Disclaimers: I don't own the characters Relic Hunter. I don't make any money out of my stories, but the rest belongs to me!

The story is part of the K and A shared universe series, set about five years after Pony Trek. Nigel and Sydney are together, engaged… and about to get married! As with all the others, though, it also stands alone…

The Night of the Stag (a.k.a. Nigel's bachelor party).

By Katy

So I sallied forth into the virgine territorye,

Tho' I knoweth not that the Lord guideth

the mudded minde of my sinne.

And there, deepe in the bewooded lande,

I slewe the hunter that bereaveth my love.

I buried him, and the signes of his Godless villainey,

where the roads to my peacefulle hearths,

will spread like the antlers of the horneth stagge.

Isaac Barnes, 1621.

………………………………………………………………………………..

Trinity University, 21st Century.

'Nigel!'

Sydney Fox rose from her desk, abruptly pushing back the chair with a scrape. She did not even raise her eyes from the early 17th century manuscript in her hand as she flung open the door and shouted into the office: 'I need you to do some research for me. What do you know about James I and the Pilgrim Fathers…oh!'

Sydney looked up and stopped short. Nigel was not at his desk, although she could have sworn he had been there a couple of minutes ago. She looked quizzically at Karen. Maybe he'd gone to the bathroom?

'He's in his office,' said Karen seriously.

'Oh,' said Sydney, raising her eyebrows and shaking her head almost indiscernibly as she got used to the idea. 'Fair enough. It is his office…'

Since Nigel had received his doctorate, and been made a Lecturer in his own right, a very nice, if not so spacious office, had been allotted for his use. And use it he did: as a brim-full book room, and a storage area for the overflow of the less valuable relics he and Sydney brought back from their missions. He never sat in it, though. He still worked so closely with Sydney that she'd never taken on another TA - as if she ever could! As well as attending to his own students, Nigel continued to fulfil all his functions as Sydney's assistant, in addition to a few other significant duties - as her fiancé. He always sat and worked in the lobby outside Sydney's office. Always.

'Is he okay?' asked Sydney, reading the inkling of concern in Karen's wide blue eyes.

'I'm not sure,' replied Karen slowly. 'Somebody called. He didn't seem very pleased with them. He was mumbling something about stags and macho posturing and, whoever it was I'm pretty sure he swore at them!'

Sydney furrowed her brow. 'That doesn't sound like Nigel…'

'No,' said Karen, shaking her head. 'He obviously didn't want me to hear their conversation. He asked me to transfer the call to his office and then sort of…fled. I didn't hear who it was on the end of the phone line. Have you any idea who it might be?'

Sydney narrowed her eyes. Few people rattled Nigel in such a way, except, of course, for…

She hooked off her glasses, tucked the manuscript in a pocket of her tailored, black jacket, and started towards the corridor. 'Yup, I've got a good idea who it was. Hold any more calls, Karen. This might take a little while!'

…………………………………..…….

Nigel's office was only a little way up the hall, but it had always seemed far away in the light of how closely they worked together - on everything in life. Nevertheless, the brass plaque on the door announced his name with such a proud formality - Dr Nigel Bailey – that even Sydney paused a moment, a subconscious instinct urging her to knock. She put her ear to the door, just to check he wasn't still on the phone, and heard nothing. She opened the door a crack and peaked in.

'Nigel?'

To an inexperienced eye, the office would have seemed empty, but Sydney knew it was not. She spied the top of Nigel's hair, just poking above one of the towering but neatly organised piles of books on the table. A few more sensitively paced steps into the room revealed Nigel was indeed sitting at his desk, his chin in his hands, and the top two buttons of his pale blue shirt hanging unkemptly open. His brow was furrowed beneath a fringe that drooped onto a sweat-beaded forehead and which matched his mood. Nigel was brooding.

Well aware of her presence, he slowly raised his eyes to meet hers. Syd knew that he was pleased to see her, but she wasn't going to get a cheery 'hello.' His lip curled slightly, and his gaze burned with a self-righteous but slightly petulant anger.

'I take it that was Preston?'

'Oh Hell! Sydney! I swear I'm going to…nnnng!'

The floodgates were opened and the torrent began to pour forthwith. Nigel leapt to his feet and began pacing around the room, weaving between the tottering stacks of books, speaking and talking at an alarming pace.

