Author; Kandie
Title; Written in Stone
Fandom; Relic Hunter
Rating; PG
Disclaimer; Any characters that you recognise belong to Firestone & Co. There may be Fire works in there as well. Anything else is either historically inaccurate or my own invention (sometimes that's the same thing!) Story remains the property of the Author.
Author's Note; Please excuse the wholesale blending of historical fact with fiction. Unless you're working for the History Channel, I think you should be allowed a little historical inexactitude. Having said that, I have tried to be as accurate as possible with dates and major events, just don't use any of it in a history essay!
______________________________________________________________________________
Rain. Heavy, bleak and unending.
Professor Sydney Fox was eternally grateful that she was inside the comparative warmth of the airport terminal. She tapped one gloved finger against the handle of her suitcase, resisted the urge to call up her assistant to berate him for not being on time, and stared out through the concourse window at the ever-growing line of disgruntled airline passengers, all waiting for taxis.
"Nigel," she muttered under her breath, "If you have forgotten that you invited me to this godforsaken place, I will personally remove your entrails and display them from the first cab that picks me up."
Ritual sacrifice was avoided as Sydney spied the diffident progress of her erstwhile companion. She had to grin as Nigel expertly circumnavigated a clutch of blue-rinsed matrons, only to be comprehensively defeated by an airport baggage-handler's trolley. By the time Sydney had picked up her luggage, Nigel had reached her, puffing slightly from having to run around in front of the slow moving cart.
"Syd, Welcome to sunny Ardonen!"
Sydney glanced pointedly towards the glass.
Nigel shrugged and took the suitcase from her. "Okay, not so sunny." He could not help noticing Sydney's dubious expression. "Syd, come on." he wheedled. "We've been in deserts, rainforests, quicksand?" Sydney still looked unconvinced. "What's a little unseasonable weather to us?"
At last Nigel got a response. "Difference is, Nigel, I was expecting the deserts and the rainforest." Sydney had the grace to look embarrassed as she continued, "If not the quicksand. Remind me again why we are here?"
Nigel's face lit up with an enthusiasm that neither the weather, nor Sydney's scepticism could dissipate. "The discovery of the Discoverer." he breathed.
"Nice." Sydney smiled. She shook her long hair. "Okay, Sherlock. You think you've found the ultimate relic. The "key to all wisdom", the "light within the dark"..."
Nigel ushered Sydney forward towards the revolving doors. "That's right." he said smugly, and stepped in. Sydney opened her mouth to retort, but Nigel was already through. Gritting her teeth, Sydney followed. Nigel was waiting for her under the protective shroud of the awning. Sydney was not about to give up.
"You think the Discoverer is here?"
"Yes."
"In Scotland?"
"Yes."
"In Ardonen?"
"Yes."
"In the rain?"
Nigel grinned, flourishing a telescopic umbrella which he shook into blossoming and held it over both of them in the dash to his rented car. "Yes, Syd. It's here!"
***
Two hours later it was a very deflated Nigel Bailey who passed a mug of coffee to the Professor. Sydney toed off her shoes, sank back into the plush chair and closed her eyes.
"I'm most awfully sorry, Sydney."
Sydney knew that tone all too well. She'd heard it in her mind countless times before. It was the sound of failure. But she'd never heard it from Nigel. When she'd been at her lowest ebb, whenever it had looked as if there was no escape, even when Nigel himself had been scared witless, still she'd never heard such defeat in his voice.
"Sorry for what?" Sydney spoke briskly, although she still clung to the comfort of the armchair.
"For all this." Nigel's arm swept the room, passing over the piles of open books, the stray pieces of paper, the maps pinned haphazardly to the walls. "You're right. The Discoverer does not exist. It's a pipe dream."
"I never said that." Sydney declared, struggling upright. "I said you should reconsider..."
"Reconsider its existence!"
"Reconsider its beginnings..."
Nigel looked at his friend. "Really?"
