Page 47 of One More Christmas at the Castle
He limped towards me, saying, cheerfully, ‘Well, that was a silly question, wasn’t it? Since the main gates are locked, you must have come from the Castle.’
‘That’s right,’ I said, answering his smile and shaking the hand he held out to me. ‘My business partner and I run Heavenly Houseparties and we’re working at the Castle. I’m Dido Jones,’ I added.
‘And I’m Simon Cardew. I’m the Director of Archaeology for the site and I keep an eye on things in winter.’
‘Oh, yes, Maria told us about you!’ I said, remembering. ‘You live in a cottage nearby, don’t you?’
He nodded. ‘It’s on the other side of the site, but you can’t see it from here because of the visitor centre.’
By now, I was also recalling Maria mentioning that he’d been badly hurt in the car crash in which his wife had been killed, which explained the scar and the limp, and close to, he did give the impression of one prematurely aged by pain andsorrow, with streaks of grey in his brown hair, which was brushed straight back from a bony and interesting face. He would never have been handsome, like Xan, but he must have been very arresting before the accident. He had soft, sad brown eyes and was perhaps two or three inches shorter than me. I felt like letting down my coronet of hair to equal things up a bit, but by then the wind was really getting up and, having blown down my hood, was now tugging at my hair like invisible hands, so it would soon come down on its own.
‘Sorry if I startled you, but I was checking something out in that trench. I walk around the whole site every day,’ he explained. ‘Occasionally local teenagers get in, though there’s nothing very exciting to do here except tear down the notice boards.’
‘I suppose you get moronic vandals everywhere,’ I said. ‘But surely it’s too cold up here now to lure them away from their computer games?’
‘Probably, but I like to do the rounds every morning anyway. And when I got to this trench the sun came out briefly and was slanting into it, and I thought I saw markings on one of the stones.’
‘Was it anything interesting?’
‘I’m not sure yet, but I think it’s a name. Probably a very bored Roman soldier carved the equivalent of “Septimus was here”.’
His face twisted into that engaging, lop-sided smile. ‘But you’ve chosen a bitterly cold day to look at the ruins.’
‘I needed a walk and some fresh air, though I wasn’t expecting it to be quitethisfresh up here!’
He looked at me curiously. ‘Did you say you ran … heavenly house parties?’
‘Yes, with my friend Henry Rudge. We take over thehousekeeping and catering for our clients on a temporary basis – anything from a week to a month. Our customers can relax knowing everything is being taken care of. Mrs Powys has booked us until the New Year.’
‘Really? I knew from Maria that she’s been having trouble finding live-in staff since the old housekeeper left, though that was just before my time,’ he said.
With wordless accord we had turned and were making our way in the direction of the visitor centre – and also into the teeth of the wind, though at least, I thought, it would be at my back on the way home.
Two hairpins slid coldly down my back and my plaits fell down. I pulled up my hood and stuffed them inside.
Simon pointed out one or two interesting features of the fort as we walked, though the wind tended to make his words come in short, disjointed snatches.
The visitor centre, a low modern building, was completely shuttered up for the winter and looked vandal-proof to me.
‘There are seasonal staff, who run the actual site and the visitor centre,’ Simon explained. ‘I’m just in charge of the Roman remains and, since I live here, I keep an eye on things when it’s closed. I also lecture part-time at the university in Carlisle, and every year I organize a long dig on the site and excavate a bit more of it, with the help of students and local volunteers. The whole site is run by a trust, headed by Mrs Powys.’
‘Since it’s on her land, I suppose that figures,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen the Roman mosaic in that little temple folly in the Castle grounds.’
‘Yes, that was moved there when it was discovered in Victorian times. One of the Castle family fancied himself as an archaeologist, though apart from that act of vandalism hedidn’t cause too much damage. At the time, archaeologists didn’t so much excavate carefully as dig holes, searching for some kind of treasure.’
‘Well, they found it – that’s mosaic’s lovely,’ I said. ‘It’s just a pity they removed it. Have you seen the very good copy in the Great Hall?’
‘I have. Mrs Powys asks me up there occasionally for dinner. The house always seems to have had a connection to Mithras even before they found the mosaic, though – perhaps something to do with a carved stone near where the mosaic was eventually found. We’re sure there was a temple to Mithras there.’
‘It’s all fascinating,’ I said, though it would have been more so if I hadn’t been about to freeze to death.
‘I think it was a more important site than it was first thought. I’m working on a book about what we’ve found here, which also connects the fort to the others along the Wall.’
His face clouded. ‘I and the rest of the trust have been trying to persuade Mrs Powys to bring the mosaic back to the site, but she won’t hear of it. It would be a great draw. We could display it in a wing of the visitor centre, made to look like the interior of the original temple of Mithras.’
‘Like the museum in Bath?’ I suggested. ‘I’ve seen those, and with the lighting and video effects, you really do feel you’ve stepped back into Roman times.’
‘That’s it, though on a much smaller scale, of course.’
