Elegy for a Queen

by Margaret James

  ‘No,’ said Simon, ‘absolutely not, there’s not enough light, we’d crash.’

  ‘Tomorrow evening, then?’

  ‘I have to revise tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh, darling Simon, you can’t work the whole weekend!’ Janet’s long lashes fluttered. ‘My career depends on you, and your machine.’

  ‘Okay, okay, I’ll take you up again, but not tomorrow.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘On Tuesday evening, right? But only if the weather and conditions are okay, and if you buy the fuel.’

  ‘It’s a deal,’ said Janet, and started kissing him again.

  ‘Oh, get off,’ he spluttered, pushing her away. ‘Come on, Susannah. I’ll buy you a drink.’

  * * * *

  Janet was in the library by ten on Wednesday morning. She had been in Boots by nine o’clock, she told Susannah, and browbeaten Photography into doing her film immediately.

  ‘Where’s David?’ she enquired.

  ‘I don’t know if he’s coming in this morning,’ said Susannah. ‘He’s in and out at all hours recently.’

  ‘We can do without him.’ Sitting down at David’s desk, Janet fanned her pictures on his blotter. ‘There’s something there,’ she said. ‘Look here – and here. Beautiful straight lines, right angles, corners – ‘

  ‘What does it all mean, though?’

  Janet picked up a pen. ‘The geology of this area is simple,’ she began. ‘There’s some weathered outcrop, a bit of ancient granite, but most of it’s just clay.’

  ‘So any rocks or stones below the surface must have come from buildings?’

  ‘Well, they might,’ said Janet. ‘I’ve been a digger long enough not to get too excited by a couple of little crop marks. But all the same, I have a feeling.’

  Picking out a photograph, she traced the lines. ‘It could be just a barn,’ she said. ‘Or a sheepfold, or a cowshed knocked down years ago. The thing is, the alignment is absolutely perfect for a church.’

  ‘A church?’ Susannah’s dark eyes sparkled.

  ‘But I’ve checked the records.’ Janet shrugged. ‘There’s no mention of any church in Domesday.’

  ‘You looked in the Victoria County History?’

  ‘Yes, there’s nothing. I told my boss about it, and he thinks I’ve found a barn.’

  ‘But that’s not what you think.’

  ‘No,’ said Janet, looking up. ‘Oh, I found out something else, as well. That whole area’s going to be developed. In a year from now, there’ll be a brand new science park, one or two small factories, an enormous shopping mall – the works, in fact.’

  ‘But that can’t have been a secret,’ said Susannah. ‘There must have been the usual sort of planning applications. Or even an enquiry.’

  ‘There was no enquiry. There have been planning applications, but they’ve been kept so quiet the council must have passed them in the middle of the night.’ Janet scowled. ‘It’s all approved,’ she said. ‘The work begins next week.’

  ‘Who owns the land?’ Susannah asked.

  ‘Sir Alec Fletcher, our MP,’ said Janet. ‘While I was waiting for my photographs, I read the Independent, and by a strange coincidence there was a snap of him. These days he’s a junior minister in Education, and he was at a conference shaking hands with one of your closest friends.’

  ‘A friend of mine?’ Susannah frowned.

  ‘A Professor Fenton, whom I believe you know quite well?’

  ‘Yes, I do know George,’ Susannah said. ‘But listen, all this is news to me.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  Janet left, and Susannah got down to work on her translations for the millennium history. The minster bells eventually tolled five. She was in the stacks, putting back some volumes she had used that day, when she smelled burning.

  Terrified she’d let the kettle boil dry and set fire to the kitchen, she helter-skeltered down the stairs – only to find the smell of burning vanished. Instead, there was a delicate and all-pervasive scent of summer roses.

  The kitchen was dark and cold.

  I’m going mad,’ she thought, and shook herself. She locked up and went home to the Dean’s House.

  That night, the bad dreams came again. She woke in panic, smelling roasting flesh and hearing screams, which echoed all around the Close and filled the autumn night.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Hello, Susannah,’ said the man in Dora’s office. ‘The lady who was at the desk has gone to look for you.’

  ‘My God.’ In spite of her sleepless night, Susannah grinned at him. ‘I’d have walked straight past you.’

