Deep Amber Read Online Free PDF Page B

shining blade in front of her, she went white anddropped the cup on the floor. The she sat down rather suddenly at the table and put her hand out to touch the sword, as if not quite sure it was real.
    â€œWhere did you find this?” she said.
    Simon looked at Cat triumphantly. “In the cellar, behind some old boxes,” he said.
    â€œIt’s not yours, then, Mum?” Cat asked, as she picked up the dropped cup and mopped up the tea from the floor.
    Florence shook her head, and pulled the sword towards her. She looked carefully at the engraved symbols, tracing the shapes with her fingers.
    â€œWhere do you think it came from?” said Simon after a few minutes.
    She looked up at him with an odd expression, wary and a little sad, and took a deep breath.
    â€œIt was your dad’s,” she said. “It’s your dad’s sword.”
    Simon and Cat looked at each other. Simon felt a strange mix of queasiness and excitement inside, as if he’d just swooped down a roller coaster ride. He wondered if that was why the sword had felt so special, so familiar somehow. Had he seen it before, when he was very little? Had he seen his dad using it?
    â€œI didn’t know Dad had a sword!” said Cat, passing Florence another tea then sitting down at the table. She put her hand on the hilt and felt a trickle of sadness, thinking about her dad. “It’s – isn’t it old? It looks really old. And it feels weird.”
    Florence nodded, and turned the sword over, showing them some of the markings.
    â€œIt’s very unusual. I’d know it anywhere. It’s how we met, actually. He turned up at an exhibition I was helping organise, on ancient weaponry. Paul Rogers was there, giving a talk on Saxon fighting techniques, and your dad stood up and told him he was talking a load of old rubbish, and no one fought like that with a broadsword. Then he got his own out of a big old rucksack and started waving it around to show him. Cleared the lecture hall in about three seconds – everyone thought he was mad…!”
    She laughed at the memory, and then dabbed her eyes with the edge of her cardigan.
    â€œOh dear. It was all such a long time ago.
    The sword’s not an original – you can see that there’s no pitting or anything, so it’s not that old. But it’s not exactly a replica either. It’s been made using the same kind of techniques as the Saxonsused – fantastic craftsmanship. I never could get him to tell me where he got it, but he certainly knew how to use it.”
    She took a sip of tea, thoughtfully, her mind clearly in the past.
    Simon started thinking about his dad. He couldn’t really remember him, just vague fuzzy memories, like being lifted up in the air, or the feel of a bristly face against his cheek. He knew he’d been a historian, but not the sort who spent his life locked up in library archives. Gwyn Arnold had been more interested in the practical side of life in the Dark Ages. He taught people how to use ancient hunting techniques, how to survive in a wild forest, how to make a fire, or shelters, or build castle defences. Until one day he’d died in a car crash, and since then there had just been Simon and Cat, and their mum.
    Simon didn’t really remember his dad’s death, and even Cat, who was five at the time, only vaguely remembered the funeral. He wondered sometimes what life would be like if their dad was still around, but mostly he was just used to the way things were.
    â€œIt’s funny…” Florence said, cradling her cupof tea and looking at the sword with a faraway expression in her eyes. “All this time it was here in this house – and I thought he’d given it to Lou.”
    â€œUncle Lou?” said Cat, looking suddenly excited. “I remember Uncle Lou! But we haven’t seen him for years! What happened to him?”
    â€œWho’s Uncle Lou?” Simon asked,