The Merlin Chronicles: Box Set (All Three Novels)

by Daniel Diehl

  With an apologetic cough, Daniels said “That much I already knew about Jason’s work, Miss…er…Beverley. You see, I did have a small ulterior motive for coming down.” While he was talking Daniels had been unzipping a small brief case that had never left his side. Now, he extracted a book with a brightly colored dust jacket and held it out toward Jason. On the front cover it said Shining a Light on the Dark Ages; below were the names Jason Carpenter and Beverley McCullough. “You see, I have a copy of your book and I was wondering if you would both mind signing it for me.”

  “I’m flattered, Professor.” Jason dusted his hands off again and reached for the book and pen Daniels was holding out expectantly.

  “Not at all, my boy. And Cambridge University Press, no less. I am impressed.” As Jason opened the book and signed his name on the title page, Daniels continued. “So tell me, how did you find this villa? Barbury Castle has been poked and prodded since archaeology was in its infancy more than a century and a half ago but no one had ever located any Roman ruins before. What led you to this site?”

  Jason shrugged and passed the book to Beverley as he spoke. “The usual, actually. Dry weather last autumn left brown spots in the grass indicating there might be walls buried here. Then I used ground-sounding radar to confirm it. Nothing all that creative, really.”

  “But what made you suspect that this site might have seen Roman period inhabitation?”

  “Well, like I said in my book. When civilization collapsed after the Romans pulled out, I think it was only natural that people started reusing both Roman buildings and older Iron Age fortifications. They had lost so much technological know-how that reuse of existing structures only makes sense.”

  “I understand that. But why did you suspect the Romans had put a villa near Barbury?”

  “Oh, that’s easy. The old hill fort provided them with readymade fortifications. Add a new stockade wall, a gate house and presto-chango, instant fort.”

  “Very good, my boy. A logically thought out hypothesis and one which, it would seem, is paying off for you.” Daniels waved a hand in a broad, sweeping circle taking in the entire area of the trench. “So have you made any finds to indicate that this villa was reused by the Britons or Saxons after the Romans left?”

  Jason scuttled across the chalky floor of the trench, grabbed a shallow plastic tray and returned to his seat before handing the tray to his guest. “Understand, Professor, I’m only really interested in reoccupation by the Britons before the Saxons became dominant.”

  Carver Daniels raised his eyes from the tray, peering at Jason over the top of his glasses. “That gives you a rather narrow window, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, it does. It kind of limits me to the period between 450 and 600 AD. I know the Saxons were in England by 450 but the Britons generally held them in the eastern part of the country till after 550. And, as you obviously know, by 600 the Saxons had pretty much taken over nearly all of what we now think of as England.”

  Daniels declined to answer but creased his brow and nodded absently as he stared at the contents of the white plastic tray. In addition to a portion of a comb made from deer antler and a few small pot shards there was a flat piece of transparent blue-green glass about the size of the palm of a man’s hand. After picking the objects up one at a time he carefully returned them to the tray and handed it back to Jason.

  “The glass is particularly nice. I assume you believe it to be Roman era window glass?”

  Jason smiled and nodded enthusiastically. “That’s exactly what I’m thinking. But the important thing is that I found it out here”, Jason waved his hand at the ground immediately in front of where he was setting, “beyond the exterior face of this later extension to the villa.”

  “So you conclude that it was reused by the Britons when they occupied the structure after the Romans left. Is that it?”

  Excited now, Jason scooted closer to the edge of the grassy step on which he sat, leaning forward, talking as much with his hands as with words. “That’s exactly it. I’m really glad you understand.”

  Daniels waved his head from side to side slightly, the slight creases never leaving his forehead.

  “You do realize, Jason, that the glass fragment could have wound up where you found it in any one of a hundred ways. The fact that it was lying near what was once the exterior surface of a wall, which may or may not have been built by the Britons, is not proof of reoccupation during your time period.”

