Lambert made his move

Annja bent her knees slightly, prepared for defense, but cautious.

“I’ve got my eye on a new treasure,” he announced. The epee swept the air in a hiss. “It is another sword. A magical one.”

“You believe in magic?” Annja countered.

“I believe what I saw when I watched you in the file room on the security cameras. You wielded a fine sword, Annja Creed. And you produced it from thin air. Where is it? Bring it out of wherever it is you keep it. I want to see it.”

She remained silent. Alert. Ready.

“I know something about you,” he said in a singsongy tone. “Your Monsieur Roux wasn’t quite so careful as he should have been.”

Roux had come here? What was the old man up to now? She didn’t like what that implied.

“I’ve done my research on your Roux and Joan,” he said. “I know, Annja, I know.”

Titles in this series:

Destiny

Solomon’s Jar

The Spider Stone

The Chosen

Forbidden City

The Lost Scrolls

God of Thunder

Secret of the Slaves

Warrior Spirit

Serpent’s Kiss

Provenance

The Soul Stealer

Gabriel’s Horn

The Golden Elephant

Swordsman’s Legacy

ROGUE ANGEL™

Swordsman’s Legacy
Alex Archer

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Michele Hauf for her contribution to this work.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Epilogue

Prologue

Iowa, 1978

Jack and Toby Lambert had been inseparable until the day Toby collapsed after baseball practice. Twelve hours later in the hospital, Jack clung to his seven-year-old twin’s hand. Toby’s skin was a funny yellow color. He couldn’t speak, but his eyelids did flutter when Jack spoke.

Not far from the bed, behind a curtain, Jack heard a doctor announce to his parents that Toby’s liver had failed. He called it something like acute. Toby would need a transplant. Jack’s parents were instructed not to be too hopeful, for the waiting list was long, and there weren’t a lot of donors out there.

Pressing his face against the hard hospital mattress beside his brother’s prone body, Jack sobbed quietly. He didn’t want his parents to hear. They had enough to worry about.

He and Toby had planned a raid on Nasty Black George’s awful gang of four tonight. The entire neighborhood—boasting seven boys under the age of ten—regularly organized pirate raids and booty captures. Jack and Toby wore the monikers “Mad Bloody Jack” and “Evil Gentleman Tobias” proudly. No one stood in their way when they came a-pirating. Their plunder was piled high at the bottom of Evil Gentleman Tobias’s closet. Dirty Joe still fumed about his pillaged Atari.

If his parents had money, they could buy a new liver for Toby.

Jack knew that wasn’t possible. His mom had been putting on a skirt and jacket every morning before he and Toby left for school. She was looking for work, they both knew, because dad’s job was “cutting back the fat.” Whatever that meant.

“I’ll help you,” Jack whispered. His brother had not moved since his collapse. “Mad Bloody Jack will plunder a real treasure so we can buy you a new liver. I promise, Toby.”

M AD B LOODY J ACK KNEW just the landlubbing wreck of a ship to raid. Hidden in the tower at the center of the playground gym, he and Toby—er, Evil Gentleman Tobias—had kept a keen eye over the goings-on across the street from the city park using their plundered telescope.

The purple house with the gray shutters and wild hedges always kept its curtains pulled shut. The craziest stream of traffic steadily pulled up the driveway, and then away. Some visitors were there less than five minutes. Toby timed them on his Cap’n Crunch watch.

Pirate Silly Ned had once said his mother was always calling the cops on that LSD house. They did nasty things, and shouldn’t be in this neighborhood.

LSD was a drug. Jack had looked that up in the encyclopedia on the bottom shelf in his dad’s office. It made people see visions and act funny. And people paid a lot of money for it. It was also illegal.

Putting two and two together, Mad Bloody Jack decided where there was LSD, there had to be money.

He eyed the purple house through the telescope. The sun had risen an hour earlier. Jack should be in school. But he knew the purple house would be quiet until at least noon, so he had to act now. Toby’s life depended on it.

Skipping across the street, Mad Bloody Jack insinuated himself behind the freestanding purple garage, which was where he’d seen most of the visitors go when they stopped. Tramping a patch of dandelions, he pressed his body flat against the wall. A good pirate should practice stealth—he’d learned that word from last week’s spelling test. The window on this side of the garage was blocked with black paper. He checked and saw it was the same on the other side.

A thick steel padlock secured the door, but the wood was old and warped. Mad Bloody Jack was able to slide a finger under the crack at the bottom. And there, under some kind of rug, he felt something cold and metal.

A key.

“I DON’T KNOW where he could have gotten this….” Jack’s mother choked on her astonishment and clung even tighter to her husband’s arm.

Her son had dumped out a pillowcase on the floor in the bathroom attached to Toby’s hospital room. “Plunder,” he’d muttered, and then had gaily announced the family now had enough money to buy Toby a new liver. He dashed to his brother’s side.

Jack’s father toed the pile of rubber-banded bills. Hundred-dollar bills. “There must be tens of thousands here.”

“We can’t—”

“Of course not. I’ll ring the police,” he said and instructed his wife to remain in the bathroom and keep an eye on the money.

A PIRATE NEVER GAVE UP the location of his best plunder. Never. But when two police officers escorted Jack’s mother from the hospital room where they’d been questioning Jack and his father, Mad Bloody Jack became irate.

“Don’t touch my mother!” he shouted.

“They’re not going to hurt her, Jack,” his father reassured. “Though I don’t know where they’re taking her. You have to tell us where you got the money. Please, Jack, to keep your mother safe.”

In a rush of fear and utter exhaustion, Mad Bloody Jack gave the details of his raid. He didn’t take it all. There had been too much to carry. Now would they please let his mother go and get to ordering that new liver for his brother?

Toby died three days later. The police had confiscated the money. Jack had been inconsolable. He’d done it. He had found a means to save his brother’s life. And the adults—they’d done nothing! What was wrong with them? Didn’t they want to save Toby?

“It was never that simple,” his father said. Keith Lambert’s face was drawn and his sigh chilled across Jack’s shoulders.

1

France, present day

Ascher Vallois unlocked the trunk of his car. The hydraulics squeaked as the trunk yawned open. He was ready for a new car, but given the finances, the ten-year-old Renault Clio would have to serve.

He set a practice épée and mask onto the trunk bed. Tearing the Velcro shoulder seams open on his jacket, he then tugged that off.

Wednesday afternoons demanded he wear the leather-fronted plastron. The teenage students he taught were overly confident about their lunges. Actually, they thought themselves indestructible. They didn’t give consideration to their teacher’s destructibility. That was why he also wore a full mask. The scar on his jaw had been a lesson to ensure he wore complete protection around kids at all times.

Tomorrow he planned to bring his collection of instructional videos to the studio. The students could learn the importance of a well-designed weapon from watching a master forge a blade. As well, there was much to be gained from watching fencing masters in competition.

Ultimately, he wanted to have a camera set up in the studio so he could record students, and then play back their practice matches for them to study. The best way to learn was by observing your own bad habits and then correcting them.

All things in good time, he told himself. And if his latest expedition proved successful, the aluminum fencing piste he’d been dreaming about could become reality. It was wireless, which would be more practical for movement and scorekeeping, considering he hadn’t the cash to hire an assistant.

He slammed the trunk shut. It was well past sunset, yet a rosy ambiance painted the horizon, reminding him of a woman’s blush. An autumn breeze tickled the perspiration at the back of his neck, drying his sweaty hair.

The noise of traffic from the main shopping stretch had settled. Sens had relaxed and let out its belt. The citizens of the French city were inside restaurants chattering over roasted fowl and a bottle of wine, or at home watching the nightly news or shouting at the quiz shows.

Shoving a hand in his pants pocket, Ascher mined for his keys, but paused. A tilt of his head focused his hearing behind him and to the left.

He was not alone.

Swinging a peripheral scan, he paused only a quarter of the way through his surroundings.

Standing at the front left corner of the Clio, a tall thin man with choppy brown-and-blond hair rapped his knuckles once upon the rusted hood of the vehicle. A silver ring glinted, catching the subtle glow from an ornamental streetlight up the street. Small bold eyes smiled before the man’s mouth did.

Ascher felt the salute in that look. A call to duel. The foil had been raised with a mere look. He stood in line of attack.

From where had the man come? This narrow street was normally quiet, save for the business owners who parked in the reserved spaces where Ascher now stood.

Suddenly aware that others had moved in behind him, Ascher stiffened his shoulders but kept his arms loose, ready. He jangled his keys. A tilt of his head, left then right, loosened his tensing muscles.

The air felt menacing, heavy, as if he could take a bite out of it.

The smiling man offered a casual “Bonsoir.”

Wary, yet not so foolish as to leap into a fight—this may be nothing more than a man asking directions—Ascher offered a lift of his chin in acknowledgment.

“Mr. Vallois, I am a friend,” the man offered.

His French accent wasn’t native, and he looked more Anglo than European, Ascher thought. A dark gray suit fit impeccably upon a sinewy frame. Probably British, he assumed from the slim silhouette of the man’s clothing.

He knew his name? Caution could be a fencer’s downfall. Confidence and awareness must remain at the fore.

“I have many friends,” Ascher said forcefully, lifting his shoulders. “I know them all upon sight. I do not know you.”

Sensing the potential threat level without moving his head to look, Ascher decided there were two men behind him. Bodyguards for the man standing before him?

Ascher eyed the practice épée through the window of the Clio. “Are these gentlemen behind me my friends, as well?”

“You amuse me, Mr. Vallois. And yes, if you wish it, they can be your very best friends. More preferable than enemies, wouldn’t you say?”

What the hell was going on? He’d been keeping his nose clean. In fact, the past few years Ascher had gone out of his way to remain inconspicuous. There was nothing like a run-in with the East Indian mafia over rights to claimed treasure to cool a man’s jets.

“Jacques Lambert.” The man thrust out a thin hand to shake—an advance that put him to lunge distance—but Ascher did not take the bait. This guy was not British. An American using a French name perhaps? “My business card claims me CEO of BHDC, a genetic-research lab in Paris. You have not heard of us.”

No need to verify that one. Ascher’s interests covered anything athletic, sporting or adventurous. Science? Not his bag. “Genetic research? I don’t understand,” Ascher said.

“It is a difficult field to get a mental grasp on,” Lambert replied. “But the beauty of it is that you don’t have to understand. Simple acceptance is required.”

“Sorry, I gave at the office.”

“I’m not on the shill, Vallois. In fact, I have an interest in financing your current dig.”

The dig? But he’d only that morning gathered a small crew of fellow archaeologists online. They weren’t set to convene in Chalon-sur-Saône for another two weeks.

Who had brought in this fellow without consulting him?

Ascher trusted the two men he had chosen to assist on the dig. Jay and Peyton Nash had accompanied him before. They were his age, far more knowledgeable in archaeology than him, and also enjoyed a challenging mountain bike course, like the one they’d conquered in Scotland’s Tweed Valley.

Although…he’d recruited another. A woman. He did not know her beyond what he’d learned while chatting with her online. And admittedly, knowledge of her character had been not so important as her figure and those bewitching amber-green eyes.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Lambert, if you have been led to believe—”

The sudden heat of breath hissing down the back of his neck did not disturb Ascher so much as piss him off. He stood tall, not about to back down or cringe from the bully behind him.

If the trunk were still open…but it was not. The only weapon he had to hand was his ring of three keys and a rudimentary grasp of martial arts. He slipped the ignition key between his forefinger and middle finger, point out.

“I have been following your research online for months,” Lambert said. “Fascinating how you tracked the Fouquet journals in the Bibliothèque Nationale.”

