Elegy for a Queen

by Margaret James

  The offices of Trent Weston were in the very middle of a gigantic concrete park. It took half an hour to hunt them down.

  ‘I know, don’t say it,’ Janet grinned as she scrambled from the 2CV, tugging at her skirt. ‘But if I’d turned up in jeans and old Doc Martens, I’d have been shown the door.’

  ‘It’s five to ten.’ Susannah locked the car. ‘Come on, let’s find this man.’

  ‘You’ll come in with me, won’t you?’

  ‘Me?’ Susannah frowned.

  ‘Please!’ cried Janet. ‘You found the vital documentary evidence, after all.’

  * * * *

  ‘I have an appointment with Mr Gordon Clark,’ Janet said to the blank-faced woman at the reception desk.

  ‘Miss Collins, is it?’ The woman looked Janet up and down, and pursed her scarlet lips. She raised her eyebrows at Susannah. ‘You are?’

  ‘This is my colleague, Miss Susannah Miller. She’s a bibliographer and expert on antiquities, particularly Early English texts.

  ‘Always confuse the buggers,’ Janet whispered, as the receptionist led them down a long white corridor. ‘She doesn’t know what a bibliographer does. But it sure sounds impressive. So she’s impressed.’

  But Gordon Clark was not impressed at all. A tall, heavy man in an expensive, hand-made suit, he scowled at Janet and Susannah, and merely grunted a good morning.

  Janet began her spiel.

  ‘What will do you for money?’ asked Gordon Clark.

  ‘It shouldn’t be a problem. All the equipment can be borrowed from the museum,’ said Janet, glibly. ‘As for personnel – if we advertise in local papers and say we’re running a training excavation, people will pay to work on it, rather than expect us to pay them.’

  ‘You mean, grown men and women will stump up hard-earned cash to go and grovel in the mud?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Janet beamed. ‘If this is an official excavation, if it’s sanctioned by the British Heritage Trust, we could offer certificates at the end. People love certificates, you see.’

  ‘The world is full of lunatics,’ said Gordon Clark, morosely. ‘But if you discover buried treasure, will it be the landowner’s? Or yours?’

  ‘Oh, the landowner’s. We’d all sign contracts, agreeing to hand over everything. But I don’t expect to find gold or silver, anyway.’

  ‘Just walls. Just bricks and mortar, footings and foundations, all that sort of thing?’

  ‘That’s right, Mr Clark. Listen, I’m only asking you to let us do some digging. It won’t disrupt your work on the development at all. We’ll only be there four weeks.’

  ‘Time is money, woman. I assume you went to college. Did no one teach you that?’ Gordon Clark looked Janet up and down. ‘Nice outfit,’ he observed.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I’ll be in touch.’ Mr Clark’s dark features cracked, into a sort of grin. ‘Good day to you, Miss Collins – and to you, Miss Miller. Close the door behind you.’

  ‘It was your charm that did it,’ said Susannah, as they walked down the corridor.

  ‘You think so?’ Janet laughed. ‘I’d say it was my legs.’

  Chapter 5

  ‘Gordon Clark rang me this lunchtime,’ Janet said. She sounded jubilant, so Susannah could tell the news was good.

  ‘What did he say?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s not prepared to authorise a full-scale excavation. That’s okay, I never thought he would. But he says we can do a short-term dig, that’s if we don’t get in the way.’

  ‘Good of him,’ Susannah said.

  ‘Yeah, isn’t it?’ said Janet. ‘But we don’t have time to argue. September’s almost over, and the contractors want to get the foundations laid before the beginning of November. It’s to do with frost and concrete, I think old Gordon said. We must get going, too.’

  ‘I’ll ring Professor Fenton,’ said Susannah. ‘Since he knows the landowner, perhaps he’ll speak to him. So if you find a Roman villa, or anything like that – ‘

  ‘Go easy, Suke, don’t promise them buried treasure!’

  ‘All right,’ agreed Susannah. ‘But there’s no harm in dropping hints.’ She said goodbye to Janet, then rang George.

  ‘Susannah, darling!’ George exclaimed. ‘How are you getting on? David says I sent him a jewel whose price is above rubies.’

  I’ll bet he didn’t, thought Susannah, he hardly notices I’m here. ‘Professor Fenton, how well do you know Sir Alec Fletcher?’

