by Dana Cameron
Outside the fence were a few more trees and overgrown weeds. Across the street I had come down were a few shops and more houses, most of them in neat rows of dark gray stone. I knew that the “new” church, a pretty but modest structure built in 1520 after the destruction of the abbey, was about a half mile to the west of us, obscured by the gentle curve of the land and a few stands of trees. Across the river Mar was the more commercial area of Marchester, which was still of a scale small enough to be human. All in all, it was a pretty spot; I thought it would have made a nice park, once the archaeologists had finished and decamped and someone spent a couple of weekends cleaning out the weeds and rubbish.
“Maybe I’ll just take a walk around, have a look at things, stretch my legs until you’re ready,” I said.
“Well, I suppose we can oblige you there.” Jane got up and dusted herself off. “Okay, follow me.” She walked toward the water, talking and pointing very fast. “Right, then, the river is site south; the graves will generally be oriented east-west, according to your early Christian traditions—buried bodies face the east, so that they will be facing the proper direction at the last trump—so they will in most cases be running parallel to the river. I say in most cases, because excavations within the original confines of the abbey, where most of your important types tend to get buried, reveal that space was at a premium and your lesser gentry were getting bunged in any which way. No problem, really, because they were getting pretty well consecrated just by being within the abbey walls. You can see just the tiniest bit of the structure walls left—most of the ruins were knocked over during the war by a bomb’s concussion—it doesn’t look like anything actually hit the site here—and a lot of the rest of the stones were removed or robbed out after. Now, as for burial goods, we’re not expecting much and we’re not finding much—that’s all in order. We are finding some personal adornment—fasteners, some leather, ornaments very rarely—and possibly the odd memento or two, men and women both—”
I knew from my reading that while Marchester Abbey was a female community, the wealthier and more important members of town—male and female alike—would be buried inside the abbey. I frowned.
“Why was Greg so concerned about having uncovered a man’s skeleton, then?”
“Because we found it in what I believe, based on comparative data and remote sensing, was the sisters’ graveyard. A man’s burial would make more sense inside the abbey or outside where the rest of the town’s parishioners could expect to be buried, as long as they hadn’t done anything stupid, like killing themselves or someone else. In those cases, they were buried outside consecrated ground—not very desirable, in terms of salvation. Here we are.”
Jane stopped and pulled back a large piece of green plastic. It covered a deep cut in the ground, in which a trench was cut about two meters long, about one wide, and about one deep.
“You can see here that it cuts into those other two burials that we’d begun to expose.”
Sure enough, walking around to the other side, I could see where the more recent burial had been dug into the earlier ones. Luckily, it just nicked the edges and there wasn’t too much mixing between the graves: the soil there was mottled where the pits intersected each other, and comparatively straight, clean edges existed where the burials had been left alone. This new shaft also contained more cobbles on the surface and in the wall profile.
“How old do you think this one is?” I said, squinting down into the shallow shaft. I could just make out the reddish-brown, soil-stained bones at the base of it. They’d barely been exposed.
“We’ve got one button, and I’m guessing it is no more than a hundred years old. You’d be better able to tell us, I suppose. Americans have the greater need to learn about much more recent artifacts.” She said that with the faintly patronizing air I’d come to expect from European scholars used to sites with a much longer historical record.
“I’d be happy to look, but why isn’t anyone working here now?”
“Because,” Jane enunciated with reborn ire, “to start with, the bloody coppers have determined that I’m not fit to excavate my own site! And furthermore—”
“That can’t be right—” I began, but Jane was on a tear.
“No, it’s quite maddeningly correct! In this particular situation, where the burial is deemed to be suspicious, the police have to come in and investigate. They would like Andrew to have a look before they call the Home Office pathologist—Detective Chief Inspector Rhodes has used him as an expert before—”
“But he’s nowhere to be found,” I finished for her.
