Chapter Twenty-Six
Hearing footsteps, she glanced up as Amy, Lady Balmossie, and Edgar entered the library to gather by the fireplace, chatting. Amy waved for Christina to join them, but she politely declined. “I want to finish what I’m doing here,” she said.
Now that there were others in the room, the poet’s strange magic faded quickly. But her conclusions had shaken her to her core.
“Something has your attention,” Edgar said, walking over to her table.
She looked up. “I’m just working on some translations.”
He stood to the side and behind her, unsettling her. Across the room, the ladies sat by the fireplace as Amy began to read aloud to her aunt from a book of poetry. They barely glanced at Christina and Edgar, probably assuming they were in a scholarly conversation.
“I must tell you,” Edgar said. “I went up to the excavation today to order the Highland workers to box the vases for shipment tomorrow.” As said vah-zes, Christina rolled her eyes.
“We can transport them to Edinburgh by train, but they must be carefully wrapped first. You will need to go up there first thing in the morning to take care of that. Have a servant gather cloths for wrapping them. The workers will bring wooden crates.”
“I do not think we should move them yet. We must examine them thoroughly in their original setting. The Danish method is quite successful.”
He shrugged. “But I’ve seen all I need to see of that structure. The pots may yield more, but they can be examined at leisure in the museum’s workshop.”
She sighed. “I disagree.”
“I know you want things your way, my dear Christina. But I oversee this now, and it is wise to move them. We are wasting time here. Be there in the morning.”
“It is not a waste of my time.” She felt frustration rising. “If you need to go back to the museum, please feel free, and I will work here.”
He grunted. “What is this?” He changed the subject, pointing to the pages on the table. “Are those from the Dundrennan Folio?” He bent to look more closely.
“They are. Judging by the writing style and some indicators of the age of the ink and parchment, these particular pages could date as early as the sixth century.”
“Interesting! Surprisingly good condition. A military roster of some kind—but with additional notes in the margin. Have you translated much?”
“Some. Not all.” Instinct told her not to reveal what she had found. The lines were too precious, too intimate, to share with anyone before she showed Aedan. “Most of it is in Gaelic. Old Irish, really.”
“That is Latin.” He pointed at a phrase in the roster, one of the cramped and nearly indecipherable lines in the first column of the roster.
Concentrating on the marginal lines first, she had only skimmed the roster. “Ah, so it is. The ink is quite blurred. D, U… is that X?” She frowned. “Dux bel…something.”
“Dux bellorum,” Edgar said. “In a military roster, that makes perfect sense. Dux bellorum is the rank of a commander or general. In early documents, the term was sometimes used to identify a warlord. Later it became what we know as ‘grand duke.’”
“Of course. Dux bellorum was also used by ancient chroniclers to describe Macbeth before he was king, which was a Scottish instance. Even earlier, it was used to describe the warlord called Arthur. Interesting that it appears on this list.”
“It was used rather broadly in the early medieval centuries,” Edgar said.
Though he was a capable expert on medieval matters, he had sided with the scholars who disdained Walter Carriston’s theories about King Arthur’s presence in Scotland.
That had been a point of contention for Walter and Christina regarding Edgar.
She sat straighter, thoughts whirling. “I wonder if it refers to Aedan mac Brudei here, the warrior prince who is the ancestor of the Dundrennan MacBrides. Thank you, Edgar. I missed that reference.”
“You are good, Christina, but it takes expertise to see such details.”
“Oh, Edgar,” she sighed.
“One detail—I saw the Latin name ‘Artorius’ on the page. It means Bear, which I also saw in the margin.”
“There is a Latin and a Gaelic reference to the name Bear. It appears in the phrase Liadan nighean a’ Bhèir.
It suggests that her father was named something like Bearach or even Bernard, both in use then, and both come from the root word for ‘bear.’ Many ancient kindred and clan names.
Personal names too, came from familiar wildlife. ”
“Bears were about then, but have been extinct in Scotland for centuries. We have some bones from such an animal in the national museum. Of course it would not mean Arthur.” He laughed.
“Of course not.” She smiled and closed her notebook, aware of his cool stare, and then wrapped the parchment pages in silk to replace them in the box.
