Title: History Lesson

Disclaimer: I own no rights, I make no profit.

Chapter 9 – The Universe is Rarely So Lazy

Holmes flagged a taxi with his usual success and to my surprise gave Baker Street as the address. I admit I was a bit confused. There was the furniture store/office moving business angle as well as the mention of the weapon's experts which I has supposed would be our next step, especially the latter option, given Holmes' pronouncement upon leaving the car park. Sherlock didn't say anything upon alighting and just plopped himself wordlessly into his chair upon entering the flat. I knew that indicated he was ruminating on something. Sure enough a minute or so later the hands came up entwined, index fingers extended to rest lightly on his lips with his chin propped on his thumbs.

I assessed the situation. He hadn't removed his coat although he had taken off his gloves. His body was tense in the chair, shoulders stiff leaning slightly forward. His lips twitched once, twice, three times before subsiding. I stayed put. This was Sherlock's planning mode and I knew either one or both of us would be off shortly to chase down whatever tidbit of information he had decided to focus on. It didn't take long but I didn't hear the huffy exhale which normally signified the end of the chain of whatever he was thinking. It was a clear signal to me that more data was necessary and it would be up to me to obtain at least some of it.

Sherlock dropped his hands, looked over at me and said, "Intuition," in the same derisive tone of voice that he often used for the word sentiment.

"For us mere mortals," I replied, "hunches and intuition are the side effect of our subconscious mind noting patterns."

"One of the functions of my mind palace is to allow me to easily identify patterns in the data and then integrate it with other pieces of relevant information. The system works well except when the information I'm attempting to access does not have many connections to other concepts or ideas." Sherlock grimaced, "In such cases I'm left with the distinct impression that I have missed something that I already know."

I had to ask, "Are you sure you didn't delete it?"

"In that case I would not register that a connection was missing." He thought for a moment, "It's probably stored with all the other pieces of useful but not easily integrated information."

The image this brought to my mind made me smile, "So you've lost whatever piece of information you need in your mental equivalent of the junk drawer?"

Sherlock snorted, "More like a junk room and my intuition tells me I don't have time to go and sort through it all."

"So what do we do if you don't think you have time for an extended mind palace session?"

"You follow up with the weapon's master. Get names if possible of locals skilled enough to pull off that fight in the warehouse. The V&A's catalog entry for the sword is," Sherlock shuffled through a pile of paper on the coffee table and handed me a printout, "here. If we are very lucky one of your contacts might spot something interesting about this particular weapon that would make it unique enough to be worth stealing. Even a rumor or a legend might be helpful in determining why it was taken. At the worst we'll have another group of people who can alert us if it surfaces."

"And you will be?"

"Attempting to find the professor," Sherlock grabbed his laptop. "While the Yard will most likely have something by the end of the week I would prefer to have his identity well before then."

I stood, "I'd best be off then." I said as I shrugged into my jacket again and headed for the door.

Sherlock didn't even acknowledge my remark.

**SH/JW SH/JW WSSH/JHW SH/JW SH/JW**

Four hours, three interviews, two pints, and one demonstration later, but not in that particular order, found me walking back into Baker Street with a list of five names. I could hear Sherlock playing the violin. It sounded melodic and contemplative. His search had been successful I concluded.

I made my way up the seventeen steps to the flat avoiding on habit the one that creaked and slipped into the flat. Living with Sherlock had definitely refined my knowledge of music. I could tell from the structure of the piece that he had a bit more to go. I sat down and gave myself over to listening.

After the last note died away Sherlock looked at me and simply said "Requiem for a Dream; Mansell" before setting down the violin and loosening the bow.

"That's relatively recent?"

"Movie of the same name released in 2000," he said as he worked to put the instrument away in its case.

I was always surprised by the breadth of what Sherlock would play. While he tended to rely heavily on the classical his virtuosity included folk songs, wildly avant-garde composers, rock bands and even a video game theme or two. It therefore did not surprise me that a movie soundtrack would be in and amongst his repertoire.

Given the name of the piece and its somber tone I took a wild guess, "You identified the professor?"

"Bruce Levonson, Professor of Modern History, Oxford. I already texted Lestrade and my brother."

"And?" I knew that wouldn't be all of it.

"Age 73. Retired from the diplomatic service at age 65 but back on the payroll part time as of five years ago with a substantially increased security clearance."

I asked the obvious question, "Why?"

"Mycroft e-mailed the official file. Allegedly he was reviewing fiction produced by current and prior Home Office employees prior to publication to make sure the Official Secrets Act had not been violated."

Once again the question was clear, "Allegedly?"

"There are enough anomalies in his employment agreement to allow him access to much more that what would be needed to perform pre-publication review. No, he was doing something else as well."

