City of Swords (6 page)

Chapter 11

Dr. Lawton stood at the podium of the lecture hall. The room could hold three hundred, but he filled it only during his special evening lectures, and he hadn’t offered any this semester. Today he had one hundred students, impressive given what many of his colleagues considered a dry subject with no practical application for the real world.
Fools,
Dr. Lawton thought. He was practicing the applications beneath all their upturned noses.

“What do you see?” he asked his students.

He’d rigged a laptop to a projector, and an image of a man in armor shone larger than life against the wall.

“A knight,” a girl in the front row volunteered.

It was the typical answer he pulled from freshmen.

“A Templar,” another suggested.

“A suit of armor from a museum,” a rail-thin woman said. “It doesn’t look like there’s anybody inside it.”

Dr. Lawton surveyed the room in silence. In the back row, a few students were texting. Their loss.

“What do you see?” he repeated in his deep voice. “Can you look past the armor, the metal? Can you look past the centuries?”

No answer. But he had their attention—most of them, anyway.

“I see blood.” Dr. Lawton knew he was a striking man. Tall, always impeccably groomed, well dressed in clothes that were both fashionable and a little out of fashion. He stood out. He wore his hair long, as he believed a history professor should. His spectacles had a nearly invisible frame, so as not to obscure his face, which was all angles and planes. “I see a lot of blood.”

He waited. Sometimes a student would pipe up, saying, “I don’t see any blood” or “Blood, my ass.” This time there was nothing. The ones in the back row had stopped texting.

“I see the blood of a thousand warriors who dressed like this and who gave their last breath in defense of their beliefs. I see a thousand warriors striding to their deaths so the meek and innocent could live without fear. I see valor and love and sacred honor. I see sacrifice and respect, unyielding courage and unwavering faith.

“This is the armor of a paladin,” he continued. “If a man dressed like this came into a village, peasants and gentry would drop to their knees in respect. Today’s soldier gets a pat on the back for his service in Afghanistan, a thank-you for his tours in Iraq and Iran, perhaps a slight edge over some chap competing for the same dead-end job. But today’s soldier is not held in the same regard as these men.” He gestured to the image. “These paladins were put on a pedestal by society, elevated because they were better than the men around them. They embodied patience and dignity, grace in the face of impossible odds.”

He touched a key on the laptop to start the slideshow. More suits of armor, woodcut images from history texts, photographs from reenactments.

“The paladin. Ms. Jensen, do you know his origin?”

“You’re referring to the Knights Templars, right?” She tapped her finger on the edge of her iPad. “The Knights Templars are considered the very first order. God and duty, right?”

Dr. Lawton touched another key and a stock image of a Templar Knight appeared. “No one coerced a man to join the Templars. Their devotion, righteousness and ideals came from within.” He noticed the slightly smug look on Ms. Jensen’s flawless face. “They had no expectation of reward, though they gained considerable wealth for their order.” He paused. “But they were not the first paladins. That honor is due men five hundred years earlier.”

Ms. Jensen looked surprised. “But the textbook—”

“You’re not reading from
my
textbook.”

“Then who were the first paladins?” This from a hawk-nosed young man in the middle of the lecture hall. “If it wasn’t the Templars, then who—”

Dr. Lawton was pleased he’d managed to stir their interests. “Surely you’re familiar with Charlemagne.”

There were nods all around. A few tapped on their iPads and netbooks. Ms. Jensen leaned forward in her seat.

“I mention him today only because we are covering paladins, and he birthed them.”

He noted a few raised eyebrows. “The paladin traces his roots back beyond the establishment of knightly orders,” he stated calmly.

“Isn’t that a contradiction?” the hawk-nosed man asked. “Didn’t the knights create paladins?”

Lawton grimaced. “In the eighth century the Twelve Paladins of Charlemagne came into being. They were a dozen powerful soldiers put in charge of his armies. Those twelve protected him and pledged their lives to him.”

“Roland,” one of the older students offered.

“He was Charlemagne’s first paladin, yes. If you are curious—” Lawton searched his memory “—Mr. Tarrington, the
Song of Roland
is in the public domain. A poem of epic adventure and unmatched heroism.” He flipped through the next several slides. “I recommend reading it…though it is by no means required for this course.” He couldn’t help but smile when he saw students taking that down.

