The Crusader ("The Crusader" Prequel to "Kingdom Come") (9 page)

Rory
looked up from the floor, defiance written all over her face. "Good Lord,
Bud, he isn't even out of the ground yet. Why do we even have to discuss this?
He's our find and we're going to keep him!"

He
maintained his calm tone. "I realize he's our find, but the idea of
returning him to England will undoubtedly come up at some point. I have a
feeling you're already pretty attached to the guy and it might be better if we
talk about this now, while you're still rational, and not wait until I have to
separate the two of you with a crowbar."

She
pursed her lips wryly. "You may never get the chance. I may just run off
with him and live happily ever after, far away from his selfish
countrymen." She scratched her arm in a fidgety gesture, digging her heels
into the dirt floor. "It's just that he's our find, Bud. Sir Kieran
belongs to the university and not to a stuffy British museum."

"He'll
be among his peers."

"They
have enough knights. He'd get lost in the masses."

"He's
part of the masses, Rory. He and twenty thousand other crusaders who came to
the Holy Land to fight for the righteousness of Christianity. If it were up to
me, I'd return him to the country he was born in. The one he loved enough to
risk his life for."

Rory was
fully prepared to defend her claim when she realized, more than likely, Bud was
right. Still, it was difficult to visualize turning her precious find over to
strangers who couldn't possibly give it the love and attention she could.

With a
heavy sigh, her gaze trailed to the mound of papers on the small table.
"Oh, hell. I suppose Sir Kieran would look out of place among the Sumarian
and Dead Sea artifacts in the university's museum. We don't even really have a
British section to put him in."

Bud
smiled faintly. "We could always donate him to the Huntington Library
Foundation and they could display him along with their works of Chaucer and
Shakespeare. That way, he'd still remain in Southern California. And close to
you."

She met
his smile, ironically. "But I'd be here, with you, still looking for my
crown." With another sigh, she scooted her chair closer to the cluttered desk.
"Besides, he's so big he'd probably scare the daylights out of the
visitors who go to the Huntington Library looking for tame entertainment. Like
something out of a bad horror movie."

Bud
laughed softly, his ice-blue eyes moving to the pile of papers at Rory's elbow.
"Well, we don't have to decide anything right this moment. Like you said,
the guy isn't even out of the ground yet." He nodded his head in the
direction of the clutter. "So, what have you found out from his journal so
far? You've been hold up in your tent since before supper."

Momentarily
distracted from the subject of the knight's destination, Rory focused on the
paperwork. As Bud hoped, it was enough of a diversion to lighten her mood and
she perked up as she collected a few of her notes.

"This
journal has been an absolute treasure, Bud," she said enthusiastically.
Holding out a couple of translated pages, she watched him scan her work.
"As near as I can figure out, Sir Kieran was from a noble Saxon family who
practically ruled Nottinghamshire. He came to the Holy Land a full two years
before Richard the Lionheart and lay siege to Acre with Guy de Lusignan's
French army. He's very poetic, actually, talking about the conditions of life
during the siege of Acre. Considering it was probably one of the most hellish
campaigns in history."

Bud
looked up from her pages. "If I remember my facts correctly, about one in
two knights died during the siege from either wounds or disease. Pretty
terrible odds."

Rory
nodded, gazing to the open journal. "This is the most amazing account I've
ever read. An actual first-hand description of the fall of Acre is more than
most scholars ever dream of." She leaned forward and put her reading
glasses back on. The parchment reflected in the lenses as she scrutinized the
faded writing. "He also speaks quite frequently of a knight named Simon de
Corlet and refers to the man as his brother, although I can't determine if he
means literally. And he also makes it quite clear that he knew King Richard on
a first-name basis."

Bud
cocked an eyebrow, laying the pages back on her table. "Do you think he's
being truthful?"

She
paused thoughtfully, chewing on the end of her pen. "Considering the size
of the man and the beauty of his sword, indicating wealth and status among
other things, I would wager to say that he probably did know Richard the
Lionheart personally."

Bud
shook his head in wonder. "Absolutely amazing."

"I
know," she grinned. "Now I remember why the crusades fascinated me so
much in the first place. With my focus on the crown of thorns, I'd almost
forgotten the power and mystery behind the greatest quest of all."

He
chuckled softly, patting her hand in a friendly gesture. "Welcome back to
the real world, kiddo. A place where hard fact often proves more rewarding than
chasing the improbable."

Her
smile faded. "Now you're starting to sound like Dave."

"Am
I?" His features twisted with exaggerated horror and Rory laughed. She
couldn't help it. "Christ, I didn't mean to. I guess what I mean to say is
that I've spent my entire adult life on one dig or another, dealing with the
tangible evidence of archaeology. This is the first dig I've ever supervised
where we've been searching for something a lot of people believe to be purely
legend."

Hazel
eyes glittered at him in the dim illumination of the tent. "And you?"

He met
her gaze. "You're very convincing with your facts."

"That's
not what I asked. Do you believe I'm searching for a myth?"

He stood
up, shoving his hands in his pockets. "If I did I wouldn't be here. But I
have to say that I'm a lot like Dave in some respects; an old school guy like
me is partial to hard evidence over tales written by God-fearing monks."

"So
you have difficulty putting faith in Ottis' manuscript. I can appreciate that.
But do you disbelieve the Bible as well?"

Bud
scratched his head, trying fervently not to say anything that would offend her.
When discussing her passionate beliefs, it was easy to send her off into a rage
with a single misspoken word.

"I
was raised Protestant," he said after a moment. "I guess I've always
grown up knowing that I should believe. But being a scientist... well,
sometimes it's difficult. Especially when we're digging up pre-humanoids
hundreds of thousands of years old. How does that Bible explain the existence
of something like that?"

