Текст книги "Destiny "
Автор книги: Алекс Арчер
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Chapter 24
FOR JUST A moment, the loft seemed to spin around Annja. She stood with effort, remembering the young man who had been her guide in Lozère.
"What are you talking about?" she asked.
"If I don't get that charm, Miss Creed," Corvin Lesauvage said, "I'm going to kill Avery Moreau. Do you have Internet access?" His voice oozed self-satisfaction.
"Yes."
"Log on, please, and go to this Internet address – LesauvageAntiquities.com."
Waving Garin away from the desk, Annja opened the Web page. It was attractive, neat and precise, with everything in place. The casual peruser knew immediately that Lesauvage Antiquities did business in appraisal and research, as well as purchases and sales of antiques. It was a nice cover for a man who was a drug runner, thief and murderer.
"The Web link I'm about to give you is masked," Lesauvage said. "You'll have to be quick."
Annja didn't say anything. Roux had gotten up and stood behind her, whether out of interest or to help protect her from any attempt Garin made, Annja didn't know.
"Click on appraisals, then hit the F12 key immediately," Lesauvage ordered.
Annja did.
The Web page cycled, then stopped. A window popped up and asked for an ID and password.
"Okay," Annja said.
"Good. The ID is 'Avery.' The password is 'Mort,' " Lesauvage said.
Mortwas French for "death." Reluctantly, Annja entered the keystrokes.
Another window opened. This one filled with a video download that took forty-three seconds. When it finished, it opened and played.
There was no audio, but the video feed was clear enough. Avery Moreau, tied up and dressed in some garish costume, lay on a flat rock in a cave. Blood covered his face. There was too much blood for it to be his without some obvious sign of injury.
Wearing a similar costume but with a mounted-deer-head helmet, Lesauvage entered the camera's view. He raised a knife, then drove the blade down into Avery's left hand, all the way through to the rock beneath.
Avery jerked in pain and screamed. Even without the audio, Annja could hear his agony and fear.
Garin swore.
Thankfully, the video ended.
Annja was breathing deeply. "What do you want, Lesauvage?"
"As I told you, I only want the charm. Bring it to me and I will let Avery Moreau live. If you do not, I will kill him. Make your travel arrangements. Once you know when you will return to Lozère, let me know. I can be reached at this number at any time." He gave her the number and the phone clicked dead.
Annja cradled the handset.
"A threat?" Roux asked.
"Lesauvage is going to kill Avery Moreau if I don't bring the charm back."
"Well, that's a shame," the old man said, "but you can't be expected to save everyone."
"I'm not going to let him die," Annja said and immediately started looking on the computer for flight possibilities.
Roux stared at her. "You can't be serious. That man is a villain of the basest sort."
"I know the type," Annja said.
Garin grinned at her. "So you're going to rush off and play the savior."
"I'm not going to let Avery Moreau die." Annja backed up all her files on the charm, the heraldry and the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain onto an external hard drive.
"Lesauvage will kill you," Roux protested. "The sword will be lost again."
"One can only hope," Garin said.
"I'm not planning on dying," Annja said. She looked for her suitcase, then realized it was still at the Lamberts' bed-and-breakfast outside Lozère.
All right, then, I'm already packed. All I have to do is live long enough to collect my luggage.
"Don't be foolish," Roux said. "You don't even have the charm."
"I took pictures of it," Annja said. She brought them up on the computer.
"How did you do that? You didn't have time to photograph it like this in Lozère."
"I summoned it up on the sword," Annja explained as she stuffed gear into her backpack.
"It's still part of the sword?"
"I don't know. Maybe." Annja lifted the phone.
"Call the police in Lozère," Roux urged. "Let them know what is going on."
"Do you remember Police Inspector Richelieu?" Annja asked.
"Yes."
"He shot Avery Moreau's father."
"Whatever for?"
"Gerard Moreau was a thief. He broke into the house where Richelieu happened to be entertaining the wife."
"It wasn't the inspector's wife, was it?" Roux said.
"No." Annja dialed information and asked for the number to Air France.
"Excuse me," Garin said.
Annja looked at him.
"I've got a private plane. Actually, a Learjet, at LaGuardia."
"You'd let me use your jet?" Annja asked, surprised.
"If it's going to allow Lesauvage to kill you more quickly, certainly." Garin appeared quite earnest.
"You're going with us." Annja hung up the phone.
"Us?" Roux repeated.