  The scruffy undergraduate in jeans and a grubby sweatshirt had been born again. Now Gavin wore a double-breasted suit, a blue and white striped shirt and a dark blue tie.

  Well-polished loafers had replaced his filthy trainers, and his luxuriant curls were closely shorn, so now they merely brushed his collar.

  ‘My sisters can’t get over it,’ said Gavin. ‘But don’t worry, I’m not going out with you looking like this. I’ve brought some normal clothes to wear tonight. What time do you finish here?’

  ‘Oh, I could probably pack up for today.’

  As they left the library, they walked straight into Janet. ‘Hi,’ she said, smirking and looking Gavin up and down. ‘Well, Suke – are you going to introduce us?’

  ‘Er – Janet – Gavin,’ said Susannah quickly, hustling him away, aware of Janet staring after them.

  * * * *

  Gavin’s normal clothes were new blue chinos and a soft, grey cotton shirt. Susannah thought he now looked like an insurance salesman on his evening off. The gleaming Vauxhall Carlton in metallic greenish-blue added to the impression of respectability.

  ‘Goodness, is this yours?’ she asked, sinking into her deeply-padded seat.

  ‘No, of course not.’ The car was purring softly, like a cat. ‘My boss has let me borrow it, on condition I guard it with my life.’

  ‘How long will you be in Marbury?’

  ‘Only for tonight. We’re off to Wolverhampton first thing tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘At the Copper Beech, out on the bypass. I’ve left Jack Perry lying flaked out on his bed, emptying the mini-bar and watching porn on closed-circuit TV.’

  Gavin jumped a set of lights. ‘So what are you doing in Marbury? All I could get out of George was something about translating Anglo-Saxon manuscripts – for a guide book, is it?’

  ‘A millennium history.’

  ‘I hope they’re paying you well?’ The Carlton roared along the dual carriageway out of town. ‘It wouldn’t be my idea of fun.’

  No, thought Susannah, I don’t suppose it would.

  They drove along in silence until they reached a pub. ‘This must be the place, said Gavin. ‘Mr Perry recommended it, and he never seems to stint himself. So I expect it’s good.’

  The Fortune Inn had dark oak beams from which hung hops and tankards. Diamond-latticed windows let in the evening sunshine, scattering golden dust on the alarmingly uneven floors. ‘What would you like to drink?’ asked Gavin.

  ‘A pint of Parker’s Special,’ said Susannah.

  ‘Oh – right,’ said Gavin, looking puzzled and surprised.

  * * * *

  ‘Your boss was right – it’s wonderful.’ Susannah ate the last of her fillet steak, deciding it was the best she’d ever tasted.

  ‘Yeah, it isn’t bad.’ Gavin, Susannah noticed, had shovelled down his cassoulet as if it were pie and beans in the works canteen. ‘Your steak was okay, then?’

  ‘Yes, it was delicious.’

  ‘Good.’ Then Gavin grinned. ‘I’d have thought a little thing like you would be a fussy eater. But you were going at that steak like there was no tomorrow. It makes a change to eat with a woman who’s not on a diet, and enjoys her food.’

  Susannah blushed. ‘I shouldn’t be such a greedy pig,’ she murmured. ‘But it was all so nice. ‘

 
‘Pudding?’ suggested Gavin.

  While they ate their pudding, Susannah told Gavin about the discovery Janet hoped she’d made, and about the proposed development.

  ‘Who’s the contractor?’ Gavin asked.

  ‘A man called Gordon Clark.’

  ‘Why don’t you and Janet go and see him? Promise him hoards of gold and silver coins, tell him you’ll find another Troy or Carthage.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ said Susannah. ‘You know, that chocolate roulade on the trolley looks amazing.’

  ‘Let’s have some, then,’ said Gavin. ‘We might as well pig out. This is on expenses, after all.’

  * * * *

  In the cool darkness of the Cathedral Close, the Carlton sat like a sleek, green tank, the engine running and the heater going full blast.

  Any other woman, thought Gavin, any other girl who had been wined and dined and driven home in what was practically a limousine, would have been all over him by now – not sitting there politely, saying thank you for a lovely evening, and all that sort of crap.

  Why didn’t he make a pass? Why didn’t he slide his arm across the back of the seat and pull her close to him? Why didn’t he kiss her on the lips?