  ‘Sir Alec at the D of Ed, you mean? We have a gin and tonic now and then.’

  ‘So he’s a friend?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  Susannah told him about the crop marks and the proposals for an excavation.

  ‘I’ll speak to him about it,’ promised George. ‘But what can you offer him? A hoard of gold and silver? A dozen emeralds, the size of quails’ eggs?’

  ‘Some Roman pottery, probably – there’s loads of it in Marbury. Maybe a few earrings, and if we’re very lucky, the footings of a Saxon church.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said George, ‘that sounds extremely dull. I took part in an excavation once,’ he added, drily. ‘My God – the cold, the wet, the mess, the squalor! You should have seen those people’s finger nails!’

  ‘But you will ring Sir Alec?’

  ‘Yes, my dear, of course. I would do anything for you. But listen, dear Susannah – don’t get yourself drawn into this. Those digging people, they’re always on the lookout for gullible volunteers. If you express the slightest interest in their filthy hobby, they’ll have you on the site before your feet can touch the ground.

  ‘Soon, you’ll be knee-deep in mud and slime, being goosed by bearded lesbians in orange dungarees. You’ll mix with derelicts, vagrants, alcoholics – diggers are the dregs of society, believe you me.’

  ‘Thank you for the warning,’ said Susannah. But it had come too late. Since she’d seen those pictures Janet had taken from the plane, she’d been incubating digger’s fever. She wanted to know as much as anyone what lay beneath that clay.

  ‘Suke, they’ve come up trumps!’ Two days after Susannah had rung George, Janet came into the library with a letter from Gordon Clark. ‘Just you listen to this! Trent Weston Developments, acting on behalf of Sir Alec Fletcher and his trustees, have agreed to finance – finance, can you believe it – a short term excavation, on the north perimeter of the site once known as Cromebridge Farm, Ordnance Survey reference blah blah blah.’

  Janet’s blue eyes shone. ‘They must think it will be good PR,’ she grinned, delighted. ‘Apparently, there’s been some opposition to their little scheme. So Clark and company must hope that if they’re seen to care about our heritage, the peasants will be pacified.’

  ‘What will happen when you find your villa, or Anglo-Saxon church?’

  ‘It’ll be recorded, photographed, then buried under a thousand tons of concrete, until the end of time.’ Janet shrugged. ‘That’s the best we can expect. Unless it’s something so spectacular that we get the money to move it to a different site. Or even stop the development altogether. It’s time you bought some wellies, girl.’

  * * * *

  David wasn’t always drunk. It only seemed that way. When he was stone cold sober, he could be quite dynamic, and one Tuesday morning he bounced into the library looking full of beans. He told Susannah they were going to give the place an overhaul.

  He’d ordered a computer, so they’d soon get the catalogues up to date. They’d make sure all the documents were properly conserved. What did Susannah think about a little exhibition of the library’s treasures, for the general public?

  ‘If you want it,’ he went on, ‘ I reckon you could have a job for life.’

  In an musty codex, David found a mediaeval charter mentioning a gift of ten gold nobles, silver plate and a jewelled chalice to Saint Hilda’s Minster, Marbury. But this bequest in Middle English was written in the margin of an older document. The Anglo-Saxon text was faded, and the fourteent
h century scribe had sometimes written over it. But some of the original was legible, all the same.

  ‘Here,’ said David, handing the mouldering volume to Susannah. ‘What do you make of that? One more little fragment for the millennium history?’

  Susannah read the fourteenth century English easily. Then she tried to read the faded Anglo-Saxon text, which was a challenge, for here were words and phrases she had never come across before.

  ‘Our people were beset on every side,’ she hazarded. ‘The army of Beornwulf came upon us like white fire from heaven. Sorry, Dave – this next bit’s too far gone. There was no mercy shown to any, however sick or old. The very young, and women with little children at the breast, were cruelly slain. David, I’m making lots of guesses here – ‘

  ‘That’s all right,’ said David. ‘Carry on.’

  ‘Then the people wept and said, this Mercian army is no Christian host, but a band of devils, led by Satan. When we cried to heaven, there was no help for us. While our children perished, Christ and his saints slept. But God is just. When he comes to judge, this wickedness shall be punished, and Mercia shall lie humbled in the dust.’