"We're not finished talking about the sword, are we?" Annja asked the old man.
"Perhaps," Roux said.
"Fine," she told him. "Then you can stay here. If Garin and his pilot jump out of the plane somewhere over the Atlantic and I go down, you can hope you don't have to wait another five hundred years for the sword to wash up on some beach."
Roux grimaced. "If I was certain my part in all of this was finished, I wouldn't entertain this at all."
"Why am I going?" Garin asked.
"Because I don't trust you not to have someone fire a heat-seeking missile at us while we're en route. If you're along for the trip, I figure that's less likely to happen." Annja didn't know if Garin could actually get his hands on something like that, but she wouldn't put it past him.
"That's yourreason to get me to go," Garin said. " Idon't have a reason."
"If you go," Annja said, "maybe you'll get to see Lesauvage kill me."
Garin thought about that briefly. "Good point."
Garin's private jet was outfitted like a bachelor pad with wings. It was divided into three sections. The cockpit was the most mundane thing about the aircraft. The living quarters and the bedroom shared equal space and came with a personal flight attendant.
Annja sat in one of the plush seats. Equipped with a wet bar and the latest in technological marvels, including a sixty-inch plasma television and a Bose surround sound system, in-flight entertainment was no problem. There was also a satellite link for phones and computers.
The bedroom, which Annja had not seen and had no intention of seeing, contained a king-size bed.
Garin and Roux had settled into their seats and started watching a televised poker championship.
Hooked up to the Internet, Annja continued her research into the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain and the charm. Those were at the heart of the mystery before her.
There were new postings at alt.archaeology and alt.archaeology.esoterica.
Two were from Zoodio.
Hey! I traced that shield heraldry you posted. Interesting stuff.
From what I found out, the shield belonged to a British knight named Richard of Kirkland. He was thought to be a great-grandson of one of the English soldiers that burned Joan of Arc at the stake in France.
A chill passed through Annja. She hadn't expected the hit to be tied so closely to Joan.
Supposedly, the great-grandfather's luck turned sour after he got back from France. Devotees of Joan swear he was cursed.
Anyway, that curse seems to have passed down to his great-grandson, who somehow got himself titled along the way. He had a daughter in 1749 who was supposed to have horrible birth defects.
If you're not careful when you do your research, you'll find entries that list her as dead. She even has a gravesite in a private cemetery outside London. Her name was Carolyn. In 1764, Sir Richard of Kirkland took his daughter to the Brotherhood of The Silent Rain.
Why not an abbey? Annja wondered again.
Some reports say Carolyn died in 1767 when the monastery was destroyed. Hope this helps.
It did and it didn't, Annja ultimately decided. She skimmed through the list of sources he'd included. Many of them were on personal Web sites so she was able to check them out.
She saved the Web links to Favorites, then read the next posting by [email protected].
Zoodio has it wrong. Sir Richard's daughter wasn't his daughter after all. She was his wife's illegitimate child. While Sir Richard was off fighting in one of the wars, his wife was having an affair with one of the inbred members of the royal family. Which was why there were so many birth defects in the child.
The wife also tried to abort the child, and even the church got involved because of all the political unrest the baby would cause.
Despite everything everyone did, the baby went to term. When Sir Richard got home, knowing that he wasn't the father – can you imagine how pissed this guy was, out risking his life, and his wife's shacking up? – he probably had to be restrained from killing the baby and his wife.
The church, trying to cover its own ass, told Richard that a demon had fathered the child. They arranged for the baby girl, when she got to be fourteen, to go to the Silent Rain monastery. Can you say cop-out?
"Annja?"
Startled, she looked up and saw Roux standing there. "What?"
"Would you like something to eat?"
"Whatever you want to nuke in the microwave will be fine."
"No nuking," Roux responded. "There's a full galley."
"Do you think it's safe?" she asked. "I mean, he could poison the food."
Roux smiled gently at her. "I'll make sure that doesn't happen."
"All right."
"What would you like?"
"Surprise me."
Roux nodded. He started to turn away.
"Hey," Annja said.
The old man turned back around to her. "What?"
"You've really lived over five hundred years?"
He smiled and shook his head. "My dear girl, I've lived far longer than you can even imagine."
Whatever, Annja thought, thinking the comment was sheer braggadocio. "Did you know a knight named Sir Richard of Kirkland?"
"An English knight?"
Annja nodded.
