Angenga

Chapter 3

Rick walked past the elegant glass entrance of the Hilton Hotel and slowed in front of the more austere facade of the Archaeology Department on Downing Street. Discreet enquiries had led him to choose the Graham Clark Laboratory for Zooarchaeology among the nine laboratory options available.

The premises located, questioning led him to a Dr Esme Drake, an attractive strawberry blonde whose oval face and brown eyes brought their considerable charm upon his person.

Clumsier than usual in the presence of a comely scholar, Rick struggled to explain his query in a lucid manner.

“I have an ivory artefact I’d like to know more about and I would like to conserve it correctly.”

“Yes?” Her gaze was disarming.

“I...um...have it here.” He thrust his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out the handkerchief and lint package. “I’d like to know about its age, cleaning and repair techniques.” He held out his hand to pass her the pendant but she did not take it; instead she was turning away without a word, leaving him feeling foolish with an outstretched hand.

“Gloves,” she said over her shoulder by way of explanation. A drawer opened smoothly from where she took a pair of white cotton gloves and pulled them on. “That’s better,” and her smile revealed a row of perfect white teeth.

Rick felt a frisson of desire course through him and at once felt ashamed. He prided himself on his relationship with the women he encountered, always based on respect and good manners. So why did Dr Esme Drake have this effect on him? After all, he had not met her before. His cheeks burned as he handed the package to her. Carefully unwrapping the object, she held it delicately in her white-gloved hand.

“Excuse me, I’m terrible with names...”

“Rick. Rick Hughes, philology, studying for my doctorate.”

“Pleased to meet you. Do you have any idea what this is?”

“I’d suggest it’s an Anglo-Saxon reliquary pendant.”

“But you’re afraid it might be a modern forgery?”

“I sincerely hope not but that’s partly why I’m here.”

She gestured for him to follow her and led him to a workstation past a woman in a lab coat who was bent over an electronic microscope. On the white Formica top stood a piece of equipment plugged into a wall socket. Dr Drake flicked on a switch and turned to Rick, “First stop, an ultraviolet examination. It’s non-invasive and will reveal whether our pendant is ivory, or not. If it fluoresces bluish-white then we have a positive result.” As she bent over to inspect the outcome, Rick glimpsed her gold filigree earrings. Shaped like a clasp on the outside of a Saxon purse, they pleased him as much as everything else about her.

“See for yourself,” she beckoned as she straightened. “It looks the right colour to me. Not a hint of dull blue, so no plastic content. It could well be walrus tusk but I’ll know better when I’ve cleaned it.” She conducted him to another area, explaining her intention. “It’s so dirty and very fragile, so I’m going to use WA paste.”

“What’s that?” He wouldn’t have asked as he wanted to mask his ignorance but he was concerned for the pendant.

“A near-neutral pH, anionic synthetic surfactant and wetting agent with excellent detergency, emulsifying, and dispersing properties,” she replied coolly, her scientific language increasing his growing feeling of inadequacy. “Best thing for the job.”

She mixed a product from a white bottle in a beaker of mineral water and bathed the artefact in the resulting foamy liquid, agitating it gently. When she was satisfied, she rinsed the pendant and gave him a triumphant grin. “One minute and I’ll dab it dry.” Triumphant, she held it up for him to see the transformation. The dirty cream-yellow was now a resplendent cream-white. The carved figure of Christ seated on a rainbow stood out in clear relief but what interested Rick was the now legible inscription. He reached out to pick up the pendant but her gloved hand closed over it.

“Sorry, you’ll have to wear gloves, Rick. Now, more than ever, it will be susceptible to staining from the natural oils in the human skin.” She tucked her hair behind an ear and stared at him.

“Of course.”

“Over there,” she indicated the drawer from which she had taken hers.

He found a number of transparent plastic packs and chose one marked Large. Impatiently, he ripped open the packaging and put on the contents. Dr Drake passed him the pendant and he murmured, “I was right then.”

Large“What?”

Her head came close to his and he could smell the fragrance of clean shampooed hair.

“It’s Old English. Excuse the pronunciation,” he read without faltering.

“And that means?”

“What is hidden within, release us from sin. Which, I think, confirms that it contained a reliquary.”

What is hidden within, release us from sin“A saint’s toenail?” Was there a hint of mockery?

“Or finger bone or a sliver from the true Cross. We’ll have to inspect the interior.”

“The hinge is set to fall apart on us, I’m not sure we should try.”