  ‘I hope the rest of your trip goes well,’ she said, reaching for her jacket in the back.

  Oh God, Gavin thought, I really want her, more than anything. I want to stroke her neck – I want to follow that delicious curve from ear to collarbone, I want to touch her cheek.

  The passenger door was open now, and cold night air was being sucked inside. ‘Goodnight, then,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ Gavin started.

  ‘I hope the rest of your trip goes well.’

  ‘Oh – thank you.’ Gavin nodded. It was no use, he couldn’t, didn’t dare. ‘I’ll give you a ring,’ he said.

  ‘Okay.’ She smiled politely. ‘Tell me when you want Jemima back, and I’ll drive her down. Thanks again for a lovely evening. I enjoyed myself.’

  He watched as she walked across to the Dean’s House.

  It was strange, how things turned out. He’d meant this evening to be mere payment of a debt, and not a proper date. He’d been expecting to be bored out of his mind. But tonight, he’d seen a new Susannah.

  He’d thought she was a strait-laced, tight-arsed, frigid little cow. But she drank pints of bitter like a man, and she could certainly put her food away. He’d never seen anything half as sexy as Susannah Miller eating that enormous, blood-red steak.

  When he’d teased her, she’d blushed like a poppy. He’d seen the warm blood surging up her neck, to flood her waxen cheeks and make them glow. He’d seen her dark eyes sparkle.

  He’d have given anything to make her glow again.

  * * * *

  Susannah was at work by eight next morning, working through an ancient volume full of Saxon wills, looking for references to Marbury.

  Eventually, she found one. Cenwulf, Earl of Huntingford and Lord of Marbury, desires that he be buried among the holy brethren in Saint Hilda’s Minster, in the clearing called the Abbot’s Wood.

  The cathedral church was dedicated to St Hilda. So did Cenwulf’s bones still lie in the old cemetery next to the minster, which had been Marbury’s cathedral for a thousand years?

  Susannah hoped he did rest peacefully, for Cenwulf seemed to have been a generous man. I leave a thousand mancuses of gold to build a hospital, for travellers and sundry pilgrims to Saint Hilda’s Well. I desire that masses shall be said for all my people, that they may not sin.

  He also left fine table linen, silver spoons, and those sharp knives with silver handles cunningly made by Caedwald, my best smith – suggesting that the Saxons didn’t always eat at wooden trestles, tearing their food apart with horny hands.

  David came in at ten. Susannah saw he was drunk again today. The early morning post had brought a beautiful little psalter, dating from the thirteenth century and probably made in Marbury. But David merely glanced at it, then pushed it to one side. ‘I’m going out,’ he muttered.

  ‘You’ve only just come in,’ said Dora. ‘Listen, don’t go sitting on park benches, with a bottle of Gordon’s in a bag. You’ll only catch a chill.’

  ‘What’s that to you?’ demanded David, as he left.

  ‘Some people,’ muttered Dora, looking cross. ‘I don’t know why I bother, honestly.’

  Susannah finished translating Cenwulf’s will, had coffee in Dora’s office, then took a pile of stuff back to the stacks. As she shelved the book of wills, something fluttered from its musty pages and landed at her feet.

  Opening the book again, she saw a crusted streak of dark brown glue inside the cover. Some Victorian vandal had once stuck a scrap of vellum there.

  The glue had stained the vellum, but the script upon it was still clear. On this day Earl Cenwulf was buried at Saint Hilda’s Minster, in that place which once was Weolinsleah, in the hundred men call Eadingtun.

  The reader was referred, in bold Victorian script, to Cenwulf’s will in Simon’s Codex – the book of manuscripts still in Susannah’s hand.

  She stared at the scrap again, the name, the place. She supposed there must be lots of churches dedicated to St Hilda. She went to look for Dora.

  ‘David’s the man to ask,’ said Dora. ‘If he comes back today, and if he’s sober.’

  But Susannah didn’t wait for David. Fetching the large scale, modern Ordnance Survey map from the cupboard in the reading room, she pored over it.

  There were all the Wellesleys – Stoke and Great and Little Wellesley, Wellesley Lovell, Wellesley Spring and Wellesley Porcorum, scattered hamlets dotted across the pastures of the Marbury clay plain.

  There was a place called Eddington, as well – a small cluster of houses and a church, on the main road into Marbury.

