Timeline. Part 11

Marek looked up and saw Kate on the rim. "Hey," he said. "I've been looking for you. Get down here."

She scrambled down the ladder to the earthen floor of the pit. In the hot midafternoon sun, she smelled dirt, and the faint odor of organic decay. One of the skulls broke free and rolled to the ground at her feet. But she didn't touch it; she knew the remains should stay as they were until Chang removed them.

"This may be the catacombs," Kate said, "but these bones weren't stored. Was there ever a battle here?"

Marek shrugged. "There were battles everywhere. I'm more interested in that that." He pointed ahead to the arch, which was without decoration, rounded and slightly flattened.

Kate said, "Cistercian, could even be twelfth century...."

"Okay, sure. But what about that that?" Directly beneath the central curve of the arch, the collapse of the trench had left a black opening about three feet wide.

She said, "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking we better get in there. Right away."

"Why?" she said. "What's the hurry?"

Chang said to her, "It looks like there's s.p.a.ce beyond the opening. A room, maybe several rooms."

"So?"

"Now it's exposed to the air. For the first time in maybe six hundred years."

Marek said, "And air has oxygen."

"You think there's artifacts in there?"

"I don't know what's in there," Marek said. "But you could have considerable damage within a few hours." He turned to Chang. "Have we got a snake?"

"No, it's in Toulouse, being repaired." The snake was a fiber optic cable that could be hooked to a camera. They used it to view otherwise inaccessible s.p.a.ces.

Kate said, "Why don't you just pump the room full of nitrogen?" Nitrogen was an inert gas, heavier than air. If they pumped it through the opening, it would fill the s.p.a.ce up, like water. And protect any artifacts from the corrosive effects of oxygen.

"I would," Marek said, "if I had enough gas. The biggest cylinder we've got is fifty liters."

That wasn't enough.

She pointed to the skulls. "I know, but if you do anything now, you'll disturb-"

"I wouldn't worry about these skeletons," Chang said. "They've already been moved out of position. And they look like they were ma.s.s-graved, after a battle. But there isn't that much we can learn from them." He turned and looked up. "Chris, who's got the reflector?"

Up above, Chris said, "Not me. I think they were last used here."

One of the students said, "No, it's over by grid three."

"Let's get it. Elsie, are you about finished with your pictures?"

"Pushy, pushy."

"Are you, or not?"

"One minute more."

Chang was calling to the students above, telling them to bring the reflectors. Four of them ran off excitedly.

Marek was saying to the others, "Okay, you people, I want flashlights, I want excavation packs, portable oxygen, filter headsets, lead lines, the works-now."

Through the excitement, Kate continued to eye the opening beneath the arch. The arch itself looked weak to her, the stones held loosely together. Normally, an arch kept its shape by the weight of the walls pressing in on the center stone, the keystone of the arch. But here, the whole upper curve above the opening could just collapse. The landslide of earth underneath the opening was loose. She watched pebbles break free and trickle down here and there. It didn't look good to her.

"Andre, I don't think it's safe to climb over that...."

"Who's talking about climbing over? We'll lower you from above."

"Me?"

"Yeah. You hang from above the arch, and then go inside." She must have looked stricken, because he grinned. "Don't worry, I'll go with you."

"You realize, if we're wrong ..." She was thinking, We could be buried alive We could be buried alive.

"What's this?" Marek said. "Losing your nerve?"

That was all he had to say.

Ten minutes later, she was hanging in midair by the edge of the exposed arch. She wore the excavation backpack, which was fitted with an oxygen bottle on the back and had two flashlights dangling like hand grenades from the waist straps. She had her filter headset pushed up on her forehead. Wires ran from the radio to a battery in her pocket. With so much equipment she felt clunky, uncomfortable. Marek stood above her, holding her safety line. And down in the pit, Rick and his students were watching her tensely.

She looked up at Marek. "Give me five." He released five feet of line, and she slid down until she was lightly touching the dirt mound. Little rivulets of earth trickled away beneath her feet. She eased herself forward.

"Three more."

She dropped to hands and knees, giving the mound her full weight. It held. But she looked up at the arch uneasily. The keystone was crumbling at the edges.

"Everything all right?" Marek called.

"Okay," she said. "I'll go in now."

She crawled back toward the gaping hole at the arch. She looked up at Marek, unhooked the flashlight. "I don't know if you can do this, Andre. The dirt may not support your weight."

"Very funny. You don't do this alone, Kate."

"Well, at least let me get in there first."

She flicked on her light, turned on her radio, pulled down her headset so she was breathing through filters, and crawled through the hole, into the blackness beyond.

