‘You are a
I felt the blood rush to my face, and I stuttered, trying to find the words to defend myself, but before I could do so Sally had turned on Louren. Her rage still blazed, her tone was not moderated in the least as she shouted at him.
‘Make him give it to me. Tell him to do it!’
Even in my own distress I felt alarm for poor Sally. This wasn’t a crippled, soft-hearted little doctor of archaeology she was talking to now. This was like prodding a black mamba with a short stick, or throwing stones at a man-eating lion. I could not believe that Sally would be so stupid, would presume so upon the mildly friendly attitude which Louren had shown to her. I could not believe that she would dare that tone with Louren, as though she had some special right to his consideration, as though there was some involvement of emotions or of loyalties which she could call upon in such imperious terms. Even I who had such rights would never misuse them in such a fashion, I knew no one else who would.
Louren’s eyes flashed cold blue light, like the glinting of spear-heads. His lips drew into grim lines, and the rims of his nostrils flared and turned pale as bone china.
‘Woman!’ His voice crackled like breaking ice. ‘Hold your tongue.’
If it were possible then my despair plunged even deeper as Louren responded precisely as I had expected. Now the two persons I loved were on a collision course, and I knew each of them so well, knew their pride and pig- headedness, that neither would deviate. Disaster was certain, inevitable.
I wanted to cry out to Sally, ‘Don’t, please don’t. I’ll do what you ask. Anything to prevent this happening.’
And Sally’s bravado collapsed. All the fight and anger went out of her. She seemed to cringe beneath the lash of Louren’s voice.
‘Go to your room and stay there until you learn how to behave,’ Louren gave the order in the same coldly furious tone.
Sally stood up and with eyes downcast she left the room.
I could not believe it had happened. I gaped at the door through which she had gone - my saucy, rebellious Sally - as meekly as a chastened child. Ral and Leslie were writhing in a sea of agonized embarrassment.
‘Bedtime, I think,’ Ral muttered ‘Please excuse us. Come, Les. Goodnight all.’ And they were gone, leaving Louren and me alone.
Louren broke the long silence. He stood up as he spoke in an easy natural voice. His hand dropped on my shoulder in a casually affectionate gesture.
‘Sorry about that, Ben. Don’t let it worry you. See you in the morning.’ And he strolled out into the night.
I sat alone with my suddenly worthless roll of old leather, and my breaking heart.
‘I hate you, you
It took me a long time to get completely drunk, to the stage where the words had lost some of their sting, and when I staggered down the steps into the bright silver moonlight, I knew what I was going to do. I was going to apologize to Sally, and let her do the work. Nothing was important enough to warrant her displeasure.
I went to the hut where Sally now slept alone. Leslie had moved into Peter and Heather’s old room. I scratched softly on the door, and there was no reply from within. I knocked louder, and called her name.
‘Sally! Please, I must talk to you.’
At last I tried the door, and it opened into the darkened room. I almost went on in, but then my courage deserted me. I closed the door softly, and staggered to my own hut. I fell face down across the bed, and still dirty and fully dressed I found oblivion.
‘Ben! Ben! Wake up.’ Sally’s voice and her hand shaking me gently but insistently. I turned my head and opened my burning eyes. It was bright morning. Sally sat on the edge of my bed, leaning over me. She was fully dressed, and although her skin glowed from the bath and her hair was freshly brushed and gay with a scarlet ribbon, yet her eyes were puffy and swollen as though she had slept badly, or had been crying.
‘I’ve come to apologize for last night, Ben. For the stupid, hateful things I said, and my disgusting behaviour—’ As she talked the shattered pieces of my life fell back into place, and the pain in my head and heart abated.
‘Even though you’ve probably changed your mind, and I don’t deserve it anyway, I’d be honoured to act as first assistant to Hamilton or whoever does the work.’
‘You’ve got the job.’ I grinned at her, ‘That’s a promise.’
Our first task at the archives was to clean away the thick accumulation of grey dust that blanketed everything. I was puzzled as to the source of this dust in a sealed and airless space like the passage, but I soon found that the joints of the roof lintels were not as tight as those of the walls, and during the centuries a fine sprinkling of dust had filtered down through these cracks.
When the equipment which Louren had ordered arrived on the Dakota, along with a detachment of Louren’s security police, we could begin the work.
The security police set up a hut at the entrance to the tunnel, where there was a permanent guard posted. Only the five of us were allowed to enter.
The vacuum equipment simplified the removal of dust from the archives. Ral and I worked from the outer end of the passage like a pair of busy housewives, and the suffocating clouds of grey dust made it necessary to wear respirators until the job was finished.
We were then able to assess our discovery more accurately. There were 1,142 sealed jars of pottery in the stone recesses. Of these 148 had been knocked from their niches and 127 were broken or cracked, with their scrolls exposed to the air and obviously much the worse for it- These we sprayed with paraffin wax to prevent them crumbling, before lifting, labelling and packing them.
