Glastonbury Read online

  Now here he was, sitting on a leather sofa in a palatial office in Stratford-on-Avon, with Capshaw's secretary looking over her glasses at him as he fidgeted uncomfortably on the squeaky polished leather. She looked around thirty years old, dressed in a smart dark blue business suit, her long dark hair tied back professionally. Her shoes were of the highly glossy patent variety and her make-up could have been applied by a professional at a beauty parlour. Cutler found himself wondering if she performed more than secretarial duties for her boss; she looked the type.

  The telephone on her desk buzzed and she listened to her boss via an earpiece hidden discreetly behind her left ear.

  “Yes, sir, he's here. Of course, Mr. Capshaw, I'll show him in now.”

  She rose from behind the desk. She was taller than Cutler had imagined as he'd watched her sitting behind the desk. She stood almost as tall as he was, which he found a little intimidating.

  “Mr. Capshaw is ready for you now, Mr. Cutler,” she announced, somehow managing to make Joe's name sound like an insult. She led him through a heavy oak panelled door that led to what appeared to be a sort of air lock, with another identical oak door about five feet further on. Joe Cutler realised this aided in sound-proofing Capshaw's inner sanctum, and also prevented anyone eavesdropping through the door.

  The secretary didn't knock at the second door, she simply opened it and ushered Cutler through into the thickly carpeted office of Malcolm Capshaw.

  “Thank you, Charlotte,” said the man who sat behind the large desk at the far side of the office. “That will be all for now. Do come in please, Mr. Cutler.”

  Charlotte seemed to disappear on silent heels and the door closed equally silently behind her leaving Cutler alone with Capshaw. The office was huge and Cutler couldn't make out the face of the man behind the desk until he drew nearer. The sunlight brightly glittered through the large plate glass window directly behind his host. As he moved closer he saw that Capshaw was a broad thick set individual, dressed immaculately in a suit that must have cost at least five hundred pounds. Capshaw was clean shaven with a good head of hair, expertly groomed, and Cutler guessed he was probably around fifty years of age. He had the steely determined look of a man used to getting what he wanted, his eyes grey and deeply penetrating in their gaze, and Joe thought that it might not be a good idea to cross a man like Malcolm Capshaw.

  Capshaw motioned to Cutler to take a seat and immediately proceeded to the matter in hand. He obviously hadn't got where he was in the world by wasting too much time on small talk.

  “I have a proposition for you, Mr. Cutler, one that may prove quite lucrative for you and your company.”

  “Can I ask you how you heard about us, Mr. Capshaw?” asked Cutler, always eager to know how word of his professional services passed from one person or client to another.

  “That's hardly important, is it, Mr. Cutler? The fact is I researched your credentials and decided that you and your people are the best qualified to do the little task I have in mind for you. Either you want the job or you don't, it's as simple as that.”

  “Well yes, of course, Mr. Capshaw. It's just that I don't know anything about the job yet. Your secretary was a little, er, shall we say vague when she called and asked me to meet with you today?”

  “Ah yes, good old Charlotte,” said Capshaw with a smile. “Always efficient you know, never says more than she has to in order to get the job done. That's what I like in a woman, or in a man come to that.”

  “Of course, I can agree with those sentiments, Mr. Capshaw. So, the job?”

  Without further preamble Capshaw stood up and walked around his desk, gesturing for Cutler to follow him. They walked across the office to a large planning table which held various papers and what appeared to be a number of large scale maps, all neatly arranged. There was a briefcase at one end of the table and Capshaw swung it round so that the locks faced him, rolled the numbers on the combination locks and then snapped the case open. From its interior he took hold of and removed a rolled up document that had a yellowed, aged appearance about it. Cutler didn't need telling that he was about to view something that hadn't just come from a digital printer.

  “This, Mr. Cutler, is the reason I asked you here today. This document which recently came into my possession is the clue that will lead us to the solution of one of history's greatest secrets. Tell me, have you ever been to Glastonbury?”