  “Of course I understand that, Professor.” Jason’s voice had taken on a slight edge of urgency, hoping that he could extract more approval than caution from his old teacher. “I know it takes a lot more than one tiny piece of evidence to build a credible case but I have to build my case one piece of evidence at a time.”

  Daniels reached across the corner of the trench and laid a gentle hand on Jason’s arm. “May I be perfectly frank with you, my boy?”

  “Sure.” Jason shifted slightly uncomfortably as he nodded. “I always appreciate your critiques.”

  “I know the period of the Britons is your special area of interest, and we know so little about that period of history that anything new you can prove will be of the greatest interest to the scientific community…” Now Daniels started shifting as uncomfortably as his former student. “You see, it’s just that I as I read your book and your theories about that era, I couldn’t help but remember some of the rather strange things you and your grandfather seemed to be interested in. I understand your continued interest in that extraordinary blue orb we excavated at Tintagel, I still often wonder about that myself. But some of the other things like the Ark of the Covenant and Arthurian legends…” He left the sentence unfinished but his implication was clear enough.

  “No. No, professor. I appreciate your concern but, honestly, I’m not looking for the Holy Grail of proof of King Arthur or anything like that.”

  Carver Daniels placed his hands on his knees, levered himself into a standing position and laid a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “I am so very glad to hear that, my boy. Forgive me for even thinking such things but do understand that I only have your best interests at heart.”

  Rising to look the old man in the face, Jason smiled, nodded knowingly and continued to lie. “That’s ok, Professor. I understand, and I appreciate your concern, and I promise I’m not developing any crack-pot theories about Camelot or anything.”

  Daniels smiled, nodded and let out a massive sigh. “Good. I’m glad I didn’t upset you. Now, before I go, you must tell me,” here he looked back and forth between Jason and Beverley, “is your dig on borough property or on private land?”

  Having stayed out of the discussion related to Jason’s areas of expertise, Beverley now picked up the thread of the conversation. “Actually, we started out on private meadow land that abutted the park, but when we started uncovering the villa, particularly that brilliant mosaic tile floor, the borough council gave us permission to open a section of trench on their property. Now they’re negotiating with the farmer to buy a bit of his land and incorporate it into the park to protect it.”

  “Oh, I’m so happy for both of you. And I look forward to seeing your paper on the entire dig when it’s completed and if I can be of any assistance, please don’t hesitate to ring me up. I’m always happy to be of help.”

  After a few moments during which friendly, congratulatory words were passed around, Daniels picked up his briefcase, tucked it under his arm, smiled and nodded. “This had been marvelous but I really must be going.”

  “Oh, please Professor,” Beverley waved her hands in a stalling gesture. “Stay for tea. We have plenty and would love to have you.”

  “No. No. I do appreciate the offer but I honestly must get back to Oxford. The symposium is having some sort of a meet-and-greet thingy tonight and I don’t dare miss it. Besides, I think I fancy a bit of a lie-down before girding my loins for a social evening.”

  “You used to love those things.”

  Daniels winked at Bever
ley and patted her arm. “I used to be the center of attention, too. Now I’m just one more ageing duffer among a vast sea of boring old geezers.”

  As Beverley escorted Carver Daniels back toward the camp and his car, Jason returned to his work. When Beverley paused long enough to call back to him, reminding him that dinner would be ready in an hour and that he should avoid getting involved in anything, Jason responded with a quick glance over his shoulder and a wave of acknowledgement. Then, when he was sure his guest was well beyond the line of sight, he extended his hands and grinned as the trowel and whisk broom flew through the air and came to rest snuggly in his hands.

  Later, it took Jason just under two minutes to walk from the eastern edge of the trench to the small encampment where he and Beverley had lived for the past eight weeks. The most notable feature of their compound was the large, bright yellow marque tent that served as a work space and office where their dig finds were sorted, photographed and catalogued; here, too, was the ancient generator supplying electricity for their equipment and for the caravan camper parked next to the tent. At twenty-six feet in length the camper was hardly spacious but, like so much in life, it was only a temporary arrangement, so it was bearable. The last component to their camp was the ancient blue Range Rover that had brought Jason, Beverley and their equipment to rural Wiltshire and ferried them back and forth on the occasional trips to the town of Swindon located a scant two miles north of Barbury Castle hill fort.

