Bonekickers

England Vs Italy Bath, AD 63

England Vs Italy 945 years later

Bonekickers S01E03 The Eternal Fire

I'm here outside the historic Pump Room in the centre of Bath...

where the city may have just experienced it's first earth tremor in over 300 years.

Earlier, Valentine's Day diners were overcome by a release of highly toxic gas.

Three people are said to be in a critical condition and authorities are

baffled as to how this bizarre and frightening events could have occurred.

Have you found what you're looking for, apart from each other?

Gillian!

- Have you seen the local news? - No, what is it?

A terrible and wonderful thing.

- You're in love? - God no, not as terrible as that.

Some people have been gassed.

Of the surrounding region which leads us to understand that a global...

erm... focus sets the em..

most important context, and then, yes, I've got a slide...

I hope it's a monkey juggling batons 'cause I can't see

how this funding delegation is going to stay awake.

Ah, Dr. Magwilde, he's boring, make his speech better.

Daniel, there's a very excited man outside looking for you.

With a cheque book..

Get your coat, you've pulled.

- What's happened? - The chance of a lifetime.

You wanna go underground?

Ah. Do you have a late note?

Sorry.

I feel a bit sick, I need a smoothie...

what five pints of scrumpy'll do to you.

Oh, I see. A night of drinking, coy snatched glances the next day.

- He can still taste her on his lips... - What? Was it a...?

- No, no it wasn't. - Was it?

No. He showed me the sights, we popped into The Green Tree...

All right, losing interest now.

So what's going on?

There's a hollow area under these baths we've

never had a chance to get at it. Till now.

You know it'sjust going to be more Roman remains, Gilly.

- We had a bet. - A bet? What bet?

It's very complicated but involves Celts and Romans and Gillian being completely wrong.

Well, if I'm wrong I will cough up.

I'm none the wiser here. Could somebody draw me a picture?

- Hold it. Who are you lot? - You the engineer?

Geologist if you don't mind... Jeff Greenwood.

We're from Wessex University.

Archaeologists.

And bon viveurs. And in some cases erotic adventurers.

The quake dislodged part of the old flooring. Made a bloody big hole.

A pocket of hydrogen sulphide from

the sulphur springs was released from underground.

Obviously, they're going to evacuate the town centre.

No, just the baths.

These seismic wobbles only happen twice in a millennium.

Oh, and it's Valentine's and no-one wants to

stem the flow of romantic cash into the shops.

Is it OK if we take a peek?

No. Whole thing's a death-trap.

Needs bracing. Now if you don't mind, I have

about a thousand samples to test back at the lab.

Cheers.

Bracing sounds serious, we're not really going down there, are we?

Ben, check your torch batteries.

Locked and loaded.

No, hang on... it sounds dangerous.

I'm sorry that your flaming young life is about to be cut short.

But Gillian has a theory and we all have money riding on it.

At least if you perish, you'll perish with your one true love.

There's a honeycomb of tunnels and unexplored areas under the baths.

Back in Roman times, it would have been the perfect place to hide someone.

Hide someone?

This is the first time these walls have been illuminated by electric light.

It's limestone. But it's been hand-hewn.

Not squared-off.

- Mmm, not very Roman, Benjamin? - I'd say this was Celtic.

The Romans liked to build on top of Celtic sites of worship.

Subjugate the people. Eradicate their heritage.

That's the Romans... brutal, thorough, effective.

There may be Celtic remnants here, but it still doesn't prove your theory.

Nothing's going to prove that.

What's the theory?

What do you think happened down here? Someone was hidden here?

Let's dig.

- All clear down there? - Yes, sir.

We'll do a quick detector sweep,

open a couple of ground-sections and see what gives.

Do you think we'll have time to do all that before

we're prosecuted, evicted and sacked from our jobs?

- 'Daniel?' - Return, please.

I need you to stop Dr Ergha boring the pants off my delegation this evening.

No, no way, Daniel, I can't.

'We're conducting an ad hoc investigation!

You give the talk.

I am giving them the guided tour, so tonight's lecture

better be completely wonderful because if they do not open

their wallets you'll be looking for another position with

a faculty head as sweet and indulgent of your whims as I am.

Ah, what a thoroughly incongruous inscription.