“Roland was the first, but there were others. Can you name them?”

A hand shot up toward the back. “Ogier the Dane.”

“I commend you, Ms. Appleton.” He had no trouble remembering her name. She was one of his brightest students. He already had his twelve assembled, but if one of them fell, she was a replacement candidate. Worth grooming. “Yes, Ogier the Dane was one, as well. They carried special swords. Durendal for Roland, Sauvagine and Courtain for Ogier.”

“They named their swords. Ha.”

He couldn’t pick out where the affront had come from.

“Like naming a pet dog or something.”

That’s when he saw the speaker, wearing a retro Rolling Stones T-shirt. He suspected he’d have to fail him.

“The three swords were forged by Munifican,” Dr. Lawton said. “Each taking three years to make, so fine and divine the blades were. And,” he added softly so none of the students could hear, “soon all three of Munifican’s prized swords will be mine.”

Chapter 12

It looked as if the earth were flipping a defiant finger at heaven, Archard thought as he studied the monument. The stone tower stretched upward, with the top made to resemble a king’s crown. But it looked like a middle finger gesturing skyward.

He’d done his research. The monument was built in 1869, very near the spot of William Wallace’s victory at Stirling Bridge. It wasn’t a particularly pretty setting, but the stone structure loomed over the Scottish countryside.

He nosed the rental Fiat into one of the few empty spots in the lot, turned off the ignition and pocketed the keys. “Are we ready?” he asked.

Sarah nodded. “Yep, let’s do this.”

The man in the backseat didn’t reply, but got out, rotated his neck and reached down to touch his toes, working off the cramp from sitting in the small car. Ulrich was a tad over six feet tall and very lean. The German’s skin looked as if it had been stretched too tight over his frame, his wrists so bony they looked painful.
Gaunt
was the word Archard ascribed to the man. Pale, unhealthy. But Ulrich, in his late fifties, was fit enough for this particular task and actually was in deceptively good shape. Archard watched him walk to the trunk.

“Well?” the German asked.

Archard thumbed a button on the key chain and the trunk popped open. “We don’t need the…supplies…until tonight.”

“I want to check on them, the ride and all. And I want my camera.” Ulrich’s accent was more American than German. He’d spent nearly twenty years in the United States, managing an art gallery in Atlanta, Georgia, and lecturing at the university there about ancient art and artifacts. A contemporary of Dr. Lawton’s who met the professor when they were working on their advanced degrees, he’d been a part of this group since his return to Europe in January. Archard liked him. He was a good conversationalist and his intellectual equal.

It was Saturday, the weather was good and tourists waited on the curving walkway to the monument. It was easier to go unnoticed in the middle of a crowd, which was why he’d picked this day. Archard led the way, pausing near two horse-faced women, probably related, who were reading a plaque. He waited until they were finished before stepping up. Sarah and Ulrich joined him. The German aimed his digital camera at the plaque, but no telltale green light came on. Ulrich was only pretending to take pictures and likely didn’t even have batteries in the camera. Archard hoped no one else noticed.

At the gate the German paid cash for their admission.

“First visit to the Wallace Memorial?” the girl behind the counter asked.

Ulrich nodded, and they fell in line behind the horse-faced women.

Archard heard her ask the next group the same question.

More than half the assembly was female, a mix of ages and beauty. A large-breasted woman on the shy side of thirty looked his way and smiled. She had dyed red hair and too much mascara. Her companion was thickset and roughly the same age, trying to cram too many pounds into a pair of jeans. Her legs looked like English bangers.

The reason for the visit was on the first level, and Archard went there straightaway, Sarah and Ulrich a few paces behind. The Wallace Sword was displayed point down in a thick Plexiglas case that was roped off.

Archard leaned against the wall, admiring the ancient claymore. The cool stone was rough against his fingertips and had a scent to it that he found preferable to the perfume Sarah had used too liberally this morning.

A guide entered and gestured to the sword. “The Wallace Sword was kept in Dumbarton Castle for many years before being removed to this monument. Wallace wielded it in the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 and then a year later in the Battle of Falkirk.”

“Was this the only sword he used?” a tall woman with wire-rimmed glasses asked.

