The Ice King

by Michael Scott Rohan

  ‘Ey,’ said the Liverpudlian at the back, ‘for ’is next trick ’e turns green and busts out of ’is shirt –’

  ‘Oh shut up, Neville,’ said Pru. ‘He may be the Hulk, but he saved the keel, didn’t he?’

  Again the camera closed in on the central mound. ‘But it was two hours after that moment of drama that the archaeologists made their most spectacular discovery so far …’

  More outer planking had been stripped from the hull, and its ribs stood bare out of the mud like the carcase of some giant sea-beast. Between them something was just visible above the slimy surface, and diggers were carefully cleaning it with trowels and small water jets.

  ‘A thousand years on, site director Wilf Jackson was about to uncover what had broken the back of the Saitheby ship, the secret that lay hidden under its hull …’

  The camera moved in to frame a low plank-and-trestle bridge thrown across the open centre of the hull, and the man who knelt there, enthusiastically playing a water jet over the dark object beneath him. As the camera came nearer he shut it off and looked up. He was somewhere in his thirties, smallish, spare, with dark curly hair and a pleasant-looking face. He wore a neat ring of beard round mouth and chin.

  ‘This is really very exciting,’ he was saying. ’Superb. I’d even say unique. Look here – it seems to be covered in pitch or something similar, but it’s definitely wooden. And ironbound. You may just be able to see these traces of decoration on the banding. And this here may well be a keyhole for the simple locks they used. That’s significant. It means they valued the contents very highly.’

  ‘You’re saying it’s a treasure chest?’ came Latimer’s off-camera voice.

  ‘Not quite,’ said Jackson, with a demure smile. ‘I think that might be going a little too far, just at the moment. But it could be – it certainly could be. It wouldn’t be the first time that treasure had been found in a shipwreck, after all!’

  The screen image dissolved to a view of the fully excavated chest, a blackish rectangular shape about four feet by three, and quite deep. The dark metal banding was corroded but clearly visible under the irregular coating of pitch. The view cut to a shot of it being lifted in a cradle and swung high over the edge of the dam into the wide hold of one of the project’s two tenders, a converted fishing boat, waiting at the jetty.

  ‘The chest is immensely fragile after its long spell on the seabed, and the mud may well have seeped in – though Dr Jackson thinks the pitch has protected it. Now it’s being taken ashore for careful conservation treatment. Over the next few days it’ll be opened, and examined minutely. Almost anything could be inside. And I’ll be on the spot with regular reports. From the site of the most exciting archaeological find since the Mary Rose, this is Tom Latimer, in the Saithe Estuary.’

  Latimer reached out a long arm and clicked off the set. ‘Well?’ he asked, looking hard at Pru. ‘Every shot a ruddy little work of art, right? Really caught that dicey bit with the keel –’

  Pru was looking puzzled. ‘Yes, it was very good – but you didn’t say anything about the other chest, the one underneath –’

  ‘Bit of Press cooperation there. Old Prof Hansen, see, he asked me to say nothing about that till you folks’ve actually got it out. Bit sharp about it, he was. Seems he only let Jackson take number one out so fast because it was going to crush number two into safety matches. Could damn well stay there tonight and get done properly tomorrow. In the meantime he’s got ants in his pants about treasure-hunters.’

  ‘What I don’t follow,’ said Neville, ‘is how you spent the whole day under our flaming feet with that overgrown Box Brownie and only got five minutes of film.’

  Latimer chuckled. ‘Not even that, squire. That was a three-minute slot they gave me – not bad, by their standards. That’s how ENG works – electronic news gathering to you. In the old days they’d’ve had a whole film crew up here. Now there’s just me and the box of tricks. I get tons of stuff and shoot it back to them down a phone line. And they get their mad axemen to work cutting it to fit the slot they want to use it in. Like to see some of the stuff they didn’t use?’

  There was a general rumble of interest. ‘ ’Ow about some shots of Evil K-Neville?’ bellowed a burly, curly-haired man with a local accent.

  ‘Ey, thanks, Harry,’ chuckled Neville. ‘Always fancied ’aving a fan club of me own.’

