The Sword
When drama major and aspiring actor Neil Scarborough was offered a summer job at the Essex Renaissance Faire, he was told the management would supply him with a suitable Elizabethan costume and props. The sword he was given, however, looked more like a cheap Halloween decoration than a weapon befitting a knight of the realm. The one brandished by the actor portraying Sir Walter Raleigh was much more realistic.
"That sword is a beauty," Neil remarked to his fellow thespian. "It's much nicer than the one they gave me."
"That's because I bought my own," the ersatz Raleigh explained. "This is my third summer with the Faire, and I felt I ought to have a decent sword."
"Where did you get it?"
"From a vendor at the Puritan Falls flea market who sells replicas of weapons and helmets."
"I suppose a sword like that must have cost a pretty penny."
"I considered it a bargain, good sir," the actor bellowed dramatically. "A mere thirty-five pounds, or as those in the New World say, thirty-five dollars."
Maybe I should invest the money in a decent sword, Neil thought as he examined the pitiful reproduction in his hand. If I'm not invited back next summer, I can probably sell it on eBay and get my money back.
The third weekend in May, the last Neil would have to himself until the Faire closed on Labor Day, he drove over to the flea market on the grounds of the defunct Puritan Falls Drive-in. As was usual on a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon, the market was overrun with bargain-hunters and collectors. In the shadow of what remained of the driven-in's towering screen, more than a hundred dealers had set up tables and tents and peddled their wares, which included antiques, home-made crafts, locally grown farm produce and designer bag knock-offs.
Neil walked around for close to forty minutes before he located the old man dealing in historical war memorabilia. While the vendor waited on a pair of Civil War reenactors, Neil browsed through the selection of medieval chain mail, shields, battleaxes, and maces. He picked up several weapons and tested their grip in his right palm.
"Find anything you like?" the old man asked.
"There are two or three I'm interested in, but I haven't made up my mind."
"What do you need a sword for, a college production of a Shakespeare play or maybe a local theater group's attempt at Camelot?"
"Actually, I'm going to be in the Essex Renaissance Faire this summer," Neil informed the old man as he wielded a fencing rapier in the air à la Errol Flynn.
"You're a natural at swordplay," the old man complimented him.
"How much does a weapon like this cost?"
"That one is seventy-five dollars."
The vendor knew by his customer's downcast expression that the price was beyond the young man's means.
"I do have a number of inexpensive swords, if that's what you're interested in."
The old man picked up a medieval long sword manufactured in Taiwan, but Neil was not interested in it or in any of the Lord of the Rings weapons the vendor tried to pawn off on him.
"What's that one go for?" Neil asked when he saw an old double-edged broadsword.
The dealer knitted his eyebrows. He did not remember ever seeing that weapon before, so he made a quick appraisal.
"I could let you have that one for, say, twenty-five dollars."
"Sold!" Neil exclaimed and quickly reached into his pocket for his wallet.
* * *
A large crowd was on hand for the opening day of the Essex Renaissance Faire. Neil Scarborough, wearing colorful breeches, doublet and ruff, walked through the throng of visitors, pretending to be one of Queen Elizabeth's courtiers and welcoming people to the shire in a modified Old English dialect. Throughout the day he flirted with the women—young and old alike—and traded double entendres with the men.
Around 5:30 people began heading toward the field where the joust was to be held at 6:00. Two dozen actors gathered on the track to entertain the audience until the start of the show. Neil was demonstrating various acts of chivalry with one of Queen Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting when Sir Walter Raleigh challenged him to a friendly sword fight.
As Neil drew the broadsword from its scabbard, a strange tingling sensation started in his hand and traveled up his arm. Before a crowd of horrified onlookers, he tightly grasped the hilt with both hands and attacked the young man portraying Raleigh. The other actors, stunned by Neil's unexpected, savage behavior, were slow to react. It was only when the injured man fell to the ground under his opponent's vicious assault that they rushed in to restrain the assailant.
Within minutes, the 911 operator was bombarded with calls from people who had witnessed the unprovoked attack. By the time Neil was wrestled to the ground and relieved of his weapon, the police car sirens could be heard in the distance.
* * *
Shawn McMurtry was spending the day with his wife and children at a barbecue at his neighbor's house when his cell phone rang. As he pulled the phone out of his pocket, his wife gave him that familiar it's-your-day-off-for-Chrissake look.
"McMurtry," he answered the call with a guilty I-can't-help-it smile.
"Sometimes I think he's the only man on the force," Penny McMurtry apologized to their friends.
"I'll be right there," he announced and then slipped his phone back into his pocket.
"Why do they always call you?" his wife asked.
"Can I talk to you in private a minute?"
The anxious look on the policeman's face worried his wife.
"Why? What's wrong?"
Shawn took Penny aside and gently broke the bad news.
"It's your nephew, Neil. He was just arrested for aggravated assault. It seems he attacked someone at the Renaissance Faire with a sword."
"That's ridiculous. Neil wouldn't hurt a fly! There must be a mistake."
"I'll go see what this is all about."
