Lies, Damned Lies, and History(33)

It turned out to be none of those. They went over every inch with metal detectors and there it was. They had to chip it out of the surrounding rock, but it was still there, wrapped in layers of desiccated leather.

The Chancellor sent me another personal message together with a series of images. I stared at it – remarkably well preserved and exactly as I remembered it. If I closed my eyes, I could still hear Arthur’s deep voice filling the silence around us. I could still see the old man’s gnarly hands reaching out to take it …

We were heroes. Everyone loved us. Especially the Chancellor who, apparently, had been having a bit of a rocky moment, politically speaking, and this was just what was needed to enable her to put the academic boot in. Or in her case, of course, an expensive but elegantly understated court shoe.

We basked in that almost unheard of phenomenon, Dr Bairstow’s approval, because our funding was secure for the foreseeable future. The word on the street was that he was carpeing the diem by compiling a wish list the like of which had never before been contemplated, let alone submitted. The rest of St Mary’s regarded us with awe and admiration. I’d like to think.

‘Arthur’s sword!’ people kept saying.

‘One of Arthur’s swords,’ I kept saying back, trying to keep a sense of proportion.

No one was listening and after a while, neither were we.

Did we get big-headed? Did we walk around thinking we were the dog’s bollocks? Of course we did. Anyone would. It was Arthur’s sword, for God’s sake. The Arthur and very nearly the sword. And we’d found it. Well – we’d enabled it to be found. Of course we got big-headed.

And then things started to go horribly wrong.

Not a huge thing to begin with. I thought afterwards it might have been a warning shot.

I don’t normally watch the news. The last time I bothered was when, yet again, they reopened the controversy over Richard III’s final resting place, with the City of York waging war on the City of Leicester, and Westminster Abbey poised to engage the winner.

It was Peterson who drew my attention to it this time. A factory had closed. Not something that would normally interest us, but it was situated only a couple of miles from Caer Guorthigirn.

‘I think we might have walked past the site,’ he said.

I watched the screen. The company had, quite suddenly, declared bankruptcy and closed. They had been the major employer in a predominantly rural area.

‘A financial disaster for the region,’ declared the newsreader.

Roberts looked gloomy. ‘Half my family worked there,’ he said. ‘The half that doesn’t work on my dad’s farm, anyway.’

‘Bad luck,’ said Peterson, sympathetically.

He nodded and walked away.

Then, things went even more wrong.

The first I knew was when Roberts found me in the Library.

‘What’s the matter,’ I asked, in concern. His face was blotchy. Surely, he hadn’t been crying.

He laid a local newspaper before me. ‘My mam sent it. Look what’s happened.’

I folded back the page and peered at it. The word catastrophe leaped out at me. Shit! I read more closely. A heavily laden lorry had careered down the hill, failed to negotiate one of the bends, and smashed into a pub’s car park. Two parked cars had slowed it only slightly, and the whole mass of tangled metal, still travelling at some speed, had crashed straight into the crowded pub itself. Fatalities were high. Casualties even higher.

‘Gareth, I’m so sorry. What a dreadful thing to happen. Did you know any of them?’

He swallowed and nodded, unable to speak for a moment.

‘Do you want some time off? Go and visit your family? Everyone must be devastated.’

‘No, I’ve spoken to them on the phone. They’re OK. Well, reasonably OK. The thing is, Max …’

‘Yes?’

He fiddled with the paper, making a big thing of folding it neatly. ‘You don’t think …? After what happened with the factory as well, you don’t think this has anything to do with Thirsk taking the sword away, do you?’

‘I’m not with you.’

‘It can’t be a coincidence, can it? The sword is removed – Arthur’s symbol of protection – and suddenly, bad things start to happen. Suppose it’s like the London Stone – you know, “So long as the Stone of Brutus is safe, so shall London flourish.” Or the ravens leaving the Tower means the Crown will fall and Britain with it. Suppose it was left by Arthur to keep the people safe and by removing it, we’ve laid them open to …’

He was beginning to gabble.

I said gently, ‘It’s a coincidence. A dreadful one, but just a coincidence.’