CHAPTER FOUR
The mercury lights were buzzing with intensity. Within the site that had spent the entire day silent and still, a cluster of workers labored under the night sky with their shovels and baskets. Dust rose in luminous clouds as the earth was rapidly, carefully, removed from the area of excavation. And deep in the widening trench hovered three archaeologists, more involved in their work now than they had ever been over the past fourteen months.
And no one more involved than Rory. The wooden slats David had discovered had been carefully catalogued, videoed, sketched and numbered. As Bud and David removed the amazingly solid planks piece by piece and placed them in sterile gauze wrapping, Rory perched herself at the edge of what was revealing itself to be a shallow grave.
Hazel eyes glittered into the rock-lined hole. The Syrian foreman handed her a flashlight and she peered intently at the now-exposed bundle.
“It doesn’t look like a normal grave,” she murmured, noting the wrapped contents to be well over six feet in length. “It’s way too big to be a body. Bud?”
Dr. Dietrich knelt on the opposite side, his trained eyes roving the parcel as David joined him. Together, the four of them including the foreman scrutinized the uncovered treasure.
“Do you suppose it’s a sacrificial cow, buried by the Greeks as an offering?” Peck wondered aloud.
Bud’s brow furrowed. “All offerings to the gods were burned. Unless this body was buried to fertilize the ground for Bacchus’ grapevines to ensure a prosperous harvest.”
The excitement that had seized Rory the moment David had burst into her tent sputtering words of discovery was now forceably banked as she lay on her stomach at the edge of the trench. Barely two and a half feet deep, she was able to reach down and touch the coarse material of the wrapping.
“This has got to be indigenous material,” she said softly. “Cheaply made, too. With some sort of water reed or flax, I’d say. Look at the wide, uneven spacing in the weaving process.”
Bud and David were on their stomachs, too, noting Rory’s observations. The three of them were so caught up in the discovery that they failed to notice that half the camp had come to a stop, straining to catch a glimpse of the mysterious treasure.
The Syrian foreman, entranced though he might be by the fruits of their labor, was not so stupified that he did not realized his workers’ disobedience. Shouting in Arabic, the removal of earth resumed with a frenzy as the archaeologists continued to deliberate their find.
“What if it’s just more trash?” Rory asked, tearing her eyes away from the dusty mass long enough to look at Bud. “I believe yesterday proved this wasn’t my Muslim mosque. What if we’ve simply succeeded in locating more ancient trash?”
“Wrapped in a several yards of fabric and buried in a hole lined with rocks and sealed with slats of wood?” The usually-cynical Dr. Peck seemed amazingly optimistic. “This is a grave, Rory. And we’re looking at a body.”
Rory knew as much. Still, she wanted to hear the group’s naysayer voice his speculation before she offered her novice opinion. That way, if it turned out to be just a heap of ancient trash, she wouldn’t look like a failure twice in two days. For once, she decided to show a small amount of restraint; truthfully, she didn’t think she could take it if her hopes were dashed a second time around. Perhaps a little self-protection, in lieu of recent events, was a good thing.
Across from her, Bud had pushed himself to his knees to determine the best way to lower himself into the grave. Moving to the western edge of the hole, he noting that there was a few scant inches on either side of the parcel at this end. Bracing his muscular arms against the sides of the trench, he lowered himself down and straddled the bundle. Gingerly, he examined the fabric.
“Hold on, hold on,” he suddenly muttered, more for his own benefit than for anyone else’s. Jerking his hand away, the material seemed to dissolve beneath his touch, mingling with the dust of the ancient grave. Consequently, a small portion of the object was revealed, leaving the archaeologists straining to catch a better glimpse.
“I see… my God, Bud…is that steel?” Rory’s voice reflected her shock.
“There’s no way it could be steel,” David hissed. “If this is Grecian, it’s iron or copper or precious metal. Steel wasn’t known during their period.”
