The Janus Stone

Has Nelson noticed anything? She doesn’t think so. He was fairly abrupt but that is what Nelson is like when he is on an investigation. And he had deferred to her, asked her how long the excavations would take, much to the annoyance of Trace and the foreman. She wishes she hadn’t been sick though. Irish Ted had been nice but she doesn’t trust Trace not to tell all her field archaeology friends. Had it been the car journey and the exertion of clambering over the site? Or had it been the skeleton, the foetal position, the thought of the head separated from the body? She remembers Max’s talk of head rituals in Celtic mythology. Celts were head hunters. Celtic warriors would cut off their opponents’ heads in battle and hang them from their horses’ necks. After battle, the heads would be displayed at the entrance to the temple. The severed head is a recurring theme in Celtic art.

Is the building-site body Celtic or Roman? Is it medieval, a relic from the long vanished churchyard? Maybe, but Ruth is still convinced that it was buried fairly recently, in the last couple of hundred years. The disturbance of the earth under the door suggests that it was buried when the door was put in place. How old was the children’s home? She will have to ask Nelson to look at the title deeds and planning history.

She is passing the Swaffham road and, on impulse, makes a sharp turn, earning her a furious hoot from the car behind. She will stop off at the Roman dig, have a word with Max. If nothing else it will be good to be out in the open air after a day spent in the car. The earlier rain has stopped; the air will be sharp and pure at the top of the hill.

To her surprise she finds a coach parked awkwardly at the foot of the grass bank. The driver is still inside, eating a sandwich and reading the Sun. As Ruth parks her Renault beside the bus, she notices a group of elderly people approaching. They are dressed in tweeds and waterproofs and some are carrying guidebooks. The slope is steep and some of them are leaning on sticks and breathing heavily, while others sprint along like teenagers. Ruth spots Max bringing up the rear, offering his arm to a large grey-haired woman. Some of the elderly people smile and wave at Ruth and she waves back, although she has no idea who they are. They seem friendly anyway. When everyone is inside the bus, the driver puts down his paper and the wheels churn slowly in the mud. Max waves heartily until they are out of sight.

‘Hi!’

Max jumps. ‘Ruth. I didn’t see you there.’

‘Who were the visitors?’

He grimaces. ‘The Conservative Association.’ Ruth starts to regret waving. ‘We’ve had quite a few groups now. It was the Scouts earlier.’

‘Jesus. Two paramilitary organisations in one day.’

Max grins. It’s the oldies who scare me most. Did you see that woman walking with me? Looked just like the Emperor Vespasian.’

Ruth laughs. ‘I just came to have a look round but if you’ve had enough for today…’

‘No, no.’ Ruth is flattered by Max’s eager denial. ‘I’d love to show you round. We found something interesting today actually.’

They climb the hill, Ruth trying to disguise how out of breath she is. Jesus, at this rate she’ll be immobile at nine months. The trouble was, she wasn’t terribly fit before.

At the top of the hill, Max bounds off towards the furthest trench. Ruth follows more slowly. She can see that, even before his students arrive, Max has been busy. There are now three trenches radiating outwards like spokes on a wheel. The furthest trench is the deepest, and as she gets closer she can see the layers, topsoil then the telltale layer of chalk which indicates that once, thousands of years ago, this whole area was under water. Cut into the chalk line she sees a wall, the mix of flint and mortar with a thin line of bricks distinctly Roman. And, below the bricks, a silver-grey orb, faintly translucent in the evening light.

‘A skull?’

‘Yes. Can’t see any more just yet.’

‘Do you think it could be a foundation sacrifice?’

‘Yes I do.’ Max gestures towards the bricks. ‘I think this may have been the corner of a room, which could be significant. Remember the bodies at Springfield? They were buried in all four corners of the temple.’

‘Is this a temple then?’ Ruth looks round at the trench, with its neat earth walls open to the sky; her archaeologist’s eye seeing instead a stone temple with statues, altar and incense burning.

‘Again, it’s possible. We’ve found some pottery. They could be amphorae. But it could also be a private house.’

Ruth knows that all Roman houses would have had shrines to the domestic gods. The head of the house – the paterfamilias – would have been, to all intents and purposes, the high priest of his own household religion. And at the hearth, the symbolic centre of the home, there would have been a fire sacred to the goddess of fire. What was she called?