  She got out all the maps of Marbury and the surrounding district, then spread them on her desk. It seemed there had never been a church at any of the Wellesleys. The people from all those villages must have gone to pray at Eddington.

  Susannah picked up the phone.

  ‘Hi, Suke,’ said Janet, ‘how are you? Where did you go with whatsisname last night?’ Somewhere cheap and cheerful, or – ‘

  ‘To the Fortune Inn at Castle Compton. It was great, I recommend it. Jan, I’ve got a problem.’

  ‘You need to take these yellow pills. You get them from the chemist and they stop – ‘

  ‘No, not that kind of problem! Do you have all the Ordnance Survey maps and gazetteers at the museum?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so. What do you want to know?’

  ‘If there is, or ever was, a Saint Hilda’s church in any town or village called Wellesley or Eddington.’

  * * * *

  ‘Nothing at all,’ said Janet three hours later, as she flopped wearily into David’s chair.

  Susannah opened Simon’s Codex. ‘Okay,’ she said carefully, ‘what if Cenwulf’s buried in some cemetery in one of the Wellesleys? Maybe we’ve found your church?’

  ‘You know what? You’re a genius!’ Janet jumped up and hugged Susannah round the neck.

  ‘It might be a mistake.’ Susannah blushed. ‘Earl Cenwulf might be buried here in Marbury, after all. The bit about Wellesley might be wrong. Or maybe I’ve misunderstood – ‘

  ‘No, sweetheart. It’s all kosher. I feel it in my bones.’ Janet’s blue eyes were bright. ‘I must go back to work. But I’ll be round first thing tomorrow morning.’

  * * * *

  The following morning Janet turned up at nine o’clock precisely, looking stunning in a smart black suit. Her heels were high, her skirt was short, and when she sat down in David’s chair Susannah saw a hint of stocking top and golden thigh.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

  ‘Amazing,’ said Susannah. ‘Who are you going to see?’

  ‘I have an appointment with Mr Gordon Clark, at ten o’clock this morning.’

  ‘God, you don’t waste time. Do you mean to ask him to let you do an excavation?
’

  ‘That’s the plan.’

  ‘How are you going to get there?’

  ‘On my bike.’

  ‘Janet, you mustn’t – not in a skirt like that! You’ll cause accidents.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t got a car, I can’t afford a taxi, and it’s much too far to walk.’

  ‘But I could drive you,’ said Susannah. She turned to David, who’d just ambled in. ‘If that’s okay with you?’

  ‘If what’s okay with me?’

  ‘Janet needs a lift. She’s going to see Gordon Clark.’

  ‘What’s she going to do? Seduce him on the boardroom table? Susannah, love, they won’t want you around. You’ll just get in the way.’

  ‘You’re so crude,’ said Janet. ‘I’m going to ask him if he’ll let me do a little dig, in one corner of his huge development.’

  ‘God.’ David sat down and groaned. ‘There’s nothing there,’ he muttered.

  ‘Well, I think you’re wrong.’

  ‘You should be trying to find another job – not frigging round the countryside, trying to flatter businessmen into letting you dig for buried treasure.’

  ‘Mock on,’ said Janet, standing up. ‘They laughed at Schliemann, too. But he found Troy.’

  ‘David?’ Susannah found Jemima’s keys. ‘I promise I’ll make up the time, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ David shook his head, then shot a glance at Janet. ‘Do a few of her buttons up, why don’t you? She looks as if she’s on the game.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Janet, tugging at Susannah’s arm. ‘We’re going to be late.’

  * * * *

  ‘He’s nothing but a dirty-minded fairy,’ grumbled Janet as they drove down the High Street, making for the sprawling southern suburbs.

  ‘He was quite offensive, certainly.’ Susannah glanced at Janet and saw her skirt had ridden up. A passing cyclist craned his neck to get a better view. ‘But you do look provocative today.’

  ‘God’s sake, that was the plan.’ Janet picked at a ragged finger nail. ‘He’s only in a temper because of bloody Francis. Did he tell you about Francis?’

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ said Susannah. A lorry pulled out in front, honking in appreciation, anger or derision. ‘Jan, could you look for signs to Merryfield? I don’t know which lane I should be in, and I’m afraid I’m going to miss the turn.’