch again, and then up at the sky. ‘I’m sorry to say it, but we’d best be getting back. We’ve not got a lot of time, and the weather’s looking just a wee bit threatening.’
I didn’t need to be asked twice. If I had to be in a boat in threatening weather, I wanted to get it over as soon as possible.
In the event, it wasn’t too bad. The wind and the sea were running fast, but they were running our way. We got back to Tingwall a lot faster than we had come, and though I hadn’t been happy, the ginger capsules did their job and I was fine once I set foot back on solid ground. Watson, too, was happy to be out of the boat, and demonstrated his approval by marking every post and flagpole he could find in Tingwall till we loaded him back into Andrew’s car.
We stopped for an early tea/late lunch in a village on the way back to Stromness and then made arrangements to meet Andrew at the meeting that evening. He gave Alan careful instructions about how to get there. They were full of ‘you can’t miss it’ assurances, which to my mind always mean that you can, and probably will. Andrew finally conceded that we might just have a little trouble and offered to pick us up, an offer we gladly accepted.
We were in good time for the meeting. Andrew staked out seats at the front for all of us, and then went to chat with friends. I’d had a nap and was feeling refreshed and ready to be interested, and when I learned that the speaker was to be the director of the High Sanday dig, I became impatient for the meeting to start. I should have remembered the old admonition to be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.
FOUR
Of course things didn’t start out with a bang. This was the AGM, the Annual General Meeting, so there was the usual business to be transacted. The president of the FAO, one James Larsen, presided over elections of officers, speeches of thanks, and so on. The proceedings were all cut and dried and were kept to a decent length, and I took advantage of the boring part to slip out with Watson for a quick R & R session. He whined a bit, wanting the walk that had been denied him all day, but I promised him a good one tomorrow and chivvied him back inside just as the speaker was getting started.
I was enthralled, and so, judging by the rapt silence, was the rest of the room. The director of the dig (Robert Fairweather, Andrew told me in a whisper), was personable, obviously intelligent and knowledgeable. He was tall, with fairish hair, a pleasant face, and spoke with an English accent, not Scottish or the somewhat thicker Orcadian; I made a mental note to ask Andrew about his background. The man was plainly excited about the project at High Sanday. He had a slide show to illustrate his talk, and the pictures were splendid, showing in much greater detail what I’d been able only to glimpse earlier in the day. There were photos of some of the more exciting artefacts that had been found, including large pots, painstakingly pieced back together and revealing incredibly detailed decoration, geometrically incised. I wondered if the designs had any religious or ceremonial significance and made a mental note to ask Andrew about that, too.
The coloured stones I had noticed had, indeed, been painted, the earliest such decoration known in all of Britain. The excavators had even found a ‘paint shop’, a small building where the paints had evidently been prepared from ground stone (the mortars had been found) and some medium like animal fat. I thought about the paint in my living room back in Indiana, years ago, and how it had needed to be renewed every few years. And here was paint thousands of years old still adhering, albeit in flakes, and still bright!
Mr Fairweather made frequent references to Skara Brae, which I realized I needed to visit as soon as I possibly could. It was apparently a fully excavated Neolithic village on Mainland, but much smaller than High Sanday. No one, I gathered, knew how big High Sanday was going to be when it was all uncovered, a work of many years to come. The universal opinion, however, was that it was going to be huge, occupying most of the island of Papa Sanday.
When the formal presentation had ended, to hearty applause, the meeting became even more interesting. The speaker called for questions, and a burly, weather-beaten man stood up. An uneasy murmur rippled through the room.
‘What I want to know is where me beasts are goin’ to find gress when ye’ve turned the whole bluidy island into a pit!’
At least that’s what I thought he said. His accent was strong and his dialect a bit hard to follow, but his import was clear. He was seething with rage and also, I thought, with alcohol. I edged a little closer to Alan. Watson, who dislikes human discord, whined from beneath my chair.
Mr Fairweather opened his mouth to reply, and perhaps to placate, but another man stood. ‘This is neither the time nor the place to discuss your grievances, Andersen. We’ve been over and over this business. You’ll be fairly treated, but we’ll talk about it later.’
The tone was commanding, the accent pure American. The speaker, tall and well-dressed, remained standing and glaring at
the farmer Andersen.
I queried Andrew with my eyebrows. ‘Henry J. Carter,’ he whispered. ‘The American with the money.’
