*
We got away from the city with ease. Most of its guards were sleeping, others lounged, chatting over their watch fires. At the brow of the hill, I could not resist looking back. I promised myself that when I get back to my own time I will come and find that place and dig it up. Perhaps, I wondered, I could get some funding from that outfit that funded the dig at Stonehenge?
Vart was leading me to, arweth cifflu, the bear place.
A robust A-frame had now been assembled near the massive tree trunk that Blaith had pointed out several days earlier. It straddled a huge totem covered in carvings. There were stylised deer, wolf and bison heads. Ornate bands of waxing moons and stars encircled it. An ugly, fat earth mother figure was surrounded by little running stick men. Colour had been rubbed in to some of the carvings, but it seemed there was still a little work to do before it could be raised up into place.
I shuddered trying to remember how this place looked in my own time. It was impossible. There was nothing to connect with. Stonehenge, as I know it, will not exist for another fifteen hundred years or so. I closed my eyes and moved about slowly, focusing my thoughts on finding the centre of the spot where the huge trilithon stones would eventually be erected in their horseshoe layout. When it felt right, I opened my eyes. Vart was staring at me. He looked frightened. He had no liking for what we were doing. I started to pace out from that spot near the totem down the slope to where I believed the archaeological dig site would one day be swept by a sophisticated geophysical survey. It occurred to me that I had already seen the computer print that had plotted, as a magnetic response, the very message I was about to bury.
I stopped at what I believed was the right place. Vart who was following me closely, bumped into me like a shunted railway truck. I took my binoculars from my rucksack. These would be my message. Squatting down cross legged I gestured to Vart that I needed him to dig a small hole. Puzzled he set about it with his axe, and we scooped out the loosened earth with our hands.
‘Eflint,’ I asked, holding my hand out to him.
‘Eflint?’ he queried, eyeing me suspiciously. I nodded. He fumbled inside his wolf-skin jerkin and produced a handful of small flints. I peered into his palm and selected a little scraper. I thought that if I scratched my name on one of the binoculars’ lenses that would be enough to tell them I was alive and trapped in this time. The binoculars would decay and disappear over five thousand years, but I knew that the lenses would survive. I scratched at the glass. The flint splintered, making no impression whatsoever. Vart grabbed his flint back and punched me angrily on the shoulder for ruining it.
I should have realised. You need diamond to mark glass. But then, I thought, why do I need words at all? Binoculars don’t belong in the stone-age. All I had to do was bury them to be found. That would be message enough. Nothing I could say would add to it. Then I thought, maybe a little of the aluminium lens housing would survive. Perhaps I should scratch a word or two on to that? No, I decided, it would be pointless. I would simply bury the binoculars and trust in that alone. I wound their tatty old strap with its snake belt buckle around them and placed them in the little pit.
I had to make sure that Vart didn’t creep back and dig them up, so I did this scary witch dance. Old Vart is really superstitious. He watched terrified when I took my coat off and started waving my arms like a loony bear. I did lots of face pulling and chanting in this weird voice. He backed off looking scared stiff. When I’d finished, I sat down again and gazed at the little mound of earth covering my binoculars. Vart joined me, but without coming too close. He began idly sorting through his flints choosing different ones and shuffling them about on his palm. He tossed one aside. It landed on the earth mound. I leaned over and picked it off, not wanting anything to spoil my message. I stood up and stamped on the earth mound to flatten it. As I did I looked at Vart’s discarded flint. It was an arrow head. It had a small pigeon’s eye mark on it. I realised it was not the first time I had seen it. I tossed it to where one day I would dig it up and get my name on Professor Baldwin's score sheet.
Vart was leaving, head down, shoulders slumped. I followed, feeling drained and useless. Whatever happens next would be up to Tori and the professor, but not for five thousand years. How big a long shot was what?
………