Free A Crowded Coffin by Nicola Slade Page B

led him outside, through the garden towards the old stone wall that marked the boundary between the house and the farmland. ‘We’re heading to this Burial Field of yours, aren’t we?’ he asked. ‘Tell me about it.’
    ‘It’s the most ridiculously romantic story, embroidered over the centuries by ordinary people wanting to brighten up their drab lives. The actual truth, if anyone ever really knew it, was lost centuries ago. Nobody has ever done any research; the Attlins have been soldiers or farmers with no academic interests and there’s never been any money to finance an archaeological dig. Mind you,’ she looked thoughtful, ‘I could always try getting in touch with
Time Team
, I suppose. It might be intriguing enough for them to come and poke around.’
    She looked up at him, with an eager light in her eyes. ‘You know what? I might just do that. Can’t do any harm, they can only say no.
    ‘Now, where was I? You’ll have heard that the family is supposed to have been founded by a Roman?’ He nodded and took the old book out of his pocket.
    ‘Yup, I’ve got the Rev Sebastian right here, ready to rap you on the knuckles if you come up with any of your fanciful Attlin fairy tales.’
    She sniffed. ‘Silly old fool, he was sour about everyone in the district. No house was good enough, no land extensive enough, no family ever noble enough for his taste, and once the Attlindaughter rejected his proposal he took great delight in dismissing her forebears as lowly farmers at every opportunity. Not that they gave a toss, they
were
lowly farmers after all, and proud of it.’
    She filled him in on the family legend, ending with, ‘Miss Evelyn Attlin says Lucius Sextus Vitalis had some pretty important connections. But then,’ she looked mischievous, ‘nobody is ever descended from the rabble, it’s always the nobility, never some poor sod of a foot soldier who simply ran away and deserted.’
    She paused, looking at him with a slightly abashed grin. ‘I know, I know, it sounds unbelievable but it’s what we’ve always been told, so now naturally it’s gospel truth. Where was I? Lucius was evidently a practical man and decided this was a good place to build, so the angel’s blessing was the icing on the cake. There was a good spring, running water.’ She pointed to a stream sparkling in the sunshine lower down the field. ‘Good access but easily defensible too, and on a slight hill. No wonder he apparently
“looked on his work and found it fair.”’
    They had been skirting the low-lying scrub in a field away to the west of the house and she led him now towards a copse atop a rise at the far edge of the meadow. ‘It’s said that he had the stone carved, later on, to make it look more like an angel and built the atrium of his house around it. Money doesn’t seem to have been a problem as he got going on building the house straight away. Look, this is it; this was where the central courtyard of the villa is said to have been.’
    ‘Why did they build the new house so far from the original villa?’ Rory squinted against the light as he looked back towards the farmhouse.
    ‘Grandpa says the stream probably got silted up and turned marshy, which, in turn, would bring mosquitoes and malaria.They used to call it intermittent fever, or ague, he said. Building the new house higher upstream would solve the problem.’
    ‘I didn’t realize malaria was endemic in England,’ Rory said absently, as he examined what he could see of the stone with a critical eye. It stood about four feet high, the base all but vanished under layers of earth and generations of shoots and saplings of the alders that surrounded it. ‘I suppose it does look a bit like an angel,’ he conceded at last. ‘If you allow for two thousand years of wind and weather. And squint a bit.’
    She looked at her watch. ‘We’ve got a bit longer before we need get ready. Look, come and sit down over here for a minute.’ She waved a hand