Barbara Erskine - Daughters of Fire

‘And you were an excellent student. Otherwise I would never have offered you the job in my department.’ He shrugged. ‘And you were a first-class historian when you first came back here. My friendship and my trust in you has obviously gone to your head. In your anxiety to gain recognition and self-publicity you have lost touch with reality. So you are no more use to me. I suggest you go and write romances somewhere where your claims to all this inside knowledge of Iron Age life can do no harm and leave the writing of serious history to those of us who know how to do it!’

Staring at him as he sat there Viv felt, for a moment, as she was surely supposed to, like a naughty school girl who had been caught cheating and knew it, and had then been called up before the head. She drew in a shaky breath to ward off the hurt, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘So that’s what this is all about. At last!’ She was deliberately disingenuous. ‘You’re writing a book as well! Why didn’t you tell me? Oh, I was supposed to guess, was I, that that is what you are doing?’

‘Indeed you should, as this period is my speciality.’ He threw himself back in his seat. ‘It would have been a fairly easy assumption to make.’ She was wearing a baggy magenta sweater and tracksuit bottoms. Just looking at her gave the professor a headache. Especially when she was angry.

‘And you’re writing about Cartimandua in spite of the fact that it was no secret that she is my subject!’ Viv narrowed her eyes.

He shrugged. He did not mention the fact that his book was as yet barely more than a few files of notes, an outline and a chapter or two, and that it was unlikely that anyone at all beyond his editor at the university press knew about it as yet. ‘No,’ his tone was disdainful, ‘as it happens I am not writing about Cartimandua. She would hardly merit a serious study. Whatever you claim, not enough is known about her. No, my book will be – is – a treatise on the British opposition to the Roman invasion with Venutios as its central figure.’

‘Cartimandua’s husband.’

‘Indeed.’

She took a deep breath, trying to retrieve the situation. ‘But surely that doesn’t matter? There is room for both books.’ She eyed him with a quizzical lift of the left eyebrow. ‘And whatever you think of my article,’ she glanced at the magazine lying on his desk, ‘I can assure you that mine is a serious study.’ That at least was true. More or less. She paused, looking at him thoughtfully. ‘Can it be that you are afraid my sales will so eclipse yours that you will be embarrassed? Surely the great Professor Hugh Graham wouldn’t worry about that?’

‘No, strangely, I do not fear that.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘My book will be published by the university press. Yours, I understand, is being produced by a commercial publisher. That means you are bound to sell more copies than I do, I am sure. To an ignorant public who are not concerned with intellectual probity. No, I have given you my reason for my objections. Your research and writing are not of the standard I expect and require from someone in my department. Now, if you would excuse me, I have work to do.’

‘I’m sure you do.’ Viv tried and failed to keep the irony out of her voice. ‘I won’t keep you.’ She turned to the door, still shaking with anger. Then she paused. God! She had completely forgotten why she had come to see him in the first place. Turning back, she forced herself to smile. ‘Before I go, I need to ask you a favour.’ Not an auspicious moment, but it was the purpose for which she had walked so unsuspectingly into the lion’s den twenty minutes before. ‘I wanted to ask you if I may borrow the Cartimandua Pin before you return it to the museum.’ It had been a while before she had realised that was what was lying there in its box, in his in-tray. ‘You won’t grudge me that, at least. I am appearing on History Discussion Night on Channel 4 next month and I would like to show it when I talk about my book. It would interest the viewers to see a piece of jewellery contemporary with the period.’

Hugh folded his arms. ‘Impossible.’ It was an instant response. Unconsidered. Automatic.

‘Why?’ She held her temper in check with an effort.

‘I’ve given an undertaking to the museum not to let it out of my sight.’

‘But it’s your property. You only loaned it to them in the first place. And it’s already been out of your sight!’

‘Exactly. It is a priceless artefact so I do not propose to lose track of it again.’ He bristled. The pin had been presented to his archaeologist father by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in the 1950s after the excavation of the fortifications at Stanwick.

‘So priceless in fact that rather than keep it in the department safe, you’ve chucked it in your in-tray next to your stapler.’ Gesturing towards it, Viv took a deep breath. ‘I’d take better care of it than that, Hugh! After all, I’m not contemplating melting it down.’ She reached over and picked up the transparent Perspex box in which the enamelled pin nestled in its protective packing.

‘Put it down!’ Hugh’s voice was like acid. ‘Don’t touch it!’ His father had hated the brooch. A scientist to his core, he had nevertheless had a superstitious horror of this beautiful object and refused to let anyone in his family handle, or even look at it.

‘I’m not hurting it.’ The naughty child in Viv had surfaced again in spite of her anger and she fought an absurd urge to stick out her tongue and dodge away from the desk out of his reach, waving the box under his nose. ‘Do you think Venutios really gave it to Cartimandua?’ Carefully removing the lid, she studied it closely. The light from the desklamp caught the coloured enamels and the exquisitely engraved gold as she turned it this way and that. It exuded an aura of richness and power.

‘I doubt it.’ Hugh’s tone was repressive.

‘It’s very beautiful. And expensive. And the right date.’

‘Put it down.’ He was becoming more and more agitated.

‘Think how it would capture the viewers’ imagination on the telly.’

‘No!’

‘But you lent it to Hamish for his lecture tour.’

‘That was a personal favour.’

‘I only want it for one evening before you return it to the museum. It would be a personal favour to me.’

‘No.’

‘Because you don’t like my style of writing?’

‘Exactly.’

‘That’s childish!’

‘No, it’s an academic judgment. Put that box down, please.’

Her face flushed angrily. ‘Do you know what – that’s petty and vindictive!’ Gently, almost reverently, she touched the brooch with the tip of her little finger. The enamels felt ice cold. Unnerved, she hastily fitted the lid back on and tossed the box onto his desk, where it skidded down a heap of papers and vanished into the scholarly detritus. For a second, as she touched it, she had felt an almost overwhelming sense of unease.

His visible relief when she put it down was replaced by a scowl. ‘Please don’t let me detain you.’

‘You’re being a bastard, Hugh.’ She shuddered and without quite knowing why rubbed the palms of her hands on the seat of her tracksuit as though to rid herself of the cloying feel of the brooch.

‘Please go, Viv. I don’t think we have anything else to say to each other.’ Standing up angrily, he walked over to the window and stood with his back to her.

This was insane. Unbelievable! ‘You can’t sack me, Hugh, and you know it,’ she said quietly.

‘As I said, I’m sure I’ll find a way.’ He did not turn round.

Leaning forward, she picked up the discarded magazine supplement. Beneath it the gleam of gold and red and green caught her eye again. She glanced up at the taut shoulders of the man by the window and gave a small smile. It took a tenth of a second to slip the box into her bag.