The Digger's Rest (31 page)

The next item the old man brought out of the
box was a bunch of bright red flowers or weeds tied with what
looked to Simon like hair. The old man repeated the ritual, but
this time Simon was transported to the graveyard at the church. He
was again on his hands and knees with a small pair of scissors
clipping what looked to him like little red bells from around an
old gravestone.

When he came back, he heard the voice
say,
“This kills. Do you see?”
Simon nodded. After this happened a dozen or so times and all
the items were set before him on the table, the old man took out a
huge book with hundreds of pages of parchment and set it before
him. It was written in some form of code. The old man waved his
hand in front of Simon’s face and suddenly he could read it. It
looked like an ancient recipe book with primitive drawings on each
page.
“Do you see?”
the voice
asked him again and Simon nodded that he did.

The old man took each item and
carefully placed it back in the box, then took the book and laid it
on the floor by his chair. He walked over close to Simon and held
out his left hand. In his right he had a small knife. He cut deep
into his left hand, letting the blood collect into the palm like
cup.
“This is life. Do you see?”
Simon nodded. Then the voice said,
“On thy knees before me, ye boy called Holly,”
and Simon obeyed, kneeling with his head down.

Actually, physically touching him for the
first time that evening, the old man took Simon’s chin with his
right hand and lifted it up to look into his eyes. He dipped his
fingers in the blood in his left hand and marked Simons face with
swirling symbols, mumbling in the old language but not allowing
Simon to understand.

Once this was completed, the old man
bent down and took Simon by the hand, helping him to stand. The old
man removed Simon’s jacket, shirt and tee shirt exposing Simon’s
thin pale, birdlike chest. The old man turned him around and laid
him on the table, chest down. Simon could hear the old man making
noise behind him, the clattering of metal objects, but he didn’t
move. He didn’t want to move. He heard the voice speak to him again
asking,
“Thou wouldst do this to protect
him?”

“
Yes,”
Simon
heard himself say in his own soundless voice. “
Anything.”

The old man came to Simon’s side and
opened his mouth, putting a smooth, hard piece of wood between his
teeth, then went back around behind him.
“Be thee brave, young Holly,”
the voice
said.

A moment later Simon heard the dull, muffled
sound of metal striking metal; a sharp jolt of pain between his
shoulders, like he’d been pierced through the heart. He didn’t cry
out. He just bit down on the wood and closed his eyes, remembering
the way he’d felt when Dr. Mitchell Bramson came to Holy Family
that Christmas Eve to rescue him, and his words, ‘I will never let
anyone ever hurt you again.’

***

Mitch was up bright and early the next day,
glad to see that the rain had stopped and the fog melted away.
Malcolm and Deck Farthing were waiting for him when he came down
for breakfast, as was Lady Madeline.

They sat around the table discussing what was
to be done that day. The ground would still be wet and most likely
muddy, so they decided it would be best then to spend their time
taping off the area, making their grid and setting up the tent with
all the supplies they had, then maybe do a little digging around
the granite object they’d found earlier, if there was still
time.

Lady Madeline’s nerves had settled from the
trauma of the day before, much to the credit of the bottle of
scotch Mitch had sent up to her room with her dinner, so she was
very much herself again, composed, contained, but still hesitant to
go out to the site and leave Sandrine alone and unattended. Jed,
who’d been serving breakfast, took the opportunity to offer to look
after Sandrine for the day. He was working, so he wouldn’t ever be
very far away, and he had been on an emergency medical team in
Australia before he came to England to work at the pub, assuring
her that he could more than handle an emergency should it arise,
plus both Ivy and Fi would be there if there was anything on the
female side of things that needed to be dealt with.

It made Lady Madeline feel better knowing the
Jed would be there, particularly because she also knew he cared for
Sandrine in that special way. That made a big difference. And it
was true that since Ivy and Fi would both be there, Sandrine
wouldn’t be without female assistance if she needed it, so Lady
Madeline decided it would be alright go out to the site with the
men after all.