"Yes, really." Sydney took a fortifying gulp of her coffee. She picked up a pen and tossed it to Nigel. "Let's get some fresh paper on that thing," she gestured towards a listing flip-chart, "and go over what you've discovered."
Nigel hurriedly straightened the board and unearthed a fresh pad of paper while Sydney paged through a very dog-eared notebook. Sydney looked up to check that Nigel was ready and collected a nod.
"Okay, check me on this. You first got interested in the Discoverer when you were helping to catalogue some artefacts found on St Helen's Island." Sydney raised an eyebrow in enquiry.
Nigel nodded and wrote "Napoleon Boneparte" in the centre of the paper. As he spoke Sydney was relieved to hear some enthusiasm creeping back into his tone. "That's right. During some restoration work on St Bartholomew's Church on the island the workmen found a chest. When they opened it up all they found were some papers. They thought they were worthless, but luckily one of the priests intervened before they could throw it on the fire. When he started to translate the papers he found that they had been written by Napoleon Boneparte." Nigel tapped the name on the board.
"St Helen's was Napoleon's final prison, correct?"
"Correct. He died there in 1821, possibly poisoned, although it's never been conclusively proved."
"And it was this priest that wrote to you?"
"Yes. Father Mulcachy was the chaplain when I was at Oxford. We shared a mutual interest in history. He thought I might be interested in this new information."
"And when you went through the papers for yourself?"
"It was amazing, Syd! To be holding the paper that Napoleon himself had written on! I mean we've seen, touched countless ancient relics. But they don't give you a glimpse into the mind of the people that made them. Not the way these papers did anyway."
"And what did ol' Boney tell you, Nigel?"
Nigel pursed his lips in disapproval at Sydney's flippant tone, but he turned back to the board and wrote down a few more phrases, talking as he did so. "The papers were loose leaves. They weren't in any particular order and even what was written was very jumbled. They were obviously written in the last few months of Napoleon's life. He was talking about his Russian campaign in one sentence. The Battle of Waterloo in the next. I went through it all, Syd, and three things stood out." Nigel stepped back from the board with a flourish. "He said he had suffered the "Curse of the Discoverer, like so many before him." He said "in forty centuries the Giants kept their secrets of the resting place." And he said "no-one can have the power that I have sought and never found. The Discoverer will lie forever hidden." Fairly explicit wouldn't you say?"
"Are you kidding? "Jumbled" isn't the word for it!"
"Ha ha, Syd. Nevertheless, these references are the most recent references to the Discoverer." Nigel gestured around the room, "I've traced as much of its history as I can."
"Show me again." Sydney demanded.
Nigel shrugged and returned to the flip-chart. "Assuming that Napoleon had possession of the artefact, it begs the question - "Where did he find it?" Well, it took a while, but I think I can answer that. Napoleon was a foot soldier stationed at a garrison fortress called Mont Saint Pierre when the French Revolution broke out in 1789. Now, Mont Saint Pierre has quite a colourful history of its own. It was a Huguenot fortress until it was sacked by Louis XIV's army. The General in charge of the attack wrote in his diary that "this desolate rock has concealed riches beyond even the most ardent dream of avarice." He returned to Paris taking a gift for the King, "the like of which His Majesty assuredly has never seen. May he be generous in his praise." Well, Louis was generous..."
"Hang on, Nigel. You can remember all that, word for word?"
Nigel grinned, "It stays in the memory when you've read it a thousand times. As I was saying, Louis was generous, up to a point. He gave General Bovier the fortress of Mont Saint Pierre, but kept the gift for himself."
"And you think the gift was the Discoverer?"
"That's right." Nigel rummaged around in one of the piles of paper. "Here it is. This is a copy of a work order to Van Erikson's Goldsmiths, based in Paris. See the date? Three days after Bovier returned to Paris. See the seal? That's Louis XIV's personal seal. And look at the instructions - 'To fashion a golden crown with the wings of a swan and the dawn of the sun and to set a diamond in its centre to catch its rays.' Now look at this." Nigel passed over a textbook open at a portrait of Louis XIV.
