Chapter 5

It was almost sundown when Foster and I pushed through the door to the saloon bar at the Ancient Sinner and found a corner table. I watched Foster spread out his maps and papers. Behind us there was a murmur of conversation and the thump of darts against a board.

“When are you going to give up and admit we’re wasting our time?” I said. “Two weeks of tramping over the same ground, and we end up in the same place.”

“We’ve hardly begun our investigation,” Foster said mildly.

“You keep saying that,” I said. “But if there ever was anything in that rock-pile, it’s long gone. The archaeologists have been digging over the site for years, and they haven’t come up with anything.”

“They don’t know what to look for,” Foster said. “They were searching for indications of religious significance, human sacrifice--that sort of thing.”

“We don’t know what we’re looking for either,” I said. “Unless you think maybe we’ll meet the Hunters hiding under a loose stone.”

“You say that sardonically,” Foster said. “But I don’t consider it impossible.”

“I know,” I said. “You’ve convinced yourself that the Hunters were after us back at Mayport when we ran off like a pair of idiots.”

“From what you’ve told me of the circumstances--” Foster began.

“I know; you don’t consider it impossible. That’s the trouble with you; you don’t consider anything impossible. It would make life a lot easier for me if you’d let me rule out a few items--like leprechauns who hang out at Stonehenge.”

Foster looked at me, half-smiling. It had only been a few weeks since he woke up from a nap looking like a senior class president who hadn’t made up his mind whether to be a preacher or a movie star, but he had already lost that mild, innocent air. He learned fast, and day by day I had seen his old personality reemerge and--in spite of my attempts to hold onto the ascendency--dominate our partnership.

“It’s a failing of your culture,” Foster said, “that hypothesis becomes dogma almost overnight. You’re too close to your Neolithic, when the blind acceptance of tribal lore had survival value. Having learned to evoke the fire god from sticks, by rote, you tend to extend the principle to all ‘established facts.’”

“Here’s an established fact for you,” I said. “We’ve got fifteen pounds left--that’s about forty dollars. It’s time we figure out where to go from here, before somebody starts checking up on those phoney papers of ours.”

Foster shook his head. “I’m not satisfied that we’ve exhausted the possibilities here. I’ve been studying the geometric relationships between the various structures; I have some ideas I want to check. I think it might be a good idea to go out at night, when we can work without the usual crowd of tourists observing every move.”

I groaned. “My dogs are killing me,” I said. “Let’s hope you’ll come up with something better--or at least different.”

“We’ll have a bite to eat here, and wait until dark to start out,” Foster said.

The publican brought us plates of cold meat and potato salad. I worked on a thin but durable slice of ham and thought about all the people, somewhere, who were sitting down now to gracious meals in the glitter of crystal and silver. I’d had too many greasy French fries in too many cheap dives the last few years. I could feel them all now, burning in my stomach. I was getting farther from my island all the time--And it was nobody’s fault but mine.

“The Ancient Sinner,” I said. “That’s me.”

Foster looked up. “Curious names these old pubs have,” he said. “I suppose in some cases the origins are lost in antiquity.”

“Why don’t they think up something cheery,” I said. “Like ‘The Paradise Bar and Grill’ or ‘The Happy Hour Cafe’. Did you notice the sign hanging outside?”

“No.”

“A picture of a skeleton. He’s holding one hand up like a Yankee evangelist prophesying doom. You can see it through the window there.”

Foster turned and looked out at the weathered sign creaking in the evening wind. He looked at it for a long time. When he turned back, there was a strange look around his eyes.

“What’s the matter--?” I started.

Foster ignored me, waved to the proprietor, a short fat country man. He came over to the table, wiping his hands on his apron.

“A very interesting old building,” Foster said. “We’ve been admiring it. When was it built?”

“Well, sir,” the publican said, “This here house is a many a hundred year old. It were built by the monks, they say, from the monastery what used to stand nearby here. It were tore down by the King’s men, Henry, that was, what time he drove the papists out.”

“That would be Henry the Eighth, I suppose?”

“Aye, it would that. And this house is all that were spared, it being the brewing-house, as the king said were a worthwhile institution, and he laid on a tithe, that two kegs of stout was to be laid by for the king’s use each brewing time.”

“Very interesting,” Foster said. “Is the custom still continued?”

The publican shook his head. “It were ended in my granfer’s time, it being that the Queen were a teetotaller.”

“How did it acquire the curious name--’The Ancient Sinner?’”

“The tale is,” the publican said, “that one day a lay brother of the order were digging about yonder on the plain by the great stones, in search of the Druid’s treasure, albeit the Abbot had forbid him to go nigh the heathen ground, and he come on the bones of a man, and being of a kindly turn, he had the thought to give them Christian burial. Now, knowing the Abbott would nae permit it, he set to work to dig a grave by moonlight in holy ground, under the monastery walls. But the Abbott, being wakeful, were abroad and come on the brother a-digging, and when he asked the why of it, the lay brother having visions of penances to burden him for many a day, he ups and tells the Abbott it were a ale cellar he were about digging, and the Abbott, not being without wisdom, clapped him on the back, and went on his way. And so it was the ale-house got built, and blessed by the Abbott, and with it the bones that was laid away under the floor beneath the ale-casks.”

“So the ancient sinner is buried under the floor?”

“Aye, so the tale goes, though I’ve not dug for him meself. But the house has been knowed by the name these four hundred years.”

“Where was it you said the lay brother was digging?”

“On the plain, yonder, by the Druid’s stones, what they call Stonehenge,” the publican said. He picked up the empty glasses. “What about another, gentlemen?”

“Certainly,” Foster said. He sat quietly across from me, his features composed--but I could see there was tension under the surface calm.

“What’s this all about?” I asked softly. “When did you get so interested in local history?”

“Later,” Foster murmured. “Keep looking bored.”

“That’ll be easy,” I said. The publican came back and placed heavy glass mugs before us.

“You were telling us about the lay brother’s finding the bones,” Foster said. “You say they were buried in Stonehenge?”

The publican cleared his throat, glanced sideways at Foster.

“The gentlemen wouldna be from the University now, I suppose?” he said.

“Let’s just say,” Foster said easily, smiling, “that we have a great interest in these bits of lore--an interest supported by modest funds, of course.”