‘I suppose you’ve got a driving licence?’ said Priscilla.
‘Of course. I’m a very experienced driver. If there is an accident, it certainly won’t be caused by me.’
‘How I envy you your self-confidence!’
‘You envy me my self-confidence, but you don’t envy Susannah her beauty. I don’t, either. Being large and unbeautiful keeps one out of a lot of trouble.’
‘I also envy you your rude health and your physical fitness. I was always a sickly child.’
‘You have compensations. I wish I could write good essays and make up poetry. Will you get a First, do you think?’
‘Oh, yes. Examinations hold no terrors for me, not even the vivas.’
‘Well, there’s self-confidence for you! And you envy me mine!’ Fiona ran seawards, laughing, a Scandinavian giantess from Jotunheim, a veritable Hyrrokin, her hair streaming in the wind. Priscilla sat clasping her knees, her thin shirt flattened against her undeveloped breasts by the same seawind as was tossing Fiona’s hair. She thought of Susannah in the arms of Nicholas Tynant, and the first line of a sonnet came into her mind. ‘Put out the light and be my body’s balm.’ She fumbled in the large basket she used as a handbag, took out notebook and pencil and unclipped the sunglasses she had fastened on to her powerful spectacles.
Before her the sun gleamed on the wet, pale sands against which the few scattered pebbles looked black; behind her rose limestone cliffs, and to her left a long, flat rock of the same stone ran out into the sea and would be covered at high tide. A gull, with wings incredibly white against the blue of the sky, hovered for a moment and squawked an insult to the poet before it soared and flew off. Priscilla, completely absorbed, saw and heard nothing. She wrote, frowned, crossed out, rewrote, and only looked up when Fiona put a sea-wet hand on the back of her neck and said it was time to think about tea.
‘Yes, all right,’ said Priscilla. ‘I think I’ve got the octet, so I can let the sestet wait. I’ll just make a fair copy of what I’ve done, if you’ll leave me alone for five minutes.’
‘Something for the college magazine?’
‘No, it’s going to be too good for that. I don’t want it printed until I really publish.’
‘God bless the work,’ said Fiona. ‘You are a genius.’
‘I bet you someone else will find our well before we do. I think we’re on to a mug’s game,’ said Tom, straightening his back.
‘It doesn’t matter who finds a well, so long as we know where it is. The only concern of the others will be to locate it and clear it down to five or six feet and then put a grating over it. They won’t attempt to do any more excavating than that. Why should they?’
‘How deep were these castle wells?’
‘Goodness knows!’
‘They could go down a couple of hundred feet, I suppose,’ said Tom gloomily. ‘I’m beginning to wonder whether the story about the treasure is true. I mean, even supposing the stuff was chucked down a well to stop the enemy from getting hold of it, how were the owners – and how are we – going to get it up again?’
‘First find your well and then I’ll lower you down in a bucket. Banish these morbid thoughts. The lark’s on the wing, the hillside’s dew-pearled.’
‘That bird up there isn’t a lark; it’s a kestrel. It probably nests in the keep. They like old buildings if they can’t find a rocky cliff.’
‘Oh, well, so long as it isn’t a magpie, we’re all right. Magpies are the birds which bring bad luck.’
‘One magpie wouldn’t matter. It’s two or four together you have to beware of, according to our cook, who comes from Northumberland. You know, I don’t see why we should have been fobbed off with clearing up this gatehouse. All the outer walling on the east side as far up as the ditch has disappeared. The stone has been carted off by the locals, I suppose. Once Veryan and Tynant begin their digging, we shall be much better off working with them than with Saltergate. Besides, they are paying for our meals; he isn’t.’
‘True enough. There’s another thing: when Veryan begins the actual trenching, he won’t go anywhere near where the old stable block used to be.’
‘How do you make that out?’
‘It’s simple. If there really is an Anglo-Saxon cemetery under the outer bailey, the builders of the castle would never have dug a well where there were corpses.’
‘Oh, well, we shall see. One thing: at the rate Veryan and Tynant are taking their measurements and plotting out where to begin the dig, somebody may have found all the wells before they and we and the workmen have to put our backs into the spade-work. Let’s hope it will be easier than humping these blocks of stone.’
Malpas Veryan joined them. He was accompanied by two burly fellows in jeans, shirts and unzipped, grubby windcheaters.
‘Our fellow labourers,’ he said. ‘They will be helping to clear the outer bailey and we shall begin digging in a day or two, when we’ve got the circle of the cairn mapped out and the site free of stone and rubble. This is Bill Stickle and this is Gideon Stour. Gentlemen, Mr Monkswood and Mr Hassocks, who will be helping us to excavate the last resting-place of a prehistoric chieftain.’
‘I do fondly hope as he won’t haunt us,’ said Bill Stickle, with a laugh in which Gideon Stour joined.
‘I thought we were going to dig up an Anglo-Saxon burial ground,’ said Bonamy in a murmur to Tom. ‘You can’t call the Anglo-Saxons prehistoric. What exactly shall we be looking for, sir?’ he asked in his ordinary voice.
‘Bronze Age burials. Did I hear you murmur something about the Anglo-Saxons? Undoubtedly they had a settlement in these parts, but we are after something which is of the greatest interest to Tynant and myself. We hold somewhat differing theories about Neolithic and Bronze Age burials and this excavation may go some way in proving which of us is right.’
‘So what are we looking for, sir?’
‘Basically, a central grave, but multiple interments are not unknown. Sometimes members of a family were buried in the same mound. The principal grave will no doubt be easy enough to locate, for it will be in the centre of the circle we are measuring out. The other interments may be almost anywhere within the same circle. Our guide is the enormous ditch which is so obvious a feature of Saltergate’s defence system. I am certain it represents a segment of a circle and that is our clue, for it must have been part of a henge.’
‘It sounds splendid fun, sir.’
‘I think so. Now I don’t want you fellows breaking your backs lugging Saltergate’s blocks of stone about. You ease yourselves in gently until you get used to the job. In any case, these two splendid fellows will help both parties, I am sure, if Saltergate needs a little assistance occasionally.’
‘You be our employer, sir, not t’other gentleman,’ said the older workman firmly but civilly. His companion was more forthright.
‘We be hired to dig, not to tote blocks o’ stone about,’ he said.
‘Oh, dear! These union rules!’ said Veryan lightly.
‘Would you be wanting us further?’ asked the older man.
‘No, no. There is nothing to do until the marking-out is all done. That is why I thought you might care to help Mr Saltergate a little.’
They made no reply except to touch their foreheads and slouch off.
‘Not exactly chaps I would choose to go with on a walking-tour,’ said Tom, ‘if you don’t mind my saying so, sir.’
‘Oh, I do so heartily agree, but, having made their point, they will now help Saltergate if and when he needs assistance,’ said Veryan.
‘How soon will you be going to commence digging, sir?’ asked Tom.