Destiny (20 page)

Roux brought Annja a plate while she was still sorting through the entries.

Reluctantly, Annja pushed the computer off to the side and flipped out the tray built into the seat. She surveyed the plate for the first time while she was spreading a linen napkin across her lap.

A small steak shared space with a baked potato and a salad. The steak was grilled.

“No poison, I assure you.” Roux sat in the seat next to her and set up his own plate. He tucked a napkin into his shirt collar. “I trust you like steak?”

“Yes.” Annja cut the meat and found it sliced easily.

“From the last time we shared a meal, I knew you had a robust appetite. Judging from the way most young people your age eat, missing meals when you get busy and such, I thought a solid meal was called for.”

“This steak is grilled,” Annja said in amazement. She'd never had a steak actually grilled in midflight.

“Garin has always been one for whatever is new and flashy,” Roux admitted. “I found his galley is equipped with all manner of culinary accoutrements.”

“And it has a grill, too.” Annja poked fun at the old man's verbosity.

Roux got the joke and smiled. “Although not my native language, I find that English does have its charm. So does French.”

That surprised Annja. “French isn't your native language?”

“No. Why? Do I sound like a native when I speak it?”

“Yes.”

Knife and fork in hand, Roux attacked his steak. “What have you discovered about the charm?”

Briefly, Annja brought him up-to-date.

“What are you going to do?” Roux asked when she was finished.

“Find out the truth about what happened all those years ago,” Annja said. “Discover who the prisoner was in the monastery and what happened to her. Why the monastery was destroyed. Why the monastery still exists even though it's been destroyed. Why the monks of that monastery want the charm. Why Corvin Lesauvage wants the charm.”

“Don't forget, you want to save this young man, as well.”

“Avery Moreau. I haven't forgotten.”

“Quite a shopping list.” Roux abandoned his plate and leaned back to digest his meal.

“It is,” Annja admitted. “But it's what I do.”

“Look for truths in the past?”

Put that simply, Annja had to admit her job sounded too altruistic. “I love learning about the people who lived in the past. Who they were. What they did. Why they did it. Where they lived. How they saw the world and their places in it.”

“You only left out ‘when.'”

Despite her tension, Annja smiled. “‘When' is sometimes part of the mystery, too. Carbon dating is pretty exact, but you don't always have it, and the results can be off enough to seriously screw with a theory.”

“You're a classically trained archaeologist?”

“I am, but I've also got degrees in anthropology and ethnography.”

“Good. I know it's hard for a traditional archaeologist to find work inside the United States and in most parts of the world these days. The focus tends to be on culture rather than things.”

“You know about archaeology?” Annja was surprised.

“I know a lot about a great many things. I was with Dr. Howard Carter while he was doing his exploration of the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.”

“That was in the early 1900s.” Annja still couldn't believe they were talking about a period a hundred years ago, or that Roux might actually have seen it.

“Yes. Though Howard didn't find the tomb of Tutankhamen until 1922.” Roux smiled. “I was there. It was a most gratifying moment. The man who funded the search, Lord Carnarvon, had very nearly given up on Howard. But Howard, for the most part, remained certain he was about to find the tomb. And he did. It was most impressive. The world will very probably never see the like again.”

“I hope that's not true,” Annja said. “Egypt grabbed everyone's attention, especially the British after Napoleon's army found the first pyramids there during the war. But there are other things out there we can learn.”

“You're probably right. The world has forgotten more than anyone alive today will ever know.” Roux talked as if he were an authority on that line of thinking. He was silent for a moment.

“What about the sword?” Annja asked.

Roux looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why me?”

“My dear girl,” Roux said, “the sword
chose
you.”

 

“F
ROM THE VERY FIRST TIME
I met Joan,” Roux said, “I knew she was destined for greatness.” In his mind's eye, he could see her again, proudly riding the great warhorse and carrying the banner. He had never—or, at least, very seldom—met anyone like her. “When you've been alive as long as I have, you tend to recognize such things.”

“You've never stated your age,” Annja said.

Roux grinned. He discovered he liked dueling with the young woman seated next to him. Not only was she beautiful, but she possessed mental alacrity, as well.

However, she was still naive in many ways. He hoped to be able to occasionally use that to his advantage. He had served the command he had been given. Now his life was his to do as he pleased.

“Nor will I state my age,” Roux said. “But I do forgive your impertinence in your not-so-subtle attempt to find out.”

She smiled at him, rested her elbows on the chair's arms and steepled her slender fingers to rest her chin.

Looking at her, Roux knew she was going to break many men's hearts. She was too beautiful and too independent—too driven—not to.

And now she carried Joan's sword, and everything that such a calling brought with it. That taken into account, and the looming confrontation with Lesauvage and the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain, she might not live to see the end of the week.

“As I said,” Roux returned to his story, “I met Joan and I was very much taken with her. I saw that she was going to be a…
force.
No other word can match what I saw in her.”

“You were a fan,” Annja said. Her tiger's eyes gleamed with humor.

“I was,” Roux admitted. “I was quite taken with her. But it was the power invested in her that drew me the most. The company of others has seldom been a preoccupation for me.”

“Except for the part about hearing your own voice, I've noticed.”

Roux grimaced. “There used to be an appreciation for storytelling.”

“There still is,” Annja said. “But now it also includes brevity. Getting to the point. That kind of thing.”

“I believe Joan was supposed to help the balance,” Roux said.

“What balance?”

“The balance between good and evil.”

Annja paused, thinking, her brows tightly knit. “With a big
G
and a big
E?
”

“Exactly. The cosmic balance. A turning point between order and chaos.” Roux sighed and still felt hugely guilty even after more than five hundred years and the vexing job of finding all the sword pieces. “But the world was cheated of her presence far too early.”

