Sherlock’s ability
while driving to settle into a long reverie, without getting bored, was thankfully
due to his instincts for instant decision making being used every second in
lucid meditation. His eyes were currently
on the M4 motorway, heading directly west to Cardiff. While he drove, Sherlock was perfectly sane,
logical, and even downright pleasant to be with. This was a welcome state for John, who,
having recovered from his interesting previous week, only wanted to enjoy a
complete change of scenery from London.
They had gotten up
entirely too early to finish packing. Mrs Hudson brought their tea up when she heard
movement, which John especially appreciated.
His throat was still a bit sore.
They picked up the
usual top of the line gunmetal Landrover Defender at Westminster Motors, picked
up Sherlock’s new bank card at the Lloyds branch office, and were off.
Just outside Reading,
John put his seat back. “You mind giving
me the full briefing closer on to Bristol?” asked John.
“Not a problem.” Sherlock glanced over at John. “I think you’ll really like this one. A bit more relaxing. Disappearances of museum artifacts, screaming
in the night, that sort of thing.”
John smiled. “Can’t wait.” And rolled over to snooze with
the M4 hurtling past. He had thrown away
his last day of pain meds out of stubbornness, and figured a little sleep would
sort him out along with a few extra cups of tea. He was thankful that Sherlock hadn’t kept him
talking.
While driving, Sherlock
went to his secondary mind palace, recalling the last email he had gotten from Doctor
Owen Pritchard, junior curator of the antiquities department of the national
museum in Cardiff and lecture professor next door to the museum at Cardiff
University.
Pritchard seemed scared
to death in his last email, and had come near to begging Sherlock to get there
as quickly as possible. That had been on
Sunday, and Sherlock was able to tell him that he’d be able to depart the
following morning, and it seemed to comfort Pritchard a little.
Sherlock recalled the
oddest part of the letter. “I woke up
this morning up at my holiday cabin in Merthyr only to have a beautifully
forged pictish bellows spear embedded in the front garden, jammed into the
ground on my guest lecture photo. It had
been newly made. So either an ancient
tribal blacksmith has awoken from two thousand years of sleep and given me this
as a present, or someone is attempting to scare me, and they are succeeding.
“In addition to the
drumming and screeching the last two nights, I might add. There’s nobody around living within 500
metres of this cabin, and it’s adjacent to the Tydfil forest. So I am not safe
getting threats at my home in Cardiff, and less safe here.”
“Please help me find
whoever’s doing this. I know why, but it
doesn’t make any sense. You’ll find out
more when you get here.”
Sherlock had looked up
a few details of Pritchard’s letter, but preferred to let him provide the
details, since full interaction always spoke volumes. The bellows spear was a multi-barbed Pictish
and Celtic weapon native to pre-Christian tribes in Scotland and Northern
Ireland, but not to the Brythonic tribes of Wales.
Somebody meant
business, obviously, but it was historical business. Over something that Pritchard had in his
possession, obviously.
John snoozed quietly as
the flat midland fields of Wickham charged past.
Outside Bristol, John yawned,
stretched, and picked up the atlas showing their destinations in Cardiff and
further north in the Merthyr vale.
Then he turned it
sideways to look harder at the placenames.
He glanced up. “You have to
wonder how many Y’s, W’s, double-L’s and double-D’s you can fit into a word
before it becomes unpronounceable. A
lot, apparently.”
“John.” sighed
Sherlock.
“What?”
“Your London’s
showing. Zip it away.” He shifted lanes to come off the M4 for a
quick bite to eat in Hambrook.
“Do you think I could
learn Welsh while we’re there?” asked John.
“Probably not. But that’s not a problem.” said
Sherlock. “Have you ever been to Wales?”
“No. Not Ireland, either. Just most of the Middle East and half of
Western Europe. I’m afraid that I’m
horribly boring.” John thought Sherlock would notice his sarcasm, since John attended regular conventions on updated pharmaceuticals and equipment for the medical trade, held in Dublin. (Apparently not.)
“No, you’re just
horribly English." said Sherlock. "Gallivanting about the
planet and an insular local back home.
Desiring everything back home to be as predictable and boring as
possible, down to your brand of biscuit.”
“Tell me that’s one
thing you don’t like about me. Say it.” John taunted, grinning.
Sherlock smiled. “I
won’t. Someone has to be that, I
suppose. Otherwise life would fall
apart.”
“Thank you.” John
nodded and looked again at the atlas.
They pulled into a motorway express rest area and got out to stretch
their legs.
At the counter where
Sherlock was purchasing crisps, nicotine patches and Red Bull, he noticed a
headline in the paper for Newport, just across the headwater of the Bristol
Channel. “Irish antiquities board
requests return of carving missing from Cardiff Museum”
Sherlock bought it and
gave it to John, who was on the way back with a sandwich and two teas. “Here, read this out while we’re on the
road. I have a feeling we need to get
our skates on.”
They quickened their
pace back to the Defender, and pulled out.