  “You mean Glastonbury, Somerset, as in rock concerts and such?”

  “No, Mr. Cutler. I mean Glastonbury, as in the history of Christianity, the Holy Grail, King Arthur, and such.”

  “Oh no, Mr. Capshaw. You don't want me to get involved with some improbable and highly unlikely wild goose chase grail quest, do you? If that's what this is all about I'd rather we didn't waste any more of each other's valuable time. I think you've been reading too many novels and I wouldn't be interested in getting involved in anything like that, not even for the lucrative sum you seem to be hinting at. There's no such thing as the Holy Grail, I'm sure of it. It's just a wonderfully romantic historical fantasy.”

  “This is not about the Holy Grail, Mr. Cutler. I'm talking about King Arthur.”

  Cutler drew a deep breath. Capshaw might be a millionaire entrepreneur and renowned financial speculator, but Joe thought that he had definitely got his sums wrong this time.

  “Oh come on, Mr. Capshaw. With all due respect, there's no proof that King Arthur even existed! Just what part of the Arthurian legend do you want me to get involved with? His body was supposedly found centuries ago and as far as I know that was later proved to be a hoax perpetrated by the monks at Glastonbury Abbey.”

  “King Arthur did exist, Mr. Cutler. I'm convinced of it, and this document will help to prove it to you. I can't reveal to you where it came from or how it came into my possession, but a lot of people have died over the years to protect it and the information it holds. I'm a wealthy man as you already know, and the money itself is not of great importance to me. I thought that you would appreciate a large cash injection into your business. You are building a very good reputation in your field, Mr. Cutler. Imagine how high your stock would rise amongst your potential clients if you could put on your CV that you were instrumental in leading the team that finally revealed the burial place not of King Arthur himself, but of his great sword, Excalibur!”

  “Excalibur? You're not serious surely. That's just so much myth and legend for sure.”

  “Give me fifteen minutes, Mr Cutler, that's all I ask. If you're not convinced that there's a possibility I might be telling you the truth about Excalibur's existence then you can leave my office and we'll forget we ever met. The job will go to one of your competitors and the future success and prosperity of another survey company will be assured as opposed to Strata Surveys.”

  Joe Cutler knew he couldn't just walk away without giving Capshaw the chance to state his case. He couldn't take the chance that he just might be right, though everything he knew told Cutler that the Arthurian legend was just that, a legend. Still, fifteen minutes wouldn't hurt, and after all there was the fee to consider.

  “Fifteen minutes, Mr. Capshaw. I'm all ears,” said Cutler, and he bent over the planning table as Capshaw spread the document out in front of them.

  An hour later Joe Cutler was out in the fresh air, walking along the cobbled path that led along the bank of the River Avon. He wondered if William Shakespeare had ever walked along this bank of the river, not on this path of course, it was quite modern. His mind was still refusing to take in everything he'd learned in the last few minutes. The document Capshaw had showed him was centuries old. At least Capshaw said it was, and he was more of an expert on that sort of thing than himself. There was no doubt that it had been written by someone with a grasp of the language of a millennium ago, nor was there any doubting the location described by the map attached to the document. Though the topography of the terrain and the very nature of the land had changed in the last thousand years, Glastonbury was sti
ll Glastonbury. If the map and the text were genuine then there was every chance that the fabled sword used by the presumed mythical King Arthur was buried somewhere near what was today known as Glastonbury Tor, a site that would have been an island many years ago. Was it possible therefore that King Arthur had actually existed, that the history of the Dark Ages had failed to record the accurate story of his rule? Could Glastonbury really have been the Avalon of legend as many have supposed it to be over the years? Had truth and legend somehow become so intertwined that the reality of those long-ago days had been lost in the swirling mists of time, until the story of Arthur had become just that; a story, with the truth being hidden behind a veil of myth, superstition and legend? Had it all been a cleverly orchestrated deceit by those who had reason to keep the facts of Arthur's life and death a secret from those who followed him?

