Too restless to sit down, Ashley pretended to window shop, all the while glancing over her shoulder. She saw Jason trudging back from the bus station with his backpack over his shoulder and a preoccupied scowl on his face. She ignored him. He was turning out to have even more issues than she’d suspected. Fine, Caterina could deal with him.
“A penny for your thoughts,” said Nick’s voice in her ear, and she jumped. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”
She stammered something, but he already had his left arm firmly around her waist and was guiding her down a side street. “You’ll be wanting to see the countryside. You can’t stay in town all the time. Townspeople, they’ll have your mind well and truly squeezed shut.”
Ashley wasn’t going to argue with that. She walked along beside him, not sure just where to put her right arm, and finally rested her hand on his shoulder. That same sweet, smoky odor clung to him. His hair rippled in the breeze. His grin flashed in the sunlight. The annoying little mutter in the back of Ashley’s mind informed her that if something looked too good to be true, it probably was. She pushed the mutter down.
At the car park Nick threw open the door of a brown Ford Fiesta well past its prime, its bumper sporting a faded “Manchester United” sticker. He bundled up some old newspapers that, by their odor, had been used to wrap fish and chips, and threw them on the ground. Whoa, Ashley thought, what a rebel, littering. And the car didn’t have seat belts, either. She climbed in, telling herself she was sure living dangerously now.
With a grinding of gears and a puff of exhaust, they set off. In minutes they were barreling along a country road, Corcester behind them. “Where are we going?” Ashley asked.
“Durslow Edge,” Nick replied. “It’s a place of power. You can’t understand the landscape without taking its pulse.”
That was where the dead girl had been found. Ashley’s smile stiffened. Nick dropped his hand onto her thigh with a quick, reassuring nod, as though they were co-conspirators of some kind. His hand, a starfish against the denim of her jeans, wasn’t very large. His nails were clean. Its pressure on her leg sent little prickles of electricity into her stomach. Okay . . . she thought, and gazed out over the countryside that was whisking so quickly by her window.
The narrow road twisted toward what Ashley had always thought was a low cloud on the horizon, but which turned out to be an escarpment. Massive oaks thrust through red boulders the same color as the church. Pink and white blossoms clung to smaller trees. Nick pointed out weedy pockets in the woods that were old mine workings.
He stopped the car in a graveled area and ushered her along a rocky ledge beneath a cliff. Beyond the topmost branches of the trees lay mile after mile of countryside, a patchwork in shades of green. Ashley felt as though she could see all the way to Oz. Low in the west hung a creamy crescent moon.
“Thirsty?” Nick bent over a basin at the foot of the cliff, rinsed his hands in the water flowing from the rock, and drank.
Sending a silent prayer to Montezuma to spare her, Ashley sipped at the water. It was cold and musty.
“This is Brighid’s well,” Nick said. “From here, Rhiannon rides her white mare with the gold moon-crescent—the sacred sickle of the Druids . . .” he touched his crescent-shaped necklace, “. . . down to Shadow Moss. The Moss is a door into the Underworld.”
Ashley nodded. She was getting a double dose of legend today.
“Or you could see the Moss as Keridwen’s cauldron of death and rebirth,” Nick went on. “The peat-cutters pull out bits of human bodies from time to time, sacrifices to the triple goddess.”
“Yes, I saw part of one in Dr. Sweeney’s lab.”
“Did you? What did you sense in it?”
“Nothing. The body was sad, really. Just an empty sack. The hand, though. . . .”
A cold draft eddied down the cliff like water over a fall, and Ashley shivered. “I kept wondering if the hand was going to reach for me. Like when I was little and I’d jump into my bed from three feet away because I thought if I stood there something would reach out from beneath the dust ruffle and grab me and drag me under. Pretty stupid reaction, I guess.”
“Not a bit of it. The hand was calling to you. A shame you had to see it in the lab—sterile surroundings mute the vibrations of the flesh.” Nick slipped his arm around her waist again. “You wouldn’t be frightened of your bed if you had a warm body in it, would you now?”
When she’d thought she wanted to be swept off her feet, she’d meant figuratively, not literally. But one moment she was standing next to Nick, the next he’d wrapped his other arm around her knees and laid her flat on the ground with a crunch of dried leaves. She had to hand it to him, he was smooth.