"I knew of such a man, but I never knew him personally. He was – "
"English. I know. I got it. English was bad back then."
"Yes." Roux's blue eyes twinkled. "He was a tournament champion all over Europe. And he fought in a few skirmishes. There was something about a child that besmirched his reputation. A child born out of wedlock, I believe."
"A child the church contended was spawn of the devil," Annja said. "And she was locked up in the Silent Rain monastery."
"Truly?" Roux seemed amazed.
"Yes."
"Why wasn't she taken to an abbey? Several of the female children born in brothels were taken there."
"I don't know."
"If you find out—"
Annja nodded. She returned to her reading.
"I'll go and attend to our lunch," Roux said. "Then, at some point, you and I need to discuss what's going to happen with the sword."
Three spam entries followed the one by Researchferret. Then Zoodio had posted again.
I missed that one. Good catch.
Interesting. I looked at the data you sent to support what you posted, Researchferret. And I found something you missed.
According to the journals of Sister Mary Elizabeth of a local London abbey, the sisters took in a fourteen-year-old girl early in 1764.
Sir Richard's name isn't mentioned. Neither is the girl's. But it does say she's the illegitimate child of a tournament hero and thought to be the daughter of the devil.
Sounds familiar, huh?
Annja silently agreed.
Also truly weird are the murders that occurred in the abbey in 1764.
That instantly caught Annja's attention.
Early in 1764, January and February, two nuns, then a third, were beaten to death in the basement of the main building. The rumor was that an insane man had broken into the building and killed the nuns while looking for church silver or donations to pilfer.
However, Sister Mary Elizabeth notes that the strange girl the abbey had taken in murdered the nuns. According to her entries during those days and the days that followed, the girl had been restrained in the basement, had gotten loose, and had beaten the nuns to death with her bare hands.
Yikes!
This story gets creepier and stranger the more I look into it. More later.
Of course, that entry started a flurry of postings that included Jack the Ripper theories and led to the Loch Ness Monster before taking a detour through the twilight zone.
Chapter 25
ROUX BROUGHT ANNJA a plate while she was still sorting through the entries.
Reluctantly, Annja pushed the computer off to the side and flipped out the tray built into the seat. She surveyed the plate for the first time while she was spreading a linen napkin across her lap.
A small steak shared space with a baked potato and a salad. The steak was grilled.
"No poison, I assure you." Roux sat in the seat next to her and set up his own plate. He tucked a napkin into his shirt collar. "I trust you like steak?"
"Yes." Annja cut the meat and found it sliced easily.
"From the last time we shared a meal, I knew you had a robust appetite. Judging from the way most young people your age eat, missing meals when you get busy and such, I thought a solid meal was called for."
"This steak is grilled," Annja said in amazement. She'd never had a steak actually grilled in midflight.
"Garin has always been one for whatever is new and flashy," Roux admitted. "I found his galley is equipped with all manner of culinary accoutrements."
"And it has a grill, too." Annja poked fun at the old man's verbosity.
Roux got the joke and smiled. "Although not my native language, I find that English does have its charm. So does French."
That surprised Annja. "French isn't your native language?"
"No. Why? Do I sound like a native when I speak it?"
"Yes."
Knife and fork in hand, Roux attacked his steak. "What have you discovered about the charm?"
Briefly, Annja brought him up-to-date.
"What are you going to do?" Roux asked when she was finished.
"Find out the truth about what happened all those years ago," Annja said. "Discover who the prisoner was in the monastery and what happened to her. Why the monastery was destroyed. Why the monastery still exists even though it's been destroyed. Why the monks of that monastery want the charm. Why Corvin Lesauvage wants the charm."
"Don't forget, you want to save this young man, as well."
"Avery Moreau. I haven't forgotten."
"Quite a shopping list." Roux abandoned his plate and leaned back to digest his meal.
"It is," Annja admitted. "But it's what I do."
"Look for truths in the past?"
Put that simply, Annja had to admit her job sounded too altruistic. "I love learning about the people who lived in the past. Who they were. What they did. Why they did it. Where they lived. How they saw the world and their places in it."
"You only left out 'when.' "
Despite her tension, Annja smiled. " 'When' is sometimes part of the mystery, too. Carbon dating is pretty exact, but you don't always have it, and the results can be off enough to seriously screw with a theory."
"You're a classically trained archaeologist?"
"I am, but I've also got degrees in anthropology and ethnography."