I studied Carter with new interest. So this was the arrogant American. He looked the part, I had to admit. He was dressed in slacks with a sharp crease, a white shirt I’d bet had cost more than anything in my wardrobe, and a blue sweater that looked so soft it had to be cashmere. His watch looked, from here, like a Rolex. In that casual assemblage he was as out of place as if he’d worn a three-piece suit. He certainly carried an air of the boardroom about him, almost as tangible as the expensive cologne whose scent wafted my way.
I wondered if it was accidental or deliberate that the farmer smelled, rather strongly in that small room, of sweat and manure.
He was also redolent of unmitigated fury. ‘I want me rights! I’m warnin’ ye, give me my due or ye’ll be sorry for it!’
Carter moved toward the angry farmer, two men rising to go with him. I didn’t see quite how they managed it, but somehow Andersen was escorted out of the room, quickly and quietly, and the meeting, including Watson, breathed a collective sigh of relief. Someone rose with a technical question about dating a certain section of the excavation, which didn’t interest me all that much. I grinned at Andrew. ‘Slick,’ I whispered.
‘Oh, he’s all of that,’ Andrew muttered.
The questions continued. Someone wanted to know how long it might take to finish the excavation.
‘That’s a very difficult question to answer,’ replied Fairweather. ‘As you have seen, we have already uncovered a far more extensive area of interest than had been anticipated when we first started. We have not yet discovered any definitive limits to the excavation. And as most of you know, archaeology is a heartbreakingly slow undertaking, even in a consistent climate. Here, where the winter must necessarily put a stop to our activities, the work may go on for years.’
‘What about funding?’ asked a woman with an English accent. ‘Isn’t money always a problem for archaeologists?’
Carter had returned, and now stood. ‘I can answer that question. As long as this dig continues to uncover the important and the exciting, I will make sure that money is not a problem.’
Fairweather uttered so quiet a sigh that no one not sitting near the front could have heard him. ‘Mr Carter has been extremely generous to us, and with so many other sources of funding drying up these days, I’m sure we’re all grateful for his support.’
I was feeling undercurrents I couldn’t quite understand, and Andrew was scowling at the floor, so I couldn’t meet his eyes. But Carter wasn’t through talking.
‘Everybody here who’s connected with the dig knows that I support it, and have from the very beginning. This is the most exciting thing to come down the archaeology pike since Schliemann discovered Troy. Who knows what we may find? Evidence of the kind of sacrifices that were practiced here, perhaps. Evidence, even, of the nature of their rituals. Treasures of all kinds, even the more tangible kind. And I intend to see to it that nothing interferes with High Sanday being just as thoroughly and completely excavated as was Troy.’
The woman with the English accent stood up again. I noticed now that she had a pad and pen in her hands. A journalist, perhaps? Or just someone with more than a passing interest in archaeology? ‘If I remember my school books properly,’ she said, ‘Heinrich Schliemann used some practices in his excavations that would make modern archaeologists blanch. In particular, did he not destroy several structures closer to the surface in order to reach the ones he felt were the actual remains of Troy?’
‘We know a good deal more about how to go about digging than he did, certainly,’ said Fairweather, taking control of the meeting again. He glanced at his watch. ‘I believe we’re out of time – er, yes, Mr Norquist?’
A little man who looked remarkably like the legendary cartoon Casper Milquetoast stood and spoke in a thin, colourless voice. ‘Charles Norquist, director of the Ancient Orkney Museum. I’d just like to point out that Schliemann was also responsible for removing artefacts from their native country, a practice modern archaeologists deplore. Please be assured that all artefacts belonging to Orkney will stay right here in Orkney.’ He sat down to applause, but Carter was on his feet again.
‘That’s all very well, but some of the artefacts we’ll find pretty soon are from Norway, Viking gold, left here centuries ago. Are we going to send those things back there, since they came from there? Over my dead body! I’d sell them before I’d let that happen, and a pretty price they’d bring, I can tell you.’
That brought a rumble of obvious anger. Someone said, ‘Shame!’ Fairweather brandished his watch again. ‘Right. We’ll stop here, and I invite you all to share in the refreshments. Thank you.’
I was eager to ask Fairweather more questions, but Andrew took me firmly by the elbow and steered me out of the room before I could even snatch a cookie and a glass of wine. Alan, bemused, followed us.
‘What is it, old man?’ my spouse asked when we were in the car roaring out of the car park.
