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the Professor’s first name. “But while we’ve got the means to contact the authorities, people are certainly going to wonder why we didn’t.”
    â€œOf course they are,” Alan added. “Even a couple of days’ delay, and they’ll be asking questions.”
    For the first time, the Professor seemed unsure of her position. She gazed thoughtfully down at the body, then glanced sidelong at Clive. “They have a point, I suppose,” he finally said. “People will ask questions, and if it turns out we’ve delayed because we were too busy with the find, it won’t look good.”
    Again, she relapsed into thought, though clearly Clive’s reasoning had made sense to her. “All right,” she eventually said. “We’ll inform the Coast Guard station. This isn’t an emergency, so it’ll probably take them a day or so to get out here, anyway. Come on. Help me get something to cover him with.”
    And with that, she turned and set off back towards the camp. The others went with her, all except Alan and Nug, the latter of whom now sank onto his haunches.
    â€œJesus,” Alan said, half to himself, “talk about priorities.”
    Nug, however, wasn’t listening. He was crouching by the corpse, staring at it, a far-away look on his face. Finally, he stood up and turned. “Listen, I don’t particularly think there’s anything in this, but you’re sure Craig’s death was an accident?”
    Alan raised an eyebrow. “Well … obviously. I mean, he must have fallen. It’s hard to see how he could have hit the tree, but what else could have happened?”
    Nug stared up at the rock-face. “It’s just that … well, this is obviously a big coincidence, but his spine’s been broken, yeah?”
    â€œI think so.”
    Nug mused on this. “If he’d fallen down through the upper branches, wouldn’t there be other marks on him, cuts, grazes and such?”
    â€œI suppose.”
    â€œAnd there aren’t.”
    â€œWhat are you saying, Nug?” Alan was suddenly too tired for word-games.
    Nug looked him in the eye. “Ivar Ragnarsson sacrificed Mael Guala, the king of Munster, to the gods, by having his back ritually broken over a millstone, then hanging his body from a tree.”
8
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    They wrapped Craig’s twisted body in the groundsheet of his tent, then zipped him into his sleeping bag, before carrying him down the slope and finally depositing him just inside the mouth of the cave.
    There was no ceremony, no-one made a speech or said any words. It was a forlorn and desolate little moment as they laid him there, but it occurred to Alan how much Ivar the Boneless would have approved. The Christianity the ferocious Dane had striven so hard to destroy by sheer barbarism, had eventually fallen to sophistication; the Godless wilderness he’d sought to create with fire and sword, had finally arrived through discussion and intellectualism. Such, it seemed, was the prize of progress.
    Alan stood there for a moment, looking down at the shrouded form. Then he glanced up into the opaque darkness at the back of the cave. “Perhaps we should move him further in?” he said. “We don’t want some animal to come and mess with the body.”
    â€œAnd what kind of animal would that be?” Barry Wood scoffed. “A grizzly bear?”
    Alan turned sharply to face him. “Do you have to try and score points off everything!”
    Barry sneered in response. “Do you have to find problems with everything!”
    â€œI think we’ve got problems enough, without having to find them!”
    â€œWill you two pack it in!” the Professor snapped. “This is an upsetting incident, but we can only put it behind us and get on with our work if we stick together as a team. Now just simmer down, the pair of you.”
    The two students backed off and did as