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castle, but it was a miserable failure—and I can tell you in all honesty that he’s the pushiest man in TV.”
    â€œPushy, how?” I asked, looking worriedly at the red-haired, balding man who was still arguing with the pretty blonde Sue. “When I met him, he was quite nice. Although that might be in part because I was telling him how much I liked the Victorian show he did.”
    â€œFor one, he worries more about getting what he calls ‘good TV’ than us doing proper archaeology. And he’s a stickler for everyone keeping to the schedule, no matter how much we tell him that we have to go where the archaeology is. But worst of all is that he loves having everyone doing reenactments of anything even remotely related to the subject at hand.”
    â€œWhat sort of reenactments?” I tried to look like I was interested from a purely journalistic viewpoint, but the truth was that I had a secret love for such things, and couldn’t wait to watch them in progress.
    â€œEverything from spending twenty-four hours as a medieval nun or monk to making pottery, weapons, clothing, food . . . you name it, Roger will have us doing it. You better watch out, because when he’s in the throes of one of his big ideas, he ropes in everyone he can find. And I do mean everyone. In
Anglopalooza
, he had not only the whole crew but also all the bystanders dressed up as Saxons reenacting what a siege was like.”
    â€œThat can’t be too bad,” I said, considering the subject. “You guys are looking for Roman remains, aren’t you? It wouldn’t be horrible to dress up like Romans. I mean, they had nice hair arrangements, and lovely jewelry, and their dresses weren’t bad, either. Flattering to those of us who are more substantial than others.”
    â€œJust you wait,” Daria warned, nodding toward the group, which at that moment broke up and scattered. “And pray you don’t end up being picked to play the part of the servant.”
    â€œEw.” I remembered a television show I watched a few weeks back in preparation for the trip. “It would be just my luck that I’d be the servant who has to mop up the vomitorium.”
    â€œPfft,” Daria said, making a dismissive gesture. “Vomitoria were passageways into large places, not rooms where people went to barf up their feast so they could go indulge in more. That’s nothing but a fallacy.”
    â€œI’m happy to hear it,” I said, relieved despite the fact that I hadn’t been called on to do anything more than stroll around and take pictures. “Let’s just hope Roger knows that, too.”
    â€œThat is extremely unlikely. He’d love nothing morethan to have people vomiting everywhere. He doesn’t really care much for accuracy so long as it’s dramatic.”
    I let my gaze wander over to where the big television studio trucks had parked alongside an old barn. The members of the dig team had set up a tent camp in an unused pasture well out of sight of Ainslie Castle, per an agreement with Alice and her baron husband. Roger had told me they were worried that tourism would drop if archaeologists were cluttering up the place. Apparently, the castle was partially supported by the tourists who visited it a couple of days a week, so it was important to keep them happy.
    In addition to the two dozen or so tents that had been set up as the dig and TV crews’ home away from home for the next month, five RVs had been parked along the fringes, where the producer, the director, and the other VIPs would live. One RV had been converted into a miniature processing studio, complete with satellite uplink, editing computers, and a huge whiteboard where the producer mapped out each day’s shooting schedule. Although Alice had offered me accommodations at the castle, I didn’t want to take advantage of our tenuous acquaintance, and instead had taken up