“I’m aware of that, Dave,” Rory snapped softly. “But if it was iron, it would have rusted over a two thousand year span. And if it was copper, we would be able to see the red hues. Look at the color; I swear to you, it looks like tempered steel.”
Bud crouched over the exposed metal, silent as his colleagues displayed their educated theories in a snappish exchange. After a moment, he timidly picked away at the opening, enlarging it significantly. As the foreman chattered in Arabic, demanding the Nikon camera from one of the clerks, Bud continued to break all of the rules of excavation by chipping away at the wrapping before it had been properly logged. For some reason, his curiosity had the better of him and he found he couldn’t help himself.
David and Rory had quieted their debate, focused on Bud’s picking fingers. The foreman collected the camera and began clicking away just as another large piece of wrapping collapsed into dust. Abruptly, a dark-gray object was exposed and Bud instinctively pulled back, staring at it with disbelief.
He wasn’t the only one. For a moment, no one was able to move. Even the foreman had stopped taking pictures as the yellow moon cast its sickly light on metal that had not seen the familiar glow for centuries.
“Christ,” Bud swore softly.
“Of all the….” Amazingly, Peck seemed unable to finish his sentence. He simply knelt by the edge of the hole, shaking his head in wonder.
Only Rory seemed able to snap out of her trance. While the rest of the world remained paralyzed, she lowered herself into the ditch, straddling the massive bundle with cautious feet. Her wide-eyes were fixed on the exposed object as if beholding the Secret of Life; certainly, to the Biblical archaeologist whose specialty was the Crusades, the discovery was even better.
“It’s a helm,” she murmured, reaching down to brush away some of the dust from the closed visor. “Look at the style; square, lacking any detail or artwork. Very functional head protection for a warring Medieval knight.”
“Time frame?” Bud was so surprised he could hardly speak.
Rory touched the steel again, the first human fingers to handle the metal in centuries. “Off-hand, it looks to be eleventh or twelvth century. Before the suits of armor grew particularly bulky and before the helm became more of an ornamental object.” Suddenly, the pale green eyes were focused on Bud. And he swore at that moment he’d never seen such naked joy.
Joy, indeed. Rory could barely control herself. She knew her history and she knew her field, and the dirty object at her feet was something she had spent the past ten years studying. Even if she was a fledgling archaeologist chasing myths, as Peck had so tactfully phrased her pursuits, she was no idiot. She was well-versed in her specialty.
It was difficult to keep the elation from her voice as she spoke. “I’d say we’ve found ourselves a crusader, Dr. Dietrich.” Slowly, her attention moved to the ever-skeptical Dr. Peck and an arched eyebrow lifted. “And you, Dave? Do I sense concurrence in my opinion or would you prefer to debate the obvious?”
Peck stared at the exposed helm a moment longer. Meeting Rory’s challenging gaze, he shook his head. “Absolutely not, Dr. Osgrove. You’re the religious expert and you ought to know.”
Her smile was genuine. “Thank you for your kind words, Dr. Peck. At least you’re willing to admit that I’m not a complete idiot.” Her gaze once again turned to the shrouded warrior. “It makes perfect sense finding him here. Nahariya was located along the Pilgrim trail and frequented by crusading knights. If this guy died on the Quest, then there was no way he would have been buried in a mosque. Unconsecrated ground was the only possible alternative.”
“I’m surprised his buddies buried him within the grounds of a Grecian temple,” Peck put in softly. “They considered the Greeks and Romans to be pagans. Most crusaders were just buried in the desert, left for the jackals and elements.”
Rory stared pensively at the dusty, obscure figure. “But not him. And I wonder why.”
The corner of David’s lips twitched as his focus moved between his awe-struck associate and the bundle at her feet. “By damn, if you weren’t right, Rory. There really was something here.”
Smile still on her lips, Rory gazed at the ancient head protection. Crouching low, as if to sit on the knight’s chest, her slender fingers traced over the metal. “A crusader,” she muttered, hardly daring to hope that she was actually right. “If it’s true, I really can’t believe it. Here I was, looking for one of the most potent biblical relics of all time and not even hoping to find anything else. I just wanted my crown.”