“So we must leave the grave, that whole area, in fact, alone, until his lordship thinks it meet and fit to grace us with his presence again.” Jane’s hands were knotted into fists so tight I thought she’d pop a knuckle out. Just as quickly, though, she regained command of herself and resumed our tour.
“I’m guessing you’ve done the reading I suggested, so I won’t bore you with the details. Constructed in A.D. 1190 and destroyed by fire—a lightning strike, according to the chronicles—about 1504. Left a very nice little burn layer for us, helps show how far back in time we’ve gone when we dig. Benedictine pattern of building arrangement, I’m predicting, no great stretch there. While our main goals last year were to define the parameters of the abbey and nunnery, this year we’re trying to determine the number and organization of the graves, interior and exterior. Looks to be quite a few; we’ve already identified twenty in ground, fully excavated seven of them. We should get a nice little population.”
Jane stopped and looked at me. “Emma, are you feeling entirely well?”
I turned away from an odd sight—a line of paper plates that looked as though they’d been nailed to the grassy ground outside the perimeter of the excavation. Now that she mentioned it, I felt awful. My head was pounding and I kept feeling as though I were fading in and out of focus. “I think the time zone changes must be catching up with me. What time is it?”
“Nearly half four. Greg’s got them closing up for the night.”
Sure enough, I saw the crew going through the universally recognizable patterns of cleaning tools and storing them and covering units until work began again tomorrow morning.
“How about we get you home, into a hot bath, perhaps a glass of something, then dinner and bed for you? That sound like it would do the trick?”
“It sounds perfect,” I said gratefully. A little food and a little quiet and rest would do me a world of good, particularly since my tummy was starting to feel queasy. Jane had a way of taking things in hand that was very soothing.
Jane was all concern, pushing her hair behind her ear. “Well, let’s get going. It’s not a long walk, just a few blocks, really—do you feel up for that? Just tired, not going to faint on us, are you?”
“No, I’ll be fine after a good night’s rest,” I reassured her.
“Then we’ll let Greg sort things out here and whisk you home, chez Ashford-Compton.”
Jane took my big bag and her rucksack and I picked up my backpack; she called out, “Greg, we’ll see you back there. You’ll do the walk-through?” He waved. “I always like to take the crew around at the end of the day, make sure everyone gets an update on what’s going on throughout the site.”
We began to walk away from the river, through a little winding street crowded with homes and the odd corner store. It was a quiet part of a quiet little town, and had a very cozy, neighborly feel to it. I realized that the rowhouses were built with the same gray masonry as the new church; it must be a local stone. I noticed a lot of bicycles chained up in front yards and little window boxes filled with early summer blooms—people here obviously thought a lot of keeping their homes tidy. We went around a few more turns and down one more long street before we reached our destination.
“Here we are, 98 Liverpool Road,” Jane said, pausing before the last door at the end of a block of rowhouses in a cul-de-sac. The building was three stories, and narrow, virtually ident
ical to the other doors, but it was distinguished by a dark red doorway, outlined in white to match the window frames, and a row of pansies on the window ledge.
“We are lucky to have the last house on the end—much quieter than the others. Come in, I’ll show you to the bath right away.”
Jane gave me a spare key and then showed me to my room, a quiet space on the third floor, and then to the bath, on the second floor, which was narrow and a little old fashioned looking, but had a marvelous old white enameled tub.
“Take your time, fill it up, soak your cares away,” she said, almost jolly, now that she was away from the dig. “I’ll get to work on dinner and then we’ll tuck you into bed.”
“Sounds heavenly,” I said. And it was. The water almost reached my chin and I steeped for what felt like hours, but when I checked my watch, it had only been about twenty minutes. Still, it was a luxury to me and I felt worlds better, despite my stomach. Odd, I thought. I have the constitution of a particularly tough rhino; it was unusual for me to feelill.
The bath restored me in great part, and then I called Brian to let him know I’d made it all right. He sensed something was up immediately, and I finally told him about the missing student and the modern burial. I couldn’t help saying that I was feeling a little haunted.
