Wind Raker - Book IV of The Order of the Air (36 page)

And yet there were the anomalies. Both Willi and Dr. Buck agreed that it was unusual for such a small village to have a dancing floor this large. The mound at the northern edge could be a temple base so eroded as to show no signs of its use, or it could be an observatory platform. The view of sea and sky was unusually good, the central mountains blocking only a small portion of the eastern sky. There was the fragment of bone with its burnt edge and web of cracks, and three more smaller bits of bone that might have come from the same or similar fragments. If you could believe Mr. Collins’ recollection, the porcelain had been found on the site of the chief’s hut.

And, of course, there was the stone. He picked it out of the pattern, took it across to his desk to hold it under the light, turning it so that the scratches showed most clearly. For the hundredth time, he wished he read Chinese. If the marks had been Demotic, for example, he could have hazarded a guess as to whether they were random marks that happened to look like letters or if they were real but crudely made. Willi still refused to commit himself, but Jerry thought he believed they were real.

The door opened, and Mrs. Tang came in, balancing the tea tray in her hands. Jerry hastily cleared a spot on his desk, and she set it down with a smile.

“Good day for tea, huh?”

The rain rattled against the windows in punctuation, and Jerry nodded. “Perfect for it.”

“Be nicer tomorrow,” she said. “You want a cup for Dr. Radke?”

“Yes, thanks.” If the rain kept up, Willi would close the dig early, and there might as well be a cup waiting.

She nodded, adding the second cup. “I’ll pick this up before you go.”

“Thank you,” Jerry said again, and reached for his magnifying glass as the door closed behind her. The scratches looked purposeful to him, but it was hard to tell. After a moment, he poured himself a cup of tea, pale gold and smelling of jasmine, too delicate to spoil with cream and sugar. If there had been Chinese explorers here — if Bea’s story was true, the island-ship crashing ashore, never to depart again — had the crew drunk tea like this in their exile? For a moment, he could almost see them, a man in silk and a man in feathers, a pot of tea and a bowl of poi between them, and then the image faded. He took another drink of tea, picked up his pencil, and returned to the map.

He was lost in the pattern when the door opened again, and he looked up, blinking, to see not Mrs. Tang but Willi, a cigar box in one hand and propelling Jimmy ahead of him with the other.

“Take the box, please,” Willi said, and Jimmy obeyed without protest. Jerry lifted an eyebrow, and Willi went on, in German, “If you would take him, Jerry, we have work still at the site.”

“In this weather?” Jerry held up the teapot, and Willi nodded once.

“Thank you. Yes, I am worried about protecting the dancing floor.” He drained half the cup and set it back with a clatter. Both he and Jimmy were wearing borrowed oilskins; Willi’s hair was plastered to his skull and Jimmy’s jeans were wet to the knee. Neither of them would die of cold, not in a tropical downpour, but he didn’t like the mulish look on Jimmy’s face, or the militant light in Willi’s eye.

“Everything all right?”

Willi snorted. “Not so much. He has been a pain in the ass all day — but I’ll let him tell you. If he chooses.”

Jerry felt his eyebrows rise even further. “Ok.”

“Also we have found some interesting items,” Willi said, switching back to English. “Which Jimmy can help you with.” He tossed off the rest of his cup. “And now I will get back to the dig.”

“Ok,” Jerry said again, but the door had already closed behind the other man. He looked at Jimmy instead. “Set the box down here and get out of that jacket. I don’t want you dripping on my notes.”

“Yes, sir.” Jimmy’s voice was meek enough, but his expression was stormy. He freed himself from the oilskin jacket and hat, hung it carefully on the coatrack, and returned to the table, wiping his hands on his pants. Jerry studied him, decided he wasn’t actually dripping, and motioned to the teapot.

“Would you like a cup?”

Something that was almost anger flickered across the boy’s face. “I don’t drink that Chinese mess.”

“That’s your choice,” Jerry said, “but don’t be rude about it.”

Jimmy shrugged one shoulder. “Nobody heard. And anyway, they’re only Chinese.”

“And where did you pick that up?” Jerry said, softly.

Jimmy shrugged again. “Everybody knows it.”

“Why don’t you tell me why you’re in trouble?” Jerry said, after a moment.

