ground exchange heating now that there was known to be treasure beneath.
‘Buried gold,’ Selwyn murmured. ‘Who knows, Amos, you might just have got even richer.’
‘Probably not, under the 1996 Treasure Act,’ Amos retorted. But that they should be even discussing this sharpened the sense that an unwelcome change was coming to Mead.
Another car wound its way towards them and yet another archaeologist emerged, bearing a licence from the Ministry of Justice to allow the human remains to be excavated. A copy of it was formally pinned to the door of the Portakabin. Amos read the licence and gave a curt, unwilling nod to acknowledge that, for now at least, he would have to agree to a suspension of work. It was clear that there would be no more progress on the site for the time being, so the builders packed up and went home. The police lingered long enough for the osteologist who had arrived in the van to assure them personally that the uncovered bones were hundreds of years old, then they folded their double bulk back into their patrol car and drove away.
The bearded field supervisor introduced himself as Christopher Carr. He promised that as soon as his team had had a chance to make a first assessment of the finds, Mr Knight would be informed. In the meantime, it was important that the excavation be conducted methodically in order that no vital information or clues were lost in the process, and they would understand that, wouldn’t they? His young assistant, Kieran, had acted correctly in calling a temporary halt to the site work. He thanked Amos for his cooperation.
‘When can we have a look?’ Katherine asked him, then glanced away, as if she suspected it had been in some way wrong of her to ask.
‘As soon as there is anything interesting to see,’ Christopher told her. ‘But I would be grateful if for the time being you wouldn’t mention the find to anyone at all outside this group. Sightseers and the press are never helpful on the scene until we are ready for them.’
Amos struck his forehead quite hard with the heel of his hand.
Katherine and Polly left the site to go back to the house and make sandwiches, but Miranda found that she couldn’t leave the site while so much of Mead’s unimagined history was being uncovered. The archaeologists moved in and out of their tent, watched by Miranda and the others from their picnic place. They could hear the metallic clink of trowels. Bags and buckets filled with spoil were brought out, and a young woman with dreadlocks longer than Kieran’s knelt to sift the loose earth through a sieve.
Amos ate smoked salmon sandwiches and loudly fumed about the delay, until Miranda snapped at him.
‘It’s my land too. My home for twenty years, Jake was born here. Can’t you acknowledge that whatever is lying in that trench might have at least a comparable importance to your house?’
At once Amos put his big hand on hers. ‘Of course, Mirry. I do apologize. How thrilling for Mead if this does turn out to be a major discovery. But I don’t think you’ve quite got the hang of what a disruption it may turn out to be.’
‘Let’s wait and see, shall we?’ Miranda said quietly. Colin lay back and seemed to fall asleep.
At the end of the afternoon, Kieran came out of the tent and crossed to where they still waited. His face was flushed under the faint pockmarks.
‘Would you like to come and take a look?’
They got to their feet and followed him.
Within the white tent, sheltered from the wind that had got up, it was warmer and surprisingly still. The fabric rippled and snapped with small popping sounds. The pleasantly diffused light coupled with the strong scent of trampled grass was reminiscent of a garden fête or agricultural show. The archaeologists were lined up beside their trench, mostly with their hands folded, looking downwards like proud but modest exhibitors. A photographer’s tripod and camera stood in place at one end of the tent.
Miranda looked down and caught her breath.
The earth had been cleared partially to expose the skeleton. It was dark, discoloured and broken, but still shockingly human. It lay on its left side, the legs bent up towards the chest and the forearms extended. Earth filled the collapsed ribcage and crusted the pelvic bowl. The skull was tilted at an angle, the eye sockets blinded with dirt and the jaw with a rim of teeth seeming to grin into infinity.
Two feet away from it lay a second skull, much smaller, and the ribs of a young child.
Only when she had taken this in did she see that resting between the jaw of the larger skeleton and the framework of its ribcage lay a band that once would have circled the neck. To the side of the body, the curved edge of metal that Colin had glimpsed had been further exposed. It looked like the edge of a large plate. A raised pattern that might have been part of a scroll or leaf design was just visible.
Stillness spread outwards and seemed to press against the nylon walls and roof of the tent, where the wind chafed.
At Miranda’s side, Colin remembered Stephen’s funeral in the village on the edge of the Yorkshire moorland, and the priest and the mourners gathered at the edge of the open grave as handfuls of earth thudded on to the coffin lid. He raised his head now in an attempt to blot out the memory, searching along the line of silent people as if he hoped to see a priest amongst them.
He was not a religious man, but he would have liked to hear some words of blessing or a simple prayer spoken over these bones.
The first person to break the silence was Christopher Carr. His voice was low and they had to listen to catch his words.
‘This is an important discovery,’ he said. ‘Perhaps very important. We have a rich burial here, probably dating from the later Iron Age. We may be looking at a prince, a tribal leader at least, who was buried with his symbols of rank and power and provisions for the afterlife.’
‘What about the child?’ Katherine asked. This time she looked directly at Chris. He nodded sympathy at her.
‘We can’t tell yet. Perhaps it was an attendant, maybe even a human sacrifice as part of the funeral ritual. Our osteologist, that’s David over there, may well be able to establish the cause of death.’
David was a small man with glasses. He smiled and then suppressed it, all the time looking as if he couldn’t wait to start handling the bones. The atmosphere was slowly lightening. The archaeologists began quietly to stack their tools. Kieran ducked out of the entrance with one more yellow plastic bucketful of loose earth.
One by one, the Mead people turned away from the trench and its contents. As the shock of staring death in the face subsided, they became aware that these relics were from a time so distant that they could hardly connect with it.
Chris said, ‘There’s one more thing. We’ll be leaving a security guard here overnight. The site will have to be protected until the artefacts have been removed to a safe place.’
Miranda demanded ‘Why? This is a private estate. No one comes here.’
‘Forgive me, Mrs Meadowe. We don’t know yet what these grave goods are, or what else we might find. If they should turn out to be alloys of precious metals, or even solid gold, imagine what the material alone might be worth, without adding up the historical value.’
Amos began to say something, then stopped himself.
‘I see,’ Miranda said, although she was only just beginning