“But this isn’t your crown,” David said, his manner uncharacteristically soft. “If this guy is really a crusader, then he ought to be loaded with valuable information that should more than make up for the fact that we were unsuccessful in locating our original objective. I mean, just look at the size of him for instance. He’s huge!”
Rory’s gaze wandered the massive bundle. “Most knights were maybe five feet seven or eight inches tall. One was considered a giant at five feet ten. But this guy… if it’s really all him, he’s got to be well over six feet.”
“I’d say six and a half feet, at least.” Bud was becoming swept up in the thrill of discovery, too. Never in his eighteen years had he come across anything so potentially awesome and he was understandably moved. Rising from his hunched position, he gestured to the foreman. “Haro! Get the clerks sketching this guy immediately! I want a full catalogue of the shroud and a detailed indexing of his grave down to every last rock. Come on, let’s move!”
The Harvard-educated foreman leapt into action, snapping orders to the hovering workers. As the entire camp swung into a frenzy, Bud pulled himself from the grave and began conversing with Dr. Peck about what, exactly, to tell Becker.
With the encampment moving at a purposeful pace, Rory remained inside the grave staring at the partially-shrouded visor. Behind that closed visor lay a man, a man that Rory was wildly curious about. A crusading knight, buried on the grounds of an ancient Greek temple dedicated to the wine god Bacchus.
Intrigued, Rory realized that the disappointment in her failure to locate the crown of thorns was fading. True, she was still discouraged, but the exposure of a real-life crusader was enough to ease the ache of defeat. After all, the Crusades was her specialty, a specialty that had lost focus a few years back when she discovered a paper trail eluding to Christ’s crown of thorns.
Now, gazing at the massive knight cradled in the crude grave, she found her interest in the Crusades rekindled. If she wasn’t able to have her crown, maybe the man lying at her feet was the next best thing.
*
Rory thought she got three or four hours of sleep that night. Maybe. She didn’t think Bud got any at all, although he had insisted she retire about three o’clock in the morning. Since the crusader had to be catalogued as originally discovered, there wasn’t anything else to do but meticulously log the body and its surroundings, and Bud had an army of clerical workers to complete that task, including the ever-fastidious Dr. Peck.
Just after dawn, Bud was in Rory’s tent, gently rousing her. Rory rolled out of bed with her shoes on her feet and the laces untied, a situation patiently corrected by Bud. She tried to brush her hair and put on some lip balm, but Bud had laughed at her when she couldn’t seem to function properly and, irritated, she took a swing at him. Sleepy but loaded with excitement, she finally pulled her hair into a ponytail and followed him to the distant rise.
David was still there. His brown eyes were circled, his face stubbled and gray, but he wasn’t about to leave in the middle of cataloguing. He heard Rory and Bud before he ever saw them, his nose still buried in a journal.
“How are we going to unwrap this guy, Rory?” he asked as his pen scratched against the paper.
Alert after her brisk walk up the hill, Rory studied the ancient bundle in the weak morning light. Somehow, in the brightness of a new day, it made the discovery seem almost surreal. Excitement filled her as she crouched next to David while he continued to write.
“I have a hunch that we’re going to have to cut the material straight down the midline,” she said thoughtfully. “With the condition of the shroud, there is no way we’ll be able to unwrap him and keep the material intact. It’ll just fall apart in our hands.”
Bud stood next to them, his hands on his hips as he observed the corpse. “The condition of the wrappings makes me wonder what kind of state the body is in,” he muttered. “Probably nothing but bones.”
David snorted ironically, laying his pen down and looking to the swaddling in the ditch. “We’ll be lucky if we find bones. I’m opting for complete dust.”
