As he struggled with the weight and bulk of the box, he thought to himself that it seemed very sound for a coffin of the venerable age it gave the appearance of being. He might well have to go out and fetch back a heavy chunk of stone to help him break up this one for fire fuel. Finally, he had pulled the entire length—only about five feet, so probably the last couch of a woman or a good-sized child—out of the niche, deliberately allowing the far end to slam hard upon the floor in hopes of weakening the fabric. To his very great surprise, there was a metallic clanging when the coffin end hit the flagstones, and a flaming splinter brought over from the fire for closer examination showed no slightest damage to any portion of the casket.
There was no catch nor handles nor even visible hinges to the thing. An intricately rendered set of arms done in what looked to be a bronze with a very high tin content was affixed to the lid, but the arms told him nothing as to the patronymic of the corpse within. He could not recall ever having seen their like.
After a solid half hour of beating on the top of the coffin with one of the big stones that had been used to hold shut the door of this tomb, he had a quantity of stone dust and shards, but the wood—whatever devilish kind it was, the grain and color were completely unfamiliar to him—had only been scuffed here and there. When he had replenished the fire with pieces of those coffins smashed by his predecessors, he sat on a step below it to think out the matter.
A heavy stone powered by all his strength did no visible damage to that supposedly ancient wooden coffin, when it should have quickly been smashed to splinters by such abuse. Why? The point of his knife would not penetrate the seam at any point on either end or either side. Again, why? There were no handles, no catch, no hinges to be seen, and he, who had seen full many a coffin, had never seen one so constructed no matter how highborn the personage it had been made to hold. Why and why and why?
There were far too many unanswered and unanswerable questions to be housed in some simple ancient tomb crouched amongst the briers and brambles of a country graveyard. Could it be. . . ?
Everyone knew how kings and high noblemen sometimes hid away treasures in odd places, sometimes marking them with a seal that it would have been death to break, if you were unlucky enough to get caught at it or apprehended soon afterward. Could this strange, unnaturally strong coffin be such a repository? Was that bronze design affixed to the lid actually the seal of some royal house, ancient or modern? No way but to examine it with greater care.
Maneuvering the long box about, he dragged it to the foot of the steps, as close to the firelight as he could get it. He knelt on the far side of the thing, so as not to get into his own light, his cudgel close to hand giving him a small measure of peace of mind. When he had scraped off the worst of the oxidation from the lid decoration or whatever it was, he sheathed his big knife and began to rub at the arms with a wetted sleeve. With the encrusted dust off, the arms, while still unfamiliar to him, were clearly not those of any royal house that had reigned in England for the last century or more.
Peering very closely, he noted what seemed to be a staggered line or regular pattern of depressions, each some inch or less across; scraping at one of these with a filthy fingernail, Simon shattered and dislodged a plug of dusty dirt, beneath which a something glittered in the firelight. He immediately thought of inset gemstones, and the air hissed between his teeth. Feverishly, he cleared out every one of the depressions he could discern, ten in all, it developed.
But when he took a splinter from the fire and bent far over to gaze, his hopes were partially dashed, for no gems were at the bottoms of the shallow holes, rather disks of silver that looked to be roughly a little smaller than the tips of his thick fingers. Absently, he fitted all eight fingers and two thumbs into the holes and began to feel and press to see if there existed an easy way to get the silver disks out, for he had already ascertained that any attempt to pry up the bronze decoration would most likely give him only a broken knifeblade to show for his troubles.
Simon experienced a brief moment of atavistic terror when, with no sound of warning, the lid of the coffin began to slowly rise toward him. Scooting backward on his knees, he grasped his oaken cudgel and prepared to fight whatever demon he had chanced to loose. But when once the lid had risen to the perpendicular, it and the coffin simply sat there, and, gingerly, he edged around to where he could gaze within it.
“God’s Holy Blood!” Simon swore, gaspingly.
“No, indeed, Bass.” said the archbishop, “I did not send word for you to ride up here, nor do I employ any Father John atte Nash. Who accompanied him?’*
Bass wrinkled his forehead, “Why, some half-dozen of your own horse guards, Hal. None that I knew by sight, but they were all wearing your livery and seemed to know me of old.”
The old man regarded the square of vellum unrolled on the table before him. “It’s my signature, all right, but that’s not to be wondered at, for I sign scores of documents for my secretary and scribes, sometimes just blank sheets even. As for the seals, they’re kept in the escriborium, ready to hand when needed. I think 1 detect the stench of Roman rottenness in this matter. But why, in God’s name, would they want you up here? Can you think of a good reason to go to such lengths as this must have entailed, Bass? I can’t, just of the minute.
Have you perchance been in recent attendance upon the king?”
“No, Hal.” Bass shook his head slowly. I’ve not seen Arthur or even been up the Thames since before the fleet set sail for Gijon-port. Why? You think there’s some bearing on this phony message business?”
The archbishop shrugged. “Who’s to say what strange schemes move through the convoluted minds of madmen. And I am every day more firmly convinced that old Abdul is either mad or fast becoming so; many of his actions over the last few years have simply not been those of a rational man.
“Well, be that as it may, you’re here now. You don’t intend to ride back south immediately, do you?”
“Why, yes, I had thought that 1 would, Hal. There’s still a lot to do getting my squadron and ships and all ready for the trip to Ireland, you know. Why?” Then a sudden thought struck him and he grimaced and demanded, “Oh, no, Hal, you don’t want me to ride up to Strathtyne again, so soon, do you?”
Chuckling, the old man reached across the breadth of the table and patted Bass’s hand. “No, no, my friend, nothing so traumatic as that, this time around. There’s nothing now left at Whyffler Hall, save memories of the long, long ago … I hope. Though what Dr. Stone told you as she lay dying still worries me from time to time. But there is nothing to be done that I have not done already.
“No, I wanted you to stay here for a few days to meet and talk with a most remarkable man, one of those who was projected here at Hexham. 1 think he will be most valuable to me, and he might just prove helpful to you, as well, in Ireland. His name is Rupen Ademian. He is a twentieth-century American of Armenian antecedents and Syrian birth. He fought as an officer in two of the midcentury wars, worked in an artillery-ammunition factory, dealt for many years in armaments of war, is a natural and gifted linguist, and owns a true host of other, widely varied talents.
“Besides, if you stay up here for a few days, you might be able to persuade Krystal to accompany you on back down to Norwich, or at least talk her around to giving over this feud with Captain Webster. She is most wroth at him since he seduced one of her ladies.”
“Wer ist daT” demanded Rupen, standing well back from the door, grasping a cocked Welrod pistol leveled at the center of that door. He had more modern weapons of heavier caliber and larger magazine capacity, but the OSS assassination piece had the advantage of being completely silenced and the custom 7.65mm loads he had in this one were far more deadly than the off-the-shelf variety of such ammunition.