The Book of Air and Shadows

by the road, talking with a man in a Barbour jacket and tweed cap. The man was gesturing with a stick and seemed upset. After a few minutes he returned to his own Land Rover and drove off. Brown walked back across the squelching field to the van.
    “That was the National Trust man,” said Brown. “He is much vexed. This field is a registered site and we are absolutely forbidden to disturb it. He’s gone off to fetch the authorities, who will call the water board and find out we are not who we say we are. How close are we?”
    “Six point eighty-two,” said Rolly.
    “Then we’re going to have to move a little over a meter and get the Item, if it’s there, and clear out in something like half an hour. Break’s over, gentlemen.”
    They returned to the well and delved like demons for ten minutes, and here they finally caught a break, because the next layer of rubble consisted of small regular stones the size of cobbles that could be readily flung into the sling. Crosetti was at the bottom when the tape descended past his face and struck the rubble and Rolly called out, “Eight point sixteen.”
    He crouched and directed his miner’s lamp at the east wall. At first he saw nothing, only the roughly rectangular stonework of the well shaft. He grabbed a short wrecking bar and pounded on each stone in turn, and on the fifth try one of the stones seemed to move. He forced the straight blade of the bar between that stone and its sister and heaved and the stone slid a little farther out of alignment. In two minutes of violent exertion he had pried it from its place and was looking into a void from which issued an odor of ancient damp earth. His lamp shone on a round shape, about the size of a number ten can.
    Hardly breathing now, Crosetti inserted the curved end of the wrecking bar into the hole as far as it would go and wiggled it around until he felt it catch, and slowly pulled out what appeared to be a lead pipe a little over a foot in length and a hand span in diameter, closed at both ends by soldered sheets of lead. Crosetti carried it up the ladder, cradling it tenderly, like a rescued infant.
    “That’s it?” asked Rob.
    “It shows how much you know, Rob,” said Nigel. “That’s King Arthur’s willie, preserved in brandy. Now England can be great again.”
    Crosetti ignored them and went into the van, with Carolyn following close behind. Rob was about to follow but Brown put a hand on his arm. “Time to go, gents,” he said in a tone that did not encourage objection. “I suggest you take down your gear and drive off before the police arrive.”
    “We’re not going to get a look?” asked Rob.
    “Afraid not. Best you don’t know.” Brown extracted a thick envelope from the inside pocket of his anorak. “A pleasure doing business,” he said, handing it to Nigel. The two geologists went meekly off to gather their equipment.
    Inside the van, Crosetti found a heavy clamp, a hammer, and a cold chisel. He fixed the cylinder to the steel table and cut through the lead at one end. Inside he found a roll of heavy paper tied with a dark ribbon. The paper was nearly white and seemed almost fresh, not brown and crumbly as he had imagined four-hundred-year-old paper would be. He realized with something of a shock that the last person to have touched this paper was Richard Bracegirdle and before that, William Shakespeare. He voiced this thought to Carolyn.
    “Yes, now you’re one with the great. Open the ribbon, for Christ’s sake!” He untied the knot and spread the sheets on the table. The ink was black, barely oxidized, he saw, and not in Bracegirdle’s hand. The pages were all neatly ruled and written on in three vertical columns, for character name, dialogue, and stage directions: the thrifty Swan of Avon had used both sides of each sheet. Automatically he counted them: twenty-one folio sheets in all. Across the top of the first sheet in letters large enough for even his trifling familiarity with Jacobean secretary hand to read was written
The Tragedie of Mary Quene of Scotland.
    His hand was shaking as he held the page. What had Fanny called it? The most valuable portable object on the planet. He rolled the pages up again and placed them back in the cylinder with the ribbon, and stuck the lead seal in his slicker pocket. Then he grabbed Rolly in a mighty hug and swung her around and yelled like a maniac and ended by planting a kiss on her mouth.

    On the road again in the Land Rover, Brown