Page 47 of Under Arthur’s Protection

He rubbed his hands together. “Set it here. Please.”

Arthur settled ten or so feet from the table, close enough to intervene, far enough to pretend we had privacy.

I set the case on the table, unlatched the clasps, and opened the lid to show him the side with the inscription.

“Theo said I wouldn’t be able to touch her.” Fergus leaned forward, and his glasses slid down his nose. “May I move the case around?”

“Go ahead.”

He turned the case gently, tilting it so the golden pommel glinted in the overhead light. “Now, he also mentioned the inscription. Where is it?”

“It’s hard to read, but I have some photos that may help.” I retrieved my laptop to show him the enhanced photographs. Once they were on-screen, I continued, “This one on the pommel seems to match the one on the tower wall at St. Catherine’s in Temple.”

For the next twenty minutes, I walked him through everything. From how the sword had been recovered at a black-market auction in Detroit to how I’d started my research, followed the clues, and flown to Cornwall. I left out the unimportant details like the private jet and gazillionaire’s son acting as my bodyguard.

He disappeared through the back doorway twice to grab folders, then spread photocopies across the table.

“I’ve collected over thirty references to a ‘New Avalon’ in local oral histories,” he said, flipping through pages. “Most are from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It’s mostly drunk men’s tales, nothing you can pin down. But a few records are older, like this parish clerk’s diary from 1743 that uses the phrase, and a land dispute from 1681 that names the New Avalon tract as a boundary marker.”

“A boundary marker?” I pulled my notebook from my bag. This was the kind of research I’d missed. I shouldn’t have focused on academic registers. “That would suggest it was a recognized place name, not only folklore.”

“Exactly my thinking. And here, look at this.” He was practically bouncing as he slid a photocopy toward me. “This is from a churchwarden’s report in 1802, before the Victorian restoration of St. Catherine’s. It describes ‘ancient lettering in the tower, much degraded.’ That predates the restoration by roughly eighty years.”

I stopped writing. If the lettering was documented in the church before the Victorian reconstruction, Dr. Hopkins’s theory about a Victorian addition was wrong.

“Can I photograph all of this?”

“Please.”

I worked through dozens of sheets, snapping them with my phone. When we were settled in one spot—the hotel tonight?—I’d transfer them to the laptop and study everything properly. It was valuable research. It wouldn’t prove the sword’s age, but it was important, nonetheless.

The front door opened, and a woman came through, shaking rain from an umbrella. “It’s always fucking raining here.”

“That would be my sister,” Fergus said as he waved to her. “The sword’s here, Bridget. Come and see.”

She set her umbrella in the stand by the door, hung her jacket on a hook, and crossed to the worktable. She surveyed the mess of photocopies. “What have you done to my filing system?”

“Dr. Gwen Lyons, this is Bridget McConnell, professional pain in me arse.” He grinned at her, but she frowned back. “This is the sword Theo called about. It’s got an inscription matching one at St. Catherine’s.”

“Does it, now?” Bridget extended a hand. “Pleasure.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“American?” Her handshake was firm and brief. “And you’re in Anglo-Saxon weaponry?”

“Ancient arms and armor, and yes, I studied in Leeds.” Why was I justifying myself to her? I hadn’t felt the need to do that with Fergus. Because the way she looked at me was different.

Please don’t let her know.

She withdrew her hand, narrowed her eyes, and gave me a blatant once-over. “Your name is familiar.”

Shit, she knew.

“Didn’t you work at the Marlcombe Collection? Two or three years ago?”

Double shit.

“With Lionel Davenport, right?”