Druids Sword (10 page)

T
he war was on, but as yet it had little impact on Londoners’ lives.

The war had been expected for almost a year; civil and defence preparations had been complete for months, and evacuations from the city underway for the past weeks (although so far, most people had elected to stay). There had been a frisson of emotion on Sunday when the worst was known, but over the past few days the excitement had died down. London had not been bombed (there had been one or two false air raid warnings), there had been no massed campaigns in Europe, and the world had not ended.

Life went on, largely, as normal.

Jack Skelton spent the earlier part of the week at Copt Hall and its surrounds.

He settled in, altering the hall to his needs, Malcolm proving an invaluable resource. Neither Jack’s nor Malcolm’s presence was ever noted by the four or five servants and gardeners who still worked about the hall, keeping the one remaining wing in some semblance of order and tending the gardens to send flowers and vegetables down to London. When fires were lit in the hearths high in the burned-out walls, no mortal eye saw them; when a gramophone occasionally played music in what remained of the elegant drawing room, they did not hear.

If any had the occasion to walk through the stark remains of the hall, then their feet encountered only grassy earth, not the beautifully patterned rugs, and their hips did not bump into the chairs and tables set about.

Neither did the servants ever notice the Austin convertible parked under the trees, and they did not realise the comings and goings of the major and his valet.

In the mornings they did note the deer spoor along the gravelled front driveway, but so long as the deer kept off the gardens they did not mind their presence.

The strange heart of Copt Hall had awoken about them, and the servants and gardeners had not even a single intuition of it.

Epping Forest had once surrounded Copt Hall completely, but for scores of years now the forest had retreated, and the hall stood some three-quarters of a mile from the main body of the forest. But during the night, when Malcolm would open the front door so the major might set off for his evening walk
(his run through the forest)
then the forest crowded all about, embracing the hall and its occupants, and Jack could move from front porch into forest depths with a single step.

He spent these nights roaming as Ringwalker, reacquainting himself with forest and land, and stamping his authority back on both. Others—strange creatures not of the Faerie or of the mortal—had tried to nibble away at Ringwalker’s influence in his absence, and on both Monday and Tuesday nights the forest rang now and again with the sounds of battle: brief, fierce, bloody encounters.

Malcolm always had cloths and a bowl of warm water redolent with antiseptic waiting for when the major returned just before dawn.

Jack also ventured into the Faerie. He had seldom been here during the time he’d been away, but little had changed. The Naked, the central sacred hill of the Faerie, still rose in the midst of the forest-covered hills that rolled away towards snow-capped mountains in the vast distance; the Lord of the Faerie’s throne of Faerie wood still sat on the eastern aspect of its summit. The Faerie folk continued to drift in and out of the mists that clung to the hills, and Jack spent hours talking to them or, more often, just sitting in silence with them absorbing the Faerie.

The only difference Jack noted was that the Idyll, Weyland’s creation that had graced the top floor of the house in Idol Lane, now bordered the Faerie. If Jack stood close to the Faerie Lord’s throne on The Naked and looked east, then he could see rising on the horizon the myriad walkways and spires and bridges of Weyland’s extraordinary creation. The Lord of the Faerie told him that he’d walked close to the Idyll, but had never entered.

“That realm is of Weyland and Noah and Grace, all of themselves,” the Faerie Lord had commented.

By mid-week Jack felt he’d done enough to reestablish his dominance over the forest spaces, as well as renew his bond with the Faerie, so on Wednesday he drove the Austin convertible down to London. He spent that day wandering about the city, but came home in the evening none the wiser.

There was something…
wrong
…but he could not define or isolate it.

On Thursday morning he remarked to Malcolm that they would have visitors in the late afternoon, and could Malcolm please prepare a tea for five guests.

Noah enjoyed driving, and she particularly enjoyed driving the Daimler. She enjoyed even more her
success in acquiring it from Weyland for the day, but in truth that had not been at all difficult. When she had said where she was going, and with whom, he’d rolled his eyes and simply handed over the keys.

