It was a rainy day in September when the Committee for the Appraisal of Archaeological Peril met for the second time at Buckingham Palace.

It was a very informal meeting, but then, their first official gathering, two months earlier, had been pretty casual, too. They were an ad hoc department, with no regalia, no buildings, no documents, and no particular qualifications for membership other than having been at the Battle of the Tower and the Queen's approval. There'd been some hints that this new gathering would resolve at least some of those deficiencies, but Natasha Romanov – who for the past few years had been calling herself Natalie Jones and saw no reason to stop now – hoped not too many. The last thing she wanted was any part of the pomp and bombast of British government.

The valet took her car at the end of the Mall, and two guards escorted her through the sea of tourists' umbrellas and opened the ornate gates for her. There, she was just in time to meet a second member of the Committee – Dr. Sam Wilson, their medical expert. He grinned and waved to her.

"Natalie!" he said. "How've you been?"

"Not bad!" Nat shook his hand and then both, with the guards, hurried across the sprawling pavement towards the palace steps. "I'm still working in the archaeology department at Dundee," she said, raising her voice as thunder rumbled overhead. "I've noticed my students are much more polite this year!" Her deeds at the Battle of the Tower, and her past as a Soviet Spy, had been international news that summer.

Once they reached the arch over the main door, the rain could no longer reach them. Nat took down the hood of her jacket, and Sam pulled his knitted hat off.

"What are you up to?" she asked, as the doormen let them inside.

"I'm working at the Raptor Rescue near Eccleshall," Sam replied.

"Good for you." Nat nodded. "Do the birds complain?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," Sam said. "I thought people were whiny, but no – and the bigger the bird, the more of a baby they are. There was this golden eagle, we named her Duchess, who swore up and down that she was dying when all she had was an infected talon. I told her, your dinosaur ancestors would be ashamed of you. We amputated her toe and gave her some antibiotics, and she's back in the wild now."

"That sounds perfect for you," Nat said, smiling warmly as she gave her wet jacket to a butler. Natasha herself would be the first to admit that her sense of empathy was badly stunted, but even to her there was something heartwarming about Sam not only getting to talk to birds, like Sir Sigurd in his favourite fairy tale, but finding a useful application for it.

The butler took their jackets away, and another man in a uniform entered the plush red-carpeted foyer. "Sir Samuel? Dame Natalie?" he asked, startling both of them – they were, each in their own professions, more used to being addressed as 'Doctor'. "Her Majesty is waiting for you. If you would come with me, please."

They followed him up a flight of stairs with an ornate, scrolling gilded railing, and down a hallway lined with mirrors and elaborate candelabras. Halfway to the end of this, outside a set of carved wooden doors, three more members of the Committee were waiting.

Theses were good friends as far as Natasha and Sam were concerned, and there were more handshakes and even some hugs as everybody exchanged greetings. Detective Inspector Sharon Carter was still working for the police in Inverness. Sir Stephen of Rogsey sent most of his time there, too, in order to be close to her while he took online courses to catch up on the science and history he'd missed while being turned to stone for a thousand years. The third person with them was a man in his sixties, short and a little overweight, with blue eyes and shaggy graying hair. He smiled and held out his arms to Natasha.

"Hi, Ginger Snap!" he said.

"Hi, uh, Dad," Nat replied, and then internally slapped herself for letting it come out in a stammer. Normally she was a better actress than that, but somehow when it was this personal she slipped up. If Allen Jones had noticed, however, he didn't say anything – he just gave her a hug, holding her tightly and lifting her slightly off her feet.

"Sorry I haven't been emailing," said Nat. "It's been very busy since the school year started." A convenient excuse.

"I bet it has," Allen replied, setting her down again. "I hear you're giving a talk on the Grail legend at Yale next year."

"Yeah. Apparently I'm an expert on it now or something." Nat shrugged. The real Holy Grail had turned out to be very different from the stories. "I still need to figure out what I'm going to say. I'll probably do all the research and throw something together the night before. How's Blackpool?" Allen was working there as an electrician.

"Damp," he said, "but it's nice to be back to work. Retirement was getting boring."

Sam looked around at everybody gathered – someone was missing. "Where's Francis?" he asked.