“The only one of note. What do you see when you look at it?” the guide asked the assembly.

“I see blood,” Sarah said. “Blood and death, and Wallace responsible for it all. I see courage and sacrifice. I see men slogging across a battlefield, not knowing if the day will be their last.”

“Uh, yes. Interesting,” the guide said. “According to English records, the governor of Dumbarton Castle was given the sword in 1305. More accounts of the sword are found two hundred years later. Then, King James of Scotland was said to have paid two dozen shillings to an armorer to give the sword a new scabbard, belt and pommel, necessary alterations, as the original scabbard and hilt were supposedly covered with the skin of the English commander Cressingham. There are no more records of the sword until the 1800s, when it was sent for repairs to the Tower of London. Toward the end of that century, it made its way here to the Wallace Monument.” The guide regarded the sword, beaming. “Now, if you will follow me, I’ll take you through the rest of the monument.”

Archard, Sarah and Ulrich fell into the middle of the group, which started wending its way up a circular staircase. In the Hall of Heroes, there were busts of middle-aged and old men, noble and aristocratic. Archard’s interest in history hadn’t included Scotland, but he was nonetheless familiar with Robert the Bruce, Robbie Burns and, of course, William Wallace. Sarah was intently studying the visages, brow knitted. Archard knew better. She wasn’t interested in the displays, but was doing a good job of looking as if she was.

“Though Wallace is a true national hero, there were men in his company of equally strong character.” The guide pointed out busts of several who’d lived during that time. “The men following Wallace beat back the armies of the Earl of Surrey and Hugh de Cressingham, treasurer to King Edward.”

“The guy whose skin was on the scabbard,” a man at the edge of the crowd interjected.

The guide cleared his throat. “Scottish forces were considered disorganized before Wallace whipped them into shape. The English hadn’t been prepared. Wallace directed his spearmen to advance on Stirling Bridge from the high ground. The English cavalry became cut off from the rest of their soldiers and were quickly slain. Hugh de Cressingham? They flayed him, and historians claim that Wallace indeed took a broad piece of Cressingham’s hide and used it as a baldric for his claymore. It wasn’t an unheard-of practice.”

“Ghastly,” said the sausage-legged woman.

Her friend giggled.

The guide raised his voice to continue his memorized speech. “Wallace showed England that infantry could defeat cavalry. Though Scottish casualties weren’t recorded, the English claimed to lose one hundred cavalry and five thousand infantrymen. Unfortunately, Wallace didn’t get to keep his title of Guardian of Scotland for long. During the summer of 1298, King Edward brought his army north from Flanders. On the field of Falkirk, Wallace was defeated. He eluded capture, however, for a few years.”

An elderly man raised his hand. “I watched
Braveheart,
” he said in a British accent. “Saw it twice. How close was it to—”

“Not close,” the guide said. “But it was far from a terrible movie.”

“They gutted Mel Gibson,” said a middle-aged woman in a short skirt, heels and tight sweater. She was someone who would have aroused Archard a few years ago. “Well, they made you think they were cutting him open and pulling his innards out.”

“His character,” the sausage-legged woman corrected. “They gutted his character.”

The guide eyed the assembly. “Ah, there are no wee babes here today, and so I will add this bit. Wallace was captured in August 1305, taken to London and tried for treason. Finding him guilty, they put a garland of oak on his head…pronouncing him king of outlaws. History recorded his response—‘I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject.’ Wallace called the absent John Balliol his king.”

There was a wave of murmurs from the Scots in attendance. The woman with the sausage legs said, “And the real Wallace looked better than Mel Gibson.”

“Wallace’s death was prolonged,” the guide continued. “They stripped him and dragged him through London behind a horse. Then he was hanged, strangled but not yet killed, taken down, castrated, gutted and his intestines burned while he still breathed. Quartered, his head was cut off and put on a pole on London Bridge.”

The large-breasted redhead made a choking sound.

“Then they beheaded Wallace’s brothers and put their heads on display, too,” the guide finished.

Archard stepped inside the small gift shop. On the lowest level, the crowd began to break up. He selected a key chain with a replica of the Wallace Sword, and moved to the counter. One of the horse-faced women was there with a stack of postcards. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sarah hold up a rose-colored T-shirt with a picture of the Wallace statue on it. “Whatcha think?” she asked Ulrich. Archard didn’t hear if the German replied.