  Jason pushed back the flap on the tent door and stepped inside just far enough to set the white plastic tray with the day’s finds on the long folding table. He patted the edge of the tray once in satisfaction of a good day’s work and strode the few yards toward the smell of food wafting from the open door of the camper. Lifting a pair of hands holding a peeled carrot and a knife, Beverley offered a quick peck of a kiss and a smile.

  “I’m sorry, Jase, but it’s going to be a half hour till the chicken is ready. Dr Daniels’ visit just threw me off schedule a bit.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Babe. I can use a little relax time, anyway.” Letting out a great ‘oof’ sound as he plopped down into the caravan’s small dining booth, he looked toward his wife and allowed a small smile to wash across his tired face. “So how was your day?”

  “Oh, I got everything from yesterday photographed and catalogued, so I guess it was a good day.” Glancing over her shoulder at the sound of Jason digging through one of the cabinets she asked “What are you looking for?”

  Hoisting an ornately framed antique mirror onto the dining table, Jason gently wiped a few specks of dust from its face, staring at the badly decayed, heavily carved frame and the oval crystal face with a large section broken off near the bottom.

  “Thought I’d get some scrying practice in before we eat. And afterwards I need to go out to the tent and check over today’s stuff.” Throwing his head backward as far as it would go, he stared at the ceiling for a moment before closing his eyes and rolling his head from side to side. “God, I really ought to spend some time later trying to decipher another page or two of Merlin’s Libra Praecantatio scroll, too.”

  Turning to face him, Beverley put her hands on her hips and scowled. “Jason Carpenter, what you really ought to do is get a good night’s sleep. You were up all last night with that book, you worked all day today in the hot sun and now you look like death in a bucket.”

  Jason raised his head and let out a long sigh. As he started to wave one hand across Merlin’s old scrying glass he nodded assent. “You’re right, as always. I’m pooped and I know it. Just give me an hour or two in the tent and I promise I’ll come to bed.”

  Turning back to her work Beverley drew her mouth into a tight line and shook her head. “One hour. Not a single minute more, do you understand?”

  Nodding to himself as he passed his hand across the face of the mirror, writing in the air with one finger and mumbling half to himself in broken Latin, he paused long enough to answer. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m not kidding, Jason. One hour or I’m coming out to get you.”

  “Seriously, Babe. One hour. I promise.”

  The face of the mirror started to cloud over with strange, amorphous gray and black shapes until, after more than a full minute, it cleared revealing a woman in an expensive business suit drinking wine and talking to another woman seated next to her on a bar stool. Since the scrying glass did not transmitted sound it was impossible to tell what they were talking about. A moment later the scene shifted.

  “Hey, Babe, come look at this.”

  “What do you see?”

  “Quick, before I lose it.”

  Beverley laid the half peeled apple on the counter and took two steps, pausing to stare over Jason’s shoulder. “What are we looking at?” In the mirror was the image of an elderly man standing in front of a full length mirror, tying a necktie. Although his face was only visible as a reflection in the glass and his head was thrown back to expose his collar, it was obvious that he was singing at the top his voice.

  “He’s getting dressed.”

  “I can see that, Jase, but who is he and why should I care?”

  “Don’t you recognize him? That’s the vice president.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of the U.S.”

  “Oh, you’re kidding.” Beverley leaned closer, peering at the man in the mirror. Finally she smiled and drew herself back to a standing position, snickering. “Bloody hell, it is, isn’t it.”

  “I just wish I could control this thing.” Jason sighed again and shook his head. “Five years of work. You’d think I would have figured out how to drive this damn thing.”

