The diamond-shaped image containing the leaping wolf, the stag at rest and the crescent moon with a star above and below, had to mean something.

She continued searching through the pages of heraldry. Patience was one of the first and best skills an archaeologist learned.

The ring of her cell phone startled Annja out of a near doze. She fumbled to find the device and catch the call.

"Hello."

"May I speak to Ms. Annja Creed, please?" a crisp British voice asked.

"Graham," Annja said.

"Ah, Annja. I wasn't sure at all if it was you. You sound as though you're talking from the bottom of a well. Come to think of it, the last time I spoke with you, you weretalking to me from the bottom of a well. Didn't you get out?"

Annja smiled. Professor Graham Smyth-Peabody was professor emeritus at Cambridge University. He was in his early eighties and taught only those classes he wanted to during times he wished. Tall and distinguished-looking, he was a frequent guest on talk shows when discussions of British royalty were the subject.

"I did get out of the well," Annja said. That had been in the Bavarian countryside pursuing the lost loot of a highwayman. She hadn't found that, but she still occasionally sifted through the information she had about the event.

"Have you found another, then?" Smyth-Peabody laughed at his own wit.

"Actually, I'm flying on a private plane," Annja said.

"Jet," Garin growled. He sat on the couch with a drink in his hand. His disposition hadn't improved.

"Your publisher must really like you," the professor said. He hesitated. "You're able to afford a private plane because of the book, right? You haven't suddenly decided to start losing your shirt like that other young woman on that dreadful program on the telly?"

"No," Annja said. "I manage to keep my shirts on."

"Jolly good. I understand why you do those pieces for that program, but you should keep your naughty bits to yourself."

Despite the tension and all the trouble waiting on her in Lozère, Annja had to laugh. The professor was in rare good form.

Papers rustled at the other end of the phone connection. "I've managed to identify the heraldry you e-mailed me," the professor said.

"You could have e-mailed me back."

"Of course, of course. But I shall own up to a bit of curiosity here. I've found something a bit incongruous."

Annja pushed out of her seat and paced the short length of the jet's living room. "The shield bears markings of Richard of Kirkland," Annja said.

"Yes, yes. Quite right. So you've identified that."

"It makes me feel better to hear you agree with the answer I've received."

"He was knighted in 1768."

The monastery outside Lozère was burned down in 1767. Experience had taught Annja not to overlook coincidence. "Why was he knighted?" she asked.

"According to the documentation I found, it was for special services to the crown."

"What services?"

"I'm afraid it doesn't say, my dear."

"You would think the conferring of a knighthood under George III would have been important enough to record."

"Indeed," Smyth-Peabody agreed. "Perhaps it even was. But you have to remember, George III wasn't called the mad king for vacuous reasons. The man had porphyria, a most debilitating affliction that ultimately ruined his health and rendered him mad as a hatter. And there was a lot going on during his reign. He undermined the Whig Party, including Pitt the Elder, fought the French for seven years, then turned around and fought you Americans, not once but twice, staved off another attack at political control by the Whigs under Pitt the Younger, and managed to fight Napoleon's efforts at world domination twice."

"Those campaigns were managed by the Duke of Wellington."

"Quite. But they were under George III's reign. Perhaps he wasn't aware of what was going on by that time, but his royal historians were kept busy nonetheless."

"Point taken." Annja sighed. History and archaeology were sometimes at odds with each other. Then when a research project brought in other branches of science, things became even more convoluted.

"You are aware he had a daughter?" Smyth-Peabody asked.

"Carolyn," Annja said.

"Yes. Do tell me there is something I've left to amaze you with?"

"I'll let you know when we get there. Tell me about Carolyn."

Smyth-Peabody cleared his throat. "Sir Richard's daughter was born to his wife while he was tending the king's holdings in the New World."

"Richard wasn't in France?"

"No. He was one of the king's primaries during engagements in King George's War. You Americans refer to it as – "

"The French and Indian War," Annja said. "From 1757 to 1763."

"Yes. A rather melodramatic name, don't you think?"

Annja's mind flew. "Did Richard see any action in France?"

"No. According to the texts I've been through, Richard spent his whole military career marshaling forces in America. Until his death in 1777 at the Battle of Brandywine Creek when General Howe's troops forced the Continental Congress from Philadelphia."

"Richard never served in France?"

"I never found mention of it. I didn't know that was an important detail. I suppose I can go back through the research."

"What about Richard's wife?"

"Victoria, yes. By all accounts, she was rather a handful. She was married at fourteen to Richard, who was twenty years her senior."

Annja wasn't surprised. Marriages were often arranged for officers in the British military. Poor working-class parents wanted to get rid of a mouth to feed and hoped that a daughter, who wasn't allowed to work, might find a good home.

"Evidently being married to Richard didn't agree with her," the professor continued.

"What makes you say that?"

"She didhave the affair behind her husband's back. After she lost the baby, I'm sure things weren't any easier."

"The baby didn't die."

Smyth-Peabody was silent for a moment. "Are you quite sure?"

"Yes. I'll forward the documentation on to you."

"In everything that I read, the child died and was buried in a private cemetery on family land outside London."

"Was the cause of death mentioned?"

"I inferred there were massive birth defects. There was, in one of the resources I investigated, some reason to believe there were instances of inbreeding within Victoria's family. Perhaps even incest."

"Where did you get that?"

"From the newspapers. They were little more than gossip sheets at the time."

The jet hit a downdraft. For a few seconds, Annja felt weightless. Then her stomach flipped and gravity held her in place again.

"What about the lozenge?" Annja asked.

"It never existed. Or, I should say, it never existed in the form that you showed me." The professor paused and the computer keys clacked. "The wolf design?"

"Yes."

"That was one that Sir Richard had ordered designed for his wife. She was going to be given her own coat-of-arms on the birth of their first child. The lozenge was never struck."

"The stag was part of the design?"

"No. The stag belonged to Sir Henry of Falhout."

"Could he have been Carolyn's father?"