Time Enough To Die (21 page)

And yet, Gareth thought, she'd told him every detail of last night's vision, confident she could prove its truth. And she would prove it. It was no longer Matilda's intuition that was irritating, but his growing trust in it.

"Ah, March!” Howard Sweeney was seated in a lawn chair atop the fort, looking like a pharaoh overseeing his slaves. “Are we making any progress?"

At least six students and Ted Ionescu were well within earshot. Gareth answered, “That's for you to say. I'm merely writing up your results."

"And you'll do a smashing job of it, I'm sure. Matilda!"

Matilda emerged from the Miller trench. “Yes, Howard?"

"Are the group leaders doing their paperwork properly?"

"Ashley, Bryan, Manfred,” called Matilda. “Are you doing your paperwork properly?"

"Yes—no problem—
jawohl,"
they answered in chorus.

She gave Sweeney a look that would have withered a rhinoceros. “Anything else I can do for you?"

"No, no, carry on,” he replied with a wave of his hand. “Ted...."

Ionescu sprang to attention.

Matilda disappeared. Gareth followed her into the cool, damp shadows of the ravine. “A pity Sweeney's not the one got the concussion,” he said.

"His offensiveness is a shield,” she replied, “and a darn good one at that. I remember thinking when I first met him, at a conference in Boston six or seven years ago, how little of the real man I could sense through the bravado. I suspect he's protecting something rather small and raw inside. Many hard-working, ambitious people are."

"Right,” Gareth told her, not about to touch that one. “Did you tell Sweeney about—about what you saw last night?"

"More or less. He'll take me seriously when he sees the evidence."

"That's good police procedure. Where shall we start?"

Matilda pointed to a column drum lying just free of the muddy side of the trench, about ten feet from the pit left by the thieves. She'd used string and stakes to mark off a small area behind it. “There. The cellar treasury is on the other side of the foundation wall from the Mithraeum. I'm sure the balk—the trench wall—was originally vertical. Miller was a good archaeologist for his time. But sixty years of erosion and inquisitive feet have broken off the soil at the top and let it accumulate at the bottom."

"In other words, the wall's at enough of a slant we can cut into its base without bringing its top down on our heads."

Matilda took a notebook and measuring tape from her pocket and began taking measurements of the Mithraeum. “You did a nice job cleaning this up."

"Thank you.” Gareth dug carefully into the compacted dirt, keeping the sides straight and the slope above cleared. Every time he spotted so much as a chip of stone or a coin he beckoned Matilda, who rushed forward with her notebook, a collecting box, and a label.

He should be interviewing Dunning and Emma, Gareth told himself. He should be keeping an eye on the travelers. The dig was taking too much of his time and energy. And yet the dig was the focus of the case.... His shovel scraped against stone. “Matilda, here's a whacking great rock."

He stepped aside and took off his jacket. The sun peeked over the rim of the trench and struck silver in Matilda's hair. She scraped at the stone with her trowel and then stood back, brows knit with concentration. Her body moved with fluid precision. Her stance was straight and yet balanced. She made the Queen seem awkward.

Gareth had worried at first that his sudden physical attraction to her was a result of the celibate life he'd led recently. But half the girls on the dig were prettier than Matilda—and, he suspected, more readily available—and he felt only a distant appreciation for them. He valued self-possession in a woman, and Matilda was nothing if not self-possessed....
Not now,
Gareth told himself.

Matilda glanced up, catching his eye, and he felt like a little boy caught out with his hand in a sack of sweets. Her smile humored his appetite even as her words modeled patience. “This is the foundation wall of the temple, all right. The smaller Roman stones above it have been robbed out—half the town is built from them. Let's break for lunch, and afterward we'll get several of the kids down here and go in over the top of the stone."

Over the top,
Gareth repeated silently. That seemed appropriate.

Sweeney was in fine form during lunch, cleverly disparaging friends, Romans, and countrymen alike, his comments interspersed with no doubt important calls on his cell phone. After the meal, he sent Ionescu back with the students whilst he went to his room to have a nap.

By the time he re-appeared at the dig the entire student body was crowded round the trench. Three mud-spattered boys leaned on their shovels and Gareth perched precariously on a column drum taking pictures. Matilda herself knelt in the cool, oozing gash cut into the side of the trench, Ashley handing her trowels and dental picks like a nurse aiding a surgeon.

