The Secret of Excalibur

asking me?’

‘Yes, I know it,’ Rust admitted. ‘The story of Arthur has been an . . . an obsession, I suppose, of mine for many years. But I wanted to be sure you were the right person to tell what I’ve discovered.’

Nina raised an eyebrow. ‘What you’ve discovered? I thought this was about my parents. What’s King Arthur got to do with them?’

Rust’s lips pursed as if he were chewing a lump of something indigestible. ‘Actually, the truth is, Nina . . . nothing.’

‘What?’

‘If I had told you why I really needed to see you, you might not have been interested. This was the only way to be sure. I am sorry.’

‘What?’ Nina repeated, now with anger. ‘Wait, you lied to me? You just wanted an excuse to talk to me?’

‘Please, I am sorry, I really am! But I had to talk to you. You are the only person I could turn to for help.’ He glanced around the lounge again, voice a hissing whisper. ‘My life is in danger!’

‘Yeah, from me!’ Nina stood, grabbing her laptop.

Rust jumped up too, hands flapping as he begged her to sit back down. ‘Please, please! Your parents were great friends of mine, your father especially. We had a lot in common. Including a passion for unfashionable theories.’ His look of pleading suddenly sharpened. ‘Like Atlantis.’

‘That still doesn’t give you the right to use my parents as a way to get my attention.’

‘Do you know why I lost my job?’ Rust asked, his tone hardening. ‘Because I helped your father. I secretly gave him the recovered Nazi documents that brought him and Laura closer to Atlantis than ever before. When what I had done was discovered, I was fired, disgraced - and in the end I lost my marriage because of it. Sabrina left me.’

‘If you’re looking for sympathy, you’re looking in the wrong place,’ Nina told him coldly. ‘My parents died because of what you gave them.’

‘Your parents were prepared to take any risk to prove that they were right,’ countered Rust. ‘You know this is true - you knew them. The search for Atlantis was their passion, their obsession, and it became yours too. And you would never have found Atlantis without them. Your work built on theirs.’ Nina couldn’t deny that; she had made extensive use of her parents’ notes in her research. ‘And like them, you took great risks to prove your theories. Well, I too have a theory. Nobody believes it - but nobody believed your parents either, yet they were right.’ Having said his piece, he seemed to sag, the tension of waiting for Nina’s response the only string holding him upright. ‘Please,’ he said quietly. ‘At least hear what I have to say.’

Nina hesitated. She knew full well that Rust was playing on her emotions, and resented the manipulation as much as his deception. But he would not have given the Nazi documents to her parents without knowing the risk he was taking in helping them . . . and he had paid the price, with his career, his marriage.

‘All right,’ she said reluctantly, her anger still there, but subsiding. ‘All right, I’ll listen. But that’s all.’ She sat down. ‘I’m not promising anything else.’

Rust returned to his own seat, relieved. ‘That is all I ask.’

Arms folded, Nina regarded him through narrowed eyes. ‘So. Tell me your theory.’

‘My theory,’ Rust began, again lowering his voice, ‘concerns Arthur’s sword, Excalibur. I believe it is real - and that it still exists. What is more, I know how to find it.’

‘Okay, so where is it?’

‘I do not know.’

Nina blew an aggravated breath out through her teeth. ‘But you just said—’

‘I said I knew how to find it; that is not the same as knowing where it is. I have always had a keen interest in the Arthurian legends, just as your parents did about Atlantis. And like them, I have devoted a great deal of time and effort to piece together every last scrap of historical fact that I could discover. The story of King Arthur stretches far outside just Britain, you know.’ He looked at the sea beyond the windows. ‘It goes as far as the Middle East - which is where one of the clues that will lead us to Excalibur lies.’

‘There’s no “us”, Bernd,’ Nina reminded him. ‘Not unless you convince me you’re right.’

Rust’s eyes flicked down at the disc. ‘And I will do so - all my research is there.’ He looked back at her. ‘You know, of course, of King Richard the First?’

‘Richard the Lionheart,’ said Nina, nodding.

‘When Richard set out on the Third Crusade in 1190, he took with him a very special item, a gift from the monks of Glastonbury Abbey in the west of England. They gave him a sword - a sword that once belonged to Britain’s greatest king.’

‘Excalibur?’

Rust smiled. ‘No. Richard thought he carried Excalibur - but the monks had given him Arthur’s first sword, Caliburn. This is my theory - my unfashionable passion.’

Nina found herself starting to become intrigued, however unwillingly. ‘Go on.’

‘Caliburn was broken in battle by King Pellinore, according to legend. This may or may not be true, but the sword was broken, I have no doubt of that. The pieces were kept, and, as a weapon of great importance, attempts were made to reforge it. But a mended weapon can never have the same strength as a newly forged one - and I believe that Arthur’s swords were more than mere steel. I will come to that later,’ he went on, catching Nina’s quizzical expression. ‘So Merlin, who had made Caliburn, forged a replacement.’

‘You believe Merlin was real?’

‘There are too many historical references to him for me to doubt it, yes. Though he was not a wizard - at least, not in the magical sense.’ Rust gave Nina a knowing smile. ‘He created a new weapon for Arthur, a sword even stronger than Caliburn - Excalibur. Now, legend says that Arthur was buried with it in the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey. But the monks also had Caliburn in their possession, along with many of Arthur’s other treasures.’

‘So where does Richard the Lionheart come into it?’

‘Glastonbury Abbey was one of the wealthiest monasteries in England,’ Rust explained. ‘Much of that wealth came from its connection to the legend of Arthur. Of course, wherever there is wealth, there will always come those demanding tribute. Richard was no exception.’

‘So the monks gave him Excalibur,’ said Nina, before she realised where Rust was heading. ‘Or rather, they told him it was Excalibur - because they had no intention of giving up the real sword.’

‘Precisely! Excalibur was buried in Arthur’s tomb, a black stone pyramid which the monks discovered in 1191 - one year after Richard left on the Crusade. Though “discovered” is not the right word - they knew where it was all along.’

‘They unveiled it,’ Nina realised. ‘Like opening a new attraction at a theme park.’

‘Yes. The abbey had been damaged by a fire, and even that wealthy monastery’s resources would have been strained by the cost of repairs. But the tomb of Arthur would bring them many visitors . . . and their money.’

‘So what happened to the tomb? I know for a fact that King Arthur’s bones aren’t on display anywhere.’

‘No, they are not. After the tomb was discovered, the bodies of Arthur and his queen, Guinevere, were moved to within the abbey itself. But when Henry the Eighth dissolved the monasteries around 1539—’

‘By “dissolved” you mean “destroyed”, right?’ Nina cut in.

‘Quite so. When the abbey was destroyed, so was the tomb, and nothing of it was ever found.’

‘So the only thing left of Arthur was Caliburn?’

Rust was smiling again. ‘Not quite. This is what my research has told me, this is my theory. Think about it - the monks of Glastonbury were willing to risk tricking the king to protect their treasure. So when they revealed - unveiled, as you say - the tomb of King Arthur to the world, I believe they had already moved the real contents of the tomb to another place, somewhere that fire or robbers, or kings, could not find them. Only the monks knew where this place was - and when the monastery was destroyed,