Excalibur Rising (4 page)

     She made a bee line for Mandretti who had risen to his feet, with a look of astonishment on his face.  However she had been described by Mandretti’s brother, apparently the description had been inadequate. She was definitely not what Mandretti had been expecting.
     “Mr. Mandretti, Professor Ryan,” she said.  “Delighted to meet you.  Sit down, please.”
      She turned back towards the house where the maid was approaching, staggering under the weight of a loaded try.
     “Don’t just stand there Todd,” said Violet, “give Maria a hand.”
      Todd reluctantly took his hand off his hip, and relieved Maria of the tray.  Together they began to set out an array of delicacies on the coffee table. A polished silver coffee pot, delicate cups, a plate overloaded with chocolate croissants.
      “Todd,” said Violet, “would you bring the sherbet.”
       “Don’t eat all the croissants while I’m gone;” Todd said, “save some for someone else.”
     Violet raised her penciled eyebrows, and Todd turned away, sauntering back across the lawn towards the house, followed by Maria.
     Violet poured the coffee and handed the cups around. Ryan realized that, beyond her first greeting, she had said nothing to them.  She had not even looked at them.  All of her attention had been on the food, which possibly accounted for her ample curves, and dimples. 
      She sat forward in her chair, her face suddenly serious.
     “So Michael,” she said, “shall we get down to business?”
     Mandretti stared at her.  Ryan had never seen his boss at a loss for words, but that definitely seemed to be the case.
     “I understood that you were in a hurry,” Violet said. “We can waste time on the niceties if you wish, but I thought you might like to get down to business.”
     “Sure,” said Mandretti, “that’s why we’re here.”
     She sipped her coffee. “Of course,” she said. “Was the victim a friend of yours?  Should I offer condolences?”
     “No,” said Mandretti, “friend of the Doc’s.”
     She turned her eyes on Ryan.  They were large and violet. “I’m so sorry,” she said in a unique accent that he struggled to identify. American, quite definitely American, but quite unlike anything he had heard before.
     She turned back to Mandretti and her eyes were hard and businesslike.
     “But I’m doing business with you, Michael, is that correct?”
     “Sure,” Mandretti said.  He had overcome his initial shock, and was back to his normal self. “Same rate as my brother?” he asked.
     Violet shook her head, and her dark curls swung easily on her shoulders.  She smiled, displaying even white teeth.  “From what little you told me on the phone, I think I would prefer a percentage.  Fifteen percent.”
     Mandretti looked up at her from under his hooded eyelids.  She looked straight back at him.  He opened his mouth to speak, and she silenced him with a wave of her plump little hand.
     “Michael, Michael, please don’t bother with any of your Mafioso haggling.  If you want my services, you’ll pay for them.  You’re free to find someone else, if you think you can.”
     Mandretti shrugged his shoulders. “If you find it, I’ll pay,” he said, “and if you don’t, then you don’t get nothing.”
     “Good.” Violet turned to Ryan. “I understand your friend’s name was Taras Quentin Peacock, Professor of Medieval History, Oxford, occasionally Harvard, and most recently Visiting Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.”
     “I didn’t know that,” Ryan said. “I didn’t know he’d been teaching in South Africa.  I thought he’d retired.”
     “That was before he retired,” Violet said. “Todd ferretted around. He’s very good on the internet.  The professor had a fine reputation.  Do you have any theories, Doctor, as to who has done this, and why?”
     “No, of course I don’t,” Ryan said. “I hadn’t spoken to him in years, and he really didn’t tell me anything in the time we had.  If I knew anything, I would have told the police.”
     “He knows more than he’s telling,” Mandretti interrupted. “And he ain’t told the police everything. He’s frightened they’d think he was a loony.  Just get on with it, Doc.  I don’t really care who done it, I just want what he found.”
     Violet sat back in her chair and smiled somewhat patronizingly at Mandretti. “Oh, Michael,” she said, “you’re so direct.  No beating about the bush, no pretense that you even care who poisoned Doctor Ryan’s friend.”
      “I want the sword,” said Mandretti.  “Find me the sword and you get your fifteen percent.”
     “There is no sword, “Ryan said. “Let’s put an end to this right now.  There is no sword.  There has never been a sword.  The whole thing is a fairy tale.”
     “Oh no,” Violet said. “It’s not a fairy tale.  Make no mistake about it, there is a ring of truth to all of this.”
     Ryan set his coffee down and looked her in the eye. He was momentarily distracted by the luminous violet coloring of her eyes, and the passing thought that her astonishing eyes, along with her excellent presentation of her other assets, could go a long way towards ensnaring an unwary man. 