Sherlock, being one to notice everything that other people thought was
furtive, saw a plain white transit van in the rearview, pulling out of the lot
behind them and getting on the M4, keeping a steady 50 yard pace behind them
and changing lanes when they changed.
John put his belt on
and put his tea in the holder. He opened
the Newport gazette to the page of the article.
“ ‘Bog ivory statue of goddess wanted back by Ireland’s national
museum’. A formal request by Ireland’s
government falls on a missing bog ivory statuette kept by Cardiff’s national
museum until only 2 weeks ago when it was reported stolen.
“The only goddess
statuette in Britain of Morrigan, or Morgan la Fey as she was called in
Arthurian tradition, reposed in Cardiff’s national museum under the junior curatorship
of Professor Owen Pritchard. Now she is
gone, and both the British Museum and National museum of Ireland want to know
why and how. Currently Dr Pritchard says
he has ‘the best working on it’ and is currently unavailable for comment.
“Given the murky
history of the Bog Morrigan, and the recent claim by the Irish government, we can
only guess that the intrigue surrounds a questionable lot of Irish antiquities
that made their way into the infamous collecting hands of the Earl of Carnarvon
in Scotland, shortly after the Irish Easter Rising in 1916, which saw the
museum of Ireland very quietly looted of various items that they imagined
wouldn’t be missed, and sold for weapons for the forces of Michael Collins and
Eamon de Valera at the time.
“The Earl photographed
and catalogued the Bog Morrigan among various other linnulae, penannular brooches,
hoard rings, sword hilts and head carvings, also from bog ivory. Later, he donated various items to the museum
of Cardiff, claiming that the carving was Morgan la Fey. However, the Irish antiquities board claims
that she was originally found by a fisherman on an isolated island in the Lakes
of Fermanagh in the mid 18th century, in a ‘rath’ or ringfort, and
kept until his family was offered five pounds for it by an antiquities scout in
the late 1890s.
“It too, had been photo
catalogued by the British Museum in Ireland until it quietly went missing after
1916. The big question is, which country
owns this carving that nobody can now find?”
John Watson folded the
paper. “So, who are we working for?”
“Not either
government,” said Sherlock, “but Pritchard himself. He supposedly wants us to find this carving
and get it to the auction house to be valued and kept in a vault until this can
get sorted.” he sounded guarded.
“You don’t sound
completely certain.”
“I’m not.” said
Sherlock. “I think Pritchard has this item hidden and in his possession. I think a private collector is about to offer
him a lot more for it.”
“Does it seem that
obvious to you?” asked John.
“You do recall that
business with General Shan?” asked Sherlock. John raised his eyebrows and sucked
in his breath, recalling just how deadly the Chinese can be regarding
antiquities.
“Someone wants this
item, and they’re willing to pay more than the Irish government requesting a
donation. The professor in his email
isn’t asking me to find it, except to say in passing that it needs to be
found. He’s asking me to find out who’s
threatening him. Passive reference to
your crisis missing item screams ‘guilty’ to me. He has it, but who’s the buyer, and why is he
terrified?” asked Sherlock. “I can only
figure this out when I see him. Also,
we…have a shadow. In a transit van.”
John snapped his head
down to the rearview and adjusted it to see the white transit van behind
them. “So, what’s the plan? Lose them?” asked John.
After passing the toll
booths on the other side, Sherlock noticed a large bank of fog swallowing the
M4 bridge across the Bristol Channel.
“John, get the map out of the M4 here at the Severn Bridge. We need to find a really quick hiding spot
just off the bridge because this fog bank won’t last. Lay-bys, service roads, anything.”
“I’m on it,” said John,
and yanked out the map while they entered onto the suspension bridge. The two gigantic H-shaped suspension towers
at the center crept slowly toward them.
Just past those, the fog bank swallowed the bridge.
“Right. Buckled?” said Sherlock. The transit van nonchalantly kept up with
them. Sherlock quickly put on his
leather gloves.
“Yep.” said John,
flipping quickly through the atlas.
“Right.” said
John. “There’s a lay-by as soon as the
bridge ends. Almost exactly one hundred
yards from where the bridge rails end flush to the ground. The lay-by connects directly to the service
road behind it that parallels the M4, and looks like it heads in both
directions. We can either keep going,
or…” he looked at the map. “Or, we can double back for the 100 yards, go under
the bridge and head north till we get to the A48 and take that secondary road all
the way into Cardiff.”
“We probably need to do
just that. I suspect if they don’t see us,
they will wait at the toll bridge, and there won’t be any side roads going past
it, to prevent toll avoidance.” Sherlock
had been slowly accelerating as they crossed the bridge, and their transit van
shadow had kept up with them. They were
now rapidly approaching 90 miles an hour, well over the speed limit. Now they knew they had to get rid of the van.
“Hang onto your tea.”
said Sherlock. He leaned forward at the
wheel and shifted into the middle lane, to avoid the slower cars. He pulled the switch for the fog lights and
punched it. Right past the suspension
poles, he entered a white night at 110 miles an hour.