Ascher thought about the days spent in the huge Paris library that he had genuinely enjoyed. “I haven’t posted that information publicly,” he said.

“Yes, I know. You made it very difficult, but once I tracked your conversations with the Nash brothers, I continued to follow them.”

So his friends hadn’t invited this man. Yet they had inadvertently lured an outsider.

“I’ve hired all the men required for the dig, I’m afraid.”

“You misunderstand, Vallois.” Lambert made eye contact with the thugs over Ascher’s shoulder. He went for the riposte, slipping something out of his suit coat’s inner pocket. It unrolled with a shake. Lambert then slid one hand into the surgical glove. “I—” he gave the glove a crisp snap “—have a keen interest in the sword.”

Ascher’s intuition screamed this was not the place he should be at this moment. Sometimes it was better to run, and risk injury, than to stick around and risk death. Fencing skills aside, now was the time to employ street smarts.

Ascher jabbed an elbow backward, catching one of the thugs in the ribs.

A meaty arm snaked about Ascher’s neck. A vicious squeeze choked off his cry of surprise. Levering his foot against the door of his car, he tried to push off the man, but his attacker leaned into the force, making escape impossible.

“No, no, mustn’t struggle,” Lambert said calmly, as if directing a child afraid of the dentist’s drill. He tugged the fingertip of one glove, snapping it smartly into place. “This is not what you might suspect.”

“I suspect everything,” Ascher hissed. “I know I do not like you—”

Chokehold released, Ascher’s arms were wrenched behind him and upward. His shoulder muscles were forced beyond their limit, and his deltoids stretched painfully. Bent forward, he intended to kick backward, but Lambert’s next move stopped him.

Further utilizing the dread calm of a looming dentist, Lambert withdrew a vial from inside his suit coat.

“The musketeer’s sword has been tops on my list of plunder for quite some time. I believe you have discovered the only possible resting place for the sword, Mr. Vallois.” Lambert tapped the finger-size vial against his wrist. There was something inside, white, stick-like. “Surprising, the conclusions you made about the location, but when I thought about it awhile, very believable. I wish you great success.”

“The sword is not for sale,” Ascher said.

“When one acquires plunder, sir, one does not pay for it. But I am willing to put forth something for your efforts. You will require cash to finance your dig.”

“Already taken care of.”

“Your check bounced at the bank. My guess? You should start seeing the overdrafts immediately. I know you are two months behind on rent for that little fencing salon around the corner. Pity. The children will be deprived of your witty yet charming teaching manner,” Lambert said.

Ascher grunted against the increasing force straining his muscles.

“As for that cottage you call a mansion out of town, I’ve made it my business to know your electricity will be shut off two days from now.” He bent close to Ascher’s face. “Allow me to ease your financial strain.”

“There is no amount you can offer for the sword.”

Ascher twisted. Two meaty hands held firmly. It was quite embarrassing how easily he’d been wrangled. As long as his aggressor held his arms back at such a painful angle, he could not escape.

“That sword is something I have searched for for years,” Ascher hissed. The gloved hand waggled its fingers before him. A disturbing threat. “I could not possibly put a monetary value to it—”

Suddenly pierced from behind, Ascher’s body clenched, his chest lifting and his body arching upward as his shoulders were wrenched further backward. He was impaled. Stuck like a pig. The pain was incredible, so much so that much as he wanted to scream, he could not put out a single breath.

A blade had entered his left kidney. The thug behind him shoved it to the hilt.

Lambert stood right before him now. An intelligent and greedy gaze followed Ascher’s gasps of pain. “Of course, it would be difficult to fix a price to so intriguing a find as the sword.”

Wincing, Ascher groaned low in his throat. He felt tears roll down his face. It was impossible to make a defensive move or push away his attacker. Barely able to stand, he battled against his fading consciousness by drawing in deep breaths through his nose.

“I wager you’ll hand over the sword for a kidney.” A snap of the rubber glove released a haze of cornstarch powder.

“I need only one!” Ascher defiantly managed to declare.

“Sure, a man can survive with one, but you won’t have that one forever.”

The other thug, who had been standing to the side, stepped forward. Ascher cried out as he took a punch to the right kidney. But, held carefully, his torso did not take the blow with another cringe. It seemed they wanted to ensure the knife remained firmly placed.

“Should you refuse to cooperate,” Lambert continued, “I shall return for the other. But know, I can give you a replacement in exchange for your cooperation.”

Feeling blackness toy with his consciousness, Ascher heard something crackle like plastic.

“Open his mouth.”

His mouth was wrenched open from the right by the one who had punched him.

Lambert stabbed something into his mouth and rubbed it inside Ascher’s cheek. “DNA evidence. I’ll take it back to the lab and immediately begin to grow your new kidney. Therapeutic cloning. Quite the marvel. Think of it as your new life insurance policy.”

The thug clapped Ascher’s jaw shut, and Ascher briefly saw Lambert deposit a white swab into the glass vial.

“What do you say, Vallois? Do we have a deal?”

“I…” He was losing it. Pain shot up and down his spine and spidered through his entire nervous system. He had never known such agony. He couldn’t think, let alone move.

“If you refuse, I’ll have Manny tug the knife from your back. Within twenty minutes, you’ll bleed out internally. You will be dead, Mr. Vallois.”

Death sounded much better than this torture, Ascher thought.

“But, keep the knife in place and accept the escort to casualty that I am willing to provide, and you’ll have a pleasant hospital stay, and be back in the field in, oh, ten days? Of course, the left kidney is a loss.” The plastic rattled before Ascher’s closed eyes. “What do you say?”

The man behind him tapped the blade shoved deep inside his body. Ascher yowled as the vibrations sent out new waves of shocking anguish.

“In or out?” Lambert asked. “The blade, that is.”

Feeling his body release the tense cringe and fall forward, Ascher chased the darkness. Passing out would stop the pain. And so would his compliance.

“In,” he muttered, and then the world stopped.

2

Court of Loius XIV

Seventeenth century

“History shall revere Charles de Castelmore d’Artagnan.”

Queen Anne nodded to Charles, who stood in full regalia—musket and bandolier spread across his black coat trimmed in gold. A red plume dusted the air above his right brow, and his boots were polished to a shine to rival the mirrors in Versailles.

To the queen’s right, a liveried foot guard stepped up, proffering a red velvet pillow with a sword laid upon it.

Containing his excitement, Charles drew in a breath and maintained a solemn expression.

The queen took the sword by the gold hilt and held it before her, seeming to look it over, but moreover, displaying it to all who had congregated in the king’s private chapel to celebrate one of Louis XIV’s musketeers. She handled the weapon with skill, though d’Artagnan doubted she’d had occasion to use the weapon.

“For bravery and valor,” Queen Anne recited in a regal yet quiet voice, which was her manner. “For honor among all men. And for all that you have done for your king and queen. You serve our country well, musketeer.”

She presented the sword to Charles, blade extended horizontally to the right. The hilt sparkled. A bit of damascening curled up near the ricasso of the blade. It was a rapier, and quite ornate. No simple sword for this simple man.

Head still bowed, Charles held open his hands to receive the gift. It wasn’t coin—which he could much use over another sword, especially one so decorative. But the gold on the hilt should fetch a year’s meals, and perhaps even outfit the ranks with the grenades Grosjean had demonstrated at Lille a fortnight earlier. They exploded on contact with the ground. What Charles wouldn’t do to put his hands to those marvelous weapons.

The rapier landed on his palms. It was well weighted; he could determine that merely by holding it. It was likely fashioned by Hugues de Roche, the king’s sword maker, and a most sought after craftsman.

This honor meant the world to Charles. To be publicly awarded this gift made him stand a full boot heel taller, and he felt his shoulders should never again slouch.

Perhaps he’d keep this prize to hand. Though a gold hilt was never practical in active combat. The enemy would see it as plunder, instantly transforming Charles to a keen target among the ranks.

Charlotte would insist he keep it. Yes, perhaps his sons should have this. It was rare he got a chance to visit the boys. It had been over a year since he’d last seen them.

Now the queen bent slightly and leaned forward, which startled Charles. And it wasn’t because her heavily gilded dress creaked and the pearls roped about her neck and across her bosom clacked. The queen had reduced their proximity to close confidence. She had never done such around so many.

“There is more to the eye than what glitters without,” she whispered.

Straightening, she then stepped back and placed her hand in that of her son King Louis XIV.

Remaining bowed before his majesties, Charles knew the king would send him off with a few words. But even as Louis spoke, he could not concentrate, for the wonders Queen Anne had stirred with her cryptic statement.

Present day

C HALON-SUR -S AÔNE WAS a thriving city nestled on the shore of a river that saw barges and tourist cruise boats heading northwest to Paris. The Saône was one of Europe’s largest commercial waterways.

After her flight from England, Annja Creed had rented a car in Paris. She’d come from Stonehenge, after filming a segment for Chasing History’s Monsters. Since the builder’s settlement had been discovered not far from the stone monument, the archaeological world had been astir. Annja hadn’t been able to resist the assignment, but it was not finished, nor did she believe it could ever be truly completed. Stonehenge would offer marvels and mysteries for centuries to come.

Upon arriving in Chalon, a quaint half-timber-and-brick restaurant lured her to park. Now she sat before a table on the restaurant patio beneath a maple dropping its leaves. Pea soup and a side order of potatoes and sausage made her forget that fast food ever existed. She was in pure, fattening, butter-laden heaven. She’d work it off later with a few hours of practice lunges.

The restaurant was on the ground floor of an eighteenth-century building, just across from the river. Since Annja was half an hour early, she had taken advantage of the opportunity to eat. Her first rule of thumb when on the road was to eat when the opportunity presented itself.

Finishing her cup of coffee, she dug out some bills and coins and left them on the café table in payment.

Last night she’d received a hasty instant message from Ascher Vallois—a man whom, until today, she had only referred to as AnjouIII while communicating with him. He’d asked her to meet him as quickly as possible. Ascher knew from a previous online conversation that she had been wrapping things up at Stonehenge. His message had been littered with exclamation points.

Ascher’s excitement had injected Annja with renewed exhilaration over a side project she’d been working on for years. It was one of her favorite geeky obsessions. And Ascher believed he had found it.

She made him promise not to look at the find until she arrived.

The find was the infamous sword alluded to in notes found in the nineteenth-century research journal of adventure writer Alexandre Dumas. The sword was gifted to Charles de Batz-Castelmore d’Artagnan by Queen Anne, the Austrian import, while her son Louis XIV reigned over France in the seventeenth century. Research notes written in the margins of Dumas’s notebooks—but not necessarily in his handwriting—had postulated that the sword had been a gift for a job well done serving as lieutenant of the king’s First Company of Musketeers.

“D’Artagnan’s sword,” Annja murmured, a smile irresistible. “Finally.”

Standing outside the white picket fence that corralled the café’s customers, she looked across the street and stretched her gaze beyond the parking lot before the river.

“If Ascher is right, this day will so rock.”

Though her specialty was the medieval and renaissance time periods, Annja had started following the life of the real-life musketeer—upon whom Dumas based his infamous hero—after reading a tattered copy of The Three Musketeers during her first year at college. If her fellow archaeologists discovered she spent her rare free time poring over copies of Dumas’s journals for the sword, they’d laugh.

And a laughing archaeologist was a rare thing.

Annja considered what she knew about the real musketeer. When Charles Castelmore, one of eight children born to minor nobility, signed on to the musketeers—some thirty years after Dumas had chosen to place him into his fictional version of history—the adventurous young Gascon used his mother’s maiden name of d’Artagnan. At the time, it carried more cachet than the Castelmore surname. His mother had been a Montesquieu, and the d’Artagnan name hailed from ancient nobility. His grandfather had been well-known to Henri IV, a valuable alliance to the Castelmore family.