'There were many reasons I didn't ask Preston to be my Best Man. Many, MANY reasons. One of the MANY reasons was that I didn't want him to organise some sort of silly bachelor party, where he'd go to every effort to humiliate me publicly.' Nigel's fists clenched at his sides. 'Not that he's ever needed an excuse to humiliate me publicly, but I saw no need to encourage him…'

'Hey!' Sydney grabbed Nigel by the arm, spiralling him around to face her before he collided with a particularly precarious book mountain. 'Slow down! What's this all about? He can't make you do anything you don't want to do.'

No light of hope flickered in Nigel's pained, hazel eyes. 'He can… and he already has!'

'How?'

Nigel groaned and frustratedly pushed his fingers back through his hair. 'Preston found out that Joel wasn't going to be here until the day before the wedding.'

Joel was an archaeologist, and one of Nigel's closer friends from Oxford. Despite a friendship that had been maintained for the past decade mainly via e-mail and reading each other's journal papers, Joel had been picked carefully for the task of best man for the very reason that he couldn't fly in until the last minute. If one is excavating in central Peru, one cannot easily organise bachelor parties in New England.

'So bloody Preston took it upon his own back to contact the university on some official, British Museum pretence and get the e-mail of practically everybody I know. He's invited them to a 'Stag do,' here - tonight! It's all sorted. He flew in this morning and everyone is coming. I can't get out of it!'

'Oh,' said Sydney, wincing slightly. 'That does sound kind of awkward. But, hey, it might be fine. It won't just be Preston, and these people are supposed to be your friends. How bad can it….be…?'

Sydney trailed off, as Nigel shook his head adamantly, his features set deadly grave.

'You cannot even imagine how bad it can be. He's organised an 18-hole round of golf!

'Golf? Is that all?'

'No, you don't understand,' said Nigel morosely. 'Its pub golf. It's a London thing. You have to crawl around 18 pubs - or, bars, I guess, seeing as we're in the States - and drink a shot or a pint in each. There's bunkers – where you have to down a shot of tequila or something - and there's water hazards. They're so insalubrious that I don't even want to go into it! What's more, if you miss a 'hole,' you have to pay a forfeit…'

Sydney listened, her arms folded, decidedly unimpressed. 'It's all a little childish, isn't it?'

'Of course it is!' said Nigel frantically. 'It's pathetic! And because I'm the groom, I have to do the whole thing wearing oversized plus-fours, a tartan beret and carrying a big bag of golf clubs! Sydney - I'll never make it past the third hole! I'll make an idiot of myself, or I'll be sick! It will be awful!' Nigel stared at her, utterly distraught, as Sydney rubbed his arm affectionately, wondering why her comfort had so little impact.

'You don't have to do it,' she said matter-of-factly. 'Really. Call Preston and tell him you'd rather you all went out for a nice meal or something. I'll get Karen to book a table at that nice Italian place in town, and then I'll pick you up myself at 11 p.m. and take you home.'

'NO!' answered Nigel quickly, his fists clench in frustration as he jettisoned his last salvation. 'You can't help me with this. To back down will make my life utterly worthless!'

'Oh, come on Nigel. I thought you didn't care what Preston thought?'

Nigel shook his head again, equally adamantly. 'I don't, but now everybody knows, I have to do this. It's like…it's like…a code of honour.' He groaned hopelessly, and rubbed his fingers across his forehead. 'It's going to be a nightmare!'

Sydney blinked twice, detecting a mortal dread in his eyes as they dipped away from hers. Of course, she conjectured, she could physically prevent him going on this ill-fated mission. She could lock him here in the office or - the rather more attractive option - she could take him home and shut him in the bedroom. Nevertheless, something told her she was going to have to be subtle in her interventions this time, especially with Preston involved, and she needed time to think…

'Hey,' she said, placing two fingers under his chin and forcing his gaze to meet hers. 'You're marrying me in three days, Nigel Bailey! I want you to be waiting for me in that chapel in one piece, and in prime condition…'

She trailed off as the grim set expression on Nigel's face melted into an endearing earnestness: 'Preston, and every rival and bad guy we've ever faced, couldn't prevent me being there on time, Syd. You…know…that…'

The gap between them was obliterated by an irresistible and inevitable kiss; their arms entwined fluently around each other. The first rush of intimacy fading, Nigel's lips drifted away from hers, nuzzling the line of her jaw, then caressing the delicate skin of her throat, kindling a silent cry of desire, deep inside her. She ruffled her fingers through his hair, gripping him compulsively, sending liquid shivers of excitement down his spine.

