The Quest for the Stone

But as I walked up the riverbed and looked over the hills behind the plain, where the double hump hill should be, after walking the entire length, I still could not find it. The idea that I could be wrong and my vision came from an imaginary dream state started to gnaw away at my enthusiasm. I decided to get lower, to make my eyes on a level with a person who is in the river itself, like in the vision. I trotted again to the far end of the riverbed. I squatted down so my head leveled about two feet above the shoreline. Not exactly the same as the vision but close enough. Then I started the strained journey of duck walking staying in a squat position back up the dried river bed, focusing, remembering my vision on the hill outline to the west, looking for that tell tale double hump hill. I reasoned that in two thousand years the natural layering of dirt, grass and vegetation would have raised the ground level by about ten feet, that’s why the riverbed is higher. This natural rise would also change the tops of the hills, which are also subject to erosion by wind and rain. Keeping all of this in mind, I squatted and walked like a duck, until my legs ached and I had to sit down and rest. I took an energy bar out of my backpack. It tasted good. The midday sun was high and the weather had cleared; now I was in hot humid English summer climate. I took out a water bottle and drank half the water. I needed to stay hydrated; my senses need to stay keen. I felt the sweat pour down my face and body. Ringlets of sweat flowed down my sides and stomach and I could feel my skin stick to my shirt. Off went my jacket, folded and put it away in my backpack. Refreshed and rested, I took a deep breath and started my duck walk up toward the mouth of the riverbed. Twenty-five feet later I stopped; there they were. Two hills close together, and in my growing more painful squatting position, they looked like a camels hump. When I stood up and looked, there were still two hills in front of me but the change in height as little as it was, made the camel hump harder to discern. No wonder I couldn’t see it before. I quickly calculated the location of the main fort. I closed my eyes and played back my vision. I pretended again to be bathing in the river, my angle in the water and then pointed to where the main buildings were. Opening my eye, my finger pointed to a landscape almost the same as in my vision the night before. I made a mental note of a shrub that stood in line with where I pointed and ran to it. Pain immediately shot through my legs. The toll of walking squatted for the last ten minutes tightened my leg muscles so much, I could hardly walk. I sat down, massaged my legs, I needed to take care of myself. After what seemed like a lifetime, I stood up and felt the bounce come back to my legs and the ‘thrill of the hunt’ made me sprint like a lion chasing its prey. Full of excitement, I got to the shrub and looked around for any sign of a wall, a roof or any geometrical pattern in the ground that would indicate a substructure. I had to bring back something to Charles; I needed some sort of proof. I looked around and saw nothing but grass, shrubs and dirt. ‘It has to be here. Start looking, do a search pattern, walk in larger concentric circles around this point,’ I thought. Still unable to quite control myself, I started running in my search pattern, looking around for any sign of a structure hidden in the ground. I didn’t find it; it found me! As I started my third circle out from the shrub, my left foot stubbed on something solid, l stumbled, falling forward, my pack made me top heavy enough to lose my balance, I hit the ground face down. Chapter 7 My Dream Comes True Laying face down, I pulled my hands up to my chest and did a push up to right myself. I rolled to my left and looked down at my left foot, which was starting to hurt from smashing into whatever I had tripped over. Looking past my foot, sticking out of the ground stood what I had been looking for: a dull red flat brick, but not any brick, by its square flat thin size I beheld an ancient brick, a building block made two thousand years ago by the Romans, an artifact indicating they were here. I threw archeological procedures to the wind, no mapping or sketching on how it lay in the ground, and pried it from the ground. I quickly examined it. At a foot square and two inches thick and tile like, I had no doubt I held a Roman brick. I scanned the area for more clues but saw nothing of a building or ruins, just dirt and grass field. But I held the proof I needed, a Roman sized brick, right where it should be as in my dream. I trotted back toward the dig site, backpack and gear bobbing and sweat running down my body in the midday sun. I examined the brick closely while trotting and realized I couldn’t have asked for a better artifact. Unlike a modern day brick used for walls, the Roman brick, flatter and thinner, could be used to build a wall, or be used as a floor or roof tile. To my delight, remnants of cement or mortar adhered to one side of the brick, enough to show that this brick belonged to a larger structure. Perhaps from one of the buildings I saw in my vision. I crossed over the sunken road to the field where my coworkers were excavating. On their knees trowling and brushing away dirt, they resembled a group of artisans at their craft rather than archeologists searching for clues of the past. Charles, their overseer stood with his clipboard diligently directing them. “I found it, I found it!” I yelled as I drew closer. I felt like Paul Revere racing through the night awakening sleeping colonists. My colleagues stopped and looked up at me. I gulped with nervousness as Charles put his clipboard under his arm and approached me. I expected to be met with skepticism and a scolding for not following archeological protocol by unceremoniously prying the brick from the ground without officially recording its place in a site map. Instead, the whole team, with Charles in the lead greeted me like a soldier coming home from the war. I guess they all sensed the drudgery of working on this small hut knowing that a richer and larger prize awaited them somewhere nearby. And I had found what they were waiting for. “Look, a brick, part of a wall, the whole fort has to be up there!”, I said as I stopped, bending over, panting to catch my breath and pointing in the general direction of the flat plain. When Charles stood in front of me, I stood erect like a marine in front of a drill sergeant and handed my trophy over to him. His eyes lit up the moment I placed it in his hands. Chatter, back pats, handshakes followed, but what I liked the most came from Ann. She looked deep into my eyes, “I knew you could do it.” She kissed me on the cheek, quickly, professionally so as to not reveal our mutual feelings to the team, but the electricity of her touch sent a thrill through me. I blushed. After examining the brick with his magnifying glass Charles said, “Definitely Roman, look here at these letters.” Everyone shuffled in to get a look, He read aloud “L-E-G-I-O”, paused for a second, then read “I-I”. You see, the Roman Legions carried kilns so they could cast and bake bricks to build their structures. Each legion would imprint their name on their bricks.” Holding up the brick, “we have here a brick made by Legion II Augusta who marched through here anywhere from 46 to 52 CE.” Every one cheered and I received another volley of back pats and handshakes.