Excalibur Rising (5 page)

     She took it in her fingertips and stared at it for a long time.
     “What is this?” she said softly. “Where did you get it?”
     “It’s something Peacock touched,” Ryan said.  “That’s what you asked for.”
     She stared down at it, rubbing it between her fingers, and then held it up to the light, examining the few visible pen strokes.  She was breathing heavily, obviously agitated.
     Todd looked at her in concern. “Violet?” he asked, “Are you alright,”
     “No,” she said softly. “I am not alright.  I’ve never held anything like that before.”
     “It’s just a piece of paper.”  Ryan said.
     “It has no history,” she said. “It’s old, but it has no history. I sense the touch of your friend, Peacock, but before that, nothing.  There is a barrier.  A barrier!”  Her voice trailed away.  They all sat in silence. “A gate,” she said at last. “It’s come through a gate and time stands still.”
      Ryan looked around at Mandretti and Todd who continued to stare at her in concern.  He had to assume that she was either a great performer, or she was genuinely baffled by that little scrap of paper which she continued to grip in her fingertips.
      “A portal,” she said, “from another place.  This paper has no history here.“ 
     She shook her head again. “No,” she said, “I’m wrong.  It has history, but I can’t read it, because I’ve never been through the gate.”
     “What gate?” Ryan asked.
      “I don’t know.” She thrust the paper back into his hand. “I can’t tell you anything,” she said.
     “What gate?” Ryan asked again.
      Violet glared at him.  “Not now,” she said.  “Not yet.”
      “You saw something,” Mandretti said.
     “Yes,” said Violet, “but what I saw is impossible.  It speaks of something outside of this world, outside of time. Something that cannot be.”
      She lowered her head and her blue back curls fell across her face hiding her expression. Ryan listened to the rustling of the breeze through the bushes and the distant lonely calling of seabirds.  Time seemed to stand still.
     Mandretti broke the long silence. “I guess you ain’t gonna find it,” he said.
     “She’ll find it,” Todd said determinedly.  “She needs the money.”
     “Todd,” Violet hissed angrily.
      “I’m just speaking the truth,” said Todd.
      Violet lifted her head and flung back her curls.  “He’s  right of course,” she said, “maintaining this lifestyle does take a great deal of money.”
     “Forget about the paper,” said Todd, who seemed to be stepping far outside his employee status. “Give her the goblet.”
     Mandretti set the goblet in Violet’s lap.  Just as she had done with the paper, she touched it with the fingertips of her right hand.  This time she smiled and nodded. “This one I understand,” she said.
      She closed her eyes and her long dark lashes fanned out against her pale skin.  Ryan had time to ponder whether or not they were fake lashes before she finally leaned back in her chair and sighed.
     “Is it coming?” Mandretti asked.
     Todd motioned him into silence.   Violet sighed again.  Ryan raised his cynical eyebrows to the heavens and waited.
 CHAPTER THREE
     “A cold wind sweeps across the bleak marshes that border the North Sea,” said Violet. “The short winter afternoon draws to an end.  The sun sets behind leafless, stunted trees.  It will be dark soon and there will be no light of human habitation.  Not even the lowest peasant would dare to build a hut on the shifting sands of the Wash.”
     “Where are you Violet?” Todd asked.
     “With the King’s baggage train,” she said.  “This object was with King John’s baggage train; with his treasures.”
     “King John,” Ryan said. “1199”
     “King John has stolen his brother’s crown,” Violet said. She opened her eyes and looked around. “I can tell you the story now.  King John is the most unpopular king the English have ever known.  He is pursued by enemies on all sides.  His subjects hover on the brink of starvation and his rebellious barons have invited the French king to cross the Channel and rid them of their hated ruler.”
     “You can find this in any history book,” Ryan said.
     “I see the king,” Violet declared. “He has ridden ahead of the baggage train and he waits at the far end of the marsh.  He is impatient.  There is a road across the marsh, a causeway of roughhewn logs skirting the deepest of the sink holes.  The king is anxious.  The tide is rising.  The sea is lapping at the edges of the road.  Why doesn’t he ride on?  Why doesn’t he ride to safety? His enemies are close by.  Why is he waiting?”
     “Why?” asked Mandretti.
     Ryan said nothing although he knew the answer.  He was taking Violet’s words and filling in the scene for himself as though he was once again making a TV special. 
