Ryder

by Nick Pengelley

  “Really?” Joram chuckled.

  The vicar failed to repress a snigger.

  Ayesha ignored them. The roller coaster that carried her hopes had zoomed upward once more.

  “There must be a mechanism,” Niobe continued. “A lever. A handle. Something that will release the floor down here. All of you, look.”

  Déjà vu, Ayesha thought. Her gaze locked on the Templar device. Reaching up, she scraped away at the rest of the wax that surrounded it. When she’d cleared the circumference of the device, a hair-thin crack showed between it and the surrounding stone. She pushed on the seal. Nothing. She pushed harder. Still nothing. She tried again. The seal sank into the wall with a dull crunch.

  “Hey!” Niobe leaped out of the empty tomb like a scalded cat. “It moved.” She rolled her eyes at Joram. Then, “Look!” She pointed into the tomb.

  A dark gap of several inches was visible at the nearer end.

  Niobe picked up one of the crowbars. Then she lay on the ground, the top half of her body projecting over the lip of the tomb. Reaching down with the tool, she inserted it into the gap. She heaved, with all the power of her arms. Her back and gluteal muscles flexed beneath her clothes. Nothing happened. Grunting with the effort, she heaved once more, the muscles in her shoulders and back vibrating visibly. Suddenly the floor panel shot backward. Niobe, unbalanced, dropped the crowbar, which vanished through the hole where the floor of the tomb had been. A metallic thunk sounded from below. Niobe, teetering on the edge, threatened to follow it.

  Joram lunged desperately. He grabbed Niobe’s calf, just in time to stop her from falling headlong into the counterfeit grave.

  “Thanks,” Niobe said, as the librarian helped her to her feet. She brushed herself off, picked up a flashlight, and shone it into the tomb. A flight of stone steps, clearly ancient, led downward from the newly revealed opening. Unlike those within the church tower, however, these steps were not worn down by constant usage. Few people had passed this way before.

  “This way to King Harold!” Niobe swung a leg over the side of the tomb and lowered herself onto the top step.

  Ayesha dropped after the archaeologist, landing lightly on the staircase. Then she followed her down what proved to be a straight descent of only a dozen steps, rough-hewn from the solid rock.

  “What is this place?” Joram asked Niobe, when he and Caroline Frost had caught up. “It looks like a natural cave.”

  Ayesha concurred. Unlike the crypt or undercroft above, there was no masonry. Just rough rock walls still showing the marks of the tools that had altered nature for the convenience of man, especially near the steps they had just descended. There was one other sign of human visitation. Fixed to the walls at intervals were iron brackets. Things that looked like tall candles, but were not, were clamped within them.

  “Rushlights?” Joram guessed, approaching the nearest.

  “I’d say so,” the vicar agreed. “They’re one of the earliest forms of lighting. Typical of the medieval period. Right?” she asked the archaeologist.

  “Yes. But they were in use well beyond medieval times. Into the nineteenth century. In fact they had something of a revival here in Britain during the Second World War.”

  “How do they work?” Ayesha asked.

  “Basically you cut a rush, cut out the pith, soak it, dry it, then coat it in some kind of fat or grease. Then dry it again. Long ones like these could burn for a very long time.”

  Joram approached the nearest rushlight. A click sounded—his cigarette lighter.

  “I really don’t think—” The rushlight burst into flame, cutting Niobe off midsentence.

  “The atmosphere down here must be very dry,” Joram remarked, as he put his lighter away.

  I’m hard to get, Steve. All you have to do is ask me. Bacall’s line from To Have and Have Not echoed in Ayesha’s head. There was no doubt about it; Joram had class. It was doing things to her.

  The rushlight settled down to a steady glow that gave off a surprising amount of light. The darkness swiftly receded until they could see into every part of the cave.

  “No sign of a tomb,” Ayesha said, once again focused on the task at hand.