John went as white as
the fog. The visibility in front of them
couldn’t have been more than 60 yards at the most, and they were now plowing
into it at top speed. He couldn’t think
of anyone doing anything more stupid.
Sherlock wasn’t keen on
it either. He was a beast of precision
maneuvering. “John, will I have to
fully stop to get on the service road?” he asked intensely.
“No. You’ll be able to maneuver onto it at least
30 miles an hour.”
“All right. I’m trusting you.” Sherlock passed 3 cars
that were in the far left lane, wsst,
wsst, wsst… and shoved the Defender back into the far left lane, at over
100 miles an hour.
“The bridge rails are
about to end. As soon as they end it’s
one hundred yards.” Said John, gripping
the bar above the window and the handbrake by instinct. His heart was in his mouth. He looked in the rearview and the transit van
was not visible, but it couldn’t have been more than two hundred yards behind
them.
Sherlock rapidly began
to brake and the lay-by approached with three seconds to spare before they
passed it. He rapidly shifted into
fourth, and the Defender fell in speed without squealing a single tire. Sherlock heaved the car off the motorway,
first once onto the lay-by then onto the back service road in rapid succession,
and suddenly they were on the gravel track behind the motorway and behind a
verge of trees.
Sherlock noted the
gravel was good for a handbrake turn. Lightning fast he gripped the handbrake
and pressed the button. John and he both heaved the handbrake upward in unison,
both of them thrown to the left by the immediate centrifuge. Sherlock’s shoulder slammed against his door
with his hands gripping the wheel and John’s head hit Sherlock’s back.
Quickly, while facing
the opposite direction, Sherlock slammed his foot on the accelerator and headed
down to the gravel underpass beneath the M4 they just exited, and booked it,
dust and gravel flying behind them. They
stopped beneath the M4 and waited for their shadow.
Both were short of
breath and heavy with adrenalin. John’s
hand had gripped the handbrake and sissy bar above his door window so hard,
that he had to pull his hands off by the wrist and wriggle his fingers to
regain mobility. He was piled into the
back of his seat by forward thrust and his eyes were so wide, they took over
his entire face. Sherlock looked like a
deer in the headlights, heaving his chest up and down.
Ridiculous with terror,
they looked at each other and broke into gales of laughter. “My tea’s gone down my leg,” said John
breathlessly. “and the front of me.” he laughed. “But that was some nice driving. Actually, BRILLIANT driving.”
“I know.” said
Sherlock, without a gram of humility.
“Where’d you learn?!”
“County Kerry. From a Northern Ireland rally driver named
Sterling Cook.”
“The champion?! Fergus
Sterling Cook?”
“None other. He was the best of the best. It…feels good to let it out again. In London I lose the desire to enjoy
driving.” said Sherlock, rubbing the wheel with both his hands and gazing icily
at the road in front of him. He looked
over at John. “But we’ll be doing this
again in two weeks.”
“Wait. You want me to be your map reader at the rally
in Donegal? Fifty yards turn left, twenty
yards turn right, slow to thirty, all that sort of rubbish?”
“It isn’t rubbish,
John. You did it just now, and that was
the most difficult thing any rallier could do.
You’re a brilliant navigator. I
wouldn’t have anyone else except Sterling himself navigating for me.”
“I dunno,
Sherlock. I could get us killed in a
second doing that.” John furrowed his
brows and looked down, rubbing his sore knuckles.
“You won’t. I trust you.
And representing the O’Flaherty family in the rally will get us plenty
of answers that the police can’t get.
Mycroft has us protected while we’re there.” Said Sherlock, and hesitated. He looked back over at John, and sighed out
his last bit of adrenalin.
“I trust you.” he said again, pursing his lips, and slowly blinking
his eyes, the way he did when his sincerity was fully bare and without a single
veil, the only such Sherlock that existed when telling John what he meant was, you are everything I stake my being on. Don’t forget that.
He
sighed, and started the engine. John
gazed at him for a long moment, the whites of his eyes glowing thoughtfully in
the darkness under the M4 bridge. He
cleared his throat and found the towel in the glovebox to wipe the tea off his
front, pressed the heater button to dry himself and got a fresh shirt out of
his day backpack.
In
those tiny moments of pure sincerity, Sherlock was more human than anyone John
knew who wore their heart on their sleeve.
And it got him every time.
“All
right. If you trust me, I’ll do it.”
“Thank
you.” the Defender roared off northward and rejoined the A48 down into Cardiff.
“By
the way, you didn’t pay the toll.” mentioned John in passing with a half-smile.
“Bugger
the toll.” said Sherlock. “If the speed camera could get me in that fog, Mycroft
would be ringing already.”
---
John
and Sherlock arrived in Cardiff about two hours later than expected; the A48
was a secondary road subject to multiple delays. It was three in the afternoon, and the
timeframe they had to tour the antiquities department with Pritchard for a full
briefing was running perilously thin.
Fortunately due to the political and media kerfuffle surrounding the Bog
Morrigan, Pritchard was able to arrange an extended briefing.