“Perhaps not. What about dating it?

Dr Drake sighed, “I’ll be frank with you, Mr...er...can I call you Rick?” She tilted her head and smiled.

er“Please do.”

“It would be a pity to C14 date it here. That would necessarily mean damaging the ivory. With traditional carbon dating, we’d have to remove a sample, dissolve and burn it. There is a new method but it will require a plasma chamber – and we don’t have the equipment.”

“So, where–”

“The Americans were the first to use it. Now there are two places in the UK. Oxford and Fife. I don’t suppose you’ll want to trek up to Scotland?”

“Erm, not if I can slip over to Oxford.”

“Let me make a call.” She reached into her handbag, a fashionable rucksack style, and rummaged around before taking out a cell phone. Halfway through the call, she addressed Rick, “Can you make it to Oxford this afternoon?”

“I can!”

Arrangements concluded, she smiled took a notepad and wrote: Prof Christopher Thomas, Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU) Archaeology Department, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road.

“Chris is a lovely guy, you’ll find him helpful.” She held out a hand, still gloved, Rick took it and met her unwavering gaze.

“I’m so grateful.” Words seemed to fail him in her presence, conscious of her small hand in his.

“You will let me know, Rick, won’t you?”

“Of course, it’s the least...”

“It’s morse, by the way.”

That threw him. What did she mean?

A mischievous smile preceded the explanation, “Morse. The name given to walrus ivory. The tusks likely were from an Atlantic walrus. I’d better not delay you with a long account of how I know, maybe another time?”

Was that hope or a hint in her voice? Rick needed only the slightest excuse to renew his acquaintance with the lovely lady. Reluctantly he let go of her hand, so warm in his, and took his leave.

On the drive home from Oxford early that evening, he thought little about Prof Thomas and very much about Dr Drake. Nonetheless, he was aware of the object nestling in his jacket pocket. He ran over the afternoon’s events again in his mind. The technology behind the plasma extraction 14C analysis involved an electronically-charged gas slowly oxidising the surface of the pendant to produce the carbon dioxide to get the half-life reading. The result gave a date of 650 AD, plus or minus forty years. Rick looked forward to contacting Esme Drake with his news since she had jotted her number on the reverse of the paper with the ORAU address. As he concentrated on the traffic, he smiled at how he had elicited that Prof Thomas was married and that Dr Drake meant nothing to him other than being a respected colleague.

Settling into his armchair, Rick added Dr Drake’s number to his contacts, checked the time and, taking a deep breath, tapped the phone icon.

She answered with the same cool, languid voice of the laboratory and he hastened into a professional description of the analysis and its result.

“So given its provenance, it was almost one hundred years old when it was lost,” he concluded.

“You didn’t tell me where it was found,” she said.

“That’s a long story best told over dinner and you still have to tell me about the walrus.”

“Are you asking me out, Rick?” There it was again, that slight mocking tone. She was ahead of him in her career and he guessed four or five years older. While the former did, the latter did not bother him. Would she turn him down? Nothing ventured...

“To be honest, I’d love to see you again, Dr Drake.”

“On one condition.”

“Yes?”

“You call me Esme – Dr Drake is so formal.”

Luckily she wasn’t there to see his expression and he tried to keep better control of his voice. With considerable effort he became calm, agreeing to the appointment. She ended the call and he found his heartbeat racing. Rick had a string of hearts to his name but no other woman had affected him to this extent. What was it about Dr Esme Drake?

Next on the agenda was an argument with Gary. He was still sore about a non-consensual ingestion of drugs. Had anyone else but Gary played that trick on him, their friendship would have been over. Nobody had the right to interfere with the chemistry of his brain – unless that person was Esme, of course. Anyway, hormones were one thing; psilocin, with its psychedelic effects, quite another. Rick brooded; it was more the principle. After all, he had come to no harm. The strength of their friendship was being tested. When he thought back on their student days together, Rick could not help but smile.

One of his favourite memories was of a canal holiday. They had moored beside a small canal-side pub – he forgot its name – but remembered how they’d entered, desperate for a pint, only to find the place all but abandoned. The sound of a television came from a room behind the bar where someone was watching a soap opera.

“Anyone there?” Gary had bellowed.

“Just a minute, duck.” The voice of an old woman half-drowned by the television drifted through. She waited until the adverts and came slowly to the bar.

“Yes? What can I get you?”

“Two pints of bitter.”