  In fact the cave was empty. It also looked to be a dead end. While the others spread out to search for an opening, Ayesha stood still and scanned the walls. Bare rock. Nothing more. No Templar devices, or at least none that she could see. It couldn’t be a dead end, though. What would be the point? So there had to be something, an exit, a way forward. Her eyes narrowed. She took a pace forward. Then another. Now she was sure. A section of the wall on the far side of the cavern; a shadow existed where there should not have been a shadow.

  In three long strides Ayesha had crossed the cave and found that a section of the wall was in fact an outcropping, invisible unless you stood right next to it. The outcropping concealed a narrow opening in the wall of the cave.

  “Here!” she called. Not waiting for the others, she squeezed through the opening, grazing her hips on the rock walls. After perhaps three feet, the passage, a natural fissure in the rock, widened a little. There were more signs nature had been enhanced by the builders of old, although whether they were Saxons, Normans, or artisans employed by the Knights of the Temple, it was impossible to say. There were more rushlights, too. The passageway was narrow and there was only one way to go. It sloped downward. When they’d gone some distance, Ayesha called back to the vicar. “Caroline? Do you know where we are?”

  “As far as I can make out”—the vicar, puffing loudly, drew breath—“we have to be going…down the hill. I think we must be under the castle grounds by now.”

  The tunnel came to an end after another twenty yards or so, in yet another cavelike space, somewhat larger than the first.

  Something bulky solidified from the darkness. Ayesha’s nerves hummed like the strings of a harp.

  Joram brought two more of the ancient rushlights to life with his lighter, one on the cave wall on each side of the simple stone sarcophagus that occupied the center of the chamber, and which drew them to it like so many iron filings.

  “Harold Gōdwines sunu.” Her voice barely louder than a whisper, Niobe Bagot read the words deeply incised in the side of the sarcophagus that faced them. “Old English,” she explained. “Harold Godwinson. Harold the Second.”

  “And those?” Joram gestured toward the two large cloths folded across the top of the tomb. They had both once been a deep red in color; the dust of centuries could not conceal that.

  With fingers that trembled, Niobe touched the nearest cloth. The archaeologist hesitated, then, reverently, she lifted a corner. “It’s incredibly well preserved,” she said, a noticeable quaver in her voice. “I think I know what this is.” She looked at Ayesha and Caroline. “Give me a hand, ladies?”

  Ayesha reached for the cloth. She didn’t know what it was but her hand, too, trembled. As if the archaeologist had communicated her own emotions through the fabric.

  Working with an instinctive gentleness, as if handling a newborn, the women unfurled the cloth and laid it over the top of the tomb.

  The breath caught in Ayesha’s throat. She’d never seen anything like it. The Ark of the Covenant had awed her, but that was something beyond any order of magnitude. This was a human relic. On a human scale. Somehow it was more real.

  Blazed across the center of the crimson banner was a huge golden dragon, its wings flared and forked tongue rampant. A thousand years, Ayesha thought, since it had been unfurled. The last time was at the Battle of Hastings. What death the dragon had seen. What blood.

  Niobe tried to speak. She choked on a sob. Tears coursed down her cheeks.

  Joram touched her arm. “Niobe?”

  “I’m sorry.” The archaeologist wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “This is beyond anything I could have…” She glanced at the sarcophagus. “Well…almost anything.” She drew a deep breath. “It’s the Wyvern. The Wyvern of Wessex. Harold was the Earl of Wessex, you know, bef
ore becoming king.” She stared at the banner, photographing it with her mind, Ayesha thought. Then, with surprising delicacy, she folded it once more. As she did so Ayesh noticed dark patches on the cloth; blood, perhaps, of the last defenders of Saxon England.

  Niobe turned to the other cloth. Again Ayesha and Caroline lent a hand, carefully unfurling it to reveal a different but no less striking image. Once white, it had turned a dirty yellowish color with time. The device itself was unmistakable: a man, armored, wielding a giant ax over his head.

  “The Fighting Man,” Niobe breathed. “The king’s personal standard. Symbol of England’s determination never to give in.” The tears were back again.

  The vicar was affected, too. She sniffed and wiped her eyes. Even Joram blew vigorously into a handkerchief.