"Good. I know it's hard for a traditional archaeologist to find work inside the United States and in most parts of the world these days. The focus tends to be on culture rather than things."
"You know about archaeology?" Annja was surprised.
"I know a lot about a great many things. I was with Dr. Howard Carter while he was doing his exploration of the Valley of the Kings in Egypt."
"That was in the early 1900s." Annja still couldn't believe they were talking about a period a hundred years ago, or that Roux might actually have seen it.
"Yes. Though Howard didn't find the tomb of Tutankhamen until 1922." Roux smiled. "I was there. It was a most gratifying moment. The man who funded the search, Lord Carnarvon, had very nearly given up on Howard. But Howard, for the most part, remained certain he was about to find the tomb. And he did. It was most impressive. The world will very probably never see the like again."
"I hope that's not true," Annja said. "Egypt grabbed everyone's attention, especially the British after Napoleon's army found the first pyramids there during the war. But there are other things out there we can learn."
"You're probably right. The world has forgotten more than anyone alive today will ever know." Roux talked as if he were an authority on that line of thinking. He was silent for a moment.
"What about the sword?" Annja asked.
Roux looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, why me?"
"My dear girl," Roux said, "the sword choseyou."
"From the very first time I met Joan," Roux said, "I knew she was destined for greatness." In his mind's eye, he could see her again, proudly riding the great warhorse and carrying the banner. He had never – or, at least, very seldom – met anyone like her. "When you've been alive as long as I have, you tend to recognize such things."
"You've never stated your age," Annja said.
Roux grinned. He discovered he liked dueling with the young woman seated next to him. Not only was she beautiful, but she possessed mental alacrity, as well.
However, she was still naive in many ways. He hoped to be able to occasionally use that to his advantage. He had served the command he had been given. Now his life was his to do as he pleased.
"Nor will I state my age," Roux said. "But I do forgive your impertinence in your not-so-subtle attempt to find out."
She smiled at him, rested her elbows on the chair's arms and steepled her slender fingers to rest her chin.
Looking at her, Roux knew she was going to break many men's hearts. She was too beautiful and too independent – too driven – not to.
And now she carried Joan's sword, and everything that such a calling brought with it. That taken into account, and the looming confrontation with Lesauvage and the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain, she might not live to see the end of the week.
"As I said," Roux returned to his story, "I met Joan and I was very much taken with her. I saw that she was going to be a… force.No other word can match what I saw in her."
"You were a fan," Annja said. Her tiger's eyes gleamed with humor.
"I was," Roux admitted. "I was quite taken with her. But it was the power invested in her that drew me the most. The company of others has seldom been a preoccupation for me."
"Except for the part about hearing your own voice, I've noticed."
Roux grimaced. "There used to be an appreciation for storytelling."
"There still is," Annja said. "But now it also includes brevity. Getting to the point. That kind of thing."
"I believe Joan was supposed to help the balance," Roux said.
"What balance?"
"The balance between good and evil."
Annja paused, thinking, her brows tightly knit. "With a big Gand a big E?"
"Exactly. The cosmic balance. A turning point between order and chaos." Roux sighed and still felt hugely guilty even after more than five hundred years and the vexing job of finding all the sword pieces. "But the world was cheated of her presence far too early."
"Because you got back to her late."
Roux shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Across the room, Garin lounged on a full-sized sofa and enjoyed the conversation, smirking the whole time.
"I wasn't the one who threw her up on that bloody stake and roasted her alive," Roux snapped. His own guilt was one thing, but he bloody well wasn't going to have it shoved on him by someone else.
Annja was quiet for a moment. "No," she said finally, "I suppose you weren't."
"That's right."
"So what's supposed to happen now?" Annja asked.
Roux was quiet for a moment, knowing what he was about to say would have a lasting impact on the young woman. At least, it would as long as she lived.
"I believe that the inheritor of Joan's sword is going to have to live up to that same potential," Roux said. "You're going to be asked to intercede on the behalf of good. Or not, if you so choose."
That shocked her. He saw it in her eyes. She was silent and still for a moment.
"That's ridiculous," the young woman finally said.
"Is it?" Roux gazed at her. "Yet, here you are, racing to the rescue of some unknown young man who actually may have set you up to be kidnapped while we were in the mountains."
"I'm not going because of the sword."
"Then why are you going?"
"Because I don't want Avery Moreau to die."
