Spiral: Book One of the Spiral in Time by Judith Schara Read Free Book Online Page A

at Maiden Castle.
    “Unholy terrors we were. We took our dogs, and they would run about barking and routing the sheep into a right panic. They still keep sheep up there, my dear, and they are a very funny sight when small boys set them off, all baaaing and running every which way. We even tried to shear their wool with our mum’s kitchen scissors. It was not a success!”
    He shook his head and squinted at the crossing up ahead. Bales of hay were scattered over the road, and an old farm truck had stopped to pick them up. The Bentley glided to a halt at the blocked intersection, while Aubrey elaborated on his story with an imitation of a wild-eyed sheep pursued by an equally wild-eyed boy. He was a gifted comic and she relaxed a little and laughed. It nudged her anxiety a little further into the background.
    When they finally moved on, she gazed out the window as Aubrey chattered on about finding bits of iron and broken shards at his grandmother’s farm, all of which started his love for archaeology. She leaned back in the comfortable leather seat, content for the moment.
    Her own past was so different from Aubrey’s: no warm boisterous family or dogs. She knew next to nothing about her mother and father—she was only a baby a little over two when they died. Aunt Edie, her guardian, was a retired history teacher who had never married, and didn’t know what to do with such a small child. Aunt Edie did love books, though, which floated around everywhere in the house, like ships lost on the sea. You could find them perched crooked on tall shelves or in piles around Aunt Edie’s bed. And, not knowing what else to do, she read to Germaine. Every day, the baby heard the magic of words, starting with a daily reading from the Bible, and progressing onward with Shakespearian plays at breakfast, perhaps a little Homer or Aristotle at lunch, and poetry at dinner.
    Words filled the very air she breathed and kept a lonely child company. She found everything she needed in books, especially in history—great civilizations, Greek myths, tales of lost worlds, and intriguing ancient people. Living in the past seemed natural; modern life was never as compelling. It was a short leap to the fascination of archaeology and finding hidden artifacts. One way or the other, she and Aubrey both ended up loving the same things.
    Two miles outside of Dorchester, as the road turned east, the whole of Maiden Castle came into view.
    “There it is,” Aubrey said. “ Mai Dun , as the Celts called it.” An enormous, flat-topped hill loomed gray and hulking, in the overcast light of the misty day.
    “ Mai Dun .” Germaine whispered the name, and her heart gave an unexpected lurch. A chill ran down her back.
    Those ancient Celtic words meant “great hill.” Somewhere along the road to modern times it became Maiden Castle. The English seemed to call any great edifice a castle, even though it was not a castle as defined by modern thought. It was a defensive hillfort, surrounded by a complex of high ramparts, built to protect the ancient people living at the top.
    “You know, this was the center of the Durotriges, a powerful tribe. Powerful, that is, until the Romans came,” he said. “But of course, you know all that. Forgive me, Germaine. I’m still teaching.”
    She smiled at him. She did know a lot about hillforts. Early on, after graduating, she worked with Aubrey excavating Danebury, a large hillfort in Hampshire, and another in Brittany. Then her interest in Celtic grave sites drew her to France and Germany, with their princely burials full of rich materials. Always busy elsewhere, she had never worked on this great Celtic hill. She studied its history—it was a classic in early British archaeology. The renown archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler worked here in the late 1930’s, though she heard there had been some more modern follow-up work recently.
    The Bentley drew closer still. From one side of the windshield to the other, Maiden Castle