It was a fairly typical painting for the time. In the background stood a solitary fortress on the top of a hill. In the foreground Louis was perched on his charger, the bodies of slain enemies being trampled under the hooves. Louis held his sword aloft in triumph. And on his head was a gleaming crown with swan's wings on either side, a halo of the sun's rays framing the King's head and a large diamond set in the centre reflecting the light. Nigel tapped the picture excitedly.
"See that? That's Mont Saint Pierre. Louis commissioned this painting in the aftermath of his victory over the Huguenots. And that is the crown he had made incorporating the Discoverer."
"That's supposition, Nigel." said Sydney with a warning note in her voice. "Besides, this is all a matter of public record. If you are right about this every relic hunter from here to Alaska would have picked up on it by now. And you still haven't explained how Napoleon got hold of it."
"Aha! But no other relic hunter had this!" Nigel brandished another piece of paper. "This is a copy of a letter written to the Duke of Burgandy from his cousin, the Marquis of Mont Saint Pierre. It was written in March of 1789. In it he tells the Duke that he had the honour of entertaining King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette at his home and that they have entrusted him with the protection of a fabulous crown. 'That which His Majesty's grandfather received from mine is now returned to me for safety. I pray that I am worthy of the trust His Majesty has placed in me.' So you see, the crown was returned to Mont Saint Pierre by Louis XVI. A month later the revolution broke out. The King and Queen were imprisoned and their possessions and palaces seized. But the crown was never found. It was never found because it was not in Paris, it was in Mont Saint Pierre. And who else was in Mont Saint Pierre when the revolution came. Your friend and mine, Napoleon Boneparte!"
"Mmn. Why couldn't you just tell me that before?"
"I did," said Nigel sounding hurt. "You didn't believe me."
"All right. I believe you now, okay? So, how did it get to Mont Saint Pierre in the first place?"
"That's the clever bit."
"THE clever bit?"
"Well, one of the clever bits."
***
Outside the hotel a television repair van stood parked under a street lamp. Inside the cargo space of the van the 'engineer' popped his spine and reached for his cigarettes. Not many repair men worked at this time of night, even fewer wore dress trousers with tailored leather jackets. And no legitimate repair man would eavesdrop on a conversation in a hotel room two storeys above him, much less record it. This one was.
Benjamin Troy lit his cigarette and sighed to himself. There was no doubt that Nigel Bailey was an exceptional researcher, tenacious and thorough, but boy, could the man talk! Troy listened closely as the conversation was piped through his earphones and snorted. Bailey was still explaining how he thought the diamond, crystal, whatever it was had reached France. Troy willed Bailey to get to the good stuff soon. He wanted to get the object as soon as possible, get it back to his employer, get paid a hefty sum of cash and spend the next four weeks soaking up the sun to make up for the damp weather he'd had to endure.
While he continued to listen to Sydney and Nigel, Troy paged through his own notes. He had broken into Bailey's hotel room in Paris and Rome to get the information. But why spend hours in dusty libraries when there was someone else to do the boring research? Troy much preferred letting others do the hard work and then swooping in on the goal. It was a more efficient use of his time. Troy matched up the data he had stolen with the conversation above. Yes, Emperor Constantine had sent a valuable object, something he called the 'light within the dark' along with a troupe of monks. The monks had founded a monastery which eventually became known as Mont Saint Pierre.
Troy grimaced a little. His own trip to Mont Saint Pierre had almost become a disaster. He'd lost Bailey in Paris after a mix-up with hotel bookings. Knowing that Nigel would head straight for Mont Saint Pierre Troy had hoped to catch up with him there. He did too, but only after a suspicious security guard had met with a tragic accident.
