Swordsman's Legacy

And so he but nodded, and watched as the cardinal sauntered out of his office.

It was interesting to Nicolas, now that he considered the recipient of the treasure cache of jewels. A musketeer. And what was that silly little phrase the musketeers spoke as a literal statement of faith?

All for the king.

Yes. Interesting, then, that a very particular musketeer should be taking from the mouth of the very man he had pledged to serve faithfully.

Actually, it was rather amusing.

5

It neared midnight, and exhilaration overwhelmed Annja’s exhaustion. The tent lay flattened, its perimeter burned and the canvas smoking. The center remained intact thanks to Jay’s fast actions to snuff the flames.

A flashlight had been retrieved from the Jeep’s glove box, and Annja could now make out faces. The teenager’s face was blackened with ash, and his short blond hair stuck out in tufts. His slouchy jeans and fancy sneakers led Annja to believe he was a charmer. Or maybe it was the wink he tossed her way.

“Now what?” Jay asked Ascher, but he danced his look up and down Annja.

Boys and their blatant hormones. Annja looked away to conceal her smile.

“Formal introductions,” Ascher said as he slung an arm across Annja’s shoulder. “Jay and Peyton Nash, I introduce you to the one and only Annja Creed.”

“Chasing History’s Monsters,” Jay said in weird fan-boy wonder. “I never miss an episode. Your stories are fascinating, Miss Creed.”

“Thank you, Jay. Glad to know you appreciate the history and research.”

“Oh, yeah, the research,” he muttered, but it wasn’t very convincing.

“A pleasure.” Peyton Nash leaned forward and offered a hand, which Annja took as opportunity to slip from Ascher’s too comfortable embrace. She returned the proffered shake. Good, firm clasp. And a keen sense of decorum. She liked the man. “Jay’s my little brother. We’ve had the ill luck of digging out holes with Vallois on more than a few occasions. I suppose that is our fault. He calls, we come running.”

“I guess that makes you a winner,” Jay said to Ascher.

Ascher shook his head subtly, but from the corner of her eye Annja caught the move. “A winner? What does that mean?” she asked.

“I do not know what he is talking about,” Ascher pleaded with a shrug.

Peyton, the elder brother, shook his head, but could not hide a grin in the glare of the flashlight.

“Did you make a bet that you could get me here?” she tried. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine after his attempts at online flirtation. “Was that the only reason you invited me to the dig?”

Jay answered, “Yes.”

Ascher spit out a resounding “No.”

“I may have put forth a friendly wager,” Ascher then offered quickly, “but only after inviting 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.”