Sherlock
parked the Defender in a less conspicuous location, behind a clinic off Park
Lane, and they walked one street over to the main entrance of the museum. Sherlock brought out his mobile and dialed
Pritchard.
“We’re
here…right, Iron Age, ten minutes.” Sherlock
turned over to John and nodded. They got
into the main foyer and grabbed a map, and wound their way to Archaeology on
the third floor.
As
soon as they got into the Iron Age display gallery, Owen Pritchard came over
with a wide smile and shook their hands.
Sherlock made some quick observations.
Pritchard seemed a bit more relaxed than his emails had indicated, but
behind him came a PA, about 27 years of age, a moderately pretty, medium built
woman in black skirt and green blouse who was carrying a large file in both
arms and seemed far more uptight.
Deduction
came quick and fast.
Her
neck was so tense and her body language so terse that Sherlock sensed near
panic. But she was incredibly soft
spoken and wore a beaded necklace with a star on it. No, a
pentagram. Her hair was not that
shade of red naturally; up, but a bit messy; she smelled of patchouli and
sandalwood, she smoked.
Cat hair on her shoes and
cardigan. Antler tattoo barely visible
under her shirt collar on the back of her neck…large tattoo. Two earring holes, empty. Earrings removed to look respectable. One set of holes extended, tribal phase in
college with ear extensions. Nose ring
removed. Did she get conservative, or does
she live a double life? Museum ID
lanyard covered in gold pins of statues, neolithic spirals, Venus of
Willendorf. Proud of working here. Semi-permanent college employee, state
employee, lifetime in institutions. Eyes
on the floor, embarrassed, mortified.
Pagan.
Sherlock’s
eyes drifted over to Pritchard. Close trimmed brown and white beard, about
47 years old. Relaxed suitcoat with
leather patches, corduroys, no tie under the shirt collar. Chalk dust on the front left hand pocket from
reaching up to a chalkboard.
Left-handed. Antique gold
spectacles with filigree. Old money
family? Wedding ring mark etched into left hand ring finger. Removed. Divorce.
Widower would likely still be wearing his.
Sherlock
reached his hand out. “Good afternoon,
Doctor Pritchard.”
Pritchard
smiled pleasantly and shook Sherlock’s hand.
“I am so thankful to have you here, gentlemen. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Posh accent.
Didn’t ask for first name basis.
Old money, middle aristo. Or
second or third son of Earl.
“This
is my PA and understudy, Breege Bailey.” She held out a limp hand to each Sherlock
and John, gave a curt nod, and then her eyes fell to the floor again. Irish
pronunciation of Bridget, thought Sherlock.
“John
Watson.” John held his hand out and
shook Pritchard’s.
“Yes,
Dr. Watson. I have the pleasure of
reading your blog, and both you and Sherlock have the distinct experience in
the recovery of antiquities. We are in
great need of this experience right about now.”
“We
read in the papers that there is an antiquity that the government of Ireland is
demanding be returned to the National Museum.
It looks like a fairly sticky situation.” said Sherlock, guardedly.
“Stickier
than you know.” said Pritchard. “It
appears that the Bog Morrigan has instigated a massive underground feud, and we
are at the centre of it.” his eyes furtively glanced over to Breege
Bailey. Sherlock noticed disgust in his
tone of voice, and she looked positively mortified. She has
something to do with this, and confessed to him, thought Sherlock.
“So
you suspect who is at the centre of this, then?” asked Sherlock.
“Poseurs
and playacting.” snorted Pritchard. “But
we’ll discuss this out of the public eye later on.”
“So,
tell us about this carving.” said John. “How
old is it? What’s it depict?”
“She’s
a goddess figure, eight inches high, carved out of brown Irish Elk antler ivory,
and it’s just a simplistic carving of a woman carrying a crow figure on her
arm. But she’s wearing a helmet, and
dagger, over her dress, and her dress is decorated with La Tene-style
spiralling.” They were slowly walking
through the gallery, and Pritchard pointed over to the remains of a magnificent
bronze shield. “do you see the
decoration on that shield?” he asked.
Sherlock looked closer.
“400
BC.” he said, without looking at the placard dating it.
“Very
close.” said Pritchard. “That’s the
dating of the carving. 2400 years ago.
So we’re looking at mid-Iron Age before Roman occupation.”
“She’s
quite a find then.” said John.
“Yes
indeed.” said Pritchard. “We had her in
the collection since the early twentieth century; it was the infamous Earl of Carnarvon
up in Scotland who sent her down to us just before the even more infamous
Howard Carter expedition in KV.”
John
barely recalled his primary school history lesson. “King Tut…” he mentioned to himself. “…Kings Valley?”
“Precisely.”
said Pritchard.
“So,
where is this Bog Morrigan figure now?” asked Sherlock, cutting abruptly to the
chase.
“Well,
that’s where we need to go up to my office in Numismatics.” said
Pritchard. “Let’s discuss this over some
tea.”
Breege
had been following quietly behind, while Sherlock waited patiently to pick up
her accent. “I’ll make the tea for us
and bring it up from the canteen.” she said, and veered away to go back down
the lift to the restaurant on the second floor.
