“Willingly, or under duress?” His eyes kept him from looking entirely serious. “The story among the locals is that Father Giampiero is the one who’s been dissuading Dom from digging here all these years.”
She couldn’t picture it. “Domenico doesn’t strike me as the type to cave to pressure.”
Chaz nodded. “And Signora Vaccula, the housekeeper, told us he’s been reluctant to dig because there may be stray World War II munitions here.”
The TV host made a face. “She fed me that story, too, but I don’t buy it – though I did pick up a book on explosives just in case. The locals suspect the Church is trying to hide something here.”
“What would they be hiding?” Chaz asked.
Dunk stopped outside his door. “Maybe texts they’ve also suppressed in Pompeii or Herculaneum. Some people believe the Church is also holding back excavation of the rest of the ancient library in the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum.”
“Groundwater is what’s holding that back,” Winnie said. “One of our colleagues at Growden worked at Herculaneum and is familiar with the problem. Besides, she says the Villa has been tunneled so thoroughly she’s convinced all the scrolls have been found.”
Dunk smiled. “If so, that makes our site all the more important – just what ‘The Dig’ needs, too, if we want to secure another season on the air.”
Chaz studied him thoughtfully. “Do you really think Giampiero is here to snatch any scrolls we might find?”
“I can’t rule it out. That’s why I’ve asked our crew to be on alert. I hope you will be, too – in a discreet manner, of course.”
Winnie and Chaz glanced at each other. She turned to Dunk. “If you plan to mention it to Dr. Farber, you should know that discretion probably isn’t his forte. He tends to say whatever he thinks.”
He looked amused. “Indeed? Then I suppose the rest of us will have to be the watchdogs. Anyway, I’ll let you get to bed. See you bright and early.”
They said goodnight, and Dunk went into his room.
Chaz and Winnie continued on to their doors, located opposite each other.
Pausing with his hand on the doorknob, he grinned at her. “So, after that, are you afraid of sabotage?”
She snorted. “Only from the usual source.”
“You mean Dr. Farber?”
Realizing she had shared too much of her frustration already, she thought it better not to be explicit. She smiled at him. “Don’t put words in my mouth. See you in the morning.”
“OK. Goodnight.”
Once in the privacy of her room, she couldn’t shrug off her concerns so easily. While getting ready for bed, she stewed over Farber’s stunt. Again, she consoled herself that she wasn’t assigned to the same trench he was. Only then did she remember she had been assigned to work with Chaz.
She frowned. Was it too much to hope that the area designated for Trench 2 would be expansive?
NOVE
SILLY NIGHTMARES ABOUT Farber and being on TV plagued Winnie all night and woke her up before the alarm went off. She treated herself to a long shower and, thinking about the camera, took extra care with her hair and make-up. For good measure, she stashed a powder compact and lip gloss in a pocket of her cargo pants.
A step out onto the balcony revealed the morning air felt chilly, but a clear sky bode well for the day. She put on a light jacket, intending to walk to the site of the dig – making sure to keep to the paths, of course.
When she got downstairs, however, Dunk offered her a ride with him and Amara. After they pulled out of the driveway onto the dirt road that went through the vineyards, he glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Don’t look so frightened, Winnie. What last-minute qualms can we dispel for you?”
She forced a smile. “I’m a little nervous that I’ll draw a blank when you give me my first text to translate. Latin inscriptions are riddled with abbreviations, and that can make them tricky. I’ve been brushing up on common ones used in Pompeii, and I hope that will help.”
He smiled back at her in the mirror. “I have complete confidence in you, but in the event that you stumble badly, we can always edit or do a second take.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You’re not saying that some of your scenes are staged?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘staged.’ That’s too strong a term. But once in a while, the camera might miss a big moment, or someone will flub an important point. Then we’ll do it over.”
“I see.” Knowing that she could redo a line calmed her, but she hoped she wouldn’t have to resort to it. It would feel like cheating.