Without a word, the arthritic creature crept to a door at the side of the bar and disappeared downstairs to a cellar.

“She’s eighty if she’s a day,” Gary hazarded.

Rick smiled at the recollection. How they’d felt guilty at her laborious climbing of the stairs with a huge enamelled jug in her hand. He chuckled at the memory of her hurrying to pour the ale so she wouldn’t miss the drama after the adverts. How they’d agonised about whether to ask for another two beers, knowing what it cost her to scale the cellar stairs.

Typical Gary, he’d double-checked on the poor dear and seized the jug before disappearing into the cellar himself and returning with it brimming with beer. Rick would never have done that but it was why they got on so well. They say opposites attract and it’s true of friendships too. Of course, they paid for their beer and Gary even received thanks from the delightful old lady. The pub had been her grandfather’s and as far as they could see, had not changed at all for modernisation. He wondered whether she was alive and whether the pub was still open for business.

When he joined Gary for a beer later that evening, he reminded him of that holiday and the good times they’d shared before tearing into him about the mushrooms. He was pleased that Gary accepted he was at fault, because he couldn’t stand people trying to justify their wrongdoings. Rick explained what he had discovered about the pendant and Gary outlined the plans of Sheffield University for the site. He promised to keep Rick informed. They parted, always friends, with Gary set to return to Louth the next day.

2016 AD

2016 ADThe five years that passed between what Rick later recognised as the two key events that were to revolutionise his life were filled with significant events of their own. Intellectually, he was fulfilled by obtaining his PhD. He was especially pleased with his thesis on the eighth-century poem The Ruin - composed of forty-nine lines, some of which are illegible, and his analysis and reconstruction of the opus. The poem evokes the helplessness at the hands of time and inevitable destruction and decay – an argument close to Rick’s heart.

The Ruin - Emotionally, he was shattered. His wooing of Esme Drake had hit the rocks of careers, hers and his. Whilst he was sure he loved her, she had shied away from commitment, seeking academic fulfilment at Cambridge. Her frustration at not becoming a lecturer and renewed determination to achieve her aim drove her from his arms and into ever deeper research duties. Without the distraction of a girlfriend, Rick’s own explorations had been favoured and his results proved duly brilliant. Was he to follow in her footsteps and try for a lecturer’s post? Could he face the prospect of a life without Esme? These were the dilemmas facing him when the phone call that was to change his life came from Gary.

At the Little Carlton site, nurtured by the Lincolnshire’s Finds Liaison Officer and Gary Marshall, many more metal finds from the plough-zone were recorded which could be dated from the Middle-Saxon period. Gary informed him of each new piece in an increasingly exciting jigsaw puzzle, complemented by the several thousand sherds of both Ipswich ware and continental ceramics. There were also domestic and luxurious items, from whetstones and loom-weights to fragments of glass.

“Rick, we’ve found an important settlement here. This was a community that enjoyed the finer things in life,” Gary could not keep the excitement out of his voice. “Do you know what I discovered last week? A superb glass counter decorated with colourful, twisted strands. It was probably set in a bronze bowl. These people were literate, Rick, I’ve unearthed sixteen stylii in total. Why I’ve rung you is to invite you to the opening of a re-enactment on the site – you can find out about the event on f*******:. It’s a Lincolnshire branch of the Regia Anglorum. They’ve had permission from the landowner to recreate a number of houses on the site. It’s very impressive and they will put on a display for the public next Sunday. Think you can make it?”

Regia AnglorumRick asked for more details of the Lincolnshire group, checked them out on f*******: and rang Gary back to arrange their meeting. Gary would pick him up at Lincoln station for the drive to Louth on Saturday. Rick did not own a car. He could reach everywhere by bicycle in Cambridge and the city was well connected by public transport.

In the car during the thirty-mile drive to Louth, Gary expanded on developments at Little Carlton.

“I’ve found a number of coins, mostly sceattas, spanning 680-790 AD, though there were several broad pennies showing occupation of the site into the third quarter of the 9th century.”

“That would be the time of Viking raids,” Rick mused, “I wonder...”

Gary continued, “We’ve made a detailed map of my finds and there’s a clear cluster of Middle Saxon material tucked tightly where the medieval parish church of St Edith once stood. The fork of two rivers marks the limit of artefacts to the north. My finds diminished rapidly to the south, once I moved beyond the road. As I explored these patterns further, several unusual aspects of the landscape began to make more sense, Rick. My signals dropped off as I moved further from the road. Our survey of the landscape revealed that it was not only the number of discoveries that was becoming lower as we looked south but also the level of the land itself.”