“I didn’t do anything.” Jimmy’s face was tight. “I was just trying to help.”

Jerry waited, watching him over the rim of his glasses, and Jimmy looked away.

“They weren’t working fast enough, and Dr. Radke said we had to get everything protected. I just told them to hurry up, that’s all.”

“You were giving orders to Dr. Radke’s workers,” Jerry said.

Jimmy flushed to the roots of his hair. “They needed to go faster —“

“You’re a boy of eleven working his first dig,” Jerry said. “These men have all been trained by Dr. Buck and the University staff. Do you think it might be possible that there was a reason for them to go more slowly than you’d like?”

“They’re Hawaiian,” Jimmy muttered. “Clancy says they don’t like to work hard.”

And there, Jerry thought, was the root of the problem. Gray had learned better than to say things like that where he or Willi could hear, but that didn’t mean he didn’t believe them. “Did Dr. Radke think there was a problem?”

“He couldn’t see,” Jimmy said. “And the guys were all laughing at me anyway.”

Jerry relaxed just a little. If Buck’s men were able to laugh at the situation, rain and all, it was less likely they’d quit outright. “It’s not your business to be giving orders. If anything, it’s the other way round. You’re supposed to be helping them.”

“I thought I was helping you and Dr. Radke,” Jimmy said.

“You’re helping on the dig,” Jerry answered. “That means you’re there to do things for the more experienced men. And, yes, that includes the diggers — in fact, it’s pretty much everyone.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jerry considered the boy’s tone, decided he sounded genuinely chastened. “Good. That’s settled, then. What’s in the box? And are you sure you don’t want some tea?”

“No, thank you,” Jimmy said. “There’s some more tools, but mostly — another of those bones.”

Jerry opened the box, contemplating the damp objects. A stone ring, a broken stone with a rounded end that was probably part of a tool of some sort, and, yes, another, larger piece of cracked bone. There was no burn mark this time, but there were scratches…. He picked up the magnifying glass again. Yes, the scratches were made prior to the cracks, and they looked more than a bit like Chinese characters.

Jimmy cleared his throat. “You’re not going to fire me, are you, Dr. Ballard?”

Jerry blinked. “No. Not for one mistake. You’ve been doing a good job otherwise, and I think we’ve gotten things clear.” He took a careful breath, wishing he knew what to say to children. “Mr. Gray may eventually be a good archeologist. It’s far too soon to tell about that. But a good man doesn’t assume people are less than he just because of their color or their job.”

“Yes, sir,” Jimmy said again.

“Now. Can you show me where the bone was found?” Jerry stepped aside, letting Jimmy lead the way to the map, and hoped he’d said enough.

Chapter Sixteen

I
t was Wednesday evening before they could actually arrange it, Miss Lee agreeing to babysit on the theory that the adults had been invited to a dinner party. Certainly that was plausible enough, and didn't involve any strange or occult considerations. The only sore person might be Willi, since something involving the dig's supporters that Jerry had deliberately cut him out of was bound to give offense. Lewis didn’t ask what Jerry had told him. Or maybe Jerry just hadn't mentioned the dinner party and hoped he wouldn't hear. In any event, all five of them turned up at Beatrice's house at barely seven, early for cocktails but not so early as to cause comment.

They sat on the lanai in the gathering dusk, fortified with a mai tai or two, while Alma sketched out what she had learned about Pelley, adding his connection with Lily. She was trusting them with a lot, but Lewis supposed this was one of those situations where you had to trust people if you wanted to get anywhere. Certainly it would wreck George's career if they blabbed about his occult dealings.

"And that's how we know Pelley," Alma concluded.

"He's a slimy little coward," George said conversationally.

"But a dangerous one," Alma said.

“I can take care of myself,” George said.

“We can,” Beatrice murmured, with a feral smile, and George grinned himself, showing teeth.

" I don't doubt it,” Alma said, “but that's not necessarily true of anyone else he may target."

"Some of them may be children," Beatrice mused. "Or completely defenseless."

"We have to do something about that," Alma said. "If you do think he's actually got a list. I don't know if we can warn them or somehow protect them…."

"How do we protect them when we don't know who they are?" George asked.