The air was surprisingly cool. The yellow beam of her flashlight played on bare stone walls, a stone floor. Chang was right: this was open s.p.a.ce beneath the monastery. And it seemed to continue for some distance, before dirt and collapsed rubble blocked the far pa.s.sage. Somehow this chamber had not been filled with dirt like the others. She shone her light up at the roof, trying to see its condition. She couldn't really tell. Not great.

She crept forward on hands and knees, then began to descend, sliding a little, down the dirt toward the ground. Moments later, she was standing inside the catacombs.

"I'm here."

It was dark around her, and the air felt wet. There was a dank odor that was unpleasant, even through the filters. The filters took out bacteria and viruses. At most excavation sites, no one bothered with masks, but they were required here, because plague had come several times in the fourteenth century, killing a third of the population. Although one form of the epidemic was originally transmitted by infected rats, another form was transmitted through the air, through coughs and sneezes, and so anybody who went into an old, sealed s.p.a.ce had to worry about- She heard a clattering behind her. She saw Marek coming through the hole above. He began to slide, so he jumped to the ground. In the silence afterward, they heard the soft sounds of pebbles and earth, trickling down the mound.

"You realize," she said, "we could be buried alive in here."

"Always look on the bright side," Marek said. He moved forward, holding a big fluorescent light with reflectors. It illuminated a whole section of the room. Now that they could see clearly, the room appeared disappointingly bare. To the left was the stone sarcophagus of a knight; he was carved in relief on the lid, which had been removed. When they looked inside the sarcophagus, it was empty. Then there was a rough wooden table leaning against a wall. It was bare. An open corridor going down to their left, ending in a stone staircase, which led upward until it disappeared in a mound of dirt. More mounds of earth in this chamber, over to the right, blocking another pa.s.sageway, another arch.

Marek sighed. "All this excitement ... for nothing."

But Kate was still worried about the earth breaking free and coming into the room. It made her look closely at the earth mounds to the right.

And that was why she saw it.

"Andre," she said. "Come here."

It was an earth-colored protrusion, brown against the brown of the mound, but the surface had a faint sheen. She brushed it with her hand. It was oilcloth. She exposed a sharp corner. Oilcloth, wrapping something.

Marek looked over her shoulder. "Very good, very good."

"Did they have oilcloth then?"

"Oh yes. Oilcloth is a Viking invention, perhaps ninth century. Quite common in Europe by our period. Although I don't think we have found anything else in the monastery that's wrapped in oilcloth."

He helped her dig. They proceeded cautiously, not wanting the mound to come down on them, but soon they had it exposed. It was a rectangle roughly two feet square, wrapped with oil-soaked string.

"I am guessing it's doc.u.ments," Marek said. His fingers were twitching in the fluorescent light, he wanted to open it so badly, but he restrained himself. "We'll take it back with us."

He slipped it under his arm and headed back toward the entrance. She gave one last look at the earth mound, wondering if she had missed something. But she hadn't. She swung her light away and- She stopped.

Out of the corner of her eye, she'd caught a glimpse of something shiny. She turned, looked again. For a moment, she couldn't find it, but then she did.

It was a small piece of gla.s.s, protruding from the earth.

"Andre?" she said. "I think there's more."

The gla.s.s was thin, and perfectly clear. The edge was curved and smooth, almost modern in its quality. She brushed the dirt away with her fingertips and exposed one lens of an eyegla.s.s.

It was a bifocal lens.

"What is it?" Andre said, coming back to her.

"You tell me."

He squinted at it, shone his light very near. His face was so close to the gla.s.s, his nose almost touched it. "Where did you find this?" He sounded concerned.

"Right here."

"Lying in the open, just like now?" His voice was tense, almost accusing.

"No, only the edge was exposed. I cleaned it off."

"How?"

"With my finger."

"So: you are telling me it was partly buried?" He sounded like he didn't believe her.

"Hey, what is this?"

"Just answer, please."

"No, Andre. It was mostly mostly buried. Everything but that left edge was buried." buried. Everything but that left edge was buried."

"I wish you had not touched it."

"I do, too, if I'd known you were going to act like-"

"This must be explained," he said. "Turn around."

"What?"

"Turn around." He took her by the shoulder, turned her roughly, so she was facing away from him. He took her by the shoulder, turned her roughly, so she was facing away from him.

"Jesus." She glanced over her shoulder to see what he was doing. He held his light very close to her backpack and moved over the surface slowly, examining it minutely, then down to her shorts. "Uh, are you going to tell me-"

"Be quiet, please."

It was a full minute before he finished. "The lower left zip pocket of your pack is open. Did you open it?"

"No."

"Then it has been open all the time? Ever since you put the pack on?"

"I guess...."

"Did you brush against the wall at any time?"

"I don't think so." She had been careful about it, because she hadn't wanted the wall to break loose.

"Are you sure?" he said.

"For Christ's sake. No, Andre, I'm not sure."