Indiana Jones and the Dance of the Giants

by Rob MacGregor

  "Listen to him," Milford said, nodding toward the guide.

  "This is the Bell Tower, planned by Richard I around 1190 and completed in the thirteenth century. On the ramparts running north to the Beauchamp Tower is Princess Elizabeth's Walk. Her Highness was one of the tower's success stories. Even though she was held prisoner for several months, she later became Queen Elizabeth I.

  "Now let's take a look at the Bloody Tower, begun by Henry III, where the prisoners did not have the luck of Princess Elizabeth. Edward V and the Duke of York were murdered there, among others. After that, we'll go into Wakefield Tower where Henry VI was murdered, and on the brighter side, the place where the Crown Jewels are still kept."

  "Concrete history, Indy," Milford said as the group moved on. "We know those people lived and died. It is recorded. No one disputes the facts. That's what I like. But we go back another five centuries or so before this tower was built and concrete history turns soft and mushy. Legend and history freely mix. Reality and fantasy are a blur. Treacherous territory." He paused a moment watching Indy. "As Samuel Johnson said two centuries ago: 'All that is really known of the ancient state of Britain is contained in a few pages.'"

  Indy nodded. "Very true." Milford seemed relaxed and rested today, and consequently more coherent. There were fewer memory glitches, and less slippage into Middle English. "Too bad we don't have a catalog of history for places like Stonehenge like we do for the Tower of London."

  Milford laughed. "Then the archaeologists would have no prehistory to create. They would have nothing to do but hunt treasure, which I don't suppose would bother most of them in the least."

  "Now you sound like Dad. You got something against archaeology, too?"

  Milford stopped and gazed up at the White Tower, the original structure at the center of the tower complex. "Maybe I'm slow to change, Indy, but when I was your age, the true scholars felt their time was best spent studying the ancient writings we already possess in our libraries. The task of hunting for new ones was left to the second-rate scholars, the ones who couldn't match the demands of true scholarship. They were the ones who were relegated to dirtying their hands and hearts in mere adventuristic endeavors."

  "Things have changed, Dr. Milford. Archaeology is no longer in the nineteenth century."

  "So whylome wont. Maybe you're right. Our friend Marcus Brody would agree." Milford gestured toward the entrance to the tower.

  "Have you seen Marcus lately?" Indy asked.

  Milford stopped just outside the door of the tower. His watery blue eyes met Indy's, his mustache twitched. "I did, before I left, and you know, there was something he wanted me to tell you." He shrugged and opened the door. "It'll come to me."

  They followed a stairway up into the interior of the four-story Norman structure. On the second floor, Milford examined a collection of weapons and armor dating back to the early Middle Ages.

  "Too bad they don't have Excalibur here," Indy said, hoping to provoke Milford into expressing his thoughts on the Arthurian legend.

  "Legends are deceptive, Indy." Milford ran his hand over the blade of a sword.

  "There's one that says Merlin built Stonehenge."

  Milford pointed the sword at Indy. "'If thou be fain to grace the burial-place of these men with a work that shall endure forever, send for the—'"

  "Geoffrey of Monmouth," Indy interrupted. "Historic Regum Britanniae."

  "Very good," Milford said. "You know your literature of the Middle Ages."

  "A bit." Histories of the British Kings had been required reading in Indy's childhood. It was the primary source of many of the Arthurian legends, and in spite of the archaic language, his father had insisted he read and understand it.

  Milford laid down the sword. "Do you know this one?" He cleared his throat and said:

  "'For he by wordes could call out of the sky

  Both sunne and moone, and make them him obay,

  The land to sea, and sea to maineland dry,

  And darksom night he eke could turne to day.'"

  Indy shook his head. "Don't think so."

  Milford smiled. "Edmund Spenser, from the sixteenth century."

  "You think Merlin actually lived, Dr. Milford?"

  "If he did, he worshipped the sun god, not the son of God, and of course by the sixth century in Britain that was not acceptable. The pagans were a dying force. Their time was over. Legend or fact, the Christians called Merlin the son of the devil."