The heat of his kiss stopped her breath. With a little gasp through her nose she returned his kiss with her lips and tongue. Pinwheels spun behind her closed lids and the pit of her stomach melted into her groin. His hand probed beneath her sweater. His body was heavy, pressing her into the ground. Cold seeped from the stone into her back.
“Whoa,” she mumbled against his mouth. Her voice caught in her throat. She hooked her forefinger through the gold hoop in his right ear and tugged gently, pulling his head away. “Nick! Time out!”
Instantly he released her. He shook the hair off his forehead and grinned. “It’s not so comfortable here, is it? Sorry.”
Wheezing, Ashley sat up. Well, it’s not as though she hadn’t known all along what he wanted. What she herself wanted, more or less.
“It’s not time yet,” he went on. “The power won’t wake til the Friday. You’ll come here with us then, to the ceremony, won’t you?”
“What?”
“The townsfolk have their Festival, makes them a bit of brass, I reckon, but it’s not a proper rite. The Druid only appears to the believers gathered here, not to the toffs in Clapper’s bar. I’ll collect you at four on the Friday and we’ll come back here with the others. You can leap the fire with me. That would go down a treat.”
Gareth had dismissed that as a game. In Nick’s voice it sounded deadly serious, not to mention weird. Was he inviting her to an orgy? Or what? “Someone died here,” was all she could say.
“I reckon a lot of people have died here over the years. But you mean Linda, I suppose.”
Ashley supposed she did. She’d never heard the victim’s name.
Nick’s face clouded. He looked down the ledge, his lips that a moment before had been so agile now set in a tight line. “My car had a breakdown that night, or I’d have had Linda back to Corcester in time for the Manchester coach good and proper. It was a grand evening, cold but clear, so she said she’d walk, maybe hitch, if she could. The filthy berk who gave her a ride brought her here, didn’t he? Bloody cheek.”
Except for the sound of the wind and the leaves the stone shelf was utterly quiet. Gooseflesh rose on Ashley’s arms, drawing the heat from her groin. He’d known Linda. He’d known someone who was murdered. He was on the rebound from a tragedy. Here she’d been casting Nick in some shallow romantic fantasy and he was dealing with the harshest of realities.
She set her hand on his arm. Below his sweater the muscle was as hard as the rock they were sitting on. “I’ll try to come on Friday, to, to help out. Okay?”
With a noble little smile, Nick regained his composure. “Super.”
He stood up and offered Ashley his hand. As they strolled away Ashley saw a couple of piles of horse droppings beside a log. Reynolds and his wife must ride up here. . . . No, it had been Gareth and Matilda, checking out the site of the murder.
She glanced back at the ledge. It might be a place of power, but the only power she’d sensed was Nick’s libido and her own imagination. Maybe Friday, when the travelers staged their Druid rip-off ceremony, she’d pick up on the Force or something.
Nick seated her in the car. “You’ll be needing a warm drink. It’s a bit parky up here, isn’t it?”
“Oh, well, yes, thank you.”
It wasn
’t far to the traveler’s encampment. Ashley gazed around, half-expecting to see what her mother would call hippies running around barking. The only people she saw seemed shabby and wan.
Compared to the scrubby busses and vans, Nick’s car looked like a Rolls Royce. He parked it by a battered travel trailer. Ashley had time for only a quick look at the overshadowing fir trees before he whisked her inside.
She smelled sausage and incense. A miniature sink was piled with dishes. A bed with crumpled bedclothes was half-hidden behind a bead curtain. Books covered the table. Ashley sat down on the narrow bench to one side. The other bench was filled with cardboard boxes each labeled, The Antiquary’s Corner.
She’d been expecting a cup of tea, but Nick produced a bottle of whisky and poured a dollop into a thick glass. When in Britain, do as the Brits do, Ashley thought. Although even her father’s 12 year old Scotch always tasted like battery acid, and this one was still in its infancy. She sipped and covered her wry expression by looking down at the books. Their titles ranged from Chariots of the Gods to academic tomes on archaeology and semiotics, the study of symbols. Two Sotheby’s catalogs lay beneath a copy of The Golden Bough. Just as she’d thought, Nick was a scholar. And there sure weren’t many jobs for scholars.