He continued to flick through the pages as the tapes continued to record. Bailey had managed to convince Sydney that the Discoverer had indeed been sent by Emperor Constantine to France. Now he was trying to convince her that the artefact had been seized by the Romans during the Battle of Mons Graupius and stored in the catacombs of Rome until Constantine unearthed it.
Troy shrugged to himself. Bailey's evidence was fairly compelling. No-one knew the exact location of the battle, but historians were sure that the Romans had advanced into 'Caledonia' where the legionaries faced the massed tribes of the Picts. The Picts were apparently defeated, but still, the Romans had had enough of Pictish warfare and retreated south. They even went so far as to build two massive walls dividing the country - to keep the Picts out and the spoils of war in?
"Stop, Nigel. You've convinced me." Troy sat up straighter in his chair. At last!
***
Sydney and Nigel stared at the flip-chart, now covered in Nigel's meticulous handwriting. Both rubbed their eyes tiredly.
"So, you think that the Discoverer was taken from the Picts by the Romans. You think the Emperor sent it away to stop it from falling into the hands of the barbarians. You think it was hidden by the monks and then the Huguenots until it was presented to Louis XIV who had it made into a crown. You think it was taken back to Mont Saint Pierre when it looked like trouble was brewing in Paris. And you think it was found by Napoleon Boneparte when he was just a lowly private in the army. Does that about sum it up?"
Nigel nodded and covered a yawn with his hand.
Sydney tracked the timeline, noting to herself that the Discoverer had been owned by some very powerful people all over Europe. Nigel had had quite a trek - Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Vienna, Prague... "Hey, wait a minute! Nigel, have you been to all these places?"
"Of course! It's not easy tracking these records down, Sydney. You know that."
"I do know that. Boy, I sure don't want to be in your shoes when you put your expenses claim in to the Bursar."
Nigel sniffed. "He'll be perfectly fine about it when we bring home the Discoverer."
"I hope you're right. Now spill it. Why are we here in Scotland?"
"Two reasons. One based on hard fact and one that's a bit, erm... fanciful."
"Fanciful first."
"One of the few pieces of evidence that we have about the Picts is from the journals of Tacitus. He mentions a stone so bright that it 'ate the sun'. He says that the Picts rallied to its call and rained death and destruction on all who opposed them. He also says that while the Picts had the stone, they were invincible and that they would always find their way home after victory."
"And?"
"Well, we're right in the middle of Pictish country. If the stone always finds its way home..."
"You're right, too fanciful. What's the reason based on hard fact?"
"In the last months of his life Napoleon suffered from a debilitating illness that no-one could identify or cure as it turned out. One of the last physicians to attend to him was a Doctor Archibald McDonald, native of Ardonen, who returned to his home after Boneparte's death and enjoyed a long, successful and rich life until he was killed in a bizarre coach accident during the spring of 1874.
"Bizarre accident?"
"The coach wheel was apparently struck by lightning on a clear sunny day. It dropped three hundred feet down a gorge. The coachman managed to jump clear, the good doctor wasn't so lucky."
"Yep, pretty bizarre. I doubt if this part of the world has had a clear sunny day in its entire history."
"Sydney." said Nigel reproachfully.
"Nevermind. Where do we start looking for something valuable? His grave? His house?"
"I've already checked his house. We're in it right now."
"The hotel?" Sydney looked around their surroundings with a new respect. "The Doctor certainly had money to burn."
"Like I said, long, successful and rich life. He was also Provost of the town at the time of his death and had commissioned the installation of a strongroom under the Burgh Halls."
***
Bingo! Troy stubbed out yet another cigarette hurriedly and patted his pockets for his keys.
"I like it, Nigel. I like it a lot."
"I thought you might, eventually. We've got an appointment with the Burgh curator in the morning. She's going to take us down to the town vaults."
"Excellent. Maybe this will turn out to be worthwhile after all."
Troy grinned as he shut off his recording equipment. "It will be for me," he whispered. "But not for you!"