Everything was so right now, so natural: after five years together, there was nothing they didn't know about each other – how they liked to kiss, to embrace, to dance and to make love. Yet each still possessed the joyful ability to surprise the other, to make life enduringly exciting, just as Nigel was surprising Sydney now. Sort of.

'Who's Preston?' he muttered breathlessly, raising his lips to hers again, the cares of the world vanquished by the sparkle in her deep brown orbs, the flash of her long, dark lashes.

'Nobody important,' smiled Sydney, pulling away a little, her arms still wrapped tight around his shoulders. 'We'll think of some way for you to 'save face' before the world, and maintain your image of masculine prowess, Nigel!' Her eyebrows wavered, playfully mocking him. 'Not that you need to prove anything to me…'

Nigel scowled, but not crossly. 'These things are important to men…sadly.' His eyes darted to what seemed to be an ancient piece of paper, poking out of the edge of her pocket. 'But was there anything else you wanted to see me about? I'd rather not think about the bloody 'Stag do' for now, anyway.'

'Actually, there was something.' Sydney whipped the paper from her pocket. 'What you know about James I and the Pilgrim Fathers?'

Nigel shrugged, eyeing the paper curiously. 'Everyone knows that the Pilgrim Fathers were a group of religious nonconformists - Puritans who were persecuted for refusing to conform to the doctrines and worship of the Church of England - who travelled here, to New England, to form their own colony, in 1620. James I was King at the time, and he certainly wasn't keen on them, but once they'd gone he did little to impede them, as far as I know…'

'What if I told you James I hired an assassin to sabotage their mission, a deadly killer known as…well, actually, he was known as The Stag! Coincidence, huh?'

Nigel nodded silently, not wishing to be reminded of anything to do with the party.

'Anyway, The Stag was a former lover of James' predecessor, Elizabeth I, who took out his victims like a deer hunter, with his deadly aim with a bow and arrow.' Sydney thrust the little manuscript into his hand. 'It was his tampering that made one of pilgrim's ships, The Speedwell, un-seaworthy, and then he navigated his own vessel across the Atlantic hot on the heels of The Mayflower, and disappeared into the forest to begin his murderous work.'

Nigel popped his glasses on his nose, and read the start of the crude verse out loud.

'So I sallied forth into the virgine territorye,

Tho' I knoweth not that the Lord guideth

the mudded minde of my sinne.

Sydney - what does it all mean? And who was the author, this Isaac Barnes?'

'Well,' began Sydney, finding a tiny inch of desk on which to perch. 'According to the woman at the Pilgrim Fathers Museum who sent me the newly found manuscripts, Isaac Barnes was born in Nottinghamshire, in 1600. She thinks he travelled on The Speedwell around the English coast to Southampton, and then onwards on The Mayflower with the Pilgrim Fathers to America, but his name never made it into the history books.'

'Did he do something wrong?'

'Nothing except being a young guy… and in love,' continued Sydney, enigmatically. 'According to a recently discovered account of his life, Isaac was in love with Mary Browning, the daughter of one of the most respected pilgrims. However, soon after they landed in New Plymouth, Mary's father was killed by a bow and arrow, and the purpose of The Stag - to pick off the settlers one by one, was revealed. Isaac swore to avenge her father's death, but he could not find the killers hiding place.'

'So what did he do?' asked Nigel, intrigued.

'Very little,' admitted Sydney. 'Apart from buying a large barrel of 'grog' from some Virginian traders, and drowning his sorrows! Unfortunately, he was discovered by some of the community's elders in his drunken state, and he fled into the forest, whereupon he found the assassin asleep and in a fit of alcohol-fuelled bravery…'

Sydney's sliced her hand across her neck, indicating the terrible deed.

Nigel's jaw dropped: 'he got lucky… I think. But how come this has never been recorded?'

'It was hardly a glorious deed,' said Sydney knowingly. 'Besides, I'm guessing that the last thing the settlers wanted was to induce the further wrath of the English monarchy with accusations of sabotage. The Stag was quietly buried on the spot where he was slain, apparently along with a commission signed and sealed by James himself, a crucial section of the Speedwell's rudder and the true prize he was awarded for his evil: a honking great diamond from a necklace of his former lover, Elizabeth I.'

Nigel whistled in awe. 'I suppose the Pilgrim Fathers must have truly been holy to have resisted taking that! But it would shed a whole new light on a pivotal moment in American history and be a great find the world's foremost Relic Hunter…'

Sydney beamed: 'It would also make a great exhibit in the Pilgrim Fathers Museum!'