Castelmore lived an illustrious career serving the king’s First Company of Musketeers. Dumas had included many of the man’s actual adventures in his stories, including the capture and imprisonment of Nicolas Fouquet, the notorious superintendent of finances who had been arrested for embezzling royal funds.

Not many people were aware that the swashbuckling hero from one of their favorite classic reads had been a real person; even fewer were aware of the sword. An allusion to the sword’s existence was marked by a notation in Dumas’s notes. Most literary researchers put it off as an abandoned plot line.

Annja, on the other hand, had found that notation and had run with it.

There were too many correlating facts for her to ignore. But she’d turned up nothing but a few enthusiastic historians and the occasional document signed by d’Artagnan for her sleuthing efforts. Once she realized that the real man had signed his name “d’Artaignan” she had also uncovered a few more items of interest, such as a copy of his marriage certificate—signed by Louis XIV—as well as the document of divorce.

She had explored the few sites d’Artagnan was known to have occupied or lived at, and had even been involved on a dig in Lille where d’Artagnan had served as governor of the city for a few miserable months. That dig had turned up nothing more than a few Spanish coins circa the sixteenth century and a dented copper pot.

She’d thought of Gens, the region close to Lupiac in southwest France, where he was born, but that had turned up little more than the usual facts about the musketeer’s military accomplishments. Though there was a nice museum dedicated to the musketeer in Lupiac.

Of course, Charles Castelmore’s last residence was not Lille, but in Paris on the rue du Bac. The site where his apartment once stood bore a small plaque commemorating the musketeer, but the building had long been torn down and replaced with a more modern design.

Annja had known Ascher Vallois for over a year, having met him online at alt. archaeology. esoterica, her frequent hangout when stuck in an airplane flying over any number of oceans. Ascher began instant messaging her after she’d filled in some information for him on Henri III, his favorite historical figure.

An unabashed flirt—yes, even though only in e-mail—the man had managed to wheedle some of Annja’s personal information from her, such as favorite color, favorite country to visit, and favorite geeky obsession—d’Artagnan.

That information had started an amusing and often informative cyber friendship. Ascher had been on the sword’s trail for years himself. Thanks to some extra research efforts the past two months, Ascher now believed the sword could be found in Chalon, the final resting place of Charlotte-Anne de Chanlecy—d’Artagnan’s ex-wife.

It was a solid theory, one that had caused Annja no amount of chagrin to realize someone had beaten her to the punch.

But though he’d called the moment something had been unearthed at the dig site—it appeared to be the end of a wooden sword box—she knew it could be any number of things.

If the sword had been found, then this detour before heading home to Brooklyn could prove most exciting.

Annja knew exactly what she was getting herself into by meeting Ascher Vallois. She’d already done a background check on him. Her good friend Bart McGilly, NYPD homicide detective, usually ran names through the law-enforcement system for her, but for overseas contacts Annja was left to her own devices.

It had been easy enough to find information on Ascher. He had his own Web site, which focused on fencing and parkour. While Ascher styled himself a part-time archaeologist who enjoyed extreme sports and who also taught at a children’s fencing school in Sens, Annja had decided he was really a glorified treasure hunter.

To be called a treasure hunter by a fellow archaeologist was a real insult. Duel worthy. Ascher had laughed her off when she teased him. Or rather, he LOLed her.

At least he wasn’t a pothunter. Their sort were unauthorized amateurs who scavenged marked-off sites, digging up fragments and then selling them on the black market.

Annja favored the social aspects of archaeology. She loved learning about the people behind the treasures. A treasure hunter was all about the find, the bling, the prestige over nabbing a valuable artifact and then selling it.

Not that she didn’t get excited over a find, but she was very rational and followed the law when it came time to turn treasures over to the proper authorities.

She had made Ascher swear that, if he located d’Artagnan’s sword, selling it was not his intention. He had promised it would go to the Lupiac museum.

“Chalon,” she murmured, smiling to herself. “I should have thought of Chalon.”

Exhaling, Annja then drew in a deep breath. The river, about a hundred yards off, sweetened the air with a marshy tang. She strode across the street, heading for her rental car to wait for Ascher.

Since inheriting Joan of Arc’s sword, Annja’s life had been completely turned on its head. It wasn’t a bad thing, but neither always good. Her job description had become more than a simple archaeologist turning up finds at a dig. She was so much more than a field reporter on a cable television program.

Around every corner she turned, it seemed she encountered danger. She had escaped from bullet fire, swum away from harpoons, battled demons and had come close to death too many times since she’d discovered Joan’s sword—her sword.

Almost daily, the world proved to Annja it was far more wicked than she could have ever fathomed. When Joan’s sword came to her from the otherwhere and fitted itself ready in her hand, it was because it was needed to stop evil or counter adversity.

And of late, Annja had been wielding it a lot.

Today felt like a vacation. An escape from the day job. For once the world did not sit heavily upon her shoulders. This trip to Chalon was a free moment away from Annja Creed, sword-wielding defender of innocence. It was a chance to breathe and to indulge herself.

“I need this,” she said aloud.

Leaning inside her car, she deposited her backpack on the front passenger’s seat, then closed the door and went around to sit on the hood. From here she could see the two steeples of Saint-Pierre, the city’s largest cathedral. She loved touring European cathedrals. And there were so many of them to see, she felt sure to never run out in her lifetime.

The parking lot bordered the shore of the river Saône. The scent of fresh water and grass overwhelmed even the leaky-oil smell coming from the rental car. Blond brickwork danced along the verdant shore, and the paved walkway was shaded by huge chestnut trees.

A white swan called out as Annja scanned the pedestrians, mostly tourists carrying shopping bags and maps. A newly remodeled strip of shops and cafés lined the street behind her. This part of the city catered to tourists, and offered hourly boat tours along the river.

“Tous pour un.”

At the deep male voice Annja turned and offered an enthusiastic reply to his “all for one,” with “Un pour tous.”

“Annja!” A six-foot-plus man with a smile as broad as his sunburned shoulders and curly, dark hair strode up and embraced her. He gave her a kiss on the left cheek, and then the right.

It happened so quickly, Annja just went with it. Normally she did not allow a stranger such ease with her. She enjoyed the social aspects of her trade but she protected her personal space keenly.

But Ascher wasn’t really a stranger. She’d been communicating with him for a year. And beyond the knowledge gained about him online, she couldn’t deny he smelled great.

“Ascher Vallois,” she said. “It is you?”

“ Oui, I am not to accost the beautiful star of Chasing History’s Monsters. Mademoiselle Creed, you are more gorgeous in person.”

“And you are…” Handsome popped to her mind.

His body moved sinuously, and the sleeveless shirt he wore revealed a defined muscle tone that could only come from intense workouts. The man was an extreme sports enthusiast, so the muscles were no surprise, but his attractiveness startled her. Of course, she had expected a rogue. His e-mails had not hidden the arrogant pride and underlying flirtatious manner.

Ascher was, she realized with a start, the epitome of what she imagined d’Artagnan must have looked like. He was a boundless adventurer with a devil-may-care attitude and a charming glint to his pale blue eyes. A mere wink from him could be capable of dropping women in his wake.

“I am what, Annja? You think I am as you expected?” Ascher asked with a grin.

He moved to shake her hand, which relaxed her, and she shook off the weird schoolgirl reaction that had risen. She was no swooner.

“You are exactly as expected, Ascher. Friendly, athletic and handsome,” she said, smiling.

“Ah, the American television star, she calls me handsome? What my buddies at the dig will think of that!”

“How many are there?” Annja asked, suddenly anxious.

“Two others I have worked with previously. You know I trust them. Oh.” He dug something out of his pocket and handed it to her.

Annja accepted the item, loosely wrapped in a white handkerchief. Her enthusiasm ratcheted up the scale. “Is it—?”

“Just look,” he urged. Crossing his arms high on his chest, he watched her, the gleam in his eyes rivaling any glittering treasure he had ever claimed, Annja felt sure.

She unwrapped a piece of wood about six by four inches. She ran her fingers over a design impressed into the end. Sniffing it, Annja scented the dirt and clay, or maybe limestone. Limestone was excellent for preserving artifacts.

Turning the wood, she decided the impression must be a coat of arms. It was divided into four quarters, and in the first and fourth quadrant were double towers. A bowing eagle was impressed in the second and third quarters.

“It is the end of the sword box that I removed accidentally.” Literally bouncing on his feet, he gestured enthusiastically to the object in her hand. “It is real, Annja. The sword has been found.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Annja said, forcing herself to remain calm.

“Very well.” He hooked an arm in hers and tugged her around the car. “Come, we must be off to the dig site before the sun sets. We will take your car. You rented?”

“Yes, in Paris.”

“City of love!” He dashed ahead to open the driver’s side door for her, and closed it behind her after she’d slid inside. “To a dashing good adventure,” he said as he climbed in the passenger’s side.

And Annja dialed into his enthusiasm. “To adventure!”

F IELDS OF GRAPEVINES LINED the narrow country road they traveled. A symphony of crickets demanded Annja switch off the radio—tuned to a news-and-weather channel—and take in the natural performance.

“Just ahead.” Ascher gave directions to the dig site that once harbored an Augustine convent before it had been demolished by fire in 1690.

Charlotte-Anne de Chanlecy had initially moved into the convent following her husband’s death, but quickly retired to a quiet family estate just off the convent grounds. Chalon was her hometown.

There was not a lot of documentation on d’Artagnan’s wife, she being a minor historical figure, but Annja guessed the convent might have been a bit too stifling for a woman who had once been married to an adventurous musketeer.

Window rolled down, the September air brushed a warm breeze across Annja’s face and arm. It was a far cry from the ocean-kissed air that had buffeted Stonehenge, but not unpleasant. The countryside smelled like centuries of history, hobbled and roped and beaten into the ground by defiant hooves. Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité. She did love a French motto.

“I have to wonder why, when I studied documents and files and researched dusty old archives for years,” Annja said, “I was never led to Chalon-sur-Saône.”

“Because it makes little sense.” Ascher hooked a palm over the outside mirror. A bend of his fingers flexed his muscular forearm. “To find the sword in possession of the wife?”

“And the ex- wife, at that,” Annja returned.

“Such a cad! D’Artagnan had no true affection to any particular woman,” Ascher said.

“Exactly,” she agreed. “Dumas certainly got that part right. The musketeer basically married for money, got the wife pregnant and then went off to play shoot-’em-up with his military buddies. Though, part of me likes to believe he did love Charlotte. Initially.”

“There is no doubt that he did. A Frenchman does not take love lightly,” Ascher said. He spoke English, and it rang with a delightful accent. “But a soldier—especially a Gascon—was more devoted to military service than family.”

“Yes, the Gascons. Born and bred to the fight. They served in great numbers in the French army. You mentioned you are originally from Gascony?”

“ Oui! But I would not be so foolish had I a lovely wife at home,” he said.

Without turning her attention from the road, Annja could feel Ascher’s glance heat the side of her face. The man was a charmer.

Nothing wrong with that, she thought.

“‘A plague upon the Gascons!’” she said, quoting Rochefort’s vehement frustration from the text of the Dumas story.

“‘Monsieur, I love men of your kidney,’” Ascher quoted back. “‘And I foresee plainly that if we do not kill each other, I shall hereafter find much pleasure in your conversation.’”

