The Highgrove Ritual got its inspiration from the canon Holmes story The Musgrave Ritual. It was intended to showcase John Watson and establish some background about his military service: how he came to be injured and sent home. It also sets out why he hangs around with Sherlock Holmes. Pro-tip: It’s not because he “misses the war,” as Sherlock comes to realize here, and contra the “canon” of the series. A major goal of these Sherlock fanfics was to remedy the short shrift given to John Watson in far too many depictions of him, so John’s a more active, equal partner in this story and all the subsequent ones.
Highgrove is the first of three somewhat related stories, the others being The Icebreaker, which follows immediately after it, and The Adventure of the Trained Politician, which for the characters takes place about two weeks after The Icebreaker. All three are set after the timeline established in the TV series ended but were written well before the series itself concluded. In re-reading Highgrove now I recall finding the research required for it pretty tedious, so if any of the Celtic and druidic history is depicted accurately it’s most likely an oversight.
Ioan McShane stopped beside a metre-high dry stack of pale stones. Barney trotted ahead, realized his master wasn’t following, and paused as well. He looked back over his shoulder, whined, and wagged his tail as if to say, “Well? This doesn’t look like the place, does it?” McShane frowned. The cairn marked the northern boundary of Oldgroves, the 300-acre estate of Colonel Anstrethy, Lord Highgrove, and while the little tower of stones was an informal reminder to trespassers, the Colonel had been known to take strong measures against any who ignored the message. Barney whined again, trotted ahead a few paces, then stopped and looked back. His meaning would have been clear to a man with far less knowledge of dogs than McShane.
The shepherd sighed. “All right, laddie. I know what yer tellin’ me.” Like many people who live alone, McShane had fallen into the habit of speaking to his dogs as though they were human. “But Lord Highgrove’s in, and he don’t care much for folks roamin’ about on his land. Still,” he added, starting after the dog again, “he don’t much like sheep on his place, neither. Maybe if we take our little wanderer off his hands he’ll reckon we’re even, eh?”
Barney dashed ahead, pleased to have communicated his meaning at last, and led McShane another hundred metres deeper into Oldgroves. The dog skirted Smokham Wood and stopped at the edge of a rocky ravine, one of several that dotted the southeastern quadrant of the estate. Such ravines were ubiquitous on the downs, McShane knew. The largest underground river system in Britain flowed beneath the Mendip Hills, wearing away large areas of the underlying limestone and attracting cavers and even cave divers, because many of the subterranean recesses filled with water. The River Axe itself rose on Highgrove land less than a quarter mile from where McShane now stood, and was responsible for one of the region’s most popular tourist attractions, the Wookey Hole Cave. Tourists often strayed onto the Colonel’s land as they followed the river upstream, ignoring the posted ‘no trespassing’ signs and incurring his wrath. McShane was urgent to retrieve his sheep before the Colonel discovered him. He furthermore didn’t fancy the idea of wandering about the hills after dark, and the early autumn sun hung just above the treetops. Although he knew the land as well as he knew his own house, McShane also knew that new chasms could appear unexpectedly as the water collapsed the underlying rock. Then, too, the Romans had mined lead in the hills, and by no means all of their excavations had been accounted for. Only a fool would blunder about the place in the dark.
At the bottom of the two metre deep ravine, baa-ing at irregular intervals and looking more bewildered than even a sheep had a right to do, stood a single lamb, unhurt by its tumble. McShane sighed, but there was nothing for it. He scrambled down the ravine wall with the gentlest slope, dislodging a small cascade of loose rocks and dirt as he did so. He caught up the lamb, hoisted it above his head, and boosted it over the rim of the crevice. The lamb landed in a soft heap on the turf. “Watch him, laddie,” McShane said to Barney. “Watch him.”
The oaks and elms of nearby Smokham Wood had sent their root systems questing far out through the soil and rock, and many lay exposed in the side of the ravine. McShane grasped one of these and used it to haul himself up, but when his feet slipped on the scree he fell face down, lost his grip on the root, and slid to the bottom of the ravine. It wasn’t a hard fall, but it was a somewhat ignominious one, and he was glad that there was no one around to see it. He stood, dusted himself, swore perfunctorily, and stepped forward to try again. As he did so his foot made a hollow, scraping sound on the rock. He looked down and frowned. In falling he’d exposed a strangely flat rock slab, scuffing it clear of the overlying dirt and scree. Odd. He knelt and brushed away more of the dirt, but as far as he cleared it the rock remained unnaturally flat. Puzzled, and using two hands now, McShane scooped and dug until he had revealed a roughly eighteen inch-square slab of flat stone with two dull-grey lead straps running across it, embossed with some sort of curving symbols. He dug around the edges until he had exposed enough of the object to reveal that it was a limestone box. The lead straps appeared to circle the entire thing and reinforce what looked to be ornately cut iron hinges on one side.