“It’s nothing to do with you,” he said immediately. “You’re only there to dig and buy books and visit your friends, not necessarily in that order.”
And with that, the subject changed, by mutual agreement, until we reluctantly said good-bye. When I finally found my way to the basement kitchen—painted a warm cream with green and orange accents—I discovered that Jane had kicked it up into high gear. A pot of tomato sauce was bubbling, filled with mushrooms, if the scent was any indication. Pasta was boiling on the tiny stove, and Jane was picking leaves off plants that grew in a row of pots near the basement window.
At first I was taken aback by that sight; her plants looked suspiciously like the illicit little set-up Kam and Brian had in their graduate school apartment, but then I realized that Jane was picking fresh basil. Next to a large terrarium tank with a light, she had an herb garden in the kitchen, all trained up and orderly.
“Anything I can help you with?” I asked.
“Yes, thanks. That chair at the table desperately needs to be held down, and that glass of wine needs to be emptied right away,” Jane said. “Apart from that, I’m pretty well set: I’ve got the bread heating, a salad and dressing all done, Hildegard’s fed—the tortoise is Greg’s, the stupid thing—and there’s a batch of little cheesy nibbles just ready…now.” The instant she said “now,” the oven timer chimed.
Jane continued as she pulled the tray from the oven; the most delicious smell of herbed cheese struck me. She nodded toward the tank. “When he told me he wanted a tortoise, I thought, great, a tortoise won’t be any work at all. The perfect pet for the busy couple. When I ever found out how temperamental they are and how much care they need—diet, temperature, this, that, and the other—well, they’re much more bother than a cat. And yet I’ve rather got attached to the bumpy little thing, I must say.”
I sat obediently at a large oak farmhouse table and took a sip of my wine, overwhelmed by Jane’s energy. She was already clean, somehow, and flushed with the steam of cooking food.
“Here, eat up while they’re hot.” She slid the hot canapés into a plate in front of me, then whirled back to the basil on the chopping board.
Greg came in and emptied his overstuffed pockets into a basket set on the counter for exactly that purpose. I was impressed by the range and amount of detritus that ended up in the basket.
“All right, Jane?” he said.
“Everything’s just about set,” she called over her shoulder as she chopped. “There’s a paper by your chair; we didn’t have the hands to fetch one on the way, but I dashed across the street while Emma was having her bath.”
“Makes you dizzy to watch her, doesn’t it?” Greg asked me fondly.
“I feel like a princess,” I replied, “all looked after.”
“Greg, if you’ll grab those two bowls, I believe we are ready to begin.”
Greg set the food on the table and Jane finally sat down, and it was as if I had been holding my breath the entire time. Jane’s imitation of a whirlwind had exhausted me.
We dawdled over dinner, talking for a couple of hours; as curious as I was about the modern burial, I held off asking; Jane looked too relaxed to bring up work and, heaven knew, it would be there tomorrow. Even though we’d dined fairly early—just about six o’clock—I found myself almost sinking asleep into my plate by eight-thirty.
“Emma, don’t try to fight it,” Greg insisted. “We’ve all had one hell of a day and we’ll be the better for it if we make an early night of it. We’ll be down here for a while, but if you need anything, our room is on the second floor.”
“Yes, do go up. Sleep well, Emma,” Jane chimed in. She looked quite relaxed now, her knees drawn up, feet resting on another chair, cheeks flushed with food and wine.
“Thanks, I will. Dinner was wonderful, good night.”
I had intended to go straight up to my room, but as I passed the parlor, I noticed the bookcases and couldn’t resist a peek. You learn so much about people by their taste in books.
The wall by the door was covered in framed photos and bookcases. One bookshelf was for work, it seemed, full of titles by and about Chaucer, Christine de Pizan, and Hildegard of Bingen. There were some duplicates, probably where Jane and Greg’s collections overlapped. On the next I saw lots of Orwell, lots of Lawrence and Woolf, followed by a whole row of Wodehouse. Right, I thought, those first will be Jane’s and the next will be Greg’s. When I snuck a look at the flyleaf of The Inimitable Jeeves, however, I saw Jane’s decisive signature as well. Maybe Greg’s were the collection of dog-eared Tom Clancys?