“Because you got back to her late.”

Roux shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Across the room, Garin lounged on a full-sized sofa and enjoyed the conversation, smirking the whole time.

“I wasn't the one who threw her up on that bloody stake and roasted her alive,” Roux snapped. His own guilt was one thing, but he bloody well wasn't going to have it shoved on him by someone else.

Annja was quiet for a moment. “No,” she said finally, “I suppose you weren't.”

“That's right.”

“So what's supposed to happen now?” Annja asked.

Roux was quiet for a moment, knowing what he was about to say would have a lasting impact on the young woman. At least, it would as long as she lived.

“I believe that the inheritor of Joan's sword is going to have to live up to that same potential,” Roux said. “You're going to be asked to intercede on the behalf of good. Or not, if you so choose.”

That shocked her. He saw it in her eyes. She was silent and still for a moment.

“That's ridiculous,” the young woman finally said.

“Is it?” Roux gazed at her. “Yet, here you are, racing to the rescue of some unknown young man who actually may have set you up to be kidnapped while we were in the mountains.”

“I'm not going because of the sword.”

“Then why are you going?”

“Because I don't want Avery Moreau to die.”

“Why? You don't truly know him. He may already be dead. More than likely, he betrayed you to a vicious enemy. You'd be a fool to do anything to help him.” Roux leaned back. “Furthermore, you could call and let the local police deal with the matter.”

“The sword has nothing to do with this.”

“Perhaps not. Perhaps by your very nature you're quixotic. I submit to you, Miss Creed, that is probably the very reason the sword chose you.”

Annja was silent for a moment, blinking as if she was dazed. Then she said, “You can't be serious.”

“Of course not,” Roux said. “I'm just leading you on a wild-goose chase. And the sword can't really appear and disappear just because you want it to. And it didn't somehow reform itself from pieces when you touched it. All those things are lies.”

A troubled look flashed in her eyes. “It also drew a lightning strike from the sky.”

Roux was intrigued. “When?”

“Last night. On top of my building.”

“You left the sword lying on top of a building?”

“I was holding it at the time.”

Roux's eyebrows lifted. “Lightning struck the sword while you were holding it?”

“Yes.”

“And you were undamaged?”

Annja nodded.

“This is fascinating. May I see the sword again?”

She held out her hand, paused a moment, then drew the sword from thin air.

Roux accepted the weapon as she handed it to him. He examined the blade. “It's unmarked.”

“I know. Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?”

“Neither does the fact that it shows no sign of ever having been shattered.” Roux held on to the sword, wondering what other properties might manifest. Then it faded from his grip. He looked at her. “You did that?”

Annja nodded. “I guess I did. I was feeling…uncomfortable with the way you were holding on to the sword.”

So stealing the sword, should he ever decide to do that, was out of the question. Roux felt challenged. He couldn't help wondering what would happen to the sword if Annja Creed were suddenly dead.

Roux happened to glance over at Garin, who smiled broadly. Roux knew he had spent too many years with his apprentice; Garin knew exactly what was crossing his mind. The old man was just thankful the young woman didn't have the same expertise.

 

A
NNJA STARED
at the lozenge. The heraldry beside the shadowy figure on the obverse of the coin was key to unlocking the mystery. She felt certain of that.

The diamond-shaped image containing the leaping wolf, the stag at rest and the crescent moon with a star above and below, had to mean something.

She continued searching through the pages of heraldry. Patience was one of the first and best skills an archaeologist learned.

 

T
HE RING OF HER
cell phone startled Annja out of a near doze. She fumbled to find the device and catch the call.

“Hello.”

“May I speak to Ms. Annja Creed, please?” a crisp British voice asked.

“Graham,” Annja said.

“Ah, Annja. I wasn't sure at all if it was you. You sound as though you're talking from the bottom of a well. Come to think of it, the last time I spoke with you, you
were
talking to me from the bottom of a well. Didn't you get out?”

Annja smiled. Professor Graham Smyth-Peabody was professor emeritus at Cambridge University. He was in his early eighties and taught only those classes he wanted to during times he wished. Tall and distinguished-looking, he was a frequent guest on talk shows when discussions of British royalty were the subject.

“I did get out of the well,” Annja said. That had been in the Bavarian countryside pursuing the lost loot of a highwayman. She hadn't found that, but she still occasionally sifted through the information she had about the event.

“Have you found another, then?” Smyth-Peabody laughed at his own wit.

“Actually, I'm flying on a private plane,” Annja said.

“Jet,” Garin growled. He sat on the couch with a drink in his hand. His disposition hadn't improved.

“Your publisher must really like you,” the professor said. He hesitated. “You're able to afford a private plane because of the book, right? You haven't suddenly decided to start losing your shirt like that other young woman on that dreadful program on the telly?”

“No,” Annja said. “I manage to keep my shirts on.”

“Jolly good. I understand why you do those pieces for that program, but you should keep your naughty bits to yourself.”

Despite the tension and all the trouble waiting on her in Lozère, Annja had to laugh. The professor was in rare good form.

Papers rustled at the other end of the phone connection. “I've managed to identify the heraldry you e-mailed me,” the professor said.

“You could have e-mailed me back.”

“Of course, of course. But I shall own up to a bit of curiosity here. I've found something a bit incongruous.”

Annja pushed out of her seat and paced the short length of the jet's living room. “The shield bears markings of Richard of Kirkland,” Annja said.

“Yes, yes. Quite right. So you've identified that.”

“It makes me feel better to hear you agree with the answer I've received.”

“He was knighted in 1768.”

The monastery outside Lozère was burned down in 1767. Experience had taught Annja not to overlook coincidence. “Why was he knighted?” she asked.