  Suddenly, Joe Cutler found himself asking questions he wouldn't have been capable of formulating a short time ago. Somehow Capshaw had convinced him that there was a real possibility the sword of King Arthur actually existed and he knew that if he and his team were to find it, and Capshaw kept his promise to ensure it became a national treasure, the publicity would assure his company's future, aside from the sizeable sum Capshaw was offering for the work of locating the artefact.

  As for Capshaw, he'd managed to convince Joe that he was truly an entrepreneur, and a benevolent one at that. He was a true patriot, and he wanted England to have positive proof of this important part of its heritage. He would make nothing from the find himself, though again the publicity wouldn't do him any harm, and he would be able to bask in the glory that would attend the fact that he was the man who organised and effectively led the team that discovered Excalibur. He just wanted to see Excalibur behind glass in the British Museum brightly illuminated so that all could see it, perhaps with his name on a plaque on the case, alongside that of Cutler and his team of course.

  Joe Cutler patted the breast of his jacket, just to be sure that the envelope containing Capshaw's two thousand pound advance was still there. He'd taken the job, for better or worse and Charlotte the secretary had handed him the envelope containing the cash as though she were paying the window cleaner, a look of disdain on her face. Cutler after all, was merely the hired help.”

  “To hell with her,” thought Cutler as he arrived back at the riverside car park where he'd left his rather dirty Toyota pick-up, “The stuck up little bitch. Now all I have to do is sell this bloody madcap scheme to the others.”

  Chapter 3

  Cutler considered that he'd done a reasonable job of selling the scheme to the others; otherwise they wouldn't be sitting on his bed in room 3 of Mrs. Cleveley's Rowan Tree Guest House discussing their plans for the next few days. It hadn't been too hard to convince Winston of the possibilities exhibited by the project. Perhaps it was the romantic soul of his Caribbean background that had led the big Jamaican to think that a search for the sword of King Arthur would make a pleasant diversion from their usual fare of surveying jobs for building contractors or gas pipe-laying companies and the like. Maybe that or the thought of the fame and fortune that just might come their way if they were successful had seemed to convince Winston Fortune that his boss might not actually be totally crazy and that they may just find what they were looking for. After all, Winston supposed the client had to have good reason to believe in his cause, otherwise, he wouldn't be offering to pay them a big fat fee to carry out the search, now would he?

  Sally Corbett had been a little harder to convince. Younger and definitely more cynical and sceptical than Fortune, she'd laughed aloud when Cutler had first told her of Capshaw's quest, and the part they were expected to play in it.

  “Excalibur?” she'd exclaimed. “You really have lost it this time, boss. You're surely not serious, are you? Who is this guy Capshaw anyway? Has he just escaped from a loony bin or what? I thought you had more sense than to fall for something like this, I really did.”

  “Look, Sally” he'd replied patiently, “I ran a check on Capshaw. Seems like he's rich beyond anything you or I could ever dream of being. He's made a fortune from property speculation and from playing the world's financial markets. Stocks, shares, futures, they're all like bread and butter to him. He's donated vast sums to charities over the years, particularly to those with an artistic connection. He also invests in projects around the world to recover historical artefacts. He's funded a whole range of archaeological expeditions in the last ten years, and he definitely isn't the sort of man to waste his or anyone else's time on wild goose chases. If he believes in the existence of King Arthur and of Excalibur, and he thinks he can find it with our help, then I'm not going to refuse his money without at least giving it a good try.”

  “Did you see the original document then?”

  “Yes, Sally, I did, and what's more, I believe it's the real thing. Capshaw was very secretive about where and how he got hold of it, but I couldn't doubt his sincerity for a minute. Anyway, he's paying the bills, and our wages for the job, so what have we got to lose by going along with him, eh? Come on, Sally girl, where's your sense of adventure?”

