Elegy for a Queen

by Margaret James

  ‘Well, maybe not, but I believe his mother was a Maran. So ask him, anyway.’

  ‘Okay.’ Susannah smiled. ‘Until I came to Marbury, I never thought I’d have a conversation with a ghost.’

  Ceola’s homespun habit swished along the narrow passages between the stacks, his sandalled feet made slapping noises on the bare oak floor. Susannah followed him, watching for a book or codex being jerked out of place, for any sort of hint or sign. But nothing happened.

  The ancient building creaked. The wind, or maybe it was Beorn or Ceola, hushed and sighed. ‘Where’s the key to it all?’ Susannah asked them.

  No reply.

  * * * *

  Janet started going to the re-opened excavation two or three days a week, but although she insisted she was better, she got very tired. ‘I won’t be fit enough to do any digging until spring,’ she told Susannah.

  ‘But you’re back in the driving seat.’ Susannah grinned, pleased to see her friend looking so much better. ‘You can boss them all around again.’

  ‘Yeah, and good thing too,’ said Janet, grimly. ‘They’ve been getting slack. Mike’s a brilliant digger, but he couldn’t organise a dig to save his life – and Julius is past it, in more ways than one.’

  One morning Janet borrowed David’s car and drove Susannah to the site, where the winter wind cut like a razor across the barren moonscape, and the mud was ankle deep.

  ‘You getting any vibes, man?’ Janet asked, as Susannah gazed across the swamp.

  ‘None at all, I’m sorry.’ Even though she was huddled deep inside her layers of anorak and sweaters, Susannah’s teeth were chattering. ‘I need a cup of coffee. Where’s Julius today?’

  ‘God knows. The bugger only comes here when the fancy takes him, and he never stays more than an hour, anyway.’

  ‘Do you think he had any hand in it?’

  ‘In what?’

  ‘The theft, of course.’

  ‘I dunno, mate.’ Janet began to trudge across the ruts towards the little portacabin, where they could get coffee. ‘But I wouldn’t have thought so. Julius is a gentleman and scholar, after all. How’s the boyfriend these days?’

  ‘Gavin?’

  ‘No, you fool, Mel Gibson.’

  ‘Gavin’s fine. But he’s on a course this week, so I won’t be seeing him until Friday.’

  ‘Everything all right between you, is it?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Just making conversation.’ Janet shrugged. ‘Come on, let’s go and get a drink, I’m frozen.’

  * * * *

  ‘My dear Susannah, they don’t tell me anything!’ On the office telephone, Julius sounded frantic. ‘When you didn’t come to dinner, I assumed you and Gavin had found better things to do. If I had not heard dear Mike talking about you to another digger, reminding me I hadn’t seen you for a week or two, I might never have found out about it! So, my darling girl, how are you now?’

  ‘I’m okay.’ Susannah shrugged. ‘I’m back at work again.’

  ‘You must not overdo it. Promise me?’ Julius calmed down a little now. ‘Well, may I visit you? Armando could take us for a drive, we could perhaps have lunch?’

  ‘Er – I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ cried Julius, beginning to shout again. ‘What can you mean, you do not know? What have they not told me? ‘

  ‘Julius, I’m fine,’ Susannah said quickly. ‘I only meant I’m busy.’

  Then she thought, this is silly. Gavin’s suspicions had infected her, and now she was afraid to be alone with an old man – a frail old man in feeble health, at that.

  But, all the same, she was afraid.

  ‘Why don’t you come and see us at the library?’ she suggested. ‘We’ve got some new documents. There’s a very interesting charter about the sale of some West Mercian slaves. But David thinks the parchment looks suspicious and might be a fake. I’m sure he’d welcome your opinion.’

  ‘Then I shall come and give it.’ Julius sounded happier. ‘As I expect you know, I’m staying with Sir Alec at the moment. He and Lady Fletcher are making a tremendous fuss of me! So I’ll call in on Wednesday morning, before I set off for the excavation. If I may?’

  ‘That will be fine,’ agreed Susannah. She relaxed at last. ‘How’s the excavation going these days?’

  ‘Well, not too badly,’ Julius said. ‘Mrs Fleming, wonderful Mrs Fleming, she has located two more Saxon graves. One contains a woman, while the other – and this is fascinating – seems to be a cremation. It contains the bones of two tall men, one young, one old.