  They slowly descended the stone stairway, and Indy's voice echoed eerily. "Do you think it's possible to prove that Merlin was a historical person?"

  "Indy, scholars have spent lifetimes attempting to prove just that. But they've failed to present a convincing argument. I'm afraid it'll always be speculation."

  "Maybe archaeologists could find the proof."

  They stepped outside the White Tower. Milford tilted his head back and gazed toward the peak of the tower. "If that ever happened, I'd have to reassess my ideas on archaeology, as well as Merlin. I'd probably have to start believing in dragons, too."

  Indy laughed. He was glad that he'd agreed to meet with Milford. When the old professor was rested, he was still as charming and witty as he remembered him. He thought back to an evening several years ago that he'd spent with his father, Milford, and Marcus Brody, when he was visiting New York on a Christmas break from college. They were celebrating Brody's appointment as director of the museum, and his move from Chicago to New York.

  Milford had suggested that Brody should inaugurate his tenure by displaying the skeletons of America's early presidents. He had added in a hushed tone that he knew where several of them were, and they weren't in graves. Brody gave Milford an odd look as if he wasn't quite sure if he was serious or not. Then he mumbled something about how he strongly doubted that the American public would accept such a display.

  "It would be different, of course, if they were Indian leaders," Indy's father had added with a snort. "Right, Marcus?"

  Brody hadn't answered. He was still thinking about what Milford had said, and asked in a matter-of-fact voice where these skeletons might be hidden. Milford had leaned forward in his chair, cupped one hand over his mouth, and whispered: "In the closets of the White House. Every president had his skeletons there."

  Indy was suddenly jolted from his thoughts by the sight of a young woman gazing their way from up on Princess Elizabeth's Walk. She wore a long dress, and her hair fell over her shoulders. From a distance, she could have been the princess, a spectral figure returning for a visit to her place of confinement. As they moved closer, the woman stepped into the shadows and seemed to literally glide through the open tower door.

  "Did you see her, Indy?"

  "Yes, I did."

  "They say there are ghosts here," Milford said in a hushed voice. "It's the first one I've seen, though."

  Indy nodded in agreement. Maybe there were ghosts in the tower, but that wasn't one of them. He'd recognized the dress, and the woman in it. He had no doubt who it was. Deirdre had followed him, and he wondered why.

  6

  Deirdre's Mistake

  Deirdre climbed the familiar steps from the street, opened the iron gate, and followed the walk to her mother's house in Notting Hill. She thought of the old family house as her mother's, even though she'd always lived here. It was just that her mother's presence was so overpowering that she sometimes felt more like a guest than a family member.

  The house was filled with Oriental furnishings, most of which had been purchased by Deirdre's grandfather, who had been the English ambassador to China. Low tables, tall vases, high-backed chairs made of mahogany, folding room dividers, oversized paper fans. Everything was black or red, satin-covered or highly polished. Deirdre hated it, but Joanna had spent the first twelve years of her life in China and the furniture was her past. There was something mysterious about the Orient to Deirdre. Mysterious and forbidding. And, even though she loved her mother, there was a side of her that was enigmatic as th
e furniture.

  Deirdre's room was her only sanctuary, and she did what she liked with it. Her paintings of quiet English countryside scenes, still life watercolors, and ancient ruins covered the walls. But none found space on the walls beyond the room. They were too modern, Joanna said. They wouldn't match the Oriental decor.

  "Deirdre, is that you?" Joanna called out from her study.

  "Of course it is." She headed upstairs. One day she would have her own flat, and she would arrange things the way she wanted them, and if she decided to leave her coat on the sofa or the dining room table for an hour or a day, she would. She walked into her room and flopped down on the bed. But right now something more than trifling home-life problems had put her in an ill-tempered mood.

  It was Adrian. She didn't know what to do about him. He was sapping her strength, her will. He was controlling her life, ruining it.

  She heard a tap on her door. "Deirdre, honey, what's wrong?"

  "Nothing." She rolled over and buried her head in a pillow.