     He looked away from her hypnotic gaze.  “Bullshit,” he said.
    “Now that’s no way to speak to a lady,” said Todd who was ascending the steps of the gazebo, clasping a sheaf of papers and an iPad to his chest.  He was followed by Maria the maid, carrying a tray of Key Lime sherbets.  The maid set the tray down, bobbed a curtsy and departed. 
     Todd sat beside Ryan on the wicker sofa, patted Ryan’s knee and said, “She never talks bullshit.”
     Violet reached forward eagerly for the sherbet and settled back into her chair clasping a crystal bowl and a silver spoon.  “Help yourselves,” she said.  She slid a spoonful of sherbet between her red lips and sighed contentedly.  “Heavenly,” she said. 
     She waved the spoon in Ryan’s direction. “So according to Michael, your friend thought he’d found King Arthur’s sword? “
     “That’s what he said,” Ryan replied.
     Violet gestured to Todd. “Tell him what we found out, darling,” she said.
     Todd flipped through the sheaf of papers and rose to his feet.
     “Restrain yourself, dear,” Violet said, “and don’t dramatize.  Save that for the theatre.”  She smiled and turned to Ryan. “He’s appearing in Blithe Spirit at the Rep,” she said, “and he’s going to knock them dead, aren’t you dear?”
     “Quite dead,” Todd agreed. 
     He sat down again and patted Ryan’s knee again.  Ryan promised himself that if Todd touched him one more time he would choke him with his own cute little striped Ascot.
     “The sword Excalibur,” Todd said, reading from a printout, “has two possible origins.  The first possibility is that it was set in a stone by Merlin the Wizard and by pulling it out Arthur became king of England.  The second possibility is that it was given to Arthur at a later date by the Lady of the Lake, and had magic properties which preserved Arthur’s life.”
     “Yeah, that’s right,” Mandretti said. “This big arm comes up out of a lake holding the sword and Arthur grabs it and...”
     No,” Ryan said. “No, no, no.”
      “Don’t excite yourself” Violet said, pausing in her rapid demolition of the lime sherbet.
     “Listen to yourselves, “Ryan said. “I know you want this to be true, but it can’t be.  How can you believe that a wizard set a sword in a stone?  How can you believe it had a spell put on it by a woman who lives under a lake?  Think about it.  It’s all nonsense.  It’s a folk tale.  Look, I don’t want to blind you with science, but...”
     “Oh, please,” Violet said, “blind us. Dazzle us with your knowledge.”
     “There is no possibility that Arthur existed,” Ryan said. “There are no early writings to support any of the stories.  He appears nowhere in the accounts of even the earliest British kings.  The stories we know today didn’t even surface until the middle of the 12
^th
Century, written by an obscure scribe named Geoffrey of Monmouth  and those stories were just retellings of a great melting pot of French and Celtic legends, with references to Greek myths, Scandinavian folk tales, and some heavy handed Christian analogies.”
     “So you don’t believe none of it,” Mandretti asked.
     “No, I don’t,” Ryan replied. “No one has ever come up with a definitive location for Camelot and, believe me, an entire medieval city and castle of the size they describe cannot just disappear without any trace at all.  Not one piece of concrete evidence has ever been found that points to the existence of the Round Table, or the Isle of Avalon, or any other elements of the legend.  It’s a fairy story, Mr. Mandretti.  I don’t know what Peacock found, but it wasn’t Excalibur.”
      Violet rattled the silver spoon around in the empty sherbet bowl, scraping up the last possible morsel of sherbet and then set the bowl back on the table.  She sighed deeply and gave Ryan a look of long suffering patience.
     “What about the Romans?” she said.  “Go ahead, Todd.”
     Todd consulted another paper.  “Most scholars believe,” he said, “that Arthur was a Roman, a remnant of the occupying forces.  You are aware of course, Doctor Ryan, of the Roman occupation of Britain.”
     “Of course I am,” said Ryan.
     “Four hundred years of occupation,” Todd continued. “Most scholars,” and now he emphasized the word
scholars
, as if to imply that Ryan was not a scholar, “agree that many of the Romans remained in Britain.  They didn’t go back to Rome.  So maybe Arthur was a Roman Governor with an army and for a while he held back the incoming barbarians, and kept together the remnants of Roman civilization.  Maybe he established his own kingdom and kept his small area of Britain at peace.  Most scholars think that is possible.”
