The Stonehenge Legacy Read online

  Sam Christer lives in London.

  The Stonehenge Legacy is his first novel.

  Copyright

  Published by Hachette Digital

  ISBN 978-0-748-12360-5

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public

  domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Sam Christer 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

  retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior

  permission in writing of the publisher.

  Hachette Digital

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London, EC4Y 0DY

  www.hachette.co.uk

  To my son Elliott in his last year of sixth form – I couldn’t be

  prouder of everything you’ve done or how you’ve done it.

  Contents

  Copyright

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  PART TWO

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  PART THREE

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  Chapter 138

  Chapter 139

  Chapter 140

  Chapter 141

  Chapter 142

  PART FIVE

  Chapter 143

  Chapter 144

  Chapter 145

  Chapter 146

  Chapter 147

  Chapter 148

  Chapter 149

  Chapter 150

  Chapter 151

  Chapter 152

  Chapter 153

  Chapter 154

  Chapter 155

  Chapter 156

  Chapter 157

  Chapter 158

  Chapter 159

  Chapter 160

  Chapter 161

  Chapter 162

  Chapter 163

  Chapter 164

  Chapter 165

  Chapter 166

  Chapter 167

  Chapter 168

  Chapter 169

  Chapter 170

  Chapter 171

  Chapter 172

  Chapter 173

  Chapter 174

  Chapter 175

  Chapter 176

  Chapter 177

  Chapter 178

  Chapter 179

  Chapter 180

  Chapter 181

  Chapter 182

  Chapter 183

  Chapter 184

  Chapter 185

  Chapter 186

  Chapter 187

  Chapter 188

  Chapter 189

  Chapter 190

  Chapter 191

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  PART ONE

  The stones are great

  And magic power they have

  Men that are sick

  Fare to that stone

  And they wash that stone

  And with that water bathe away their sickness

  Laghamon

  1

  NEW MOON, SUNDAY 13 JUNE

  STONEHENGE

  Mist rolls like vaporous tumbleweed in the dead of the Wiltshire night. Out in the flat, sprawling fields hooded Lookers tilt their heads skywards to witness the first sliver of silver. The moon is new, showing only a faint flash of virginal white beneath a voluminous wrap of black-velvet haute couture.

  On the horizon, a pale face turns in its cowl. A fiery torch is raised in an old hand. Hushed but urgent words pass from Looker to Looker. The sacrifice is ready. He has been brought from his fast. Seven days without food. No light, nor sound, nor touch, nor smell. His body has been cleansed of the impurities he has ingested. His senses sharpened. His mind focused on his fate.

  The Lookers are robed in hand-woven sackcloth, belted with string plaited from plants, their feet shod in rough animal skins. It is the way of the ancients, the creators of the Craft.

  The Cleansers remove the man’s grimy clothes. He will leave this world with no more than he entered it. They pull a ring from his finger. A watch from his wrist. And fro
m around his neck, a crude gold chain dangling a symbol of some false god.

  They carry him, fighting, to the river and immerse him. Cold water fills his mouth and gurgles and froths in his corrupted lungs. He struggles like a startled fish, seeking a safe current to escape the hands of his captors.

  It is not to be.

  Once purified, he is dragged spluttering to the shore. The Bearers fall upon him and bind him with strips of bark to a litter made from pine, the noble tree that stepped with them from the age of ice. They hoist him high on to their shoulders. Carry him like proud and loving men bearing the coffin of a beloved brother. He is precious to them.

  Their walk is long – more than two miles. South from the ancient encampment of Durrington. On to the great avenue, down to where the bluestones and the forty-ton sarsens are sited.

  The Bearers make no complaints. They know the pain their forefathers suffered moving the mighty stones hundreds of miles. The astroarchitects trekked through hills and valleys, crossed stormy seas. With antlers of red deer and shoulder-blades of cattle, they dug the pits where the circle now stands. Behind the Bearers come the Followers. All male. All dressed identically in hooded, coarse brown robes. They have come from across Britain, Europe and all corners of the globe. For tonight is the new Henge Master’s first sacrifice. An overdue offering to the gods. One that will rejuvenate the spiritual strength of the stones.

