Triskellion

by Will Peterson

  “But they were already dead,” Adam said.

  Rachel shook her head. Nothing was making any sense. “They had twins, like us, we know that much. But why was their burial place so special … and what about the shooting star? And the Triskellion? What does it mean?”

  Adam plunged his hands into his pockets. “I’ve got another question for you. A big one.”

  “What?”

  “How come every time we have one of these dreams or whatever they are, it looks like you and Gabriel? I’m never in them.”

  Rachel blushed. It was true. The knight and the maiden did look like her and Gabriel. She wondered if, maybe, that was just because, subconsciously, she wanted them to.

  Adam leant across and patted the tomb of the crusader. “What I’d like to know is why they invented this Sir Richard de Whatever to cover up this guy’s identity?”

  “They must have had something pretty big they wanted to hide,” Rachel said.

  “How dare you?” The thin voice resonated about the church as Reverend Stone stepped out from the shadow of the side room.

  Rachel gasped as the vicar’s face moved into the light; it was the face of the hooded man from her vision.

  “I am surprised you have the barefaced cheek to come in here, let alone question the authenticity of the tomb. You two started all this. How can you come back in here after what you’ve done?”

  Rachel and Adam looked blank.

  “You deny it?”

  “Deny what?” Rachel asked.

  “Theft.” Reverend Stone’s lips tightened: white against a face that was rapidly reddening. His hands balled into fists at his side. “I don’t know how you have the gall to come back here. How dare you.”

  “I’m sorry, but we don’t know what you’re talking about,” Adam said.

  “You had better return what you stole immediately. There are some very important people who will be after you for this. People who are very angry.”

  “What is it you think we’ve stolen?” Rachel asked.

  Stone could bear no more insolence. His face reddened still further and he began to tremble. He reached forward and grabbed Adam by the arm, his bony fingers digging into the flesh. Adam cried out and wrestled his arm free.

  “Get out,” Stone screamed. “Get out!”

  The vicar’s voice echoed off the walls as Rachel and Adam ran out of the church and straight into the path of Chris Dalton and a concerned-looking Laura Sullivan.

  “We were looking for you,” Laura said breathlessly. “We need to talk.”

  Adam pointed back towards the church. “Well, I wouldn’t go in there. The vicar’s pretty mad.”

  “I know,” Laura said. “Somebody stole something the other day. And I don’t think he was too happy with the questions I was asking about the inscription on the tomb, either.”

  Dalton smiled. “Looks like we’re all in trouble.” He stepped across to Rachel, who was still a little shaky after the confrontation inside the church. He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s get a coffee,” he said.

  Having parked his black BMW on double yellow lines on the village High Street, Dalton commandeered the largest table in the Waverley Tea Room. The waitress silently took their order for scones and slices of toast and only spoke when Rachel asked for a “latte”. The coffee was instant, she said, but she could make it extra milky if that was any use.

  “So, what do you two know about these gold blades?” Dalton asked.

  Laura looked taken aback. “Hang on, Chris. Let’s fill the guys in a bit first.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dalton said, smiling at Rachel and Adam sincerely. “Listen, I know I’m a bit direct sometimes. It’s just my TV training, you know? Trying to get to the heart of the matter. You probably think I’m a bit of a…” Dalton searched for the word. “Pillock. You know, with all this TV business.”

  Rachel and Adam had not heard the word before, but guessed its meaning and shook their heads out of politeness.

  Dalton continued, his tone turning serious. “It’s just that I really care about this stuff, you know?” He stopped and leant back in his chair as the waitress arrived. She laid the plates of scones and toast on the table. Three mugs of coffee and a hot chocolate for Adam. Dalton thanked her as she left and turned back to Rachel and Adam. “This is a really important discovery.” He paused, letting what he’d said sink in. “I’m grateful you guys have been able to help us.”

