Red Horse Vale

Chapter 4

FOUR

BROADWAY, WORCESTERSHIRE COTSWOLDS, 2020 AND 590 AD

Jake strolled along the pavement of the High Street, a wide avenue that lived up to the village name of Broadway. He wended his way past the honey-coloured stone buildings and thatched pubs, idly glancing in the windows until he reached an antique shop. There, a familiar sensation, a dull ache, appeared on his forehead, above and between his eyes. He had come to realise that this feeling of a ‘third eye’ was an indicator of psychic awareness and should not be ignored; this, together with a natural compulsion for looking at antiques meaning he simply couldn’t brush aside a visit, drove him to enter the shop.

“Good day, sir, can I be of assistance?” A well-spoken man in his fifties with the aged skin of a heavy smoker greeted him.

“I’d just like to look around if that’s alright?”

“Please be my guest.”

Startled, Jake almost cringed away as he turned towards a bronze eagle, its wings outstretched and beak half-open. How could anyone live with such an aggressive-looking object in their lounge? He went past a gilded Buddha, legs crossed underneath him, hands cupped in its lap in meditation, altogether a more relaxing, peaceful statue. Just beyond, on a small table, was a polished walnut box, its lid held open by a shiny brass slide hinge.

Curious, Jake peered inside and saw a collection of small, different-coloured velvet bags. On top of one bag lay a carved bone. He picked it up and held it in his palm, turning it with his other hand. He recognised the bone as a sheep vertebra. Etched into it and painted black for good contrast was an Anglo-Saxon rune. From behind him, the suave voice said, “It’s reproduction, of course, but rather finely done, wouldn’t you say? It’s one of a set, the first six sounds of the fifth-century futhorc; the others are in the red bag.”

Jake removed the red bag, revealing a somewhat shabbier bone nestling alone in the bottom of the box. As his fingers closed over it, a sharp pain to his brow transformed at once into the familiar ache in the usual place to warn him of the object’s importance. He feigned nonchalance, studying it in his palm.

“Ah, that!” said the man. “I can’t remember where it came from. It probably arrived with sundry bric-a-brac, clay pipes, you know the sort of rubbish. Since there’s a rune carved into it, I put it in the box with the others.”

“Yes,” said Jake, trying to conceal his excitement, “it’s the haegl rune, the equivalent of our letter aitch.” Have I said too much? This is an original Saxon rune carved in a deer knuckle bone. It should be in a museum. I must have it.

“I see you’re quite an expert, sir.”

“Well, I’m interested in all things Anglo-Saxon, and my wife is an archaeology professor.”

“If it interests you, sir, I’ll throw it in free with the set of runes.”

Jake pretended indifference. “Oh, I don’t know. How much do you want for the set?”

“Well, they are particularly well-crafted. I can’t let them go for less than twenty pounds.”

“That seems fair enough.” Jake turned his attention to the red bag and handed over a banknote from his clip.

“Shall I put this in with the others, sir?” The shopkeeper handled the Saxon rune with indifference bordering on disdain.

“Please do.”

“I wonder if I could interest you in our collection of antique jewellery, sir? Something for the lady prof, perhaps?”

Jake followed him to a glass-topped counter where the dealer unrolled a velvet holdall to reveal a sparkling collection of exquisite accessories. His eye was taken immediately by an ornamental pin in the form of a dragonfly. He pointed. “That’s lovely.”

“You have excellent taste, sir. It’s Art Nouveau. It features opal set in fourteen-carat gold. As with the others, it comes with a guarantee of authenticity.”

“And with commensurate price, I imagine.”

The shopkeeper unpinned it from the velvet and, turning the pin over, squinted at the miniscule price, written in black ink on a tiny sticker. “Seven hundred forty-nine, ninety-five, sir.”

“Worth every penny,” Jake said. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll go for a walk and think it over. I wasn’t really planning on so much expenditure this month.”

“By all means, sir. You know where to find it.”

Outside the shop, Jake dismissed the idea of purchasing the dragonfly pin since there was no guarantee that Heather would like it as much as he. He remembered his real reason for coming to this part of the Cotswolds. His cursory reading of the guidebook in his rucksack had mentioned St Eadburgha’s Church. The name had leapt off the page at him because this Saxon saint was the granddaughter of King Alfred the Great. He determined at once to visit the building. That was his hobby and one purpose for their holiday. The church stood down a country lane, where the village once lay, along a trail used by travellers coming down off the Cotswolds escarpment. With time, the villagers deserted the church and moved to the present settlement, leaving the religious edifice in isolation.