In spite of his desire to betake himself and his sheep off Oldgroves before the Colonel discovered him, McShane paused to consider his find. The Colonel was widely known to be an avid student of Celtic history, and particularly of druidic practices. He maintained an extensive personal collection of relics and artifacts, both found and bought, valuable historically and monetarily, that would be the envy of many a museum. He often loaned his treasures to museums around the world. If the stone box proved to be as ancient as it looked, and if it contained relics or even human remains that dated to druidic times, the Colonel might be very inclined to reward the finder.
McShane had exposed only the top three inches or so of the box. He had no way to guess how deep the thing might be, but there was no question of his being able to carry it out of the ravine alone. He would have enough trouble getting himself out unencumbered. With renewed energy he clambered out of the pit, sent Barney home with the sheep, and started toward the distant manor house.
* * * * *
“That’s almost got it, Reggie,” Lord Highgrove called to the man waiting above the ravine. “Stand by to bring her up when I give the word, but slowly, eh? Very slowly.” He turned to McShane, standing with him in the bottom of the ravine. Together they had carefully freed the stone box from the earth and wrestled it onto a mat of thick nylon strapping. Highgrove pulled the corners of the mat together and fished a beefy metal hook through the corner grommets, gave an experimental tug on the cable that ran from the netting up the side of the ravine and over its rim, and grunted with satisfaction. “I think that will do it,” he said to McShane. He raised his voice to carry out of the crevice. “Okay, Reggie. Haul away slowly.”
Topside, Reggie Larkin stood beside the liftgate of the Colonel’s Rover and activated the electric winch. The cable retracted almost imperceptibly at first, and Larkin waited until the slack left the cable before calling, “How’s that, sir?”
“Great, Reggie. It’s holding perfectly. Maybe just a tad faster. There—that’s it. Keep her at that,” came Highgrove’s answer. “I’ll follow on, but don’t go any faster that this.”
Highgrove was a tall, broad-shouldered man, fit and well-muscled, and he followed the box up the side of the ravine with an unconscious, athletic ease, taking great care that the box didn’t tip or get jostled. McShane waited until he was well clear of the rim, then made his own way up, much more awkwardly, and found to his embarrassment that Highgrove was waiting at the rim to give him a hand up.
“Thank you, sir, thank you,” McShane muttered, and although Highgrove’s hands were every bit as dirty as his own he wiped his hands self-consciously on his jeans.
“Never,” Highgrove said boisterously. “If anyone deserves thanks around here, it’s you, Ioan. This is amazing, just amazing. Do you know what you’ve found? Look at those straps, the hinges. This is an Iron Age cist, a reliquary.” He used a finger to lovingly trace the interlocking curlicues stamped on the lead straps. “These are triskeles,” he said. “Very common motif among the Celts. It symbolizes the Threefold Sister Goddess: Fotla, Eiru, and Banba. This is an amazing, amazing find.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” McShane repeated. It seemed the safest answer. McShane, as usual, didn’t follow much of what Highgrove said. The Colonel was so immersed in Celtic history and rituals that it often never occurred to him that his listeners might be somewhat less so.
“Reggie,” Highgrove said to the man at the winch, “Pour us a spot of tea, will you? One for yourself, as well. And don’t forget to add a little flavor to it, eh?” He smiled at McShane. “A find like this calls for a little celebration. You’ll join me, of course?”
McShane hesitated, but Larkin had already produced three cups of tea from a thermos and was liberally lacing each with whisky from a flask. “Well, sir, I really should be getting back to the sheep, now that it’s so near dark, but…Barney won’t let them stray too far, and a little nip never hurt anyone, I suppose. I thank you for your hospitality, sir,” he added, taking the little cup.
“Nonsense,” Highgrove boomed, clapping him on the back. “I told you: It’s you who deserves all the thanks. By the way: You haven’t told anyone else about this little find, have you?”
“Oh, no sir,” McShane said at once. “As soon as I got the lamb out of the ditch I sent Barney back to the flock with her and came straight over the woods to you. There’s no one to tell, any gate,” he added softly.
“Excellent, excellent,” Highgrove said. “You know how it is around here with the bloody tourists. If word of this got out they’d be massing with shovels and pickaxes, trying to find their own relics. It’s hard enough keeping them out when they’re hunting for their damned ‘Wookey Witch.’”