"What's all this in aid of?” Sweeney asked.

"Another inscription,” replied Ionescu. “She went straight to it. Dead brilliant, if you ask me."

"I didn't ask you.” Sweeney limped back and forth, trying to get a better view. “Matilda, come out of there and give me a report."

Gareth smothered his grin as Matilda looked upward, her expression sweet as an angel's. “Howard! How nice to have you back! Here's the monogram on the rock. Do you want to tell the students about it, or shall I?"

"Please, carry on.” Sweeney plopped down in his lawn chair.

"This bit of masonry,” said Matilda, “was once the coping stone of a stairway. See the steps, still in place?"

Everyone crowded forward.

"The stone was rolled over, its original face turned down, probably to hide the monogram scratched on it. This means, ironically, that the monogram is in perfect condition, its edges sharp and its surface not weathered."

"If it was inside the temple,” Bryan said, “it'd be protected."

"Yes, you're right. The monogram might have sat face up for any number of years before the temple was abandoned. More likely, though, the stone was turned over while it was new. The Romans were tolerant of most religions, but not Christianity. Because the Christians refused to believe in the divinity of the emperor, and so were a political threat."

Gareth visualized the scene, Claudia and Branwen comparing gods as poor Marcus went about drilling the troops or inspecting bridle bits or mucking out latrines—well no, he was an officer, officers didn't muck.

"At first glance this is a chi-rho symbol,” Matilda went on. “The Greek letter ‘chi', which looks like an ‘x', superimposed on a ‘rho', which looks like a capital ‘p', making ‘Ch-r', the first letters in ‘Christ'. This is why we shorthand ‘Christmas’ to ‘X-mas', by the by. What is especially interesting about this particular symbol, though, is these three little lines to the right of the vertical stem. If you see the letter not as a Greek ‘rho’ but as a Latin ‘p', the lines make an ‘e', giving you ‘Pe’ for the apostle Peter. To whom Christ said, ‘I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven'. Looks like a key, doesn't it?"

Everyone oohed and aahed understanding.

"It's a nice little bit of code for a time of persecution. Historians have found this monogram on dishes, games, manuscripts, tombstones, all sorts of items. But only when it was found on the actual tomb of Peter beneath St. Peter's basilica in Rome did anyone realize its significance."

Sweeney cleared his throat loudly. “And there you are, class, today's lesson in semiotics. If you have time whilst you're in Britain you can view the Christian mosaics at Lullingstone and Hinton St. Mary."

"Semiotics?” Manfred asked. The English-speakers looked just as puzzled.

"The study of symbols,” stated Ashley, with a peculiar little frown.

"Quite so. Let's get to it, there are other interesting bits to uncover, I'm sure.” Sweeney turned to Ionescu. “Ted, work up a way to give partial credit to the students who buggered off. I don't want to get pathetic letters from their advisors pleading extenuating circumstances."

"I can use the same system we've used for the adult education students,” Ionescu said. “They're always coming and going—lorry drivers, housewives, that lot."

"Yes, yes, that would be splendid.” Sweeney's jacket trilled. He pulled out his mobile phone and began a long, rambling conversation about nothing in particular, so far as Gareth could tell.

The students filtered back to their groups. Gareth stepped down from the column and made a mental note never to take an adult education course from Howard Sweeney.

Ashley handed Matilda her tools. “That's really cool."

"Pretty cool of you to know about semiotics,” Matilda returned.

"Oh, well—I just saw a textbook the other day.... “Ashley skipped upward and made shooing motions at her group.

Matilda sat down on what had once been the top step of the stairway, her hands folded in her lap. Gareth propped his foot on a handy rock and started to change the film in the camera. He hoped she wasn't expecting a formal apology from him. He was wrong, she was right, and nothing he could say about her skills could add anything to the sentiment he'd shown her Sunday night.

She wasn't paying any attention to him. Her face was intense, as though listening to something a long way away. Her entire body tilted forward. Super—she was doing it again, leaning over a temporal garden fence to join Branwen and Claudia and their gossip of imaginary deities....

"It's there,” Matilda said.

Gareth jumped. “What?"

