The Greenstone Grail by Jan Siegel Page A

terrible crime in history. She thought we had to keep it from doing harm. Went a bit batty in her old age. Still, it made sense to her.’
    ‘Has the cup ever been carbon-dated?’ Bartlemy said thoughtfully.
    ‘Shouldn’t think so. Unless the Grafs had it done. Funnily enough, my chum at Sotheby’s was talking about that. If the cup’s two thousand years old, might really be a candidate for the Grail legend. On the other hand, if it was made in the Dark Ages …’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘Doesn’t make any odds to me, though. Belongs to the Thorns, whatever it is.’ An obstinate look settled about her mouth, erasing some of the humour. ‘Must get it back,’ she muttered to herself.
    Nathan, finding he could move again, fidgeted in his chair, extending a hand to ruffle Hoover’s fur.
    ‘Still want to help me out?’ Rowena Thorn asked him. ‘Not as good as buried treasure, looking for a piece of paper, but it might mean treasure for me. There’d be a reward in it, promise you that …’
    ‘It’s okay,’ Nathan said. ‘I don’t want a reward. I’ll look anyway.’
    ‘Good man. Teach you the right stuff at Ffylde, do they?Better than the comprehensive at Crowford, any day. All they seem to do there is take drugs and beat up the teachers.’ As Hazel and George were both there, Nathan knew this was an exaggeration, but he didn’t say so.
    ‘He gets his principles from his mother,’ Bartlemy said gently.
    Rowena Thorn set down her teacup. ‘Better be off,’ she said. ‘Thanks for everything, Bartlemy. You’ve always been a good friend.’
    ‘You don’t mind my living here, do you?’ he inquired curiously. ‘Your ancestral home …’
    ‘Good heavens no. Hardly a mansion, is it? The Thorns never had the money for that. Just inconvenient, hell to maintain – never dared ask you about the plumbing. It isn’t as if I ever lived here myself. No sentiment involved.’
    ‘You never owned the cup, either,’ Bartlemy pointed out.
    ‘That’s different,’ she said. ‘I told you. That’s a matter of blood.’
    At supper that night, Nathan told Annie about the cup of the Thorns – it didn’t appear to be a secret – or as much as he was able to tell, without talking about his vision, or the dreams of blood. Hazel was there; George came later. They both absorbed the story with enthusiasm and determined to search for the missing injunction. ‘D’you think it will be, like, a piece of parchment?’ George said. ‘A scroll or something, yellowing and with spiky writing.’
    ‘It’s fifteenth century,’ Nathan said. ‘I think they had paper in the fifteenth century. When did what’s-his-name invent the printing press?’
    ‘Caxton,’ Annie said, ‘in the fifteenth century. There was a lot going on then. Would anyone like some ice cream?’
    Not surprisingly, everyone did. ‘Have you ever had a bookhere as old as that?’ Hazel asked when the ice cream had been shared out.
    ‘No. I had a seventeenth century two-volume history once: that was the oldest. Anything from the fifteenth century would probably be in a museum. Does Rowena have any idea what this document looks like?’
    ‘Don’t think so,’ Nathan said. ‘We’ll just have to go through absolutely everything at Thornyhill.’
    ‘If your Uncle Barty doesn’t mind …’
    ‘It could be hidden in a book,’ Nathan pursued. ‘Secret papers very often are.’
    ‘But – Thornyhill is full of books!’ Hazel exclaimed, daunted. ‘It’ll take forever.’ Suddenly, the prospect of finding a missing document didn’t seem half so interesting. ‘Perhaps Mr Goodman won’t want us rooting around there. He might prefer to do it himself …’
    ‘Is there a reward?’ George asked.
    ‘Yes,’ Nathan said, looking rueful, ‘but I told Mrs Thorn we wouldn’t want it.’
    ‘ We didn’t,’ George and Hazel chimed simultaneously.
    ‘You have to find it first,’ Annie pointed out. ‘
Then
you can worry about the reward. Are you sure