The Boudicca Parchments

Chapter 48

The man was standing somewhere in the centre of the motorway service station, holding one of those sturdy cardboard tubes of the type that retailers sometimes use for posters and wall maps. He was looking around in every direction but the right one. Sarit had pointed him out and then moved off, circling round him, to let Daniel approach him alone from behind. If this was a trap, she wanted to be free to spring Daniel from it.

“Professor Hynds I presume.”

The professor spun round.

“Daniel Klein!” he said with enthusiasm. “We meet at last. And please… call me Ted.”

“And call me Daniel.”

The Emeritus Professor of Archaeology from Cambridge extended a large hand which Daniel shook. The firm grip was reassuring to Daniel. He had always taken it as a sign of honesty and he made sure to make his grip similarly firm to give equal reassurance to the professor.

“So,” said Ted amiably, “I understand you have something to tell me?”

“And you said you’d also made an interesting discovery.”

“Yes indeed.” Ted looked around. “Shall we get something to eat? I’m not hungry myself, I got here early and had something to eat while I was waiting, but if you want something.”

“Er, no. I’d rather we kept on the move. As you know, the authorities are still looking for me. It’s a long story, but for now let’s just say I want to avoid staying in one place for too long.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“We can along the motorway and talk.”

Ted thought about the practicalities of the situation.

“But we’ll still have to get back here don’t we? I mean I assume you came here by car too.”

“I hired a car. Let’s take mine and I’ll drop you off back here at the end.”

“Okay.”

They started walking towards the exit and the open air car park.

“Just as a matter of interest, how did you manage to hire a car? I mean you’re name would’ve set off alarm bells wouldn’t it?”

“I had a friend do it for me.”

As he walked past Sarit, she gave him a nod to indicate that she had not spotted any surveillance. They walked out, and the professor held the door open for the attractive redhead behind him, not realizing who she was. While Daniel led Ted to the car, he knew that Sarit was still looking around for signs of a possible police presence ready to swoop in. Only when they reached the car, did Sarit close the gap and manoeuvre round the pair of them to get to the driver’s seat.

Ted did a double take at this, prompting a smile from Daniel’s face.

“Oh Professor Hynds — I mean Ted — may I introduce you to my partner in crime, Sarah Smith. Miss Smith, Professor Hynds”

“Please… call me Ted said the professor smiling and again offered his hand. But when “Sarah” responded, he did not shake her hand in a firm grip, nor indeed shake it at all. Instead he raised her hand towards his lips, bowed from the waist and kissed the hand, like a medieval knight acting out a scene of courtly love.

Daniel was unsure of how Sarit was going to take it, but was relieved when she smiled and nodded politely at the professor.

“Sari — Sarah will drive. That way we can talk.”

Sarah got into the driver’s seat. Daniel and Ted sat at the back. As Sarit was manoeuvring the car back onto the M11, Daniel decided to kick-start the flagging conversation.

“So who’s going first?”

“Oh you lead. I’ll follow.”

“So the fibres in the dead man’s hand tend to confirm the authenticity of the document,” Ted was saying, nodding enthusiastically at what Daniel had told him so far.

“Yes… although they haven’t actually been carbon dated.”

“Are they going to do so?”

“Well I asked my lawyer to suggest it to the police. But I don’t know if they will. I mean it may be of interest to us but it doesn’t exactly help to either incriminate me or eliminate me from their inquiries, so I’m not sure how much importance they’ll attach to it.”

“If nothing else, it’ll tell them for certain if this parchment is an authentic historical artefact.”

“Yes. Anyway, I’m now beginning to think it is. It’s hard to see how all this could be happening over one of Martin Costa’s forgeries.”

“You said, you had some information about the content?”

“Oh yes.”

Daniel explained about the digital image enhancement — omitting any reference to the Mossad — the script and language and to his translation of it.

“A marriage certificate?”

“Yes.”

“This really is absolutely incredible. I mean a Jewish marriage certificate in England dating back to the Romano-British period is absolutely… well it’s incredible! Unprecedented!”

“The thing is that there is quite a famous character in Jewish history called Simon Bar Giora, and although the name Simon was a very common Jewish name at the time, Bar Giora was somewhat less common.”

“The name sounds familiar.”

“He was one of the leaders of the first Jewish revolt against Rome, in 66.”