  She'd eventually given in to his persuasion, though she could hardly refuse to go along with him in reality. Sally Corbett had the greatest of respect for Joe Cutler. After all, he'd given her a job when she'd left university without a degree after she'd suffered a long spell of depression when her twin sister had been killed in a horrific hit and run road accident while on her way to visit their sick mother in the hospital. Sally and Maggie had been more than close. They'd shared that special bond that only identical twins possessed, including the ability to second-guess each other's thoughts, to `see' the same things in their minds at the same time, and without Maggie, Sally had felt as though a part of her had died along with her sister. So she'd packed up her things, walked out of the halls of residence at Oxford and disappeared into a world of her own for almost a year, before plucking up the courage to start job hunting. Seeing herself as little more than a failed geology student she hadn't held out much hope of securing a job within her chosen profession. When she'd seen the advertisement for a survey team assistant in her local newspaper she'd applied just to see what would happen. At the interview she'd been surprised by Joe Cutler's down-to-earth approach, by his refusal to see her lack of a degree as a problem, and had been totally over the moon when he'd told her that he'd rather have someone knowledgeable and prepared to get her hands dirty than someone whose head was filled with too much theory and a sense of their own importance.

  Two days after the interview she'd received the telephone call that had made her the third member of the team that now sat waiting to begin their unlikely quest to discover the long-lost sword of King Arthur. They worked well together, and Cutler appreciated everyone's opinions. He wasn't the sort of man who imposed his own ideas just because he was the boss. If they could devise a better way of doing something, or had an idea that conflicted with his way of doing things then Joe Cutler was always ready to listen, and agree if it helped get the job done quicker without compromising safety or accuracy. He might be nearly twice her age, (she thought), but Sally Corbett knew that she might just be ever so slightly in love with the man who paid her wages, not that she'd ever dare to tell him or anyone else that, of course.

  “Hey, boss. Look.”

  Winston was pointing out of the window.

  “If I'm not mistaken I could swear that it's getting brighter out there.”

  “Looks like Mrs. Cleveley was right. The rain's easing off and the sun's trying to come out,” Sally concurred.

  Sure enough, as Cutler stared hard through the wet pane of his bedroom window he could just about see that the clouds were beginning to move away from what had appeared to be their permanent mooring over the town and gradually giving way to a pale blue and brighter sky blowing in from the east. A broad smile broke out on his face as he turned back to face the others.

  “Well, folks, it looks like our luck's in. If things dry
out just enough we'll be able to start laying out our search grids first thing tomorrow. Now, let's go through everything one more time, shall we?”

  Sally and Winston groaned, and Sally took the liberty of playfully throwing their street map of Glastonbury at her boss.

  “Slave driver,” she laughed at him as Cutler ducked.

  “Okay, boss man,” said Winston. “Let the lecture begin.”

  Cutler removed a whole mass of papers from his briefcase along with a beautifully leather bound book, the page edges deckled with gold. It was a thick and heavy volume that contained almost everything known about the legend of King Arthur, Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table. Whether fact or fiction, virtually everything ever written on the subject was contained within this one concise work of literature, and Cutler had been left in no doubt as to its value when Capshaw had entrusted it to him. They'd studied the text so many times over the last few days, now the time was near when they would put what they'd learned to good use. If Excalibur really did exist, then with the information contained within the pages of the book together with the information on the document furnished by Capshaw, Joe Cutler knew that he and the others would find it. They just needed to sift through the myths, find the facts, forget the possibility of failure, and make sure they followed the trail to wherever the sword was buried.

  As the sun broke through and shafts of golden light suffused the room he made himself comfortable, leaning back against the headboard of the bed, and, having made sure that he had Fortune and Corbett's full attention, Joe Cutler read aloud what until now they would all have accepted as being nothing more than the `legend' of King Arthur.

  Chapter 4

  “So, let's see I've got this right then, boss,” said Winston after an hour of intense listening and discussion. “Camelot wasn't here at Glastonbury, but was at Cadbury, and Glastonbury was the ancient Avalon, right?”