Cape Wrath Read online

  Alan regarded the stone with a new fascination, and then he thought about the opened barrow behind him, and how this too had been incarceration of a sort. He chuckled, genuinely amused.

  All the same, there was a faint but undeniable chill in the pit of his stomach.

  6

  Linda was knee-deep in the water, bathing.

  Alan came up to the shoreline and watched her for a moment. He wasn’t sure if she was aware of him. As the rest of the camp was still fast asleep, she had stripped down to a pair of skimpy knickers and, though the water was evidently cold, she was luxuriating in its cleansing caresses. She had produced a sponge from somewhere, and was working it slowly over every shining inch of her supple, athletic form. As he watched, her thin cotton panties turned filmy and transparent. The arousal this brought him was agonising in its intensity.

  “So you’re a voyeur now?” she suddenly asked, without turning to look at him.

  “Is that a problem?” he wondered, nervously.

  Linda smiled to herself. “I doubt it would look good on a CV.”

  Her apparent lack of concern gave him new courage. “I mean is it a problem for you … me watching?”

  In response, she rolled the sponge over her small, firm breasts, the peaks of which came perkily erect. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, I suppose.”

  “That isn’t answering the question,” Alan said, drawing his t-shirt over his head.

  She made no reply; didn’t even seem to notice as he unlaced his boots, kicked them off, removed his socks, then waded out into the pool in his corduroy pants. Now she turned to face him, apparently surprised, though whether this was in pretence or not, he couldn’t tell. She folded her arms across her breasts, though dark fur was clearly visible through her soaked underwear.

  “What do you want?” she said, as he came up to her.

  Alan gazed boldly down at her. “What do you think?”

  Suddenly she looked innocent, child-like. Despite the warm sunlight, she was shivering. “I thought we agreed …”

  “We agreed nothing,” he interjected. “I told you, that incident at the party was a complete mistake … I owned up to it straight away, didn’t I?”

  Linda stared up at him for a few seconds, uncertain. Then she made a move away. “I think it’s better if we just forget everything …”

  Alan took her by the elbow, gently but firmly. “I don’t think that’s possible, Linda.”

  She turned to face him again, and glanced nervously over his shoulder towards the silent camp. “Alan … I’m seeing someone else, now.”

  “And I bet you’re really enjoying it,” he replied.

  She stared up at him again, and for a fleeting moment all the scorn and sarcasm and phony toughness was gone. Instead, she looked hurt beyond belief; in that brief second, he saw the welter of harm and misery he’d heaped upon her, not just through that foolish instant of lustful indiscretion and the horrific moment of truth when he’d finally, guiltily owned up to it, but through the aftermath of it as well; the forlorn desert of betrayal where he’d suddenly dumped her, alone, humiliated, heartlessly abandoned to the first boor who might happen along.

  What was past was past, people said; you couldn’t roll back time. Sins could be forgiven no matter what their severity, but could wounds really be healed … deep wounds, which left you emotionally shattered? And at what point did reconciliation become exploitation? Alan knew only one thing, though … after three weeks, it had been too long already. Way too long.

  Slowly, he ran his hand down her cold, flat belly ’til he reached the band of her panties. It didn’t stop him. He pushed his hand under and pressed on down. Still she gazed up at him, bewildered, injured. A moment later, he was running a single finger through her silky folds, already moist and warm. She finally reacted at that and tried to hit him. He caught her arm, however, and kissed her, crushing her body to his.

  Only a split-second passed before she responded fiercely, throwing her arms around his shoulders, reaching up on tip-toes in the lapping, sun-dashed water …

  It was shortly after breakfast, when the group decided not to wait for those still out and about. The lure of the barrow was too strong. Whatever everyone was up to, the Professor said, it would be their loss.