McShane wasn’t too sure that his lordship should be mocking the Witch—he’d seen and heard enough strange things in the Hills to make him keep an open mind on that point—but it wasn’t his place to correct the Colonel. To hide his nervousness he drained his cup of tea—-nd then wondered whether he could presume to set it on the Rover’s liftgate. Reggie solved the dilemma for him.
“All finished, sir? Let me take that for you,” he said smoothly, and bustled it off to the front seat of the car.
“Well, sir,” McShane said to Highgrove. “I thank you for the dram. Barney will be wondering where I’ve got to all this time…”
“Of course, of course,” Highgrove said. “How rude of me. But listen: before you go. Let me give you a little something to show my appreciation, eh?” He reached for his wallet.
McShane put up his hands. “No, sir, no. I couldn’t possibly—”
“Of course you can, Ioan. Don’t be ridiculous. None of that, now. Take this—” pressing two one hundred-pound notes into McShane’s hand “—and spend it in good health. I insist,” he added when McShane opened his mouth to protest again.
“Thank you, sir. Thank you.” McShane backed away, gave a little bow and touched the brim of his hat, then turned and hurried off.
“Take care as you go, Ioan,” Highgrove called after him. “You know what the Hills are like at night.”
* * * * *
John paid the cab driver and joined Sherlock on the pavement outside the flat.
“Well, that could have gone better,” he observed.
“I told Lestrade to keep the zookeeper under surveillance.”
“You definitely did.” John’s phone rang then. “It’s Mycroft,” he said, looking at it.
“Ugh,” Sherlock groaned. “Ignore it.”
“Oh, no. He’s finally started phoning instead of abducting me. I don’t want him backsliding.”
Sherlock quirked the corner of his mouth. “It is an improvement.”
“Mycroft?” John said.
“John,” Mycroft said smoothly. “So good of you to take my call after Sherlock told you to ignore it.”
John rolled his eyes but kept his voice polite. “What do you need?”
“It has come to my attention that one of Her Majesty’s highly-decorated war heroes has been trying, without success, to get in touch with Sherlock,” Mycroft said. “He has a little puzzle, shall we say, and he feels that my brother may be of some help in unravelling it. He’s sent a number of e-mails, but Sherlock hasn’t bothered to respond.”
“Yeah, well, he does that,” John said. “You’re calling me instead of him because…?”
“Because this person is Colonel Cedric Anstrethy, Lord Highgrove.”
“Uh-huh. Wait. Colonel Anstrethy? Colonel ‘Bunny’ Anstrethy?” Beside him Sherlock, who had been openly eavesdropping, pricked up his ears at something down the block. John followed his gaze and recognized one of Sherlock’s homeless network lounging several doors away. “Yeah, go,” he said in an aside, waving him off, and Sherlock strode away.
“Am I keeping you from something?” Mycroft asked.
“Uh…no,” John said, speaking somewhat at random. He’d slipped automatically into his habit of methodically scanning the rest of the street, including the windows and rooftops, a precaution he’d learned in the war and which he’d found invaluable in his association with Sherlock. He was only half-listening to Mycroft. “Sorry,” he said. “Go on: Bunny Anstrethy wants Sherlock’s help?”
“Apparently. Do you know him?”
“Just by reputation. Not personally. But he was a very popular officer. Well-respected and everything. Very popular with his men.”
“How nice. I’ve been told something similar. I’ve never met the man; never wanted to—but that’s just between us, John. He appears to be held in high esteem in certain circles.”
“I imagine so. What does he want to see Sherlock about?”
“It seems that the Colonel has found some sort of Celtic relic on his property. He lives in Somerset, near Wookey Hole Cave, and I’m given to understand that such finds are, if not exactly common, then at least not unheard of. The Colonel is famous in archaeological circles as a highly accomplished amateur. He’s a prominent patron of the British Museum, and many of his collections are on loan to museums around the world.”
“I’d heard that about him. He studies Celtic history? The history of the British Isles, something like that?”
“Something like that. He’s considered a leading expert, though he’s entirely self-taught. This find has potentially profound historical value, my source assures me, but the Colonel—‘Bunny,’ as you say—appears anxious to keep it out of the press for now. He wants someone discreet to help him examine this item, and for some reason he thought of my brother.” Mycroft paused for irony. “I believe he’s the first person who’s ever accused Sherlock of being discreet.”
“And this item is…?”
“A secret.”
“Mycroft,” John said, and thought, Christ, now I’m scolding him, too.
“My source was disappointingly vague on that point.”