  Dalton had never spoken so earnestly to either Rachel or Adam and they were flattered by his attention. Away from the camera he was actually a lot nicer than either had taken him for. His concern for the dig seemed genuine, and the twins began to relax.

  “What else have you found?” Rachel asked eagerly.

  “Let’s just say that this burial is even more important than we originally thought,” Laura said.

  Chris coughed and looked hard at her, but Laura continued.

  “We need help here, Chris.” He shrugged, signalled her to carry on. “Look, we think there’s a really good reason why these two bodies were buried outside the village. A reason why the chalk circle was made to mark the spot.”

  Adam bit hungrily into a scone. “So who do you think they were?”

  Laura fixed him with an intense expression. “That we don’t know. Yet. I should tell you why we were excited about digging in this area in the first place.”

  Dalton relaxed a little; he knew what was coming.

  “About ten tears ago, a team of archaeologists were digging on a farm about thirty miles from here. The usual kind of thing: a standard round barrow burial, early Bronze Age, maybe four thousand years old. They found a body. A man. Nothing unusual in that, but exciting none the less. But like the bodies here, the acidity of the soil meant that enough bone and tissue remained to extract DNA from the body and get a genetic profile. You know what DNA is?”

  Rachel nodded.

  “Kind of,” Adam said. “I’ve seen them talk about it on cop shows.”

  “OK. DNA is the chemical make-up that provides each of us with a unique identity. You will both have similar DNA inherited from both your mum and your dad. It’s in your hair, in your fingernails, in your spit. All of your body’s cells carry your DNA. This is how we trace and identify people. It’s how they catch murderers who have left samples of their DNA at the scene of a crime.”

  “So these people had been murdered?” Adam asked, leaping ahead.

  Laura shook her head, slurped at her coffee. “We don’t know that,” she said. “The team took DNA samples from the body they found on the farm. They also took samples from the farmer who owns the land now. And guess what?”

  Everyone at the table was silent. Laura looked from one to another, then continued. “The DNA of the Bronze Age man was an exact match for the guy who was still farming that piece of land four thousand years later.”

  “Wow,” Rachel and Adam said simultaneously.

  “So, the farmer’s family had not moved from that area in all that time. They’d stayed in the same place for four thousand years. This gives us a real insight into how we’ve developed. How people have changed over centuries, how certain illnesses or genetic characteristics stay within a local area.”

  “That is totally amazing,” Rachel said. She sipped at her coffee, her mouth dry. “So how does this help with the bodies at the circle?”

  “Well, it seems that people in this part of the world tend not to move too far from their roots. OK, your mum went to the States, but before that, her family, your gran’s family, were here for generations. Which means there’s a likelihood, if we can get DNA from these bodies, that we may be able to find the actual descendants of this Bronze Age couple.”

  Rachel’s head was reeling with the new information, but before she could digest it, Dalton spoke.

  “Trouble is, I think getting DNA samples from a village as buttoned-up as this, will be like getting blood from a stone.”

  Adam grunted his agreement, mouth full.


  “We could start with you two, if you’re willing?” Laura said.

  Adam swallowed quickly. “But we’re not really from here.”

  “But you are. Like I said, you will have some of your DNA from your dad who, I guess, is American.”

  “Right,” Rachel said.

  “But you’ll also have your mum’s, your gran’s, your grandfather’s, and all their ancestors, who have been around here for centuries.”

  Rachel started at the mention of their grandfather. He’d not been around in their lifetime. All they knew from their mother was that he hadn’t been there when she was a kid either. It was something she had always spoken of with regret. She had hinted that her father had probably left soon after her birth, and that Celia Root had brought her up alone.

  Rachel had often wondered if the lack of a father had been the cause of her mother’s near permanent melancholy.

  “So, if you two will give samples, maybe others will follow.” Laura looked at Rachel and Adam questioningly. “We just need to take swabs. It’s very simple, honestly, and I promise it doesn’t hurt.” She smiled, then turned as the bell on the door rang and another customer swept into the tea room.