Rory pondered their statements a moment before lowering herself into the hole. Bending over, not to mention offering both Bud and David a tantalizing view of her rounded rear, she gently probed the massive form from abdomen to thigh. After a moment, she straightened up and put her hands on her hips.
“I don’t know, guys,” she ventured. “He seems to be pretty firm for just bones.”
“It’s the armor,” David said confidently.
Rory shook her head. “No way. This guy should be clad in mail only, with maybe a few pieces of plate armor. Remember that suits of full armor, the big heavy things, weren’t widely used until the thirteen century. And by the looks of this guy’s helm, I dated him at eleventh or twelveth century. Were he to have deteriorated to dust, the mail would have simply collapsed and this bundle wouldn’t be so bulky. So… solid.”
“So you think the body is intact?” Bud cocked an eyebrow. “A fascinating concept if it’s true. Do you think it’s possible that he was mummified somehow? Preserved, even?”
Rory shrugged, once again crouching over the body and running expert hands over what should have been the thighs. “I doubt he was conventionally mummified. But it is possible that the dry desert air somehow naturally preserved most of his mass.” Her gaze followed her hands as they moved down the right leg. “Good Lord, this guy was huge. One of his legs is bigger in circumference than my entire torso.”
Bud smiled faintly. “I’d really hate to meet this guy on the field of battle. He must have been an imposing sight.”
Rory nodded in agreement. “Six feet six inches and well over two hundred pounds. For a man of ancient times, this guy was the size of Goliath.”
“What do you want to cut the material with, Rory?” David asked, handing his journal over to the ever-present foreman.
Rory looked up from the bundle, surprised. “Me?” she repeated, looking between David and Bud. “You want me to cut the shroud?”
Bud shrugged faintly. “It’s your dig.”
“But you’re the senior archaeologist. You should do it.”
“Why?” Bud yawned, scratching his head as the morning temperature began to rise. “I’ve never done this before, either. He’s your knight, Rory. You do the honors.”
Rory gazed at Bud, swallowing away her shock as a definite sense of pleasure took hold. “All right,” she murmured, looking once more to the ancient parcel wedged between her ankles. “I guess I’ll need a scalpel or a single edge razor. I want something really sharp.”
“This wrapping is crumbling as it is,” David pointed out. “Do you really think you need something that exact?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “If I run into any resistance, I don’t want to wrestle with it. I don’t want to damage anything inadvertently.”
David looked to Bud, who merely shrugged. “You heard the good doctor. Go find her a scalpel or a razor blade.”
Peck was gone, taking the foreman with him. Bud continued to watch his associate as she pondered the best place to begin cutting, her beautiful face etched in concentration. He was perfectly content to observe her in silence until David and the foreman returned bearing two scalpels they had confiscated from the first-aid kit. As the foreman collected the videocamera and began rolling, Rory accepted a scalpel from David and bent over the crusader’s neck.
It wasn’t until she hovered over the ancient bindings that she realized her hands were shaking. From his position at the edge of the grave, Bud put his hand on her head in a comforting gesture.
“Relax, honey,” he said softly. “You’re doing fine. Just go layer by layer like you’ve been taught.”
Rory took a deep breath, offering the man a weak smile. “I thought I was calm until a moment ago,” she said softly. “But, God, Bud… this is really scary. And really, really exciting.”
He met her smile. “So cut already. I can hardly stand the suspense.”
She laughed softly. “If Becker were here, you realize he would demand that you do this yourself. Leaving such an important task to a novice archaeologist is risky business.”
His eyes were like blue ice; glittering and intense and potent. “I’ll take my chances.”
Rory caught an underlying message in his softly-uttered statement but said nothing. He did very well at keeping his emotions concealed, but there were times when the dam would crack and sliver of sentiment would slip past. And if Rory really thought hard on it, it wouldn’t be so difficult to give in to his magnetism. He was a truly handsome guy with a golden character. But at this point in her life, she wasn’t interested in a relationship of any kind. For the moment, she was only interest in her dreams. Taking a deep breath for courage, she leaned over the shroud and began to cut.