***
Title; Written in Stone
Fandom; Relic Hunter
Rating; PG
Disclaimer; Any characters that you recognise belong to Firestone & Co. There may be Fire works in there as well. Anything else is either historically inaccurate or my own invention (sometimes that's the same thing!) Story remains the property of the Author.
Author's Note; Please excuse the wholesale blending of historical fact with fiction. Unless you're working for the History Channel, I think you should be allowed a little historical inexactitude. Having said that, I have tried to be as accurate as possible with dates and major events, just don't use any of it in a history essay!
______________________________________________________________________________
Rain. Heavy, bleak and unending.
Professor Sydney Fox was eternally grateful that she was inside the comparative warmth of the airport terminal. She tapped one gloved finger against the handle of her suitcase, resisted the urge to call up her assistant to berate him for not being on time, and stared out through the concourse window at the ever-growing line of disgruntled airline passengers, all waiting for taxis.
"Nigel," she muttered under her breath, "If you have forgotten that you invited me to this godforsaken place, I will personally remove your entrails and display them from the first cab that picks me up."
Ritual sacrifice was avoided as Sydney spied the diffident progress of her erstwhile companion. She had to grin as Nigel expertly circumnavigated a clutch of blue-rinsed matrons, only to be comprehensively defeated by an airport baggage-handler's trolley. By the time Sydney had picked up her luggage, Nigel had reached her, puffing slightly from having to run around in front of the slow moving cart.
"Syd, Welcome to sunny Ardonen!"
Sydney glanced pointedly towards the glass.
Nigel shrugged and took the suitcase from her. "Okay, not so sunny." He could not help noticing Sydney's dubious expression. "Syd, come on." he wheedled. "We've been in deserts, rainforests, quicksand?" Sydney still looked unconvinced. "What's a little unseasonable weather to us?"
At last Nigel got a response. "Difference is, Nigel, I was expecting the deserts and the rainforest." Sydney had the grace to look embarrassed as she continued, "If not the quicksand. Remind me again why we are here?"
Nigel's face lit up with an enthusiasm that neither the weather, nor Sydney's scepticism could dissipate. "The discovery of the Discoverer." he breathed.
"Nice." Sydney smiled. She shook her long hair. "Okay, Sherlock. You think you've found the ultimate relic. The "key to all wisdom", the "light within the dark"..."
Nigel ushered Sydney forward towards the revolving doors. "That's right." he said smugly, and stepped in. Sydney opened her mouth to retort, but Nigel was already through. Gritting her teeth, Sydney followed. Nigel was waiting for her under the protective shroud of the awning. Sydney was not about to give up.
"You think the Discoverer is here?"
"Yes."
"In Scotland?"
"Yes."
"In Ardonen?"
"Yes."
"In the rain?"
Nigel grinned, flourishing a telescopic umbrella which he shook into blossoming and held it over both of them in the dash to his rented car. "Yes, Syd. It's here!"
***
Two hours later it was a very deflated Nigel Bailey who passed a mug of coffee to the Professor. Sydney toed off her shoes, sank back into the plush chair and closed her eyes.
"I'm most awfully sorry, Sydney."
Sydney knew that tone all too well. She'd heard it in her mind countless times before. It was the sound of failure. But she'd never heard it from Nigel. When she'd been at her lowest ebb, whenever it had looked as if there was no escape, even when Nigel himself had been scared witless, still she'd never heard such defeat in his voice.
"Sorry for what?" Sydney spoke briskly, although she still clung to the comfort of the armchair.
"For all this." Nigel's arm swept the room, passing over the piles of open books, the stray pieces of paper, the maps pinned haphazardly to the walls. "You're right. The Discoverer does not exist. It's a pipe dream."
"I never said that." Sydney declared, struggling upright. "I said you should reconsider..."
"Reconsider its existence!"
"Reconsider its beginnings..."
Nigel looked at his friend. "Really?"