The sixth member of the Committee was Mr. Clinton Francis from Barton-in-Fabis in Nottinghamshire, a man who'd briefly believed himself to be Robin Hood. The delusion hadn't lasted long, but when Francis got his memory back he'd been able to retain the legendary outlaw's skill at archery.

"He texted," said Sharon. "He missed the train he was supposed to take and had to get a cab. He'll be here, just late."

"That sounds about right for him," Nat said.

"Oh, guess what?" Sharon looped her arm through Sir Stephen's and smiled proudly. "Steve got a job!"

"Good for him!" said Allen. "What's he doing?"

"There is a chapel in the city of Inverness with a very fine stained glass window depicting the martyrdom of Saint Andrew the Apostle," Sir Stephen explained. "The window was damaged by some godless vandals and since I am familiar with the painting of glass, the city has engaged me to repair it. I am to use as much of the original glass as possible, and paint the new pieces to match."

"That's great," said Nat. Before the Lady of the Lake had made him a warrior, Sir Stephen had wanted to be a painter. Restoring medieval windows was ideal, and would keep the restless man from getting bored.

The carved doors opened, and two security men in elegantly tailored suits stepped out to check everybody's identification one last time. Once they were satisfied that everything was in order, the taller one showed them into the room. "Right this way," he said. "Her Majesty the Queen and his Grace the Earl of Hamcester are inside."

Beyond the door was an immense drawing room with turquoise rugs and gilded furniture. The walls were hung with portraits of people in wigs and fancy coats, many of them larger than life-sized. General Fury, the recently-created Earl of Hamcester, was waiting just inside, and greeted them with a smile. Fury was the head of the CAAP, although he hadn't yet had the opportunity to do anything in that capacity and appeared to have hoped he never would. He had also made it known that he hated the idea of having a title, which was perhaps why he was dressed in his military uniform, with an eyepatch.

"What happened to the glass eye?" asked Sam.

"My grandkids like the patch better," Fury replied. "They say it makes me look like a pirate. I figure the novelty will wear off and they'll miss me popping the glass eye out and back in again."

"Down here!" called a voice from the far end of the room.

There, on an elaborately carved and brocaded Louis the Fifteenth sofa with man embroidered cushions, was the Queen of England. It was only ten in the morning, but she already had a drink in her hand, and was watching as a woman knelt on the carpet giving a pedicure to one of her Majesty's pet corgis. The Queen was dressed in a shade of fuchsia that clashed violently with the turquoise carpeting, and made it difficult to look directly at her.

"Nice to see you all looking well," said the Queen as they gathered around her – standing, since even knights and dames didn't sit in the presence of the monarch without permission. "Sir Stephen, you're looking as offensively attractive as ever. Where's the sixth guy?"

"He missed the train, your Majesty," said Sam. "He's on his way."

The Queen nodded and tossed back her drink, then held out the glass for another servant to refill. "Well, I've a lot to do today. I'm opening a women's centre in Vauxhall at lunchtime, and then I'm heading up to Suffolk to look for a stud."

There was a pause. Nobody dared say anything.

"For my racing stables," the Queen finished, disappointed. "So let's get down to business. I've got a surprise for you! Stop looming over me like bloody Stonehenge, and I'll show you."

The present members of the CAAP thanked her and arranged themselves on the sofas and ottomans around her. The corgi regarded them with suspicious eyes.

"First of all," the Queen said, "we have these. Michaels, you're up."

One of the men in suits – evidently Mr. Michaels, or perhaps Agent Michaels – stepped forward and handed out leather-bound booklets the size of passports. The black covers were undecorated, but when Natasha opened hers she found a photograph of herself, with her name and an identification number, on one side. On the other was a gold badge with a stylized depiction of the White Tower in front of the image of Sir Stephen's magical shield, with heraldic supporters on either side. Instead of the traditional British lion and unicorn, these were a gorilla and a saber-toothed tiger, two of the sculptures that had come to life in the castle grounds. The whole thing was topped by a horseshoe wreathed in ivy, and at the bottom was a banner that said Committee for the Appraisal of Archaeological Peril.