  ‘The bones are very charred and damaged, but we can observe they had both suffered dreadful injuries – broken bones, smashed skulls, crushed ribs. Anna says these must have been inflicted before the poor men died. So what do we make of that?’

  ‘I – I don’t know.’ Susannah shuddered, for suddenly something half-remembered and half-understood was nudging at her memory, if not exactly in her conscious mind.

  She pulled herself together. ‘Well, Julius,’ she said, ‘it’s been great to talk to you. But now I ought to go and do some work.’

  ‘So should I,’ said Julius. ‘Wednesday, then?’

  ‘Yes, come for coffee, about eleven.’

  * * * *

  ‘You be careful,’ Gavin said, when Susannah told him. ‘Make sure Dave stays in the office with you. Dave or Dora, anyway. Sweetheart, whatever happens, don’t be alone with him.’

  ‘What do you think he’ll do to me?’ Susannah laughed, relieved that Gavin seemed to be all right with her again, after a week of being cool and distant.

  ‘I wouldn’t put anything past that crazy bastard. So you just watch your step.’

  But Wednesday morning came and went, and Julius did not. Susannah thought he’d forgotten, and was annoyed.

  Now there was a telephone at the site, so she rang and asked to speak to him. But a gruff-voiced security man informed her very brusquely that the professor wasn’t there today. She could speak to one of the diggers, if she wished.

  She said she’s speak to Anna, then.

  ‘Hello, Suke!’ It was raining hard today, but Anna sounded cheerful. ‘How are you? Julius? I think he’s gone to Oxford. He doesn’t like the rain, he stands there under this enormous black umbrella, like a crow.’

  Susannah frowned. ‘When’s he coming back to Little Wellesley?’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Anna. ‘But he doesn’t do much when he’s here. Mike and I do all the work, while he just potters round and talks to people, getting in their way. You seen Janet recently?’

  ‘No, not since Monday. Why?’

  ‘She was in the Lamb and Flag last night. Our generous city fathers have counted up their pennies and offered her a poxy two year contract – her old job back, in other words. But without security and forget the pension rights.’

  ‘What’s she going to do?’

  ‘Accept it, I imagine. They offered her that Yorubesi thing, but she isn’t fit enough to take it. I suppose you know about the break-in?’

  ‘Yes, Janet told me. Do the police have any leads?’

  ‘No, and they don’t seem to give a toss, which I think is disgusting. They sent a copper to the site, and he took loads of statements. But as I told him, we don’t know anything. I reckon it was the bastards who broke into the museum. By now, they’re probably in Brazil.’

  Anna sighed, but then cheered up again. ‘We’ve found a few more graves,’ she added. ‘So, you never know. We might dig up a whole new Wellesley Hoard.’

  ‘Yeah, fingers crossed. Anna, I’ll see you in the Lamb tonight.’

  Susannah rang All Souls. She spoke to a man who said he was Professor Greenwood’s scout. No, he said, Professor Greenwood hadn’t come back to college. If Susannah would like to leave a message, he would try to pass it on.

  ‘There’s no message,’ said Susannah, and rang off. ‘So where the hell is Julius?’ she asked echoing gallery.

  But Aescwin and the ot
hers just giggled in reply.

  * * * *

  Gavin rang to tell her he hadn’t got the sack for skiving off to stay with her – instead, he was going to be moved again, to a factory near Huddersfield.

  ‘It’s just like bloody snakes and ladders,’ he muttered, as they lay in Susannah’s narrow bed that Friday evening. ‘Up and down and out and in – ‘

  ‘At least you’re in, not out.’ Susannah kissed him. ‘Sorry for being a bitch that time,’ she whispered.

  ‘So you should be.’

  ‘What?’ Susannah frowned. ‘You’re supposed to say it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Well, it does.’

  ‘Gavin, I’ve said I’m sorry!’

  ‘Sorry isn’t good enough,’ said Gavin.

  ‘I need to learn the error of my ways?’

  Gavin pinned her down. ‘You said it, love.’

  Afterwards, they stole all the hot water, then went to the Lamb and Flag.

  ‘Did Julius turn up?’ asked Gavin, as they crossed the Close.

  ‘No, he damned well didn’t,’ said Susannah.

  ‘So where is the bastard?’