To reach the site, they drove through the open gates of a temporary fence that had gone up since her last visit. Inside, a parking area had been cleared of brush and already held two panel trucks, a bus and several cars. Up the hill, closer to the temple, she could see a caterer’s tent.
“Wow, the place is hopping,” she said.
Amara grinned back at her between the seats. “You should have seen the locations during our heyday.”
Under the tent, a continental breakfast buffet and a dining area had been set up to save time for the cast and crew members. At least a dozen people already sat at portable tables. Many of them appeared to be teenagers and wore matching orange ‘Five-Day Dig’ T-shirts.
“Who are all these people?” she asked.
“Mostly B team,” Amara said. “Besides our show regulars, we have local students here to clean and categorize finds. They’re the ones in orange. Some of them will work on surveying and documenting locations, as well. With Dom’s help, we’ve hired some laborers, too, for the heavier moving.”
“Ha.” With so many people involved, it didn’t seem likely she and Chaz would have much influence on how professionally the work was conducted. It was one reason to be glad that her boss was onboard. If the project damaged Growden’s reputation, she wouldn’t be the only person responsible.
Scanning the eating area, she didn’t see Farber, but she spotted Chaz sitting with a well-muscled black guy wearing a knit beanie and a striped shirt. A professional video camera lay on the seat next to him. She grabbed an orange-glazed croissant, a yogurt and a cup of cappuccino and walked over to their table.
“This is Hank, the lead cameraman.” Chaz told her. “He’s from Philly, too.”
“But I’ve been working on ‘The Dig’ for five years,” Hank said, “so I spend a lot of my time in the U.K.”
She set down her drink and shook his hand. “I’d love to spend a year or two living abroad. How do you like it?”
“It’s good, except I hardly ever get to see a Phillies’ game.” His gaze swept down her body as she took a seat. “I like your necklace.”
“Oh, thank you. It’s a museum replica of an ancient Egyptian piece.” She lifted the cat-shaped pendant to give him a better look. “This is Bastet, a solar goddess originally depicted as a lioness but later a domestic cat.”
He leaned closer. “Cool.”
Chaz cleared his throat. “I’m more of a cricket man myself, but the Phils’ prospects look good this season.”
Hank asked if he had heard how the team did in the previous night’s game, and Chaz filled him in. After a few minutes of making predictions about the rest of the season, the three of them speculated about the ruins on the site. Then they got up and walked to the area designated for excavation.
As Winnie and Chaz approached the ancient wall that abutted the spot where they would be digging, she saw a mini mechanical digger sink its blades into the topsoil marked out for their trench.
Shocked, she ran the rest of the way, waving her arms to stop the operator, a burly man with a hard hat and a thick, dark mustache. “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!”
He stopped the machinery but scowled at her, shouting something in Italian too rapid for her to understand.
To her embarrassment, Dunk rushed over with Hank following him and filming. Enza trailed the cameraman.
“What’s wrong, Dr. Price?” Dunk asked.
&n
bsp; Great. First thing, and I’m already in the spotlight, she thought. But the issue was too important for her to back down. She turned a brave face toward him. “I’m worried about artifacts near the surface suffering damage from this digger. This area is too archaeologically rich to use machinery for excavation. We have to do it by hand.”
Beyond his shoulder, she could see Chaz, Farber and Jack approaching, all looking curious.
Dunk smiled at her. “The top few inches of soil are too recent for us to waste our time on them. Our concern is with the ancient Roman layer.”
“I know we’re here primarily to study the Roman era, but we can’t ignore the possibility of finding artifacts from World War II or medieval times.”
Jack stepped up to the side of the trench. “We won’t neglect more recent finds, Winnie, I assure you. I understand your uneasiness, but we have a team of archaeology students coming to sift the spoil piles by hand. If there are trinkets from the last few centuries in the top layers, they won’t be lost.”
Details about the positioning of the items would be lost, though, and items could get broken by the digger. Conscious of the camera on her, she hated to make a big scene. She looked to her boss for backup. “What’s your view about this, Will?”
