Briefly, Annja brought him up-to-date.
"What are you going to do?" Roux asked when she was finished.
"Find out the truth about what happened all those years ago," Annja said. "Discover who the prisoner was in the monastery and what happened to her. Why the monastery was destroyed. Why the monastery still exists even though it's been destroyed. Why the monks of that monastery want the charm. Why Corvin Lesauvage wants the charm."
"Don't forget, you want to save this young man, as well."
"Avery Moreau. I haven't forgotten."
"Quite a shopping list." Roux abandoned his plate and leaned back to digest his meal.
"It is," Annja admitted. "But it's what I do."
"Look for truths in the past?"
Put that simply, Annja had to admit her job sounded too altruistic. "I love learning about the people who lived in the past. Who they were. What they did. Why they did it. Where they lived. How they saw the world and their places in it."
"You only left out 'when.' "
Despite her tension, Annja smiled. " 'When' is sometimes part of the mystery, too. Carbon dating is pretty exact, but you don't always have it, and the results can be off enough to seriously screw with a theory."
"You're a classically trained archaeologist?"
"I am, but I've also got degrees in anthropology and ethnography."
"Good. I know it's hard for a traditional archaeologist to find work inside the United States and in most parts of the world these days. The focus tends to be on culture rather than things."
"You know about archaeology?" Annja was surprised.
"I know a lot about a great many things. I was with Dr. Howard Carter while he was doing his exploration of the Valley of the Kings in Egypt."
"That was in the early 1900s." Annja still couldn't believe they were talking about a period a hundred years ago, or that Roux might actually have seen it.
"Yes. Though Howard didn't find the tomb of Tutankhamen until 1922." Roux smiled. "I was there. It was a most gratifying moment. The man who funded the search, Lord Carnarvon, had very nearly given up on Howard. But Howard, for the most part, remained certain he was about to find the tomb. And he did. It was most impressive. The world will very probably never see the like again."
"I hope that's not true," Annja said. "Egypt grabbed everyone's attention, especially the British after Napoleon's army found the first pyramids there during the war. But there are other things out there we can learn."
"You're probably right. The world has forgotten more than anyone alive today will ever know." Roux talked as if he were an authority on that line of thinking. He was silent for a moment.
"What about the sword?" Annja asked.
Roux looked at her. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, why me?"
"My dear girl," Roux said, "the sword choseyou."
"From the very first time I met Joan," Roux said, "I knew she was destined for greatness." In his mind's eye, he could see her again, proudly riding the great warhorse and carrying the banner. He had never – or, at least, very seldom – met anyone like her. "When you've been alive as long as I have, you tend to recognize such things."
"You've never stated your age," Annja said.
Roux grinned. He discovered he liked dueling with the young woman seated next to him. Not only was she beautiful, but she possessed mental alacrity, as well.
However, she was still naive in many ways. He hoped to be able to occasionally use that to his advantage. He had served the command he had been given. Now his life was his to do as he pleased.
"Nor will I state my age," Roux said. "But I do forgive your impertinence in your not-so-subtle attempt to find out."
She smiled at him, rested her elbows on the chair's arms and steepled her slender fingers to rest her chin.
Looking at her, Roux knew she was going to break many men's hearts. She was too beautiful and too independent – too driven – not to.
And now she carried Joan's sword, and everything that such a calling brought with it. That taken into account, and the looming confrontation with Lesauvage and the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain, she might not live to see the end of the week.
"As I said," Roux returned to his story, "I met Joan and I was very much taken with her. I saw that she was going to be a… force.No other word can match what I saw in her."
"You were a fan," Annja said. Her tiger's eyes gleamed with humor.
"I was," Roux admitted. "I was quite taken with her. But it was the power invested in her that drew me the most. The company of others has seldom been a preoccupation for me."
"Except for the part about hearing your own voice, I've noticed."
Roux grimaced. "There used to be an appreciation for storytelling."
"There still is," Annja said. "But now it also includes brevity. Getting to the point. That kind of thing."
"I believe Joan was supposed to help the balance," Roux said.
"What balance?"
"The balance between good and evil."
Annja paused, thinking, her brows tightly knit. "With a big Gand a big E?"
"Exactly. The cosmic balance. A turning point between order and chaos." Roux sighed and still felt hugely guilty even after more than five hundred years and the vexing job of finding all the sword pieces. "But the world was cheated of her presence far too early."
"Because you got back to her late."
Roux shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Across the room, Garin lounged on a full-sized sofa and enjoyed the conversation, smirking the whole time.
"I wasn't the one who threw her up on that bloody stake and roasted her alive," Roux snapped. His own guilt was one thing, but he bloody well wasn't going to have it shoved on him by someone else.
Annja was quiet for a moment. "No," she said finally, "I suppose you weren't."
"That's right."
"So what's supposed to happen now?" Annja asked.
Roux was quiet for a moment, knowing what he was about to say would have a lasting impact on the young woman. At least, it would as long as she lived.
"I believe that the inheritor of Joan's sword is going to have to live up to that same potential," Roux said. "You're going to be asked to intercede on the behalf of good. Or not, if you so choose."
That shocked her. He saw it in her eyes. She was silent and still for a moment.
"That's ridiculous," the young woman finally said.
"Is it?" Roux gazed at her. "Yet, here you are, racing to the rescue of some unknown young man who actually may have set you up to be kidnapped while we were in the mountains."
"I'm not going because of the sword."
"Then why are you going?"
"Because I don't want Avery Moreau to die."
"Why? You don't truly know him. He may already be dead. More than likely, he betrayed you to a vicious enemy. You'd be a fool to do anything to help him." Roux leaned back. "Furthermore, you could call and let the local police deal with the matter."
"The sword has nothing to do with this."
"Perhaps not. Perhaps by your very nature you're quixotic. I submit to you, Miss Creed, that is probably the very reason the sword chose you."
Annja was silent for a moment, blinking as if she was dazed. Then she said, "You can't be serious."
"Of course not," Roux said. "I'm just leading you on a wild-goose chase. And the sword can't really appear and disappear just because you want it to. And it didn't somehow reform itself from pieces when you touched it. All those things are lies."