“Can I help you?” The horse-faced woman had left, and the employee at the register was reaching for Archard’s key chain.

“This…and a pack of gum,” he said. “Any flavor.”

“Any?”

“Which one do you like?”

Her eyes twinkled. “The cinnamon. It has a bit of a bite to it. Tickles my tongue.”

“A pack of cinnamon, then.” He paused. “No, make it two.”

She grinned and rang up his sale. A few years ago he would have asked her out after her shift ended, and he had no doubt that she would have accepted.

“Thank you,” he said, moving away and making room for the elderly man who was buying a postcard.

Ulrich was studying the door frame of the gift shop, eyes drifting up to the security camera. The German had been taking note of all the cameras in the tower and how they were wired. Of course, the devices would be operated from some tucked-away office.

Archard had noted a camera near the display of the Wallace Sword, one more in the stairwell and then one near the top, where the most elaborate statues were arrayed. If there were more, he trusted Ulrich had noticed them. However, he suspected there wasn’t a lot of security here, the statues being too big to easily haul away. The gift shop was likely a target because of the cash register and some of the pricier souvenirs. And the sword, of course. He considered that the Wallace Monument’s greatest treasure.

Archard left the gift shop and headed outside, glad when Sarah and Ulrich followed a few minutes later. He didn’t want to linger at the monument too long, certainly didn’t want to do anything to stand out. He chastised himself for the cinnamon gum; the clerk would remember him for that. But that wouldn’t link him to the upcoming theft.

They spent the rest of the day in town, playing tourists up from Paris and eating a lengthy dinner that the German paid for. They returned to the Wallace Monument shortly before midnight, seeing only one other car, no doubt belonging to the security guard. One car. Probably just one man. Archard suspected the watch would be doubled after tonight.

“Shall we?” He got out of the car and waited until Sarah and Ulrich retrieved backpacks from the trunk. They walked around to the far side of the monument, to the door used by staff. Sarah set to work on the lock, while Ulrich clipped the wires on the outside security camera and alarm.

Slipping inside, Archard paused and let his eyes adjust to the dim lights of the corridor. He motioned to a door marked Office, and Ulrich went inside. Sarah stayed in the hall, head cocked, listening. Archard heard what she was paying attention to: footsteps. Going up, from the sound of it. Maybe the security man was on a regular patrol. It was a good distance to the top, so that would buy the German time.

Ulrich knew security systems even better than Archard. At the art gallery in Atlanta, he’d constantly updated the monitors and added upgrades to the video feeds. He’d also learned how to disable them. Archard brushed past Sarah so he could watch Ulrich disable the system of the Wallace Monument. Everything Archard knew had come from questionable sites on the internet. Sarah’s burgeoning skills were mostly internet acquired, too.

Next, they went to the sword room, and Ulrich disabled an independent security sensor affixed to the back of the Wallace Sword display. While Archard and Sarah stood watch, listening for the guard, the German produced a thin cutter he ran down a seam of the Plexiglas. Within a handful of minutes, he’d opened the case.

The metal blade was more than four feet long, nearly two and a half inches wide at the thickest part and tapering to three-quarter of an inch before the tip. After holding it for a few moments, Archard decided it felt heavier than the six pounds the display plaque claimed. He passed it to Sarah, who held it in front of her with both hands. Blade and pommel together made it taller than she was, and she lowered it quickly. “Only six pounds, eh? I don’t think so.”

“Shh.” Archard took it from her and held it out. “It’s where the weight is distributed,” he said softly, “that makes it difficult to hold for any amount of time. I’d say this was quite lethal on the battlefield.”

Sarah retrieved a length of folded canvas from her pack and laid it out on the floor. He set the sword on it and wrapped it up.

“I’ve made an error.” He smiled ruefully. “This won’t fit in the trunk of the Fiat.”

“I’ll be cramped in the backseat, then.” Ulrich sighed.

“No, I think it’s Sarah’s turn to be cramped.” Archard picked up the bundle. “Time to leave.”

They were at the back door when they heard footfalls coming back down.

And they were in their car and pulling away when the security guard saw the opened, empty case in the Wallace Sword room.