"The College of Heralds finally came up with something I didn't hate," the Queen said, "so we are pleased to present you with your badges. Museums and archaeological sites across the country and our remaining overseas territories have instructions to let you in if you've got one of these. Promise me you won't use them to rob anybody."

"I'll give Mr. Francis his, if and when he shows up," said Natasha, taking Clint's badge as well. She looked over at Allen, who was smiling and shaking his head with his own badge in his hands. He'd never imagined he'd have anything like it.

"Thank you, your Majesty," said Fury formally. He tucked his badge into his breast pocket.

"Second," the Queen went on, "we've got your first proper assignment."

That made everyone look up. Exactly what the CAAP was supposed to do was a little uncertain. The Holy Grail and Kracness Circle had been some very perilous archaeology indeed, but nobody was sure what else might fall under their jurisdiction.

"As you may have read in the news," said the Queen, "the Victoria and Albert is giving the sarcophagus and mummy of Princess what's-her-name…"

"Sitamun, your Majesty," said Agent Michaels.

"Yes, her. They're giving her back to Egypt as some sort of gesture of reconciliation or something, although as I understand it, it was the French who stole the damned thing. It's being put on a train next month to go to Cairo, where a Dr. Hawass will take charge of moving it to their museum. The folks in charge are a bit worried about the whole affair and have requested that you go along."

"In case the mummy comes to life?" Sharon asked cautiously.

"Seems so." The Queen shrugged. "It's a mummy, after all. There's probably six different curses on the musty old bitch and they're taking no chances."

Nat looked around at the others, curious what they thought. Babysitting a corpse wasn't exactly the sort of thing they'd had in mind when they'd agreed to be part of this organization. On the other hand, it sounded far less eventful than their last engagement, and nobody appeared to have any objections.

"So we just drop the mummy off in Cairo and then we come home?" she asked.

"You can sightsee a bit. I won't stop you," said the Queen. "But that's all the museum folks want, is you tagging along just in case."

"We can do that," Sharon decided.

"Absolutely," Natasha agreed.

"I always wanted to see the pyramids," said Allen.

"Wonderful." The Queen smiled. "I'll let them know, and they – I don't know, it's probably one of the MI's that's handling it, but don't ask me which one – can give you the itinerary. Now, does anybody want a drink before I run off?"

The group turned down alcohol, since it was still early in the morning, but they did allow the butler to serve them tea and coffee. The Queen puttered off with her corgi, its nails now painted to match its mistress' dress, trotting behind her, but Fury stayed a bit to chat.

About ten minutes after her Majesty had left, Clint Francis arrived. He was soaking wet and holding a Starbucks cup in one hand, and panting as he was escorted in by two guards who were jogging to keep up with him.

"Hi!" he said cheerfully. "What did I miss?"

Natasha grinned. "Everything."

"Figures," he said, sitting down on the sofa without a care for his own wet clothing or the very expensive fabric. "Who wants to fill me in?"

She gave him his badge, which delighted him, and Sharon explained about their date with the mummy. Clint thought it sounded like a ridiculous thing to worry about but agreed to tag along and then the group decided they should take this opportunity to have lunch and spend a little time together. Natasha worried there was no way six people would be able to agree on a restaurant, but Clint's suggestion quickly carried the day.

"How about one of the Asian places in Whitechapel?" he suggested.

"I could go for that," Sharon said.

"It's not my own favourite," Clint added, "but I asked Laura if she wanted me to bring her anything back from London, and she asked for some real curry spices from Brick Lane Market. The stuff you buy in bags from Tesco is no good at all."

Allen grinned. "Well, if your pregnant wife wants curry, we'd better get her some!" His memories weren't real, and he knew that, but Natasha also knew that they seemed real to him. It made her wonder what he remembered his wife Kathy craving when she was carrying their daughter.

So with their cars safely parked in the palace garages, they took the tube to Brick Lane and ended up at City Spice, a well-lit Bangladeshi restaurant with red and white walls. It smelled wonderfully of ginger and onions, and they sat down at a big round table to a meal of kebabs, naan bread, and vegetable bhaji.

"How are your studies going?" Allen asked Sir Stephen.