  The Bearers pause at the Heel Stone, the massive chunk of leaning sandstone that is home to the Sky God. It dwarfs all around it, except the gigantic sarsens standing eighty yards away.

  In the centre of the megalithic portal a bonfire flickers in the darkness, its smoking fingers grasping at the moon, illuminating the Henge Master as he raises his hands. He pauses then sweeps them in a slow arc, pressing back the wall of energy surging between him and the horseshoe of towering trilithons.

  ‘Great gods, I feel your eternal presence. Earth Mother most eternal, Sky Father most supreme, we gather in your adoration and dutifully kneel in your presence.’

  The secret congregation of hooded figures sinks silently to the soil. ‘We, your obedient children, the Followers of the Sacreds, are gathered here on the bones of our ancestors to honour you and to show you our devotion and loyalty.’

  The Master claps his hands and leaves them joined above his head, fingers pointing in prayer to the heavens. The Bearers rise from their knees. Once more they lift upon their shoulders the naked young man tethered to the rough litter.

  ‘We thank you, all you great gods who look over us and who bless us. In respect to you and the ways of the ancients, we dedicate this sacrifice.’

  The Bearers begin their final journey, out through the giant stone archways towards the sacrificial point that lies on the line of the solstice.

  The Slaughter Stone.

  They lay the young man upon the long grey slab. The Henge Master looks down and lowers his joined hands to touch the forehead of the sacrifice. He is not afraid to look into the terrorised blue eyes beneath him. He has prepared himself to banish all feelings of compassion. Just as a king would exile a traitor.

  He slowly circles his joined hands around the man’s face as he continues the words of the ritual. ‘In the names of our fathers, our mothers, our protectors and our mentors, we absolve you from your earthly sins and through your mortal sacrifice we purify your spirit and speed you on your journey to eternal life in paradise.’

  Only now does the Henge Master separate his palms. He spreads them wide. Half of him is lit bone-white by the moon, half blood-red by the fire. His body is in balance with the lunar phase. His silhouette against the great stones is that of a cruciform.

  Into each outstretched hand the Bearers place the sacred tools. The Henge Master grips them, his fingers folding around smooth, wooden shafts carved centuries ago.

  The first flint axe strikes the head of the sacrifice.

  Then the second.

  Now the first again.

  Blows rain down until bone and skin collapse like an eggshell. With the death of the sacrifice comes a roar from the crowd. A triumphant cheer as the Master moves back, his arms spread wide for them to see the sacrificial blood spattered on his robes and flesh.

  ‘Just as you shed blood and broke bones to assemble this godly portal to protect us, so too do we shed our blood and break our bones for you.’

  One by one the Followers come forward. They dip their fingers in the blood of the sacrifice, mark their foreheads. Then walk back into the main circle and kiss the trilithons.

  Blessed and blooded, they bow before silently disappearing into the dark Wiltshire fields.

  2

  LATER THAT MORNING

  TOLLARD ROYAL, CRANBORNE CHASE, SALISBURY

  Professor Nathaniel Chase sits at a desk in the oak-walled study of his seventeenth-century country mansion and through the leaded windows watches morning twilight yield to a summer sunrise. It’s a daily battle that he never misses.

  A colourful male pheasant struts the lawn, cued by the first light on the dew-soaked grass. Dull females follow in the bird’s wake, then feign disinterest and peck at fat-filled coconut shells strung out by Chase’s gardener.

  The male proudly spreads his wings to form a cape of iridescent copper. His head, ears and neck are tropical green and his throat and cheeks an exotic glossed purple. A distinctive white band around his neck gives him a priestly stature while his face and wattle are a deep red. The bird is melanistic – some kind of mutation of the common pheasant. As the professor looks closer, he suspects that a few generations back there must also have been some crossing with a rare green pheasant or two.

  Chase is a successful man. More than most ever dream of being. Academically brilliant, he has been hailed as one of Cambridge’s finest brains. His books on art and archaeology have sold globally and built a following beyond those bound to buy them for study. But his vast fortune and luxuriously refined lifestyle don’t come from his learned ways. He left Cambridge many years back and turned his talents to sourcing, identifying, buying and selling some of the rarest artefacts in the world. It was a practice that earned him a regular place in the rich list and a whispered reputation as something of a grave-robber.

