Alex Archer - The Matador's Crown

A dead man. A stolen artifact.

As something of an expert on the medieval period, archaeologist Annja Creed jumps at the invitation from the Museum of Cadiz to assess its acquisition of Egyptian coins. Andalucia, Spain, is a region rich in Moorish and Roman ruins, and this invite gives Annja the chance to join a dig across the Bay of Cadiz. There she unearths a bronze bull statue that makes the entire trip worth every minute to her. Until the day after her discovery, when she sees the same artifact in the hotel room down the hall from hers, in the possession of a Spaniard killed by the estocada, the final sword thrust used by bullfighters to bring down the bull.

Whoever killed the man in the hotel room had left clear signs of having taken something. And yet the bronze bull remained. What was so valuable the murderer ignored a priceless artifact? With few leads and a growing body count, Annja’s investigation takes her through the colorful world of flamenco and bullfighting to a renowned matador and an illegal—and deadly—collection of Visigoth votive crowns.

Earth had been hastily shoveled over the body

“That is not good,” Garin said as he sidled up beside Annja and looked over the scene. “You think it’s the dig supervisor you wanted to talk to?”

“Someone looking for me?”

They turned in unison—Garin with pistol extended and ready to fire—to find Jonathon Crockett holding an AK-47.

“I believe my Kalashnikov trumps your Glock,” Crockett said.

Annja felt Garin’s elbow twitch against her arm. He was the last man Crockett—any man—should issue a challenge like that to.

“You think so?” Garin held the pistol barrel skyward with his finger off the trigger to show he meant to surrender. Annja knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Reaching into the otherwhere for her sword, she clasped the grip and swept the blade across Crockett’s wrist, taking him by surprise. The machine gun dropped to the dusty ground. In an agile move, Garin bent to claim it, as Annja released the sword back to where it had come from.

“Nice,” Garin said. He hooked the Kalashnikov under his arm and held both guns on the whimpering professor. “She’s my backup.”

Titles in this series:

Tear of the Gods

The Oracle’s Message

Cradle of Solitude

Labyrinth

Fury’s Goddess

Magic Lantern

Library of Gold

The Matador’s Crown

Destiny

Solomon’s Jar

The Spider Stone

The Chosen

Forbidden City

The Lost Scrolls

God of Thunder

Secret of the Slaves

Warrior Spirit

Serpent’s Kiss

Provenance

The Soul Stealer

Gabriel’s Horn

The Golden Elephant

Swordsman’s Legacy

Polar Quest

Eternal Journey

Sacrifice

Seeker’s Curse

Footprints

Paradox

The Spirit Banner

Sacred Ground

The Bone Conjurer

Tribal Ways

The Dragon’s Mark

Phantom Prospect

Restless Soul

False Horizon

The Other Crowd

The Matador’s Crown

Alex Archer

www.mirabooks.co.uk

The Legend

...The English commander took Joan’s sword and raised it high.

The broadsword, plain and unadorned, gleamed in the firelight. He put the tip against the ground and his foot at the center of the blade. The broadsword shattered, fragments falling into the mud. The crowd surged forward, peasant and soldier, and snatched the shards from the trampled mud. The commander tossed the hilt deep into the crowd. Smoke almost obscured Joan, but she continued praying till the end, until finally the flames climbed her body and she sagged against the restraints.

Joan of Arc died that fateful day in France,

but her legend and sword are reborn....

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Michele Hauf for her contribution to this work.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Prologue

The woman walking thirty strides ahead of him moved like a flamenco dancer. Powerful, forceful, yet graceful. She reminded him of Ava, the dancer in the club where he played guitar.

Ava barely acknowledged his existence and frequently complained he did not keep proper compas, marking the beat, which spoiled her dance and made her look bad in front of the audience. As a guitarist, he was attuned to the dancer and singer, but his concentration tended to waver around Ava.

He’d thought her just another dancer when he’d taken the job at the Gato Negra club. But there was a shadow inside Ava and he felt its presence every time she took the stage. Darkness emerged in her footwork, in the aggressive expressions that contorted her face and the fierce control with which she captured the audience nightly.

So he did not hurry his pace to catch up with this other woman. Best to admire from afar.

With the guitar he’d made from German spruce and Spanish cypress strapped across his back, Diego Montera carried the cumbersome wooden crate at stomach level. He had to deliver it at midnight. In a cotton bag tied to his belt loop, he had a change of clothing and enough euros to cover a meal. He also carried the small bronze artifact he had to deliver the following morning. He had seen that much—that it was bronze—as his employer had wrapped it and handed it to him. What was in the crate, he didn’t know. It wasn’t much heavier than his guitar.

His employer had rented him a room in the Hotel Blanca tonight for the first delivery. It was not as if he could complete the transaction on the street, in the open. Or at his home where Diego’s mother would question a stranger’s visit. The buyer preferred a private meeting, valued his privacy.

Diego was excited about tonight. That his employer had trusted him with two jobs within a day of each other meant he was moving up, earning respect. If both exchanges went well, perhaps he’d earn a position as a regular liaison. A guitarist’s wages were nothing to write home about, and he still lived with his mother, who complained when he didn’t help clean around the house. A guitarist shouldn’t do manual labor such as fixing the plumbing! Diego wanted his own apartment so he could entertain friends and bring home women without the curse of his mother’s condemning eye.

Even though he had no information about who would arrive to pick up the wooden crate and its contents tonight, Diego felt confident the meeting would go well. The money would be transferred electronically through a secure service. Then Diego got paid in cash. He knew to go online and verify that his employer had received the transfer before handing over the item. He had one of those fancy cell phones with the internet browser in his jeans pocket. The device, a hand-me-down, had received a pounding from one of Diego’s brothers and was on its last legs.

Tomorrow morning’s handoff would be at a public place—a city fountain—not far from the Museum of Cádiz. What he did when he was not playing in the club wasn’t legal, but it paid too well to pass up. He hadn’t learned the name of the outfit he worked for, but it probably didn’t have one. Most of the deals, if not all, were made under the table.

His mother would never look him in the eye again if she knew who he was involved with. But if Diego wanted to finally attract the eye of Ava, the beautiful flamenco dancer, he had to have money.

Hours earlier, the sun had set in fiery amber ripples on the horizon over the sea. A sharp slice of moonlight glimmered on the waters close to shore. The streets were busy at all hours in Cádiz. The city offered so much to experience in food, music and festivity. And with the bullfights on the mainland in Jerez, Cádiz celebrated with all-night dancing in the streets.