"Why? You don't truly know him. He may already be dead. More than likely, he betrayed you to a vicious enemy. You'd be a fool to do anything to help him." Roux leaned back. "Furthermore, you could call and let the local police deal with the matter."
"The sword has nothing to do with this."
"Perhaps not. Perhaps by your very nature you're quixotic. I submit to you, Miss Creed, that is probably the very reason the sword chose you."
Annja was silent for a moment, blinking as if she was dazed. Then she said, "You can't be serious."
"Of course not," Roux said. "I'm just leading you on a wild-goose chase. And the sword can't really appear and disappear just because you want it to. And it didn't somehow reform itself from pieces when you touched it. All those things are lies."
A troubled look flashed in her eyes. "It also drew a lightning strike from the sky."
Roux was intrigued. "When?"
"Last night. On top of my building."
"You left the sword lying on top of a building?"
"I was holding it at the time."
Roux's eyebrows lifted. "Lightning struck the sword while you were holding it?"
"Yes."
"And you were undamaged?"
Annja nodded.
"This is fascinating. May I see the sword again?"
She held out her hand, paused a moment, then drew the sword from thin air.
Roux accepted the weapon as she handed it to him. He examined the blade. "It's unmarked."
"I know. Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?"
"Neither does the fact that it shows no sign of ever having been shattered." Roux held on to the sword, wondering what other properties might manifest. Then it faded from his grip. He looked at her. "You did that?"
Annja nodded. "I guess I did. I was feeling… uncomfortable with the way you were holding on to the sword."
So stealing the sword, should he ever decide to do that, was out of the question. Roux felt challenged. He couldn't help wondering what would happen to the sword if Annja Creed were suddenly dead.
Roux happened to glance over at Garin, who smiled broadly. Roux knew he had spent too many years with his apprentice; Garin knew exactly what was crossing his mind. The old man was just thankful the young woman didn't have the same expertise.
Annja stared at the lozenge. The heraldry beside the shadowy figure on the obverse of the coin was key to unlocking the mystery. She felt certain of that.
The diamond-shaped image containing the leaping wolf, the stag at rest and the crescent moon with a star above and below, had to mean something.
She continued searching through the pages of heraldry. Patience was one of the first and best skills an archaeologist learned.
The ring of her cell phone startled Annja out of a near doze. She fumbled to find the device and catch the call.
"Hello."
"May I speak to Ms. Annja Creed, please?" a crisp British voice asked.
"Graham," Annja said.
"Ah, Annja. I wasn't sure at all if it was you. You sound as though you're talking from the bottom of a well. Come to think of it, the last time I spoke with you, you weretalking to me from the bottom of a well. Didn't you get out?"
Annja smiled. Professor Graham Smyth-Peabody was professor emeritus at Cambridge University. He was in his early eighties and taught only those classes he wanted to during times he wished. Tall and distinguished-looking, he was a frequent guest on talk shows when discussions of British royalty were the subject.
"I did get out of the well," Annja said. That had been in the Bavarian countryside pursuing the lost loot of a highwayman. She hadn't found that, but she still occasionally sifted through the information she had about the event.
"Have you found another, then?" Smyth-Peabody laughed at his own wit.
"Actually, I'm flying on a private plane," Annja said.
"Jet," Garin growled. He sat on the couch with a drink in his hand. His disposition hadn't improved.
"Your publisher must really like you," the professor said. He hesitated. "You're able to afford a private plane because of the book, right? You haven't suddenly decided to start losing your shirt like that other young woman on that dreadful program on the telly?"
"No," Annja said. "I manage to keep my shirts on."
"Jolly good. I understand why you do those pieces for that program, but you should keep your naughty bits to yourself."
Despite the tension and all the trouble waiting on her in Lozère, Annja had to laugh. The professor was in rare good form.
Papers rustled at the other end of the phone connection. "I've managed to identify the heraldry you e-mailed me," the professor said.
"You could have e-mailed me back."
"Of course, of course. But I shall own up to a bit of curiosity here. I've found something a bit incongruous."
Annja pushed out of her seat and paced the short length of the jet's living room. "The shield bears markings of Richard of Kirkland," Annja said.
"Yes, yes. Quite right. So you've identified that."
"It makes me feel better to hear you agree with the answer I've received."
"He was knighted in 1768."
The monastery outside Lozère was burned down in 1767. Experience had taught Annja not to overlook coincidence. "Why was he knighted?" she asked.
"According to the documentation I found, it was for special services to the crown."