  ‘A extract from the Chronicle?’ asked David.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Susannah. ‘Anyway, we have a name. Who was this Beornwulf guy?’

  David found his copy of the Chronicle and riffled through the index. ‘A king of Mercia,’ he said, ‘killed by the East Anglians in 825 AD.’

  ‘Honestly?’ A shiver of excitement ran down Susannah’s spine. ‘David, you remember when we found that piece of text, in the old leather binding?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘The date’s exactly right.’ She found the folder that contained the piece of tattered vellum. She placed the documents side by side. ‘The handwriting’s quite different,’ she said. ‘I hoped they’d be the same.’

  ‘But as you’ve pointed out, the date is right. If Beornwulf is the king described in that first document – ‘

  ‘Yes, David – if.’ Susannah shook her head. ‘I wonder when these things were actually written? When were they last read?’

  ‘Not since the Reformation. I’ve never been a gambler, but I’d bet my life on that.’

  * * * *

  ‘I’ve hired all the equipment,’ Janet told Susannah, ‘and I’ve got a portacabin, too. I’ve rung round all my digger mates and asked them to get their arses over here. You could come out this afternoon, and see what’s going on.’

  Ringing from the Green Man in Eddington, Janet went on that if Susannah liked, she could bring some jars of coffee, boxes of teabags, sugar, milk and stuff.

  ‘You can have a few hours off, no problem,’ offered David, who seemed much happier nowadays. At any rate, the morose and pettish drunkard was in evidence no more. ‘I know you’re dying to see what’s happening there.’

  Susannah drove over to the site, where she found that JCBs had taken off the topsoil. An early autumn downpour had turned the badly-drained red clay into a sticky swamp.

  ‘You’re going to need a pump,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ said Janet, sighing. ‘I’ll have to seduce the foreman.’

  ‘You could try asking nicely.’

  ‘It might be quicker to make him an offer he can’t refuse. He’s quite attractive as it happens, and as Mr Clark himself reminded us, time is of the essence.’ Janet shuddered. ‘God, this place is bleak. It reminds me of those pictures of the Somme.’

  Yes, Susannah agreed, it did. The trees had all been felled. The hedges had all been grubbed up, the land-fill site compacted, and great shafts for ventilation pierced its rotting vitals, drawing off the gases created by putrefaction and decay.

  As Janet led Susannah towards the portacabin, a ragged little gaggle of archaeologists appeared, coming from the direction of the pub.

  ‘Katie Harper, Peter Shelton, meet Susannah Miller,’ Janet said. ‘Peter and Katie are at Marbury College. They need to do some fieldwork and recording for their coursework, so they’ll be with us for a week or two. Anna and Mike you’ve met before, they were in that pub in Brompton Lacey. They’re a pair of layabouts.’

  ‘I object to that,’ said Mike. ‘I have applied for forty jobs this year.’

  ‘I dare say Anna has applied for more.’

  ‘I’ve applied for fifty.’ Anna grinned. ‘I have a better degree than Mike, as well. Janet, all the volunteers are still boozing in the snug. I said another ten minutes, then back on the job.’

  ‘Well, Susannah?’ Mike grinned, too. ‘I hope you brought the teabags? I tell you what – we need a catering officer on site.’

  ‘If Dave agrees, I’ll come here two or three mornings every week,’ Susannah promised. ‘I’ll catch up at the library in the evenings, or I’ll work weekends’

  ‘On Saturdays and Sundays, you’ll be here.’ Mike Devine, a bearded giant with a smoker’s cough, alarmingly red hair and bright blue eyes, lit a Marlboro. ‘It’s seven days a week, this job. It’s dawn to dusk, hard graft – ‘

  ‘Don’t put her off,’ said Janet. ‘We can’t pay you anything,’ she said. ‘But think of the satisfaction you’ll be getting.’

  ‘All the fresh air and exercise,’ said Mike.

  ‘If we find anything interesting,’ said Anna, ‘you can touch it first.’

  ‘She might not want to!’ Janet grinned.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve brought the tea and coffee – and a bag of doughnuts,’ said Susannah.

  ‘Attagirl,’ said Mike. ‘Susannah, you’re all right.’