"Any ideas?"

"Actually yes," Sherlock cocked his head at me. "From time to time various agencies write classified histories of certain events, operations or the highlights and failures of a particular era or the tenure of a government official. They are mostly used for training purposes. Given the nature of the vetting process, the level of clearance and those anomalies, Professor Levonson was most likely researching and writing one of those histories." He grimaced and added, "I'm having Mycroft confirm. I'm sure there is a paper file hidden in some classified cabinet that will show exactly what he was doing."

I was a bit surprised at the lack of snide comments from Sherlock when he mentioned Mycroft. While the brother's relationship had been improving over time it was still punctuated by what I characterized as obnoxious sibling jibes. I'd often wondered if it had started as some sort of a game where they kept track of when they one upped the other and to what degree. Maybe there was even a point system. Keeping an official score would definitely be in character for the two of them. I made a mental note to ask Q about it.

I decided to focus on the other piece of information Sherlock had imparted, "You are telling me that the Home Office has part-time Historians writing training scenarios?"

Sherlock's head snapped around, "The Historian," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"Mycroft's top secret protocol."

I remembered.

"The one that said he was supposed to take precautions and notify The Historian?"

"Exactly."

"But how do we know if this Levonson guy is The Historian referred to in the protocol?" I asked, "There could be dozens of these folks scattered throughout the government. Heck, for all we know researching and recording certain events for posterity could be a single line item on some low level functionary's job description."

"Another task for Mycroft's people," Sherlock grabbed his phone and started texting.

I decided that tea was in order so I went and made some. By the time I got back Sherlock had put his phone down on the table presumably after a lengthy exchange of texts.

"Where did you end up beside the Crown and Garter?" He asked as I handed him a mug of tea.

Knowing Sherlock I immediately looked down at my shoes. Sure enough there was a bit of something on the inside of one of my trainers. Well that splotch of mud had probably narrowed down the area of London for him and my movements to make tea, my breath or both would have told him that I'd been drinking but I still couldn't fathom how he'd managed to get the name of the pub. I sat down and looked at him quizzically.

"I looked at your e-mail. The Crown and Garter is near the dojo owned by one of the people your friend recommended you talk to. It's the farthest away and all the others potential contacts were physically in between here and there. You generally avoid backtracking..." he trailed off looking at me. Whatever he saw in my face must have reassured him because he continued, "The mud was helpful as was the distinctive smell of Weiss bier."

"Amazing!"

Despite the fact that he'd determined where I was going from my e-mails with Sensi Brian it was still impressive that he knew not only what and where I'd been drinking all based on some mud and the dojo's general location. Although I did have to wonder how he knew that the Crown and Garter was the only establishment serving German wheat beer within easy walking distance of the dojo. It seemed like something that would be deleted as soon as he acquired the information.

Something of my train of thought must have shown on my face because Sherlock suddenly looked away as if embarrassed and muttered, "You like Weiss bier."

Oh. I decided to ignore that comment and the implications in favor of giving Sherlock a precis of what I'd found out.

"Well," I figured I'd better start at the beginning, "I started calling around when I left and the first one who was available to talk to me was Mr. Reyes."

"The reenactment enthusiast," Sherlock stated proving that he had indeed read and added the information from the e-mail exchanges into his ever burgeoning case dataset.

"Yep." I popped the "p" in an imitation of Sherlock's habit and got an amused snort in return for my impression.

"He's rather well known in the historical reenactment community for his sword work but his real passion is forging methods," I continued. "He was marginally familiar the weapons primarily due to the dagger."

"Hmm," Sherlock now had his eyes closed as he sometimes did when acquiring information but he made a little go on motion with his fingers.

"The sword is apparently completely average for its era of forging but the dagger is based on some rather famous style from the Middle East."

When I'd asked for more information, Jason Reyes had devolved into some rather technical details about early medieval forging techniques and steel composition. I had dutifully written it all down for Sherlock so I pulled out my notes and read them.

The gist of the matter was as follows: There were some rare weapons from the period of our missing pieces which were of a unique composition and construction which made them sharper and stronger than their contemporary counterparts. Those types of weapons tended to be imported as the techniques and steel were not generally available in Britannia however there did appear to be a few local artisans who made reasonable knock-offs. Mr. Reyes suspected that the dagger was one of these locally manufactured facsimiles. He also mentioned in passing that the hotbed of these knock-offs back in the day seemed to be in Berkshire and may have been somehow tied into the old Neolithic barrow called Weyland's Smithy.