When McMurtry arrived at the station house, he found his wife's nephew in the holding cell, on the verge of tears.
"Uncle Shawn!" Neil exclaimed. "You've got to help me. I didn't mean to hurt anyone."
"Calm down. I'll go talk to the arresting officer and see what I can learn from him."
It was almost an hour before Shawn returned to the young man's cell.
"What did he say?" Neil asked excitedly.
"I'll be honest with you. It doesn't look good. There were more than a hundred witnesses who saw you viciously attack your victim without any provocation."
"Is he ... is he all right?"
"He's had over twenty stitches and lost a great deal of blood, but the doctors say he'll recover."
"Thank God!"
"Whatever possessed you to go after someone with a sword?"
"I didn't know what I was doing. We were playacting for the spectators who were waiting for the joust to begin. When I reached for my sword, I felt a strange prickling in my hand. The sensation moved up my arm, and then the next thing I knew several of the other actors had me on the ground."
"Did you feel any animosity toward the young man you attacked?"
"No. I barely knew him. We only spoke once." Then he added as an afterthought, "Ironically, our conversation was about swords."
Shawn did not know what to make of the story. There was no doubt in his mind that Neil had assaulted his fellow actor. It was the apparent lack of intent that disturbed him. If Penny's nephew was to be believed, then Neil must suffer from some undiagnosed mental or emotional disorder. Either that or he was lying. McMurtry didn't know which was worse.
Patrolman Burton Hatch, a rookie fresh out of the academy, came on duty while Shawn was in the holding cell questioning his wife's nephew.
"What's that?" Burton asked the desk sergeant when he saw the broadsword lying on the table in the interrogation room.
"That's evidence in an aggravated assault case," the older policeman replied. "I haven't had a chance yet to lock it in the evidence room."
"Want me to do it for you?" Burton offered.
"Yeah, if you don't mind."
The rookie grabbed the sword by the grip and experienced the same tingling sensation Neil had felt. He rubbed his upper arm as the feeling spread.
Just as Hatch stepped out of the interrogation room, sword in hand, a veteran officer brought in an argumentative middle-aged man on a D.U.I. The belligerent drunk caused quite a fuss, demanding to see his lawyer. Without warning, Burton took two steps in the inebriated loudmouth's direction, raised the sword above his head and brought it down on the man's shoulder.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" the veteran cop screamed as Burton raised the sword to strike again.
The desk sergeant acted quickly and seized the weapon from the rookie's grasp.
"I'll sue your ass off for this," the drunk threatened as he tried to staunch the flow of blood.
Shawn, upon hearing the commotion, ran out of the holding cell in time to witness the aftermath of Burton's attack on the drunken driver.
"I don't know what came over me," the neophyte police officer exclaimed. "I must have blacked out. I swear I don't remember striking that man. I picked up the sword and felt a strange tickling feeling in my arm and then ...."
A tremor of apprehension rippled through Shawn's gut. Patrolman Hatch's story sounded a lot like Neil's.
* * *
After the ambulance took the injured man away and the rookie cop was taken into custody, Shawn, the veteran cop and the desk sergeant stared at the bloody sword that lay on the tile floor of the police station.
"I wonder where that weapon came from," the veteran cop mused. "I saw one like it in a museum in Gettysburg."
"Why would a Roman gladiator sword be in a Civil War museum?" the desk sergeant asked.
"You don't know your weapons. That's a Confederate officer's saber."
As Shawn listened to the conversation, he studied the weapon himself.
"You're both wrong," he insisted. "That's an épée, or dueling sword, commonly used for fencing."
"How do you account for the initials beneath the cross-guard then?" the veteran cop argued.
"What initials?" Shawn asked.
"C.S.A., Confederate States of America."
"You need glasses," the desk sergeant laughed uneasily. "There are no initials on that sword."
The veteran cop bent over and reached for the sword, intending to show his nearsighted coworker the letters engraved in the blade.
"Don't touch it," Shawn warned.
"You're right, McMurtry," the veteran cop declared sheepishly. "What was I thinking? This is a crime scene, and that sword is evidence."
Shawn did not bother explaining that it was fear of another attack that prompted him to caution his friend about touching the sword, not the preservation of the crime scene.
A few minutes later, when Shawn returned to the holding cell, he noticed his wife's nephew had become agitated.
"What was going on out there?"
"There was another mishap with your sword."
"What happened?"
Shawn ignored the question.
"I want you to describe the sword for me."
"Haven't you seen it yourself?"
"I have, but humor me. I want to know what you see when you look at it."
"I don't know. It's a sword," he said helplessly. "It's straight-bladed, double-edged. It has what I believe is referred to as a basket hilt. Why? What's so important about the sword?"
"Apparently four different people see four different weapons."
* * *
Although the Puritan Falls chief of police was a hard-nosed cop with close to twenty years' experience on the force, he eventually consented to McMurtry's repeated entreaties to have a psychic examine the weapon. Had it been only Neil Scarborough's head on the block, the chief never would have agreed, but the fact that one of his officers maimed an unarmed man right in the police station swayed his judgment.