  The door creaked open. "You didn't even say hello to me. Did you have a bad day, dear?"

  She didn't answer.

  The springs squeaked as Joanna sat on the edge of the bed. "What happened? Please tell me."

  "Oh, Mother Joanna." Ever since her father had died when she was fifteen, her mother had encouraged her to call her by her first name, to be her friend, as well as her mother. At first, it had seemed awkward and she'd called her Mother Joanna. Now she used the phrase only as an endearment, when something personal was involved.

  "It's Adrian."

  "What about him?" Joanna's voice tensed. Adrian was not a topic that either of them liked to discuss. "What did he do?"

  "He won't leave me alone. I was going to tell you, but I didn't want to upset you."

  "What did he do?" Joanna repeated.

  "He's had someone watching me, and now the creep started following Professor Jones," she said.

  "How do you know?" Joanna asked, her voice terse.

  "Because after class today he told me someone warned him to stay away from me. I think they got into a fight, because Professor Jones is wearing an eye patch now."

  Joanna hesitated before she answered. "I'm not really surprised, Deirdre. You don't know Adrian as I do."

  "I wish I'd never known him at all."

  She'd met Adrian accidentally when she'd returned early from a trip home to Scotland and found Joanna entertaining several guests at a dinner party. Adrian was among them. He was older, more worldly than she, and she was awed by his suaveness, his knowledge, and the people he knew. When he'd asked to see her again, she'd felt honored more than anything. He offered her ingress to a world of wealth and power that surpassed anything she'd imagined, and she'd wanted a peek.

  "Well..." Joanna said evenly. She was rarely critical of Deirdre, and typically responded to her shortcomings with that one word.

  "Okay, I admit it, you were right about him from the beginning." Joanna had discouraged her from seeing Adrian when she found out that he had asked her to lunch. "But you know I only saw him three times, and nothing happened between us."

  Nothing much, she thought.

  "Three times too many," Joanna said.

  "I had no idea he'd be this way. He knows I don't want to see him. Why can't he just leave me alone?"

  "With age you'll grow more sensitive and be able to quickly distinguish between sincere, honorable people and those whose thoughts are only of themselves and their whims."

  Deirdre admired Joanna's patience. If she'd done as her mother had told her over the years, she probably would have saved herself considerable pain. But she was stubborn. She needed to find out things for herself. To her credit, Joanna had never faulted her for that.

  "What else did Professor Jones say?"

  "He won't even talk to me."

  Neither of them said anything for so long that Deirdre looked up to see if her mother had left the room. She saw for the first time that Joanna was wearing one of her silk Oriental robes, and that her hair fell loosely over her shoulders. She was gazing at one of Deirdre's paintings, a seascape she had painted when she was fifteen. Water crashed against a rock at the base of a cliff, and above the spray was the black oval entrance to a cave. If you looked closely, you could see that the spray formed the face of a bearded man. The painting was called Merlin's Cave, and it was Joanna's favorite.

  Deirdre stood up, straightening the wrinkles in her long dress. "Well, I'd better get to work. I've got a paper due Monday."

  "For Professor Jones?"

  "Yes, and I'm following through on your suggestion, too."

  "Oh? What was his reaction?" Joanna asked curiously.

  Deirdre shrugged, then allowed a smile. "Interest. A lot of interest."

  "I'm not surprised," Joanna responded.

  Deirdre hugged her. "Thanks for listening, Mother Joanna."

  "Don't fret about Adrian. It won't do any good. Just forget you ever met him."

  "I'll try."

  Joanna started to leave, then stopped. "If you need any help with your paper, just let me know."

  Deirdre gave her mother an assessing look. "That doesn't sound like you." Joanna had never given her any answers or helped her write papers. She'd advised her, but always made her do everything on her own.

  Joanna smiled, took Deirdre's hand in her own, and patted it. "Maybe I want you to impress Professor Jones."

  Deirdre looked glumly at her. "I think I've already done that, thanks to Adrian."

  Joanna squeezed her hand. "Don't worry. It'll all work out."

