Дэвид Уоллес - Island of Fog and Death

“Um…” Gilda wanted to say something.

“Come on, Gilda, if you have something to add, then spit it out,” said Maxwell.

“I heard rumours about something that went wrong,” she began, hesitantly.

“In Colchester?” suggested Maxwell.

“Well, yes,” she said. “Please just assure me that the circumstances are different here?”

“Very well, dear girl, the circumstances are completely different, I assure you.”

Gilda and Owain swapped looks that hinted at scepticism, but Maxwell made no further comment. Owain finally shrugged. “You’re the boss, boss,” he said. “Gilda? Can you help me unload the generator?”

Ten minutes later, the interior of the chapel was brilliantly illuminated by a pair of tripod-mounted floodlights powered by a small diesel generator that was grumbling away outside the door.

“Am I looking at an altar?” asked Tori, her eyes wide.

The removal of the boxes had exposed a rectangular structure, about three metres by two, rising to knee height. It was built from bricks, and topped by a single thick slab of slate.

“I think it might be,” said Maxwell, with a note of awe in his voice. “It’s a bit low, mind you. But those are Roman bricks, and slate was quarried just to the west of here in the first century, so this just might be original. If so, it’s an astonishing find.”

Gilda was peering at the brickwork. “This looks like a legion mark.” She glanced up at Tori. “Roman legions had brick-making kilns, and they stamped some of the bricks. This looks like ‘L E G I I’, which would be the second legion, ‘ Adiutrix ’. The second were based in Chester until about 87 AD.”

Maxwell ran a hand across the scratched surface of the slate table-top. “There’s a lot of graffiti here,” he said with a note of wonder in his voice. “This bit here, the only bit I can make out right now, it says, ‘ Gaio Valerio Crispo veterano ex Legione II Adiutrice Pia Fideli ’. This guy had retired from the second legion, so I guess he opted to stay in this area. This is amazing! I wonder how it survived?”

Owain was studying marks on the table top and the top tier of bricks. “It looks as if something was attached to the surface,” he pointed out. “If you asked me to convert a pagan temple into a Christian one, I’d be tempted to build on what was there already. Maybe the Christians just boxed in the original Roman altar?”

“That’s plausible, Owain, very plausible,” replied Maxwell. “Good thinking. So, to sum up, we have more evidence that suggests a Roman temple built by the Roman army, prior to 87 AD using bricks supplied by the second legion. It all fits together, and it’s all very exciting! If this is the burial place of the metaphorical dragon, then it’s underneath us – somewhere. We should be looking for hatch or a trapdoor, or something like that, in the floor. Start looking, folks!”

Maxwell, Owain and Gilda fanned out and crawled around the floor, looking for evidence of something that would move. After twenty minutes of prying at cracks between flagstones, Maxwell sat up, his back against the wall. “Nothing!” he said in a tone of disgust.

“Nope,” agreed Owain.

“We’ll need to shift those sacks of goat food and get the shelves out of here,” said Gilda, moving to grasp one.

“I’d expect the entrance to be more central,” said Owain. “I wouldn’t expect it to be buried off to the side.”

“Er, Maxwell” Tori put in somewhat unexpectedly. “Didn’t old churches have those what-do-you-call-’ems in their altars?” She was eyeing the slate table top. “How would you get a relic into this one?”

In truth, Tori was getting bored, and felt it was obvious where they should be looking. However, she did not want to appear too bright, so she came at it obliquely,

“I bet the slate is a lid, and it will just lift off,” said Maxwell. He broke off abruptly and stared at Tori. “You, dear girl, are a bloody genius!” He jumped up and kissed her. “Come on, let’s take a corner each!”

The slate slab was heavy but between them, they lifted it and shuffled to one side to lay it down. Beneath the altar top, under a sheet of cobwebs, a flight of stone stairs descended into darkness. “Would you look at that,” said Maxwell, “I think we’ve found it! Let’s get some light down there.”

Owain leaned in with an electric lamp. The stairs appeared intact as far as they could see, with a little rubble from crumbling bricks scattered here and there. “Shall we take a look?” he asked.

“Only if somebody clears away the spiders,” said Tori, distastefully. She had no problem with spiders, quite enjoyed their taste to be honest. But she felt that a fear of creepy-crawlies would be in character.

“Let me go first,” said Maxwell, excitement obvious in his voice. “Professorial privilege and all that. If you bring up the rear, Tori, the spiders will be gone, I promise.” He grabbed a light and led the way, sweeping cobwebs aside. Owain picked up one of the big work lights and followed.

The stairs went deep into the earth. Looking at the walls around her, Tori concluded that it was a natural sloping tunnel that had been tidied and in places enlarged. The steps were uneven, and she could hear Gilda cursing as she lost her footing more than once in the gloom. Tori was a nocturnal predator with excellent night-vision, so she had no trouble; however, for the sake of appearances, she faked a couple of yelps of alarm, and complained about the dark.

The stairs came to an end in an open space. As Maxwell flashed his light around, Tori could see rock walls and an uneven ceiling. When Owain fired up the work light he had carried down, the entire cave became visible. Maxwell and his students gasped and ooh’ed and abashed.

“Well, would you just look at that !” Maxwell sounded excited.

“Look at the way the walls have been lined,” said Owain, sounding awed. “Sheets of iron.”

“These statues… Is that a Roman god of some kind?” asked Gilda.

Tori glanced around. Aside from the unusual iron cladding on the walls, it was nothing she hadn’t seen before. It was obviously a Mithraeum, and she wondered how long it would take the students work it out. She was more interested in the big double door set into one of the long walls. It was closed, and barred by a big iron girder laid across iron hooks. She could sense the restless energy of the beast beyond it.

“Look,” said Gilda, pointing out a broken statue. “You can make out a bull’s head here, and that looks like a man holding it by the nose.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Maxwell in delight. “You know what this is, don’t you! It’s the tauroctony! And over there – the lion-headed man!” He looked expectantly at Owain. “So what is this place, young Owain?”

“It’s a Temple of Mithras,” he replied with a grin. “What a shame the icons are busted up. Mithras killing the bull looks pretty impressive.”

Tori lifted the iron bar of the door, but then reconsidered – it should be too heavy for one person to lift – and laid it back down. There was a lot of debris on the floor, which would prevent her from getting the door open until it had been cleared, so it was best to leave the bar alone for now.

Meanwhile, Gilda was speaking. “I didn’t think Mithraism had spread to Britannia this early.”

“A subject of some debate,” said Maxwell. “Some people hold that it was brought by the military in Claudius’ invasion, and some say it came later when legions were swapped in and out. But most authorities agree that it was a cult purely of the military until well into the occupation. So, the big question for me would be, was this always a Mithraeum, or was it a temple dedicated to another deity first? If it was a Mithraeum from the start, then it could be the oldest one ever in Britain, and what’s more, it would show that the cult was prevalent among Auxiliaries and not just the Legions. This could be quite the find!”