"Just keep the matter quiet," the chief ordered. "I don't want this leaking out and becoming a media circus."
At the suggestion of Abigail Cantwell, the owner of the Bell, Book and Candle, Puritan Falls' New Age shop, McMurtry contacted a young woman in Salem who was rumored to be "the real deal," not a charlatan who charged gullible people for séances to contact deceased loved ones. In fact, Melanie Gates had on several occasions successfully helped local police departments find missing persons.
When a car pulled up in the police station parking lot and the psychic stepped out of the passenger seat, Shawn was surprised by her appearance. He had been expecting the stereotypical medium: a kooky, high-strung, middle-aged woman with dark hair, multiple layers of makeup, billowy clothes and an overabundance of jewelry. When the petite, blond Reese Witherspoon lookalike showed up wearing blue jeans and a Red Sox T-shirt, he was momentarily taken aback. His discomposure was compounded when the driver came around to the passenger side to help the young woman up the stairs. Shawn had certainly not expected a blind psychic.
"I'm Officer McMurtry. I've never done this before," he announced awkwardly, "so I'm not sure what the procedure is."
"It's simple," the pretty teenage psychic declared matter-of-factly as though she were telling him how to operate the controls of a video game. "Just take me to the sword, and I'll see what vibes I get from it."
Shawn escorted the two women to the evidence room where the sword had been placed under lock and key. With her mother's assistance, Melanie put her hands on the blade. As the psychic gingerly felt along the length of steel, the police officer spoke to the mother.
"Your daughter gets visions from items she touches?"
"Yes. She was born blind, you see, and I think she was given an inner sight to make up for the loss of normal vision."
Melanie suddenly pulled her hands back as though she had been injured.
"Did you cut yourself?" Shawn cried.
The mother put her hand on his arm and whispered, "My daughter is all right, but she can't hear you. She's in a trance-like state."
Melanie broke out in sobs, seeing the images that the sword had evoked.
"This weapon is very, very old. I can see its past owners. There are so many of them, and their names read like a history book: Richard the Lionheart, Julius Caesar, Attila the Hun, Charlemagne. Not only was it once Excalibur enslaved in stone, but it also belonged to the Roman soldier who pierced Christ's side on the cross. Its history goes back even further, centuries of bloodshed and battle all the way back to ...."
The psychic shuddered.
"All the way back to the dawn of creation. It is the fabled sword of Mars, the sword used in the battle of good versus evil by Michael, the Archangel. It is the Sword of Death."
Shawn felt like a fool. What had possessed him to call in a psychic in the first place?
"I'd like to thank you for taking the time to come down here," he said, wanting to get the women out of the station before the other officers got wind of their presence.
"I know what Melanie claims is hard for you to believe," the mother said, "but her visions are genuine. If she says that sword belonged to the Archangel Michael, then it must be so."
"I do not doubt your daughter's gift, Mrs. Gates. It's just that I ...."
Shawn stopped midsentence, his attention fixed on the sword, which was changing shape before his eyes. From a steel rapier, it was transformed to a silver cutlass and then into a gold broadsword.
The icy hand of fear gripped his heart as he realized the young psychic's visions were accurate.
* * *
Both Neil Scarborough and the young rookie patrolman pled guilty to a lesser charge of simple assault, and the judge sentenced them to probation. The belligerent drunk agreed not to sue in exchange for the police dropping the D.U.I. charges. The Renaissance Faire's Sir Walter Raleigh was willing to let bygones be bygones as long as Neil agreed to stick to the Halloween prop sword the management of the Faire had given him.
The chief of police, anxious to have done with the whole bizarre situation, told McMurtry to get rid of the sword before anyone else got hurt. Careful not to touch the ancient, mystical weapon, Shawn wrapped it in a thick fireproof rug and drove to the Copperwell Marina, where he chartered a cabin cruiser to take him to a point two miles off the coast of Cape Cod.
Before signaling to the sailor to turn and head back to shore, Shawn tossed the Sword of Death overboard.
* * *
Lyle Benson sighed with disgust, tossed his losing poker hand on the table and watched the croupier sweep the last of his chips away. Temporarily out of funds, he walked out of the casino and strolled along the Atlantic City boardwalk, cursing his run of bad luck. Despite the cold bite in the November air, Lyle walked down to the beach and stood near the surf. He shivered and his teeth began to chatter.
What am I doing standing on a deserted beach, freezing my ass off? he asked himself. I ought to get into my car and head home before the traffic on the Garden State Parkway begins to back up.
As he turned to leave, he saw a flash of light as the sun reflected on a piece of metal lying on the sand.
I wonder what that is.
A wave broke on shore and soaked his shoes, socks and pants legs as he walked across the beach to examine the item that had washed up from the sea.
This might be worth something, he surmised, as he picked up the sword that had made its way south to New Jersey. Maybe my luck is about to change.
While he never made it into Arthurian legend, Salem was the first to discover Excalibur in the stone—he thought it was a medieval scratching post.