  Patting his shoulder solicitously, Beverley walked back to the counter. “You figured out how to turn it on. You must be the first person in a thousand years to do that.”

  “Yeah, but how much good is it if I can’t direct where it goes. It just wanders around aimlessly spying on people.”

  “You’ll get it.”

  An hour later, after the small chicken had been reduced to a pile of bones and a wine bottle stood empty on the table, Jason gathered up the plates, scraped the detritus into the waste bin and put the dishes in the sink. Returning to where Beverley was bent forward, wiping the table, he pressed himself against her and slid his hands around her waist, giving her a quick squeeze.

  “I’m going out to the tent for a bit, Babe.”

  Rubbing against him provocatively as she stood up and turned around, she kissed him gently and whispered in his ear. “If your skinny carcass isn’t back in here in one hour, I promise you there won’t be any nookie for you tonight, little man.”

  Offering a huge, shit-eating grin and a nod of understanding, Jason extricated himself from her arms and stepped out the door toward the tent. There was still enough sun left in the summer sky to give the interior walls of the yellow tent a soft, warm glow making it feel like the occupants were inside a big, happy-faced yellow balloon. The weird hue lent a slightly surreal atmosphere to their workroom that always made Jason smile, and this evening was no exception.

  Surrounded on two sides by makeshift shelves laden with identical white plastic trays, the two long, folding tables were set up in an ‘L’ shape that offered and orderly progression of work from one end to the other, thanks entirely to Beverley’s practical approach to organizing their work. At the end of the first table, immediately inside the door, were a washing bin, a stack of soft towels and a pile of clean plastic trays. In the middle of the cleaning area rested the tray Jason had showed to Dr Daniels earlier in the day. Now, in addition to the random collection of broken pottery, the comb and the piece of window glass, there were three small opaque glass beads which were undoubtedly of Roman era origin. After the Romans pulled out of the British Isles in the middle of the fourth century AD the knowledge of how to make glass had disappeared with them; hardly a surprising fact considering that the Britons had far more urgent matters to attend to than making glass ornaments.

  Ja
son washed the multicolored beads carefully in a bath of distilled water before giving them a cursory examination through a lighted magnifying glass and laying them aside in a new plastic tray with a soft towel laid in the bottom to act as a cushion. The beads were attractive enough - deep blue glass highlighted with bright yellow and red swirls running through them – and since they were virtually identical it was probable that they had come from the same necklace or bracelet. But they were very much like thousands of other beads that had been excavated all over the English countryside, and they were of Roman origin, and so held very little interest for Jason. Likewise, the pot shards appeared to be from the Roman period; sophisticated in design, thin-walled and decorated with a richly mottled brown glaze highlighted with touches of dark green; they were nice but neither particularly rare nor did they serve Jason’s agenda.

  Saving the best items for last, he held the antler comb over the wash basin and gently cleaned bits of accrued soil and chalk from its surface with a soft brush dampened in the water. He did not immerse the comb in the water for fear that even a brief emersion in the water could adversely affect the centuries-old antler. Holding the cleaned and dried comb under the lighted magnifying lens he marveled at the workmanship. Certainly not as professional looking as a Roman comb, it showed that someone working only with the crudest tools had taken the time to cut a slice of antler to a thickness of scarcely more than a quarter inch, smooth its outer surfaces and make dozens of thin cuts into the material to form the teeth. Amazingly, not a single tooth had been broken out of the surviving section of comb; each tooth was less than an eighth of an inch in width and the spaces between them were only half the width of the teeth. Finally, the long-ago comb maker had carved an intricate design at the apex of the spine. Still surviving in one piece, the delicate design depicted a recumbent female deer with her legs curled beneath her and her muzzle tucked comfortably between her front legs. There was no doubt that this finely worked piece came from the period between the time the Romans pulled out and the Saxons moved in – exactly the period Jason was looking for. He stared at it for a long moment, gently stroking the deer’s back again and again, before laying it aside and reaching for the last item in the tray.