"Gold. The treasury was filled in. See the rubble at the foot of the staircase? Only one puny little bit of gold is still there, right at the edge. The rest was taken away a long time ago. This ground hasn't been disturbed in a long, long time. Unfortunately, we've now opened it up to thieves and vandals. Let's see if we can beat them at their own game without committing too much archaeological mayhem."

"Right.” Gareth reassembled the camera, put the used roll of film in his pocket, and picked up his shovel. “Where?"

He used his shovel and she her trowel, opening a narrow shaft where the rubble fill met the foundation stone. They paused every so often to take pictures, draw sketches, and make measurements. The sun moved on and the ravine plunged into shadow. The students’ voices drifted down from the surface, punctuated by a few brief, harsh caws as Reynolds had another shufti round his property. Gareth tensed, preparing to throw his body protectively over the new discoveries. But with a casual glance and wave down the trench the landowner left again, Sweeney's greasy courtesies easing him on his way.

Unlike Reynolds to show so little interest, Gareth thought. And he hadn't stopped by at all yesterday. He must know he was on the short list of suspects.

At last Matilda stretched out full length on the muddy stone and reached down into the hole with her trowel. Gareth craned this way and that, but her head was in the way and the hole was dark.... No it wasn't. Something glimmered in the shadow, in Matilda's hands.

She sat up, gently buffing a twisted bit of wire on her shirt. It was a torc, a small simple one, squashed out of shape. Beneath its coating of dirt it gleamed the red-gold of the setting sun. “That's magic,” Gareth breathed. He reached out, wanting to feel its warm gleam on his fingertips.

"Wow!"

Gareth snapped his hand into a fist and spun round to see Ashley watching them.

"Dr. Sweeney called quitting time fifteen minutes ago,” the girl explained. “Everyone's already gone back, but I thought maybe you didn't hear. That's gold, isn't it? Cool."

Matilda levered herself up on Gareth's shoulder and tucked the torc inside her shirt. “Don't tell anyone about this, Ashley. Nothing draws thieves and vandals faster than gold."

"Don't worry,” Ashley returned. “I can keep a secret."

Gareth took a few more photos of the area, hoping there was enough light, and escorted the women across the street and into the hotel. With more than one curious backward look Ashley went into her own room. Matilda knocked at Sweeney's door.

The professor threw it open. “Ah, Dr. Gray, what a positively brilliant lecture you presented. So you succeed again. How very convenient to have an extra sense over and beyond the five allotted to mere mortals."

Matilda produced the torc.

With a gasp, Sweeney snatched it up. “Lovely. Absolutely lovely. Are there any more—Snettisham, you know....

"This seems to be the only one,” Matilda told him. “You realize we have to keep this quiet."

"No, no, my dear—we want to draw the thieves out. You'll agree with me, Inspector March."

"We have to keep it quiet,” Gareth said. “You and Caterina got off lightly the last time, when the thief was after only a rumor of treasure. Now that there's actually been treasure found, he'll be at the dig with a squad of navvies and a bulldozer."

"Yes, well, I suppose you're the expert on criminals.” Sweeney rooted among the books and boxes piled on the bedroom furniture—his room was even nicer than Matilda's, Gareth noted—and found a cardboard box just big enough for the torc. He nestled it on a bed of cotton wool, wrote out a label, and taped down the lid. “Here, Inspector. If you'd be so kind as to hand this in at the police station. I've already sent Ted back to Manchester, more's the pity, or he could have carried it to the lab for cleaning. But all in good time, all in good time."

Gareth tucked the parcel beneath his arm. He and Matilda walked down the hall, round the corner, and through the fire doors to her room. She was frowning all the way. “Tuppence for your thoughts?” he asked once they were safely inside her door.

"No thoughts, really. I'm just aggravated at Howard. His ego is more inflated every day. He'll take all the credit when this case is over, mark my words."

"If there's any credit to be taken,” Gareth said darkly.

"You don't think we'll catch the bad guys, do you?"

"I wonder if Sweeney wasn't right, if we shouldn't blow the gaff about the torc, let Reynolds have a go at the dig."

"That would be a difficult situation to control."

"We're not in control of the situation now, Matilda. All we're doing is lying doggo beside the waterhole, hoping a tiger will come to drink."