‘The man’s an ass!’ Andrew pounded the steering wheel; the car veered dangerously near the edge of the road, beyond which was a steep drop to a loch. I suppressed a yelp, and Watson whined. ‘Sorry,’ said Andrew in a more moderate tone, ‘but he is, you know.’
‘The reference to Schliemann,’ said Alan. It wasn’t quite a question.
‘Of course!’ Andrew pounded the steering wheel again, but less vehemently. The car stayed where it belonged. ‘Everyone in that room knows more about archaeology than Henry bloody Carter.’
‘Maybe everyone but me, Andrew,’ I said meekly. ‘I’m really ignorant. I know Schliemann dug up what he thought was Troy, in the 1800s sometime, wasn’t it? And I think I’ve read that there’s been a lot of controversy over the years about what he really found, and his sloppy techniques. But I’m probably all wet.’
‘No, the only bit you’ve got wrong is the controversy part. Modern archaeologists are in absolute agreement that Schliemann destroyed at least one city that might have been the Troy of the Iliad, if the Iliad was ever anything but a myth, and that the city he claimed was Troy, near the bottom layer, was centuries too old, probably about 2500 BC, whereas the Trojan War supposedly took place sometime in the twelfth century BC. Furthermore, Schliemann blasted his way through the early layers – blasted, mind you, with dynamite – stole artefacts left and right, falsified data, et cetera, et cetera. And that’s the kind of dig Carter is determined we’re going to run here!’
‘Andrew, are you saying there are layered structures here, as at Schliemann’s site?’ Alan asked.
‘There is at least one level of building below the top one. We don’t know yet how many others there might be. We don’t know how long people lived at this site, nor how long ago the first ones began building. Now, I don’t suppose Carter would actually advocate blasting, but he’s hell-bent on going down as far as there’s anything to find, and furthermore, he claims he’s certain there’s Viking gold buried somewhere at the site, which is idiotic! The Vikings came in the eighth century AD, and the most recent structures at High Sanday are at least three thousand years older than that, but you heard what he said. Everyone’s tried to tell him – me, Fairweather, Norquist, Larsen, even the media people. You heard that woman tonight. She’s no archaeologist, but she’s a conscientious reporter, and she’s done her homework. He won’t listen to anyone. I tell you, the man is a slick, plausible bastard, and an absolute ass.’
‘Oh, dear, it does sound like it,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘And he’s the man with the chequebook.’
Andrew’s reply to that sounded very much like a growl.
We invited him in for a drink when he delivered us back to our temporary home, but he declined. ‘Sigrid and I are off early tomorrow, and I’ve a load of pots to pack up before then. I’m sorry I won’t get a chance to show you around properly, but I’ll ask Fairweather to call in on you and tell you what’s what. Good
night.’
‘Well,’ I said when we had closed the door behind him, ‘I need a drink, after that. I don’t know that I’ve ever attended a more uncomfortable meeting.’
‘There were cross-currents, certainly. And I don’t think I understood all of them, either. Why don’t we take Watson for a walk before we settle down to our libations? It’s still quite light, and a lovely evening.’
The clock on the big electronic sign board outside the ferry building read 22:47, but it was indeed still light. I clipped the lead on our eager dog, and we set out. There weren’t a lot of people about at that hour, and the harbour was very quiet. We walked down to the edge of the jetty and listened to the waves lapping gently against the wall.
‘Do you know,’ I said after we’d stood in companionable silence for a few minutes, ‘one of the things I was hoping to do up here was some star gazing. There are so many lights around the Cathedral, we can’t really see them at home. I thought on a remote island there’d be lots of stars to see. It never occurred to me that it wouldn’t get dark enough to make even the moon very bright.’
‘We’re very near the top of the world here, and this is the longest day, remember? I suppose it’ll be twilight for a few hours, but no darker than that. Sorry, love. We’ll have to come back in winter. It’ll surely be dark enough for you then.’
I shivered at the thought. ‘No, thank you. It’s quite cold enough in the middle of summer. Oh, it’s nice just now, but I’m wearing two sweaters and a jacket. And in fact, I’d like to get moving. It’s chilly standing still.’
We walked toward the end of the harbour road and on up into the town. ‘I hope Roadkill is safely asleep somewhere,’ I commented. ‘I’ve had enough conflict for one day.’
‘That really was an extraordinary display of discord,’ Alan said, and I knew he wasn’t talking about Watson’s run-in with the cat.
‘Yes, and I’d have said Andrew was the last person to lose his temper, but he was really upset with that man Carter.’
Shadows of Death Page 4