“Great. Well, I’d love to meet him. Don’t see why Sherlock would, though. Doesn’t sound like there’s any mystery involved.” He watched Sherlock turn away from the homeless woman and amble back toward him with a discontented expression. “What makes you think that he’ll listen to me, anyway?”
“History, John. He does, you know. He will.”
John laughed. “If you’re so sure—”
“The Colonel is taking the first train up from Bath in the morning. It arrives at 10:15. Make sure my brother is in when Highgrove gets there, John.”
“Mycroft. Mycroft—” John looked at the phone. “Dammit.”
“Problem?”
John sighed. “Yeah. No. I don’t know.”
“Indecision is a terrible vice, John,” Sherlock said, unlocking the front door.
“Yeah, well, so is presumption. Your brother—”
“Mycroft wants you to convince me to see a client.”
“Right.”
“A Colonel Anstrethy.”
“Yeah.”
“He keeps e-mailing me,” Sherlock said, hanging up his coat and scarf as they reached their landing.
“Mycroft said. Why haven’t you answered? You could at least turn him down.”
Sherlock dropped negligently into his armchair. “Why bother? If it’s important enough he’ll get a little more creative. If it’s not he’ll go away. And oh, look: Mycroft’s gone to all the trouble of phoning you, so…?”
“So Mycroft’s, what, vetting your appointment calendar now?”
Sherlock smiled. “Not that he’s aware.”
John slipped off his shoes and settled into his own chair with a sigh. “Do I have to talk you into seeing this guy, then?”
“Do you want to?”
“God, no.”
“You do want me to meet with him, though. Why?”
John shrugged. “I knew him in the service. Well,” he corrected himself, in answer to Sherlock’s glance, “I knew of him. He was popular with his men. Very well-respected. It’s hard to fake a reputation for very long in a combat zone, you know. I knew a couple of guys who served under him, and they all said the same things: tough, fair, wouldn’t ask you to do something he wouldn’t be willing to do. Not a desk jockey type. A hard-charger. That sort of thing.”
“There must have been a lot of commanding officers who fit that description. Why do you remember Highgrove in particular?”
“I guess he kind of stuck out because I heard that he was a big British history buff. It always struck me as a little…I don’t know…”John gestured vaguely as he searched for the right word.
“Incongruous?”
“Yeah. That he’d be such a high-profile military figure and also a big expert on druids or something. The guys always said,‘Don’t get him started.’ But you know, I like reading about history a bit myself, so maybe that made him more memorable to me than he would have been otherwise. I guess I wouldn’t mind meeting him.”
Sherlock looked thoughtful. “One more question.”
“Yeah?”
“‘Bunny’?”
John laughed. “Ah, that’s one of those famous military nicknames. There’s a story behind it—well, there’s one that I heard. I’m not sure if it’s true or not.” He looked at Sherlock. “You don’t really want to hear that.”
“Please.”
“Well, this is just what I was told. I’m not saying it’s true.” He hesitated, but Sherlock was looking attentively at him with no sign of irony or impatience, so he said, “The Colonel was shopping for a Christmas present for his aunt Lobelia. She was famous for being a very enthusiastic baker, I guess, and he wanted something that would be really useful to her. So he looked through some catalogues and ordered something he thought she might really appreciate. She wrote back a long letter thanking him for the lovely bunwarmer.” John paused again. “You see where this is going, right?”
“I believe so.”
“Yeah. So word got out to the troops through the Colonel’s secretary, who I think is now second assistant dogcatcher in the Faroes or something.”
“Soldiers called him ‘Bunny’ to his face?”
“Oh, God, no. No, never. But it was never malicious, either. Well, unless he had them doing something especially unpleasant, I suppose. But no. It was kind of an affectionate nickname, or at least respectful, but not one that anyone would ever say to his face.”
“Hm. And Lionheart?”
“Never mind.”
“Worth a try.”
“Not really. So: You’ll hear what he has to say?”
“Possibly.”
“Sherlock. Look. How about this: There’s nothing on right now. If your little homeless friend outside had turned up anything on that Sussex stuff you wouldn’t be sitting here interviewing me about theoretical clients.”
“True,” Sherlock admitted ruefully.
“All this guy wants is for you to look at something he dug up. Some sort of relic. This is the first break we’ve had in weeks and a nice, easy case turns up. You’ve been running yourself into the ground lately, and you know it. Look at you: You must have lost half a stone in the last two months.”
Sherlock looked away sulkily.
“Trust me, I’m a doctor: Even someone your age can kill himself with stress and bad habits.”
Sherlock scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. Statistically I’m far more likely to die in an accident.”
“Oh, I’ll make it look like one.”
* * * * *
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