Chapter 13
Gwen
Lance parked on a narrow street lined with row houses made of brick and stucco. A small sign hung above a doorway two doors down, reading Dr. T. Hopkins, Medieval Studies and Academic Consulting.
“I’ll go inside with you,” Arthur said. “Lance, you’ve got the exterior.”
Lance got out and scanned the street while I pulled the sword case from the trunk.
Arthur reached the door first and opened it for me. After a quick glance inside, he stepped back and ushered me in. It was the third door he’d held open for me today, and it wasn’t even ten in the morning.
It’s a security thing, Gwen. Don’t make it out to be more than that.
The office was exactly what I’d imagined.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on two walls, with books stacked double in places.
Academic journals in piles on the windowsill overlooking the street.
Display cases along the far wall held small artifacts: fibulae, buckle plates, and various fragments of decorative metalwork.
Dr. Hopkins glanced up from behind a large oak desk. Its surface was littered with papers and books, and a magnifying lamp was clamped to its edge. He stood, a broad smile on his face. “Dr. Lyons. I’m so happy you’re here.”
“I should thank you for making time for me on such short notice,” I said as we shook hands.
“I cleared my schedule the moment you called. It’s not every day a seventh-century sword walks into my office.” His eyes moved to Arthur. “You must be one of the traveling companions she mentioned to me yesterday?”
Arthur nodded from his position beside the door. Close enough to hear everything, far enough to be out of the conversation. “I’m protection for Dr. Lyons and the sword.”
“Of course.” Dr. Hopkins took it in stride, as though security escorts were a normal part of his academic consultations. He gestured to a guest chair opposite him. “Can I see it?”
I set the sword case on his desk, unlatched the clasps, and opened the lid. The gold’s gentle luster. The blade’s corroded metal. The aura of history clinging to it. I’d been handling the sword for days, but it still took my breath away every time I saw it.
Dr. Hopkins leaned forward, pushing his glasses up as he got closer to the pommel. Without looking, he reached for the cotton gloves on his desk.
“Would you mind using nitrile?” I said. “Cotton can catch, and with the blade in this condition, snagging on a fragment could do significant damage.”
He paused, letting his glasses drop back onto his nose. “Of course.”
While he opened a drawer to retrieve a pair of gloves, I withdrew my laptop and pulled on my own.
I’d lifted it myself the first time, but couldn’t allow someone who hadn’t signed the FBI’s paperwork to risk it. The pommel would be fine, but the blade might snap. “It’s surprisingly sturdy, but it’s best if we don’t test its integrity.”
“Steel ages so differently from precious metals.” Settling his glasses on top of his head, he extended the magnifying lamp over the gold.
“I was thinking the garnet inlay technique was consistent with seventh-century East Anglian workshops, but there are elements I’d hoped to get a better look at.
This granulation along the upper guard, for instance. ”
“I thought it was similar to one of the pommels in the Staffordshire Hoard.” I rounded the desk and stood beside him. “It had quite a bit of granulation.”
“True, but it’s primarily filigree in the Staffordshire gold items, rather than granulation.” He traced a finger a half-inch above the pommel, not touching. “May I see the underside?”
I closed the case, flipped it over gently, and reopened it to reveal the side with the inscription.
“Extraordinary.” Dr. Hopkins brought the magnifying lens closer, and his breath slowed. “And you said yesterday there’s a particular symbol?”
“Yes, if you move the ring on the pommel, you’ll see it.”
He tilted the ring gently. Beneath it was the circle with the cross inside and the wavy lines below.
“That was the first thing I found matching the church,” I said. “The same symbol is carved into the tower wall, near the Latin inscription.”
I opened my laptop and placed it beside the case, its screen showing the original tower inscription and symbol, plus the contrast-adjusted images of the letters on the stone.
“Both inscriptions include Novae Avallonis, and I haven’t been able to find the term in any of the published sources I’ve checked. ”
Dr. Hopkins studied the screen, the sword, then the screen again. “Have you tried the Boydell corpus?”
“First thing I searched.”
“The Monumenta Germaniae Historica?”
“Nothing.”
He listed off the next four archives I’d searched.
“Nothing in any of them. Lots of references to the Isle of Avalon, but not New Avalon, in any epigraphic database, medieval Latin lexicon, or any Arthurian studies bibliography I’ve gone through.”
“That’s either very significant or very explainable.”
Across the room, Arthur shifted his weight and a floorboard squeaked. He hadn’t interrupted, hadn’t left his post by the door, but the movement caught my attention. And I was suddenly, ridiculously aware he was hearing all of this. Me, in my element, trying to hold my own with a senior researcher.
You’re not trying to impress anyone. You’re presenting evidence.
“You’ve clearly done thorough work,” Dr. Hopkins said. “But I want to raise a few potential complications to your reading.”
“Please do.” Proper scientific method demanded critique. That was the whole point.