As she knew they would, the bindings turned to dust in her hands. She wasn’t cutting the material as much as she was simply brushing it away, revealing a sight more astonishing than she had ever dreamt possible; apparently, the knight had been buried hastily. So hastily that the helm was the only part of his armor that he wore. The rest of it, the mail and war implements including his sword, were laid on the body that was then tightly wrapped in coarse material.
As she progressed, Bud was forced to jump into the grave to assist her. The body of the knight was loaded with possessions and he began to carefully remove the items as Rory freed them, turning them over to David for cataloging. The broadsword, still in its crafted leather sheath, weighed over thirty pounds alone and both Bud and David were awed by the mighty weapon.
Rory paused in the middle of her task, looking to Bud and David as they removed the broadsword from its protective cover. Gleaming and flawless beneath the scorching Turkish sun, the timeless beauty was overwhelming.
“Christ,” Bud hissed as David held up the heavy weapon, the hilt inlaid with several semi-precious stones. “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”
Peck, his eyes wide with wonder, shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” he muttered. “Look at the craftsmanship on the pommel. Hell, I’d hate to take this thing in to battle for fear of damaging it. It’s too beautiful to use as a weapon.”
Rory wiped at the sweat on her brow with the back of her hand, smiling faintly. “Boys and their toys. From century to century, it never changes.”
Bud grinned, running his gloved finger over the edge of the sword. “How’d you like to have this blade driven into your guts? Pretty horrible, huh?”
She turned back to the knight. “Yeah, but given the odds, you would still take the risk you were trained for. And that risk is probably what killed our friend. Here, look at this.”
Bud and David looked to the source of her focus. The knight was clad in tunic and hose, fairly simple clothing for the crusaders who had preferred a somewhat lavish wardrobe. Discolored with dirt and the passage of time, the lower portion of the tunic as well as the hose were shaded a dark brown. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was a bloodstain.
“What a way to go.” Bud shook his head slowly. “But why in the hell would they bury him still clothed in his bloodied tunic? It doesn’t make sense.”
“None of this does,” Rory said, cautiously removing the last of the bindings from the man’s feet. “Nothing about this guy makes any sense whatsoever.”
For the first time in centuries, the body of the knight was open for the scrutiny of the modern world and David set aside the broadsword long enough to study the man with interest.
“Hell, look at this guy,” he muttered, moving to gain a better view. “You were right, Rory. He’s as solid as a rock.”
At the knight’s feet, Rory simply shook her head in wonder. “This is the most beautifully preserved corpse I’ve ever seen. No odor, no deterioration, no nothing. It’s almost as if… as if he had died yesterday.”
Bud, too, studied the ancient warrior. After a moment, he looked to the collection of property resting along a wide strip of cotton material near David’s make-shift desk. The foreman was in the process of numbering and photographing each item when Bud’s gaze came to rest on one particular object.
“Dave, take a look at that book,” he gestured toward the far end of the collection. “It could be a diary or letters. Maybe it’ll tell us this guy’s name.”
“Or it could be a Bible,” Rory suggested as David moved to collect the leather-bound book.
The cover carefully opened, David slowly meandered back to his colleagues as he reviewed the ancient pages. Pausing by the edge of the grave, he cast Rory an odd expression.
“Can you read medieval writing, Dr. Osgrove?”
She pursed her lips at his ridiculous question. “I should hope so. I spent most of my graduate years doing just that.”
David shook his head, cautiously passing the book into her gloved hands. “Well, good luck with this stuff, anyway.”
Rory accepted the volume, being extremely careful with it. The cover was opened to the first page, fine parchment that was remarkably preserved. The script was faded with time, extremely ornate, and she sighed when she realized she was dealing with an educated man who had apparently loved to write. The entire first page was some sort of lengthy poem in script she could hardly decipher.
“Whew.” She leaned against the side of the grave as she studied the writing. “This is going to take some time, isn’t it?”