Posh Dublin accent. Ballsbridge,
D4, Killiney, Blackrock, Bray, thought Sherlock. Getting
her doctorate when something embarrassing happened, he thought, and she’s desperately attempting to mop up
the tatters of her career. The British Museum network was internationally a
really big career step. She could be studying archaeology in Ireland
well enough, he thought, but this
internship was her future bread and butter to curatorship internationally.
And she’s made a really huge
mistake, somehow connected to this.
---
Breege
offered to take John and Sherlock’s coats and hang them on the very old
mahogany hat tree just outside Pritchard’s office in Archaeology and
Numismatics. Sherlock hesitated a
second, looked her in the eye, and accepted her offer. John said he had a chill, and kept his
military jacket on.
Coming
out of an echoing corridor, Sherlock and John entered what was once a beautiful
set of rooms with high windows and vaulted ceiling. Now they were partially obstructed by shelves
and shelves of books, piles of dusty oriental rugs, and case after case of
thoughtlessly jumbled artefacts in the middle of cataloguing, or up for research
purposes forgotten five or ten years ago.
The entire wall by the door was stacked with opened cardboard boxes from
various addresses all over Wales and western Britain, products of various digs
which had to be brought out, catalogued, cleaned, restored, carbon dated for
verification, and placed in the vault.
Between
a half-dead fern and a spider plant gone mad with runners, Breege found a location
near Pritchard’s desk to place the tea tray.
The spot she chose was the least covered in unidentifiable dust and dead
bluebottle flies. The bright summer daylight
poured thinly through high Edwardian windows, opaquely yellowed with decades of
pipe-sporting curators long gone with the new smoking laws. She switched on the Tiffany lamps in the
corners and started pouring the tea into perfectly rosy Royal Albert china that
did not match the shambles surrounding them.
“Cream,
sugar?” she asked them generally.
“Double
whack of both, please.” said Sherlock, who liked sugar more than most
diabetics.
“Just
milk, please.” said John.
Sherlock
and John sat down in two grandiose teak monstrosities padded with crushed and
arseworn upholstery that had long lost their patterns, except for the barest
hint of paisley at the brass rivets.
Pritchard’s seat behind his desk was the world’s ugliest wheeled office
chair. Breege handed him his tea, and
passed theirs to John and Sherlock, who both took the barest sips and
simultaneously placed both saucers on the edge of Pritchard’s desk.
Sherlock
cleared his throat and looked straight at Pritchard. “I’d like to see the artifact, please.”
“It’s
lost.” said Pritchard. “What I need from
you is to find out who…”
Sherlock
switched on his deduction machine. John
could see the steely glare suddenly manifest, the rod snap tight in Sherlock’s
back, his hands calmly interlaced in his lap, the small bend forward. He sank in his chair and turned his gaze from
Pritchard, looking away apologetically just to avoid their inevitable
mortification.
“It
is not lost, it is in your possession.
Breege works in the vaults here cataloguing artefacts for your
office. She knew that the Bog Morrigan
was here, but somehow she found the Bog Morrigan cross-referenced in a Dublin
museum catalogue that predated the Irish civil war and assumed that it was
property of the Irish state that had been stolen. Carved deities are rare in the Celtic
tradition except as stone pillars and early Christianity took care of most of
those, so a carved statue of a goddess would be valuable beyond fortune.
“The
two of you are enjoying a fling, you because you’re lonely, her because she thinks
it’s good for her career. But that’s
where her loyalty ended. She discovered an
artifact that she thought was stolen by the British from Ireland, and it was
too much for her not to inform the authorities in Ireland. Which she did. She sent them both catalogue entries. So now the Irish State officially requests
the item to be returned, probably at the valued price it was bought around
what, 1918? 1920? At what was considered the cut rate price of
a few quid thanks to unscrupulous employees of the museum in Dublin, and the
scouts of the earl of Carnarvon.
“But
the earl made a generous donation to your museum to stay in the good books of
all the British institutions. He sent
you the Bog Morrigan. And your PA here,
Breege, found her in the vaults and took her home to keep. And I think she told people. I don’t know who. But they’re the ones threatening you
now. And it eventually dawned on her
somehow that she made a mistake that could cost her a career.
“So
she gave it back to you with her shameful confession in order to keep her job. And you have it, here, hidden in the insanity
of your office that no one could possibly have the covert time to rifle
through, so someone is trying to scare it out of you, or has offered you a
large sum of money, or both. You
reported the artifact stolen and you are biding time to see what you are
offered between warring bidders.”
“So,
Dr. Pritchard. I would like to look at
this artifact. Please get it for me.”
Sherlock
sat stock-still, waiting for a response.
Pritchard was holding onto the edge of his desk and leaning back in
shock. Breege was sheet white and looked
absolutely defeated.
Slowly,
with shaking hands, he reached to the middle drawer of his desk, opened it
slowly, and brought out something wrapped in a tea towel and white crepe paper.
