The Crusader ("The Crusader" Prequel to "Kingdom Come") (6 page)

Baffled,
David sat down and began to earnestly inspect the dislodged earth. What became
evident beneath his seeking fingers sent him running for Bud.

And for Rory.

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. Deep in the widening
trench hovered three archaeologists, more involved in their work now than they
had ever been over the past fourteen months.

There
was 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 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 in 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 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 were 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."

The pale
green eyes were focused on Bud and he swore at that moment he'd never seen such
naked joy. Rory 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.

Therefore,
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 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 seriously
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 before moving to a
crouched position beside the body. "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 revered 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 as a field archaeologist 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 began to move with a purpose, Bud pulled himself
from the grave and began conversing with Dr. Peck about what, exactly, to tell
Becker.

With the
encampment moving at a swift 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.