Chapter Nineteen
The next morning, Deo surveyed what he had uncovered last night, flanked by Emrys and Rob, who had been very excited to learn over dinner that he had found the entrance at last.
“Well, let’s get cracking, shall we, old chap?” said Emrys.
In some ways, Deo wished that he and Em could keep this to themselves, but the whole household was invested in this discovery now, and he nodded. “We shall.”
With crates and boxes to store things in, paper and cloth to wrap them, as well as brushes, water, and cloths to clean them, if required, Em and the ladies were set up to receive the items they might find once the entrance was clear and the tomb opened.
Deo had ensured they had lamps to see by and trowels, scrapers, and brushes for uncovering delicate items. There would be no crude spade work once they gained access to the tomb.
Em had her sketch pad, too, so that she could draw what they found in situ before it was moved.
Smiggens and the groundsmen had done a good job of clearing away the dismantled tree so there was room to work now on the east side of the mound.
The men began by digging out the entrance completely, which took about two hours.
The women sieved the earth that the men dug out, looking for anything of interest. They had quite a collection of coins, lots of pottery fragments, and a few beads, pins, and one metal belt tip.
But nothing that Deo thought related to the probable contents of the barrow.
They had to dig around some of the severed roots that were still in the soil, and as they dug, it became clear that a few of them had penetrated the wall on this side of the barrow, displacing some of the stones, but the damage was less than Deo had feared it would be.
The entrance—when finally, fully revealed—was set within the dry stone walls on either side and measured about three and a half feet in height and approximately three feet in width. It was entirely blocked by a single flat stone that appeared to have been carved to fit.
“We may be very lucky. Our tomb appears to be not only intact and undisturbed, but hopefully weatherproof, too. If that is true, the level of preservation may be higher than would otherwise be the case,” said Deo with satisfaction. “We may even be lucky enough to find the remains of the deceased.”
The viscountess shuddered. “Really? Wouldn’t even the bone have decomposed by now?”
“It depends on the type of soil. Some seems more favorable for preservation than others. Also, damp and air circulation seem to play a part as well,” Deo said, examining the entrance stone. “Our next challenge, gentlemen, is how to get this stone out of the entryway.”
“It must weigh several tons!” objected the viscount.
“I think we might be better off trying to remove the lintel stone. It’s fairly large in area, about three feet by four I would estimate, but less than a foot thick, and we can get at its edges as it overlaps the plug stone beneath it on all sides that we can see,” said the duke.
“I agree,” Deo said. “I’ll just need to fully uncover the rear side of it. It must be covering a short entry space. We might be able to haul it off with a team of draft horses.”
“I’ll go see my head groom about getting the horses,” said the duke. “You dig out the stone.”
Deo grinned at Emrys and the two of them clambered up on top of the mound that was still covered in soil and began digging out the rest of the lintel.
An hour later, the team of four horses was assembled and harnessed and ready to drag the lintel off the top of the plug stone. They looped rope around the lintel on both exposed edges, and those ropes were harnessed to the team.
Once secondary ropes were used to tie the loops to each other across the top of the lintel in two places to stop the ropes slipping off, and with everyone well clear of the area, the duke’s groom, Hastings, encouraged the team to pull.
Initially nothing happened. But persistence eventually caused a shift in the great lintel stone and with a loud scrape and much dust and debris, the stone inched forward on its platform.
Having gained the momentum, the horses moved forward more rapidly.
The stone slid forward with a loud scraping noise and toppled to the ground with a thunk in front of the plug stone, edge down.
The horses, after a momentary stop, pulled it clear, and with a final plop of dust, it settled flat side down in the dirt, and Hastings brought his team to a halt.
A cheer went up from the company, and Hastings waved and took a bow with a grin in his rusty colored beard.
“Now we will see what’s what!” said Deo with a grin at Em.
He headed for the mound, climbing up the earth covered cairn to the gap revealed by the removal of the lintel and peered inside.
Stone-lined walls and an earth packed floor met his gaze along with some debris that had fallen in with the removal of the lintel.
