The Secret of Excalibur nwaec-3

by Andy McDermott

  ‘What?’

  ‘I shouldn’t really be talking about this. It’s my problem, not yours. You probably don’t even want to hear it.’

  He gave her a sympathetic look. ‘Maybe I can help.’

  Nina scrunched up her face, confused. ‘I don’t know, it’s just . . . I’m just worried we might be too different!’ she blurted, the admission filling her with a mixture of catharsis and guilt.

  ‘You think that if you get married, it might not work out?’

  ‘Exactly! Eddie’s already been married once, and . . . Well, maybe that’s an extreme example of things going bad, but at least he and Sophia were from the same country. They had that much in common.’

  ‘Have you talked about this with him?’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Nina scoffed. ‘It takes a near-death experience before Eddie’ll discuss his feelings without making some stupid joke out of everything.’ She let out a frustrated growl. ‘Oh, what do I do? Did you go through anything like this before you got married?’

  ‘Afraid not,’ said Mitchell. ‘We thought we were a perfect match. Naivety of youth, I guess.’

  ‘Great, I really needed to be reminded that I’m not officially young any more.’ But there was a hint of humour behind her words. ‘God, he infuriates me sometimes. Why can’t he be a bit more, more . . .’

  ‘Like you?’

  ‘Exactly! Well, not exactly, that’d just be weird and narcissistic.’ Mitchell laughed; after a few seconds, Nina managed to join in. ‘Heh. But yeah, there have definitely been times when I’ve wished he could be less . . . Eddie-y.’

  Mitchell moved his chair slightly towards her, looking into her eyes. ‘And more . . . PhD-y?’

  Nina laughed again, giving him a knowing grin. ‘Eddie was right about you, you know. You do flirt.’

  ‘You got me,’ said Mitchell, putting a hand to his heart in mock contrition. ‘It’s a grave personality flaw, I admit. But the only thing that matters is: do I flirt well?’

  She smiled, enjoying the attention. ‘I’d have to say . . . not bad.’

  ‘Room for improvement?’

  ‘Mmm . . . maybe.’

  ‘Then I guess I’ll have to keep practising.’ He smiled back, leaning a little closer to her . . .

  Chloe entered the dining room, doing a slight double take when she saw her guests sitting much closer together than during the meal. The moment broken, Nina blinked and pulled back. ‘Well, the dishwasher’s loaded!’ Chloe said, a little too loudly. ‘I’ll go and sort out some bedclothes for you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Nina. ‘And get Jack an extra blanket - we don’t want him getting cold on the couch.’

  ‘Ah, well,’ Mitchell sighed, ‘practice makes perfect.’

  17

  Early morning sunshine lit up the southeastern side of Glastonbury Tor. Of the hole in the ground and the stone slab beneath, there was no trace except for some disturbed earth - and the hooked end of a steel peg poking from the soil. ‘Here we are,’ said Chloe, pointing at it. She laid down the rest of her equipment on the terrace.

  Mitchell looked on dubiously as she marked out a cordon round the dig site with wooden poles, then tied a length of red and white striped plastic tape between them. ‘Are you sure that’ll make any difference?’

  ‘This is England,’ Chloe told him with a smile. ‘Never underestimate the power of a simple piece of stripy tape to keep people away. Besides . . .’ She held up a fluorescent yellow safety jacket. ‘Nothing makes a person more invisible than a workman’s coat!’

  Mitchell didn’t seem convinced, but kept quiet. Instead, he put down his black holdall. ‘I got the embassy to deliver some gear of my own,’ he remarked as he unzipped it and showed Nina two heavy-duty flashlights and a pair of walkie-talkies.

  ‘Oh, so that’s who you called last night,’ said Nina.

  ‘Yeah, I wanted to be prepared. We don’t know what’s inside there.’

  ‘If there is anything inside there.’ Nina’s initial enthusiasm had faded overnight, her fight with Chase still dwelling on her mind.

  With the shovels Chloe had brought, it didn’t take long to expose the whole of the stone slab. Nina used a brush to clean the soil from the chiselled letters. The entire inscription was in Latin, several lines long.