He moved closer and studied the ground, rubbing his chin. “Being American and therefore from a land with relatively short human occupation, those of us from Growden are used to concentrating on the top layers in a dig. But given the long history of this area and our time constraints, I think that skimming off the top layer and sifting it for finds is the most efficient way to handle the excavation.”
She could hardly believe her ears. Her own colleague was more interested in sensational finds than in good archaeology.
“Excellent,” Dunk said. “Then we’ll cut through the rigmarole, as the Italians say.” He gave Enza a conspiratorial smile.
The young woman shook her head. “We do not say this. Rigmarole is not an Italian word.”
Before Winnie could consider her next argument, Jack whistled at the operator of the digger and motioned for him to continue. She watched, cringing, as the blade sunk in, tore off a three-foot-wide strip of soil, about nine feet long, and dumped it on a tarp to the side. Nothing human-made stood out in the pile of lapilli and dirt, but she felt sure the sifters would come up with finds.
Jack and Dunk directed the vehicle to another area, and the camera and Farber followed them.
Chaz stepped up beside her. “Let’s get to work. The more that we do properly, the less there is left for them to muck up.”
She nodded. If nothing else, she could control the quality of her own work. She just wished she could have been more persuasive about the digger. A more confident person might have won the battle. Was she really a marshmallow, like Farber said?
Drowning those thoughts in her work, she found the soft, sandy volcanic soil in the trench surprisingly easy to lift. Over the next few hours, she and Chaz cleared a layer a foot deep – much more than she’d expected to get done. The most difficult part of the job proved to be the repetitive stooping and bending.
As the early-June sun rose in the sky, she grew hot and tired. Standing up to stretch her legs, she surveyed the segment of wall they had exposed. In the last half-hour, the point of some kind of architectural cap had taken shape near the ground. Interesting.
Chaz brushed crumbs of soil off a newly unearthed section of bricks. “Have you heard from your brother since we spoke about him?”
“No. He’s been silent for over a week now. I tried texting him again last night but didn’t get a response.” She shrugged. “This is his usual MO when he’s gone to the dark side, but it’s still alarming.”
He squinted up at her. “How concerned are you?”
“Pretty concerned. I’m trying not to be, but I’ll be glad when we get home next week.”
“Well, let me know if you hear from him.” Frowning, he turned back to the wall, using a trowel to scrape away more soil from the bricks and mortar.
“Thanks for asking.” She stooped back down and went back to her own digging. To change the subject she asked, “How do you suppose Dr. Farber is enjoying working with Father Giampiero?”
“Hard to say. If he thinks Giampiero has potential as a patron of Growden, I’m sure they’ll get along well.” He paused and looked more closely at the stretch of wall he’d just uncovered. “Oi, look at this mold spot.”
Winnie inched closer to him and observed a whitish triangular blob with varying densities of shading. The vertical and diagonal streaks in it almost looked like draped fabric, as if the mold depicted a figure wearing a hooded robe. “That’s not good. If these buildings have mold like that inside, the frescoes are in danger.”
Chaz looked at her with a funny expression on his face. “But doesn’t it kind of look like the Virgin Mary?”
She looked back at the spot. Could it be the remnants of an ancient painting? Leaning closer, she couldn’t detect any fragments of color or signs of brushstrokes.
Behind her, Chaz smothered a laugh.
Turning around, she found him grinning at her. She swatted him on the arm with the back of her hand. “Very funny.”
She rolled her eyes and went back to work.
The ease of digging and the abundant, if minor, finds made the day pass quickly. Whenever a good-sized shard of pottery came to light, they paused to muse over the style and estimate the century of origin. They also turned up a dozen fragments of glass and two well-preserved first-century coins.
Not long after lunch, the sound of fast-approaching footsteps and voices made them look up. Dunk ran up to the side of the trench with Enza in tow and Hank’s camera pointing in Winnie’s direction. The host of the show held out a small metal sheet of Latin text to her. “Dr. Price, we need your help with a translation. We found this inside the entrance to the temple.”