  The final blockage of soil proved stubborn indeed. Presumably packed into place as a form of primitive cement for the portal-stone, it had been strengthened with pebbles and braced by wicker-work cross-pieces. The Professor, Nug, Clive and Barry each took turns to hack and cut at it with the pick and hand-axe, which in the cramped confines of the unlit tunnel became an ordeal in itself. As the outside temperature rose, so it rose inside the hole, until it was stifling and airless. What was worse, much of the impacted earth was so dry that, once disturbed, it tended to fill the air in a black, gritty fog. As someone remarked, between coughs and wheezes, “you’d be better wearing a gas-mask down there”.

  The entire thing entailed almost an hour of such strenuous, unrelenting work. But they kept at it, tirelessly, encouraged all the way by the sure knowledge that their goal was just within reach.

  Alan and Linda lay together on a lush and springy mattress of marsh marigolds.

  They kissed deeply, hungrily, their tongues entwined, sinuous as serpents. Blissful, seemingly endless moments followed, broken only when it suddenly struck the girl that her briefs had now come off entirely and that she was completely naked in the arms of her former lover.

  “This … this is wrong,” she moaned, trying half-heartedly to pull away from him.

  Alan refused to release her. “This is exactly the opposite of wrong. This is the way it should be, and you know it.”

  “We can’t …”

  He ran his lips across her throat. “You want it and I want it. Who says we can’t?”

  It was too much for her. After several weeks of abstention, and the subsequent yearning desire, which the loyal, puppy-like presence of Barry had done nothing to dispel, the heated presence of the male she had shared her bed so rapturously with for so long, was overwhelming. She dropped back and allowed his hot mouth free range across her body, the darting tongue licking at and teasing her stiffly swollen nipples, swirling around then burrowing into her tight navel, drawing wet trails along the insides of her thighs, and finally plunging into her, probing between petals of warm, tangy flesh and finally mounting her clitoral hood, where it spun in wicked little spirals.

  Deep shudders passed through the girl as her nectar flooded across the boy’s mouth, as she clawed and raked at him, leaving fiery striations with her fingernails. A moment later, she struggled free and rent at the front of his trousers, yanking them down past his knees, wrenching the underpants after them, engulfing him in a single, voracious swallow. Alan felt his cock-head nudge the very back of her throat. He gasped aloud and rose up on his knees, hands clenching her shoulders. The girl rode back and forth, stropping him with her lips, sucking him with such intensity that he thought he was going to faint.

  When he seeped hot pre-cum into her mouth, she groaned in pleasure and teased his glans with her teeth …

  When the plug finally broke, the first thing they knew was a sour odour from within … perhaps inevitably; it was the stale vapour of a sealed-in millennium. It lasted no longer than a minute, however, and a tiny fissure – no more than a handful of soil knocked through into empty blackness by two thrusting fingers – was sufficient to let it escape.

  After that, the job became easy. Again, they took it in turns, now working with a new energy, each one of them sweating buckets in the tight passage, but plunging and plunging at the diminishing obstruction with their hands and tools, widening and deepening the crevice, until it was almost a perfect continuation of the entrance-tunnel, an archway that even the largest and most ungainly member of the party could pass through with relative ease.

  Of course, they�
��d been working in complete darkness, so even when the doorway was finished, it was uncertain what might await them in the unlit gulf beyond it.

  Linda locked her ankles behind Alan’s back, which gave her greater leverage to lift herself bodily up and meet his urgent thrusts. For his own part, Alan’s erection felt hard and thick as steel. He worked it in and out of her with a slippery, smooth motion, reaching new depths of penetration with each and every push, probing the very core of her being it seemed, for as Linda orgasmed, powerfully, she gasped and squealed aloud. It was a fortunate thing they’d managed to carry each other 100 yards at least along the shore of the bog-pools, before they’d finally lost control and gone at each other like beggars at the banquet, for neither had been able to suppress the sounds of passion for long.