  ‘“Know you that behind this stone lies the one true tomb of Arthur, king of the Britons, and his second queen, Guinevere,”’ Nina read. ‘“Only those who know the history of Arthur and the legend of Arthur shall be worthy to reach his presence and pay respect. The one shall see you through the labyrinth to face the trial of Nivienne . . .” Nivienne?’ she asked Chloe.

  ‘One of the possible names of the Lady of the Lake,’ she replied.

  ‘Right. “. . . the trial of Nivienne, who shall hold the unworthy in the place where she dwells, and the wrath of Merlin, which strikes only those who see his face. Those who know the truth may find the tomb of Arthur; those who do not . . .” Oh boy.’

  ‘What?’ Mitchell asked.

  ‘ “... shall never leave.” Yeah, this isn’t good. Sounds like the monks left a couple of booby traps.’

  ‘But the tomb’s hundreds of years old,’ Mitchell objected. ‘The traps wouldn’t still be working after all that time.’

  ‘You’d think, wouldn’cha?’ said Nina with sarcasm born of painful experience.

  ‘That might explain one old legend,’ Chloe said. ‘There’s a story that a group of thirty monks once entered tunnels they found beneath the Tor, and only three came out alive.’

  Nina winced. ‘Oh, I don’t like those odds.’ But she still took a spade and began to dig.

  Once the soil around the stone slab had been cleared away, Nina and Mitchell carefully inched its upper end clear of the deeper-set stones on which it was resting, then tilted it back to reveal . . .

  ‘Oh, my God,’ said Nina. ‘Would you look at that.’

  It was a tunnel, narrow but passable, descending into the Tor. More Latin text was inscribed on one of the stone supports framing the entrance. Nina immediately converted the Roman numerals. ‘1191,’ she said. ‘The same year the Glastonbury monks said they found Arthur’s tomb in the grounds of the abbey. But this was the real tomb . . . the real treasure.’

  Mitchell shone a light into the passage. ‘These props look kinda iffy.’ While the entrance was stone, inside the tunnel support was provided by wooden beams set into the clay and sandstone walls, and they had succumbed to rot from the damp earth over the centuries.

  Nina picked up another torch and checked for herself. ‘They lasted this long,’ she said, hoping she wasn’t cursing herself by speaking. She quickly touched her pendant to be safe. ‘As long as nobody kicks them out, they should be okay.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Chloe said nervously. ‘I think I’d prefer to wait out here, hold the fort. If that’s all right with you?’

  Nina gave her a reassuring smile as she picked up a yellow hard hat from Chloe’s gear. ‘You’ve probably got absolutely the right idea. But we’ve got to check it out as soon as we can, so . . .’

  Mitchell donned a second helmet, then switched on one of the walkie-talkies and handed it to Chloe. ‘You know how to use one of these?’ She nodded. ‘Great. We’ll tell you what’s down there, step by step.’

  ‘Good luck,’ Chloe offered as Nina and Mitchell gathered up their gear and ducked through the entrance.

  ‘Thanks - just hope we don’t need it!’ Nina replied.

  The first thing that struck her as she edged down the steep slope was the smell, a damp, all-pervading stench of rotting vegetation. Chloe had said the surrounding countryside used to be marshland, and it certainly smelled that way. The second was that while the tunnel was extremely confined, it hadn’t been made in a hurry. It had been carefully and diligently dug from the Tor, the walls smooth, the wooden props regularly spaced. Even though it had been intended to remain hidden, the monks still wanted it to be a tomb fit for a king.

  Behind her, hun
ched low, Mitchell raised the walkie-talkie. ‘Okay, radio check. Dr Lamb, can you hear me?’

  ‘Loud and clear,’ came the reply. ‘How is it so far?’

  ‘In a word? Stinky.’

  Nina smiled at his unscientific description, then focused on the tunnel ahead as she reached the foot of the slope. ‘Okay, it’s flattening out.’ She stopped, seeing that the path ahead branched. ‘Oh, great.’

  ‘What?’ said Mitchell.

  ‘It’s not a labyrinth, it’s a maze.’ Above the path to the left was a small carved slab embedded in the clay. ‘Give me the radio.’ Mitchell complied. ‘Chloe? I think we need your expert opinion here. There are two routes - the left one’s marked with a plaque that reads “Morgain”.’