  The sixty-year-old takes off his brown-framed reading glasses and places them on the antique desk. The matter in hand is pressing but it can wait until the floor show outside is done.

  The pheasant’s humble harem break from their feeding to pay the cock the attention he craves. He stomps out a short, jerky dance and leads the buff-brown females towards a stretch of manicured privets. Chase picks up a pair of small binoculars that he keeps by the window. At first he sees nothing except grey-blue sky. He tilts the glasses down and the blurred birds fill the frame. He fiddles with the focus wheel until everything becomes as sharp and crisp as this chilly summer morning. The male is surrounded now and warbling short bursts of song to mark his pleasure. Off to the right lies a shallow nest at the foot of the hedge.

  Chase is feeling sensitive, emotional. The display outside his window touches him almost to the point of tears. The male with its many admirers, at the peak of life, vibrant in colour and potency preparing to raise a family. He remembers those days. That feeling. That warmness.

  All gone.

  Inside the grand house there are no pictures of his dead wife, Marie. Nor any of his estranged son, Gideon. The place is empty. The professor’s days of plumage-spreading are done.

  He puts the binoculars down beside the fine casement window and returns to the important paperwork. He picks up a vintage fountain pen, a limited-edition Pelikan Caelum, and savours its weight and balance. One of only five hundred and eighty ever made, a homage to Mercury’s fifty-eight-million-kilometre orbit of the sun. Astronomy has played a vital role in the life of Nathaniel Chase. Too vital, he reflects.

  He dips the nib into a solid brass antique inkwell, lets the Pelikan drink its fill and resumes his chore.

  It takes Nathaniel an hour to finish wri
ting on the fine cotton-blend paper that bears his own personalised watermark. He meticulously reviews every finished line and contemplates the impact the letter will have on its reader. He blots it, folds it precisely into three, places it into an envelope and seals it with old-fashione d wax and a personalised stamp. Ceremony is important. Especially today.

  He places the letter in the middle of the grand desk and sits back, both saddened and relieved to have completed the text.

  The sun is now rising above the orchard at the far side of the garden. On another day, he’d walk the grounds, perhaps take lunch in the summerhouse, watch the wildlife in the garden, and then enjoy a mid-afternoon snooze. Another day.

  He opens the bottom drawer of the desk and pauses as his gaze falls on what lies in there. In one determined move, he takes out the First World War revolver, puts it to his temple and pulls the trigger.

  Outside the blood-spattered window, pheasants squawk and scatter into the grey sky.

  3

  THE FOLLOWING DAY

  CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY

  Gideon Chase quietly puts the phone down and stares blankly at the walls of his office where he’s been reviewing the findings of a dig at a Megalithic temple in Malta.

  The policewoman had been clear enough. ‘Your father is dead. He shot himself.’ Looking back, it’s hard to see how she could have been any clearer. No wasted words. No hyperbole. Just a verbal slap to the guts that sucked his breath away. Sure, she’d thrown in a ‘sorry’ somewhere, murmured her condolences, but by then the twenty-eight-year-old’s brilliant professor-in-waiting brain had shut down.

  Father. Dead. Shot.

  Three small words that painted the biggest imaginable picture. But all he could manage in reply was ‘Oh.’ He asked her to repeat what she’d said to make sure he’d understood. Not that he hadn’t. It was just that he was so embarrassed that he couldn’t say anything other than ‘Oh.’

  It has been years since father and son last spoke. One of their bitterest rows. Gideon had stormed out and vowed never to talk to the old goat again and it hadn’t been difficult to keep to his word.

  Suicide.

  What a shock. The great man had wittered on all his life about being bold, daring and positive. What could be more cowardly than blowing your brains out? Gideon flinches. God, it must have been ugly.

  He moves around his small office in a daze. The police want him to travel over to Wiltshire to answer a few questions. Help fill in some blanks. But he’s not sure he can find his way out of the door, let alone to Devizes.