“Athos to d’Artagnan,” Annja said. “But I see you more as the young Gascon.”

“I am flattered. Then you shall be my Constance Bonacieux.”

“I hope not. She was strangled by Milady de Winter while awaiting d’Artagnan’s straying affections,” Annja exclaimed.

“True, true. Very well, I will hold reservation on your fictional counterpart, Annja. For now.”

She smiled and stepped on the brake lightly as they made a sharp curve that took them onto a narrow gravel road that edged a thick forest of colorful maple and leaf-stripped birch. If anyone approached from ahead, she’d have to pull into the shallow grassy ditch to pass.

“Back to the mystery of the sword.” Annja flipped the inner vents closed to keep most of the gravel dust out of the car. “It’s surprising to think our musketeer would gift a woman, who likely did not love him because of his obsessive call to duty, with a valuable sword.”

“Maybe it was given to her with the intention his children would reap any reward found? He had two sons,” Ascher said.

“Yes, Louis and Louis,” Annja agreed.

“Both claim Louis XIII and Louis XIV as godfathers. Now, that is a family who loved their king.”

“Charlotte-Anne must have been quite the woman,” Annja said

“Yes, she divorced her husband in a time when divorce was not considered. But they remained friends. I believe it was not just for their children, but that d’Artagnan was genuinely in love with his wife.”

“He was more in love with adventure,” Annja said.

She knew the feeling. Relationships took a back seat to her wanderlust. And defending the world from evil tended to put a damper on romantic notions.

She noted that Ascher had not relaxed in the seat since getting in the car. He leaned forward, his eyes to the road and, often, on her.

“I think the seat is adjustable, if you’re not comfortable?” she said.

“Ah, no worries.” He smoothed a palm along his left side. “An injury that is yet stiff, you see.”

“How’d it happen? Base jumping? Extreme running—what did you call it?”

“ Parkour. Running all over building tops and jumping at high speeds. You use the architectural landscape as your obstacle course. Very exciting. Good for the quads, glutes and delts. You should give it a try.”

“I just may.”

He tossed her an approving nod.

“But that was not how I came to this injury. It is of no importance. Up there, just around the corner, we’ll find the dig site. Why are you stopping, Annja?”

In the rearview mirror, the sight of the big black SUV that had barreled up on them put Annja to caution. The pistol jutting out the passenger’s side could not be ignored.

She couldn’t outrun the monster truck in her little beater. While her gut prayed it was merely mistaken identity, her intuition screamed that this vacation had suddenly taken a new yet familiar twist.

3

Annja stopped the car on the country road. The sun had set, but the sky still glowed yellow. The SUV’s headlights dimmed in the rearview mirror.

“For reasons that elude me, we’ve been followed,” Annja said.

Tilting a glance across to her passenger, she was taken aback to spy him nervously swipe a palm down his face.

What had she stepped into?

Certainly she had jumped into the adventure with little more than anticipation for a fun excursion. No parachute, that was for sure—parachutes were for wimps. Yet now that she had jumped, it had become apparent she should employ caution at all turns.

“Ascher, do you know the hulking, black-suited men who are currently getting out of an imposing SUV, tucking pistols into their inner pockets and marching toward us?”

The man’s sudden lack of conversation struck her to the core. Annja sucked in a heavy breath.

“Ascher, my background check on you didn’t turn up any jail time or criminal leanings.”

“You checked me out?” he asked, sounding offended.

“Obviously not well enough. What have you involved me in? Have you enemies who feel the need to keep tabs on your every move?”

“Every man gains an enemy or two in his lifetime, no?”

“No—”

A thud against the window alerted them both. Annja twisted in the driver’s seat to spy two palms pressed flat to her window. Ten fingers disappeared, and were replaced with the barrel of what looked like one of her favorite pistols, a 9 mm Glock. It wasn’t her favorite at the moment.

From outside the car, a staunch French voice commanded they exit with their hands up.

“Be cool,” Annja said. “And get out slowly.”

“I am cool. You be cool, Annja.”

“I’m cooler than—oh, for cripes sakes, what are we doing? Now is no time to act irrationally. Let’s do this slowly and carefully and together.”

“Exactly. We cannot allow them to divide and conquer us.”

Holding back the retort, “Whatever you say, Napoleon” seemed wise.

Each slowly opened a car door, and before Annja could get her hands up, the gun barrel pressed into her rib cage. She wore a white, sleeveless T-shirt and khaki hiking shorts, and she was sweating.

A tall, brutish man dressed in nondescript dark pants and a short gray coat wielded the gun. A thick gold chain snaked about his tree-trunk neck. High-top sneakers rounded off the attire that was strange for only a drive in the countryside. He looked ready for a hike through an urban nightclub.

Pressing the backs of her thighs to the car door, Annja surreptitiously glanced over the roof of the rental. Ascher stood with hands raised, and a gun about a foot from his nose.

“You had no intention to invite us to the dig?” the gunman beside Ascher asked in French.

She heard Ascher fumble for a reply. “And have you get your hands dirty? Of course not.”

“Who is she?”

The gunman eyeing Annja lifted a blocky chin and eyed her down his nose. One crushing palm to the tip of that nose and he’d be snorting blood. But though she knew Ascher was athletic, she couldn’t be sure he’d know to react defensively when she did. Just because he was an enthusiast for sports didn’t make him a self-defense expert.

“A girlfriend,” Ascher volunteered. “No one you know, or need to know. She can stay in the car while we go on to the dig.”

She felt to her bones that Ascher knew these men, or at least wasn’t as surprised to see them as she was. And while his efforts to protect her fell flat in the chivalry department, she wasn’t about to stay behind when the situation could turn dangerous.

And did you just hear your own thoughts, Annja? You know it’s going to be dangerous, so you intend to march right into the fray. You really buy into all this protect-the-innocent stuff the sword has brought into your life.

If she couldn’t avoid danger, she figured might as well join it. That would grant her more control than if she simply surrendered. Besides, she was armed, but the sword wasn’t exactly a weapon to win against bullets.

“She comes along.” The gunman gripped her upper arm, hard, and poked the Glock into Annja’s back. She hated unnecessary aggression focused through the barrel of a gun. “Vallois, you will take us to the sword,” he ordered.

They knew about the sword? And they knew Ascher’s name.

Good job on checking the online contact’s history, Annja, she chided herself.

Once around the hood of the car and shoved to Ascher’s side, Annja saw he had a pistol barrel stuck against his temple.

“Does she know where the sword is?” the thug with the gun stuck into her side asked.

“I—I’m not—” the safety on the pistol aimed at Ascher’s skull clicked off, which made the truth flow easily from him. “No, but I have told her about it. The dig site is through the forest.”

“Then lead us.” Both of them were given a shove.

Annja stumbled in the growing darkness as they descended into the shallow roadside ditch, but kept her balance. Her hiking boots squished over soggy grass, but didn’t sink in far. An owl questioned them from somewhere in the distant forest. A cloud of gnats pinged against her shoulders and neck. She didn’t shoo them away. Any sudden moves could result in a bullet wound, which was less desirable than a few insect bites.

As she trudged up the incline and through the long grass, she felt fingers touch her hand. Ascher tugged her up the opposite side of the ditch and they continued onward, close, hands clasped.

“Trust me,” he whispered.

“So not going to,” Annja replied. Keeping her voice to a whisper, she asked, “Are there others at the site?”

“Two. They camp overnight.”

Not good. Annja didn’t want to endanger anyone else, and it wasn’t as if she expected a rescue team to be waiting for their arrival. Archaeologists did not the cavalry make.

At the moment, no other option presented itself. She’d play this one with a feint, holding back the riposte for the right moment. Now was no time to bring out the sword. Not until she determined if their guides were eager to use their weapons, or if they were more for show. She wouldn’t kill unless her life was threatened or the lives of others were. But a few slices to injure were warranted.

Ascher stumbled and she instinctively reached to catch him. A shout from behind, “Don’t touch him!” parted them quickly.

Ascher and Annja entered a copse of maples capping the tip of the forest. Surrounded by trees, twisting branches and leaf canopy obliterated any light lingering in the sky. Verdant moss and autumn-dried leaves thickened the air with must. They slowly navigated the uneven ground, snapping twigs and dodging low branches. Boots crunched branches; leaves brushed her skin. Briefly, she hoped there was no poison ivy.

“It is growing difficult to see without a flashlight,” Ascher hollered over his shoulder. Rather loudly, Annja noted. The dig site must be close. Ascher might be trying to warn whoever was camped there.

A fine red beam zigged across the ground between the two of them. It came from the rifle scope one of the men had pulled out of his coat. It was bright, but only beamed a narrow line across the forest floor. It illuminated nothing.

It occurred to Annja to be worried about wild animals as they tromped over an obvious trail worn into crisp fallen leaves between birch trees. Wolves were rampant in France, though Annja knew they were most prevalent in the southern Alps.

Right now, taking her chances with one of them almost sounded favorable. At least with a wolf she stood a chance of escape, or if she was attacked, knew it wasn’t personal.

Was this personal for Ascher?

Knowing little about this situation notched up her apprehension. Annja flexed the fingers of her right hand, itching to hold her sword. Was Ascher an ally or foe?

“Just ahead!” Ascher suddenly shouted.

The small golden glow of a camp light beamed across the front of a large pitched tent. Inside the tent, another muted glow lit up the two visible sides of the structure.

She hoped no one would rush to greet them and thus freak out the gunmen and result in someone getting shot.

The tent was pitched outside what Annja determined to be a shallow dig site. Pitons and rope marked off a territory about thirty feet square—a guess, for darkness cloaked most of the area. A small leather case, likely for tools, sat open next to the roped-off area alongside two buckets and a short-handled shovel.

Pale light illuminated the interior of the tent, and as the foursome approached, a man in slouchy blue jeans and crisp yellow button-up shirt emerged, saw the situation and immediately put up his hands.

“Vallois,” the surprised man said in English. “Didn’t know you were bringing more than the girl. Guns. Christ, two guns. Evening, gentlemen. What’s up?”

“You have the sword?” the thug who held the gun on Annja demanded.

“Ah.” The man considered that request for a moment. He eyed Ascher, who remained stoic, the gun at his temple. “The sword.”

British, Annja decided of the man. Probably midthirties, and slender, with long graceful fingers. He had expected Ascher to bring her along with him, but the gunmen were a surprise.

Of course, when were gunmen not a surprise?

“Are there others in the tent?” Annja asked, and then mentally kicked herself, because if there were others they might have been planning an ambush. Until she had opened her big mouth.

“Just the one,” the Brit offered. “Jay is sleeping.”

“With the sword?” Her henchman was persistent.

“Er…most likely. Yes, the…sword.” Again the Brit looked to Ascher, who offered nothing by means of physical comprehension.

“We all go inside,” the gunman said.

Shoved roughly, Annja tripped forward, past Ascher, until she stood before the confused Brit. They exchanged furious gazes, but no matter how hard she tried, Annja couldn’t decide whether to compel anxiety or reassurance. She knew nothing, beyond that she wanted to stay alive—and figure out why everyone was being so evasive. To do so required following orders. For now.

“Go in! Go in!” the gunman shouted.

Annja shuffled in behind the nameless British man, with Ascher on her heels. As the pair of gun-toting thugs tromped into the tent, another man, looking like a teenager and lying upon a makeshift camping cot, woke and pulled a pillow from his face. “What the bloody hell?”

“Ascher has brought along some friends,” the other explained, with a flair for understatement.

“The woman from the television—” Jay suddenly noticed the guns, and chirped off his sentence.

