Page 47

“Yes, most likely.” Deo squatted beside the edge of the depression. “I think the space was dug out to lay the body in and a wooden lid placed over the top, most of which has disintegrated, and other debris has fallen in on top.”

He glanced around the chamber. The floor was uneven, and a layer of debris covered everything. The shapes he had seen from outside as he’d looked in from the entry, resolved themselves as blocks of stone that seemed to have fallen from the roof. Or perhaps they were just leftovers not used by the builders. He couldn’t see any gaps in the roof where stone could have fallen from. The stone they had put back into place the other day plugged the only gap he could see.

“What shall we do first?” asked Em.

“Fetch your sketch pad. We should record everything, including measurements. I have a leather measure for that, with string for long stretches. Come on, the others will be busting to know what we are seeing.” He headed back to the entrance, trailed by Em.

The duke, the duchess, and the Ashfords had gathered round the entrance, looking down into the hole from above. Deo addressed them. “We have found what we think is the burial, a depression in the ground. Pass down Em’s sketchbook and pencils and my measuring tape—it’s the leather coil—and also the ball of string on the wooden spindle. Once we have recorded the basics, we will start excavating the burial.”

“Is there room for the rest of us down there?” asked the duke.

“It will be a bit crowded, but yes, I suppose. Hand down the stepladder for the ladies.”

At this point a “Hoi!” from further afield brought Deo’s head around, as Kenrick hove into view with Bidenden. The latter appeared no worse for wear from his ordeal, he had apparently only sustained bruising.

“Thought we’d come and see how you were faring,” said Kenrick with a grin.

“Deo says we’ve found the burial, but we will have to excavate it yet to find out what is in it,” said the duke. “We were just about to pop down and have a look.”

With the addition of the two men, it was agreed they would come down in pairs. So, the duke and duchess came down first, and the duke helped Deo with the measurements while the duchess recorded them, and Em sketched the interior of the burial chamber.

“I should have thought to sketch the entrance before we removed the lintel,” she said.

“Can you do it from memory?” asked Deo, stretching his leather measure along the long side of the burial depression.

“I can try, but it won’t be as accurate.”

With the preliminaries taken care of, the duke and duchess vacated for the viscount and his lady, who brought down with them the digging tools and an extra lamp.

The viscountess clutched her husband’s hand and shivered. “I don’t know what it is, but tombs always give me the shudders.”

“The ghoulies won’t get you, Annis, I won’t let them,” said Emrys, putting an arm around his wife’s waist.

She smiled up at him fondly and said, “I know, it’s all nonsense. I shouldn’t be afraid.”

Emrys kissed her forehead and Deo looked away at this blatant display of affection, even as he wondered if he and Emily would ever behave like that.

“So can we help?” asked Emrys, coming to crouch down by Deo who was kneeling on one side of the depression. Em was in position on the other side.

“Not with the digging, old chap, but you could pass up the buckets of debris we pull out for the ladies to sieve through.”

“Happy to,” said Emrys with cheerful agreement. The viscountess went back up to join the duchess with the sieving, and Emrys passed the buckets of debris up to the duke. Kenrick and Bidenden clambered down to have a brief look at operations, and Deo was annoyed to see Bidenden crouch down by Em and speak to her. As Kenrick and Emrys were having a conversation at that point right beside him, he couldn’t hear what Bidenden and Em were saying. But Em nodded at his ribs, as if asking him how he did. He seemed to make light of it and ask something to do with her sketchbook, because she held it out to show him some of the pictures in it.

Deo clenched his teeth and, restraining his dog-in-a-manger instincts, forced himself to look away from them and pay attention to the conversation going on next to him. Shortly after that, Kenrick and Bidenden withdrew, and Deo was able to relax and concentrate on the job at hand.

Many so-called excavators were nothing more than grave robbers in Deo’s opinion, their methods rough and ready, looking only for the most valuable items and oblivious to the historical data to be gleaned from careful, painstaking clearance of a tomb. He was not of their number. He believed that good records and careful removal were essential to recovering and preserving as much of the find and its historical significance as possible. Therefore, he and Em took their time removing the debris in layers with small trowels and checking each trowel’s contents with a quick sort of the fingers, before dumping it in the buckets.

An hour later they had got through the debris layer and the fragments of wood from the lid and that was when the real finds began to reveal themselves.

“Deo?” Em’s excited tone made him look up from his careful sifting of a trowel full of dirt in which he thought he had detected a faint glint of gold. “Look!” said Em, pointing with her trowel at something. She picked up her brush and dusted it over the object. She was working at the western end of the grave and he at the eastern end, nearest the entrance.

He kneed up closer to see what she was working on, and as she brushed, something green-tinged began to emerge. At first a round knob and then, surrounding it, a convex disk of metal about nine or ten inches in diameter revealed itself. The outer rim of the disk was layered with a strip in which hints of a design were visible through the green corrosion on the object.

“It’s a bronze shield-boss, I think,” she said excitedly. “Of Celtic design, you can see a hint of the knot work in the outer strip.” She looked up at him, her face alight with joy at the discovery. “Oh, this far exceeds anything I thought we would find!”

He grinned as delighted as she. This is what we went through all that pain for, and it was worth every minute of it!

The viscount climbed back down with an empty bucket at that moment. “You’ve found something?”