Rory
smiled faintly. "It does if you look in the right place. For example, the
book of Genesis, verse 2, lines 1 and 2; 'Thus the heavens and the earth were
completed, and all their hosts. And by the seventh day God completed His work
which He had done; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He
had done.'" She leaned forward on the cluttered desk, her chin resting in
her hand. "God said it took seven days to create the heavens and the
earth, Bud. But he didn't say how long the days were."

"A
day is a day. Twenty-four hours."

"Maybe
not in God's time. Considering He believes the life of a man to be barely a
breath of air before it's gone, there's no telling what God considers to be a
day's length."

Bud's
perfect teeth gleamed in the soft light. "Dave was right. You're one hell
of a theologian. I really pity your theology professor."

She
grinned, leaning more heavily on her arm as her fatigue deepened. "Old Dr.
Hayworth, head of the Theology and Philosophy department. I gave him a brain
hemorrhage, I think. The guy retired right after I graduated."

"That's
because poor old Louis was probably having nightmares of the beautiful student
with the cunning of a barracuda." Somewhere outside of the tent, a dog
bayed in the distance and Bud turned toward the canvas opening, gazing out over
the encampment. He wished that he didn't have to go back to his own tent and
sleep alone in his cold, hard bed.

"Tomorrow
we should remove his helm and figure out how to get him out of the grave,"
Rory said from behind him. "I'd like to do some tissue analysis if
possible."

Bud
turned to her. "We'll be doing an autopsy. Why do you want a preliminary
analysis?"

She
shrugged and stood up, moving to stand beside him as they both enjoyed the
gentle breeze. "Do we really need an autopsy? I think it's pretty obvious
how he died. We could simply do a physical and a few tests to determine his
health and other factors."

Bud
crossed his arms; he had to. It was either that or pull Rory into a crushing
embrace. "It's fairly standard to do autopsies on intact corpses. I don't
think there's any question that we should, for a myriad of reasons."

Rory's
expression darkened as she looked out over the distant settlement. After a
moment, she lifted her shoulders uneasily. "I don't know... I mean, I've
never agreed with that particular aspect of excavation. So what if we cut this
guy open and find out that he had heart disease and tapeworm?  It's just so
undignified to hack him up when he's survived all of these centuries intact."

Bud
toyed with his chin, noting her sincerity as she spoke. She was so damn
sensitive, concerned for all things great and small. "Autopsies have told
us a lot about how ancient people lived. They're a very enlightening
process."

"We
know how he lived, fighting off starvation and disease when he wasn't battling
Saladin. Couldn't we just x-ray him? It would be a lot less intrusive."

Bud
nodded after a moment. "I suppose we could. Radiographs will tell us just
as much. Maybe more."

She
smiled gratefully. "Thank you, Bud. You really aren't such a bad guy,
after all."

He
cocked an eyebrow. "I hope you remember that."

Rory
watched him stroll from her tent, his hands dug deep into the pockets of his
jeans. "What is that supposed to mean?"

He cast
her a long glance but continued walking. "When the time comes, you'll
know. Now get back to work on that journal. I want to know every gory detail of
Sir Kieran's life by morning."

Rory
watched him go, smiling to herself. He really wasn't such a bad guy, after all.

***

Midnight
came and went. The camp was dark, devoid of any activity except for an
occasional security guard. Bud and David were long since asleep, much needed
rest after a night and day of continuous digging.

Only Rory
seemed to be awake, so deeply immersed in Sir Kieran's journal that she hardly
realized it was the middle of the night. Once she got past the beginning of the
knight's trip to the Holy Land, sailing on a ship crowded with mercenaries and
horses and weapons, the true scope of his adventures came to light and, like
any good book, she couldn't put it down.

Surprisingly,
Kieran didn't seem to be the arrogant sort. He was frank, brutally opinionated
when he had to be, but for the most part he seemed to be even-tempered and
rational. He spoke with appalling honestly when he described heathen women,
hairy wenches with a powerful smell as he had so kindly phrased them. They
clung to him like leeches, he said with genuine puzzlement, wondering why they
found him so attractive. With his size and alien coloring, he had expected
nothing less than naked fear.

As Rory
read into the night, she found herself visualizing the warrior wrapped in
coarse cloth and buried in the ancient Grecian temple. He had a droll sense of
humor and more than once Rory found herself chuckling over something he had
commented on. But even more than the humor and vivid descriptions of deplorable
life in a land under siege, she came to realize that Kieran had a good deal of
modern insight to the world around him.

It was a
sensitivity that ran deep as he described giving heathen orphans food from his
own stores, or preventing his comrades from 'doing as they soe pleased' with a
female captive.  Rory, in fact, was amazed by his altruistic ideals; so many of
the crusading knights were corrupt that she found it astonishing that Sir
Kieran possessed the scruples to distinguish right from wrong. To deter a rape
and feed hungry children was an example of commendable, and nearly unheard-of,
standards.

The
Turkish evening passed in heated silence; still, Rory remained riveted to the
pages of Sir Kieran's journal. The more she read of the man and his exceptional
ideals, the more she found herself liking him. And the more she wished she
could rouse him from his eternal sleep to ask questions until he ran out of
answers. Engrossed in the man and his tales, Rory realized that Sir Kieran Hage
was a knight taken straight from the pages of a fairy tale. Strong, chivalrous,
and exceptionally brave.

It was
close to dawn when she neared the last pages of his journal. Rory had long
since stopped transcribing the text, instead, thoroughly absorbed in the
stories. There would be plenty of time later for translating and she was to the
point where she could actually read an entire page of medieval script in less
than five minutes.