Sherlock
reached out with his eyes glaring down Pritchard’s, and lifted the towel
wrapped item. He peeled back the tea
towel and the white crepe paper, and there was a dark coffee-coloured statue of
a goddess in dress that seemed to summon the Book of Kells, sporting a crow in
her upturned hand, spirals on her dress, a helmet and dagger, and a spear
behind her. It was a flattish figure,
carved out of a wide, thick section of Irish Elk antler, and was half sculpture
and half engraving as the features were not fully carved out.
It
was pretty, and fairly detailed. The
cracking of the antler indicated it had seen a very many years, and there was a
section of the edge of her dress that seemed cut off. “Radiocarbon dating?” asked Sherlock, almost
to himself.
“The antler is 14,000 years
old, it’s Irish Elk.”
“14,000
years ago was the ice age.
Uninhabitable.” said Sherlock.
“You’re
right.” said Pritchard. “So we have to
go on that these markings were made later, but still during the mid-Iron age. And
it was found in an Iron Age ringfort on an island in Fermanagh. But that’s not why I rang you.”
“Why
did you ring us?” asked Sherlock.
“To
help find out who is terrorizing me, because the police have no idea, and can
only ask me to find out so I can get them an ASBO. That’s all.
And I’m dead tired, and scared, and haven’t gotten any decent sleep for
a week thanks to all the threats. Which,
by the way, are terrifying. Mail drops
written in blood, blood and candles on my doorstep, dead goat in my driveway up
at my cabin in Tydfil, bellows spear in my garden, whooping in the wood.
“I
am literally at my wit’s end. Please
help.” Pritchard’s voice was breaking.
“You’re
debating with yourself as to selling this but you’re afraid of what someone
else may do to you, professor, isn’t that right.” said Sherlock. “Look, I’ll help you, but you need to be
honest with me. Obviously since it isn’t
lost, selling it isn’t an option, it’s museum property. But you’re afraid of what will happen to you
if you don’t sell it, or if you send it to Dublin, or if you sell it to one
party and not another. You are damned in
all directions, and the only option you have to keep your professional
reputation and person safe, is for me to expose and discredit whoever is doing
this to you.”
Breege
burst into tears and fled the room. Her
conscience had gotten the better of her.
Pritchard’s
head was down looking at the ground, his hands were still on his desk, fingers
dug into his leather desk cover, and he had pushed his chair back. His motives were bare now thanks to
Sherlock. John looked up to see his
face.
Pritchard
raised his head, tears in his eyes. “Yes.” He said.
“Yes to all of it.”
“Good.”
said Sherlock. “Now, you are going to
give me a lead to interview tomorrow to see what’s going on.”
“Only
if you tell him that you are the law, and there’s nothing he can do to me
now. He’s been putting the pressure on
me to sell this to him like you wouldn’t believe. But I surely think he’s not the main culprit
for the threats.” said Pritchard.
“Write
down his address and number, and we will interview him tomorrow.” said
Sherlock. Pritchard sighed deeply and
wrote down the name and number.
Before
giving the paper to Sherlock, he added, “Please. Whatever you do, this man gives enormously to
the community. His grove volunteers for
soup kitchens and fundraising. They own charity shops that benefit the elderly
and children with cancer. Please do not
address him disrespectfully, and send my utmost regrets and regards.”
Sherlock
took it, folded it, and nodded. “We’ll
ring you tomorrow.” and they left.
John
and Sherlock burst out of the front doors of the museum and bounded down the
steps onto Gorsedd Gardens Road. “Right.”
said John. “Where first?”
“Where
indeed.” said Sherlock. “How about
dinner?”
“Bit
early for you.” said John.
Sherlock
stopped for a second and drew a folded piece of paper from his pocket; it wasn’t
the one Owen Pritchard had given him. “Breege
has given us the answer to most of this riddle.
She feels horrible about what she did.
And it’s gravy for us.”
John
took the paper and read it.
Bigwig meeting tonight, all parties
involved re the Morrigan. Meeting at Pontypridd rocking stone circle at
midnight. Please, whatever you do, stay
hidden. I will be escorting in J. She does not know I have changed my mind. She is dangerous.
My religion was everything to me,
but I have discovered of late that it is also a means to an end for the
ruthless. This is called a witch war,
and I am mortified that I brought this on by informing my superiors in the
tradition. This has spiraled out of
control and it is my fault. I love Owen. Please don’t let anything happen to him.
B
They
took off again down Park Place and took the path one street over to get to the
car just on the other side. “Religion?”
asked John. “How is this about religion?”
“Neo-paganism.”
said Sherlock, walking so fast his coat was flying behind him. John kept pace. “Probably the most deeply divided set of
beliefs on Earth, belonging to those who academically batter about with contrived
sorcery and animistic shamanism because they haven’t the courage to be atheists. The problem is, like tribal pagans, it’s rooted
in racial and cultural identity and not any particular genuine ideology, so when it’s pagan versus pagan, there’s no
moral structure there to buffer a battle of beliefs.”