  * * * *

  ‘Dave, I’d like to spend a couple of mornings at the site, if that’s okay with you?’ Muddied to the knees, Susannah got back to the library rosy-cheeked, with twigs stuck in her hair.

  ‘Put in your thirty to forty hours a week here at the library, and you can arrange your time to suit yourself,’ David agreed. ‘I finished looking through that book of documents, by the way.’

  ‘Anything else of interest?’

  ‘No, not really. There’s certainly nothing more in Anglo-Saxon, anyway. I’ve left it on your desk, in case you want to have another look at the Saxon stuff.’

  Susannah washed her hands and left her boots in Dora’s office, then sat down at her desk. The catalogue called this book the Henry Codex. But which of the many Henries? The fifth or sixth most probably – certainly not the eighth.

  She wondered if the scribe who’d written out the bequest of golden nobles had understood Anglo-Saxon. Probably not, she thought – he had most likely been a Frenchman, and post-conquest English was very different from Anglo-Saxon, anyway.

  She studied the Saxon text, but couldn’t make much sense of it. There were too many words and phrases that weren’t in the dictionary, whole sentences she didn’t understand.

  The Maransaete fought well, she guessed, hoping that the context might later back her up. They broke the enemy’s shields, they seized their mighty ash-spears, cleaving them in two.

  For although the Mercians had found – meaning that they wore, presumably – bright coats of mail, boar-crested helmets, and all their war-gear was of the finest sort, the Maransaete were courageous people. They also knew humility, and put their trust in God – lacking whose grace no earth-born can prevail.

  ‘David, what do you know about the Maransaete?’ she asked.

  ‘Only that they were the Saxon tribe who lived round here before the Norman Conquest.’ David shrugged. ‘Maransaete must mean the people of Maran. Their city was presumably Maranbyrig – Marbury.’

  Susannah struggled on. The king and his son were killed, she read, leaving just one maiden-child of the royal house. She was called Aelwyn.

  ‘Aelwyn,’ said Susannah to herself, wondering where she’d seen the name before. She’d seen – or heard – it somewhere, she was sure.

  David glanced up and frowned. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I didn’t speak.’ Susannah shuddered. ‘Dave, it’s cold in here.’

  ‘It’s actually
quite warm.’ David got up. ‘I meant to turn the heating down, it’s too hot for the books.’ As he passed her desk, he smiled. ‘That’s a nice scent you’re wearing. I love the smell of roses.’

  Susannah stared at him. Just back from the site, she must smell of mud and cold, fresh air. She wasn’t wearing any scent today.

  Chapter 6

  ‘God knows what they’re destroying over there,’ said Mike Devine one rainy morning in October, as he and the rest of the group took a break to stare across the sullen swamp and watch the JCBs at work.

  ‘Well, if they do find anything,’ said Janet, ‘they’re bound to come rushing over here to tell us, and score a point or two.’

  The workmen thought the diggers were a joke. But they also provided bacon sandwiches from their canteen on site. As Janet said, they had their uses.

  The excavation was divided into squares, making a grid of fifty metres by a hundred wide. Susannah soon discovered it was a mortal sin to move a single metal marker.

  ‘Put the block on too, you idiot!’ shouted Janet, pointing to the wooden cube that topped the marker spike. ‘You’ll have somebody’s eye out, otherwise.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ murmured Mike. ‘You have to move the markers sometimes. But don’t touch that big spike over there. It’s the south-west co-ordinate, we marked off this whole site from it. Move that, and she’ll kill you.’

  ‘What’s that, Mike?’ asked Janet, as she came striding up the trench. ‘You inciting mutiny in the ranks?’

  ‘Just explaining to Susannah all the stuff you should have told her, you bossy little cow.’

  Susannah learned to dig down layer by layer, recording her findings on the context sheets, whose muddy pages would be the only record of what had once been here. She earned her bacon butties by filling buckets of dug-out spoil, and lugging it all away.

  But it was Susannah’s trowel that hit the first stone slab. ‘Mike,’ she cried, ‘I’ve found some masonry!’

  ‘Yeah, and so have I.’ Mike shaved off a sliver of clay to reveal the flat, grey ashlar underneath. ‘We’re there!’ he grinned. ‘Janet?’ he shouted, standing up, ‘Susannah’s found your wall!’