He scooted onto the bench beside her, captured her hand, and gazed into her eyes. He kissed her again, less insistently this time, without spilling either of their glasses.
Just as Ashley decided she liked the taste of the whisky better on his tongue than on her own there was a knock on the door. Sighing in aggravation, Nick reached over and turned the knob. Two girls not much older than Ashley looked into the trailer. One had short, black, spiky hair, and a leather jacket. The other had long, lank, blond hair and a limp cotton dress with a shawl.
“Here,” said the first, “didn’t know you was entertaining, Nick.”
“Ashley,” Nick said, “Shirl and DeDe.”
Ashley could feel her cheeks red-hot in the draft from the open door. Either the Scotch or the sex would’ve been enough—both of them and she was glowing like a stop light. “Hello,” she managed to say nonchalantly.
“Where you from, luv?” asked DeDe.
“St. Louis. United States.”
“Oh, a Yank,” Shirl said. “Developing exotic tastes, eh, Nick?”
He smiled. “Ashley’s here studying British history. I’m helping her.”
“Oh, so it’s history she’s studying.” DeDe nudged Shirl and winked. “That’s a new name for it.”
They laughed. Their accents were so thick Ashley could hardly understand them.
But their scorn didn’t need to be translated. The date sure wasn’t turning out like she’d wanted, was it?
“Eh, Bob,” called Shirl over her shoulder. “Come meet Nick’s Yank.”
“I need to be getting back to Corcester.” Ashley put her glass down and shoved at Nick. For a moment she was afraid he wasn’t going to move, keeping her trapped in the corner.
No. He pulled her to her feet and steered her through what seemed to be a crowd gathered at the door. “All right then, you stupid cows,” he said with a laugh, “you’ve put the wind up her, thank you very much.”
A hulking, smelly man Ashley assumed was Bob said, “Tough luck, boyo.”
“They didn’t mean anything,” Nick told Ashley as she tumbled into the car.
No, they probably didn’t. Still it was easier to blow off her own compadres than someone else’s. She focused on her hands clasped in her lap and didn’t look up until they were in open country, passing black and white houses and black and white cows muted to shades of gray by gathering cloud and evening both.
Nick didn’t seem to be gnashing his teeth in frustration, but the pit of Ashley’s stomach ached. Well, there was always next time, when maybe she could get something going with him in private, not in public. Assuming she wanted to get something going with him. Funny how things weren’t working out according to her script.
“Tell me about the dig,” he said.
She told him about the dig, sketched the personalities involved, and finished with an account of Matilda’s close encounter with a bus.
“That was on the Thursday?” His dark eyes sparked.
“Watch the road!” Ashley yelped as another car whisked by them.
He turned back to the road. “The brakes on the bus packed up, I reckon. Simple as that.”
They closed on a green car ahead of them, which was slowing for a traffic light at the outskirts of the town. Both cars stopped. Nick claimed Ashley’s thigh again. Ashley suddenly realized that the car ahead of them was Gareth’s. From the angle of his head she guessed the reporter was looking at the light, not into his rear view mirror. Even so, she ducked.
“Is that someone from the dig?” Nick asked.
“Yes. It’s Gareth March, a reporter who’s writing us up.”
Nick sneered, “Yeh, March, the toffee-nosed git. Showed up at the camp yesterday on a horse, for God’s sake, and handed us a right bit of flannel. Don’t trust him, he’s probably a pig in disguise.”
“No, no, no,” Ashley protested. “I’ve overheard him talking to Matilda.”
The light changed. Gareth drove straight on ahead, unaware anyone was sneering at him. Nick turned left and dropped Ashley off in the car park by the town center. “Friday, then, for certain? If I can get away before then I’ll—well, I can hardly walk into the hotel and ask Clapper for you, can I? I’ll be in touch, eh?”
“Yes, of course.” Ashley met his parting kiss hesitantly—there were people around—and waved goodbye to the Fiesta’s dwindling taillights.