"Flamma Urit Semper" The Fire Will Always Burn.

Sounds like a bad album title.

So, do you think he wrote it?

Long shot.

Come on, let me in on this.

Who are we talking about?

What's your theory and what's the big mystery down here?

Tell me that's First Century Celtic.

That is First Century Iron Age Celtic.

That's a Celtic belt buckle.

OK, bags, BAGS!

This is like a settlements' worth of stuff!

Look at this, the Sun God ofthe Celts.

This is Celtic holy ground...

This is a most extraordinary find.

OK, but the Romans wanted to eradicate Celts.

Why didn't they just destroy all this?

Unless this stuff was buried after the baths were built.

Oh, come on, tell her, Gilly.

OK, here. What does that tell you?

It's a ring.

It's Celtic.

- First Century... - Yeah, we told you that.

It's twisted. Like it was melted.

And we're not pulling out any pieces of fabric of any kind.

These things were rescued from a fire?

And the people that owned them were burnt.

Let's take these treasures back to the van and get the rest of the gear.

There was a Celtic uprising.

It was quashed and the rebel leader was pursued.

The Romans torched any village that may have been hiding...

- Ah, sorry, this is speculation. - We know this from Marcus Quintanus!

Marcus Quintanus?

All we know is what we get from De Vita Quintanus... The Life Of Quintanus.

An obscure Roman inventor and engineer. Helped build these baths.

Then he went back to Rome and took up a nondescript clerical job

but his servant wrote a rather hazy account of his life.

Now some of this was lost when Rome burnt a few years later...

The Great Fire. Poor Quintanus himself died in the blaze.

But some ofthe biography survived.

I picked up a copy, a Victorian one, at auction.

Which is in rotten colloquial Latin and not really worth bothering with...

But something in what it said got Dr. Magwilde

here frothy around the nether-regions.

Quintanus's biographer reckoned he kept two prisoners under the baths.

One of them was a woman. A 'warrior'.

- Or it could translate as 'peasant'. - And it can translate as warrior.

So... a Celtic female warrior leads an uprising, is beaten...

But gets away.

Flees south along the only escape route possible, the Fosse Way...

Which could bring her to Bath.

Where the village that hides her is torched.

She's captured by Marcus Quintanus and imprisoned here?

Three points to the pert-breasted tousle-haired siren to my right.

And her name?

Boadicea!

And you were doing so well.

An 18th century translation error means that everyone gets her name wrong.

Unbelievably beautiful. Iceni coinage. Gorgeous!

OK. So maybe the Celts had Iceni with them or maybe they traded with Iceni.

But it's still a connection to Boudicca.

Warrior queen.

It's not proof... You ain't won no bet, girl.

Let's get the rest of the stuff.

But wasn't Boudicca defeated in battle?

Didn't she kill herself rather than be taken prisoner, somewhere in the Midlands?

That's what the Romans want us to think.

But... maybe her story continues.

The manuscript says he kept two prisoners.

Who was the other?

And what did Quintanus want with Boudicca?

Probably kept her as a sex slave.

They liked to humiliate the warrior queen by raping her.

Let's just hope she bit off a few Roman bollocks along the way.

What? What is it, boys?

It's nothing, it's you and her and the whole...

It's nothing, are we set?

So..

- Good night last night? - Oh, here we go...

No, I'm serious.

Was young Vivienne good company or were you punching below your weight?

- She was a laugh. End of. - What did you talk about?

- You mostly. - Me?

Here we go, here's the baggies. I love that word, 'baggies'.

Bassies...

So, you going to cough up? You cannot know Boudicca was here.

Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith.

Or simply go on the evidence in front of you.

You're scared, Ben. Scared to take a leap.

Ride a little imagination once in a while...

You know sometimes you sound like your mother.

And that scares me.

It'sjust one of those after tremors that happens twice every millennium.

Um, you can let go of him now.

Look. Here..

A jawbone, human.

Adult. Multiple fractures.

Oh, that is lovely.

Right, let's see if we can find the rest of him. Or her.

I should do a strontium test on one of those teeth.

OK, take everything back to the lab. We'll carry on here. Viv, you go with him.

But I want to stay on the dig.

Dolly gives good strontium, watch and learn.