Grace beside her in the front passenger seat, Noah drove north to Hampstead where she picked up Matilda, Ecub and Erith. None of these three women had been reborn this life. As with Noah, Weyland, Stella and Harry, they had merely moved back into the realm of the mortal from the Faerie, taking as their identities the names each had borne in their original lives. They shared a terrace house in a smart quarter of Hampstead, where they busied themselves in their local community, teaching music, history and botany to private girl students. On some days—the ancient pagan festivals—they joined Noah, and together Eaving and Eaving’s Sisters walked the land, rejoicing in the eternal themes of rebirth and regeneration.

There was a time when Grace had often joined them. For a long time now, she did so very rarely.

The three sisters who crowded into the back seat of the Daimler were in a high mood. Jack was back! Noah was slightly less exuberant, but still cheerful, and Grace was her usual introspective, quiet self, preferring to look out the window than to take part in the animated discussion between the other women. Noah had already spoken to Matilda and Ecub on the telephone, so the women knew of Jack’s sense of something wrong in London and his failure to help Grace, and now they chatted about more inconsequential things, like whether or not Jack could possibly be as handsome as Noah had said, or as charismatic as she intimated.

They arrived at Copt Hall close to five p.m., their arrival—as everything else even faintly connected with the Faerie—totally unobserved by the hall’s mortal servants.

“Mesdames,” said Malcolm at the door, inclining his head as he ushered them through. “Major Skelton is waiting for you in the drawing room.”

Grace was the last to come through, and Malcolm gazed at her a little more curiously than was polite, but Grace was herself looking about with so much inquisitiveness that she did not notice.

Just before he closed the door, Malcolm saw that several deer had emerged from the trees.

In the shadows behind them Malcolm thought he saw three ghostly spears propped against a tree trunk, and he smiled.

My fellows,
he said in greeting.

Jack greeted Matilda, Ecub and Erith with evident delight, kissing each on the mouth, but Matilda with perhaps a little more depth and passion than the other two.

Noah received a peck on the cheek—“As you are a married woman,” Jack remarked—and Grace, a similar kiss on the cheek. She gave him no chance to kiss her mouth had he even wanted to, averting her face as he approached.

Jack gave Grace a strange look at that, but he turned away from her almost immediately without a word, and ushered the women to the easy chairs grouped about the fire.

As they settled themselves, Malcolm bore in a large tray, laden with silver pots of tea and hot water and delicate bone china cups and saucers. He set this down on a low table in the centre of the chairs, and then moved a stand filled with cakes and dainties beside it.

“We can help ourselves, Malcolm, thank you,” Jack said, and Malcolm inclined his head and withdrew.

Noah leaned over the table, ready to pour, but Jack waved her back.

“Grace,” he said, “will you be ‘mother’?”

She flushed a little, glancing at the other women, and Jack noticed that her hands trembled very slightly as she leaned forward. But, having once laid hand to teapot, Grace then accomplished the pouring of the tea with considerable poise, handing out the cups and passing around the milk pitcher and sugar bowl as needed.

Then she sat down, looked at Jack (who had been watching her keenly the entire time), and said, “Did I pass the test?”

“Grace—” Noah began, but Jack burst into laughter, surprised and delighted both by her unexpectedly direct gaze and her tart tone.

“Yes,” he said, “you did. You may apply forthwith to Malcolm for a position on the staff.”

For a moment he thought she almost smiled. Her eyes widened slightly, and her face relaxed, but then her customary guard went up and she dropped her eyes away from his. She refilled the teapot with hot water, then rose, the now-empty hot water pot in her hand.

“I’ll ask Malcolm to refill this,” she said, and then was gone before Jack, or any of the women, had time to comment.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Noah said. “She can be so abrupt at times.”

Jack stirred his tea. “She has reason enough to be, Noah.”

“Yes, but…” Noah’s voice drifted off.