"What services?"
"I'm afraid it doesn't say, my dear."
"You would think the conferring of a knighthood under George III would have been important enough to record."
"Indeed," Smyth-Peabody agreed. "Perhaps it even was. But you have to remember, George III wasn't called the mad king for vacuous reasons. The man had porphyria, a most debilitating affliction that ultimately ruined his health and rendered him mad as a hatter. And there was a lot going on during his reign. He undermined the Whig Party, including Pitt the Elder, fought the French for seven years, then turned around and fought you Americans, not once but twice, staved off another attack at political control by the Whigs under Pitt the Younger, and managed to fight Napoleon's efforts at world domination twice."
"Those campaigns were managed by the Duke of Wellington."
"Quite. But they were under George III's reign. Perhaps he wasn't aware of what was going on by that time, but his royal historians were kept busy nonetheless."
"Point taken." Annja sighed. History and archaeology were sometimes at odds with each other. Then when a research project brought in other branches of science, things became even more convoluted.
"You are aware he had a daughter?" Smyth-Peabody asked.
"Carolyn," Annja said.
"Yes. Do tell me there is something I've left to amaze you with?"
"I'll let you know when we get there. Tell me about Carolyn."
Smyth-Peabody cleared his throat. "Sir Richard's daughter was born to his wife while he was tending the king's holdings in the New World."
"Richard wasn't in France?"
"No. He was one of the king's primaries during engagements in King George's War. You Americans refer to it as – "
"The French and Indian War," Annja said. "From 1757 to 1763."
"Yes. A rather melodramatic name, don't you think?"
Annja's mind flew. "Did Richard see any action in France?"
"No. According to the texts I've been through, Richard spent his whole military career marshaling forces in America. Until his death in 1777 at the Battle of Brandywine Creek when General Howe's troops forced the Continental Congress from Philadelphia."
"Richard never served in France?"
"I never found mention of it. I didn't know that was an important detail. I suppose I can go back through the research."
"What about Richard's wife?"
"Victoria, yes. By all accounts, she was rather a handful. She was married at fourteen to Richard, who was twenty years her senior."
Annja wasn't surprised. Marriages were often arranged for officers in the British military. Poor working-class parents wanted to get rid of a mouth to feed and hoped that a daughter, who wasn't allowed to work, might find a good home.
"Evidently being married to Richard didn't agree with her," the professor continued.
"What makes you say that?"
"She didhave the affair behind her husband's back. After she lost the baby, I'm sure things weren't any easier."
"The baby didn't die."
Smyth-Peabody was silent for a moment. "Are you quite sure?"
"Yes. I'll forward the documentation on to you."
"In everything that I read, the child died and was buried in a private cemetery on family land outside London."
"Was the cause of death mentioned?"
"I inferred there were massive birth defects. There was, in one of the resources I investigated, some reason to believe there were instances of inbreeding within Victoria's family. Perhaps even incest."
"Where did you get that?"
"From the newspapers. They were little more than gossip sheets at the time."
The jet hit a downdraft. For a few seconds, Annja felt weightless. Then her stomach flipped and gravity held her in place again.
"What about the lozenge?" Annja asked.
"It never existed. Or, I should say, it never existed in the form that you showed me." The professor paused and the computer keys clacked. "The wolf design?"
"Yes."
"That was one that Sir Richard had ordered designed for his wife. She was going to be given her own coat-of-arms on the birth of their first child. The lozenge was never struck."
"The stag was part of the design?"
"No. The stag belonged to Sir Henry of Falhout."
"Could he have been Carolyn's father?"
"He died in 1745 while at sea in a tragic accident. It would have been quite impossible."
"Did he have a son? The coat-of-arms would have descended to him."
"Sir Henry did have a son, but he was only eight at the time Carolyn was born."
"What about brothers?" Annja kept trying to make sense of the puzzle. The image of the lozenge wouldn't leave her thoughts. Someone had initially thought to put the inscription on the charm, then had decided – or been told – not to. It had to be important.
"Sir Henry did have two younger brothers. The youngest brother died while fighting the French in 1747."
"What about the other brother?"
"I've not found anything out about him. He seems to have disappeared," the professor said.
"No family fortune to care for?"
"Remember, dear girl," the professor said, "this is Britain. We had the law of primogeniture here. Only the eldest male issue shall inherit family estates. Once Sir Henry had a son to carry on the family name, the rest of the family got nothing."