“You
know, there were some blokes in the Army making a bit of a fuss about being
acknowledged as pagans and having their own chaplain. I remember that too.” said John. “But I can’t recall actually knowing any of
them.”
“It’s
the same as any other form of religion.
Believing that someone invisible likes you the best. It’s tiresome nonsense whether or not it’s a
god or goddess.” Sherlock whipped out
his keys and pressed the unlock button on the fob.
“Sherlock,
you know how I get when you start god-hating.
We all need a moral compass.” said John as the car chirped, and he
opened the Landrover’s door.
“Ugh. Not again.
You really think this is as legitimate as any other form of
superstition?” sighed Sherlock in agitation. “My moral compass doesn’t need an
invisible deity who made the universe, John.
It works fine on its own.” Sherlock made it to the Defender, launched
himself in, and slammed the door shut.
“Yes,
I can tell.” said John. “By how compassionate
and caring you are for humanity’s
suffering.” he added, acidly.
He
regretted that immediately, because he knew Sherlock better than to strike out
so quickly. Sherlock employed the art of
being a complete judgmental jerk to protect his own compassion, because that
compassion was far bigger than the well most people have at their
disposal. “Sorry…it’s just…sometimes.”
John’s eyebrows furrowed deeply. “You’re
a bit of an atheist ass.”
Sherlock
sighed deeply, licked his lips, and didn’t answer back. He took another deep breath, and changed the
subject. “We don’t have to work until
eleven tonight. We’ll be staying in
Pontypridd, north of here, at a B&B right outside town and adjacent to the rocking
stone circle.” He started the car. “Right now, there’s a nice independent Italian
restaurant just on Cardiff Bay, just above the Ianto Jones Memorial on the boardwalk. I like to go there to walk and think. You mind Italian?”
John
looked at him quietly. “Not at all. You’re buying, as always.”
“Always.”
said Sherlock, and took off to Cardiff Bay.
On Mermaid Quay, John and Sherlock sat outside in the
evening sunshine. John was tearing into
a lovely bowl of mushroom stuffed ravioli in bacon and caramelised onion alfredo
sauce, and Sherlock sucked thoughtfully on a breadstick. He had finished his prawn crisps and red bull
much sooner, with John just starting his main course.
Sherlock pulled the bit of paper out of his pocket with the
contact info on it for Dafydd Pryce, retired Labour MP, Archdruid of South
Wales, and the cultural coordinator for the Rhondda Valley Arts Council, and
had a good long think while John devoured his ravioli.
Dafydd
Pryce stepped out into the light of the lit torches in the circle of the
Pontypridd rocking stone. His chiseled
face was as angry as an ancient oak tree’s gnarled iron, and he was not in any
form of garb for the entry to the circle, just his usual tailored blue work
suit and red tie. A thin, waifish woman in
jeans and cardigan with long brown hair sat casually on the rocking stone, waiting
for a neutral discussion. She was
barefoot.
“So. Here we are.” he expelled his breath in
exasperation.
“Here
we are. You wouldn’t happen to have the
Morrigan on you by any chance?” She looked up from toying with her pentagram
necklace.
“She
may not be in my hands but she isn’t yours to have anyhow.” he glowered. “She is part of history, not ‘magick’,
whatever you call the aggressive manipulation of powers that should be free and
unfettered by your filthy politics.”
“That’s
a long-winded way to say no.” she said.
“Look, she’s catalogued in Dublin, she disappeared to raise money for
the guns of war, now we want her back.
That’s all. Just a trinket. Why all the bother?”
“It’s
not the price, woman. It’s the
principle. She was bought and paid for
fairly.” Dafydd looked exasperated.
“Paying
for a woman. Yes, typical of a male
dominated tradition like druidism.” While she spoke, he shook his head at her
out of exasperation.
“Bl-oody
nonsense. You know well as I do that we
have priestesse..,” he interjected.
“DO
NOT INTERRUPT.” she suddenly roared. She
gathered herself and her eyes were smoldering.
“You’ll need to simply accept she was never anyone’s to sell, especially
Eamon de Valera’s. She belongs to Irish
wicca, fair and square.”
“How dare you make such a claim on the basis
of a contrived religion chartered by a Satanist.” he spat. “She is better off in our care and not in the
hands of repugnant perverts with a mandate from Aleister Crowley.”
She shot her
head up and hissed at him. He raised his
chin at her in defiance. “Your
traditions aren’t more than seventy years old." he continued ruthlessly. "Your religion is a farce, and it is a tradition of manipulation and self-aggrandizing
sorcery.”
“Well,
arch druid. You have such beautiful
things to say about the Gardnerian tradition.
You seem to forget that your ancestor William Price’s devotions were
based on contrived traditions.”
“We
rebuilt our language and culture. We
keep civic duty our top priority. Your
people don’t even have a civic
presence. It’s full of drug-pushing
dissident Republicans and card carrying Satanists. Crowleyan rubbish who do what they wilt, and
harm everyone in their way.” Her eyes were fire, but he was seething.
She
pursed her lips, staring into his eyes.