"We don't know who they are now," Jerry said, pushing his glasses back up on his nose. "No more than Pelley does. But if he's hunting the greatest soldiers who ever lived, he's got a list. We've seen before that he's buying and stealing antiquities associated with his targets."

George and Beatrice exchanged a glance, and she shook her head. "He could be using anything."

"Not just anything," Alma said briskly. "It has to be personal and verifiable. There may be mythical swords of King Arthur or horns of Roland, but none of them are historically verifiable. And just something from the right era won't do. It has to be personal to the individual, something that belonged to them and that meant something to them. That's a much shorter list."

"Until you get to Napoleon's marshals," George said. "Some of those men were still alive eighty years ago. There are letters in their handwriting. Journals. Maps. Uniforms. Personal belongings. Even photographs of some of the last generals to die."

"Which is why we think Pelley's starting with that list," Mitch said.

"There are literally thousands of items associated with Napoleonic marshals and generals," Beatrice said. "And many of them can be legitimately acquired. I don't see how we can possibly ward all of them. And that's the big problem. Unless there's something that can reach all of them at once."

"There is," Lewis blurted. Everyone stared at him. He had to trust himself, trust Diana. "That's what my dream meant. She was showing me. Something we can use and so can they, something that will reach the whole list. I think it was a decoration. A white five pointed star, like a pentagram. I didn't get a good look, but I think it was a medal on a ribbon."

George got up without a word and went in the house.

Alma looked after him. "I know this sounds bizarre," she said to Beatrice. "Truly, I know that it does."

Beatrice smiled. "It takes more than this to be too strange for me. And the attack on George was real." She dropped her voice. "He doesn't like to think so, but it could have killed him. If he'd gone off that cliff…."

He came back out, and Lewis twisted around in his chair as George handed him a green velvet box. "Did it look like this?" Lewis opened it.

A heavy medal on a red ribbon lay within. The ribbon itself was faded, but the decoration was bright, a white five pointed star, each point separating into two, with a wreath of olive branches and oak leaves behind it, while a crown surmounted it. In the center was a gold medallion, a man in profile, while gold words picked out a legend on a blue enamel circle — Napoleon Emp. des Français.

Lewis reached down and picked it up carefully, feeling the heavy weight of the gold. Now he knew why it looked familiar. He'd seen one similar during the war. Only there had been a wreath instead of a crown, a woman's head in the center. But the one in his dream had looked like this. "Yes," Lewis said slowly. "This is it. I knew it was like something I'd seen during the war, but not quite." He looked up. "This is a Legion of Honor."

"A First Empire Legion of Honor," George said. "I bought it from a military antiques dealer ten years ago. This is from the fourth issue, early 1813. You can tell by the balls on the points of the star."

Lewis nodded slowly, trying to make the picture in memory come clear. "I don’t think the one in the case had those. And it had some kind of collar or chain. An officer's version? A higher version of the order?"

Beatrice stirred in her chair. "If it's in Herrenchiemsee, it's probably Prince Eugene's. He married Max Joseph's daughter, which made him one of Ludwig's great uncles. So certainly an officer of the order, and probably an earlier issue than 1813. I'd have to look up when Eugene was awarded the Legion of Honor. I don't remember off the top of my head."

"Does that matter?" Lewis asked.

"Not for these purposes," Alma said. "But a symbol of a fraternal order, a decoration that was a prized possession of the wearer, something that already has enormous emotional weight — that would be ideal to use as a correspondence." She shook her head, frowning. "Every wearer of the Legion of Honor, living and dead, now and to come…."

"Can it do that?" Mitch asked. "Can a symbol like that bind you beyond death?"

"If you consent to it," Stasi said. She'd been unusually quiet the entire time. "Anything can bind you if you consent to it."

"And this was meant to bind," Beatrice said. "It was meant to create ties between its wearers. When you receive the Legion of Honor, you are part of a fraternity now and forever. It was meant to be like the Knights of the Round Table."

Mitch looked really disturbed. "But can you corrupt that? Can you twist a living bond around like that?"

George shrugged. "I would think there would be a lot of resistance. And I don't think you could push it diametrically against its original purpose. I don't think you could turn it against France, for example. But to simply use it to find people? Probably. Anyone who had worn a First Empire Legion of Honor."