  ‘God only knows.’ Susannah shrugged. ‘Gone on holiday?’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Gavin scowled. ‘So there it is – the treasure’s missing, Julius has scarpered, put two and two together.’

  ‘Gavin, he’s a Fellow of All Souls, he’s not a common thief!’

  ‘He’s a waste of oxygen,’ said Gavin. ‘Face it, Susie. Your precious professor is probably in Colombia by now, with a dusky maiden on each knee. Or a dusky boy. Let’s hope that’s the last we see of him.’

  ‘But Gavin, Julius is just – ‘

  ‘A devious, manipulative old fraud.’ Gavin kissed Susannah on the nose and wound her scarf around her neck. ‘Where’s that hat I bought you? It’s bloody cold tonight, you ought to wrap up more, you’ve just been ill. Sweetheart, just accept it. Julius Greenwood was bad news.’

  Chapter 21

  ‘You’ve got a lot more colour today,’ said David, when Susannah came back from a walk one sunny lunchtime. ‘You know you scared us all to death?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Susannah. ‘Dave, did Gavin ring?’

  ‘Yes, but when I told him you were out, he said he’d call tonight. He’s very nice, your Gavin.’

  ‘You reckon?’ Susannah sat down at her desk. Gavin might be nice, but he was domineering, too. He told her what to wear and how to act and what to think. He seemed to want to own her, and she wasn’t having that.

  ‘I was speaking to the bursar at the school one day last week,’ continued David. ‘He said it would be okay for you to stay at the Dean’s House this term and next. Unless of course you want to find a slightly bigger place?’

  ‘Oh, I’m all right there.’ Susannah had forgotten that staying at the Dean’s House was meant to be a temporary arrangement. ‘It’s convenient being just across the Close. So if they don’t need my room?’

  ‘They don’t,’ said David. ‘I reckon they never did. But they needed an excuse to get you out, if any of the masters didn’t like you.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Susannah murmured – thinking, bloody cheek.

  * * * *

  David spent an hour on the phone that afternoon, talking to Francis Parker. Susannah had accepted she was never going to meet him. But that didn’t stop her wondering what he could be like.

  ‘Francis says he went a bit mad last week,’ said David, grinning. ‘But he’d just had a dividend from the firm – ‘

  ‘So he splashed out.’ Susannah grasped the nettle. ‘Why doesn’t he come to the library?’ she asked. ‘Surely it would be interesting for him to look at what we do?’

  ‘Francis can’t come here,’ said David. ‘Well, I suppose there’s nothing actually stopping him from coming. But he doesn’t like it when people stare at him.’

  ‘Why should they stare?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I thought you knew,’ said David, blinking. ‘Dora must have told you?’

  ‘No,’ Susannah said. ‘But if it’s private – ‘

  ‘It’s not private.’ David sat down at his desk. ‘When you first came to work here, I – well, my behaviour must have seemed a little strange to you?’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ said Susannah.

  ‘You needn’t be so tactful.’ David sighed. ‘I was drinking far too much, I know. But it was the only way to cope.’

  ‘To cope with what?’

  ‘Francis and I have been good friends for years. But there are problems, because he had an accident as a child, and it crippled him. He can walk with crutches, but most of the time he’s in a chair.

  ‘Just before you came to Marbury, he was being driven over to his father’s house when he was in a pile-up. All the cars caught fire, and Francis and his sister were sprayed with burning petrol. Diana Parker died, and Francis will need lots of operations.’

  ‘Oh, Dave!’ Susannah’s heart went out to him. ‘But why didn’t you say?’

  ‘I couldn’t talk about it.’ David shrugged. ‘I can’t really think about it now, I still get all upset. When I met Gavin at the Royal while you were ill, I knew just how he felt. He wanted to protect you and to help, but there was nothing he could do. You hang on to him.’

  * * * *

  Janet turned up at coffee time. ‘I say, you’re looking well,’ she told Susannah. ‘You must have got your sex life properly organised again. So tell me, how’s the hunk?’

  ‘If you mean Gavin, he’s okay. I heard you got your old job back?’

  ‘Yeah,’ muttered Janet. ‘Lucky me.’

  ‘Well, should I say congratulations?’

  ‘Congratulations, hell! I wish I could afford to tell them where to stick their job.’

  ‘Hang in there, sister, and you might be County Archaeologist one day.’ Susannah poured out some coffee. ‘You still look quite tired.’