  Latimer turned the monitor back on, changed channel, and switched on the ENG unit attached to it. He clicked a cassette into the combined camera and recorder and set it to rewind. The interviews, that would give them a few laughs. And let Pru see herself on the box – they always liked that. He scrabbled for another beer, listening to the rising wind rattle the tall windows, and grinned over at Pru.

  ‘Pity the poor bugger out on that dam tonight!’

  The guard had made himself as comfortable as he could, in a niche under the seawall scaffolding where crates and tarpaulins formed a windbreak. It was still draughty, though, and every gust made the flame of his butane lantern flicker. There was no real lighting on the dam except for the self-powered hazard lights around the walls. He toyed with the idea of bringing one in, but lighting the place deep red or green didn’t appeal – it was spooky enough already.

  ‘Probably drive you daft, wouldn’t it, you great soft gowk?’ he remarked to the dog. ‘Specially the way you are tonight.’ He’d had a fine time settling it down, and even now it was nervy and aggressive. It lay curled up at his feet, but keeping a wary eye on the darkness beyond the lamp’s charmed circle, growling softly at every creak, and every large wavelet that slapped against the side of the dam. ‘Know what? You’re getting on my ruddy nerves, you are.’ He listened to the sea rising, and thanked God those nutty professors had had the sense to build a sheltered jetty. The dory would be safe from anything less than a full-dress storm, and there’d been no sign of one on the weather maps. Still … He looked at his watch. Midnight plus fifteen; might as well check in. He thumbed the walkie-talkie’s call button.

  It was a full five minutes before a sleepy voice crackled out of it, leading off with a tinny yawn. ‘Securiguard, Stockton – that you, Lees?’

  ‘No, it’s his frigging mutt!’

  ‘Oh aye? That’s what you get up to, is it? Ah well, keeps you warm, I suppose. Owt to report? Caught any treasure-hunters yet?’

  ‘On a night like this? You’re joking. Hear that wind?’

  ‘Christ, thought that was static. Getting a bit high isn’t it? Forecast was light to medium and scattered showers.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you’re ten flaming miles inland. Might be medium there, but it’s blowing ’ard out here. Not dangerous yet, but –’

  ‘Ay, well, you hang on where you are, even if it does start to blow. You’ll be safer on that dam than running for shore in a small boat.’

  ‘Couldn’t I just go now?’

  ‘A night they’ve paid for, a night they get. Treasure-hunters might not worry about the weather, and then where are we? The dig could sue us blind. Check in again about five and we’ll see. Dunno what’s eating you anyway. Fifteen years I’ve been running this show and never lost a man yet –’

  With a snort of disgust Lees switched him off and put the radio back on the table. He sat for a moment contemplating the lamp and the coffee Thermos, all that stood between him and five o’clock. Then he pulled a slightly soggy copy of the Daily Mirror out of his pocket and turned to the racing page, weighting it down with the radio. The boss was right – mad bastards, some of these fishermen, and not too fond of the dam. Mostly because it blocked their easiest channel in, but the ones he’d talked to seemed a bit superstitious about it as well. If they got drunk enough they might just risk coming out and seeing what they could pinch. Or just mess it up – loosen a few bolts, even, and blame the result on the weather. He looked out, and saw the moon shine momentarily through the scudding clouds, silvering the dam wall, leaving the pit a pool of shadow. The dog’s eyes were wide and gleaming. It looked chi
lly, and felt it. He shuddered, huddling closer to the spluttering lamp. Heaven help anyone he got his hands on tonight!

  Latimer touched the start control, and chuckled as the first face materialised out of a jumpy blur. Nothing like starting at the top – and the great Viking expert looked pretty much like a Viking himself. The figure that came striding into shot was nearly as tall as Colby, though much less bulky, and the face that filled the close-up had the slightly gaunt look of the well-trained athlete. Latimer remembered him saying that a few seasons’ fieldwork kept him as fit as anyone in their forties should be. It was a slightly piratical face, tanned and hard-planed under reddish hair, tousled and windblown, showing flecks of grey. The bladelike nose and neatly pointed red-grey beard heightened the impression, and only the calm intelligence in the eyes countered it. Or did it?

  ‘Professor Halfdan Hansen,’ said Latimer’s commentary voice, ‘head of the Archaeology Department at Rayner College, Texas – and, as one of the world’s foremost Viking scholars, director of the whole Fern Farm project. But Professor Hansen –’

  ‘Hal.’