As he approached, Jake admired the aesthetically pleasing form of the warm-coloured stone tower. Twelfth-century, definitely. Although there had been a church on the spot in the Saxon period, if he had hoped to find any trace, he was disappointed. However, he wasn’t dissatisfied by his visit. He loved the open, peaceful feel of the nave, with its thick Norman columns and wide arcade arches.

Idly, he wandered to a table at the back of the church and skimmed through a leaflet explaining the features of the building. It mentioned the fragments of medieval stained glass in the chancel windows and pointed out the carved faces and foliage on the wooden wall-plate beneath the roof. He might well have missed them without this mention, but what really caught his eye was a reference to other churches named after St Eadburgha in the area. There was one in nearby Ebrington. He glanced at his watch. It wasn’t too late to drive over and pay it a visit.

He parked next to the village green and found a footpath just off it with a signpost indicating the church. Turning his back on the pretty houses of Ebrington to take the path, he followed it to the highest point of the village where the short, sturdy tower, almost entirely encircled by trees, reigned supreme over the settlement.

He entered by the south door, so taken by the three rows of Norman chevrons over it that, eyes raised to the splendid tympanum, he walked straight past the only Saxon artefact the church could boast.

He entered the building, and the first thing he saw was the thirteenth-century font, raised on a plinth. He admired its seven fine carved panels, each containing a rose symbol. All thoughts of the Saxon period left his head as he gazed at the exceptional chancel tomb dedicated to Sir John Fortescue, who had been Lord Chief Justice to Henry VI. He snapped some photos of the painted effigy and decided it had been worth coming to St Eadburgh’s just to see the tomb.

But that consideration came before he returned to the south porch. He stared at the lidless stone coffin in amazement. How had he missed it? Surely, judging by the crudely hollowed out interior and thick sides, this was Saxon. He sat on the edge of the coffin and groped inside his backpack for his guidebook, for confirmation, but his hand closed over the soft velvet bag. He couldn’t resist taking it out for another peek at the haegl rune. As his fingers closed around the object, the dislocation occurred.

Sixth-century AD

Jake gazed around him in disbelief. He was no longer sitting on a coffin near the blackened oak door in a stone-built porch but found himself standing in a wooden entrance. What was that sound? Chanting? He stared in the direction of the mournful lament. He peered out at a different scene – there were no trees where trees had been, wooden crosses stood where weathered stone monuments had recorded the dead. A slow procession of men and women approached lamenting the deceased – who was it? – within the lidded coffin borne on the shoulders of four sturdy Saxons. He stood to one side to let them pass, but they showed no sign of having noticed his presence and continued, with their followers all chanting the dirge, into the church. He trailed them into the simple building, constructed of oak beams and trusses, watched them deposit the coffin in front of a man, in simple clothes, with no sign of priestly vestments. Jake thrilled at the thought that he was somehow ‘witnessing’ one of the earliest Christian funeral services in the history of England. All his knowledge of the period led to this thought: This must be the sixth-century – fifteen hundred years ago!

The priest began to intone in Old English, and while Jake could distinguish one or two words, he could not understand much of the service. One word he did identify because the priest continued to repeat it while pointing significantly at the sarcophagus. He understood it to be the name of the deceased – a certain Stoppa. Never heard of him, I’ll have to chase him up in my history books.

Fascinating as the experience was, Jake didn’t feel like staying to the end. He turned, unobserved, left the church and made his way among the wooden crosses in the graveyard. Only then did he realise he was still clutching the deer bone in his hand. He placed his rucksack on the grass, took out the little red bag and dropped the rune into it. A dislocation happened once more. The daylight itself changed to a brighter sky and gone were the wooden crosses.

2020 AD

He turned to see the thirteenth-century church of mellow stone, spun round and looked down over the lovely thatched cottages of Ebrington to the northeast. Only as he re-established cognition of ‘the real world’ did he ask himself, Could the Saxons hear me, could they see me? He wasn’t sure of the answer but tended to think they could not and dwelt on what had happened. Somehow the rune acted as a key to triggering his retrocognition of the sixth century – psychometry. But he was sure it had interacted with the stone coffin. Without the effect of that artefact, he doubted he would have glimpsed the past. Understanding his gift made him realise it was never pointless. There must be a purpose underlying this excursion in time, so he would most certainly look into who this Stoppa character was. For some reason, he was important. Jake felt better than he had for some time: the thrill of investigating the past was upon him again.