“Sir Edgar, come listen,” Amy called. “You wanted to hear some of Sir Hugh’s poetry. Christina, do join us.”
“Thank you, but I’m rather tired.” She smiled.
“I will be there in a moment, Miss Stewart.” Edgar turned back to Christina, leaning on the table to block her exit. “You offered to share your excavating notes.”
“I did, but I need some rest tonight. Can we go over my notes tomorrow?”
“Working on the site has strained your fragile nature, so that is even more reason to take this from you, and make sure the vases are safely removed. You can leave the notes with me now so I can study them before we discuss the information.”
“I am still working on the notes.” Distracted, she set the wrapped pages in box and closed it, wishing Edgar would not hover over her so.
“That’s fine. I’ll read them just as they are.” He took up her journal and tucked it into a pocket. As she cried out and reached for it, he smiled and walked away to join Amy and Lady Balmossie.
When she walked toward him, he smiled up at her from his seat beside Lady Balmossie. “Thank you, Mrs. Blackburn. I will return the notes in the morning. Go along now. You look very tired.”
Sighing—truly there was nothing in the notes he should not see, she supposed, for she had not completed her notes on what she had discovered in the parchments. And she had not written anything about Aedan—or had she?
Puzzled, frustrated, more than ready for Edgar to return to Edinburgh, she left the library. Amy had resumed reading from Sir Hugh’s epic poem about the Viking invasion of Scotland. Considering the poem’s length, they would be sitting there for quite a while.
Climbing the main stairway up to her room, her thoughts were on the translation she had made. Those pages she had not included in her notebook, but on a separate page that she had left in the Dundrennan Folio.
Dux bellorum… Liadan nighean a’ Bhèir. Daughter of the Bear.
She stopped, hand on the banister. Dux bellorum indicated a great leader… and in Latin, “Artorius” could also mean “bear.”
Catching her breath, she stood on the step, thinking frantically. Was she wrong about Liadan’s father having a bear-related name like Bernard? Uncle Walter had linked King Arthur to early Scotland—perhaps the Dundrennan Folio held evidence of that.
Then she remembered that a few of the clay vessels in the souterrain were decorated with bear paws and outlines of bears on all fours.
Was the ‘daughter of the bear’ connected to those designs, and a leader called the Bear?
Her mind whirled. Could Liadan even be a daughter of Arthur?
The thought was wild, enormous, and exciting.
For her uncle’s sake—and for her beloved, Dundrennan’s laird, she had to know. And the answer might lie with those clay vessels.
Running to her room, she changed from slippers to leather brogans and snatched hat, gloves, and a plaid shawl, intending to go up to Cairn Drishan now. Edgar had ordered the pots to be moved in the morning.
Edgar was occupied in the library, her brother was painting in the dining room, and Aedan was out working with his road crew. Now was her chance.
Hurrying downstairs, she slipped out of the house and headed for the moor.
*
The rain had stopped for now, and the sky grew purple toward twilight, though the clouds remained heavy and threatening. Just as Christina neared the summit of Cairn Drishan, a pale flash brightened the sky and she heard a distant rumble. More rain soon.
She just needed to take a quick look at the vessels in the souterrain, search for a clue she hoped was there, and hurry back to Dundrennan House.
Walking to and fro was a little over a mile each way without horse or gig.
Not a hardship and she knew the way well by now, and she could get back before complete dark.
Reaching the ancient walls, she felt a tremor underfoot and heard more rumbles, saw another flash. This time, the light was behind the far shoulder of the hill.
Not thunder and lightning at all, but a far-off blast. Aedan and his men were using the last of the fading light to set charges along the new section of road. As the trembling faded, she heard the muffled chug of the steam shovel.
Aedan would be on the other side of the massive slope, just a half mile or so away. She was tempted to go there to find him. First, the souterrain. Besides, he had suggested that they stay apart.
Much as that had hurt, she knew he had his reasons—and hoped he only meant to keep them until Edgar left.
But she knew that the discovery of ancient ruins on the hillside, along with the conditions in Sir Hugh’s will, could render Aedan’s hold on Dundrennan precarious.
While the words she had translated excited her, she feared they could topple his claim to the estate further if the museum relied on the treasure trove law to claim the property, as Edgar had said.