“Hands up!” Annja’s gunman shouted, and the recently risen boy dropped his pillow to the tent floor and complied.

“What do they want?” he asked, standing and shuffling over to the older Brit’s side. He wore long flannel sleeping pants and a clean white T-shirt. His feet were bare.

“The sword,” Ascher said. “The one you found last night. You know?”

Last night? But he had only just called her this morning to announce they had yet to completely unearth the sword.

Annja couldn’t read Ascher’s expression in the dull light, but beyond him, she noticed a folding table laid out with a few pieces of crockery—obviously dig finds—and another item covered over by a white cloth. The sword? It couldn’t be. Well, it could be. But that would mean Ascher had lied to her when he’d promised he’d wait to unearth it.

“Where is it?” the gunman asked.

“On the table,” the younger man answered, bowing his sleep-tousled head and toeing the ground. “Under the cloth.”

“D’Artagnan’s sword?” the other gunman finally spoke, and his deep, throaty tones startled Annja. It sounded like a ten-pack-a-day rumble.

“I guess so,” the teenager said. With an elbow nudge from his cohort, he continued. “It is. We uncovered it last night. Bloody hell, you’re not going to take it, are you? That’s a valuable—”

The gun that had been focused on Annja found a new target on the nervous teen. He immediately shut up, offering a pantomime of zipping his fingers across his lips.

“It hasn’t been authenticated,” the other Brit spoke up. “There’s no proof it is real. I’m not an expert in weaponry—”

“You are trying to trick me,” the gunman said. He motioned at Annja with his gun. “You. Get it for me. Keep your hands up where I can see them.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” she muttered under her breath.

Annja walked carefully toward the table, hands up near her ears.

For years she had researched, tracked and searched for this very sword, and now, before she could barely glance at it, it would be taken from her hands?

But I will have seen it. Touched it. All that matters is that it exists.

“Careful,” Ascher directed over his shoulder.

Careful? No freakin’ kidding, she thought.

The dry, chalky scent of limestone-infused earth wafted up from the table. A dusting brush sat upon a piece of terra-cotta pottery. Not worth salvage, the shard, but no find is ever overlooked on a dig. All bits and pieces of size are cataloged in field notebooks. Nearby one lay open upon the table.

And there, beneath a wrinkled white cloth, that she now saw to be a pillowcase, sat the shape of a sword.

Peeling back the cloth, Annja slid her fingers over the dull metal blade, crusted with dirt and probably rusted or eroded for its rough texture. The camp light did not illuminate the table well with her body blocking the light source. The hilt, perhaps blued steel, did not shine. Common for a sixteenth-century weapon—but for all the dirt she could not be positive.

D’Artagnan’s sword should be seventeenth century.

“Bring it here, quickly!” the gunman said.

Tucking the pillowcase about the hilt, Annja then took it in a firm grip. She stood there, waiting to feel the infusion of power, that triumphant surge of knowing that always came with claiming the talisman, medallion or sacred cup the hero quested for. It had to be there. It wasn’t right without it.

It didn’t happen. In fact…

“This is—” she started.

“A fine specimen,” Ascher broke in. “Handle it carefully, Annja.”

The hilt was not gold, Annja realized.

Right. A fine specimen, indeed.

Walking forward, the sword held out before her, Annja reached Ascher’s side and glanced to him. Perspiration sparkled on the bridge of his nose. And yet, she didn’t feel the nervousness he displayed.

The sword was torn from her grip.

“Careful with it!” the teenager said, which ended with an abrupt tone. One of the gunmen kept the foursome under watch.

Annja felt her body relax, her shoulders falling until one nestled against Ascher’s shoulder. He didn’t flinch at the contact. Despite appearances, his posture and breathing seemed equally relaxed as hers. Almost…content. To be watching the grail be stolen away?

The gunman near her tucked away his Glock. He then grabbed the sword, rather roughly for an artifact, and gestured with it toward the back of the tent. “Back by the table. All of you!”

The foursome, Annja, Ascher, Jay and the man who had not been allowed an introduction, shuffled backward, hands up. The other gunman returned with a red gas can and began to soak the edges of the tent.

Annja shook out her hands, her fingers aching to grip a weapon, a sure defense against all that was wrong.

She did not want to reveal her secret to the three witnesses. Ascher, she wasn’t even sure whose side he was on. The risk wasn’t worth the payoff—yet.

The tent lighted to a blaze and the gunmen took off.

“Allez!” Ascher shouted. “Let’s get out of here!”

“If we flatten the tent we can smother the flames,” Jay said.

“Get out, Annja!” Ascher shoved her, and she stumbled toward the tent opening.

She did not stick around and wait for a second warning. Though intuition whispered that the sword wasn’t the sword, she wasn’t about to let it get away until she knew the truth.

Dashing over the two-foot-high border of flame eating the canvas tent, and into the clean night air, Annja did a scan of the surroundings. The night had quickly grown dark; there wasn’t a moon in sight. A Jeep was parked on the other side of the marked dig. Had they driven across the field and around the forest?

The thugs would return the same direction they had come. Their only escape was the waiting SUV.

Taking off at a sprint, Annja vacated the blazing campsite and entered the dark confines of the trees. It wasn’t exactly a forest, more a strip of birch and maple, probably edging an arable block that was once an old medieval plot.

Her suspicions about the sword the thugs had taken off with felt right. And Ascher’s silent but effective eye signals had further confirmed her doubt about its authenticity.

But that didn’t mean the bad guys were going to get off scot-free.

Generally thugs were just that—big loping oafs with muscle. They usually answered to someone. And Annja wanted that someone’s name.

Branches snapped under her rushing steps, but she didn’t worry for stealth. Already she could hear her prey ahead, plodding through the undergrowth and cursing the darkness. The forest opened onto the field. A hundred yards ahead, the SUV’s parking lights beamed over Annja’s rental car.

Annja reached out to her right, exhaled a cleansing breath, and focused her will to that untouchable otherwhere that served her wishes. With her inhale, she felt the weight of Joan’s sword fit to her grip.

This sword belonged to her. She had claimed it when she’d fit the final missing piece to the other pieces her mentor Roux had collected, quite literally, over the centuries. It answered no one’s bidding but her own. And it had become her life.

She curled her fingers around the familiar hilt. Wielding the well-balanced weapon expertly, Annja swept it through the air before her in a half circle and then to en garde position.

One of the thugs sat on the ground, huffing, both palms to the grass. Obviously he’d tripped.

“Get up! The entire forest will soon be ablaze!” The other man beat the air in frustration with the stolen sword.

“Now boys, that’s no way to handle a valued artifact,” she announced.

Both looked to the woman who stood at the edge of the forest, medieval sword wielded boldly and determination glinting in her eyes.

4

Knowing both thugs carried guns, Annja dashed across the grassy meadow, cutting their distance, and the range for an easy shot, to a minimum.

The one standing reacted by defensively stabbing the stolen sword at her.

Annja took the bait. But she didn’t connect her blade to the ancient blade. Instead, she delivered a thrust to the air just over the opponent’s shoulder and slapped her elbow against the very tip of his blade, which bounced it out of threatening position.

The man on the ground thrust out his right arm. Annja knew a gun would be in his hand. She swept her blade across his forearm, slicing through his leather jacket. The gun dropped. Blood spattered her wrist as she did a one-foot reel, swinging forward to grab the gun and spinning up into a twirl to land on the other side of the grounded thug.

A cold jab poked her neck. The man with the sword smiled, and charged again. He’d actually poked her with the thing! Yet a slap to her neck did not find blood, only a sore spot.

“You’re going to destroy what you believe to be a valuable artifact?” she challenged, and bent to avoid another inexpert swing of the rusted weapon. “You must have come after it for a reason. Why risk damaging it now?”

That question appeared to give the idiot some thought. Tossing the sword to his left hand, his right then went for his gun, tucked in the front of his waistband.

Aware that the man on the ground groped for her ankle, Annja kicked, landing her heel aside his head. He fell unconscious.

Instinctively diving to the ground, Annja’s palm hit the grass as a bullet skimmed her shoulder. It burned, but didn’t go deep. Rolling to her side, she pushed upright. Her weapon was not designed for choreographed fencing moves. Nor was she. Annja jammed her sword into the thigh of the gunman. The thug took the hit with surprising sanguinity. He grunted, but appeared to swallow back a curse. The Glock found aim with her head.

A dry branch cracked under her boot as she stepped to the side and bent, charging forward. The pistol retort echoed in the sky.

Crown of her head barreling into the gunman’s gut, Annja put her weight into the move, and kicked from the ground. They both went down. Thinking she’d land with her palms, Annja willed away the sword. Her fingers slid across dried leaves and grass.

She spied the gun but it was a grasp away. Cocking out an elbow, she jammed it into whatever she could, landing on the tender curves of an ear. It was a choice shot. The gunman growled and dropped his head, rolling toward her.

Again willing the sword into her grip, Annja swung out and with the heavy hilt, clocked the man at the back of his head above his ear. He dropped, out for the count.

Scrambling forward, she grabbed the second gun. Another Glock—the clip was full. Stuffing the first at the back of her waistband, she then stood and held the second on both downed thugs.

“Annja!” Ascher appeared, scrambling out from the trees. “What the hell?”

“I’m fine.” She walked toward Ascher, who clutched his left side.

As for her sword, she always seemed to release it without thought. It was safe, wherever it was that it went when she did not need it. That made it very handy when the need to be discreet presented itself. There’d be no long black Highlander coats for this chick.

“How did you do this?” He looked over her carnage. “They both had guns.”

“I charmed them,” she offered, and then smiled because if he knew the truth, he’d never believe it. “You got some rope back at camp?”

“Yes, but—they’re getting back up.”

Annja spun, but instead of leaping forward to swing her sword after the thugs, she couldn’t move. Ascher gripped her by the shoulders, and she could do nothing but watch as the lead thug grabbed the stolen sword from the ground.

“Let them go,” Ascher said. “You have the sword!” he yelled to the thugs. “Now leave us be.”

“I am not going to let this happen.” Annja twisted from Ascher’s grip.

In less than a breath he’d positioned his body before her, his chest up against hers. A bulldog guarding its territory.

“It’s not the sword,” he hissed. “Let them go.”

“They were going to kill us. Or at least try. Are the others all right?”

“They are fine.”

She took a step to the left. Ascher matched her. Taller than her, and bulked with muscle, his physique didn’t give her concern. The idea of simply allowing those men to walk off with the sword—any sword—felt like defeat.

“Come back to camp,” he said, his shoulders dropping and his tone settling to a softer plea.

The SUV revved and pealed across the gravel, heading back the way it had come from.

“There’s more to this than a simple treasure hunt, isn’t there?” she asked.

Ascher rolled his head and shrugged his shoulders in an aggressive move. Then he sighed and walked toward the forest. He left her to follow.

Annja sucked in the corner of her bottom lip. She could walk across the field, hop in her car and be done with this treasure hunt masquerade.

Or she could turn around and hound the deceitful Gascon for the truth.

Seventeenth century

N ICOLAS F OUQUET LOOKED UP from the list of expenditures Cardinal Mazarin had handed him.

“Where is it?”

The king marched into his office, red heels clicking and garish blue silk rosettes bouncing at shoulders, hips and toes.

“Your Highness.” Mazarin turned on the chair where he sat before Nicolas’s desk. He didn’t offer a bow. Instead he held out his hand, for the king to kiss his ring. Louis did. “What troubles you this day?”

“Where are the jewels?” Louis rubbed his fist against his stomach, which was a common habit of anxiety. “My mother’s private stash. Some are missing. Have they been stolen?”