"Slowly," Sir Stephen replied with a sigh. "History has always interested me and I'm having no trouble with that, but the mathematics a person is expected to know, that's simply absurd! When will I ever need to calculate the hypotenuse of a triangle?"

"Probably never," said Sam. "I don't think I've done it since undergrad."

At the same time as this conversation was happening, Natasha was talking to Clint. "Do you know yet if the baby's a boy or a girl?" she asked him.

"Hmm?" he asked, mouth full of naan. Clint was partially deaf, especially on the left, and if he wasn't looking at the speaker he often missed what had been said, even if he were wearing his hearing aids.

"The baby," Nat repeated, a little louder. "Boy or girl?"

"Oh!" He chewed and swallowed. "It's a boy! A girl we were going to call Natalie, so this one's gonna be Nathaniel."

That was so unexpected that it actually took Nat a moment to realize what was surprising about it, and then a chill ran over her. "You're naming him after me?" she asked, astonished. Nobody had ever done such a thing for her. She'd never even dreamed that anyone would want to. It was the sort of honour Natasha Romanov simply didn't deserve.

Allen had overheard, and he was delighted. "Congratulations!" he said.

"You were the one lying there grabbing at the Grail and shouting that we were all going to be okay," Clint explained. "If anything got my memory back outside of me just wanting it really badly, that was it."

"Well, thank you," said Natasha uncomfortably. She felt like she ought to say something else, but couldn't come up with anything. What she wanted was to protest that she didn't deserve that, that this unborn child deserved better than to be saddled with the name of someone who'd done far more harm in the world than good. That was no way to accept a compliment, though, so she just took a big bite of lamb off her kebab so she wouldn't have to speak.

"Are you two planning to have kids?" Clint asked, pointing from Sharon to Sir Stephen and then at Sharon again.

The two of them looked at each other, and Sir Stephen turned a bit red while Sharon laughed.

"We're not yet married!" Sir Stephen protested.

"That doesn't matter to some people," Clint pointed out.

"I know, marriage is not so sacred as it once was," said Sir Stephen, "but I will hold it so."

"He just doesn't want to have to confess it to the priest every single week," Sharon teased. "Anyway, I don't know if I want to start a family before I make Chief Inspector. When I was a girl everybody was always telling me I'd have babies someday, but nobody ever told me I'd be a detective."

"She does enjoy doing the opposite of what people say," Sir Stephen said affectionately. "Even myself."

"Especially yourself." Sharon poked him in the nose. "Natalie," she added, "I wanted to ask earlier, but did the Egyptians actually put curses on their tombs? Or is that just a legend?"

Nat was still chewing, but she was far happier to talk about tomb curses than baby names. She washed her mouthful down with a drink of water and said, "not really. At least, not any worse than Shakespeare's."

"Shakespeare's tomb has a curse?" Allen was startled.

"It sure does," she said, and recited: "good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare, to digg the dust encloased heare. Blese be ye man yt spares thes stones, and curst be he yt moves my bones."

"Does it work?" asked Allen.

"I don't know. Nobody's ever dug him up to check," said Nat. "I think the Egyptians probably wrote some similar things on their tombs, but I'm a medievalist, not an Egyptologist. I know there were a couple of accidents that happened to Howard Carter's people when they opened the tomb of King Tut, but archaeology was dangerous back then and they weren't very careful. Carter himself died in his own bed at the age of sixty-five, so I doubt there was anything to it.

"So the mummy's not likely to get up and start breaking necks," said Sam.

Natasha shrugged. She wanted to say no, it wouldn't, and that she didn't believe in such things. Perpetrating mummy curse stories made Egypt sound like a fairytale kingdom instead of a perfectly ordinary country with an impressive past and some very serious modern problems. Yet after the Battle of the Tower, when the world had found itself confronted with the Holy Grail, the Loch Ness Monster, and a variety of other mythology come to life… she no longer felt qualified to say what was real and what was not. She doubted anybody was.

So she settled for making a joke of it. "I certainly hope not," she snorted.

"If it does, how are we to stop it?" Sir Stephen mused. "We found two witches to help us shake the goblin Zola. How does one break a mummy's curse?"