  “Well, here comes another willing donor,” Dalton said. He rose from his chair and the twins watched in horror as he greeted the man who had marched across to their table.

  “Rachel, Adam … have you met Hilary Wing?”

  Hilary Wing dragged out a chair and sat at the head of the table. His smile showed a lot of teeth. “Yes, we have met…”

  Rachel sat open-mouthed, while Adam visibly paled. They did not shake hands. Neither Dalton, nor Laura seemed aware of their discomfort.

  “I was terribly sorry to hear about your scrape with the morris dancers,” Wing said, looking straight at Adam. “The Green Men are usually a little better disciplined than that. One of the dancers was new by all accounts. I hope you’re better now?”

  Adam mumbled a nervous response about being fine, but could not shake the fact that he was sure that one of the dancers had been Hilary Wing himself.

  “Hilary has been a great help in providing us with some of the background to the customs and rituals of the area,” Dalton said.

  “It’s been my pleasure,” Wing said. He took off a worn tweed jacket that looked as if it might once have belonged to his father and hung it across the back of a chair. He rolled a cigarette and lit it; puffed out a thin stream of blue smoke with complete indifference to the people at his table or the groups of old ladies gathered at others.

  Dalton cleared his throat. “Hilary has some really interesting ideas about the significance of the gold blades,” he said.

  “Or the missing gold blades,” Wing said, blowing out another plume of smoke in Rachel and Adam’s direction.

  Dalton nodded. “Yes, the vicar has gone ballistic since that one was nicked from the church. I guess it can’t have gone far in a place like this though.”

  “Somebody stole the blade?” Rachel gasped. Now she could understand why Reverend Stone had been so furious, and exactly what he had been accusing them of. “He thinks we took it.”

  Wing shook his head as though this were the most preposterous idea he’d ever heard. “All the same, you wouldn’t know anything about it, would you?” His tone was gentle, concerned, but to Rachel’s mind there were still a few too many teeth showing when he smiled.

  “No way,” Adam said indignantly. “We were nowhere near the church yesterday.”

  “What about the other one?” Wing asked.

  Laura looked confused. “The one we found with the bodies, you mean?”

  Wing stubbed out his cigarette in a saucer, staring hard at Adam. “No,” he said. “Not that one. A little bird tells me that a third part may have been discovered, and I know you two have been doing a little treasure hunting.”

  “What little bird?” Adam asked.

  “Well, an acquaintance of mine was having a friendly chat with our local beekeeper the other evening…”

  Adam and Rachel exchanged a look. So Jacob had been the one to reveal the existence of the third blade.

  “So?” Wing said. “About this other blade…”

  Adam tried his best to return Wing’s stare, but he could feel the blood rising to his face and looked away.

  “Well, we didn’t find anything,” Rachel said. “We both had unfortunate accidents that day. Didn’t you know?”

  “Accidents?” Laura asked.

  Wing wasn’t about to give Rachel the chance to answer. “What day are you talking about exactly?”

  Rachel opened her mouth and closed it again. She knew she had said too much.

  Wing’s grin widened and he raised his hands in mock confusion. “I never said anything about any particular day.” He waited for a response and when none was forthcoming he shrugged, as though it was nothing more than a silly misunderstanding.

  “You were going to talk about the Triskellion,” Laura said.

  “Of course,” Wing said. He nodded politely towards Laura, then leant a little closer to Rachel and Adam. “As your treasure hunting chum Mr Honeyman will have told you, the gold Triskellion is a very significant pre-Saxon artefact. As the landowner on whose estate at least one of the blades was discovered, I do feel a little … proprietorial about it.”

  “That’s perfectly understandable,” Dalton said.

  Rachel had to concede that it was. Wing’s interest in the Triskellion might simply be based on ownership. She could see how, as far as he was concerned, she and Adam were trespassers: searching for, and taking things found on his land. She wondered for a moment whether they might, in fact, have got Hilary Wing wrong. They had misjudged Jacob Honeyman, after all.