He turned as Em joined him and leaned over to look inside. He grabbed her, fearful of her toppling in she was so eager to see what was revealed. It was, he thought, roughly a five-foot drop to the bottom, considerably less than his own height.
“Pass me down a lamp,” he said, easing himself down and over the lip of the stone into the gap, which was about three feet wide and four feet long. He was right about the height; it came up to his chest.
“What can you see?” called the duke as Deo crouched down.
“A stone lined chamber, roughly rectangular in shape with a roof that slopes. There are some dark shapes, but I don’t know what they are yet.
” He took the lamp passed down to him by Em and set it on the ground, before reaching up to help her down into the hole with him.
With his hands on her waist, he set her on her feet and squeezed. “This is it, Em!”
She nodded, her face alight with anticipation.
She picked up the lamp, and he crouched to pass under the stone roof, with her following stooped beside him.
The light from the hole and the lamp penetrated the darkness.
The chamber was roughly six feet wide and he estimated nine feet long, and once they passed into the chamber, the roof was approximately a foot higher than the entry area, allowing Em to stand upright but he still had to duck his head.
The smell of damp earth and stone met his nostrils and a musty smell.
He almost didn’t know what to look at first—the dry-stone construction of the tomb or its contents.
The draw of the contents won out as Em exclaimed, “Look, Deo, what is that?”
A roughly rectangular depression in the ground in the center of the chamber, partially filled with debris, was illuminated by the lamp.
“Do you think that is the burial?” she asked.
“Yes, most likely.” Deo squatted beside the edge of the depression. “I think the space was dug out to lay the body in and a wooden lid placed over the top, most of which has disintegrated, and other debris has fallen in on top.”
He glanced around the chamber. The floor was uneven, and a layer of debris covered everything.
The shapes he had seen from outside as he’d looked in from the entry, resolved themselves as blocks of stone that seemed to have fallen from the roof.
Or perhaps they were just leftovers not used by the builders.
He couldn’t see any gaps in the roof where stone could have fallen from.
The stone they had put back into place the other day plugged the only gap he could see.
“What shall we do first?” asked Em.
“Fetch your sketch pad. We should record everything, including measurements. I have a leather measure for that, with string for long stretches. Come on, the others will be busting to know what we are seeing.” He headed back to the entrance, trailed by Em.
The duke, the duchess, and the Ashfords had gathered round the entrance, looking down into the hole from above.
Deo addressed them. “We have found what we think is the burial, a depression in the ground. Pass down Em’s sketchbook and pencils and my measuring tape—it’s the leather coil—and also the ball of string on the wooden spindle.
Once we have recorded the basics, we will start excavating the burial. ”
“Is there room for the rest of us down there?” asked the duke.
“It will be a bit crowded, but yes, I suppose. Hand down the stepladder for the ladies.”
At this point a “Hoi!” from further afield brought Deo’s head around, as Kenrick hove into view with Bidenden. The latter appeared no worse for wear from his ordeal, he had apparently only sustained bruising.
“Thought we’d come and see how you were faring,” said Kenrick with a grin.
“Deo says we’ve found the burial, but we will have to excavate it yet to find out what is in it,” said the duke. “We were just about to pop down and have a look.”
With the addition of the two men, it was agreed they would come down in pairs. So, the duke and duchess came down first, and the duke helped Deo with the measurements while the duchess recorded them, and Em sketched the interior of the burial chamber.
“I should have thought to sketch the entrance before we removed the lintel,” she said.
“Can you do it from memory?” asked Deo, stretching his leather measure along the long side of the burial depression.
“I can try, but it won’t be as accurate.”
With the preliminaries taken care of, the duke and duchess vacated for the viscount and his lady, who brought down with them the digging tools and an extra lamp.
The viscountess clutched her husband’s hand and shivered. “I don’t know what it is, but tombs always give me the shudders.”
“The ghoulies won’t get you, Annis, I won’t let them,” said Emrys, putting an arm around his wife’s waist.
She smiled up at him fondly and said, “I know, it’s all nonsense. I shouldn’t be afraid.”
Emrys kissed her forehead and Deo looked away at this blatant display of affection, even as he wondered if he and Emily would ever behave like that.