'Okay,' said Nigel, enthusiastically embracing anything to take his mind off his troubles. 'What's our first move?'

'Well, that's the trouble,' said Syd, taking back the 17th century paper. 'Wanting to keep all quiet, Isaac, Mary, and a few other younger settlers left the group and their names were struck from history. They settled near the grave, but their homesteads didn't flourish. It was rumored that the ghostly apparition of an animal drove them away…'

'Let me guess,' interrupted Nigel with a lopsided cringe. 'The stag?'

'Uh huh,' nodded Sydney. 'So, there's no houses there now. All we have to go on for the whereabouts of the grave is the end of the poem:

where the roads to my tranquille hearths,

spread like the antlers of the horneth stagge.'

Nigel looked unfazed. 'It seems clear enough. I need to find some roads on an early map that resemble… the horns of a stag?'

'I guess so,' nodded Sydney. 'Thanks Nige. I'll try to help you later, but I've got some important phone calls that I need to make.'

'I'll begin now,' said Nigel gleefully. 'You know, Sydney, I've no objection if this takes all night….'

…………………………………………….

It was quarter past seven that evening when Sydney emerged from her office to find Nigel - happily reinstated at his TA desk - practically buried under the exhaustive selection of reproduction and original maps of New England in the 17th and 18th centuries, which he had swiftly located in the university archives. Karen had departed for an evening class in erotic pottery decoration; an airy silence now filled the darkening, college halls.

'Any luck?'

'No. Sorry Syd,' sighed Nigel, pulling off his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. 'I've poured over every inch and nothing remotely resembles the horns of a stag. I think we're going to have to dig deeper - maybe I should look through some of the early topographical descriptions of the region, before we go looking for anything.'

Sydney smiled wryly. 'Thinking of working late, then?'

'I thought very seriously about it,' sighed Nigel… 'But, sadly, I can't. A man's got to do what a man's…'

'… got to do!' She rolled her eyes. 'I don't know, you men and your silly macho codes! But I wasn't going to let you stay late anyway. It seems the Preston really has invited everyone – Dallas, Stewie, even Derek Lloyd, though nobody knows if he's going to show or not.'

'Really?' grimaced Nigel. 'I thought he said he'd been given access to the University e-mail database, not the FBI!'

'It sounds like he certainly plundered their 'most wanted' listings,' agreed Sydney. 'Now, come on. We'd better get going. Preston is picking you up from our place at 8 p.m.'

Nigel, who had been neatly arranging the maps for future perusal, froze. His suddenly tightening grip nearly crushed the fragile, ageing paperwork.

'You've been speaking to Preston?' he blurted. 'I do wish you hadn't done that. It'll only make things worse!'

'Don't you worry, I didn't say anything that would make you look bad,' drawled Sydney soothingly, prying the map from Nigel's destructive clasp with one hand, and resting in the other on his shoulder, easing him down into the chair. She began expertly massaging his shoulders, smoothing rigidly knotted muscles, thawing them like ice under her warm strokes.

Nigel exhaled slowly, shutting his eyes and leaning back against her inviting curves. He could never be anywhere but in heaven when she was so near him, even if he was bound for hell. 'So be it,' he thought, his mind comfortingly fuzzy. 'One night of humiliation with Preston and the boys is nothing, if this will be the rest of my life…'

Sydney glowed inwardly as he yielded to her touch, wondering if he suspected the sheer magnitude of the threats she had just levied against his brother. Preston Bailey, at heart, was a coward. She was quite sure he'd not to let anything bad happen to Nigel after the thunderous onslaught of 'quiet words' she had just had with him? Besides, she'd also exacted promises from every man invited who owed her a favour - and that was practically all of them - that they'd make sure that Nigel went easy on the vodka and heavy on the lemonade.

She leaned forward and whispered in his ear: 'you'll have a great time, Nigel. Everything will be just fine.'

'I am sure it will,' he muttered, reaching up and squeezing her fingers, his voice hardly ringing with confidence. 'But I'd much rather be home with you, or on a hunt. I'd even rather be on a wild goose-chase around the forests of New England, hunting the resting place of this seventeenth century assassin…'

'Not tonight Nigel,' said Sydney firmly, her breath lightly brushing his hair as she leaned down to kiss him. 'Tonight, you're The Stag…'

Thanks for reading. Please review and there will be more soon.