While all this was going on, Mitch
began wondering about Simon.
Where is
he?
he kept thinking, keeping his eye on the doorway;
expecting any minute to hear his familiar walk, one step always
landing heavier than the other. When Simon still hadn’t come down
twenty minutes later, Mitch started to get concerned. He didn’t
know about what. It was just a feeling in his gut, nagging at him,
like it had so many other times when it came to Simon. They were so
in tune with each other, the way he and Jack were. When Simon still
hadn’t arrived in another ten minutes, Mitch decided to go check on
him; maybe he hadn’t set his alarm and had overslept.

He’d no sooner stood up to go when he heard
it, one footfall landing heavier than the other. The knot in his
gut loosened. A moment later Simon walked through the doorway, a
little paler, moving a little slower than usual, but otherwise
alright. Mitch pulled a chair from the table next to them and set
it next to his, tapping the seat with his hand for Simon to come
and sit next to him. “I’m sorry I’m late,” Simon said shyly,
sitting down next to Mitch. As was his way, Mitch put his hand on
the back of Simon’s neck and gave it a gentle squeeze and shake.
Simon winced, what little color he had left draining from his face
like a thermometer plummeting. Mitch was on it in a heartbeat. He
leaned over and whispered, “Hey, are you alright, bud?”

“
Yes, sir. I must’ve slept wrong. I’m
just a little achy, that’s all. It’s nothing,” Simon said, pouring
himself a cup of coffee and downing it in one gulp. Then he nudged
Mitch with his elbow, smiling and looking at him shyly, his big
blue eyes shining, wanting to make sure he knew he really was
alright.

“
Yeah? Mitch asked, searching him with
his own eyes. Simon nodded, smiling bashfully, but thinking with
his own soundless voice,
Anything.

Chapter XIII

SALT IN THE WOUND

I see the bad moon arising. I see trouble on
the way. I see earthquakes and lightnin’. I see bad times today.
Don’t go around tonight. Well, it’s bound to take your life.
There’s a bad moon on the rise….

Bad Moon Rising

………
As performed by Credence Clearwater
Revival

“
Okay, Malcolm…Deck, you take the big
green bags. I’ll take the tent. Simon, you and Lady Madeline take
the breakables and the gadgets. Let’s get this party started,”
Mitch said as he got out of the car in the makeshift parking lot.
Simon seemed to manage the walk well enough the first time, and in
one of their few moments in private, Lady Madeline had told Mitch
he wasn’t really doing Simon any favors by babying him so much and
made him promise to try and let Simon be more independent, and so
he did, or at least he tried anyway.

It wasn’t going to be easy, but Mitch
understood her point and decided not to have the path widened after
all. Maybe a little roughing it would toughen Simon up some. He
would need it if he was going to stick to his favorite periods of
the ancient world. But although he did promise, it didn’t mean he
couldn’t watch Simon like a hawk, just in case.

The newbies—Simon, Malcolm and Deck—were as
excited as children on a day at the circus while Mitch and Lady
Madeline were more circumspect about the magnitude of the work that
lay ahead of them. By the time they got to the clearing on the
other side of the path, they were already ankle deep in mud. Mitch
chose a clear grassy spot under an overhang of trees off to the
side for everyone to dump their bags.

As English weather would have it, the day
before had been a big mess of rain then fog, but as he stood there,
the weather was glorious. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and
there wasn’t a rain cloud to be seen anywhere. But for the mud, it
was as perfect an early spring day as they could have wanted, so as
he always did before starting any kind of physical work, Mitch did
a number of stretching exercises and encouraged everyone else to
follow suit, and to no one’s surprise, Simon was the first to join
him.