  Still, Alan slid back and forth in her vaginal grip, his prick seeming to lengthen and strengthen with every stroke. Wordlessly, Linda complied, at each turn finding greater, hotter depths in which to accommodate him. Like the rest of her body, she was taut and strong down there; at one moment, her pussy was soft and pliable so that it flowed around his rigid member like warm, melted butter, at the next, its muscles tightened to an alarming degree, seizing his shaft in a crushing fist, determined to milk it for every drop of fluid it possessed. Again, it was too much. Heady, swooning with the joy of it, he arched his back and let go.

  A second stream followed and a third. Alan arched his back again and gave a strangled cry, Linda a low, heart-felt moan as her womb was flooded …

  “Oooh man!” came an ecstatic voice.

  They all waited expectantly as Nug crawled out from the entrance, beating the dirt from his arms and t-shirt. He was slick with sweat and his pallor had increased, but his bearded face was a picture of barely suppressed delight. “You’ve got to go in there, folks … just check it out!”

  The professor took the torch and a camera and went in next, Clive following close behind. The others would have to wait their turn as Nug reckoned that only two people could fit inside the burial chamber at any one time and preserve the integrity of the find. But they all got their chance.

  Once they’d crawled along the access tunnel, and squeezed through the freshly dug circular hole at the end of it, they found themselves inside a rectangular, even-sided compartment formed by interlocking slabs of stone set up like a box. At roughly six feet by four, and with a ceiling only three feet from the ground, it was incredibly claustrophobic, while the stuffy, putrid atmosphere, though breathable, was still fairly revolting. All these discomforts, however, were more than made up for by what the compartment contained.

  Their first thought was that it was the most important archaeological discovery in modern times; their second, that they’d need a full research team here on Craeghatir and that a few weeks this summer would not be nearly enough to complete what was potentially the most sensational project of any of their careers.

  At first glance, the whole place was thick with drapes of web, while a dense shroud of grey dust lay over a variety of objects on the floor. This shroud was perfectly smooth, like an undisturbed blanket, but it didn’t conceal the objects’ worth. For example, towards the far end of the chamber, the intruders’ torchlight immediately picked out the corroded iron nose-piece and cheek-guards of a full-head Dark Age helmet. Then it glittered on the hoard of silver coins laid out all around it … on ingots and bangles, on brooches, pins and scattered gemstones, evidently all spilled from sacks which had long ago rotted to nothing.

  Exhilarated, barely able to speak, the team recorded everything on film and then went hurriedly to work with their brushes. They’d hardly dared hope for more, but they found it nevertheless, and within a matter of minutes. Below the helmet there was a skull … it lay in desiccated fragments, but it was clearly identifiable as a skull. Further down the body, the relics of ribs and folded arm-bones were visible, still clad in tarnished ring-mail. On top of these, the iron boss was all that remained of a circular linden-wood shield, but there was also the skeleton of a once-fabulous broadsword, the blade now crooked and coated in rust, but still fitted into its decorative cross-hilt.

  To a man and woman, the team were so shaken with the trove, each member so absorbed in what he or she was doing that at first they worked entirely in silence, the only sound the steady dripping of sweat as they cleaned and polished feverishly. But when they came out into the open air again, their glee gave way like an over-laden dam; they whooped and screamed, danced wild jigs with each other, threw themselves around in wild and manic abandon until Craeghatir’s highest ridges and deepest, darkest groves of woodland fairly rang to the echoes.

  Alan and Linda stared at each other breathless across the crushed straggle of marigolds. As the morning had worn on, insects had come to life around them. There was now a faint humming of bees, a shrill whine of midges. Linda ignored them all. Her gaze bored into Alan like a drill-bit into stone. There was guilt there, that was true … but there was also a gleam of angry accusation.

  “You’re a son of a bitch,” she said quietly.

  “For God’s sake, Linda …”

  Alan leaned over and offered her his hand, but she chose to ignore it. In fact, she flinched away. “Don’t come near me again!”

  “You were as keen as I was,” he protested.

  “I’m not denying it.” Hurriedly, she started to dress. “But it’s over now, definitely.”