Nat still wasn't sure the two women in the New Age shop in Inverness counted as 'witches'. "I imagine a flamethrower would do the trick," she said.

Allen laughed, then stopped himself, not sure if she were joking or not.

A waiter stopped by to ask them if they were enjoying the meal. They assured him it was great, and Clint took the opportunity to ask about the best place to buy spices. The waiter started to recommend some brands, but then Clint mentioned it was for his pregnant wife. Hearing that, the man pulled a page off his order pad and wrote the name and address of a shopkeeper on it.

"That's where I went for mandaputtu when my wife was expecting our daughter," he said, handing the page to Clint.

"Thanks," said Clint. "Much appreciated."

Clint was the First to bid the others namaste and leave the table, hoping to get his shopping done before catching the train home. The others drifted away one by one, until there were only two left. One was Natasha, munching on the last of the bhaji – she'd been raised in a world where food could be snatched away at a moment's notice, and hated to leave anything on her plate. The other was Allen Jones, who had ordered a beer and was drinking it slowly so he'd still be able to drive home.

"So what's been keeping you busy?" he asked Nat.

She winced. "Oh, the usual stuff," she said, as if everything were totally normal. "I'm teaching two classes this term, and I'm working on a paper about how King William had to alter the original plans for the Tower to get the Grail in there. I'm not dating or anything, and I'm not doing field work, so I doubt it's anything you'd be interested in." Did he think her silence meant she was hiding something? Natasha hoped not, because she really didn't. The reason she didn't answer his email was because she didn't think she had much to say.

"I am interested, though," Allen said. "It doesn't have to be anything world-shaking. All I do when I email is tell stories from work and things like that. It just like to hear from you."

Nat shrugged again. "Do you? Or do you want to hear what your daughter would have said?"

"No. I want to hear from you," said Allen. "I know you're not the daughter I remember. I want to know who you are." He wasn't upset at all, just gently encouraging, and his smile seemed genuine enough.

That was the problem, Natasha thought. She wasn't used to letting people get to know her. She'd been trained to keep herself bottled up, to never get close to people, lest they compromise her dedication to the task at hand. When she did communicate, it was essential information only. That was one thing her students had remarked on repeatedly when they did those professor evaluation surveys: she was very focused, and sometimes had to be asked to slow down and give more detail. Nat wanted to treat Allen like her father, but it was hard.

"I don't do it on purpose," she said. "I just… I don't know how to do that." Even being as honest as admitting that was difficult.

"Then you should practice," he said. "If you feel like you need something to talk about, why don't you tell me about your life? Where you grew up, how you ended up here?"

He was trying to help, but that was the worst thing he could ask to hear. "You wouldn't want to know," she said. "I told you, it's not a nice story."

What Natasha would have liked, really, was to learn what he thought her life had been like. What memories did he have of her as a child, or of his wife? These things hadn't really happened, but she was curious what forms they might take in his memory. She'd never asked, though, and she was determined never to do so no matter how tempting it might be. Whatever he told her would be a lie. Her truth would only hurt him, but his lies would make her miserable thinking of a life she could have had. Natasha had had enough of lies.

"You said an ugly truth is better than a beautiful lie," Allen reminded her.

She had said that, and she still believed it, but… "sometimes it might be better to have neither."

"Then what are we supposed to talk about?" Allen asked.

"I don't think we have to talk at all," said Nat. "Families don't always have to talk to each other. We could do something together instead." That seemed much easier, much better for not scaring anybody off or having to lie to anyone. "Why don't we go to the Victoria and Albert Museum? I doubt we'll get to look at the mummy while it's being shipped, so let's go see it while it's still there." That seemed reasonable. That seemed like something a father and a daughter could do together without having to talk to each other.

Allen didn't look happy with that plan, but he nodded. "All right, let me finish my drink."

As they left the restaurant a few minutes later, Natasha decided she owed Allen an apology. "I'm sorry, Dad," she said. It still didn't feel right calling him that, but she was working on it, trying to force it to be natural. "I'm not used to this. I'm trying, I promise."

"I believe you, Ginger Snap," Allen said gently. "You take all the time you need."

He meant it, too… which made Natasha wonder if that, like having a child named after her, was something she simply did not deserve.