  Perhaps they had got a lot of things wrong.

  Hilary Wing took a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket and unfolded it on the table. Everyone leant in to look. It was a photocopy of an old document.

  At the top of the sheet, in a scratchy ink line, the three blades of the Triskellion had been drawn, laid out side by side and numbered. Below that was a diagram of the blades floating above one another, with arrows describing the direction in which each part was to be placed against the next. At the bottom of the sheet was a picture of the three Triskellion blades joined together, with a few lines of illegible writing scrawled underneath.

  “This is a copy of an old manuscript kept up at the hall,” Wing said. “It clearly shows that the three blades should fit together in a certain way.”

  “Pieces of a jigsaw,” Rachel said.

  Wing nodded. “Exactly.” He produced a second sheet and laid it down. “And this … is what I think it was used for.”

  The second document showed a drawing of the complete Triskellion and around it, pictures of stars and the moon.

  “The position of the stars on this diagram relates exactly to the position they would be in around the chalk circle at the summer solstice.” There was genuine excitement in Wing’s voice as he ran a finger round the faded ink outline. “So, my best guess is that the amulet itself is some kind of early compass or navigational aid, used to take bearings from the stars.”

  Laura studied the diagram. “If you’re right, it would be the earliest example of such a thing anywhere in Europe.”

  “So you understand?” Wing looked straight at Rachel and Adam. “It’s very important that we find the missing pieces and bring them back together.”

  Rachel and Adam knew immediately what the other was thinking. They nodded their understanding to Hilary Wing, but both knew instinctively that he wasn’t the person to be entrusted with the blade they had discovered in the woods.

  “It’s fascinating stuff,” Laura said.

  Dalton nodded. “Really fascinating…”

  “I’ve made a few discoveries too.”

  “Really?” Wing said.

  “This will interest you, Rachel. Remember the runes and the other bits of inscription we found round the tomb in the church?” Rachel no
dded. “Well, I emailed the pictures back to my guys in Perth. They love a puzzle like this and they’ve come up with a couple of blinding ideas.”

  Laura took a file from her bag and pulled out a page that was covered in digital photos of the inscription round the tomb. “OK, here are the runes we looked at. Thing with runes is that the meanings aren’t hugely specific, but I don’t think we’re too far off with the bit we can actually read. They think it’s probably an obituary, just like a gravestone inscription.”

  Rachel nodded again, but felt a shudder pass through her.

  “They’ve come up with, ‘The man who rides from the sun dies by the yew tree.’ Make of that what you will…”

  “Sounds pretty obvious,” Rachel said. “Maybe this guy came from a hot country and died here of some disease.”

  Wing shook his head. “That’s too literal. The mannaz rune, meaning man, can also mean mankind in general … and the sun rune can also be interpreted as the wrath of God.” Laura nodded, acknowledging that what Wing was saying was true. “So it could also mean that some aberration was committed by these people.”

  “An aberration?” Adam said.

  “Something outside the norm,” Wing said. “Something unacceptable.” He paused. “Something that meant that the wrath of God was visited upon them.”

  Laura looked impressed at Hilary Wing’s authoritative knowledge of the runes. He had clearly done his homework. “Interesting,” she said. “But the other inscription’s a lot less ambiguous.” Laura took another piece of paper from her file, pushed it across the table so that Wing and the twins could all read it.

  Below the runes, Laura had scribbled a translation. Wing and Root shall never bear fruit

  “So why is this less ambiguous?” Rachel asked.

  “Because it ties in exactly with this.” Laura produced a blown-up photo from her file. “There’s a small wall painting,” she said. “High up above the nave.”

  Rachel stared at the picture. The detail showed a banner, flying from a small, pointed tent in the background of the scene. Magnified, Rachel could clearly make out an inscription on the banner.

  wynnge & rote