pass, thought Butler. Indeed, it was not so much a lie as the exact inversion of the truth—
something only a supremely arrogant man would dare think of. And what gave it the shape and hue of reality was that it fitted not only the facts, but also the man: this was a lie which Audley himself wished to believe.
'Good morning, Tony,' Audley raised his voice and pointed to the three workmen who were unloading equipment from the estate car. 'You're not going to dig in this weather?'
'Good exercise!' Handforth-Jones shouted. 'Morning, Colonel! Seen any Picts yet ?'
Butler grunted unintelligibly as the archaeologist strode up to them, rubbing his hands and grinning wickedly.
'Not that there'll be any Picts abroad today,' Handforth-Jones added cheerfully. 'Mornings like this dummy2.htm
remind me of what Camden thought of this part of the world—'nothing agreeable in the Air or the Soil'—-and Camden never even dared come this far. He said the Eptons were no better than bandits and he wouldn't set foot on their land.'
'Then what brings you out, Tony?' said Audley, laughing.
'Money, as usual, David.' Handforth-Jones waved suddenly to his brutish followers. 'Over here, Alfred!
Put the headquarters marker just here and the hospital one over there.'
He swung back to Audley. 'It's Anglo-Lusitanian Friendship Day, and I'm planning for the unfortunate Lusitanians to pick up the bill. You are welcome to watch if you've the time. You can even try to look like an archaeologist, if you like. I could do with a bit more local colour.'
'Local colour for whose benefit?'
'Hah! The Lusitanians, that's who.' Handforth-Jones's attention was less with them than with his followers, who were engaged in setting up stencilled notices on small wooden pegs outside each group of ruins.
'We're about to turn the place into a scene of frenzied archaeological activity for an hour or two. I only hope to God the weather holds.' He sniffed the air and scanned the low clouds anxiously. 'Which it doesn't look like doing, naturally.
Over here, Arthur, over here!'
He strode away abruptly, shaking his head and muttering to himself.
Butler looked at his watch. 'I ought to be getting back to the Milecastle pretty soon. If you want me to handle that end of it.'
The dirty end, naturally. The end that had sickened him yesterday afternoon and sickened him no less now. But he had known in his heart that it would be his end: it was what the Butlers of the world were here for.
'Audley?'
But Audley wasn't listening to him: he was staring down the hillside at the retreating figure, his face fixed in an appalled expression of disbelief.
'Oh, dear God,' he exclaimed.
dummy2.htm
Butler felt the blood drain from his own cheeks, though without knowing why. In anyone else this sudden confusion would be almost comical, but in Audley—in self-confident, omniscient Audley—it was like the moment of awful stillness before an earthquake shock.
Audley faced him.
'Whose idea was it for you to come up here?'
'Up here?' Butler repeated the words stupidly.
'To shoot your supper.'
'To shoot—?' Butler frowned. 'It was Gracey's. The Vice-Chancellor.'
Audley blinked. 'His idea?'
'There are hares up here, so he said.'
'He said so?'
'Aye.' Butler grappled with his memory. 'He said he had it on good authority.'
Audley relaxed. 'On good authority. I'll bet it was on good authority!' He turned to look down the hillside.
Handforth-Jones paused in the act of climbing aboard a small yellow dumper truck. Audley signalled furiously to him to rejoin them.
'What the devil's up?'
'Up?' Audley groaned. 'Anglo-Lusitanian Friendship Day, that's what's up. I haven't been as clever as they thought I'd be, that's what's up.'
Handforth-Jones advanced over the hillside towards them again.
'Hullo there! What's the matter, David?'
'Anglo-Lusitanian Friendship Day, Tony: what is it?'
'That's just our name for this little fund-raising venture.' Handforth-Jones chuckled. 'The First Lusitanians were stationed here during the Severan reconstruction. Hadrian's Own First Cohort of Loyal dummy2.htm