     King John was without a stronghold to call his own.  He was fleeing across the country accompanied by all of his personal possessions.  Wherever he went on his desperate journeys he was followed by a long lumbering train of baggage wagons dragged through dust and mud by teams of sweating carthorses.  Wagon after wagon would be loaded down with gold and silver plate, tapestries, fine linens, armor, jewelry, and gold to pay the soldiers.  Without the gold the soldiers would desert.  The baggage train was the king’s only security and he would never let it out of his sight.
     “The sun is setting,” Violet said, “in a sullen red ball.  The king peers through the gathering gloom.  He can barely make out the shape of the wagons, but he can hear the shrieking of the carthorses and the cracking of the drovers’ whips, the plunging hooves and the rattle of the harnesses.  Torches flare here and there along the causeway and the king sees the rising water lapping at the logs and reaching for the wagon wheels.  He is searching for one wagon, just one wagon from the whole train; the wagon containing the Crown Jewels of England.  He sees it far back in the marsh.”
     Ryan listened to Violet’s voice, and his mind continued to fill in the dramatic details.  He set the king in motion, fuming and cursing as he rides down to the water’s edge and threatens death to any man who abandons his wagon.  The men aren’t listening.  They ignore him.  Some of them take pity on the horses and cut the traces.  Some of them abandon the horses and run for dry land.  The sea sweeps in.  The wagons roll onto their sides and sink into the mud.  He  clothed the king with the dark beard and moustache that he had seen in portraits and translated John’s curses into Norman French, the language of the kings in those times.
     “The moon rises over a calm sea,” Violet said. “The Wash has recaptured the causeway and there is no trace of the king’s baggage train.  It is all gone.  Beneath the dark waves, the crown jewels sink slowly down into the mud.”
     She returned the goblet to Mandretti. “This was under the mud,” she said. “This was part of the treasure. This was with the sword.”
      For a moment Ryan was lost in his own emotions.  Despite himself he had been deeply affected by Violet’s voice.  As she spoke he had felt himself carried back through time, as though he had been there himself on that causeway as the tide rolled in.  He felt as though he had personally witnessed the loss of the treasure. He had seen what happened to the Great Sword of England.
     “Is that it?” Mandretti asked. “Is that what happened to Excaliver?”
     “Excalibur,” Ryan corrected automatically.
     Violet reached weakly for another bowl of sherbet.
     “Is that what happened?” Mandretti asked again. “Is it, Violet?”  Is it?”
     “I think so,” Violet said. “My visions are rarely wrong.  Sometimes they are hard to understand, but they are never totally wrong.”
     “So the sword’s gone,” Mandretti said. “That’s what you said, wasn’t it?  The tide came in and buried everything.”
     “I assume so,” Violet said, “but obviously something else has happened.  That goblet was part of the treasure and it’s certainly not under the mud now, is it?”
     “No, it isn’t.” said Mandretti. “What do you think, Doctor?”
     Ryan had nothing to say.  He was deeply suspicious of Violet Chambray and everything she stood for, but in the hour that they had been at her house, she had provided more mental stimulation than he had felt in years.  She had awoken his intellectual curiosity and his old treasure hunter instincts.  Whatever else Violet was, she was the tonic he needed.  Against all the odds, he wanted to believe that she could lead him to Professor Peacock’s killer.  He had no idea how she would do that, but he believed that she would.
     “So what will you do next?” he asked her.
     Violet sat back in her chair.  “I need to think,” she said.
     “But you’ve seen something?” Mandretti said.  “I mean all that stuff you just told us about the king and the horses, and the mud and the waves.  I didn’t understand it all, but Doc Ryan did, didn’t you Doc?”
     “I recognized the period of history,” Ryan said, unwilling to admit how much Violet’s description had moved him.
     Violet leaned forward to Mandretti. “Michael,” she said, “you need to understand that even if we find the Great Sword of England, it’s not Excalibur.  Excalibur doesn’t exist, it has never existed.”
     “That’s not what Peacock said,” Mandretti protested.
     Violet was silent for a moment. “No, it’s not, “she said “and I don’t understand it.  He was a respected academic.  I can’t help wondering what he really found.”
     “Something worth killing for,” Ryan said.
     “Yes,” she agreed. “And then there’s the paper.”
     “Do you want to see it again,” he asked.
     She flinched. “No,” she said. “I can’t touch it, not yet.  I have never felt anything so alien.  I have no way of processing that paper, Doctor.  I need time.”