Peck smiled wryly, turning back to his artifacts. Bud stepped over the body, moving to stand beside Rory as she examined the ancient text.
He couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “Turn the page. Maybe we’ll find something recognizable.”
She grinned. “What’s the matter, Bud? Can’t read anything but ancient Greek?”
“That’s easy compared to this. Turn the page before I go blind.”
“You could be reading a medieval curse and not even know it.”
He cast her his best intimidating expression. “Quiet, you troublemaker. I’m not afraid of any ancient curse. Well, not much.”
With a soft laugh, Rory turned the fragile page, amazed with the resilience of the vellum. “By all rights, this stuff should be crumbling. I can’t believe how well preserved it is.”
Bud squinted at the faded transcript. “Maybe the grave acted like a time capsule, preserving everything in an air-tight fashion. But I suspect the condition of this book won’t stay good forever; exposure to the air will speed the decaying process. It needs to be sealed.”
“After we find out his name,” Rory said, glancing to the helmed head at the other end of the trench. “Come on, big boy. Tell us who you are.”
Being very careful, Bud turned another page. He was about to turn another when Rory suddenly stopped him.
“Here.” She jabbed her finger at the bottom of the fourth page. “From what I can tell, this is the knight’s journal. He’s talking about his trip aboard a ship… and here he mentions the city of Acre. My God, Bud, this guy really was a crusader. Bingo!”
Bud grinned at her excitement. “You already convinced me of that last night. So what’s his name?”
Hazel eyes scanned the pages. After a moment, she appeared to find a passage of particular interest.
“Right here,” she murmured, struggling to read the script. “Heck, it’s so faded I can hardly read it. But he swearing the truth of his recollections by God’s Holy Order and whosoever should repeat these tales… on and on and on… now where does he mention his name?”
Reseated beside the artifacts, David’s cataloguing came to a halt as Rory read aloud from the chronicle. Even the foreman had paused in his duties, listening carefully. Bud had given up trying to read the stuff and now stood waiting patiently as Rory completed her analysis.
The activity grew oddly still as Rory scrutinized the unfamiliar writing. Turning a page, she seemed to go back and forth between a couple of pages before her gaze came to rest on what she apparently sought. Slowly, her face lit with a beautiful smile.
“Well?” Bud demanded. “What’s his name?”
Rory sighed dreamily, gazing to the ancient knight. There was gentleness in her expression as she spoke.
“Good doctors, meet Sir Kieran Hage of Nottingham. A crusader with Richard the Lionheart.” Her smile broadened when she met Bud’s gaze. “A real honest-to-goodness English knight.”
Bud grinned timidly in response to her declaration. Even Peck was smiling. Hardly able to control her exhilaration, Rory impulsively threw an arm around Bud’s neck and kissed him loudly on the cheek.
“I want to send a message to Becker personally,” she said happily. “I told you guys there was something here. And I would say Sir Kieran is a pretty big something.”
Peck scratched underneath his baseball cap. “Even if he’s not your crown?”
Rory removed her arm from Bud, much to the man’s disappointment. Her smile faded as she moved to the rim of the grave, holding the journal up to David.
“It’s not like I’m going to give up looking for it altogether,” she said, the usual defensiveness absent from her tone. “But what I’ve got here… it’s real, and it’s tangible. It’s not as if I’m chasing a myth. I’ve got some hard excavation waiting for my attention and I intend to give it my full focus.”
David’s brown eyes were soft, hearing his own cynical words reflected in her voice. He suddenly didn’t like the idea of Rory unwilling to pursue her dreams; as outlandish as they could be and as much as he criticized her, the world would be a dismal place without people like Rory to have faith in the impossible. People willing to take the risk whereas David, deep down, was afraid to.
“But you’re not going to give up?”
“Never. Just call my crusader a momentary diversion.”