  ‘Hal – can you tell us how you go from digging up a temple to digging up a ship?’

  The tall man smiled slightly. ‘It’s very simple. We just listened to what people were saying. When we found the temple, we realised that people here had been telling folktales about it for centuries. But because they were folktales, fairy tales even, no one bothered to take them seriously. A big mistake. So we also listened to the local fishermen – they tell stories about something called “King Henry’s Ship” – I don’t know which of the Henrys it is supposed to be. They say it sank in the estuary. Once in a while they would find some timber fragments in their nets. We had one of these radio-carbon dated, and suddenly everyone was very excited! Then we began to search. We had much help from scuba clubs along the coast. I thought it worth the effort – this must have been a seagoing community.’

  ‘Community – you mean the temple?’

  ‘Indeed. What is a god without worshippers, a church without a congregation? All your newspaper cartoonists, they have fun with the temple, but they forget it must have been supported by a local community – farms, maybe a village where Saitheby now stands. And the Vikings who settled here were a seagoing people. There may well be the remains of a boatyard somewhere beneath the seafront at Saitheby, but they will not let me rip it up.’

  Latimer still wasn’t sure whether or not he had been joking. The regret in his deep voice sounded all too real, and in his sea-green eyes there was a definite gleam. Humour or fanaticism? The Dane was a quiet giant, but a baffling one – to Latimer, anyway. His English was precise, almost formal, those eyes constantly narrowed in the light. The diggers seemed to find him friendly and approachable, yet when Latimer had approached him –

  ‘Just a simple feature, Prof. A personality spot, for Timescape, the history show. You know – like they did of you last year –’

  ‘I did not like that much. And for a young man like Mr Colby – it is out of the question, I am afraid.’

  ‘Why?’ Colby was a natural – rising young archaeologist who looked more like the college football hero. After that business with the keel –

  ‘I am afraid I cannot tell you why. It would hardly be in his best interests.’

  ‘Oh come on now, Prof. It could make him!’

  ‘He is made anyway, once his doctoral thesis is published. I have seen the draft, and I have no doubts. He is brilliant, far more so than I was at that age. In time I hope he will surpass me, so I am not holding him back. I can only repeat, it is out of the question. And I know he will agree.’

  Latimer smiled. Outwardly Hansen had kept cool, but after a couple of minutes he had been so het up that his Danish accent had started to come through. There was almost certainly a story there, though maybe not for Timescape. Hell! He’d let the tape run on! The recording had cut abruptly from Hansen to another figure, evidently female even with her back to the camera. She was conspicuously not wearing yellow oilskins – instead she had neat blue waterproof overalls and a matching rainhat. Curly black hair spilled out under the brim. She was perched on a pile of boards to one side of the hull, hunched over something that looked like a sketchpad, but was attached by a cable to the case at her side.

  ‘Hi there. You from Rayner? Tom Latimer – Timescape.’

  ‘Mmh?’ A natural camera face, thought Latimer. Could’ve been a model with those strong bones, that skin, those great big googly eyes, and oh, that body. If only –

  ‘Timescape,’ he was repeating. ‘TV – archaeology – you know.’

  ‘Oh – uh, yes, hi. Jessica Thorne – Jess – California. I’m with Rayner, yeah. But you don’t want me –’

  ‘No?’ Latimer grimaced. Could he just quietly turn this off?

  ‘No. See, I’m not an archaeologist. I just run the computers round here.’ She waggled the sketchpad. ‘Graphics tablet, see? Linked to my little smart terminal here. Have to keep a complete record of the finds, map them out as we uncover them, layer by layer, then just phone the results right on through to the Rayner database. They can make a 3D reconstruct of the whole site, track down scatter patterns, maybe pick out parts we’ve missed. Fun job, I guess, and it pays my stay over here, ’cause I can do research for my doctoral thesis. In anthropology – folklore. That’s my real thing. Hey, d’you always hide behind cameras when you talk to people?’

  That got the audience reaction Latimer expected. ‘Funny,’ said Neville, ‘you never struck me as a shrinking violet.’ Pru giggled. Latimer winced, and again as his screen voice said, ‘Hey, folklore, that’s fascinating. What’s it about, then, this thesis?’

