The sight of them, the feel of them, was almost unbearable.
She willed the sword away, back into wherever it went when it was not with her. It faded from her hands like early-morning fog cut by direct sunlight.
Taking a deep breath, she reached into that otherwhere and drew the sword back. Light gleamed along the blade. The marks had disappeared.
A quick check of the images on the digital camera revealed that the shots she'd taken still existed. She put the sword on the bed and turned her full attention to the camera images.
Was the sword weak while it was shattered?Annja wondered. Or had it allowed itself to be marked? And if it had allowed itself to be marked, why?
She set to work.
Chapter 22
USING THE SOFTWARE on her computer, Annja blew up the images of the wolf and the mountain. After they were magnified, she saw there were other images, as well. The detail of the work was amazing.
The shadowy figure behind the bars was better revealed. Although manlike in appearance, the figure was a grotesquerie, ill shaped and huge, judging from the figure of the man standing behind him.
With her naked eye, Annja had barely been able to make out the second figure. Once the image was blown up, she couldn't miss him. He wore the armor of a French knight. A shield bearing his heraldry stood next to him.
Annja blew up the image more, concentrating on the shield.
The shield was divided in the English tradition rather than the French. That surprised Annja. The common armchair historian assumed that all heraldry was the same, based on the divisions of the shield that English heraldry was noted for. But the French, Italians, Swedish and Spanish – as well as a few others – marked their heraldry differently.
This one was marked party per bend sinister– diagonally from upper right to lower left. The upper half showed the image of a wolf with its tongue sticking out. The animal didn't have much detail, but Annja got a definite sense of malevolence from the creature. The lower half of the shield was done in ermines, a variation of the field that represented fur. Ermines were traditionally black on white.
The design was unique. If it hadn't disappeared in history, there would likely be some documentation on it.
Annja cut the shield out of the image with the software, cleaned up the lines as much as she could and saved it.
Logging onto alt.archaeology, she sent a brief request for identification to the members. She also sent an e-mail to a professor she knew at Cambridge who specialized in British heraldry. She also followed up with a posting to alt.archaeology.esoterica.
What was a British knight doing at a French monastery of an order of monks that had been destroyed?
Annja returned to the image.
The shadowy, misshapen figure had another drawing under it. Annja almost missed the discovery. The image had been cut into the metal but it was almost as if it had been scored there only to have the craftsman change his mind later.
Or maybe he was told not to include it, Annja thought.
She magnified the image and worked on it, bringing it into sharper relief with a drawing tool. In seconds, she knew what she was looking at. A lozenge.
Annja sat back in her chair and stared at the image, blown away by the possibilities facing her. The shadowy figure wasn't a man. It was a woman.
The lozenge was heraldry to represent female members of a noble family. Designed in an offset diamond shape that was taller than it was wide, a lozenge identified the woman by the family, as well as personal achievements.
This particular lozenge only had two images on it. A wolf salient, in midleap, occupied the top of the diamond shape. At the bottom was a stag dexter, shown simply standing. A crescent moon hung in the background with a star above and a star below.
Annja repeated her efforts with the postings, sending off the new image, as well.
Back aching from the constant effort, Annja decided to take a break. She quickly dressed and went out into the rainy night, surprised to find that dawn was already apparent the eastern sky.
Annja headed for the small Italian grocery store several blocks from her loft. The Puerto Rican bodega she favored was closer, but it wasn't open at such an early hour. She didn't mind as she wanted to stretch her legs.
She loved being in the middle of the city as it woke around her. Voices cracked sharply. Cars passed by in the street, horns already honking impatiently.
Stopping by the newsstand, she picked up a handful of magazines – Time, Newsweek, Scientific American, People, Entertainment, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine,and Magazine of Fantasyand Science Fiction.
She liked to keep up with current events. The entertainment and fiction magazines were guilty pleasures. If she hadn't been able to occasionally borrow from fictional lives in the orphanage, she sometimes wondered if she'd have made it out with the curiosity about the world and the past that she now had.
At the grocery store, she passed a pleasant few minutes with the owner, who loved to talk about her children, and bought a small melon, eggs, fresh basil, a small block of Parmesan cheese and garlic bread. She also picked up a gallon of orange juice.
Back at the loft, Annja let herself in through all five locks. She was startled but not entirely surprised to find Garin seated at her desk. Her eyes immediately strayed to the bed, but the sword was nowhere to be seen.
"You're looking for the sword?" Garin seemed amused. He wore a black turtleneck, jeans and heavy black boots. A leather jacket hung on the back of the chair.
"How did you get in?" Annja demanded. She stood in the open door, ready to flee immediately.
"I let myself in," he said. "I did knock first."
Suspicion formed in Annja's mind. She had the definite sense that he'd waited for her to leave, then broke in.
"You weren't here," Garin said.
"Odd that I happened to miss you," Annja said.
Garin smiled. "Serendipity. You can never properly factor that into anything."
"You could have waited for me to get back," Annja pointed out.
"And stood out in the hallway so that your neighbors would gossip about you?" Garin shook his head. "I couldn't do that."
Deciding that she didn't have anything to fear from the man – at least for the moment – Annja walked into the kitchen area and placed the groceries on the counter.
"Breakfast?" Garin asked.
"Yes." Annja took a big skillet from the wall.
"We could order in. I noticed there are some places nearby that deliver," Garin said.
"I've eaten restaurant food for days," Annja replied. "Here and in France. I want to cook." She put the skillet on the burner to warm, then cracked eggs into a bowl.
Glancing over her shoulder, Annja saw that he looked amused. She resented his presence in her home, the fact that he had broken in, and she was distrustful of him. Still, she couldn't just pretend he wasn't there when she was about to eat.
"Have you eaten?" she asked.
"No. I just got in from LaGuardia." Garin sat at the desk. "But that's all right. You go ahead."
"Nonsense. There's enough for both of us. More than enough."