“I’ve lived in Cornwall for almost thirty years.
‘New Avalon’ isn’t as novel a concept as it may seem.
” He slid his glasses down and sat in his old leather desk chair.
“It floats around local legend. You won’t find it in published scholarship, which is probably why your database searches came up empty.
But in parish halls, history groups, or pub conversations, it’s practically the same as calling King Arthur the once-and-future king.
People have been connecting Avalon to sites in the West Country for generations.
A visitor sees an inscription and thinks she’s found something new.
A local hears ‘New Avalon’ and thinks, ‘That old story?’”
I leaned against his desk, angling myself so Arthur couldn’t see my face. “You’re saying it’s folklore?”
“I don’t mean to invalidate your interpretation. I’m simply putting the words in context.” He pointed at the image on the laptop. “The Victorians were besotted with all things Arthur, so it’s possible the inscription was added during the nineteenth-century restoration.”
“And the pommel might have been modified at the same time?”
“That would make sense.”
My gaze dropped to my laptop, to the enhanced photographs I’d spent hours checking against documents and databases since we left the church. Yesterday, those letters had made my hands shake with excitement. But I had been focused on scientific sources.
Last night, Arthur had told me to trust my instincts.
But this morning, instincts were all I had. No data. No facts. Only a little feeling deep inside, begging me not to give up on it.
“Let me see if I can help. If the inscription is pre-Victorian…” Dr. Hopkins stood and went to his bookshelves.
He ran a finger along the spines, stopped, and returned with a volume.
“When the Templar order was suppressed, most of their properties and records were handed over to the Knights Hospitaller, which was eventually headquartered in Malta. If the inscription existed at St. Catherine’s in the 1300s, it should appear somewhere in the National Archive of Malta.
It’s a shot in the dark, but their records are impeccable. ”
It wouldn’t prove anything, but it would narrow the timeframe. “What about the folklore angle? Is anyone tracking these ‘New Avalon’ references in an organized way?”
He smiled and nodded. “A colleague of mine in Glastonbury has spent years collecting unpublished materials on Arthurian-connected sites in the West Country. One conversation with him could point you straight to verified sources.”
“How far is Glastonbury from here?”
“A little over two hours.” He returned to the shelves, skimmed along spines, and selected a second book. This one was older, with a cracked spine. He flipped through pages until he found what he wanted, and laid the book down gently. “You may also want to consider a literary angle.”
“Literary?”
“In the twelfth century, the French evolved the Arthurian legends significantly. Chrétien de Troyes is one of the best-known writers of the time, and he’s largely responsible for introducing Lancelot into the stories.
If Novae Avallonis is a literary concept rather than a place, part of the mythology-making those writers were doing, the manuscript archives in Troyes—in the Champagne region—might contain the earliest uses of the term. ”
All I’d wanted originally was to authenticate the sword.
The results of a metallurgical analysis of the blade would have been relatively simple to interpret, but the pommel added complexity.
Instead of uncovering the truth, my visit to St. Catherine’s Church had given me Dr. Hopkins and three separate leads.
Each one sounded reasonable. Each one offered a path forward.
And each one led away from the interpretation I’d been so sure about yesterday.
Or maybe that was the problem, Gwen. You needed it to be important.
Lionel’s face flashed through my memory. I’d been sure of my research back then. Sure of the man. Sure what I was seeing was real—not just with the research he’d stolen, but with him. It had been three years, but I still saw his stupid face every single time I had to defend my conclusions.
I closed the laptop.
You’re not folding. You’re being responsible.
But that didn’t stop the heat from creeping up my neck. Behind me, Mr. Had All His Sexy Shit Together was witnessing my giant failure. Surely he wouldn’t be willing to traipse all over Europe chasing an inscription that was probably nothing.
I’d be on my own after this. But the updated FBI contract permitted me to travel with the sword only if a member of the Round Table Security team was with me.
“Can you send me the specifics? Archive names, contact information for your colleague?” I kept my focus on Dr. Hopkins instead of asking Arthur for approval first. “And can I take some photos of these pages in your books?”
“I’ll email you everything.” Dr. Hopkins smiled. “And please, keep me in the loop. Whatever you find, I’d love to know.”
I packed the sword, latched the case, and got a few quick shots of his documents with my phone.
Dr. Hopkins shook my hand at the door. “A genuine pleasure, Dr. Lyons. Your sword is exceptional, regardless of what the inscription turns out to mean.”
“Thank you, Dr. Hopkins. I appreciate your time.”
Arthur followed me out without a word.
The morning air was cool after the warm office. Lance leaned against the car, arms crossed, watching us approach. “All done?”
Were we done? Was the sword’s security detail going to insist we fly home?
Before I could say anything, Arthur’s hand found the small of my back. Hurrying me toward the car, he said, “Not even close. We’ve got travel plans to make.”