Peck was oddly comforted by her words. “When this is over, I’ll help you go over the Byzantine manuscripts again. Maybe there is something there you missed, something an unbiased view can help clarify.” He felt foolish for his hypocracy, embarrassed that he was all but admitting his faith in her beliefs. “I’ve… I’ve invested too much time not to do all I can.”
The smile returned to her tired face. “Thanks for your devotion, Dave.” Noting his flush as he refused to meet her gaze, Rory nonetheless winked at him and turned back to the knight. After brief deliberation, she moved to the helmed head and hunched over it, running her fingers over the movable joints. Bud, still feeling her kiss on his cheek, edged closer to observe her actions.
“You want to remove that now?”
She nodded. “I think if we raise the visor, we won’t risk damaging his facial features when we pull off the helm. The last thing we need is the visor dragging across his face and ripping his nose off.”
He shrugged; if she was determined to discover everything about the man in one day, he wouldn’t stand in her way. Fourteen months of frustration was about to find a release and he realized he was as eager as she was. “The joints are probably frozen.” He glanced over his shoulder at David, who had returned to his cataloguing. “See if you can find some spray oil, Dave.”
David sent the foreman for a can of lubricant. When the man returned, Rory allowed Peck to carefully disperse the oil on the frozen couplings.
“That’s good,” Rory murmured. Applying gentle pressure to the lowered visor, she was rewarded by slight movement. She and David, her friend one moment and arch-enemy the next, exchanged grins as he sprayed again.
“Careful, Dave, not too much,” she admonished softly. “We don’t want to get oil on the corpse.”
“We won’t,” he said confidently, observing her ginger manner. When her fingers slipped off the metal as a result of the oil and too much pressure, he put out his hands. “Do you want me to do that?”
“No, thanks,” she murmured, completely focused on her task. “I can do it.”
He moved his hands away. As the small crowd watched in silent anticipation, Rory continued to loosen the faceplate of the helm, working it to the point where she could see a portion of the knight’s cheek. Peering underneath to get a better look, she could see his nostrils but little else. It was still too dark.
“What can you see?” Bud asked from above.
She shook her head. “Not much. Just skin and part of his nose.” She moved to the knight’s right side, squeezing her booted feet into the narrow margin between the body and the side of the grave. “Come here and help me, Bud. Maybe between the two of us we can work this free.”
As Bud leapt into the trench, David lifted an insulted brow. “Oh yeah? You’ll let him help but not me?”
Rory grinned and brushed off her hands. “Rank doth have its privileges, Dr. Peck. Besides, if you and I were to do it together, it might end up a tug-of-war. You’re so damn competitive.”
Shrugging in agreement, David remained at his post by the edge of the grave, watching as Bud and Rory grasped the sides of the visor and attempted to work it free. Rory’s fingers were red from wrestling with the metal and she finally let go, allowing Bud to work alone. Little by little, the visor gradually worked its way up until finally, it gave a loud pop and broke free completely.
The crowd hovering around the grave gave a startled gasp, including Rory. As Bud stood, somewhat stunned, with a Medieval visor in his hand, Rory’s gaze immediately fell on the ancient features. And what a face it was.
She didn’t know why her entire body suddenly washed with a warm, languid feeling. But it did. And she had no idea why her heart was racing a mile a minute. But it was. The more she gazed at the discolored face bordered by the metal of a twelfth century helm, the more amazement and wonder she felt.
Slowly, so as not to break the spell of awe that had settled, Rory knelt beside the knight, reaching out to touch the ashen flesh.
“My God, Bud,” she whispered. “Have you ever seen anything so marvelous in your life?”
Bud as still standing with the visor in his hand. Slowly, he shook his head. “Never. In all my years of digging.”
She ran a finger down the stubbled cheek, the expression on her face one of the utmost marvel. “Look at his flesh. Hardly any deterioration whatsoever. And the stubble is enough to scratch my skin.”
Peck was in jeopardy of tumbling into the grave as he leaned forward at an exaggerated angle. “Hell, he looks young. How old was he?”
