Triskellion (23 page)

“Been better.”

“I don’t mean to be nosy,” Adam said, “but what was he saying?”

“Adam.” Rachel said. “It’s none of your—”

“It’s OK,” Laura said. “I’ve got nothing to hide.” She coughed and kicked at the mud beneath her feet, then looked up again at the twins. “He wants the coffin out and opened up next time we go live on air.”

The twins exchanged a look.

“Opened up?” Adam repeated. He was horrified and fascinated at the same time.

“Can you do it?” asked Rachel.

The archaeologist’s expression hardened; set itself back into the look of determination she had had when she was letting Dalton know exactly what she thought.

“Over my dead body,” she said.

“T
here is absolutely
no way
we can open it up out here,” Laura hissed. “It’s raining, it’s cold … even just the exposure to oxygen could destroy whatever’s inside.”

Chris Dalton stood with his arms folded. He was not looking at her, and appeared not to hear a word she was saying.

“We need to do it away from here, under lab conditions,” she continued. “With everything properly monitored in the light of day. Please, Chris, this is really important.”

“Listen to me,” Dalton said, as if he had just begun to pay attention. “We have millions of viewers lined up for our ten thirty update. They’re not going to sit and watch a lump of old wood for an hour, even if you jump up on top of it, take your clothes off and dance the cancan. We’re going to get it open.”

“You can’t,” Laura said.

“The head of programming thinks I can,” Dalton said, dialling a number on his mobile and handing it to Laura.
“Maybe you should speak to him. He already has permission from the government heritage people.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Oh yes. At least
they
understand the draw of a good show. Capturing the public imagination, blah, blah, bringing tourists to the area, etcetera, etcetera…”

Laura knew she had lost the battle. She cancelled the call with her thumb and thrust the phone back into Chris’s hand. “Well, you’re on your own,” she said.

Chris shrugged. “Your loss. You’d get all the glory. But have it your way. We’re back on in twenty minutes, and
I’m
going to open it up. Live on air. Now
that
, for your information … is drama.”

Dalton turned to the camera wearing his most earnest expression. The sort that doctors or newscasters held in reserve for really
important
news.

“Welcome back to Triskellion…”

Rachel and Adam stood huddled with Laura, inside the cordon now, but out of the camera’s shot. Rachel sensed that Laura wanted them close by for support, because although the archaeologist could not bear to watch, neither could she detach herself from the unfolding scene.

The rest of the village had come back out of the pub and their houses for the ten thirty transmission, and a very large crowd was gathered behind the tape. Raised up on steel trestles and bathed in the phosphorescent light of the arc lamps,
the wooden sarcophagus looked massive and primeval, like a huge animal awaiting slaughter.

The whole scene had the air of a public execution.

Rachel shivered. She was chilled to the bone, and without warning a small sob rose in her throat and she felt as if she might cry. She swallowed hard, trying to stifle the urge, and stealing a quick glance at Adam she could see that he, too, was welling up.

What was it about this scene that was so unbearably poignant for them, she wondered.

Chris Dalton was still talking, stretching out his introduction, building the excitement for his TV audience, although the atmosphere at the dig was already as tense as Rachel and Adam could bear. Film of the dig at various stages was being broadcast on the plasma screen next to them as Dalton described the progress that had been made. Rachel saw a picture of the chalk circle taken from a helicopter, then one of the beginning of the tunnel, then a shot of Dalton triumphantly holding up the corroded blade of an ancient sword.

An image of Laura came up on screen from somewhere deep underground. Laura squeezed Rachel’s shoulder, reassuring her that she was by her side. Then, the sequence of the sarcophagus being eased from the tunnel came on to the screen and, once again, Rachel and Adam shuddered simultaneously at the eerie spectacle of the great wooden log being pulled from the ground.

The screen cut back to Dalton live. He spoke in a whisper, “And now the team have informed me that we are ready to open the sarcophagus.”

Together, Rachel and Laura moaned softly.

“We’re about to see what secrets it has been holding, deep under the earth of this village, for, who knows, maybe three thousand years or more. Let’s go…”

Dalton beckoned the camera to follow him and he took the few muddy steps over to where Laura’s colleagues were preparing to open the lid. The four archaeologists surrounding the log looked like surgeons; their hardhat-mounted torches shining down on the wet, black bark.

“We can just see a few signs carved into the log, here,” Dalton said, running his finger over the surface. “If you bring the camera in close we can see what looks like part of the Triskellion symbol carved on the top…”

Watching the plasma screen, Rachel, Adam and Laura, so familiar with the symbol, could clearly make out two intersecting lines gouged deep into the bark. Rachel heard Laura take a sharp intake of breath and hold it, then realized that she herself had been holding her breath for some time.

“OK, people. The moment of truth. Let’s go to work.” Dalton whispered dramatically at his colleagues, as if he were about to lead them into battle.

The archaeologists began to work at a line that ran laterally along the log, obscured from vision by thousands of years of mud and rot. A pair of long levers was put in place at
either end and they began to work the joint open. A small wedge was eased into the gap, then one of the archaeologists began to ratchet up a jack that would force the gap to open wider.

