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Chapter One

The first thing Virginia Jones had learned in her very first lecture as a college student was that real archaeology was nothing like archaeology in the movies "We do not," her professor had declared as he swept the rows of eager young faces with a withering stare, "break into foreign locations with crowbars and dodge deadly traps in order to find lost golden treasures"

If he could see ht with black humor as she levered the crowbar, the old man would have an aneurysm

Adn location was a construction site in the south of England, and the deadly traps were a couple of CCTV cainia was pretty sure her old professor would still have disapproved Particularly as she was technically—OK, very definitely—breaking the law Along with the site's side gate If she couldopen

Next time I have to break and enter in order to protect a site of inia threw her full weight against the crowbar, and was rewarded by the creak of co a firinia wriggled through the gap

In the green static of her rented night vision goggles, the construction site looked like a lunar landscape, with deep ruts and craters where the bulldozers had already scraped back the topsoil Virginia scowled, anger flooding through her at the sight Whatever vestigial burial hly destroyed, and precious infor with it She could only hope that she wasn't already too late to save priceless artifacts fro crushed and desecrated beyond hope of recovery by the uncaring machines

Checking the coinia rotated to orient herself Far below her to the south, she could see the distant lights of Brighton, strung out along the seaside Up here on the rolling chalk hills of the South Downs, the city looked like a glittering handful of jewels in a cupped palm

An ie of what it would have looked like over a thousand years ago flashed through her head—just a few tiny sparks from the hearths of the Saxon settlers, surrounded by vast, forested darkness Had one of those settlers looked up at the loo hills where she now stood, and planned hoould be buried there so that he could watch over his descendants as they multiplied in the new home they had named after him?

"I hope so," Virginia muttered to herself

Unslinging her metal detector, she set to work The chalky soil slid under her boots as shethe metal detector with a steady rhythm For the uarded the scattered bulldozers parked at the center of the site Her heart leapt at every squeal and click in her headphones, only to plu more than a stray nail or discarded Coke can

"Coh a warrior who'd been dead for over fifteen hundred years could obligingly shift his grave into a more discoverable position "Don't be shy"

Unfortunately, Brithelm continued to be a coy corpse, as her sweep of the periinia eyed the CCTV ca courses alongside her archaeology rad As it was, her extensive and detailed knowledge of Anglo-Saxon Migrations (AD 400-900) did not provide her with any particular insights as to how to disable aher way across thespent the better part of threeevery other square inch of the hills above Brighton, she could hardly turn back now

"Coround covered eroding her hope

Four years of research, three prelirant all led to this tiny bit of churned mud She'd staked her reputation on this find If there was nothing here—

The metal detector squealed

Virginia's heart leaped into herthe source of the signal, she pulled her trowel fro Shehole to growing pile of earth and back again, testing each shovelful as she dug Nothing Nothing Nothing

Signal!