“It’s a legitimate form of fai…,”
He
stopped and shouted at her. “Faith? FAITH. Right. WHAT
sort of moral code do you actually even have? Crom Cruach, that’s your code. Consume everyone in your path. Take no prisoners.”
“We’re
a feminist earth religion, you should know that.” she said venomously, pacing
quietly.
“BOLLOCKS.”
he was furiously pacing widdershins inside the circle around her. “You sell that nonsense to Llandudno books,
but I know for a fact your lot is as bloodthirsty as that crow you worship.” He
walked straight up to her and seethed in her face.
“Just…like…the…terrorists. You feed gullible Americans and hippies
across Western Christendom with your rubbish, take the book royalties, create
an alternative religion, but that’s not the beast you are. I see
the beast you are, woman. You’re not
feminists, you’re monsters. All the hardest
feminists I know are atheists. Your
manipulation of the sacred to your purpose, and not the people’s, makes me want
to burn the groves my family kept sacred and take on their disbelief.”
He
kept his face in hers, his green eyes flaming, his trimmed brown and grey
whiskers arching forward at her like a sea lion’s, his nose flaring at her.
She
calmly and quietly faced him, eyes locked.
“Always the Labour lefties, you Rhondda druids.” she smiled. “Always ‘for the People’. For the civic good. For the ‘working
man’.” she paced quietly around the stone.
“How about, ‘for the Goddess’? Will you do nothing for Her?” she asked.
“The
Goddess knows her own mind. I worship
Her, I don’t claim to be a puppet of voodoo possession by your goddess. You do.
That’s disturbing and nothing I want close to me.” he said.
“Well,
she says she wants her image back in
Ireland where she belongs paired with Crom.” she walked away from him
dismissively. “And since you don’t
perform the rituals of possession, I suppose you can assume she is speaking
through me, and take my word for it.”
“And
I suppose you divined this through some non-family-friendly deviant sex ritual
designed to channel your goddess.” he sighed disgustedly. “You know what, Jane Farrington, I am
finished with you. Your mole in the
museum might have reported the Bog Morgana to the Irish antiquities board, but
it’s not getting in your hands no matter how much money your army of faithful
college prats has raised to buy it.”
“Oh,
I think the seller will have something to say about it.” she said. “And the Irish Antiquities Board. I do not intend for it to fall into their
hands; they don’t have a third the money we have raised to pay for it.” Jane
smiled. “I only made my mole squawk so they would make the National Museum
buckle to us and give it up.”
“And
I have told a group who want her in their hands for their own traditions. Traditions far older than yours or mine as
neo-pagans, I might add. A group with
far more money than your lot.”
Jane
turned and looked slightly displeased.
“And who could that possibly be?!” she demanded.
“The
Royal Mcdonoughs.”
Jane
Farrington blanched. “The wifebeating
bare knuckle boxers?!”
“Yes.
Bare knuckle fighters, dog runners,
horse beaters, pull all their daughters out of primary school to marry at
12. Weddings cost 100 grand, own 10
separate family compounds in nine different counties, own Limerick, and will
kill your granny for her penny jar.
“I
told the Royal Mcdonoughs that she was in the market, to keep their eyes out,
to let us know. Now through their fairy
lore they think if they get their own hands on her, their bare knuckle leadership
of the amalgamated travelling tribes incorporated will be a permanent thing. "
She glared at him, her eyes wide as dinner plates.
He
sucked his breath in slowly, out of a sense of triumph. “They find it on you, and you’re beaten or
worse just to start with. I told them that perverts
were about to claim leadership over the fairy horde of all Ireland, buying an
image of the Banshee carved by their ancestors for fifty grand. You can imagine how that bonkers crowd perked
up their ears.”
Jane
Farrington was horrified with rage and indignance. “HOW DARE YOU.”
“I
DARE IT!" he roared. "I am not afraid of your invisible servants. I don’t just give those powers lip service
for favours.
“It’s
better to need nothing and give everything, and it’s a morality war between our
gods now. May the best deity win.” he walked out of the circle, and piped up as he
left: “Now we are all on even ground. If
we can’t keep her, no one will. Pritchard
did all of us a favour, sorceress.”
The
torches died out and the cold damp of the Welsh night returned in Pontypridd.
Jane
was one angry witch, and Dafydd Pryce, great-great grandson of William Price,
founder of the new druidism movement in the Rhondda valley of South Wales, was
not afraid of her in the least.
Jane
turned and stalked out of the circle in disgust, holding a torch to avoid
tripping on the avenue stones leading in.
Breege joined her with the other torch and helped Jane get her shoes on. Then they got in Breege’s BMW and left.
Adjacent
to the rocking stone, Sherlock and John clambered out from underneath a
gigantic fir tree with branches drooping all the way to the ground, where they had
shut off their mobile phones and sat since 11:30. They had quietly listened to the exchange in
the circle on a bed of soft, noiseless pine needles.
Both
of John’s eyebrows were up near his hairline.
“Well!” he said. “That was interesting.”
“Yes.”
said Sherlock. “I am officially not bored.”
