Twelve minutes later the renegades emerged from gift shop and ladies’ room, laden with packages and ready to inspect the great stone circle. They followed Rowan through the tunnel and up the other set of stairs.
Fifty yards in front of them the great stones towered against a watery blue sky, but the majesty of the monument was diminished considerably by the chain-link fence surrounding it-and the paved path that encircled it, currently full of other tourists. An icy wind pushed them along toward the stone uprights.
“The stones in the outer ring are made of a material called
“What were these holes for?” asked Kate Conway, scanning the field of scrub grass for traces of the outer ring.
“There were bodies in them, weren’t there?” asked Emma Smith, summoning up memories from her days on the dig.
Before Rowan Rover could find a note to cover that question, Elizabeth MacPherson, the other amateur archaeologist, said, “Yes, but they were put in after the holes were dug and refilled. Maybe not by the original builders.”
“One theory,” said Rowan, who had found his place in the guidebook, “is that they reflect the same beliefs that caused the Greeks to dig similar pits, called
“The Druids practiced human sacrifice, didn’t they?” asked Susan.
“They didn’t build Stonehenge!” said Emma and Elizabeth together.
Susan looked puzzled. “Who did?”
Rowan Rover, who was fortunately a fast reader, flipped through page after page of his guidebook. “Good luck getting a straight answer on that one,” he said at last. “Apparently, Stonehenge was modified by a succession of prehistoric builders, so that you can’t attribute the thing to just one group. British archaeologists go on about the Windmill Hill culture, and the Beaker culture, and the Secondary Neolithic, until you scarcely remember what it was you wanted to know in the first place.”
“They sound like Grammy nominees, don’t they?” giggled Kate Conway.
“I wouldn’t know,” snapped Rowan. “Does anyone else have any questions? Several of the Californians are beginning to turn blue with cold.”
“It’s not cold by Canadian standards,” said Martha Tabram, smiling. “I wanted to ask how prehistoric people could build such a huge structure.”
“You mean the standing stones? We think they went up much later than the first circle-around 1700 B.C. I think we can assume that it was laborious work, requiring years of skill and patience.”
“When I was on the dig in Winchester, our archaeologist lectured on Stonehenge. He said that they excavated the field next to it, and found a cemetery full of crushed skeletons.”
“The sign of a bad construction worker,” said Rowan, eyeing the carefully balanced stones and the chain-link fence with a curious expression of regret.
Charles Warren, sensibly attired in a red ski parka, and not shivering, said, “I saw a TV special once that claimed that Stonehenge was a prehistoric observatory, designed to tell when it was midsummer and midwinter. Something about the way the sun rose in relation to the rocks. Is there any truth to that?”
“That’s what we were told when I was here in ’sixty-eight,” said Emma Smith.
Rowan Rover smiled. “Like most academic theories, that one went out of fashion after a decade or so. The current one, I believe, is that the neolithic people danced here. Archaeologists have found buried surfaces that they say were compacted by the pounding of dancing feet many centuries ago. I find that theory compelling, because a number of similar local legends survive about various rings of standing stones. Tradition always says that the stones themselves are dancers forever frozen in their tracks as punishment for some sin they committed, like breaking the Sabbath.”
“It is definitely a holy place,” said Maud Marsh, gazing admiringly at the ring of stones. “I get the same feeling here that I got in Winchester Cathedral.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Rowan. “I’m sure it was a temple to its builders, whatever uses they made of it, and despite the tacky little fence and the tourists, quite a bit of that majesty survives.”
“There is a stone circle in Scotland,” said Elizabeth. “It’s called Callanish, and it’s on the island of Lewis. Luckily, there is no fence around that one. Of course, it isn’t as famous as Stonehenge, or as accessible.”
“Just as well,” said Rowan. “The world is too much with us late and soon.”
Frances Coles waved her tiny automatic camera. “Just stand together, everybody, would you? I want to get a group shot with Stonehenge in the background. Everybody smile!”
“Torquay, isn’t it?” asked Bernard, when the freezing tourists had been loaded back into the coach. “Any particular route you’d fancy?”
Rowan Rover knelt down beside the driver’s seat and studied the road atlas. “Here we are above Salisbury,” he murmured, tracing the A303 with his finger. “And we have to get down to the Devon coast in reasonably good time. Shops tend to close at five, don’t they? Not tourist season anymore, really.”
“We should stay on the A303 to Honiton, I should think,” said Bernard. “Lunch there? By then it ought to be about one o’clock. Then the A30, bypass Exeter, pick up the A38, and take it to the A380. That will take us straight in. We should be there by half past three, if you don’t take too long eating your lunch.”
Rowan cast a steely eye at the shopping members of the party, who were happily engaged in comparing Stonehenge postcards, tea towels, and tiny replicas of the circle itself. “I’ll be ruthless,” he promised, reaching for the microphone. “Ladies and Charles, as you know from your schedule, you will be staying tonight in Exeter, but for this afternoon’s outing, it will be necessary for us to bypass Exeter and drive on to Torquay, where we will view the Agatha Christie exhibit in Torre Abbey. After that, it will be a drive of an hour or so to get you back to Exeter to your hotel. Any questions?”
Charles Warren raised his hand. “Lunch?”
“Bernard and I think that Honiton will provide a few suitable restaurants-”
“Honiton lace,” said Martha Tabram. “Is it the same place?”
Rowan Rover frowned. “If you wish to get to Torre Abbey before it closes, you will confine yourselves to a brief lunch stop. Are we all agreed?”
There was a mutinous set to Elizabeth’s jaw, but it was early days yet on the tour. There would be time to shop later. The others agreed cheerfully.
“Well then, say goodbye to the Beaker People. We’re off to the English Riviera.”
True to their word, the group passed up a street full of inviting curio and antique shops and descended en masse into the Three Tuns Pub on the Honiton High Street, immediately outnumbering the bemused locals. They packed themselves in fours around wooden tables the size of poker chips, sharing one paper menu per table and speculating on the entrees like sharks at a swim meet. Rowan Rover explained, between sips of a pint of ale, that prawns were shrimp, cider was not synonymous with apple juice, and there were no waitresses in pubs. If they wanted to eat, they’d better join the queue at the bar.
“Can’t you get anything nonalcoholic?” asked Susan. “I hate beer. And why are these tables so tiny? And no waitresses?”
Rowan Rover sighed. “A far cry from the Minneapolis Burger King, I have no doubt.”
She frowned at the menu. “What is this stuff, anyway. What are you having, Rowan?”
“A double Scotch and three cigarettes. For my nerves.”
Bernard, who did not appear in the crowded pub, had presumably found somewhere else to eat, because precisely forty-five minutes later, when Rowan had herded the flock back to the appointed meeting place on a corner of the high street, Bernard was already there, with the door open and classical music to aid the digestive process.
For the next couple of hours, as they passed through Dorset, Rowan Rover confined his remarks to explaining points of interest on the landscape (“That rounded hill is believed to be the site of King Arthur’s great battle at
