This picking through the past reminds me of two apes I once saw, sitting on a prince's throne and sifting through each other's fur in search of tasty fleas. When one beast found a particularly toothsome morsel he would pop it between his jaws and chew ecstatically, and then give his fellow ape a little pat, as if to thank him for harbouring such a flavoursome insect. The prince and his courtiers watched this spectacle in fits of laughter, pointing and cheering whenever the little ritual of thanks was played out. The world regards historians thus, I have found: the spectacle of the poor, half-blind bookworms seeking out tasty nuggets of fact is far more amusing than the finds themselves. I am neither ape nor scholar, but mine is a long story and there is a single flea that I would bid you chew upon before I continue. It was the spring of my last year at school. I was in the library, trying to concentrate on a gloss of Augustine, when Adric hurried in, looking excited. 'Petroc, I would like your company, if you please,' he said.
I need no persuasion to leave my studies, and followed him to the stables, where one of the grooms was holding two saddled ponies. Where are we going, brother?' I asked.
'Vennor,' he said. Then, seeing my concern: 'Mount. I shall explain as we ride.'
Vennor is a mean little hamlet about five miles to the northwest of Buckfast. I had been there once with my father to look at some breeding stock, and could not imagine what the present excitement could be about. Nevertheless I obeyed, and we set off at a lively trot.
The sunken lanes of Devon make for pleasant riding. Their high, tree-lined banks are shady, and in places the way has been worn down so much that one could almost be passing through green tunnels. Adric and I rode side by side. I had accompanied him on his investigations before, but this was obviously something special, and he was not able to contain himself for long.
'A pack-train passed through early this morning,' he began, 'and the drover had a message for me. A peasant called Beda has cleared a patch of waste-ground and when he ploughed it yesterday, he turned up an ancient grave.' He glanced at me, knowing very well that I was almost as passionate about the long-gone moor-dwellers as was he.
'I was not able to gather much from the drover, but evidently this Beda assumes whatever he has found to be the work of Satan, refuses to go near it, and has summoned me to prevent or remove the inevitable curse he has stumbled upon.' Adric chuckled happily. What do you think we will find?' I asked.
Whatever it is, it will not be the work of the faery folk-' and here Adric shot me a look'-or the Devil. But perhaps we might find something of the people of Troy. Maybe Brutus himself?' The laugh that followed told me that my companion fervently wished that this could indeed be so, despite his self-mockery.
And so we rode, through the fly-buzzing lanes, until the land started to rise. The lane became a track through a wind-sculpted oak copse, then we splashed through the Vennor Brook and into Vennor itself. The hamlet was a group of five houses – little more, in truth, than cob huts – around which fowl, dogs and a couple of mat-haired, snot-faced children chased one another joylessly. It was, like many another moorland village, a hard place where the people worked so savagely to extract a pittance of livelihood from the land that they became almost savage themselves. We dismounted, Adric rather monkishly choosing a dung-free spot to plant his sandals, and called out to the children, who wandered over to us looking sullen and frightened. Adric asked for Beda, and after a little coaxing one child, possibly a little girl, was induced to point directions.
We found the peasant on the edge of a newly turned patch of ground. The field – more of a clearing in the surrounding jumble of bracken and boulders – was three-quarters ploughed, and the farthest ridge came to an abrupt end a good fifteen paces shorter than its fellows. The plough was still there, a marker to whatever it was the ploughman had found. After a brisk conversation with Beda, who looked scared out of his wits by the librarian's ghoulish visage, Adric beckoned me, and we picked our way over the broken earth.
The plough had struck the edge of a stone chest which was made up of separate granite slabs, crudely worked so as to fit together. The lid, a bigger slab, was askew.
'Aha,' Adric muttered. 'The man must have taken a look inside – not so frightened, then.'
I saw my friend could hardly contain himself. 'Give me a hand with this, Petroc,' he said, already tugging at the lid. I bent down beside him and together we heaved the flat rock up and dropped it to one side. At first we saw nothing but loose earth. Adric reached in and grabbed a handfuclass="underline" it was very fine, almost like dust. I joined him, and together we ladled the dust out with cupped hands. I was the first to find something: a round bead, as big as a sheep's eyeball and covered in a sort of hard ash. Adric grabbed it from me with a most unmonkish haste.
"What have we here? Eh, my lad?' The monk spat on the bead and polished it on the rough wool of his robe. The ash came away and amber glowed dully at us.
After that we fell upon the stone chest, digging inside it in a frenzy. I dread to imagine what poor Beda made of the sight of two monks kneeling over the work of Satan he had found, gibbering to each other and hurling fistfuls of earth around and about us. Soon our scrabbling fingers found other prizes. I felt something rough, hard and rounded, and dug out a small clay pot, about the size of a beer mug. It was a sandy colour, and when I brushed off the dirt that clung to it, I saw it was covered in patterns, bands made up of myriad tiny impressions in the clay. I turned it upside down and shook, and amongst the dust that fell out I saw more beads. I heard Adric suck his breath in sharply. He tugged, and suddenly he was holding up a skull, two fingers crooked into the eye-sockets. There was a muffled shriek from where the peasant stood, and I turned to see him on his knees, crossing himself like a man trying to beat out a flaming smock.
Adric thrust the skull at me. In his urgency he misjudged his aim and the bony lump hit me on the nose, hard enough to numb it and for the taste of blood to come into my throat. I smelt damp soil and crushed lobworms. The librarian was prattling at me as I rubbed my bruised snout.
Ancient, Petroc, ancient! Mark me, we have found our Trojan. Stop picking your nose and help me dig, for God's sake.'
Our frenzy continued until the stone chest was empty. On the flattened earth in front of us lay a heap of bones, stained almost chestnut by their peaty grave, a handful of beads, three axe-heads made of polished stone, and a few other lumps of dirt that might or might not be treasure in disguise. Adric's face was flushed with joy – for a few moments his true character displaced the gargoyle mask he was fated to wear.
'Look at these axes, my son,' he gushed. 'See how dark and smooth the stone is, and flecked with red. This is not Devon stone, nor Cornish or Dorset either.'
The stone was indeed beautiful, but I suddenly felt uncomfortable as I realised what it looked like: the liver of a freshly slaughtered hog. I dropped the axe I was holding, and started to polish an amber bead instead. Adric did not notice my discomfort. He was rubbing the dirt from one of the encrusted lumps, jabbering away to me, or to himself, about Brutus, Aeneas and a score of the other wondrous facts on which his mind so often dwelt. A tiny arrowhead emerged between his fingers, tanged and with a wicked-looking point. It was of chipped flint, and very beautiful. I was about to tell the librarian that at last I recognised something, that this was a faery arrow, and that my father had found several on the moor and brought them home for us to wonder at, when I realised that he had fallen silent, and was staring over my shoulder. I turned as well.