“And how are you aware of these so-called missing jewels?” Nicolas asked, but immediately cursed himself for being so bold. Mazarin may have had the king’s respect, but he yet strived for that elusive confidence.

“Surely—” Mazarin sent a cruel glance toward Nicolas to reprimand “—she must have handed them to the royal jeweler for cleaning?”

“No.” Louis paced between the bookshelf where Nicolas kept his legal volumes and the window that overlooked the Tuileries. “I check our coffers every Sunday. Today there are many pieces missing. She is not wearing them. There are some items she has never worn. I cannot understand that.”

The king looked imploringly at his financier and the cardinal. So young yet, and with an entire nation depending on his guidance.

Nicolas cleared his throat. But when Louis beseeched him silently, he looked down and merely shook his head. He couldn’t reveal that he had seen the map. He valued Queen Anne’s trust immensely.

“They were given to her by a lover,” Louis suddenly said in a very quiet voice. “Or so I suspect as much.”

The cardinal chuckled. “You cannot spite your mother a lover.”

Mazarin rose, but instead of going to the king’s side, he walked in the opposite direction, toward the wall of legal books. Tracing a finger along their leather spines, the cardinal said nothing more.

Nicolas knew why the silence. Queen Anne and Mazarin were very close. And her son, the king, could never imagine such an alliance right beneath his very nose. Which was why Nicolas valued Anne’s trust more than the king’s. For the time.

“She has a lover?” Louis prompted.

Mazarin answered with a guilty silence and splay of his liver-spotted hands.

When the king looked to Nicolas, the financier swallowed back the urge to confess the intrigues he knew, in hopes of gaining the king’s confidence, and merely shrugged. “Possible,” he said.

“If she has a lover—” Louis paced as he spoke, head down in thought “—those jewels may have been gifts.”

“Should not the queen be allowed to accept gifts?” Mazarin posed. “Surely they were mere trinkets?”

Much more than trinkets, Nicolas knew. For he kept detailed records of the royal assets. Though Anne had shown him the jewels, she had insisted he not tally their value.

“It matters not the size of the bauble, or the conditions in which the trinkets were received.” Louis fisted his hips, a petulant child. “All monies within the royal palace are the king’s property. The queen cannot give away an asset without giving away mine. I will have them back.”

Louis marched to the door, but swung back to admonish them with a pointing finger. “I will discover the truth of this matter, messieurs. With or without your assistance.”

The king did not close the door. For long minutes his heels echoed out jaunty clicks as he strode the marble hallway toward the west wing.

Finally, Mazarin heaved out a sigh. He rapped Nicolas’s desk with his beringed knuckles. “Quite the intrigue, eh?”

Nicolas could not be sure if the cardinal could know the complete details behind the missing jewels—that the queen had hidden them, and had plans to then give them away.

To hide her indiscretions.

And so he but nodded, and watched as the cardinal sauntered out of his office.

It was interesting to Nicolas, now that he considered the recipient of the treasure cache of jewels. A musketeer. And what was that silly little phrase the musketeers spoke as a literal statement of faith?

All for the king.

Yes. Interesting, then, that a very particular musketeer should be taking from the mouth of the very man he had pledged to serve faithfully.

Actually, it was rather amusing.

5

It neared midnight, and exhilaration overwhelmed Annja’s exhaustion. The tent lay flattened, its perimeter burned and the canvas smoking. The center remained intact thanks to Jay’s fast actions to snuff the flames.

A flashlight had been retrieved from the Jeep’s glove box, and Annja could now make out faces. The teenager’s face was blackened with ash, and his short blond hair stuck out in tufts. His slouchy jeans and fancy sneakers led Annja to believe he was a charmer. Or maybe it was the wink he tossed her way.

“Now what?” Jay asked Ascher, but he danced his look up and down Annja.

Boys and their blatant hormones. Annja looked away to conceal her smile.

“Formal introductions,” Ascher said as he slung an arm across Annja’s shoulder. “Jay and Peyton Nash, I introduce you to the one and only Annja Creed.”

“Chasing History’s Monsters,” Jay said in weird fan-boy wonder. “I never miss an episode. Your stories are fascinating, Miss Creed.”

“Thank you, Jay. Glad to know you appreciate the history and research.”

“Oh, yeah, the research,” he muttered, but it wasn’t very convincing.

“A pleasure.” Peyton Nash leaned forward and offered a hand, which Annja took as opportunity to slip from Ascher’s too comfortable embrace. She returned the proffered shake. Good, firm clasp. And a keen sense of decorum. She liked the man. “Jay’s my little brother. We’ve had the ill luck of digging out holes with Vallois on more than a few occasions. I suppose that is our fault. He calls, we come running.”

“I guess that makes you a winner,” Jay said to Ascher.

Ascher shook his head subtly, but from the corner of her eye Annja caught the move. “A winner? What does that mean?” she asked.

“I do not know what he is talking about,” Ascher pleaded with a shrug.

Peyton, the elder brother, shook his head, but could not hide a grin in the glare of the flashlight.

“Did you make a bet that you could get me here?” she tried. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine after his attempts at online flirtation. “Was that the only reason you invited me to the dig?”

Jay answered, “Yes.”

Ascher spit out a resounding “No.”

“I may have put forth a friendly wager,” Ascher then offered quickly, “but only after inviting you here.”

“Because you were guaranteed you would win,” she said.

“No, because I wanted you to see the sword.”

“You didn’t have the sword when you called me last night. Or that’s what you said. You had some sword. The one the thugs got away with looked sixteenth century from what I saw,” she said.

“Found it after but three dips of the shovel into the ground,” Peyton explained. “Nice find, but quite damaged by the elements.”

No surprise. France was covered with lost weapons and armor and spoils of war. Most of it was found by farmers, who took the rusted artifacts home and hung them over their fireplaces or tossed them in the truck beds filled with an assortment of odd finds including stripped tires, chipped pots and the occasional silver coin.

“Do you even have the real one?” Annja prompted. “If this was a ruse to get me here—”

“Annja, settle. You saw the coat of arms on the piece I showed you in Chalon. Do you doubt your own knowledge?” Ascher asked.

She’d left the wood piece in the rental car. It had been the Batz-Castelmore coat of arms. Of course, anyone could have easily forged it. Especially someone with ulterior motives to trick her here.

“Who were those thugs?” she asked Ascher. “You weren’t surprised we were followed.”

Peyton took this moment to conveniently slip back and stroll around to join his brother at the edge of the dig site, leaving Annja facing Ascher in a tense stare-down.

It may be three men to one woman, but Annja’s testosterone raged enough for all of them.

“I can honestly say I have never seen them before,” Ascher said.

“They acted as though you had intended to give them the sword all along,” she said.

Ascher shrugged. “You know how the cyber community can be. If you are an expert hacker, you can find out any number of things.”

“Your lack of concern disturbs me.”

Annja tugged out the pistol still tucked at the back of her waistband. With no intention to use it for anything more than a sly threat, she didn’t thread her finger through the trigger, but did snap up her arm against her shoulder—barrel pointing to the sky—and made it clear she wasn’t about to back down.

“Trust me, Annja.” Ascher splayed his hands before him. “I have no intent to deceive you, now or when I called you this morning. I want to share this discovery of d’Artagnan’s sword with you. It is as much yours as it is mine.”

“If it does exist, it belongs to neither of us,” she stated.

“I understand that. All historical artifacts belong to France. But I mean the find, the joy of discovery. It is ours to share.”

“I don’t like the sound of sharing any joy with you.” She dropped the gun to point downward. The man wasn’t a threat. She wasn’t sure if he was an opportunist or just arrogant. Probably both.

“You’ve got two minutes to prove to me I haven’t wasted my time today, Vallois. I don’t have an expense account, and the flight to Paris was not cheap.”

“The proof awaits!” Ascher gestured that the Nash brothers join his side. Each of the three men nodded, knowing. The air hummed with an unspoken excitement.

“What?” Annja eagerly followed as Ascher urged her toward the dig site. “Have you found another sword? The sword?”

“It’s still half-buried,” Jay said excitedly.

“But we’ll have it out in a jiff,” Peyton agreed. “We’ve been waiting for Ascher to bring you here before digging it out completely. He made us promise we would not peek. Well, I was waiting, Jay was—”

“Just resting my eyes. I was not sleeping. You’ve got a gun,” he said to Annja.

Annja dropped the Glock to her side. “Spoils of war. So show me the prize.”

Both men jumped down into the pit, about three feet deep and seven or eight feet wide. Ascher started tossing them tools, trowels and the small shovel. Grinning at Annja, he then jumped into the pit and began to direct them.

So he hadn’t lied about promising to make them wait. But Annja sensed he still lied about something.

“Light, please, Miss Creed,” Peyton said.

Annja flashed the light over the pit. She saw that indeed something was embedded in the dirt. It looked like a corner of a box. An old wooden box that had once held—and maybe still did hold—a valued sword?

“It’s a sword box,” Ascher explained as he carefully brushed away dirt. “Jay opened the end. That is when I contacted you. And you did ask me to wait.”

Trowels clicked against wood and the men worked furiously to uncover the entire box.

Annja didn’t even mind the chill that had settled with nightfall. Brushing her fingers over her bare shoulder, she felt an abrasion. The thug’s bullet had barely damaged the skin. No blood. Though her flesh did feel warm. Excitement fueled her temperature up a few notches, she felt sure.

“There is a sword inside!” Jay announced grandly. He had a hand poked in the exposed end of the box where the coat of arms had been removed. “I can feel the curve of the pommel through the cloth. It must be wrapped in a sword bag. And it will be d’Artagnan’s sword!”

Annja smirked. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

A N HOUR LATER , Annja believed.

The box was open, she squatted next to it, holding the sword that Ascher had carefully laid upon her palms. Jay held the camp light above their heads as they all preened over the weapon.

It was a rapier, apparent by its short and narrow blade. The hilt was ornamental. Not a fighting sword, but one worn by a gentleman as an enhancement to his wardrobe, a decorative accessory.

Surprising. Yet Annja assumed if the queen had commissioned it, she may not have thought to gift her favorite with a fighting weapon.

The light Jay held flickered. “We’re losing juice,” he said.

“We’ll take it to my home for a better look.” Ascher reached for the sword, but paused. “You hold it, Annja. Let’s pull out the box and then leave.”

C LUTCHING THE SWORD BAG to her left shoulder, the base of it stretched onto the small floor space in the rental, Annja nodded off as Ascher drove. She didn’t feel the need to chat, so long as she held the sword.

She’d left the pilfered Glock with the Nash brothers, with an encouragement to decamp and leave quickly. There was no telling how quickly the thugs would discover the sword dupe and return for the real thing.

Two hours later they arrived at Ascher’s home just south of Sens. The town was once the capital of the Gallo-Roman province. Abelard’s doctrines were condemned here, and Annja recalled, Thomas Becket once lived in Sens during exile from England. Perhaps she’d find a few hours later to explore the city, after the sword had been examined.

The sun had yet to rise. Annja guessed it was 3:00 a.m. but she couldn’t get a view of the digital clock on the driver’s side of the dashboard.

Ascher lived in an estate that resembled a castle with tiled pepper-pot turrets to each of the four corners. It was probably officially considered a château, she thought. It even had a dry moat. The brickwork was streaked with black, and more than a few tiles were missing from the roof and turrets. It needed a bit of tender loving care, Annja figured. As the car’s headlights flashed over the exterior, she saw climbing vines painted the limestone block and seamlessly blended the house’s corners into the large rectangular yew shrubs that hugged it.

A house in the country replete with a sexy Frenchman?