Daniel filled Ted in on the details, as he had with Sarit.

“And you think this really was the same man?”

“It seems very unlikely that he would have gone to Britain. There’s no obvious reason why he would have done. On the other hand, as I was telling Sarit, we know very little about him.”

“Telling who?”

Daniel blushed as he heard sniggering from the driver’s seat.

“Okay, you got me there.”

“I won’t pry,” said Ted. “But regarding travelling from Judea to Roman Britain, remember that both Britain and Judea were parts of the Roman empire. And the Romans did encourage trade between different parts of their empire. That was one of the main reasons for having an empire.”

“But I thought the trade was supposed to be for the benefit of Rome.”

“As long as they got their cut, they didn’t mind the locals making a profit too. It kept the natives docile and made them all the more servile to Rome.”

“But Bar Giora wasn’t a merchant, Ted. He was a soldier — or at least a rebel leader.”

“Maybe he started off as a disgruntled merchant who became a rebel. The thing I don’t understand is who did he marry? It’s unlikely that he would have brought his betrothed with him to Britain while travelling for trade purposes.”

“Well it’s hard to read actual names, especially names that are not normally written in Hebrew script, because the Hebrew alphabet doesn’t use vowels. But the name of the woman appeared to be something like Lanevshiah which isn’t exactly an ancient Jewish name that I recognize. And her father was called something like Farashotagesh, which sounds vaguely Persian.”

Ted thought about this for a while.

“I was going to say, it’s more likely that he married a local girl. If he felt strongly about it, and if he was wealthy, her father might have agreed to her converting to Judaism in exchange for a high bride price.”

“The trouble is that in Jewish marriages, the bride price was a kind of promise in the event of divorce. A sort of ancient prenuptial agreement. But then again, if he was a wealthy man generally, then maybe mammon and love would have overcome religious objections. Did the ancient Britons have strong objections to religious conversion?”

“No not really. They were pagans like the Romans and they followed the general pagan tradition of worshipping the local Gods — often even finding equivalence between their Gods and other people’s Gods. But the problem is those names don’t sound too much like iron age British names… or Roman names.”

“The ketuba was signed by two witnesses. One of them had a Jewish sounding name — presumably a member of Bar Giora’s entourage.”

“Who was that?”

“Barach.”

“That sounds familiar.”

“It sounds like the Hebrew word Baruch meaning blessed. I suppose it could be considered like the name Benedict. But if it was Baruch, it would have had a Hebrew letter vav to serve as a placeholder for the oo vowel.”

“Wait a minute,” said Sarit, from in front of them. “What was that Hebrew name again?”

“Well the name on the ketuba looked like Barach, which in modern Hebrew would mean ‘he ran away’.”

“Now I remember!” said Sarit excitedly. “I thought it sounded familiar. There’s a character called Barach in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology.”

“Of course!” Ted exclaimed. “I thought I recognized your accent!”

“What’s the Ulster Cycle?” asked Daniel.

Sarit spoke again.

“It’s a collection of myths and tales dating from around the seventh century but set round about the time of Jesus. Barach was a Druid priest who advised Conchobar Mac Nessa, the greatest king of Ulster. The story goes that Barach saw the sky getting dark and interpreted it as an omen telling of the death of Christ. And when he told this to Conchobar the king was overwhelmed with grief.”

“That’s right,” said Ted. “You certainly know your Celtic legends. I think there was something about him hacking at a tree in grief and anger until an old wound from his head started bleeding again and he died. That’s Conchobar I mean, not Barach.”

“Well presumably this is all just coincidence,” said Daniel.

“Oh yes,” said Ted. “I don’t think anyone’s suggesting the legends were true. They were originally oral pagan legends, but by the time they were transcribed, they’d probably been edited somewhat by monks to bring them into line with Christian beliefs. But the point is that the name Barach could be a local name. It doesn’t have to be this…”

“Baruch,” Daniel added.

“Okay but you said there were two witnesses.”

“Well the other was a name was very easy to read. It’s a name of Hellenic origin, but it was a name that was found in several members of Herod’s family. Aristobulos.”

Daniel was expecting some comment from Ted in response to this — expecting anything but the reaction that he actually got. For when Daniel said the name, he noticed that the look on Ted’s face was one of shock — the man was absolutely shaken to the core.