"Yes, really." Sydney took a fortifying gulp of her coffee. She picked up a pen and tossed it to Nigel. "Let's get some fresh paper on that thing," she gestured towards a listing flip-chart, "and go over what you've discovered."
Nigel hurriedly straightened the board and unearthed a fresh pad of paper while Sydney paged through a very dog-eared notebook. Sydney looked up to check that Nigel was ready and collected a nod.
"Okay, check me on this. You first got interested in the Discoverer when you were helping to catalogue some artefacts found on St Helen's Island." Sydney raised an eyebrow in enquiry.
Nigel nodded and wrote "Napoleon Boneparte" in the centre of the paper. As he spoke Sydney was relieved to hear some enthusiasm creeping back into his tone. "That's right. During some restoration work on St Bartholomew's Church on the island the workmen found a chest. When they opened it up all they found were some papers. They thought they were worthless, but luckily one of the priests intervened before they could throw it on the fire. When he started to translate the papers he found that they had been written by Napoleon Boneparte." Nigel tapped the name on the board.
"St Helen's was Napoleon's final prison, correct?"
"Correct. He died there in 1821, possibly poisoned, although it's never been conclusively proved."
"And it was this priest that wrote to you?"
"Yes. Father Mulcachy was the chaplain when I was at Oxford. We shared a mutual interest in history. He thought I might be interested in this new information."
"And when you went through the papers for yourself?"
"It was amazing, Syd! To be holding the paper that Napoleon himself had written on! I mean we've seen, touched countless ancient relics. But they don't give you a glimpse into the mind of the people that made them. Not the way these papers did anyway."
"And what did ol' Boney tell you, Nigel?"
Nigel pursed his lips in disapproval at Sydney's flippant tone, but he turned back to the board and wrote down a few more phrases, talking as he did so. "The papers were loose leaves. They weren't in any particular order and even what was written was very jumbled. They were obviously written in the last few months of Napoleon's life. He was talking about his Russian campaign in one sentence. The Battle of Waterloo in the next. I went through it all, Syd, and three things stood out." Nigel stepped back from the board with a flourish. "He said he had suffered the "Curse of the Discoverer, like so many before him." He said "in forty centuries the Giants kept their secrets of the resting place." And he said "no-one can have the power that I have sought and never found. The Discoverer will lie forever hidden." Fairly explicit wouldn't you say?"
"Are you kidding? "Jumbled" isn't the word for it!"
"Ha ha, Syd. Nevertheless, these references are the most recent references to the Discoverer." Nigel gestured around the room, "I've traced as much of its history as I can."
"Show me again." Sydney demanded.
Nigel shrugged and returned to the flip-chart. "Assuming that Napoleon had possession of the artefact, it begs the question - "Where did he find it?" Well, it took a while, but I think I can answer that. Napoleon was a foot soldier stationed at a garrison fortress called Mont Saint Pierre when the French Revolution broke out in 1789. Now, Mont Saint Pierre has quite a colourful history of its own. It was a Huguenot fortress until it was sacked by Louis XIV's army. The General in charge of the attack wrote in his diary that "this desolate rock has concealed riches beyond even the most ardent dream of avarice." He returned to Paris taking a gift for the King, "the like of which His Majesty assuredly has never seen. May he be generous in his praise." Well, Louis was generous..."
"Hang on, Nigel. You can remember all that, word for word?"
Nigel grinned, "It stays in the memory when you've read it a thousand times. As I was saying, Louis was generous, up to a point. He gave General Bovier the fortress of Mont Saint Pierre, but kept the gift for himself."
"And you think the gift was the Discoverer?"
"That's right." Nigel rummaged around in one of the piles of paper. "Here it is. This is a copy of a work order to Van Erikson's Goldsmiths, based in Paris. See the date? Three days after Bovier returned to Paris. See the seal? That's Louis XIV's personal seal. And look at the instructions - 'To fashion a golden crown with the wings of a swan and the dawn of the sun and to set a diamond in its centre to catch its rays.' Now look at this." Nigel passed over a textbook open at a portrait of Louis XIV.