  ‘More commonly known as Morgan le Fay,’ Chloe replied over the walkie-talkie. ‘Arthur’s sister, according to legend. What does the other route say?’

  ‘Nothing, and it doesn’t look like it ever did - there’s no hole where another plaque might have fallen out. What do you think?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Chloe. ‘It doesn’t mean much on its own.’

  Nina shone her light down both passages. They seemed identical, curving away sharply after a few paces. ‘Guess we’ll just have to see where they lead, then.’ She looked back at Mitchell. ‘Morgain, or not-Morgain?’

  He shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me. This is your line of work!’

  ‘Yeah, I was afraid you’d lay it on me. Okay . . . Morgain,’ she decided, starting down the left tunnel.

  Water had pooled on the thick red clay of the floor. Nina splashed through it and rounded the first corner. Not far ahead, the passage twisted again, leading out of sight. The ground here was drier, though the walls and wooden props had the same damp sheen as the rest of the tunnel. She slowed, something about that niggling. Why were there no puddles?

  Mitchell pressed up behind her. ‘Something wrong?’

  ‘Not sure, just . . .’ She shook her head. ‘Let’s see where this goes.’

  She stepped forward - and the floor collapsed beneath her foot.

  She shrieked as she pitched over, her wildly spinning torch revealing a deep, dark hole below as it fell away—

  Mitchell grabbed her, yanking her to a painful halt just before she plunged into the hole. Straining, he pulled her back up.

  ‘Shit!’ she gasped, heart kicking inside her chest as she hugged Mitchell for support. ‘Oh, Jesus, those son-of-a-bitch monks.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  Nina took several long breaths, trying to calm herself. ‘Yeah, I think. Shit!’ She cautiously looked into the hole, and saw how she’d been tricked. A flimsy wooden square had been precariously balanced over the top of the pit, then a thin layer of clay smeared over it to blend it into the floor. Only a single footstep had been needed for it to break free - and drop into a waterlogged hole with several long and sharp wooden spikes poking up from its base.

  ‘Nasty,’ Mitchell noted with considerable understatement.

  ‘Help me across it,’ Nina said, her composure returning.

  ‘You sure? If there’s another . . .’

  ‘We’ve got to see where this passage goes.’ The gap was some four feet wide, the crossing made more awkward by the low ceiling, but with Mitchell’s aid Nina was able to traverse it. He tossed the remaining torch across to her, and she looked round the corner. ‘Okay, I hope whichever asshole monk came up with this is having a good laugh! It’s a dead end.’

  Mitchell helped her back over the pit. ‘So what does that mean?’

  ‘It means,’ said Nina, bringing up the walkie-talkie, ‘we need somebody who knows the difference between Arthurian history and legend.’ She thumbed the talk button. ‘Hello, Chloe?’

  ‘Hi, Nina,’ said Chloe cheerfully, oblivious of what had just happened underground. ‘Have you found something?’

  ‘You could say that. Listen, I think I know what the inscription on the stone meant, the part about history and legend, and the one seeing you through to the tomb. The route marked with Morgain . . . well, it didn’t turn out so good. My guess is that at each junction, we’re going to find the name of someone or something connected to Arthur. The ones which are based in historical fact are the proper route, and the ones which are myth . . . we don’t want to go down them, put it that way.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can, but the line between Arthurian history and myth is very blurred.’

  ‘Just give us your best guess.’

  ‘Think you’re right?’ said Mitchell.

  ‘If I’m not, you’re gonna have to pull me out of a lot of pits.’

  They returned to the first junction and took the unmarked passage, Nina warily testing the floor with each step. It remained firm. Nevertheless, she advanced cautiously along the winding tunnel until a second junction eventually presented itself.

  ‘Okay, Chloe,’ she said. ‘I was right, there’s another plaque.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  Nina brought the torch closer to read the text on the flat stone above the left passage. ‘“Bedivere.”’

  ‘Oh, Sir Bedivere is absolutely genuine,’ Chloe announced. Her voice was now more distorted, interference worsening the deeper they went into the Tor. ‘If anything, he appears in more historical accounts than Arthur himself. He was called Bedwyr in the earliest Welsh references, and . . .’

  ‘I guess we go left,’ Nina told Mitchell as Chloe rambled on. They entered the new tunnel. Nina started paying attention to the walls and ceiling as well as the floor. Experience had taught her that trap builders rarely used the same trick twice.