“I don’t know,” Rory replied, her tone soft. “Late twenties. Early thirties at the very most.”
Joints popped as Bud knelt beside the knight, the visor still clutched in his fingers. He’d come across a couple of graves in his career, one on Cypress of an ancient Greek soldier that had yielded quite a bit of artifacts. But he couldn’t remember feeling the same awe and satisfaction he was feeling at this moment. As if somehow, this grave meant more to him than the others. It was Rory’s grave.
This was her baby. Therefore, it held more significance for him as well. Gazing down at the miraculously preserved face, he smiled weakly. “Sorry, pal. I ruined your visor. Thank God you broadsword is hidden away or I might be running for my life.”
Rory smiled at him before returning her attention to the knight. If Bud hadn’t known better, he would have sworn her expression to be most tender. And when she touched the aged cheek again, it was with the gentleness of a lover.
“Touch his skin, Bud,” she insisted. “Feel how resilient it is? Maybe you were right when you hypothesized that he had been mummified somehow. But I can’t imagine what sort of ingredients would maintain the skin’s elasticity as well as this.”
Bud ran a calloused finger down the knight’s cheek, pausing when he came to the mouth. He poked gently a moment, prodding. Rory paused to watch him, wondering what he was doing. Feeling her stare, he met her gaze.
“Even more amazing,” he said with just the slightest bit of awe. “Look at his mouth.”
He crooked his finger into the corner of Sir Kieran’s lips, pulling slightly. They were like rubber, as normal living lips would have been. Peeling the flesh back to reveal a perfect set of anterior teeth, he shook his head with growing incredulity.
“And the mucosa membrane is still pliable. Almost… almost as if he were still producing saliva. Christ, that’s fantastic.”
Rory was staring at the knight’s mouth, almost startled when Bud let go of the lips and they sprang together. Her hand was still touching the ancient flesh as she realized that this find was perhaps even more precious than her crown of thorns. A man who lived and breathed centuries ago, buried in a shallow grave. At that moment, she’d never felt so fortunate.
“Let’s get his helm off.” Her voice was oddly hoarse. “I want to see all of him. Bud, do you think we could just pull it off without damaging the body? I’d hate to ruin it by trying to cut it away.”
Bud was already moving to do her bidding. “It should slip off easily. This is the most remarkably intact corpse I’ve ever seen and I don’t think removing this helm will have any ill-effect whatsoever.”
He was right. The crusader’s head protection slid off with amazing ease, revealing a man of the most amazing beauty. Short-cropped dark blond hair met with the early morning light, incredibly pliant. Sir Kieran had a jaw of granite and large dimples carved deep into his cheeks. Rory stared, entranced, as the warrior became a man of flesh and bone before her very eyes.
“Oh… Bud,” she murmured, touching the ancient flesh once more. “Look at him. Isn’t he incredible?”
Bud smiled faintly, handing the helm and detached visor to David. “He’s good-looking enough to run for Mr. America.”
Curious, Rory timidly touched the hair and although somewhat oily, wasn’t surprised to find it thick and soft. “He has the same crew-cut as you do, Bud.”
“His barber is better than mine.” Bud knelt beside the knight, looking the length of the corpse as Rory continued to caress the warrior’s head. “Well, now. What do you say to tearing yourself away from this guy and taking a break, Dr. Osgrove? A good breakfast ought to do us all a world of good.”
Rory removed her hand from his hair, reluctant to leave but knowing a meal was in order. In fact, she couldn’t remember when she had eaten last and she were to admit it, she was rather hungry. Elated, but hungry. “All right,” she said, glancing at David. “Put a team of security guards around the site, Dave. I don’t want anyone near him until I get back.”
David nodded, still studying the helm. “You got it.”
Dr. Peck ended up guarding Sir Kieran himself. If anyone wanted to disturb what Rory had worked so long and hard for, then they were going to have to go through him first.