Buried Fire Read Online Free PDF Page A

She had wanted the cross safely under lock and key before she left for Stonemarket, and no amount of groaning or swearing had changed her mind. Now here it was, and Tom had been quietly studying his spoils.
    "Good heavens, Reverend, washing your own floor?" said Mr Cleever, as he stepped into the nave. He smiled, widely.
    "Just getting this clay off, Mr Cleever." Tom was suddenly conscious for the first time of the rivulets of orange water trickling over the flagstones. "I wanted to see what the designs on our treasure were."
    "Quite. Do you mind if I have a peep? The whole council's buzzing about it, and I simply had to come and look for myself. It sounds most exciting."
    "Of course." Tom stepped back, wiping his hands on a towel.
    He watched Mr Cleever come forward, aware, as he always was, of the fluidity of the movement, and the controlled strength. The parish councillor was a large man – tall, with receding hair and light blue eyes and a smile that grew from unpromising beginnings to spread across his face like a Cheshire Cat's. It was a memorable smile, which made regular appearances in all his many dealings as councillor, youth group leader, and chairman of several local societies. It carried about it an air of energy and firm resolve, and was much admired about the village.
    Tom often felt a certain reservation concerning Mr Cleever, which he knew was defensive, and was guiltily conscious might be envy. He felt it now. 'Just like him to turn up here,' he thought. 'Why can't he wait till tomorrow like everybody else?'
    Mr Cleever halted on the other side of the trolley, his eyes fixed on the great prone cross which lay between them, glistening with water along all the diverting, interlaced, spiralling whorls of rock.
    "Well, well," he said. "Well, well." And that was all he said for a long time. Tom tossed his sponge into the bucket and stood there with him, gazing at the Fordrace Cross.
    At first, the complexity of the style had confused his eye, but as he had run his sponge along the furrows of the surface, and the Wirrim clay had been gradually dislodged, so the design had been revealed.
    The focus of the carvings was the centre of the cross, within the circle where the four arms met. There, an ornately curling animal was depicted, writhing in on itself in endless folds and curves. So stylised was the beast that there were only a few recognisable parts of its anatomy scattered here and there among the ribbon-like meanderings of the body. There was a leg stretched out towards the stump of the cross's left-hand arm, with two long curving claws like a bird's splayed out in defence or attack. There was another foot and claw near the base of the circle, and what might have been a tail of sorts, which was split into several spindly spines or barbs radiating outwards in all directions, but which still interlaced neatly with the arcing tendrils of the body. All this was very abstract, and it was only by the head that Tom could tell he was looking at an animal at all. The head came down at an angle, gripping part of the body in its open mouth. There was one large eye, a long snout and lots of sharp teeth.
    It's not a vegetarian, thought Tom.
    Outside the circle, the cross was covered with a series of weaving lines which ran up and down the shaft and the two remaining arms. Every now and then small branches arched off into slightly bulbous points which Tom suspected might be leaves or buds. On the shaft, these intertwined over two long thin spears, which crossed in the middle, and whose points almost touched the circle's edge.
    Just outside the circle, at the three points where an arm or shaft emerged, the plant stems diverted to leave a small gap, in which was carved an abstract symbol. The one at the top was a triangle, while the one at the base was a series of wavy lines which joined to make a shape a little like a wonky crown. The symbol on the right-hand arm was unmistakably an eye.
    "Magnificent," said Mr Cleever.
    "It