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“If it’s what I think it is, most of them date to the immediate post-Roman period in Britain. But I won’t know for certain until I look at it,” she said cautiously.

Deo smiled with pride. Emily understands the importance of checking the evidence first before making an interpretation. She will make an excellent archaeologist.

“Are those the ruins?” asked Emily excitedly, pointing to the remnants of the stone tower ahead.

*

Emily was so excited she had to stop herself racing ahead like a child. As they approached, she could see the dip in the ground encircling the tower that must be the moat that Lady Ashford spoke of. There were lots of large stone blocks scattered about, half overgrown with creepers and covered in moss, as well as a fragment of wall around the broken tower, with its exposed side open to the weather and showing the staircase within.

“According to the floor plan I found, there were four towers originally, but this is the only one left,” said Lady Ashford.

They poked about a bit, but Emily was anxious to see the cross, and she suspected Deo was, as well, so they headed toward a stand of trees and a rising bit of ground, behind and to the right of the ruins—about, as the viscount said, fifty yards away.

“The bit we uncovered may have got covered up again. It’s been a few months since we did the exploratory dig and a year since we found it originally. That was last summer when we were here with all the children,” said the viscount.

They stopped at the base of the rising ground, which was covered in grass and leaf mulch and was roughly circular and about fifty feet in diameter. Emily clasped her hands, trying to contain her anticipation. “Deo, do you think this could be a burial mound?”

“A burial mound? How thrilling!” said Lady Ashford. “Emrys, here we were tromping all over it like hobgoblins, showing no respect!”

“What would you expect to find if it is?” asked the viscount.

“There could be multiple graves or just one. Or it could be nothing, just a bit of a hump in the ground. But it does look auspicious, I must say. What do you think, Deo?” she prompted him again, worried she was getting ahead of herself.

The viscount continued before Deo could. “When we dug into it, there seemed to be something there. We hit stone with what looked like markings carved into it. That is why Robert wrote to Aberdeen. It seemed like something that should be investigated by people who knew what they were doing instead of us amateurs.”

“I think the first thing we need to do is uncover the cross fully and see what we can learn from that, then we will investigate the mound and any possible contents. Where is the cross?” said Deo.

“At the top of the mound, just under the shadow of that tree.” The viscount pointed to a huge gnarled oak tree looming over the higher ground. The tree seemed to have taken root on the sloping base of the farthest side of the mound toward the east. Its trunk seemed to lean toward the mound, its lower branches brushing the sides of the mound, almost as if it were embracing it.

They walked up the slope and the viscount crouched down to scrabble through the leaf mulch that had accumulated until his fingers scraped against stone and part of the cross re-emerged from the covering of leaves. “There,” he said, rising and standing back to let Emily and Deo have a closer look.

Deo crouched and Emily knelt, while Deo brought out a trowel and a brush from his rucksack. He then scraped away the rest of the mulch and ran over the revealed surface of the cross with the brush to remove the finer fragments of dirt. It took several minutes of careful work to reveal it all.

Emily ran her fingers over the revealed inscription. “I think if we take a rubbing of this, we might be able to make out some of the missing letters. What do you think?” she asked.

Deo nodded. “It should certainly reveal more than we can see with the naked eye.” He withdrew some paper and charcoal from his rucksack, and Emily went to work on the rubbing.

“Before we can excavate the mound, we will need to move the cross,” said Deo, rising to his feet. “I expect it is exceedingly heavy. It will need a few of us to lift it.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem, Deo,” said Emrys. “There are the two of us and Robert, and I believe Kenrick is due today. That should be enough. If Hereward were here, I daresay the two of you could do it between you—he’s a big as you are.”

“Surely the duke wouldn’t want to lift a dirty stone?” queried Emily.

“He wouldn’t miss this for anything,” predicted Emrys with a grin.

Emily went back to her rubbing and soon held it up. “I believe we have something. Deo, look at this.”

Deo got out his spectacles and jammed them on his slightly beaky nose.

“Hic iacet something GYN,” he read. “This next bit is hard to make out. Something starting with a C? And another word starting with a C? Filius WIG something?”

Emily peered over his arm and pointed to the C words. “These must be some kind of title or epithet, wouldn’t you think?”

He nodded. “Yes, I agree. What is a Latin title starting with C?”

“Comes,” they both said at once. Emily grinned and he smiled back. Comes was a Roman military title, which became equated later with the Frankish Count or the Saxons’ Eorl.

“We will check if it fits when we get back to the house and see if we can figure out what the other word is and the conjunction between them,” said Deo, rolling up the rubbing carefully and sliding it into a tube he had brought for the purpose.