  “Conclusive, wouldn’t you say?” Ayesha ignored the display of emotion. “A tomb with Harold’s name carved on it. His banners laid across the top.”

  Niobe was about to respond, but Ayesha got in first. “Why?” she asked. “Why hide him away like this?”

  “I wondered that myself,” the archaeologist mused. “I think the answer is a simple one. Martyrdom…Think about it. England has been invaded by the Normans. Harold is a symbol of resistance for the Saxon population, who by no means acquiesced in the occupation. There were rumors for years, decades, after Hastings, that Harold had survived and was in hiding, waiting to lead the fight against the Normans. And there was resistance, led by Hereward the Wake. Things weren’t secure for the Normans after Hastings. Not for a long time. Even dead, if Harold’s death was proved, his tomb would be a powerful symbol, a shrine at the center of resistance. The Normans could simply have burned the body and scattered the ashes. But William was a Christian king, too, don’t forget; on a mission approved by the pope himself. He would have hesitated to do anything that would have drawn censure from Rome, perhaps even resulted in excommunication. So he did the next-best thing. He hid the body. Or rather, he had Harold buried at Battle. Then he had second thoughts. He decided, for the reasons I’ve just given, that it was going to become a shrine, a focus of resistance, so he got cold feet and had the body moved.”

  “Are we going to make sure?” Ayesha asked, with more impatience than she’d intended to show. She had no doubt Niobe was right, but unless they opened the sarcophagus it was all just speculation.

  There was a silence as everyone absorbed her words. Ayesha needed to look inside the tomb. After the disappointment in the crypt, despite Harold’s name being carved on the sarcophagus and the fact of his personal standards, she had to know. “Remember, we’re hunting for the Templar treasure. According to the clues, journey’s end is where Harold lies. If he’s really here, then the treasure must be close by. If he’s not, it’s not, but there could be another clue, or maybe another secret passage inside.” She shrugged. “We have to look.”

  “Ayesha’s right.” Joram looked at Niobe. “What do you say?”

  Tha archaeologist frowned. Ayesha knew what she was thinking. Her professional obligations and training demanded the site be secured and that all sorts of preliminary tests and measurements be taken before they even thought about taking such a radical step as opening the thousand-year-old tomb of an English king. “Okay,” she said, grinning ruefully. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

  Niobe worked her way around the edge of the sarcophagus, as she had done in the crypt, peering at the line where the top slab met the rectangular, boxlike base. “I can’t see any sort of mortar here. And the sarcophagus is much higher off the floor than the one in the crypt that we came through. I also think it might be a fair bit lighter in weight. What I’m getting around to saying is that, if we all heave together, we should be able to push it aside.” Her cat’s eyes glinted in the reflected light. “Shall we?”

  Niobe carefully lifted the two banners, the Wyvern of Wessex, and the Fighting Man, and laid them on the ground against the cavern wall, well out of harm’s way. Then four pairs of hands were placed on the near side of the lid of the tomb.

  “Okay, gang,” Niobe said. “This time it’s for real. On three. One. Two. Three!”

  For a moment nothing disturbed the silence except for the muted sounds of four people straining with all their might to move a heavy object. Then, with a shocking suddenness, the lid moved. Moved, and kept on moving. It slid sideways. Faster and faster.

  “Stop!” Niobe commanded. Too late. The slab had passed the halfway point. There was nothing any of them could have done to stop it, without risk of serious injury. The lid teetered on the brink. Then, with a thump that Ayesha felt through the soles of her feet, it crashed to the ground on the far side of the sarcophagus.

  Sacrilege! Ayesha might not believe in a god, or an afterlife, but she was nevertheless appalled at what they’d done. With an effort that seemed physical, she forced herself to look down.

  It’s a waxwork, was her first thought as she stared into the sarcophagus; the not empty sarcophagus. At the man dressed in finely wrought chain mail, his arms crossed over his breast, over the gold and silver hilt of a sword. Harold’s sword. She took in these things. The heavy leather gauntlets. The long blade of the sword, dully gleaming and pitted in places. Then, finally, she allowed herself to look at the head.