It was a fairly typical painting for the time. In the background stood a solitary fortress on the top of a hill. In the foreground Louis was perched on his charger, the bodies of slain enemies being trampled under the hooves. Louis held his sword aloft in triumph. And on his head was a gleaming crown with swan's wings on either side, a halo of the sun's rays framing the King's head and a large diamond set in the centre reflecting the light. Nigel tapped the picture excitedly.
"See that? That's Mont Saint Pierre. Louis commissioned this painting in the aftermath of his victory over the Huguenots. And that is the crown he had made incorporating the Discoverer."
"That's supposition, Nigel." said Sydney with a warning note in her voice. "Besides, this is all a matter of public record. If you are right about this every relic hunter from here to Alaska would have picked up on it by now. And you still haven't explained how Napoleon got hold of it."
"Aha! But no other relic hunter had this!" Nigel brandished another piece of paper. "This is a copy of a letter written to the Duke of Burgandy from his cousin, the Marquis of Mont Saint Pierre. It was written in March of 1789. In it he tells the Duke that he had the honour of entertaining King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette at his home and that they have entrusted him with the protection of a fabulous crown. 'That which His Majesty's grandfather received from mine is now returned to me for safety. I pray that I am worthy of the trust His Majesty has placed in me.' So you see, the crown was returned to Mont Saint Pierre by Louis XVI. A month later the revolution broke out. The King and Queen were imprisoned and their possessions and palaces seized. But the crown was never found. It was never found because it was not in Paris, it was in Mont Saint Pierre. And who else was in Mont Saint Pierre when the revolution came. Your friend and mine, Napoleon Boneparte!"
"Mmn. Why couldn't you just tell me that before?"
"I did," said Nigel sounding hurt. "You didn't believe me."
"All right. I believe you now, okay? So, how did it get to Mont Saint Pierre in the first place?"
"That's the clever bit."
"THE clever bit?"
"Well, one of the clever bits."
***
Outside the hotel a television repair van stood parked under a street lamp. Inside the cargo space of the van the 'engineer' popped his spine and reached for his cigarettes. Not many repair men worked at this time of night, even fewer wore dress trousers with tailored leather jackets. And no legitimate repair man would eavesdrop on a conversation in a hotel room two storeys above him, much less record it. This one was.
Benjamin Troy lit his cigarette and sighed to himself. There was no doubt that Nigel Bailey was an exceptional researcher, tenacious and thorough, but boy, could the man talk! Troy listened closely as the conversation was piped through his earphones and snorted. Bailey was still explaining how he thought the diamond, crystal, whatever it was had reached France. Troy willed Bailey to get to the good stuff soon. He wanted to get the object as soon as possible, get it back to his employer, get paid a hefty sum of cash and spend the next four weeks soaking up the sun to make up for the damp weather he'd had to endure.
While he continued to listen to Sydney and Nigel, Troy paged through his own notes. He had broken into Bailey's hotel room in Paris and Rome to get the information. But why spend hours in dusty libraries when there was someone else to do the boring research? Troy much preferred letting others do the hard work and then swooping in on the goal. It was a more efficient use of his time. Troy matched up the data he had stolen with the conversation above. Yes, Emperor Constantine had sent a valuable object, something he called the 'light within the dark' along with a troupe of monks. The monks had founded a monastery which eventually became known as Mont Saint Pierre.
Troy grimaced a little. His own trip to Mont Saint Pierre had almost become a disaster. He'd lost Bailey in Paris after a mix-up with hotel bookings. Knowing that Nigel would head straight for Mont Saint Pierre Troy had hoped to catch up with him there. He did too, but only after a suspicious security guard had met with a tragic accident.