Hell, she really did need to sleep. After the encounter with the thugs, she felt quite certain she could spit farther than her trust extended toward Ascher Vallois.

He offered to carry the sword inside. Determined not to let it out of her sight, Annja walked past him. For some reason she felt an attachment to the thing, though it hadn’t even been her dig.

Because you’ve wondered and obsessed over it for years—that is why, she told herself.

And what would she do if it was authentic? It wasn’t her find. Nor Ascher’s. According to French find laws, all artifacts belonged either to the living relatives—if the artifact could be verified as to owner—or then to the city of provenance, and finally to France itself.

Standing in the dark foyer, Annja clung to the weapon as she looked about. A low ceiling lamp switched on, illuminating the immediate area, but fading out into a dark hallway. Dark stained oak coated the foyer from floor to ceiling and gave off a musty odor Annja associated with the stacks of old libraries.

There were a few swords displayed point down from ornate hangers on the wall opposite the door. Nothing Annja immediately recognized to century or country of origin.

What caught her eye were the acoustic guitars of every design hung high on the walls. Art deco glass lamps focused spotlights on an ivory-inlaid fret board or the shiny gold tuning pegs on a small instrument that resembled a ukulele more than guitar.

“Do you play?” she asked.

“No, but I appreciate.” Ascher strummed his thumb across the strings of one specimen. “Mid-nineteenth century. A real Spanish guitar once played by Paco de Lucena, famed flamenco artist from Granada, and not to be confused with the contemporary Paco de Lucia. You like music, Annja?”

“Of course. I never travel without my iPod.” She dangled her backpack from three fingers. “Usually use it as background when I’m researching. I’ve some Sabicas on my playlists.”

“Ah, an aficionado. Sabicas is real flamenco puro. ”

“I’m not even close to being an expert. I just like guitar music,” she said.

Her eyes trailed lazily away from the guitars and across the tiled floor, which resembled the rusted color of dried clay from Spain. In her backpack were her laptop, iPod, digital camera, her ever present notebook and a clean pair of shorts and T-shirt, not to mention bra and underwear. A change of clothing felt necessary, but trying. She found it impossible to stop a yawn.

“You can stay the night,” Ascher offered as he led her left into a small room. “Or what remains of it.”

A fieldstone hearth and shelves of books lined the walls of the small yet cozy den. Brown leather furniture sat as if it had been built with the house, so regal, yet aged and in need of repair. A ragged-edged map hung over the hearth. France, post-Revolution, for the names of the monuments were all changed, such as the Temple of Reason instead of Notre-Dame.

All the room needed was a lazy mastiff lounging on the bearskin rug before a crackling fire to complete the look.

“I’m tired,” she said. “But I don’t feel like sleep.”

“You stole a nap in the car.”

So he’d noticed.

“Much needed, I’m sure, after your certain brilliant actions against those men with guns,” Ascher said.

“Certain brilliant actions?”

He shrugged. “Treville told d’Artagnan such actions were a requirement—”

“To become a musketeer.”

And despite her exhaustion, Annja smiled. Now she remembered what had attracted her to Ascher in the first place, and why she had enjoyed his cyber company so much. They shared common interests, such as sporting and adventure, and archaeology. And a love for Dumas’s famous story.

Resisting full collapse, Annja sat on the edge of a comfy leather ottoman. Carefully laying the sword across her lap, she then burrowed into her backpack for the cool rectangle of her digital camera. “Let’s take a closer look at the sword, okay?”

Pushing aside some books and magazines, Ascher cleared a marble table against the wall opposite the hearth. “I will lay out some clean paper and find us some gloves.”

He produced a large sheet of butcher’s paper from a drawer under the table, which he laid over the white marble. A box of disposable latex gloves was produced from a cabinet on the connecting wall. Annja realized that an archaeologist, even if only part-time, would have all the essentials.

“So why only part-time?” she asked, still clinging to the ancient, dirty velvet bag as Ascher smoothed out the crisp paper.

“What? You mean the digging? It is no more than a hobby.”

“Treasure hunter,” she teased.

“Call me what you will. But you knew before coming here my experience and education.”

“Yes, too bad you left out the part about consorting with thugs.”

“Annja.” He dug out a few surgical gloves and leaned against the table. “My real passion is teaching.”

“Fencing.” He had a little shop in Sens, but lately, struggled to make the rent. How then, could he afford this mansion? Perhaps more than the exterior was crumbling, she thought.

“Fencing is a romantic sport, oui? ”

“Yes, but it also emulates armed manslaughter.”

“Touché! Ah, but the children. They are so agile and quick to learn. It is a delight to watch them develop their skills.”

She was surprised to hear the enthusiasm in the man’s voice. It was something he’d never mentioned during their online chats. “You teach full-time?”

“I’m down to three days a week. The rent—ah, it is of no import. I have to be free, you know?” He gestured with excited fingers as he smoothed out the paper, yet took moments to punctuate his speech like an air typist. With a wince, he clutched his side, but recovered as quickly. “I live to experience adventure. Jump off of buildings. Trek across mountains. Swim in the Amazon.”

Annja lifted a brow. “I’ve had a few adventures myself.”

“I like that about you, Annja. That time on Chasing History’s Monsters that you pursued the blue flash down the hillside?”

“Not planned, I assure you.” She recalled an episode on the blue flames, which, according to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, were places where buried treasure could be found, but only on Saint George’s Eve. Legend called them flames from all the dragons Saint George sent to Hell. Annja had decided it was the oxidation of hydrogen phosphide and methane gas, though she hadn’t ventured anywhere near a swamp where that should normally occur. “But it did make for good viewing. My producer held the clip for ratings week.”

“You were on Letterman that week, as well. You should flirt more with the man.”

Annja bowed her head and tried to force up another yawn. Why couldn’t she summon one when it was needed?

“You are a very sexy woman, Annja,” Ascher said.

“Yes, well.” The compliment felt great. She didn’t hear things like that often enough. “Right now I’m feeling far from it. Tired, dirty and close to falling asleep on my feet.”

“So! You want to let go of that, or must I pry it from your iron grip?”

“Hmm? Oh. Sure.” She set the sword bag on the paper with a crisp crinkle, and rubbed her hands together. “Hand me some gloves. And focus that light, will you?”

“Your wish is my command, mon amour. ”

“Watch it, Gascon. Just stick to the business at hand. All right?”

“Of course. Gloves. And light.”

Snapping the latex gloves onto her hands released the smell of powder. She then drew out the sword from the bag to place it on the white butcher’s paper. Bits of dirt and particles of the desiccated velvet that had lined the box fell onto the crinkled surface. In their excitement at the dig site, she had already handled the sword without gloves. Hopefully, it had not incurred damage.

Annja let out a huge breath and pressed a hand to her chest. Yes, her heartbeats really could pound that quickly. Here, beneath her fingertips, sat a remarkable history.

She concentrated on the weapon, leaning in to study the length of the hilt, from the flat, slightly curved pommel to the quillon, curved back to protect the hand, yet abbreviated as it swept into the decorative hilt. The blade was about three and a half feet in length, and the hilt designed for a large hand to fit comfortably about the grip.

A gorgeous sword for any cavalier to wear at his hip when out on the town and looking to show his worth or to attract a lady’s eye.

She clicked the camera on and snapped a few pictures.

“Damascened blade,” she said, drawing a gloved finger over the slightly rusted blade. The arabesques were worn to mere suggestions, but still there was no denying the quality of work. She leaned in and adjusted the camera for a close-up shot. “Blackened steel. Folded…I’m not sure.”

“Twelve or thirteen times,” Ascher tossed in. “Most seventeenth-century swords crafted for the French court were designed by Hugues de Roche. Especially the more decorative rapiers. He folded his steel a dozen times and signed them with a mark on the ricasso of the blade, just near the hilt.”

“What was the mark?”

“A simple R in a circle,” Ascher said.

Annja tilted the sword to catch the light at the base of the blade. Smoothing a finger through dust and dirt, she located a small marking. “It’s here. It’s real,” she gasped, not wanting to succumb to the tremendous feelings that threatened to make her squeal like a silly schoolgirl. Not yet. Look it over completely first. And take more pictures, she ordered herself.

“Swept hilt,” Ascher noted. “Gold.”

“Yes,” Annja agreed. “The hilt is three strands of gold, which sweep to form the suggestion of a basket. The grip is wrapped in silver, maybe, and it looks like a black cording twists around it, almost as if it was meant to fit within the channels of silver.”

“The inventory documents of Castelmore’s belongings detailed two swords,” Ascher said.

“One of black steel,” Annja confirmed, “the other gold. But they were believed sold to pay off his debts.”

“How do you suppose Charlotte-Anne got her hands on this sword?”

“Well, that’s assuming this was one of the swords remaining in Castelmore’s home after his death. Neither one was indicated as a rapier. He could have received this from the queen, then immediately handed it to his wife for safekeeping. This rapier could be entirely different from the two documented swords.”

“True. But I don’t think so,” Ascher said.

“You just don’t want to believe so.”

There was only one sure way to determine if this was the actual rapier once wielded by Charles de Castelmore d’Artagnan, gifted to him by Queen Anne as thanks for many dangerous missions, all for the king.

All for one, and one for all.

Such a noble phrase. And yet “all for one” could bear a much greater meaning.

Annja surreptitiously slid a latexed finger along the hilt, tracing the smooth gold. Now she met Ascher’s eyes. The two of them challenged without words. A lift of her brow was matched by Ascher’s grin.

“Shall we check if rumors hold truth?” he asked.

6

“When did you have the time to research this legend, Ascher? In between jumping out of buildings and swimming the Amazon?”

“Exactly. I like the quiet of the bibliothèque stacks. So still and haunted by the ghosts of centuries past. It offers a balance to my busy lifestyle.”

Annja felt the same whenever in a library. Rarely did she find the time lately. Her own loft back in Brooklyn had become a minilibrary. And if she waded beyond the piles of books, field notebooks and research documents, there were artifacts stacked without order. The loft wasn’t a complete disaster; she liked to consider it comfortable disarray.

Balance, yeah, that was something she should never allow to tilt too far out of whack. A good meditation session wouldn’t hurt after her long day.

“Besides Dumas’s journals, which you have read,” Ascher said, “I’ve had opportunity to pore over some of Nicolas Fouquet’s voluminous writings.”

“The royal financier who was imprisoned for embezzlement,” Annja said.

“Yes, unfortunately he is known for that small mistake.”

“And for being a pornographer, thanks to Louis XIV.”

“Falsified evidence. He merely copublished a racy little tome with Madame de Maintenon. She did the majority of writing—he edited. He really was so much more.”

Annja smirked. “And here I thought your favorite Frenchman was King Henri III.”

“The most reviled of the Valois kings—because of his homosexual tendencies—but I’m interested in them all. Do you know Fouquet also had a huge lending library that was the greatest collection of research books in all of Europe? It attracted political advocates and patronages. Fouquet intended to use it to rise in position in the government. But the king wasn’t having it. I’m not sure why Louis XIV was angry with Fouquet. This all happened before the infamous arrest after the lavish party at Vaux le Vicomte.”

Annja hadn’t known about the library. “What happened to the library after his death?” she asked.

“It was divided up and sold. Madame Fouquet managed to save his personal journals. I’m surprised I found the little I did at the Bibliothèque Nationale. The man made copies of virtually every important document he created for the royals, be it for purchases of land or certificates of patents to the nobility or coded secret missives. He was a secretive Saint-Simon, if you will.”