  ‘I’m permanently exhausted, but they did warn me it might be some time before I’m well. I’m lucky I survived.’ Janet gazed through the window at the beautiful spring day. ‘When I was in hospital, all I could do was stare out of the window. One evening, it began to snow, and there were all these big, white flakes swirling against the blackness. Now, whenever I see snow, I’ll remember being in hospital. When did you last see Mike?’

  ‘On Saturday.’

  ‘Then I expect he told you Mrs Fleming reckons there are no more graves to find. It’s maybe just as well. There’s been a sort of upturn at Trent Weston, and they’re starting work on the industrial park next week.’

  ‘So the whole site will soon be under concrete. I think that’s rather sad.’

  Janet merely shrugged. ‘They brought the last two skeletons to the museum last week. Why don’t you pop over some time, have a little look?’

  ‘Yes,’ said a voice inside Susannah’s head. ‘You should go now, today.’’

  ‘Suke?’ said Janet.

  ‘What?’ Susannah frowned. ‘Oh, right – okay.’

  * * * *

  Susannah walked over to the museum after work that evening.

  ‘I didn’t mean you had to come rushing over straight away.’ Janet was putting on her coat. ‘I’m going to the Lamb.’

  ‘I need to see their bodies. They were my friends, my shield- wall. They gave their lives for me. I should at least pray over their dear bones.’

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Janet.

  ‘I didn’t speak.’

  ‘You did, you muttered something.’ Janet threw her coat back on her chair. ‘Come on, they’re in the lab.’

  * * * *

  ‘I’ve been looking at the woman’s body all today.’ Janet flicked on a couple of lights, and then she lifted down the cardboard box, took off the lid. ‘Well, we think it’s a woman’s body, but it might be boy. It has the sort of injuries we usually see on men – cuts that graze the bone, dents in the skull, and stuff like that.’

  ‘My name is Claeda, the swift-footed. Men called me the
soul-stealer. I was the scourge of Mercia.’

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Janet.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Susannah. The hairs had risen on her neck, the room felt cold. ‘But you were muttering to yourself.’

  ‘I damned well wasn’t muttering!’

  ‘Lady, I was at your right hand. I fought for you until the Mercian blades cut through my sword-arm, until they pierced my heart. My dear lady, best of hearth companions, my beloved ring-giver – have you forgotten me?’

  ‘God’s sake, Suke, shut up,’ growled Janet.

  ‘Sorry.’ Susannah was almost sure she’d heard Janet talking to herself, but didn’t want to argue. Instead, she looked down at the box of bones.

  Janet picked up her notes. ‘The skeleton’s very fragile,’ she began. ‘It’s also incomplete, so we’ve had to make a lot of guesses.’

  ‘But you think it’s a woman?’

  ‘Yeah, I do,’ said Janet. ‘She must have been about twenty when she died. She had a broken arm, which had been set. But that could still have killed her if she also had a flesh wound. Dirty wounds went septic, and of course they had no penicillin.’

  ‘Ugh.’ Susannah shuddered. ‘How did anyone survive back then?’

  ‘They often didn’t.’ Janet shrugged. ‘They must have had some rough and ready remedies for wounds. I read somewhere that country people used to slice up puff-balls to put on cuts and grazes. Maybe the Anglo-Saxons did the same. Look, I’ve had enough of bones and bodies for today. Let’s go to that Italian place in Queen Street, have something to eat. You can come back here tomorrow morning.’

  * * * *

  ‘Here we are then, Suke.’ The following morning, Janet had the pair of skeletons properly laid out. ‘I must admit I don’t have much experience of bones. But Anna’s helping me, and since the county’s much too mean to pay for a proper osteologist, my limited expertise will have to do.’

  Picking up a pencil, Janet pointed out the features of the ancient bones. ‘They were handsome people, these Maransaete guys. They were tall – well, at any rate the men were tall – and very well-proportioned. They were healthy, too.’

  ‘Well, except for worms and broken arms.’

  ‘They’re minor details.’ Janet flicked through the pages of her notebook. ‘Anglo-Saxons generally had lots of vile diseases. In those days almost everybody crawled through life half dead. But these Maransaete weren’t hunch-backed or round-shouldered. They didn’t have arthritis, crumbling joints or crippled limbs, they didn’t have any problems with their teeth. They were lucky, naturally healthy.’