The breeze was chill, and again her skin broke out in gooseflesh. The greasy newspapers Nick had dumped earlier that day shifted back and forth across the pitted asphalt, in the twilight looking like the pale ghosts of dreams past. She gathered them up, thrust them into a rubbish bin, and walked briskly into the town square. She couldn’t go back to the hotel, not yet. Matilda, Dr. Sweeney, Gareth—they’d notice Nick’s fingerprints on her. Then she’d feel guilty. She didn’t want to feel guilty. She sat down on a bench, looked up at the church steeple, and started shooting the rapids of her thoughts.
The remaining daylight leaked away behind the clouds. The lights of the town seemed feeble against the gloom. A siren sounded, not too far away. Several shadowy figures trooped through the square exchanging laughs and taunts. The familiar voices hauled Ashley out of her meditation. She stood up.
“Yo, Ashley,” Bryan called. “What’re you doing out here?”
“Watching the sunset.” And starving to death, she realized. Food was sublimated sex, after all. She fell into step with the others. “How was the hang-gliding?”
“Great!” replied Courtney. “We found a youth hostel in Castleton. . . .”
They emerged from the alley beside the church. Below them lay the hotel, its windows glinting in the pulsing blue lights of several police cars. Flashlights swooped like demented fireflies over the dark mound of Cornovium. Clumps of human figures stood on the sidewalk and in the gardens of the cottages. Voices rose and fell in a staccato rhythm. Every nerve ending in Ashley’s body blazed. What the. . . ?
“Mein Gott, was ist das?” exclaimed Manfred.
In one jostling mass the students raced down the hill and collided with the crowd before the door of the hotel.
The lights were so bright Ashley was blinded. It took her a moment to recognize the hands that grasped her arms and spun her around as Matilda’s. “Ashley, where have you been?”
“Out—what’s wrong?”
Matilda inhaled, nostrils flaring, then glanced from Ashley to Bryan and let her go. “Howard and Caterina were working on the inscription. They didn’t come in when it started to get dark, so Gareth went to look for them. Someone hit Caterina over the head and pushed Howard down into the Miller ravine. She’s unconscious, he’s bruised and dazed.”
The screech of an ambulance siren sliced the night. Matilda watc
hed the vehicle turn onto the road and gather speed. Even after its lights winked out the sound of its siren lingered mournfully on the wind.
Ashley’s mind stammered. The faces around her—Matilda, Courtney, Bryan, Manfred—smeared into leering masks of light and shadow. She turned toward the hotel. Gareth, Clapper, Watkins, and two more policemen stood in close conference right in front of the door. Jason stood between the two cops, looking belligerently from side to side. “Yeah, I came back early, I was tired, the hostel in Keswick was full—so I had a fight with Caterina, so what?”
The policemen answered his question by hustling him over to a patrol car and pushing him inside.
“I don’t think so,” Matilda said to Watkins. “Even though the inscription Caterina was working on has been uprooted and tossed around . . .”
Gareth interrupted. “We saw Jason kicking at it.”
“. . . and this piece of it was lying by the gate,” Matilda went on. She held up a bit of stone, the incised letters dark with dirt.
“Good show,” said Watkins, “to find that little bit in the dark.”
“I don’t follow,” Clapper said. “You think it was them vandals and thieves again? I saw that Nick whatisit, the traveler layabout, driving by just at dusk tonight—slowed down, he did, and gave the professor and the Eyetie girl a good hard look.”
No, Ashley said to herself. He’d dropped her off, that’s all. Even though driving by here on his way back to the camp would have taken him out of his way.
“What would thieves want with an old inscription?” asked Watkins.
“It’s what they thought was beneath the inscription,” Matilda answered. “See, the inscribed word is ‘spolia‘. Spoils, booty. Treasure. How many times has Caterina said something about treasure the last few days? She always meant it figuratively, but not everyone would know that.”
“Yesterday,” said Ashley, and stopped, surprised at the sound of her own voice.
The others turned toward her. “Yes?” Matilda said
“Caterina, Dr. Sweeney, and Mr. Reynolds were talking about the column of Trajan in Rome. She said it’s carved with reliefs showing the Romans carrying home the booty, the treasure, they picked up in Judaea.”
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