She felt a jolt of nervousness, then realized that the item looked familiar. Searching her mind, she remembered seeing similar sheets in a museum in England. She moistened her lips. “It looks like a defixio – a curse tablet. I’ll take a crack at it.”
“A curse tablet?” Dunk gave the camera an exaggerated look of alarm, his prominent eyes growing round, then handed the artifact to her.
Despite her nerves, the translation proved easy, being basically what she expected. “It reads, ‘To the Great Mother, I give he who defiles her temple. I give his mind, his liver, his lungs, his life.’ ”
Dunk gaped at her. “So anyone who defiles the temple here is cursed?”
Presumably, he meant the comment to be funny, but she just found it cheesy. She chose to respond seriously. “That may have been the intention, or the writer may have had a particular defiler in mind.”
He turned to address the camera. “I hope we’re not in trouble.”
“Not unless we defile the temple,” Chaz said, tossing a sardonic glance Dunk’s way. He then pointed to the tablet. “Winnie, there’s more on the back.”
She turned it over and examined the writing on the reverse side. “It says, ‘May the Great Mother favor those who sacrifice properly to her at her temple.’ ” She smiled at Dunk. “See: It’s not all bad.”
Ignoring her, he stepped away from the trench and spoke into the camera as Hank followed him toward the third building on the site. “How about that, folks? Our first curse tablet ever on ‘The Five Day Dig.’ Now, let’s see what’s up in Trench 3.”
Chaz held his hand out toward Winnie. “Can I see the defixio?”
She handed it to him, but Enza snatched it out of his grasp. “No time now. Sorry, Charles.”
She ran after Dunk and Hank.
Chaz watched her, his lips bunched together.
His look of annoyance with the beauty gave Winnie a spurt of pleasure. She subdued the unworthy feeling and tried to sound neutral. “She’s just excited. And so is Dunk, apparently. That curse nonsense really seemed to stoke his imagination.”
After another
moment of brooding, Chaz turned back to his work. “He often talks up finds to try to get even the casual viewers interested. After fifteen seasons, it must be difficult at times.”
She sat down in the dirt and picked up her trowel. “Fifteen seasons. It’s hard to believe they’ve done that many shows.”
“True, although the seasons are shorter than American ones tend to be, and the early shows had a simplistic format. I suppose over the years, they’ve had increasing pressure to outdo themselves. Now it sort of feels like they’re trying too hard. In a setting like this, there’s no need.” He looked over at her. “When we took our break this morning, I got my first peek at the frescoes in the temple.”
She smiled. “Those images are spine-tingling, and I’m sure our five days here will be packed with fascinating finds. I only hope that our experience with the cast of ‘The Dig’ doesn’t ruin the show for you.”
“If it does, it will be a small price to pay in return for the chance to take part in the excavation.”
At dinner that evening, the wines, sauces and pastas varied from the previous night, and so did the atmosphere. After a successful first day, the group seemed more confident in themselves as a team and chatted with each other more openly. Everyone looked tired, sunburned and happy.
They had taken the same seats as before, with Farber joining them next to Father Giampiero and far enough away from Winnie for her satisfaction. Next to her, Jack’s seat stood waiting for him again.
Dunk looked around at the group with a wide grin. “Cheers to everyone for a fantastic Day 1. Tomorrow we’ll knock off earlier, so we have time for our mystery-religion ritual.”
An unexpected bang made Winnie jump. The ice in the water goblets tinkled.
She looked across the table to see Father Giampiero glowering at the TV host, his fist clenched next to his plate where it had landed. “I will not take part in such blasphemy.”
An awkward silence ensued. Most of the guests fidgeted and avoided looking at each other, studying their food with extra attention.
Dunk cleared his throat. “With all due respect, Father, it’s only a reenactment, not real.”
The Five-Day Dig Page 9