  Alan watched helplessly as she climbed quickly into her trousers, then pulled her sweat-top down over her bare, still deeply-flushed breasts.

  “Look,” he said, “I didn’t … I mean, I don’t just want you for sex.”

  She gave him a hard, unsympathetic look as she grabbed up her socks and boots. “It doesn’t matter what you want, Alan. All that’s over, I’ve told you. I’ve found a new life now, and you should too.”

  “This is insane,” he said, rising to his knees, trying to stop her. She weaved her way past him, however, and set off barefoot back towards the camp. “Linda … wait!”

  “The others’ll be up by now, we’ve got to get back,” she said over her shoulder. “And for Christ’s sake, don’t follow me straight away … give me five minutes first.”

  He watched her go mournfully. He’d like to have thought he’d be surprised by this, stunned even. But in truth he wasn’t. Linda was an emotional girl, but she didn’t hang by those emotions. Anyone who deliberately bruised her could expect serious and prolonged payback. Not necessarily indefinitely, of course. She wasn’t that much of a basket-case – but while genuine contrition might eventually pave the way to forgiveness, raw animal lust certainly wouldn’t, no matter how neglected the girl’s own needs happened to be.

  Alan gave Linda a good 10 minutes, before he ventured back himself. When he finally got there, he found the rest of the group in a state of intense excitement; so much so that no-one at all seemed to question their absence.

  One after another, artifacts were brought out of the chamber which defied any but the most optimistic level of expectation. The Professor herself uncovered two axe-heads carved all over with symbols of the Aesir; Clive found a gilded bronze casket containing chess pieces fashioned from walrus ivory. Everywhere they searched inside the tomb there were priceless items. Barry – big clumsy Barry, came up with ornaments cut from jet, jade and bluestone. Immediately after that, Linda found a horse-collar of solid gold. There were emeralds as well, rubies, sapphires, superb objects worked in amber, antler, amethyst. As the Professor said, whoever it was that had been buried here, he’d sought to take his entire wealth to eternity with him. And as Nug replied, that definitely sounded like Ivar.

  Alan, though as impressed as everyone else, was finding it hard to share in their joy. Throughout the dig, in the midst of shouts and shrieks of amazed laughter, he remained distracted by the events of earlier that morning, and several times tried to get close enough to Linda to speak privately to her. For her part
, the girl seemed to have thrown herself back into the mission with a vengeance. It was just before lunchtime, and she was sitting cross-legged beside the field-lab, dusting down a small idol, when he finally came up and crouched next to her.

  “Hi,” he said, keeping his voice low.

  She glanced at him, then continued with her work. “Seen this?” She held the idol up for his inspection. “Gerde, the giantess. The Prof reckons it’s solid silver. I’ll tell you, we’re re-writing archaeological history here.”

  “Yeah. Very nice …”

  “She’s talking about getting a forensic pathologist over, to date the bones. That’ll strengthen the case for this being …”

  “Look, sod the bloody bones!”

  Alan hadn’t meant to raise his voice, but it simply came out that way. He looked worriedly around, but none of the others seemed to have heard. Linda, on the other hand, was regarding him coldly, her mouth clamped shut like a trap.

  “I want to talk about this morning,” he said after a moment.

  She made no reply.

  “I’m … well, I’m sorry.” He hung his head. “For what it’s worth. I thought … you know, I thought you were fully consenting … I thought the whole thing was above board.”

  A moment passed, then Linda got on with her brushing. “It was.”

  “So … what’s the problem?”

  “Like I say,” she replied, “forget it.”

  “How can I?”

  “Try!”

  “I can’t.”

  “Well try harder!” she snapped, finally rounding on him. “I have and it’s worked a treat. Because, do you know what? Nothing happened this morning, Alan. Nothing at all. I got up, you got up. The day commenced.”

  She made a show of getting to her feet, but he did the same and grabbed her by the wrist. “So now we’re in fucking denial, are we!”