As I reached for the book, Greg came into the room. “Aha, I’ve caught you. Share Jane’s addiction for spy novels, do you?”
“Not really. These are all hers?”
“Yeah, my taste runs more to nonfiction, architecture, natural history, that sort of thing. Nothing so psychological or technological. They’re upstairs, if you’re interested.”
“Not really, I’m just being nosy. I was heading for the photos next.”
“Oh, well, by all means, let me guide you. Here’s a good one.”
Greg pointed to a photo of him and Jane, he in a suit, Jane formal in academic robes adorned with the braid and fur I’ve always envied my European counterparts as well as the usual velvet hood and tam. She was beaming brighter than a thousand suns and I thought it was nicely appropriate that a scholar of medieval archaeology should be garbed in robes that had their origin in the Middle Ages.
“She’d just got her PhD. We went to the Lake District for a week after that, and spent most of the time hiking, drinking, or in bed.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“It was good. I finished the year after, and we went back to the same place, over here.” In this picture, the pair of them were grinning cheesily for the camera, small peaks in the distance behind them. “I didn’t go to the ceremony.”
“Oh?”
“Well, honestly, I wasn’t bothered. Some old man in muttering Latin over me wasn’t going to turn me into an archaeologist, was he? Too much archaic ritual, for my taste.”
“I suppose,” I said. I wouldn’t have missed my degree ceremony for the world.
He tapped the glass of the photo. “And besides, I would have felt ridiculous in the gown with all those bits of velvet and tassels and such. Jane thought I ought to, since I’d worked so hard, but really, she was the one who straightened me out, set me down to proper work. I might not have finished if left to my own devices.”
I looked at him. “Did you really want to do the degree?”
Greg nodded soberly. “Yeah, I did, because I couldn’t do the sort of work I want without one. I just found it hard to settle down to i
t. You see, it was the writing. The analysis and the reading were fine, but then there was the writing.”
He shuddered. “Writing anything but a straight report gives me hives, and the thought of applying all that theory to my lovely, straightforward data stopped me cold. I found every excuse in the book to avoid it, but once Jane had finished, she took over. She did all the housework, looked after all the little things that can distract one. She taught me how to tackle the thesis so I wouldn’t get overwhelmed by the enormity of it. She must have read my thesis thirty times, and her comments made it better, every time. I couldn’t have done it without her.”
I was impressed by the frankness of his admission, even as he colored at it. “What’s this one? Who is this with you?” I could tell the picture had been taken a long time ago. Greg’s hair was much longer, and therefore much frizzier, so that he resembled a dandelion going to seed. He must have been wearing contact lenses then. The other man’s hair was dyed black and teased into New Wave tufts that must have required a fortune in styling gel to maintain. Both wore overlong black sweaters, narrowly cut trousers, and boots; both held half-empty beer glasses and wore the solemn smirks of new college students. Greg’s friend, however, knew just how much makeup would give the best effect without hiding any of his good looks.
“Ah, that’s Andrew Freeman and me.” Greg grinned. “University in the eighties, when we were both so much younger and so much prettier. Well, I was as yet unlined, at least; Andrew’s still pretty enough to suit his purposes.”
“Works it, does he?” I asked, even though I knew the an swer. The picture said it all; all that effort put into one’s appearance told the story.
“Oh, women have always flocked to him and he’s never minded it in the least. Nothing ever sticks, however, but that’s just as well with him. His work comes first, always—Andrew’s rather monomanic when it comes to his bones—though he does like to keep his hand in with the odd fling, every now and then. Can’t blame him for it.”
I brought my nose to within an inch of the photo, trying to make something out. “That’s not eyeliner you’re wearing, is it? Greg, you little Goth, you!”