The duc de Saint-Simon had been an infamous chronicler of the seventeenth century, his diaries amounting to thirty published journals. Much like a modern-day entertainment program, Saint-Simon had reported all the salacious and juicy details of court life.

Annja had always wanted to get her hands on Nicolas Fouquet’s private journals, for he had been close to Charles Castelmore during his imprisonment for embezzlement. Castelmore had been forced to stay with and tend him while imprisoned as Fouquet waited the king to either call him back from exile or begin proceedings for his trial. It took well over three years, during which the musketeer had not the opportunity to command his troops or engage in martial combat. It must have been hell for d’Artagnan, she thought.

“I believe Dumas had access to the Fouquet papers, as well,” Ascher said.

“To look at you, no one would mistake you for the scholarly type,” she commented, turning her attention back to the rapier.

“Please don’t let the word get out.”

She gave a little laugh. “And here I thought you were nothing more than a treasure hunter.”

“You say the title as if it is so offensive.”

“Treasure hunters have no reverence for history, the condition of a dig site or the people who left behind the objects. Archaeology is all about learning the why, what and where. Treasure hunters could care less. They storm in, kick aside the dirt and haul away the booty.”

“I’m very meticulous before I haul away the booty.” He delivered her a charming wink. “I know how to backfill a site, returning it close to its former state.”

“Even when you’ve got gunmen breathing down your neck?” she asked.

“I am very busy man, Annja. I have…had alliances.”

That statement struck Annja oddly. But she knew now she should not be surprised at anything Ascher said or did.

“Those men who tried to steal the sword,” she said. “You knew them.”

“As I’ve said, I have never seen them in my life.”

“That may be, but you were not surprised by their arrival,” she pointed out.

He drew himself up straight, but with a sudden wince, he clutched his side.

“Did you get hurt tonight, Ascher?”

“It is nothing. An old injury, as I said earlier. Just surprises me now and then. I’m usually quite fit, and can perform remarkable feats with my body. As a traceur, one uses his whole body to perform. An injury keeps me from participating.”

“The parkour? ”

“Yes. A traceur is one who practices parkour. I do not like it when I am injured.”

“It’s been a trying day. Maybe a heating pad?”

“Perhaps.”

Ascher pressed his palms to the white paper and leaned in, his shoulder brushing her arm. Annja could hear his breath catch—he was in pain.

Compassion didn’t come easily for her. She wasn’t a hugger, nor did she often feel inclined to ask anyone “How are you?”

She’d give him some space. He’d take a moment if he needed it.

Tension strummed through her, but it was divided between excitement and the nervousness of being close to a man she had thought to know better than she apparently did. A man she had initially thought to trust.

“Enough small talk,” Ascher said in a whispery tone. “I am well. Are you going to check to see if it is in there?”

“You’re giving me the honor?” she asked, surprised.

“But of course.”

Tilting her head, she peered into Ascher’s eyes. When fencing, it was critical to maintain eye contact with the opponent. The enemy’s next move always first showed in his eyes. But she saw nothing to clue her to defense. And when had she started calling him an enemy?

His mouth slightly parted, Ascher waited expectantly. A shadow of a soul patch dabbed his chin, and lower, a pale white scar curled out of view under his jaw. The adventures that drew him appealed to Annja perhaps more than he did.

Annja let out a breath and placed both palms to the paper, before the rapier. “Can I trust you, Monsieur Vallois?”

He propped an elbow on the marble table. Mischief now danced in his pale blue eyes. A dangerous mischief. While it threatened, it also intrigued. Adventure or not, Annja wasn’t completely oblivious to the opposite sex.

“How can we know when to trust anyone?” he asked.

“That’s not the answer I was hoping for.”

“I can ask the same of you, Annja Creed. Can I trust you?”

“You invited me here. I’m just along for the ride. Amusement-park ride, as it may be. Just tell me before we do this—who wants the sword?”

Huffing out a sigh, he pressed his chin into his palm and eyed her straight on. He was hiding something, and Annja could sense his need to blurt it out. Men always kept their feelings bottled up. Yet their secrets often simmered just beneath the surface, easily excavated with adept care.

Kind of like you, eh, Annja?

“Annja, believe me when I say I have always intended to hand the sword over to France if and when it was found.”

“But now…?”

“I have been forced to look differently upon this discovery. The people who want the rapier,” he stated slowly, his vision now directed at the tabletop, “have ensured, by use of devious means, that I will hand it over. But it is merely the sword they want, not anything that we may find inside it.”

“You intend to hand this valuable artifact over to a collector?” Annja asked.

“Collector or weapons enthusiast? I don’t know what he is, or why he wants it. All I know is I’ve but one kidney remaining, and haven’t the desire to lose the other.”

Annja straightened. He’d lost a kidney? What was he talking about?

Ascher drew up the back of his shirt to reveal muscular and tanned flesh. A long red scar, where his left kidney should be, looked angry and new.

“Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?” He tugged down the shirt. “But it is not a lie, Annja. I did not want to deceive you, but the truth is so humiliating.”

Not sure what to say to his confession, she made the conclusion that whoever Ascher was dealing with was not the friendly sort. And this so-called treasure hunt just took a dangerous curve downhill.

“Someone injured you so grievously that you lost a kidney. For a sword?”

He nodded. “It was insurance that I would comply. I value the one I have remaining.”

“But—” Incredible, yet the scar did appear new. He could have injured himself doing any number of things, mountain climbing, bike racing or whitewater rapids. But Annja sensed he spoke the truth.

Even so, she thought. “I can’t allow you to hand d’Artagnan’s rapier over to a private collector,” she said.

“Then we will come to arms over that.” He tapped the table. The butcher paper crackled. “It is my favor to you, Annja, to warn you in advance of my intentions.”

“Fair enough.” So what would she do? Grab the sword and run?

Not without first looking for the real treasure.

“Let’s do this, then,” she said.

Placing the gloved fingers of her left hand about the hilt, a test wiggle concluded the pommel was firmly attached. Wincing and closing her eyes as she torqued her grip, she tried the pommel again. Fine particles of dirt sifted to the paper. The dry aroma of limestone lifted in tendrils.

“Is it moving?” Ascher wondered enthusiastically.

“I don’t know. I think I’m just twisting off the debris. But…maybe. It’s giving.”

“Really? Don’t break it,” he said.

“Break it? What do you care? You’ve probably already alerted Monsieur Kidney Stealer to come pick up his prize. Have you?”

Ascher shrugged. “I don’t contact them—they contact me.”

“I think…yes, it is moving.”

“Let me see.” Ascher leaned in as Annja twisted the pommel loose and carefully removed it from the hilt.

Holding the round piece upon her palm, Annja flicked away particles of dirt. Interesting how the sword, though encased in a wooden box and velvet bag, had become encrusted with so much soil. Of course, the box had been split down the center. Centuries of dirt had sifted through.

The pommel was the size of a silver-dollar piece in circumference. It was convex, and heavy to counterbalance the weight of the blade. Both sides of the piece were impressed with a design.

“The coat of arms,” she blurted out, recognizing the design on the pommel.

“The Batz-Castelmore coat of arms?”

“Yes,” she said, elation lightening her tone. “Two castles and the eagle. The queen went to great lengths in having this gift handcrafted and personalized specifically for d’Artagnan.”

“Do you think they were lovers?” he asked.

“What?” Drawn back to reality by that conversational detour, Annja eyed Ascher’s enthusiastic smirk. “Lovers?”

A waggle of his brows preceded a shrug. “Anything is possible.”

True. There was no documentation that would lead anyone to believe the real Charles Castelmore had an affair with the queen of France, yet novelists and filmmakers had alluded to it over the years. And Annja couldn’t deny it a salacious fantasy that she could consider placing to her favorite musketeer.

Only problem was, Dumas had placed d’Artagnan in the story earlier than actual history, which had made him closer to the queen’s age. In reality, Annja wasn’t sure of the age difference, but a guess had to place the musketeer and the queen at least thirty years apart, the queen being older.

She set down the pommel on the white butcher paper. A few digital pictures were needed.

Ascher tilted the end of the hilt toward her, revealing the open inner chamber. The inside was no wider than a man’s thumb. She took a few more pictures.

“Annja, you must do the honor,” he said.

This was it. As usual when on the verge of what she felt to be a fortuitous historical discovery, Annja grew intensely calm and almost zen. Now was no time for frantic excitement. The joy came in careful exploration of what was once only a mystery or legend.

She bent to look down. There was something inside the hollow hilt of the seventeenth-century rapier.

“Careful,” Ascher coached.

“It’s a rolled paper. Do you have a—?” Bent-tip tweezers slapped onto her palm before she could finish the request. “Thanks.”

She knew the slightest jolt could damage the centuries-old paper. If she tugged too hard or clasped the tweezers too tightly, she risked tearing the parchment.

Annja drew in a breath through her nose, and went for it. A roll, about four inches long and tightly coiled, slid out easily.

Ascher redirected an overhead lamp to focus on the roll that she set before the rapier blade. The roll wobbled, then stopped. The twosome exhaled in unison.

“Do you think it is?” she whispered.

“The map!” Ascher said. “To the real treasure.”

“Yes,” she answered, surprise softening to agreement. A relieved exhale unraveled the tightness in her core she hadn’t been aware of until now.

“Rumor tells the map will lead to a treasure,” Ascher whispered. “A treasure the queen wanted d’Artagnan to have in thanks for all he had done to serve France and its king.”

“Right. But it wasn’t for chasing after missing diamonds for her collar, as Dumas wrote,” Annja said. “Though there may have been a morsel of truth to that.”

“That was pure fiction! There is no historical record of the diamond studs,” Ascher said.

“Yes, but never say never, eh? It is alluded that the treasure might have been a collection of jewels the queen had received over the years from her lovers,” Annja replied.

“Evidence she wished to be rid of, for some might have placed her to having an affair with Mazarin.”

“And what better way to do that than give them away. This sword was a gift for heroic deeds such as defeating the Spanish at Lille while the king marched his troops to help, or heading the vanguard at La Rochelle, while the king dallied at Fontenay.”

“Yes!” Ascher’s excitement vibrated between them, bouncing against Annja’s chest and throat. “Let’s have a look.”

“We can’t yet,” she said, poking the map with the tip of the tweezers. It was rolled so tightly, that she could not think to unroll it and risk it crumbling to flakes. “We’ll need…”

“Humidity. We can relax the parchment by steaming it. I’ll boil some water.”

“We should wait,” Annja said.

A panicky look deflated Ascher’s joy. “Why?”

“We need a good six to eight hours for the humidification process.”

“I know—I’ve done it before. Ah, you are tired? You can rest while I begin.”

She ran a hand over her scalp, wishing for a good solid eight hours of sleep. Heck, she’d take four. The sun had yet to rise. She should be sleeping. Normal people were sleeping right now. Couldn’t she manage one day as one of them?

But to be truthful, normal wasn’t interesting to Annja.

Ascher possessed unbounded energy. But she did not trust him with the process on his own. There were many things that could go wrong if he did not have the proper equipment. One could not simply boil water and steam the roll open. A humidity chamber had to be created and the parchment had to be protected from droplets with a sheet of Gore-Tex.

“Maybe if I had some coffee,” she muttered.

“I can do that. Be right back.”

T HE PHONE RANG in the kitchen and Ascher picked it up on the first tone. He barely said, “Hello,” when the voice on the other end began to berate.

“You know the new kidney is not completely developed. You risk your very life by refusing to hand over the sword today.”

“You got the sword, I just—”

“I know my swords, Vallois. This is sixteenth century,” Lambert said.

“Perhaps the queen gifted her musketeer with a family heirloom?”

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