Matilda had watched the exchange, her eyes narrowing, and now she spoke. “Enough of Grace, Jack. What of
you?
Goddamn it, man, we’ve missed you! Tell us
all,
now, we demand it. What have you been doing, where have you been, what do you
know?
”

Matilda was sitting in the chair next to Jack’s, close enough that he could lean over and kiss her
softly on the mouth. “And I have missed you, too, Matilda,” he said, barely pulling his mouth away from hers. “How fortunate that
you
are no one else’s wife in
this
life.”

“Ah,” she said, smiling, “but I have my eye on your man Malcolm.”

The group laughed, and Jack slid back into his chair, and soon they were buried in conversation and reminiscences.

Grace stood under the overhang of a door and watched as Jack leaned over and kissed Matilda. She was a distance away, but she had acute enough hearing to pick up their exchange.

“Miss Orr?”

She spun around, clutching the hot water pot, her eyes wide with surprise.

Malcolm smiled at her. “Do you need more water?”

“Yes.” A pause. “Thank you.”

“Then come with me.”

He led her through the ruins to a kitchen where an Aga stove radiated warmth.

“Put the pot on the table,” he said. “It will take a moment to boil some more water.”

Grace obliged, and as Malcolm busied himself at the Aga she wandered slowly about the kitchen.

“This is a strange house,” she eventually said, standing by a plate rack and running one hand lightly over the china within.

Malcolm, still at the stove, glanced at her, pleased that she’d spoken. “It has a deep past, Miss Orr.”

She turned to face him. “A deep past? As have you, I think, Malcolm.”

“Me? I’m just Major Skelton’s manservant, Miss Orr.” Malcolm affected a rolling country burr as he spoke, but Grace did not smile.

“I don’t think you’re anyone’s servant, Malcolm. Tell me,
what
are you?”

Now Malcolm turned fully from the Aga. “Would you like me to show you, Grace? Just a little?”

He could see the indecision on her face: the slightly narrowed eyes, the corner of a top lip disappearing as she chewed on it.

“Do you
dare,
Grace?” he asked, very softly.

A long silence. “Yes,” Grace eventually said.

“Then roll up your sleeves.”

Grace took a step back, instinctively, defensively, crossing her arms over her chest. She was wearing a long-sleeved cardigan over a blouse and skirt, much as she’d been wearing the day her father had driven her and Jack down to London, and now she automatically tugged a little at the cuffs, pulling the already-stretched sleeves further over her hands.

“Grace,” said Malcolm, “do you think none of us know about your wrists, and the scars they bear? If you want to see what I am, then roll up your sleeves, and come naked-fleshed into my world.”

No one in the drawing room had commented on Grace’s continuing absence, even if they had noticed it. Jack had talked a while about where he’d been, and who, and what he had done in the years since 1666, and then Eaving’s Sisters had explained what they’d been doing (not a lot, according to their report, apart from wandering the Faerie and growing closer to the land).

Then Ecub asked Jack about what he’d said on the Sunday evening, about the “wrongness” within London.

Jack told them what he knew. “I went back into London yesterday, but discovered little more. Whatever it is, is so ethereal that I can barely grasp it.
And you’re certain that none of you have felt it? Not even walking the land, or within the Faerie?”

All of the women, including Noah, shook their heads.

Jack sighed. “Maybe it is nothing. Maybe I have been away too long. Maybe…” He shrugged, and smiled disarmingly. “Maybe it is but the taint of the modern world.”

“What are you going to do now, Jack?” Matilda asked.

“Run the forest a little longer, bond with the land more deeply.” His eyes, suddenly keen, switched to Noah. “Collect my kingship bands.” A pause, as he studied Noah carefully. “Will you keep them from me, Noah?”

Her chin tilted up. “No. They are yours whenever you wish.”

A strange expression came over Jack’s face as she said that, but then it slipped away, and he stood up. “Good. Now, let me show you my home, such as it is.”

Malcolm led Grace out the kitchen door and towards a grassy area that bordered the gardens. It was now evening, and a mist had moved in from the forest almost a mile away.

Grace shivered, wrapping her arms about herself.

The sleeves of both cardigan and blouse were rolled up well over her elbows, and the livid scars about her wrists and arms almost glowed in the silvery, damp light.