From there we'd digressed into a discussion of sword myths and legends. The mythological Nordic smith Weyland has been credited in song and story with making everything from Beowulf's armor to magic rings and any number of hero's swords. Reyes had even heard one tale that credited him with making Excalibur of Arthurian legend. Reyes thought that most of the attributions were basically early marketing attempts to jack up the price of a particular weapon. His reasoning was that what self-respecting well off warrior wouldn't pay more for something forged by a legendary smith?

Since he'd brought it up I had, on a whim, asked him for his opinion on the whole Excalibur and the Lady of the Lake story. Reyes' take was rather prosaic. He figured that the story was mostly a tall tale loosely based on the exploits of some Welsh border warlord in post Roman Britain who happened to have a rather distinctive looking sword. Now there was no way some minor warlord from the back side of nowhere was going to win against the fighting forces who had managed to kick the Romans out of the British Isles, therefore there must have been some sort of ordained prophesy and of course a magic sword. All and all he put the original Arthurian legends down to an astute piece of propaganda to bolster the British against the Saxons. By the time you get to Mallory's romantic translation of the Vulgate Cycle in the early 1600's, Reyes was of the opinion that the story bore little reference to historical events and was almost completely fabricated.

I glossed over most of the myth and legend discussion for Sherlock by commenting that I'd spent some time cultivating the man just in case Sherlock wanted to talk to him later.

"Your interview with Mr. Edwards was also fruitful," Sherlock stated it as a fact.

"I actually walked in on a training fight," I replied. "It was rather interesting. From what I saw Tyler Edwards, Ethan Watts and Kieran Thompson could all have produced the results we saw in the warehouse."

"I hear an incipient but"

"After they finished and I started asking about the missing weapons Watts and Thompson had a rather extensive discussion about the in differences fighting with a sword/dagger combination of that vintage. Edwards has an extensive collection of training weapons so they unearthed a reasonable facsimile and tried it out. They only got up to half speed on some sort of training kata and even I could tell Watts was struggling. He said it was all about the weight. The Italian style rapiers they had been using when I came in were much thinner and lighter."

"A lighter blade would not have resulted in the wounds on the bodies," Sherlock once again stated his conclusion from the morgue as a fact.

"I don't think so," I agreed. "Rapiers are more of a stabbing weapon than a cutting one."

"Hmmm," Sherlock responded and I took that as my cue to continue.

"Watts and Thompson had to leave but Edwards invited me out for a pint."

"The Crown and Garter."

"Edwards has a sister that works swing shift in the secretarial pool at the Yard."

Sherlock raised his eyebrows at the apparent non sequitur.

"When you went to look at those records the other night she was on duty and put your presence together with what the Yard gossips have labeled Lestrade's Sword Massacre. She had mentioned it to her brother in law as a potential consulting opportunity if he was interested and they needed an expert once you'd solved the thing."

Sherlock sighed, "And then you show up asking about swords; any idiot could jump to the conclusion that I am looking for a murder weapon."

"He's definitely not an idiot. Edwards noted my interest in both training bouts and figured I was looking for names of people skilled enough with a sword and dagger to take on several men at once in a fight."

Sherlock cocked his head.

"He didn't even ask for confirmation. He just gave me a list of names off the top of his head. Watts and Thompson were the first two followed by Brendan Cox, David Powell, and Arthur Kirkland. He also mentioned both and Mr. Reyes and Andy Bailey in passing as long shots. Reyes being too old and Bailey had moved up into the midlands a couple of years ago following a job."

"Kirkland," Sherlock sat up in his chair. "Arthur Kirkland, I've seen that name recently."

He grabbed his computer.

It was only a moment before he said, "Hah! Arthur Kirkland is listed as Professor Levonson's great nephew. From the contact information provided as part of the security screening he's a low level diplomat attached to the Office of International Cultural Exchange."

"The what?"

Sherlock typed a bit, "They interface with arts groups, bands, ballet companies, and theater troops who aren't big enough to have their own contacts. It looks like they work mostly for outbound groups but occasionally for folks coming into the country from non EU or commonwealth nations." Sherlock handed me the computer.

It was a generic government website explaining in glowing terms this small obscure government office. Something caught my eye.

"Hey, did you catch the fact that there seems to be an international association of people who expedite cultural exchanges on behalf of their respective governments? If I were writing a spy novel I'd use something like this for secret backdoor communications or maybe even a cover for espionage operations."

"Too obvious," remarked Sherlock as he looked up from texting on his mobile. "But, since the universe is rarely so lazy I've asked Mycroft to forward me Mr. Kirkland's file."

Author's Note: Gentle Readers, the draft is complete and the final chapter count is 14 full chapters (15 if you count the prologue). Posting will therefore be a bit faster since it takes less time to edit than it does to draft.