Lake of Sorrows

No one had mentioned how extraordinarily well-preserved this man was. His head, shoulders, and upper chest were almost miraculously intact. And if the Hymac had cut the body in half, there was a good chance that the rest of it was still under the bank below their feet. The man’s skin was a rich dark brown, the typical tanned-leather appearance of a bog body. Tufts of hair about half an inch long stood out from his head, dark, but with the unmistakable reddish tinge of bog water. In the lab, they’d be able to tell how recently it had been cut, and with what kind of blade. Nora’s eyes traveled the contours of his face again. She didn’t want to forget anything about this moment, about the picture before her. In the next two days, he would be photographed from every angle, and finally removed from this place where he had slept so long undisturbed. There was no evidence of clothing, but a braided leather armlet circled his left biceps, and a thin piece of twisted leather lay coiled behind his head. Nora reached into her jacket pocket for a magnifying glass. Through the thick lens, she traced the cord to a triple knot just below the right ear, and saw how the leather cut into the wasted flesh. She crawled around to get a better look at the throat and noticed one end of a deep gash just below the ligature. From the position of the cut, inside the body’s protected curve, she knew it could not have been made by an errant machine blade. By all appearances, someone had strangled this man and savagely cut his throat.

She raised her head and heard a hollow noise in her ears. That sound might have been the last thing he’d heard out on the bog as well: the gusting wind, or a faint whistle as it dragged through the sharp points of furze and heather. Or perhaps what he had heard were the few words whispered by his executioner just before the fatal blow. She wondered whether the armlet signified anything. Had he been a member of the society that killed him, a high-born leader, perhaps—or a prisoner, a hostage, an outcast? Had he gone willingly to his end, or been carried here bound and under protest? She imagined his killing carried out in darkness, some secret ritual witnessed only by the moon and stars, but maybe it hadn’t happened that way at all. Maybe the bloodletting had been part of some public display.

She was suddenly aware of Ursula Downes standing beside her. “Looks like someone wanted to make sure he was dead,” Ursula said. “Did you see the stakes? Look at his arms.”

Nora saw several thin wooden stakes about an inch in diameter that had been driven through the flesh of the man’s upper arms.

“I don’t suppose you ought to do anything more until Niall Dawson gets here,” Ursula said. She looked down at the bog man again and probed at his curled fist with the toe of her boot, a gesture that made Nora cringe. She wanted to shove Ursula away from the fragile body, out of the tent. But instead she slowly replaced the wet peat over the corpse and they stepped outside, back into the harsh sun and wind.

“Might take a couple of days to get him crated up,” Ursula said. “I assume you’ve got accommodation sorted.” The extraordinary green eyes shot her a stealthy look, and Nora suddenly felt foolish. Of course—everything was falling into place now; Ursula’s having heard so much about her, the sideways glances that said she was under close scrutiny. It should have come as no surprise at all that Ursula and Cormac were acquainted—Dawson too. They were probably all old friends, and she was the mug. She should have remembered that here in Ireland, the world of archaeology was a tiny sphere, and Cormac knew everyone in it. Clearly Ursula had been toying with her since the moment they’d met, but there was no reason to let on that she knew it. Nora struggled to put on her blankest expression. “Yes, I’m staying with a friend nearby.”

Ursula gave a mysterious smile, then looked across the bog toward her crew and sighed. “What the bloody hell are they up to now?” She checked her watch. “They’re not due a tea break for another hour.”

Nora followed Ursula’s gaze. The crew were all standing about one of the cuttings. With the wind, it was impossible to hear what anyone was saying, but their postures communicated a disagreement of some sort. One young woman broke away from the group and started running toward them. “Ursula!” she shouted, voice faint against the wind, and her hail was followed by a gesture, a single sweep of the arm that said “Come.” Nora followed as Ursula began to run.

When they reached the crew, Nora could see expressions of shock and dismay around the circle of fresh, windburned faces. A dark-haired girl crouched on the bank above the drain, her wellingtons covered in fresh muck to the midcalf.

“Jesus Christ, Rachel, why didn’t you say anything?” demanded one young man.