  But her theory seemed to be holding out as they wound deeper underground to reach yet another junction. This time, the sign was above the right-hand exit. ‘Chloe, you’re up again. This one says “Badon”.’

  ‘The Battle of Badon,’ Chloe replied immediately. ‘Arthur’s greatest victory over the Saxons. Either late fifth century or early sixth - the dates given to it vary, but it was definitely a historic event.’

  ‘Then Badon it is,’ said Nina, going right.

  They continued cautiously through the maze, stopping at each successive fork in the path for Chloe’s advice. The distortion of her voice grew steadily worse, the hiss of static at times almost swallowing it. But they could still make out her answers: Llacheu, Arthur’s son, was considered a person of historical truth by the Glastonbury monks, while Arthur’s knight Sir Karados and Bron, the Fisher King, were consigned to the status of myth. Nina and Mitchell pressed on, the air growing more foul the deeper they went. Then:

  ‘Aah!’ Nina gasped, flinching back in surprise as she rounded a corner - and came face to face with what she thought for a moment was a woman. As her shock faded, she saw it was actually a statue, a slender, graceful figure standing at the edge of a pool of water, the iron-rich soil turning it a muddy reddish-brown. The chamber beyond was considerably larger than the tunnels, the pool filling its entire width.

  ‘It must be Nivienne - the Lady of the Lake,’ Nina said. She took out her camera and snapped several pictures; even if they couldn’t progress any further, she would still have something to study when they returned to the surface.

  ‘Not much of a lake.’ Mitchell rolled up a sleeve and dipped his arm experimentally into the murky water. It was clear that it was deep. He shook off the water, then directed his light at the far side of the pool. ‘Check this out.’

  In the reflected torchlight, Nina saw the tops of two tunnel entrances just barely rising above the water, another stone plaque over the opening on the left. But that wasn’t what Mitchell meant. Instead, he was shining the beam at the water itself. Small bubbles rose and popped intermittently on the surface. ‘Fish?’ she asked hopefully.

  ‘Gas,’ Mitchell answered. ‘That’s why the damn place stinks so bad - it’s got swamp gas bubbling up through it!’

  ‘We must be near the level of the water table,’ Nina realised. The Somerset marshes might have been drained on the surface,
but the earth beneath was still sodden, the build-up of decomposing vegetation producing a repellent by-product: methane. Had the monks known this, or was it a coincidence?

  She told Mitchell to illuminate the statue. Nivienne had one arm held out, inviting them to step into the water, but Nina was in no rush to do so. ‘This must be the trial of Nivienne. But what’s the trial?’

  ‘I think we’re gonna have to get wet,’ Mitchell grumbled, pointing at the two tunnels across the pool.

  ‘What does the stone say?’ Nina squinted to read the small text across the pool. ‘Looks like . . . “Anna”.’ She used the radio to describe the chamber and the plaque to Chloe; the reception was now so bad that her reply was barely audible.

  ‘Anna was Arthur’s sister,’ Nina made out through the crackling distortion. ‘But I’m not sure how strong a historical basis she has. She’s generally considered to be the mother of Sir Gawain, but in the early Welsh accounts - the ones that included Bedivere - a woman called Gwyar is Gawain’s mother. Anna could be another name for the same person, but . . .’

  ‘So you don’t know if she was real or myth?’ Nina asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  Nina took her thumb off the transmit key, muttered ‘Perfect!’ then pushed it again. ‘Which is more likely, though? Could she have been real?’

  ‘Possibly. There are other references to her, but they date from later.’

  ‘After 1191?’

  ‘No, but some of them are from earlier in the twelfth century, including Geoffrey of Monmouth - and in terms of historical veracity I’d put Geoffrey about on a par with Monty Python!’

  Nina and Mitchell shared a quick smile at the reference. ‘Does finding the tomb add any extra weight to either option? There’s obviously some truth to the Arthurian mythology.’

  Chloe considered this. ‘I suppose it does make it a bit more likely that Anna really was Arthur’s sister, but it’s still hard to be sure. The Glastonbury monks were willing to lie about aspects of the legend for their own benefit, so we can’t entirely rely on any of their accounts.’