The professor and the priest spent the better part of the morning removing the parts of the evidence that shouldn't have been there.
In truth, the two of them didn't entirely agree on grinding the Sword Emblem off the armor. But Green insisted, and even suggested widening the damage to make sure those heraldry experts wouldn't be able to identify anything.
Before wearing it down, they cleared away some of the rust, sketched the design, and discovered that it might be far more intricate than they'd imagined.
Besides the sword in the center, it also contained floral motifs and a few pictographic designs, as well as geometric patterns in the background. It was probably a coat of arms derived from the central sword design.
The details had been badly damaged, but they could still make out remnants of flowers and leaves, wings, and scales. There was quite a lot of information in it.
According to Green's limited knowledge of heraldry, these added symbols were used by collateral branches to distinguish themselves from direct heirs.
So the extra details suggested that the armor's owner belonged to a collateral branch of a collateral branch, or perhaps one even farther removed.
Given that those distant days weren't all that long after the kingdom was founded, people still followed the rules more closely, and heraldry was more reliable. Green felt his guess was fairly credible. If this were a multiple-choice question, he could at least eliminate two answers.
But even a collateral branch of a collateral branch back then was much closer to the Royal Family than most people claiming noble bloodlines today.
They could probably look through the Church's records. After all, the Church had once enjoyed a period of close cooperation with the Royal Family. They might be able to infer the