Not to be outdone by a couple of
Americans, Mal and Deck joined in, vigorously taking to the deep
knee bends and by the end were showing off with jumping jacks. Lady
Madeline just stood by amused.
Men!
she thought as she watched the four good-looking young men
doing their exercises.
As trying as they
can be sometimes, but what a boring world it would be without
them.

With the exercises done, Mitch started doling
out the duties for the day. “Who’s good with numbers and
measurements?” he asked the assembled company. Simon raised his
hand. Mal and Deck looked at each other comically. Mal got off the
first shot.

“
He is,” he said pointing to Deck and
giving him a playful brotherly shove, almost tipping him
over.

“
Okay then; Simon and Deck. I want you
guys to measure and tape off the perimeter. Simon, you know how far
we need to go to capture the lion’s share of the area that might
hold anything. You get the compass and the tripod. Deck you do the
walking and tape off the area,” Mitch ordered like a beneficent
general, handing him three rolls of CAUTION tape, a bag full of
wooden stakes and a mallet.

Mitch was glad it was Deck who was the one
who was good with numbers. He could tell he liked Simon and would
keep an eye out for him without making it seem too obvious. He had
what Mitch might have called a ‘good ol’ boy’ nature. “Mal, you and
I’ll grid off the inner foundation of the main building,” Mitch
said, handing him a large spool of red string, another bag of
wooden stakes and another mallet. “Lady Madeline, how about you
direct the action here with Mal and me and maybe set up the tent as
much as you can. When you need us we’ll come over and do the man’s
work.”

Indeed, you will not!
Lady Madeline thought to herself.
I
was throwing up bigger tents than that on the banks of the Nile
while you, Dr. Mitchell ‘I’m the man’ Bramson, were still learning
your way around a bra hook.
And she laughed to
herself. But before she even got to that, she had to get them
started on the gridding. She was really dying to find out what that
granite statue was.

She pondered it at length, Granite. It
certainly wasn’t part of the building itself. The building was red
sandstone. It was old. She knew that, and she didn’t disagree with
Mitch’s opinion that the carving on it was early Celtic in style
and design. It intrigued her.

As she was following behind them, barking
instructions as to how to lay the grid, she remembered that she’d
completely forgotten to tell him about what she’d learned from the
Crane family Estate papers. “Oh, and by the way, Mitchell. I can,
with certainty, date this structure to at least 1323 and can with
some authority say that it’s much older, at least dating back to
our William,” she said matter-of-factly, not above blowing her own
horn when necessary. He stopped what he was doing.

“
Really? And pray tell, Lady Madeline.
How did we determine this?” he asked her in a stagely false English
accent to pull her leg a little.

“
Well, my boy…” she said, deciding to
have a go at yanking one of the Yank’s peacock feathers for him by
calling him, my boy. “I did my homework; I went to the local
archives. You remember I did tell you I was going, didn’t I? And
guess what I found in the Crane family papers? Letters between the
first Crane to own this land and his cousin. It was a grant to him
from King Edward II dated 1323 and the substance of those letters
was that he was complaining that Edward had done him no real favors
by the grant because the castle, called Revelstoke by the way, was
already a ruin,” Lady Madeline said, flexing her own brand of
muscles and leaving them hanging.

“
And?” Mitch asked, waiting for the
upshot and giving her his undivided attention, knowing that she
really did have him by the seat of the pants.

“
And…” she continued, “…now follow this
closely. I didn’t get it the first time I read it. It’s really a
logic question. His cousin responded that there had been no need to
build another fortified castle in the area since the days of
William and recommended that Crane build a manor house instead. Get
it? Revelstoke was a fortified castle and a ruin by 1323, no need
to build another one since the days of William?” she led him by the
nose and did a good job of it. She could see the light go off in
his head.

“
Lady Madeline! I could kiss you. As a
matter of fact I think I will,” Mitch said and walked over to her
and kissed her on the cheek.

“
Thank you, my boy. I’ll take that as a
compliment, American Style,” she said proudly. “So now we have not
one date to work with, but two.”