  For the first time since the course had begun, Deirdre didn't sit in the center of the front row. She took a seat three rows back and to one side. It was her way of letting Jones know that she was abiding by his wish that she stay away from him. But she hoped he would also sense the hurt she felt, and the injustice of his accusation.

  A man in the row in front of her turned around and grinned. "Why you sitting over here today, Scottie? Teacher's pet in the doghouse?"

  "Shut up, and turn around."

  "My, aren't we short with our fellow students," he said and turned away.

  She certainly hadn't made any friends in this class, but she didn't care. At least she hadn't cared before Professor Jones turned against her.

  "Don't listen to him," the girl next to her said, and smiled.

  "Thanks, I won't." At least they all didn't hate her.

  Just then Jones entered the room and greeted the class. He was still wearing an eye patch, and his single eye stopped for a fraction of a second on the empty front row seat, then he searched the room until he found her. Instantly, he shifted his gaze, but not quickly enough. Good. He'd noticed.

  She felt an emptiness as she watched him begin his lecture. She found everything about him appealing, from his easygoing manner, his openness, and his verve to his nigged good looks and savvy hazel eyes.

  She was angry with herself for showing off in class. Why hadn't she held back, and just let her knowledge of the field slowly seep into Jones's awareness rather than pushing it on him? She should've realized that a young professor teaching his first course would be more wary than pleased with a student who showed superior knowledge.

  Before allowing Deirdre to join her at digs each summer, Joanna had required her to study the same textbooks as her graduate students. She'd wanted to prove herself to the older students, and with Joanna's help had become as knowledgeable as the best of her mother's pupils. She'd taken Jones's course both to please Joanna, who'd recommended it, and for the easy credits it would give her.

  "I'm going to divert from my planned lesson today," Jones began, "and talk about a subject related to archaeology that inspires some archaeologists, and angers others." He always started off slowly, warming to his subject. Gradually, his enthusiasm grew until he spoke with such ardor that she couldn't help but join with a question or a comment. Oddly, no one else in class seemed to react as she did. They acted as if they we
re in Dr. Mahoney's beginning psychology lecture listening to him drone on about case studies and Freudian analysis. It was as if the class consisted of the two of them, Indy and Deirdre. At least, that was how it had been until Adrian had interfered.

  "What I'm referring to is mythology and legend, two related and sometimes interchangeable terms for pseudohistory. At worst, myths and legends are gossip and lies, folk tale ignorance and superstition. That's why many archaeologists keep an arm's length or two away from them, even when they relate to their own work."

  His eye roved the class, but avoided her. She wondered if he had seen her at the Tower of London. She'd followed him hoping to find the creep Adrian had hired to follow her. She wanted to give him a message for Adrian: that she would notify the police if anyone followed her or Jones again. But the creep had been nowhere in sight.

  "While myths should never be blindly accepted as an explanation of what happened at some time in the past, it is not only logical for archaeologists to study those which relate to the particular culture they are investigating, but relevant and necessary. Virtually every myth contains a nugget of truth, a hidden meaning, or a lead for an archaeologist to pursue."

  A student raised her hand. "I don't see this topic in the syllabus, Professor Jones."

  "It's not. It's my own addition."

  "Will we be tested on it?" someone else asked.

  Jones looked off to the side of the room as if distracted by a noise in the hall. Deirdre could tell he was annoyed by such banal questions, and she sympathized with him. She guessed he hadn't even considered what they were asking.

  "You'll be given an optional essay question on your final test," he said. "Now, if I can continue, I'd like to tell you a story. A very old one."

  Deirdre sat back in her chair and listened as Jones related a Greek legend about a people who lived "beyond the north wind." She knew the story well, but she was curious what he would make of it.

  "Hecataeus's description of the island is almost certainly of the British Isles," he said when finishing the tale. "While we certainly have to question whether a woman named Leto was ever born to giants on the island or whether she later gave birth to an immortal god, the story does indicate that ancient Greeks and the distant predecessors of the Celts knew of each other. So what can we surmise about these legendary Hyperboreans?"