By the time Marchand and Denny showed up, tripods slung over their shoulders, there were long shadows in the grass and the air was chilly. Gitte had finished boiling the water on the camping stove and had allowed its burners to be used for preparing dinner, a concoction of stewed vegetables in beef broth. True to his word, Owen had commandeered a tin cup full of the water and had set his wax-and-honey mixture in it to reach the proper consistency for lubrication.
"You might have saved some of it for coffee!" Alasdair had grumbled, so Gitte had gone back to the spring for more water. She then set a smaller pan to boil.
Marchand, his cheeks red from sun and exercise, accepted a steaming cup of tea and took his place at the long table beside Callum, who was eating cheese and crackers while he waited for the stew. "What did you think of your day, then?'' he asked heartily.
Among the assorted murmurs of enthusiasm, Owen piped up. "I was still hoping we'd find a burial chamber."
Callum looked up from his cracker. "Do you want neolithic, or will any one do?"
Owen narrowed his eyes. "I don't mean the village cemetery, thank you!"
Denny laughed. "I don't think that's what he meant, Owen! You're talking about the sea dead, aren't you?"
Callum nodded. "Yes, of course. I took some photos of them, but of course they aren't germane to the project."
Owen was instantly alert. "Sea burial?"
"Those flat stones near the causeway. The ones sticking
up in the ground, like small standing stones. The islanders put them there. It's the way they buried bodies washed ashore from shipwrecks. They didn't do crosses, because they didn't know if the deceased were Christian or not."
"You mustn't disturb them, though," Tom Leath warned him. "That crosses the line between archaeology and grave robbing. They're much too recent to interest us anyway."
Alasdair yawned and stretched. "Owen won't do any body snatching, will you, Owen? There's no sport in it. I fancy there's another site on the island as well. Did you catch that, Farthing?"
Callum shrugged. "The Tarans, you mean? It's possible, I suppose. I haven't looked closely."
Owen, who had fished the jar of honey and hot wax out of the pan of water, looked up from his bagpipes. "What are 7ara«5?" he demanded.
"Unbaptized children. When a child was stillborn, or if it died before it could be given the rite of baptism, the islanders did not bury it in the ordinary cemetery.''
"They were put in unmarked graves in special burial grounds high up in the hills or on the grassy ledges of cliffs facing the sea,'' Alasdair said in a tone that made it clear that he was showing off rather than being helpful.
"Why?" asked Elizabeth, whose passion for folklore had been aroused by the discussion.
"To give them a chance at salvation," Callum said solemnly. "The high places are halfway between heaven and earth, and their parents hoped that the kind spirits of the middle kingdom—between heaven and hell—would take pity on the little spirits."
"They say that you can hear the wee things crying in the wind," said Alasdair, smirking at Elizabeth's tears.
"And there's such a place here on Banrigh?'' Owen asked. He was carefully pouring the thick mixture into the sac of his bagpipes, but he was paying careful attention to the conversation nonetheless.
"Perhaps," Alasdair said, with a mocking smile. "I thought I might go off and see tomorrow. By myself," he added to the three pairs of pleading eyes gazing hopefully at him.
"I couldn't go anyway." Owen shrugged. "Tomorrow I'm taking the boat to the little island." He sloshed his instrument around a bit in order to coat the inside thoroughly. "I'll let it sit for a bit before I dump it out," he said to no one in particular.
"I couldn't go tomorrow, either," Elizabeth said proudly. "Cameron is coming, you know."
"I'd leave the place alone, Alasdair, if I were you," said Callum. "It'll bring you no luck."
Alasdair smirked. "People make their own luck, I always think!"
CHAPTER
11
Alasdair looked with disfavor at the breakfast foods haphazardly laid out on the slightly sticky wooden table. This must be someone's idea of working-class Scout fare: lardlike margarine, aging bread, teabags, and a cracked cup of white sugar. Powdered orange juice, stewed tomatoes, and canned beans would no doubt follow. He shuddered, wondering if he ought to demand that a supply of stomach tablets to be added to whatever the biologist would be asked to bring on his next stopover. He decided against it. If he complained, the others might think him not a team player, which of course he wasn't. He thought teamwork was a peculiar form of stupidity, merely sharing the incompetence so that no one could be blamed when things went wrong. Alasdair, who could be chillingly efficient when he chose to be, had no use for the encumbrance of others when he wanted to get something done.
He searched about in the larder for the cheese. That and the bread would make a barely acceptable breakfast, he decided, and he could eat it quickly, without having to be bothered by the insipid chatter of the others. He glanced over at Gitte, who was still sleeping. She was a stupid cow, of course; he'd never met a woman who wasn't, only some who thought they weren't. He wondered why women made such a virtue of self-sacrifice; perhaps it was nature's way of making it easy to exploit them.
He stood up. Time to get moving. There would be reproachful looks and sniffles of martyrdom to endure when he got back, but Gitte was used to being left out when it suited him, and well she knew that sulking would get her nowhere. Still, he preferred to deal with her later, rather than now.
He didn't want to miss the biologist, though. That was important. Hastily, he scribbled a note:
Must see C. Dawson when he arrives. I want to send something back with him. Also have instructions regarding soil samples, etc. Do not let him leave until I return.
A. McEwan.
That should do it, he thought to himself. It left no room for argument. He anchored the note to the table with a corner of the sugar cup; then he pulled on his anorak. He had better be off before the others woke—lazy pigs!
Elizabeth tugged on her cleanest lambswool pullover—the burgundy-colored one that set off her dark hair so nicely. She wished she had brought a fourth pair of jeans, but perhaps it wouldn't have mattered. The cold spring water was not able to get them really clean anyway, and it took them days and days to dry in the moist chill of a Highland summer.
Elizabeth reached for a paper tissue and stifled a sneeze. She was running low on tissues; she must remember to ask Cameron to bring her some. Perhaps this was the beginning of a cold. She wouldn't be surprised, considering the climate. She had almost forgotten what it felt like not to be cold and slightly damp. Did her ancestors really need a marauding English army to persuade them to emigrate? The very thought of winter would have sent her packing. It's all a matter of what you're used to, though, she told herself. Only she and Owen, the Americans, seemed to notice the cold. Gitte wore a T-shirt most of the time and seemed to think the weather was normal.
Still, it was beautiful in the Highlands. She thought that if one had a little house in some less remote place—like Skye— with central heating and a generous supply of hot water, Scotland could be a wonderful place in which to live. However, if one had to subsist in a tin shack from World War II, with no conveniences and nothing to eat but carbohydrates, one might as well be a seal.
She distracted herself with the thought that Cameron was coming in a matter of hours, and for that momentous occasion she decided to heat a pan of water on the camp stove. She would try to get her face and hands really clean.