     Mandretti rose abruptly to his feet.
     “Well,” he said, “if you’re not going to do it, I guess I have to send Doc Ryan to England on his own.”
     “What?” said Ryan.
     “Yeah,” said Mandretti. “The Doc here is a famous treasure hunter and you’ve given him the start he needed.  We can take it from here, Violet.  We’ll be on our way, just send me a bill for your time. “
     “Wait a minute,” said Todd.
     “No, no,” Mandretti waved Todd away with his hand. “I understand.  She don’t want to do it.  That’s okay, we’ll manage.”
     Ryan eyed his boss.  Mandretti’s ploy was so obvious that he couldn’t believe Violet would fall for it.  How greedy was she?  How badly did she need the money?
     “I have a friend in London who might be able to help us,” said Violet.
     “So you’ll do it?” Mandretti asked.
     “I’ll take the next step,” said Violet. “
      She looked at Ryan. “Do you know Sir Carlton Lewis?” she asked.
     “I know of him,” Ryan said.
     “Sounds as though you don’t like him,” she said.
     “He’s queried some of my finds,” Ryan said.
      “Oh, I think he’s done more than that,” she said. “I think you two have been quite bitter rivals; him on the BBC you on NBC.”
     “He’s the one with the knighthood,” said Ryan. “It opens doors.”
     “Oh yes,” she agreed. “Well, we shall see what he has to say about all of this.  He’s a very well respected author, historical novels and all that sort of thing, so I imagine that he has a more open mind than some people.”
     Ryan allowed the insult to pass without comment.
     “He’s also a member of the Society of Arthurian Scholars,” she said.  “It’s a scholarly society, and very well respected. Their main emphasis is on cataloging and preserving the writings on the Arthurian legends.”
     Ryan did not admit that he had never heard of this well respected scholarly society and that he was amazed that Violet knew of their existence.
      “Todd, dear,” Violet said, “will you send Carlton one of those e-mail thingies.  What time is it in London?”
     Todd flicked back his shirt cuff and looked at his watch. “10 o’clock here, so, 3 pm in London.  Do you really want to____?”
     “Yes, I do,” said Violet. 
     “Should I remind him where you____?”
     “He won’t need to be reminded,” said Violet. “Really, Todd, don’t be so silly.  Carlton and I have a very close relationship.  Very close indeed.  Of course he may be at lunch,” Violet said, “so we may have to wait for a reply.  Carlton doesn’t like to be disturbed at lunch.  Ask him if there’s been any unusual activity or if he’s heard any rumors.  He may be able to tell us what Professor Peacock was involved with before he came to see Michael.  You know what to say, don’t you?”
     Todd sauntered out of the room, and Violet stood up and smoothed down her skirt. “I’m really quite tired,” she said. “I think I’ll go and lie down. Make yourselves at home.” She moved languidly to the steps, trailing clouds of expensive perfume. “Maria will make sure you have everything you need,” she said.  She turned at the top of the steps. “If you would you like to visit your wife in Marathon, Dr. Ryan, you are welcome to call a taxi from here.”
     “Ex-wife,” Ryan said.
     “Oh yes,” she said.  “She’s re-married hasn’t she?”
     “I don’t think that’s any of your ...”
     Mandretti silenced him with one intense look from his hooded eyes. 
Violet drifted away across the lawn and into the house and Ryan stood staring at her, hating her and admiring her all at the same time.
     Todd sauntered back across the lawn. “I’ll show you to the library,” he said, “and you can call your ex-wife from there.  We don’t get a good signal out here in the garden.”
     I understand you have daughters,” he added conversationally as they crossed the lawn, “and one of them is getting married.”
     “What?”
     It was the first time Ryan had heard of this proposed marriage.  Had he really lost track of so much time? Leanne, his elder daughter was...he paused to work it out, and realized that Leanne was 19 already and her sister was 18.  How long was it since he’d seen them? He didn’t really know.
     Todd led them through the French windows into the cool interior of the house, and flung open the door of an adjacent room.  As soon as Ryan stepped into the room his cell phone beeped.  He looked at the message.  Veronica had called.  In fact she had called five times in the last ten minutes.  This was not,he thought, going to be a fun visit.
     The library was a small room flooded with light.  Instead of the dark paneling and leather bound chairs of most libraries, this room was lined with limed oak shelving and the library table was glass, as was the desk which housed a computer and printer, as well as a telephone.