He continued to flick through the pages as the tapes continued to record. Bailey had managed to convince Sydney that the Discoverer had indeed been sent by Emperor Constantine to France. Now he was trying to convince her that the artefact had been seized by the Romans during the Battle of Mons Graupius and stored in the catacombs of Rome until Constantine unearthed it.
Troy shrugged to himself. Bailey's evidence was fairly compelling. No-one knew the exact location of the battle, but historians were sure that the Romans had advanced into 'Caledonia' where the legionaries faced the massed tribes of the Picts. The Picts were apparently defeated, but still, the Romans had had enough of Pictish warfare and retreated south. They even went so far as to build two massive walls dividing the country - to keep the Picts out and the spoils of war in?
"Stop, Nigel. You've convinced me." Troy sat up straighter in his chair. At last!
***
Sydney and Nigel stared at the flip-chart, now covered in Nigel's meticulous handwriting. Both rubbed their eyes tiredly.
"So, you think that the Discoverer was taken from the Picts by the Romans. You think the Emperor sent it away to stop it from falling into the hands of the barbarians. You think it was hidden by the monks and then the Huguenots until it was presented to Louis XIV who had it made into a crown. You think it was taken back to Mont Saint Pierre when it looked like trouble was brewing in Paris. And you think it was found by Napoleon Boneparte when he was just a lowly private in the army. Does that about sum it up?"
Nigel nodded and covered a yawn with his hand.
Sydney tracked the timeline, noting to herself that the Discoverer had been owned by some very powerful people all over Europe. Nigel had had quite a trek - Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Vienna, Prague... "Hey, wait a minute! Nigel, have you been to all these places?"
"Of course! It's not easy tracking these records down, Sydney. You know that."
"I do know that. Boy, I sure don't want to be in your shoes when you put your expenses claim in to the Bursar."
Nigel sniffed. "He'll be perfectly fine about it when we bring home the Discoverer."
"I hope you're right. Now spill it. Why are we here in Scotland?"
"Two reasons. One based on hard fact and one that's a bit, erm... fanciful."
"Fanciful first."
"One of the few pieces of evidence that we have about the Picts is from the journals of Tacitus. He mentions a stone so bright that it 'ate the sun'. He says that the Picts rallied to its call and rained death and destruction on all who opposed them. He also says that while the Picts had the stone, they were invincible and that they would always find their way home after victory."
"And?"
"Well, we're right in the middle of Pictish country. If the stone always finds its way home..."
"You're right, too fanciful. What's the reason based on hard fact?"
"In the last months of his life Napoleon suffered from a debilitating illness that no-one could identify or cure as it turned out. One of the last physicians to attend to him was a Doctor Archibald McDonald, native of Ardonen, who returned to his home after Boneparte's death and enjoyed a long, successful and rich life until he was killed in a bizarre coach accident during the spring of 1874.
"Bizarre accident?"
"The coach wheel was apparently struck by lightning on a clear sunny day. It dropped three hundred feet down a gorge. The coachman managed to jump clear, the good doctor wasn't so lucky."
"Yep, pretty bizarre. I doubt if this part of the world has had a clear sunny day in its entire history."
"Sydney." said Nigel reproachfully.
"Nevermind. Where do we start looking for something valuable? His grave? His house?"
"I've already checked his house. We're in it right now."
"The hotel?" Sydney looked around their surroundings with a new respect. "The Doctor certainly had money to burn."
"Like I said, long, successful and rich life. He was also Provost of the town at the time of his death and had commissioned the installation of a strongroom under the Burgh Halls."
***
Bingo! Troy stubbed out yet another cigarette hurriedly and patted his pockets for his keys.
"I like it, Nigel. I like it a lot."
"I thought you might, eventually. We've got an appointment with the Burgh curator in the morning. She's going to take us down to the town vaults."
"Excellent. Maybe this will turn out to be worthwhile after all."
Troy grinned as he shut off his recording equipment. "It will be for me," he whispered. "But not for you!"
***