Prologue
'I don't believe in ghosts,' said Gavin Hunter, as he followed Susannah
Miller up the Abbot's Library stairs.
The lights weren't working, so the cold stone staircase was in almost
total darkness. As Gavin's shoulders brushed away more cobwebs, he hit
his head on the ceiling yet again. 'I wouldn't have minded waiting in
the office,' he muttered, rubbing this new graze.
'A few more twists and turns, and we'll be in the reading room, okay?'
Susannah turned to smile at him. 'You'll be able to stand up there.'
'It's all right for you,' scowled Gavin, hitting his head once more.
It was one of those dull autumn days that never gets really light, and
in the reading room it was already dusk. Susannah switched on a lamp.
'This is it, ' she said, picking up the folder lying on her desk. 'Dave
thinks it might be a holograph.'
'A what?'
'I mean the author wrote it down himself, it's not a copy.' Susannah looked
up at him, her brown eyes bright. 'So try to be a little bit impressed?'
But Gavin merely shrugged. 'What does it say?'
'I'll read it to you, shall I?'
'Yeah, go on.'
'My lady was the moon, she was the sun, she held my heart in her hands.
The traitor turned light into darkness, drained wine to the bitter lees.
Curse his foul name!
'We buried her at daybreak, with bound and mourning brows, in a manner
fitting for a queen. The thanes stood weeping, casting flowers. The common
people bowed their heads.
'Twelve white oxen, crowned and reverent, walked at her side. Twelve white
doves and twelve black ravens lent their lightness, took her to her rest.
My heart followed them.
'Where shall I go? There is nowhere. If I travel the swan's road for ever,
her equal will never stand before my sight. For my lady has taken the
light from my eyes. I am blind in the world. Boar-crested though I am,
let no man envy me.'
'Poor bastard,' murmured Gavin. 'He's not happy, is he?'
'No,' agreed Susannah. 'But the great thing is, although you wouldn't
know it from my translation, this is a really brilliant bit of Anglo-Saxon
verse.'
'If you say so. What does he mean, if he follows the swan's road for ever?'
‘If he searches the whole world.'
'Boar-crested means wearing a helmet, yeah? A special helmet, maybe? He's
the guy in charge?'
'That's right.'
'It must have been quite a party.' Gavin frowned. 'But did women have
that kind of send-off? I'd have thought animal sacrifice and all that
sort of stuff was only for famous warriors, or kings?'
'I don't suppose they killed the oxen. They probably pulled the hearse.
The doves and ravens might have been symbolically released.'
Susannah tapped her pencil on her desk. 'But it is unusual, to give this
sort of funeral to a queen. She must have been someone really special.
A queen in her own right, perhaps, not just the widow of a king. Or a
regent marking time, until her son grew up. Gavin, I'm wondering if –
'
'If what?'
'Hang on a second.' Susannah listened hard. 'I think there's someone coming
up the stairs.'