Rick was interested, “Do you think the two might be linked?”

“Analysis of the names of these ‘unproductive’ southern fields, as recorded on 19th-century maps, suggests that they might be. In 1820, these areas were known as ‘Little Fen’ and ‘Horse Fen’, suggesting low-lying marshy land unsuited to settlement. This might explain why we found no sign of occupation – even though today the fields are dry, having been drained by post-medieval farmers to reclaim the land for agricultural use.”

“Of course,” Rick knew enough about land reclamation in the area.

“To the north, at the meeting of two rivers where finds also petered out, we found another marshy field-name: ‘Engine Fen’. The land that these fields surround – which saw the focus of our finds, and later housed the parish church and post-medieval manor house – was noticeably higher. I believe it must have once created a habitable island rising out of the medieval marsh.”

“An island? It would explain why the people chose the site and if you are right, Gary, why they were reasonably wealthy and educated. They would have been safe there. So what do you think? A monastery or a trading centre?”

“Or both?”

“Could be. I’m looking forward to seeing this re-enactment.”

They spent the rest of the trip talking about the growing enthusiasm nationwide for re-enactments of the past.

After a comfortable night in Gary’s house, his host in a dressing gown greeted Rick with, “Come on, old pal, time to get dressed. Your costume is on the chair,” he waved a hand at a pile of clothes.

“Costume?”

“Didn’t I tell you? We’re taking part in the event. More fun than just watching. So get a move on or we’ll be late for the organising.”

Rick slipped out of bed and examined the garments. It did not take long to work out the sequence of dressing even if he felt peculiar in an Anglo-Saxon tunic, breeches and shoes laced up with thongs. He scrutinised himself in a full-length mirror and brandished an imaginary sword. The effect was striking and he really looked the part. As an afterthought, he went to his jacket and pulled out the reliquary pendant. He had fed a leather thong through the hole at the top to wear it around his neck on some special occasion. What better than at an Anglo-Saxon re-enactment? He slipped the thong over his head and let the pendant slip under the neck of his tunic until it lay in the hollow of his chest.

“I’m ready!”

“Me too!” Gary stepped out of his room.

“You look more Saxon than me, pal,” Rick smiled and for devilment said, “It’s time, let’s go,” but he said it in Old English.

“What?”

“Some Saxon you are! You can’t even speak our language.”

“Humph! It’s time to go.”

“That’s what I said, didn’t I?”

With just over one hundred inhabitants Little Carlton possessed few houses, but Gary drove past the buildings and followed a sign for the re-enactment into a field where other cars were parked. What stranger sight than to see two Saxons getting out of a Ford Fiesta!

“This way.” Gary led his friend to a five-barred gate giving access into another field. Rick trudged behind with an unsettling sensation of déjà-vu but did not say anything about it to Gary. As they strode up a small rise, he heard the sound of voices and laughter. The pleasant aroma of wood smoke wafted down to him, coming from the three houses made of wood and escaping from holes in turf-covered roofs.

“The houses look like what we’ve been taught is the real thing.”

“Wait till you see inside,” Gary remarked.

In the first house, two women with headscarves held in place with headbands were cooking a delicious smelling soup. They were dressed in simple undyed woollen dresses they had made from cloth they had woven themselves, “Just like Anglo-Saxon women,” they both said with pride. In truth it was too dark for Rick to appreciate their handiwork, so he excused himself and ducked outdoors to look around the rest of the small site.

The re-enactors surprised him with their dedication and knowledge of the period. Tired of chatting and feeling more than ever unsettled, he wandered to the edge of the field to be alone for a few minutes. His head was aching and beginning to spin a little. The thought occurred that he might be ailing. In an unconscious gesture, he plunged his hand inside his tunic and fingered the pendant.

At once, the strangest sensation of dizziness overcame him. The air around him vibrated and whirled. Would he be swept off his feet? The trees behind him blurred green as they spun and the air became opaque like a steamed-up mirror. Then the ‘mirror’ cracked and the gap created widened while all else swam around. But the scene within was firm and well-defined, while the outer, opaque part, swirled like an impenetrable fog. Desperate to flee from the inexplicable mist, Rick stepped boldly on the reassuringly solid turf and that was when he blacked out, and the uncertainty and terror of an epoch far from the present became an ominous reality.