  ‘Sure you wanna know? The Cult of the Horned God in Western European Myth and Folktale. Get that?’

  ‘Er – loud and clear. Hey, you know where I come from, Aussie-land, the abos have some really wild stories –’

  ‘Uhuh, I’ve heard some. Dreamtime, Wandjina, that kind of thing –’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Fascinating. Listen, that thesis of yours – I’d like to hear more. Maybe some time soon we could –’

  Latimer stabbed a long finger hard down on the fast forward wind button, and the beginnings of the pass he had made on camera – and the instant put-down – vanished into a speeded-up gibber and blur. ‘Time for another beer,’ he grinned, and headed for the pile on the rickety table.

  He was just opening a can when a voice next to him said, ‘Bust yer balls, did she?’ and he almost snapped off the tag. ‘Shouldn’t worry about it,’ Neville added, also reaching for a can. He sighed regretfully. ‘She does it to everyone – well, almost everyone.’

  ‘Meaning everyone except you, uh?’

  ‘Me? Perish the thought, wacker. I don’t mess with other fellas’ girls – rather roll me own.’

  ‘Go on, mate, laugh it up. You’re on next.’

  The guard jerked upright in his chair, suddenly awake and staring wildly round. Everything was dark. The dead lamp rolled gently on the table, snuffed and toppled by the great gusts of wind. But something louder than a falling lamp had snatched him back from the brink of sleep – a rending, explosive crash from outside. The dog pressed back, snarling, against his legs, tail down and ears flattened, hunched down ready to spring. Another gust made the tarpaulins bulge and flap like vast wings, dry and leathery. Shivering in the sudden waking chill, he had a confused image of the dam broken and the sea pouring in to reclaim its own, the ancient hulk, rotten ribs gaping, sailed off down the tide by a crew in the same condition …

  Grimly he shut off the gas still hissing from the fallen lamp, and snatched up the tazer. No more sounds, so the dam was still holding. The moment he touched the dog’s lead it bounded out of the cubby ahead of him, growling and casting about in the flurrying wind.

  ‘What is it, boy? Eh? What d’you smell?’ He swept the beam down across the jetty to where his boat bobbed whitely on the black water. Nothing broken there, anyway. And it hadn’t been
in the seawall overhead, or he’d have heard it more clearly; if anything was going, then, it was at the far end. He set off round the creaking walkway at a fast trot, with the dog loping beside him. Another minute and he’d have been out cold, literally caught napping. Anything serious and they’d have had his guts for garters. They might yet.

  Panting, he reached the far end of the dam and stood for a moment. Nothing was different, nothing was wrong. The sea boomed just as loudly against the wall down here, the metal and concrete piles rang just as soundly. No more strange noises in the wind, and not the slightest tremor in the guardrail. He risked swinging himself out on it, one-handed above the hungry licking of the water beneath, to shine the tazer along the lengths of the outer walls. Not the slightest flaw visible in the cladding, and no frothing that might indicate an underwater leak. He’d have heard that anyway, chuckling nastily to itself. He swung his leg back over the railing, ignoring the futile plucking of the wind, and sat for a moment, gnawing his lip. Whatever made that crash hadn’t been small – it meant damage, maybe serious damage. He stepped across the narrow walkway to the lower inner rail. The pit beneath him was a pool of darkness, so still and deep he almost expected to see his own reflection on its surface, as on water. He hesitated a moment, listening, and when he heard nothing more he thumbed on the beam and reluctantly tilted it down into the pit.

  It glanced quickly across the metal walls, the bright plastic tags and white tape of the chessboard squares, the dully gleaming mud beneath. It dazzled over pools of water from the sprinklers, past them onto the great hummock at the heart of the pattern. He gave a gusty sigh of relief as he saw the gaunt, gnawed-looking ribs still upright and intact above the carcase of the hull. But then he saw past them, and relief died. In the mud that filled the belly of the hull a hole gaped like the rotten hollow of a tooth. Wide, deep, irregular, as if something had been torn violently from the mud. Jagged fragments sticking out … One wall of the cavity collapsed softly inwards. Only a minute ago, right enough. Furiously he swept the beam round and about the pit, snarling to match the dog. Nobody. A complete cock-up, doubled. The one thing he was here to look after …