Free City of Swords by Alex Archer

pocketed the keys. “Are we ready?” he asked.
    Sarah nodded. “Yep, let’s do this.”
    The man in the backseat didn’t reply, but got out, rotated his neck and reached down to touch his toes, working off the cramp from sitting in the small car. Ulrich was a tad over six feet tall and very lean. The German’s skin looked as if it had been stretched too tight over his frame, his wrists so bony they looked painful. Gaunt was the word Archard ascribed to the man. Pale, unhealthy. But Ulrich, in his late fifties, was fit enough for this particular task and actually was in deceptively good shape. Archard watched him walk to the trunk.
    “Well?” the German asked.
    Archard thumbed a button on the key chain and the trunk popped open. “We don’t need the…supplies…until tonight.”
    “I want to check on them, the ride and all. And I want my camera.” Ulrich’s accent was more American than German. He’d spent nearly twenty years in the United States, managing an art gallery in Atlanta, Georgia, and lecturing at the university there about ancient art and artifacts. A contemporary of Dr. Lawton’s who met the professor when they were working on their advanced degrees, he’d been a part of this group since his return to Europe in January. Archard liked him. He was a good conversationalist and his intellectual equal.
    It was Saturday, the weather was good and tourists waited on the curving walkway to the monument. It was easier to go unnoticed in the middle of a crowd, which was why he’d picked this day. Archard led the way, pausing near two horse-faced women, probably related, who were reading a plaque. He waited until they were finished before stepping up. Sarah and Ulrich joined him. The German aimed his digital camera at the plaque, but no telltale green light came on. Ulrich was only pretending to take pictures and likely didn’t even have batteries in the camera. Archard hoped no one else noticed.
    At the gate the German paid cash for their admission.
    “First visit to the Wallace Memorial?” the girl behind the counter asked.
    Ulrich nodded, and they fell in line behind the horse-faced women.
    Archard heard her ask the next group the same question.
    More than half the assembly was female, a mix of ages and beauty. A large-breasted woman on the shy side of thirty looked his way and smiled. She had dyed red hair and too much mascara. Her companion was thickset and roughly the same age, trying to cram too many pounds into a pair of jeans. Her legs looked like English bangers.
    The reason for the visit was on the first level, and Archard went there straightaway, Sarah and Ulrich a few paces behind. The Wallace Sword was displayed point down in a thick Plexiglas case that was roped off.
    Archard leaned against the wall, admiring the ancient claymore. The cool stone was rough against his fingertips and had a scent to it that he found preferable to the perfume Sarah had used too liberally this morning.
    A guide entered and gestured to the sword. “The Wallace Sword was kept in Dumbarton Castle for many years before being removed to this monument. Wallace wielded it in the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 and then a year later in the Battle of Falkirk.”
    “Was this the only sword he used?” a tall woman with wire-rimmed glasses asked.
    “The only one of note. What do you see when you look at it?” the guide asked the assembly.
    “I see blood,” Sarah said. “Blood and death, and Wallace responsible for it all. I see courage and sacrifice. I see men slogging across a battlefield, not knowing if the day will be their last.”
    “Uh, yes. Interesting,” the guide said. “According to English records, the governor of Dumbarton Castle was given the sword in 1305. More accounts of the sword are found two hundred years later. Then, King James of Scotland was said to have paid two dozen shillings to an armorer to give the sword a new scabbard, belt and pommel, necessary alterations, as the original scabbard