Anwar sucked in a breath. If it was, which Nate was pretty sure it wasn’t, it would change history. Anglo-Saxon female warriors were usually high status (for example, Aethelflaed of Mercia) and therefore buried with a lot more fanfare than this soul here. There was that burial in Norfolk of a woman with a sword-like instrument which was without doubt not high status, but that was Viking. This was Anglo-Saxon in the heart of the Kingdom of Wessex, so it was unlikely.
‘That would be amazing. Do you think it is?’
‘I don’t know, Anwar. You’ll have to find out.’ He knew it wasn’t, but he needed to let Anwar discover so for himself.
The student gaped at him. ‘Me? Don’t you want to… you want me to do it?’
‘You found it, didn’t you?’ Nate smiled benevolently. As much as he wanted to greedily uncover the bones, he was here to teach and to mentor. ‘You know your way around a skull. Just be careful and call me if you’re uncertain about anything.Anything,Anwar.’
Anwar nodded, his eyes locked on the jawbone and eye socket jutting out of the earth.
Nate climbed out of the trench and left Anwar excitedly pointing out the bones to the undergrads. He pulled out his phone and scrolled to Laurel, hesitating before he pressed the green call button. But she deserved to know, didn’t she? She had arightto know. It was her land, after all, and this was a massively significant find. It would mean at least another year of dig work, and another two, perhaps three, years of research analysis. Apart from the gold and other bits found, these bones would provide a central focal point for any visitor attraction. But more than that, he wanted to share the find with her. He wanted her excitement, her happiness.
He pressed call, and waited as the phone rang once, twice, heart in his mouth.
‘This is Laurel Fletcher. I’m sorry I’ve missed your call, please leave…’
Nate heart sagged. He left her a voicemail:
‘Hey, it’s Nate. I wanted to tell you that we’ve found a skull in trench one, it’s probably male and I would go as far as to say this could be quite a significant burial site.’ He swallowed. ‘I just wanted to tell you. I can show you, if you like?’
Was that too much? Well, he’d said it now.
‘Okay, bye.’
Nate stared at the phone, hoping Laurel would ring back. But she wouldn’t. She hadn’t returned any of his other messages.
The discovery of this skull meant that there would be more scrutiny on this dig, more interest. He had to do something about the whole plagiarism thing. Something like that could ruin this dig, and he was not going to let that happen. Not to his students, and certainly not to Laurel.
He would fix this. But how?
Laurel
Laurel saved the voicemail message after she’d listened to it, just like she’d saved the last two. She read his texts again and again. The ones where he had said he didn’t know that Alex had lied to him, that he would never have done what he was accused of doing. Every email was forwarded to Sylvie to deal with. Laurel had read them, of course. Nate sent dig site updates at the end of every day, a commentary on his professional life.
He’d sent one explanatory email after the disaster of the BAS endorsement conference, asking her to talk to him, let him explain, that he hadn’t knownanything, that he would never ever deal with Alex again.
She missed him.
But how could he not have known? Had he been stupid enough to think that Alex had an interest in developing the historiography of the Picts? He had obviously known. And he had stood there, laughing with Lucia, whilst Alex… well. She wasn’t going to think about that again.
The conference had been a success, that is, until it had all imploded.
Little Willow had put on a good show. The cafe had excelled itself with the local produce and Sylvie had been the most amazing deputy she could ever wish for. After the buffet, she’d walked the entire conference up to the site, roped Anwar into giving a little talk about the trenches, and promised them more wine back at the conference centre. The English Heritage officer had been impressed, and Sylvie had formed a lovely relationship with her.
Sylvie’s damage control deserved more than a bottle of cheap wine, and Laurel made a note on the pad on her desk to talk to Barbara, the accountant, about a pay rise.
Even though it was in the university’s hands now, the advertising and promotion opportunities from the conference had been immense.
Laurel waited until six, until she knew that the students would have put down their tools for the day, and the site would be clear and quiet. She really wanted to see the skull. This was a success of all the work she had put into this dig, and she wanted to be part of it. Although, she wanted to be a part of it on her own terms, without a certain archaeologist whose fireworks and earth smell she wanted wrapped around her.
The last time she’d been up to the dig was when she’d done the first walking routes with the academics before the presentations. Sylvie had ended up taking over the last few. She had stepped into the large void left by Laurel and had been absolutely fantastic. She definitely needed a pay rise.
There was going to be one hell of a thunderstorm soon. She could feel it, as the sun settled over the fields, making the dig site shiny and golden. Laurel trudged her way up the slope to trench one and slid unceremoniously into the hole in the earth. It must be there, under the rectangular tarpaulin pinned to the ground in the top left of the trench. Careful not to disturb anything, Laurel picked her way through the trench and knelt in the earth. Her hands trembled as she unpinned two corners and peeled back the tarpaulin.
There it was, sitting proud against the earth; jawbone, cheekbone, eye socket, the curve of the top of the skull. She didn’t know much about facial bone structure (bones hadn’t really been her thing because she liked shiny things), but if Nate said it was male, it was male.
Laurel rocked back on her heels and closed her eyes against the dying sunlight. A weight lifted from her. This had English Heritage written all over it, and this find, thisperson,would bring in so many visitors to Little Willow Farm, visitors who would need somewhere to park, somewhere to eat, and perhaps a walk around the lake, exclaiming ‘Oh look, what a lovely place for a wedding/conference/birthday party!’ This was everything.
