Page 20 of Under Arthur’s Protection

Masons borrowed from each other, so patterns traveled along trade routes. But the irregularity was specific. It was a signature. It had to be!

I got up and looked out into the Caine-Ferraro office. A petite black-haired woman was bopping her head to unheard music at one of the desks in the open area. At the next desk, a blond woman had her head bent over paperwork. Sam was in her office.

Part of me wanted to run and tell her what I’d found, but why? This was an authentication, and finding a matching symbol in a church in England didn’t authenticate the sword.

But it said something.

What that something was, I didn’t know yet.

I settled back into my chair and began pulling every available image of St. Catherine’s Church I could find. Published photographs, tourism sites, architectural records, online street views. None of them showed the circled cross clearly enough to make out.

The church had been restored in the nineteenth century. Was the symbol added then? Was it an original stone or taken from somewhere else?

I clicked to the next panorama of the tower section. Spun it. Slowly. Zoomed in.

No cross, but in a dark corner, I found five letters: P-O-R-T-A.

Porta. Latin for door.

The sword said key, and the church—with a symbol matching the sword’s ring—said door.

My breath caught, and I pushed back from the table.

Matching symbols. A key and a door. What did it mean?

It meant this authentication exercise had a story behind it. I had a trail to follow.

And it meant I needed to stand in the tower archway and see what was in the stone. Were there more symbols that might match what was left of the sword? Was there more text hidden in the darkness? Could it help me figure out the full inscription on the sword?

No amount of online searches would replace being in the room.

Slow down. Document everything. Don’t commit to a theory based on two data points. Two data points are a coincidence.

But my hands were shaking.

“You look like you found something,” Sam said from the doorway.

I launched out of my chair and grabbed two of my printouts. “I think I did.”

She stopped on the opposite side of the table from me.

“The printouts are from the sword, and the web images are from a church in the UK.” I turned my laptop around to show her the two browser tabs, and slid the matching photos toward her. “I’ve been searching all morning for a match to the symbol on the sword, and this is all I’ve found.”

She picked up the printouts and leaned closer to the laptop. “The lighting in the church doesn’t help, does it?”

“I could pay someone local to take better photos.”

“That might work.”

I paced to the far end of the room. She’d think I was crazy if I said I wanted to go there. My job was to date the sword and try to find evidence of where it came from. It wasn’t to traipse around England hunting for clues in old stones. “Unless…”

“Unless there’s something else you’d spot, and someone you pay to take a photo won’t notice?”

I nodded. Seeing it with my own eyes, in three dimensions, was far better than using someone else’s pictures.

“You’re thinking about going, aren’t you?”

“I am.” I put my hands on my hips and turned to face her. “But it feels excessive.”