“They’re opening it way too fast,” Laura whispered, her voice panicky. “Let too much oxygen in there too quickly and everything could disintegrate.” Rachel returned the pressure as she felt Laura take her hand and squeeze.

A second jack was applied to the other end and, centimetre by centimetre, a gap began to appear all round the two halves of the log. Rachel stood on tiptoe to see the coffin with her own eyes. There was definitely an opening, where the lid was being lifted from the base.

Dalton kept up a whispering commentary as his team worked at the opening, threading strong nylon webbing under the lid, working quickly but carefully to preserve what was within. A large winch was already in place alongside the trestles on which the coffin was supported, and a chain from the winch swung gently from side to side over their heads. One of the archaeologists attached the webbing to a large hook that hung down from the winch chain.

He gave the signal to pull.

A whisper went through the assembled crowd as one of the archaeologists pulled on the chain. There was silence, until all that could be heard was the rattle and clank of the winch chain as, slowly and steadily, it lifted the lid of the coffin. The massive half of an ancient tree trunk rose slowly into
the glare of the arc-lights, casting a deep black shadow over the archaeologists standing below.

Rachel began to cry.

High up in the oak tree on the green, Gabriel, for the first time in his life, felt hot tears pour down his cheeks.

He could see the coffin clearly in his mind.

He could feel what Rachel was feeling and he whispered over and over again, “Don’t worry, Rachel, this is meant to be. This had to happen. This is just the beginning of our story.” And, as he sent his message out across the blackness, he felt a warm feeling of elation creep through his body, as the coffin was opened to the fresh night air.

Jacob Honeyman sat on the edge of a battered kitchen chair, his nose centimetres from the screen, holding the TV aerial over the set to get a better picture.

The camera edged towards the coffin and Chris Dalton continued his commentary.

“The lid is now off and once the team has made it safe, we can be the first to look inside…”

Honeyman stared at the screen, his mouth falling open.

“So we, the
Treasure Hunters
team, and you, the viewers, will be the first people in thousands of years to— Oh … my … God…”

“Oh, my God,” Honeyman said.

*  *  *

The chatter and clink of glasses in The Star had stopped, and every face was turned to the TV set above the bar.

Celia Root held her hands to her face, barely able to look as the strong light on the camera pushed into the void at the bottom half of the coffin; as its ancient remains were exposed to view.

Blackened, and lying in a shallow pool of dark brown water, two figures were instantly distinguishable, their heads twisted back and their arms entwined.

The image was shocking and real: the bodies decomposed, but as fresh as if they had been buried months, not centuries, before. To the untrained eye, it could have been the scene of a murder rather than a burial.

“This … is … incredible,” Dalton said. “We have not just one, but two bodies here in an absolutely amazing,
amazing
state of preservation. This has got to be a really significant burial. Instantly, we can see that these bodies are clothed in … some kind of woven fabric. At the top here on what looks like a female figure we can see quite a lot of hair, possibly braided … you can just see a bit of gold, or at least a gold coloured, hair ornament here…”

Rachel and Adam could not stand to watch what was happening on the screen any longer, and crept over to where they could see directly into the coffin. Their mouths and eyes widened in wonder as they stared down upon the mortal remains of the figures from their shared visions.

The knight and the maiden.

Dalton’s surgically gloved hand traced out the outline of the female head, mummified and wet as if it were made of old leather.

A twist of dark hair was just visible and a bronze grip held it to the blackened and shrunken ear.

“And if you just look down here…” The presenter pointed to the gnarled arms, twisted together. “You will see something very exciting indeed.”

The camera tightened and revealed a golden glint. A delicate shred of metal, woven between the skeletal fingers of the two bodies.

The third blade of the Triskellion.

G
abriel had been waiting for them the moment the twins left the cottage. The morning was chilly and misty and Gabriel looked as if he were emerging from the vapour at the bottom of the garden path.

“Hello, stranger,” Rachel said. “Where have you been?”

“Oh, I’ve been around, keeping an eye on things,” Gabriel answered.

It was true, Rachel thought, he
had
been around. For the past two days his voice had become stronger and clearer in her head; guiding her and keeping her calm. Instinctively, she knew that the three of them had a date back at the chalk circle.

Their grandmother had been a little subdued over breakfast and looked as if she had not slept well. When Adam had asked her what she made of the discovery at the dig, she had smiled sadly. Had said that, although it was fascinating, some things were best left undisturbed…

Rachel, Adam and Gabriel tramped across the wet moor
into a scene that had changed still further in the two days since the sarcophagus had been opened. The location vans for the TV company stood on the misty horizon like grey blocks of stone and next to them, covering the circle and the surrounding area, a huge polythene tent had gone up to protect the dig from the elements.

It made the area look even more like a “scene of crime”.

There were figures emerging from the tent, and Rachel and Adam stopped dead in their tracks when they realized that the shambling figure wearing a bobble hat, being closely followed by Chris Dalton, was Jacob Honeyman.

They watched as Dalton chatted and patted Honeyman on the back. The two men shook hands, then Dalton handed Honeyman something which he pocketed.