Lusitanians. They rebuilt the headquarters. There's a very fine dedication slab to them in Newcastle Museum, Collingwood Bruce found it here—it was reused as a paving stone in the Theodosian reconstruction—"
"For God's sake, Tony—are you getting money from the Portuguese?"
"Well, yes. That's what I'm trying to explain. There's a whole batch of them over here on some junket or other. The Reader in Portuguese History is a Fellow of King's, he laid this on for me."
"Portuguese?" Butler frowned in bewilderment.
"Lusitanian, same thing. Lusitania was Roman Portugal," Handforth-Jones explained. "Portugal's supposed to be 'Our Oldest Ally'. It occurred to us they might like to see the one and only place where Portuguese troops served in Britain, which is Ortolanacum. Might make them feel generous, you know."
"And they're coming here?" Audley cut in.
"That's right." Handforth-Jones nodded. "Some time in the next hour or so. Not all of them, of course.
Just the top man." He grinned again. "Which is a good thing, because I'm standing him lunch in Newcastle after he's seen the inscription on the slab in the museum just to prove I'm not making it all up.
Not that he'll make much of COH I AEL LUS, but no matter."
Audley looked quickly and hopelessly at Butler.
"Was this common knowledge, this visit, Dr Handforth-Jones?" Butler asked.
Handforth-Jones stared from one to the other suspiciously. "Well, I haven't tried to hide it. We've talked about it at dinner quite often."
Common knowledge. So the visit of the Beast of Cazombo to Ortolanacum had been bandied around both King's and Cumbria—and by the cruelest mischance had not come to the ears of the one man who mattered.
"Damnation!" Audley studied the rock-strewn slopes of the crags above them on each side of the Boghole Gap.
Might as well look for a flea on a sheepdog's back, thought Butler bleakly. If Alek was up there already, it would take supernatural luck to spot him now.
"Damnation," Audley muttered again, reaching the same conclusion a second later.
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He turned to Handforth-Jones. "Tony, we're going to pull the curtain down on Anglo-Lusitanian friendship for the time being. I'm sorry."
"Do I get to know why?" There was a mixture of resignation and curiosity in the archaeologist's voice.
"Or is this another bit of your top secret cloak and dagger?"
"I'm afraid more dagger than cloak this time, Tony. There may be a sniper up in the rocks waiting for your chief guest. And if there is, then we should be due for a student demo from Castleshields at just about the time he arrives."
Handforth-Jones looked hard at Audley for a moment without speaking, presumably to satisfy himself that a silly question had not elicited a silly answer. But Audley's face was set too firm for that.
Butler hefted the shotgun in his grip.
"High Crags is the likeliest," he grunted. "He'll have a clearer shot from the right, and the ground's that bit more broken. I'll take that one."
"No." Audley shook his head. "There's too much ground to cover. The only way to stop Alek now is to stop those young idiots from meeting Negreiros. Which means stopping Negreiros from getting here."
"He'll be on the road by now," said Handforth-Jones.
"Which way will he be coming?"
Handforth-Jones shrugged. "It all depends whether he comes up the M1 or the"M6. I don't know where he's coming from. More likely the M1, I suppose, then turning off through Durham and Corbridge."
Audley nodded. "That'd mean he'll come from the east. I'll take my car down the road and try and head him off. Butler, you take the west—the Carlisle side. And just don't let him get in range of these crags."
"No."
Audley frowned at him.
"I was meant to be here, was I?" Butler spoke harshly. "Meant to be in the way of the demo?"
"Out of the house but in the way. You weren't meant to miss the fun, I'd guess, Jack. I reckon we were all meant to be here. They planned it this way."
"Aye, that's what I thought." It vexed him strangely to think that Dr Gracey's hospitality and culinary dummy2.htm
pride should have been twisted by the enemy to that end. He nodded towards the archaeologist. "Dr Handforth-Jones can try the Carlisle road. I'll see what I can do to stop the demonstration getting here."
"To stop it? How?"
Butler addressed Handforth-Jones. "They'll take the path through Boghole Gap, won't they?"
"They're sure to, yes. It's a hell of a way round by the road."
"Do you think you can stop them?" Audley asked in surprise.
"If they use the Gap, I can have a damn good try," said Butler, still eyeing Handforth-Jones. "That is, if I can have those three men of yours."
"Those three—?" Handforth-Jones's eyebrows lifted. Then he looked at the three labourers calculatingly.
"Well, maybe they might at that, if the money was right. . . Arthur."
The smallest and most shifty-looking of the three instantly dropped his spade and jog-trotted towards them.
"Arthur is the negotiator," said Handforth-Jones quickly. "They're Ulstermen. They say they're 'resting'
between motorway engagements. But I know there's been bad blood between the English and the Irish on several jobs since the trouble got worse in Ireland. And from what Arthur let slip I rather suspect they left there in a hurry too."
His voice tailed off as Arthur came to a halt in front of him. But the quick, darting eyes flicked over Audley and Butler before settling on the archaeologist, testing for gold, thought Butler—or copper.
"Sorr?"
Londonderry Irish.
"Like to earn a quick fiver, Arthur?"
"Each," Butler snapped. Whatever the rates archeology paid, ex-motorway workers would not be bought for a mere pound or two.
"Doin' what?" Arthur concentrated on Butler now.
"Most likely standing still for half an hour. But there could be a punch-up in it."
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Arthur's expression blanked over.
"But there could be a punch-up," he repeated, as though adding an item to a bill. "An' if there was a punch-up would the police be in on it, sorr?"
"No police."
"Argh, but them fellas have a way uv—"
"I said no police," Butler fixed his fiercest military eye on the little man.
Londonderry Irish. Dirty in the trenches, his father used to say, the Papists more so than the Prods. And not as steady when things looked blackest as the English North Country regiments. But real scrappers when it came to the attack, none better. Because they liked it.
Arthur cocked his head on one side and screwed up his seamed little face in preparation for the bargaining.
"Well, sorr—"
"I've no time to waste. Five pounds each for maybe half an hour's work and no questions. Take it or leave it."
The Irishman risked a glance at Handforth-Jones, but received no help. The trick was somehow to tip the balance, but Butler's frugal soul revolted against tipping it with more money. Then it came to him, the despicable insight.
"Man, they're only students I want you to stand up to, not Provisionals or B Specials."
"Students?" Arthur sprayed the sibilants through his teeth in disdain. "Why did ye not say so before, sorr! Fi' pound apiece it is, then. I'll just go tell me friends." He started down the hillside. "Hah! Students is it... Hah !"
He stumped away, still playing the stage Irishman for his paymaster's benefit, and Butler turned just in time to catch Audley and Handforth-Jones exchanging glances.
"The spirit of St Scholastica's Day," murmured the archaeologist cryptically.
"Alive and kicking after six hundred years," agreed Audley. "So much for 'Workers of the hand and the mind unite'. But can you hold the pass with those three, Jack?"
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"If I was meant to be here, then I'm pretty sure I shall have reinforcements," said Butler dryly.
XVII
As THEY CAME within sight of the milecastle, Butler thought for one horrible moment they were too late. But in the next instant he recognised the dark, tousled hair.