     “It’s possible, “Ryan conceded, “but we have no record of a King Arthur.
     “Well, he wouldn’t be a king,” Violet said, “but he might have appeared that way to his people, don’t you think?”
     “Possibly,” Ryan agreed, grudgingly.
     “And if he was such a hero,” Violet continued,” then isn’t it possible that his sword would have been preserved? And isn’t it possible that after many years, ignorant peasants might have begun to imagine that the sword had magical properties?”
     “Well,” Ryan said, “if we discount Merlin, the Lady of the Lake, the Round Table, and the entire city of Camelot, then I suppose we are just looking at a very ordinary Roman sword, with no real value.”
     “No value?” Mandretti interrupted.
     “Just a minute,” Violet said. “Let’s not be hasty about this.  Todd’s research has led us to a sword that would have great value, if it could be found.”
     “There is no magic sword,” Ryan insisted.
     “Perhaps not magic,” Todd said, “but ancient and valuable and with a history lost in the mists of time.”
     “Don’t be poetic,” Violet said. “Dr. Ryan is not looking for poetry.”
     “Oh very well,” said Todd. “There are a number of contemporary drawings of early English rulers, and also there are written accounts of coronations and in all those drawings and accounts there are references to a sword, said to be the Great Sword of England.  It’s a primitive weapon, possibly Roman.  The best description would be a warrior’s broad sword of no obvious value.”
     He flicked through the sheaf of papers and passed them on to Ryan. “I printed this out but the resolution was very low.  It’s a contemporary drawing of the Coronation of King Alfred the Great.”
     “871,” Ryan interrupted, determined to look as though he knew something.
     “Note the sword,” said Todd.
     Ryan looked at the engraving, and noted the sword.
     Todd handed him another sheet. “William the Conqueror,” he said.
     “1066,”Ryan informed him.
     “Note the sword,” Todd repeated.
     Ryan noted the sword.
     “A description of the coronation of King Ethelred the Unready,” Todd said.
      Ryan opened his mouth to speak.
     “Don’t bother telling us the dates,” Violet said. “We’re all sufficiently impressed with your knowledge.”
     No, you’re not, Ryan thought.  Despite her soft and attractive appearance, this woman’s mind was sharp-edged, and she seemed determined to cut him down at every opportunity.
     “There is little doubt,” Todd said, “that the Great Sword of England formed part of the Crown Jewels up until the reign of King John in 1199.  There is no record of it after that date.”
      Mandretti turned to Violet. “So what happened to it?” he asked.
     “She doesn’t know,” Ryan said. “No one knows.”
     Mandretti looked admiringly at Violet. “She’ll find out,” Mandretti said.
     “How?” Ryan asked.  He turned to Violet. “What is it,” he asked angrily, “voodoo, or psychic waves, or just plain guesswork?”
      “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer,” Violet said.  She turned her attention to Mandretti.  “Did you bring me something Peacock had touched?”
     “Yeah,” said Mandretti.  He opened the small duffle bag he had carried from the plane and produced the goblet that had so captured the professor’s attention that he had used his dying breath to identify it. 
     Ryan thought about once again protesting the fact that Mandretti was flying around the countryside with important items of police evidence, but then thought better of it.  Everything he knew about Mandretti told him that he would not be interested in Ryan’s protests.  He held the goblet in its plastic evidence bag, and then gave Ryan a calculating glance.
     “So you don’t trust her?” he said.
     Ryan shrugged his shoulders.
     “I don’t know how much you told her in advance,” he said.
     Violet sighed deeply. “I really don’t like having to prove myself,” she said, “but if you and I are going to work together, Dr. Ryan, then I will do something I don’t normally do, and give you a small display of my abilities, although I don’t know why I should bother.  Michael trusts me, don’t you, Michael?”
     “I do,” said Mandretti.
     “You have something in your pocket,” said Violet. “Something the professor gave you.  Give it to me.”
     She held out a small, imperious hand.
     Baffled by her request, Ryan dug deep into his pocket and felt the shape of the little stone that had fallen from the pin.  He hesitated.  How did she know?  Was it a lucky guess?  He had told no one that he had it and he wanted to keep things that way.  He wasn’t sure why, but he wasn’t yet ready to reveal what he held. 
     “You have something,” she repeated.
     Keeping his hand deep in his pocket, he unwrapped the pin and brought out the piece of paper that had been wrapped around it.  He smoothed it out.  It was a scrap of heavy parchment paper, the corner of some larger sheet of paper, with a pen strokes scrawled on it.  He handed it across to her.