  The stories were true, at least in part. The king’s head had been separated from his body. It had taken several blows. The great gashes were still visible in the top and sides of his skull. His long, straw-colored hair was matted and stiff with dried blood. But…his face. Little prickles of heat bloomed on Ayesha’s cheeks. She felt the skin on her face tighten as she looked upon the visage of a man who had surely died yesterday, not almost a thousand years ago. No skull this. No wizened, shriveled mockery of a once-vital man. His face was fair-skinned, his lips full. One eye, his left, was closed. The other was destroyed. A narrow wooden shaft, broken off just above the cheek, filled it, obscenely mutilating what was otherwise a classically handsome face of great manly beauty.

  Ayesha half expected the face to dissolve before her, even as she looked at it. She was afraid to breathe, from fear that the mere disturbance of the air would cause a devastating reaction. She leaned backward, away from the tomb, and raised her eyes to the others.

  Niobe drew on a pair of disposable gloves. She bent over the open coffin and touched the sword. Her body trembling like a leaf, she touched the hair. Then, with her fingertips, she brushed the cheek.

  Ayesha held her breath.

  “It’s firm,” Niobe whispered. “The skin feels firm. We need to get experts down here as soon as possible. All sorts of tests have to be run. Steps taken immediately to ensure preservation of the body. The good news is, I don’t think he’s going to dissolve into dust in the next few minutes.”

  “But how?” Joram asked. “He died nearly a thousand years ago! I assume we are agreed that it is Harold?”

  “I don’t think there’s any doubt,” Niobe said. “As to how? I have no idea. Such things have been known. Bodies far older than this have been found in a remarkable state of preservation in Egyptian and South American tombs. Embalming methods. Atmospheric conditions. Some combination of these. We won’t know until tests have been done.”

  “There is an alternative,” Caroline Frost said. “As vicar of this parish I should point out that miracles are not unknown. God works in mysterious ways.”

  “So.” Niobe cut through the embarrassed silence that had greeted the vicar’s words. “We’ve found him. How did that clue go? ‘Where Harold Godwinson lies. There you will find what you seek’?”

  “That’s right.” Joram looked down at the last Saxon king of England. “I do hope his body isn’t concealing the entrance to some new tunnel.”

  “If it is, then that’s it. It’ll have to wait. We are not moving him under anything less than controlled conditions. It’s going to take weeks of on-site testing before we can even think about it.”

  Ayesha’s gaze swept the sepulchre cave. Once again she could see no w
ay out. Her confidence now was supreme, though. There was a way. And she would find it.

  Chapter 34

  The Zeppelin sailed serenely overhead, at a height of perhaps one thousand feet. The dark bulk that briefly blotted out the sun took Danforth back to another place. Another time.

  “John.”

  Danforth turned his head. He was careful, though, to maintain a low crouch behind the group of boulders from which he and Lisa observed a squad of Taliban soldiers as they slipped through the poppy fields in the valley below.

  They had been in-country two years now. Tanned dark by the sun. Skinny, like the Afghans, from living off the same diet. Fluent in a wide range of the local dialects. No one took any notice of an itinerant tinker and his wife—as long as she stayed swathed in the head-to-toe garb of a devout Muslim woman. Not that Lisa minded. It made concealment way easier. There were plenty of times Danforth had wished he could wear the same getup.

  He lowered the radio on which he’d been communicating with the strike coordinator on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, way out in the Persian Gulf. He squinted into the sky, where Lisa had pointed. Shaded his eyes. Three dots. Even as he watched, the dots grew rapidly bigger. Missiles. He dropped his gaze to the Taliban. They, too, had spotted the missiles. Like mice before the approach of a cat, they scattered into the poppy fields, each running in a different direction.

  “Shit!”

  Danforth twisted around at Lisa’s exclamation. He didn’t need to ask. Her horrified expression was fixed on the incoming missiles. Two were headed for the poppy field. The third was headed straight at them!

  Danforth threw himself on top of Lisa. He pushed her body hard into the ground. Then he closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and tried to pray.

  The explosion, when it came, blotted out the universe.