Swordsman's Legacy. Alex Archer
you here.”
“Because you were guaranteed you would win,” she said.
“No, because I wanted you to see the sword.”
“You didn’t have the sword when you called me last night. Or that’s what you said. You had some sword. The one the thugs got away with looked sixteenth century from what I saw,” she said.
“Found it after but three dips of the shovel into the ground,” Peyton explained. “Nice find, but quite damaged by the elements.”
No surprise. France was covered with lost weapons and armor and spoils of war. Most of it was found by farmers, who took the rusted artifacts home and hung them over their fireplaces or tossed them in the truck beds filled with an assortment of odd finds including stripped tires, chipped pots and the occasional silver coin.
“Do you even have the real one?” Annja prompted. “If this was a ruse to get me here—”
“Annja, settle. You saw the coat of arms on the piece I showed you in Chalon. Do you doubt your own knowledge?” Ascher asked.
She’d left the wood piece in the rental car. It had been the Batz-Castelmore coat of arms. Of course, anyone could have easily forged it. Especially someone with ulterior motives to trick her here.
“Who were those thugs?” she asked Ascher. “You weren’t surprised we were followed.”
Peyton took this moment to conveniently slip back and stroll around to join his brother at the edge of the dig site, leaving Annja facing Ascher in a tense stare-down.
It may be three men to one woman, but Annja’s testosterone raged enough for all of them.
“I can honestly say I have never seen them before,” Ascher said.
“They acted as though you had intended to give them the sword all along,” she said.
Ascher shrugged. “You know how the cyber community can be. If you are an expert hacker, you can find out any number of things.”
“Your lack of concern disturbs me.”
Annja tugged out the pistol still tucked at the back of her waistband. With no intention to use it for anything more than a sly threat, she didn’t thread her finger through the trigger, but did snap up her arm against her shoulder—barrel pointing to the sky—and made it clear she wasn’t about to back down.
“Trust me, Annja.” Ascher splayed his hands before him. “I have no intent to deceive you, now or when I called you this morning. I want to share this discovery of d’Artagnan’s sword with you. It is as much yours as it is mine.”
“If it does exist, it belongs to neither of us,” she stated.
“I understand that. All historical artifacts belong to France. But I mean the find, the joy of discovery. It is ours to share.”
“I don’t like the sound of sharing any joy with you.” She dropped the gun to point downward. The man wasn’t a threat. She wasn’t sure if he was an opportunist or just arrogant. Probably both.
“You’ve got two minutes to prove to me I haven’t wasted my time today, Vallois. I don’t have an expense account, and the flight to Paris was not cheap.”
“The proof awaits!” Ascher gestured that the Nash brothers join his side. Each of the three men nodded, knowing. The air hummed with an unspoken excitement.
“What?” Annja eagerly followed as Ascher urged her toward the dig site. “Have you found another sword? The sword?”
“It’s still half-buried,” Jay said excitedly.
“But we’ll have it out in a jiff,” Peyton agreed. “We’ve been waiting for Ascher to bring you here before digging it out completely. He made us promise we would not peek. Well, I was waiting, Jay was—”
“Just resting my eyes. I was not sleeping. You’ve got a gun,” he said to Annja.
Annja dropped the Glock to her side. “Spoils of war. So show me the prize.”
Both men jumped down into the pit, about three feet deep and seven or eight feet wide. Ascher started tossing them tools, trowels and the small shovel. Grinning at Annja, he then jumped into the pit and began to direct them.
So he hadn’t lied about promising to make them wait. But Annja sensed he still lied about something.
“Light, please, Miss Creed,” Peyton said.
Annja flashed the light over the pit. She saw that indeed something was embedded in the dirt. It looked like a corner of a box. An old wooden box that had once held—and maybe still did hold—a valued sword?
“It’s a sword box,” Ascher explained as he carefully brushed away dirt. “Jay opened the end. That is when I contacted you. And you did ask me to wait.”
Trowels clicked against wood and the men worked furiously to uncover the entire box.
Annja didn’t even mind the chill that had settled with nightfall. Brushing her fingers over her bare shoulder, she felt an abrasion. The thug’s bullet had barely damaged the skin. No blood. Though her flesh did feel warm. Excitement fueled her temperature up a few notches, she felt sure.
“There is a sword inside!” Jay announced grandly. He had a hand poked in the exposed end of the box where the coat of arms had been removed. “I can feel the curve of the pommel through the cloth. It must be wrapped in a sword bag. And it will be d’Artagnan’s sword!”
Annja smirked. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
A N HOUR LATER , Annja believed.
The box was open, she squatted next to it, holding the sword that Ascher had carefully laid upon her palms. Jay held the camp light above their heads as they all preened over the weapon.
It was a rapier, apparent by its short and narrow blade. The hilt was ornamental. Not a fighting sword, but one worn by a gentleman as an enhancement to his wardrobe, a decorative accessory.
Surprising. Yet Annja assumed if the queen had commissioned it, she may not have thought to gift her favorite with a fighting weapon.
The light Jay held flickered. “We’re losing juice,” he said.
“We’ll take it to my home for a better look.” Ascher reached for the sword, but paused. “You hold it, Annja. Let’s pull out the box and then leave.”
C LUTCHING THE SWORD BAG to her left shoulder, the base of it stretched onto the small floor space in the rental, Annja nodded off as Ascher drove. She didn’t feel the need to chat, so long as she held the sword.
She’d left the pilfered Glock with the Nash brothers, with an encouragement to decamp and leave quickly. There was no telling how quickly the thugs would discover the sword dupe and return for the real thing.
Two hours later they arrived at Ascher’s home just south of Sens. The town was once the capital of the Gallo-Roman province. Abelard’s doctrines were condemned here, and Annja recalled, Thomas Becket once lived in Sens during exile from England. Perhaps she’d find a few hours later to explore the city, after the sword had been examined.
The sun had yet to rise. Annja guessed it was 3:00 a.m. but she couldn’t get a view of the digital clock on the driver’s side of the dashboard.
Ascher lived in an estate that resembled a castle with tiled pepper-pot turrets to each of the four corners. It was probably officially considered a château, she thought. It even had a dry moat. The brickwork was streaked with black, and more than a few tiles were missing from the roof and turrets. It needed a bit of tender loving care, Annja figured. As the car’s headlights flashed over the exterior, she saw climbing vines painted the limestone block and seamlessly blended the house’s corners into the large rectangular yew shrubs that hugged it.
A house in the country