you?’
Nina gave her a reassuring smile as she picked up a yellow hard hat from Chloe’s gear. ‘You’ve probably got absolutely the right idea. But we’ve got to check it out as soon as we can, so . . .’
Mitchell donned a second helmet, then switched on one of the walkie-talkies and handed it to Chloe. ‘You know how to use one of these?’ She nodded. ‘Great. We’ll tell you what’s down there, step by step.’
‘Good luck,’ Chloe offered as Nina and Mitchell gathered up their gear and ducked through the entrance.
‘Thanks - just hope we don’t need it!’ Nina replied.
The first thing that struck her as she edged down the steep slope was the smell, a damp, all-pervading stench of rotting vegetation. Chloe had said the surrounding countryside used to be marshland, and it certainly smelled that way. The second was that while the tunnel was extremely confined, it hadn’t been made in a hurry. It had been carefully and diligently dug from the Tor, the walls smooth, the wooden props regularly spaced. Even though it had been intended to remain hidden, the monks still wanted it to be a tomb fit for a king.
Behind her, hunched low, Mitchell raised the walkie-talkie. ‘Okay, radio check. Dr Lamb, can you hear me?’
‘Loud and clear,’ came the reply. ‘How is it so far?’
‘In a word? Stinky.’
Nina smiled at his unscientific description, then focused on the tunnel ahead as she reached the foot of the slope. ‘Okay, it’s flattening out.’ She stopped, seeing that the path ahead branched. ‘Oh, great.’
‘What?’ said Mitchell.
‘It’s not a labyrinth, it’s a maze.’ Above the path to the left was a small carved slab embedded in the clay. ‘Give me the radio.’ Mitchell complied. ‘Chloe? I think we need your expert opinion here. There are two routes - the left one’s marked with a plaque that reads “Morgain”.’
‘More commonly known as Morgan le Fay,’ Chloe replied over the walkie-talkie. ‘Arthur’s sister, according to legend. What does the other route say?’
‘Nothing, and it doesn’t look like it ever did - there’s no hole where another plaque might have fallen out. What do you think?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Chloe. ‘It doesn’t mean much on its own.’
Nina shone her light down both passages. They seemed identical, curving away sharply after a few paces. ‘Guess we’ll just have to see where they lead, then.’ She looked back at Mitchell. ‘Morgain, or not-Morgain?’
He shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me. This is your line of work!’
‘Yeah, I was afraid you’d lay it on me. Okay . . . Morgain,’ she decided, starting down the left tunnel.
Water had pooled on the thick red clay of the floor. Nina splashed through it and rounded the first corner. Not far ahead, the passage twisted again, leading out of sight. The ground here was drier, though the walls and wooden props had the same damp sheen as the rest of the tunnel. She slowed, something about that niggling. Why were there no puddles?
Mitchell pressed up behind her. ‘Something wrong?’
‘Not sure, just . . .’ She shook her head. ‘Let’s see where this goes.’
She stepped forward - and the floor collapsed beneath her foot.
She shrieked as she pitched over, her wildly spinning torch revealing a deep, dark hole below as it fell away —
Mitchell grabbed her, yanking her to a painful halt just before she plunged into the hole. Straining, he pulled her back up.
‘
‘Are you okay?’
Nina took several long breaths, trying to calm herself. ‘Yeah, I think. Shit!’ She cautiously looked into the hole, and saw how she’d been tricked. A flimsy wooden square had been precariously balanced over the top of the pit, then a thin layer of clay smeared over it to blend it into the floor. Only a single footstep had been needed for it to break free - and drop into a waterlogged hole with several long and sharp wooden spikes poking up from its base.
‘Nasty,’ Mitchell noted with considerable understatement.
‘Help me across it,’ Nina said, her composure returning.
‘You sure? If there’s another . . .’
‘We’ve got to see where this passage goes.’ The gap was some four feet wide, the crossing made more awkward by the low ceiling, but with Mitchell’s aid Nina was able to traverse it. He tossed the remaining torch across to her, and she looked round the corner. ‘Okay, I hope whichever asshole monk came up with this is having a good laugh! It’s a dead end.’
Mitchell helped her back over the pit. ‘So what does that mean?’
‘It means,’ said Nina, bringing up the walkie-talkie, ‘we need somebody who knows the difference between Arthurian history and legend.’ She thumbed the talk button. ‘Hello, Chloe?’
‘Hi, Nina,’ said Chloe cheerfully, oblivious of what had just happened underground. ‘Have you found something?’
‘You could say that. Listen, I think I know what the inscription on the stone meant, the part about history and legend, and the one seeing you through to the tomb. The route marked with Morgain . . . well, it didn’t turn out so good. My guess is that at each junction, we’re going to find the name of someone or something connected to Arthur. The ones which are based in historical fact are the proper route, and the ones which are myth . . . we don’t want to go down them, put it that way.’
‘I’ll do what I can, but the line between Arthurian history and myth is very blurred.’
‘Just give us your best guess.’
‘Think you’re right?’ said Mitchell.
‘If I’m not, you’re gonna have to pull me out of a lot of pits.’
They returned to the first junction and took the unmarked passage, Nina warily testing the floor with each step. It remained firm. Nevertheless, she advanced cautiously along the winding tunnel until a second junction eventually presented itself.
‘Okay, Chloe,’ she said. ‘I was right, there’s another plaque.’
‘What does it say?’
Nina brought the torch closer to read the text on the flat stone above the left passage. ‘“Bedivere.”’
‘Oh, Sir Bedivere is absolutely genuine,’ Chloe announced. Her voice was now more distorted, interference worsening the deeper they went into the Tor. ‘If anything, he appears in more historical accounts than Arthur himself. He was called Bedwyr in the earliest Welsh references, and . . .’
‘I guess we go left,’ Nina told Mitchell as Chloe rambled on. They entered the new tunnel. Nina started paying attention to the walls and ceiling as well as the floor. Experience had taught her that trap builders rarely used the same trick twice.
But her theory seemed to be holding out as they wound deeper underground to reach yet another junction. This time, the sign was above the right-hand exit. ‘Chloe, you’re up again. This one says “Badon”.’
‘The Battle of Badon,’ Chloe replied immediately. ‘Arthur’s greatest victory over the Saxons. Either late fifth century or early sixth - the dates given to it vary, but it was definitely a historic event.’
‘Then Badon it is,’ said Nina, going right.
They continued cautiously through the maze, stopping at each successive fork in the path for Chloe’s advice. The distortion of her voice grew steadily worse, the hiss of static at times almost swallowing it. But they could still make out her answers: Llacheu, Arthur’s son, was considered a person of historical truth by the Glastonbury monks, while Arthur’s knight Sir Karados and Bron, the Fisher King, were consigned to the status of myth. Nina and Mitchell pressed on, the air growing more foul the deeper they went. Then:
‘Aah!’ Nina gasped, flinching back in surprise as she rounded a corner - and came face to face with what she thought for a moment was a woman. As her shock faded, she saw it was actually a statue, a slender, graceful figure standing at the edge of a pool of water, the iron-rich soil turning it a muddy reddish-brown. The chamber beyond was considerably larger than the tunnels, the pool filling its entire width.
‘It must be Nivienne - the Lady of the Lake,’ Nina said. She took out her camera and snapped several pictures; even if they couldn’t progress any further, she would still have something to study when they returned to
