Druids Sword (20 page)

Weyland felt sickened, and suddenly wanted nothing more to do with the imps. “I think we can consider our arrangement at an end,” he said. “You’re not as useful as I’d thought you’d be.”

“Wait!” said Jim. “What about some payment, then?”

Weyland looked back over his shoulder as he walked away. “I gave you life and freedom. Is that not payment enough?”

J
ack had committed to destroying the Troy Game—and if he was honest with himself, he had committed to it a long time ago—but he wouldn’t be pushed by anyone into moving precipitously. Catling was too powerful (Jack’s mind shied away from “invulnerable”) and whatever chink she had in her armour (if it existed) would be so tiny, so transient, that Jack knew he not only needed to be very, very sure of it, but that he would only ever get one chance at it.

In Jack’s mind there were two puzzles which needed to be solved. Firstly, he needed to discover
what
manner of strange labyrinthine shadow it was that hung over London. Every day that Jack rose from his bed he became more convinced that it concerned the Troy Game, even if it wasn’t a direct part of it. Secondly, Jack needed to plumb the equally strange labyrinthine shadow that was Grace. She was so important, yet so unfathomable. That could be due to cunning, or, as he’d thought earlier, it could just be defensive.

Jack leaned more towards the defensive. Gods alone knew she had enough reason for it. More importantly, however, when he’d tested her on Ambersbury Banks the marks had seen no harm in her. There was no direct danger to himself from her.

Besides, Matilda liked her.
She has isolated herself
within a ring of fire and of suffering, and can’t escape
, Matilda had said to him. Jack was not always certain of his own judgement, but he
was
sure of Matilda’s. If he had been Brutus, or William, or even Louis, Jack thought, he would have distrusted Grace on sight and would probably have blamed her for every dark cloud that scudded across the sun.

But now…no.

Grace was a puzzle, and she needed to be solved, but during September and October Jack spent almost every waking hour trying to discover as much as he could about the shadow over London. In this he had to be very circumspect. If whatever was so different could be used against Catling, then Jack couldn’t risk alerting her to its presence (and why was it Catling did not know of this? How could she
not
?).

What Jack wanted was to walk every street of London, plotting out carefully what he saw, felt and intuited along each of those streets, but this he could not do. Nothing would have alerted Catling faster. Certainly, Jack could take the occasional stroll down a street here, an alleyway there…but a systematic perambulation of all London (and beyond, if the difference stretched even further than the metropolis)? No. He was aware that Catling might be watching his every move.

It would be easier if Noah, Stella and Ariadne could sense the shadow as well, because then the four of them wandering here and there about their daily business would be able to assemble a good picture. But none of the women
could
sense the difference, and were useless to him.

But Grace could; Jack had absolutely no doubt of that. He meant to talk to her about it, and perhaps even enlist her aid, but for most of the two months following his meeting with Catling in St Paul’s crypt,
Jack did it on his own. He wanted to learn as much as he could by himself, before he spoke to Grace.

So Jack crisscrossed the city, one journey every two or three days, finding an excuse whenever possible to travel as widely as possible. There was a maze in Greenwich Village he needed to view, and mazes in Peckham, Richmond and Clapham as well. Every one of the ancient Veiled Hills of Llangarlia had to be visited, as did the far newer docklands in east London.

Noah helped, handed an excuse by Queen Elizabeth who made a radio broadcast urging women everywhere to do their bit for the war effort. Noah used this broadcast as the perfect reason to establish, as her very own effort, a mobile canteen (rather aptly named “Noah’s Ark”). She purchased a van, had it fitted out as a canteen, and most nights she and Eaving’s Sisters drove about, taking refreshments—tea, hot chocolate, and sticky buns—to the various air raid shelters about London.

Her mobile canteen gave Jack the perfect pretext to visit. Two or three nights a week he would find a reason to track her down, and visit for five or ten minutes. Noah knew of the motive behind these visits, and cooperated by giving him a reason to visit: to talk about the arrangements for the Great Marriage; to discuss how and when they might do the Dance of the Flowers; and, in order not to make Catling too suspicious, to worry about what might happen after the completion of the Troy Game.
Could
they survive it? Was it worth risking the destruction of the land and Faerie to try to thwart Catling?

All this meant that Jack did, indeed, manage to visit a fair proportion of London, but there was a catch. The only way he could sense this “difference” hanging over the city was to
walk
the streets: to
physically feel the city and what underpinned it throb up through the soles of his feet. Obviously Jack could not walk all these distances, because to do so would be to arouse Catling’s suspicions. If he needed to go somewhere then he necessarily had to drive his Austin convertible to get there, and thus the only time he managed to add to his store of understanding about the shadow was when he got out of the car.

Those few moments when he walked from car to building, or to Noah’s mobile canteen; the longer moment when he could stretch his legs walking around a hill, or a block or two of a suburb, but Jack had to have a reason for all these walks. He couldn’t just be
walking,
or at least not too much.

He was desperate that Catling should have no idea of his intentions.

Particularly after the night she tracked him down and asked him what he was doing.

Jack was in Peckham Rye, a suburb to the south of London, very late at night. His excuse for this excursion was that he wanted to visit the ancient site of Nunhead graveyard where, when he’d been William, two of his squires had been buried. The graveyard had been levelled (and the contents evacuated) during the nineteenth century when train lines had come through the area and terraced suburbia had spread either side of the twin rails like a black stain, but the faint memory of the squires’ souls still lingered, and Jack knew that the journey would be no waste of time, no matter what he discovered about the shadow.

He was walking quietly up Ferndale Road, a nondescript street of late Victorian brick terraces, when he heard steps behind him.

Jack stopped, and turned around.

Catling stood a few feet away.

Her white face floated like a rotting moon within all the blackness surrounding her, and Jack had to swallow, suddenly nauseated.

“Well, well, Jack,” she said, using a strange, sliding gait to move closer. “What do you here?”

“Visiting old friends,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow, and moved to the side of him, forcing Jack to turn in order to keep her in sight. “Old friends?” she said.

“I had two squires when I lived as William,” he said. “Henry and Raoul. They took wives after the invasion, and settled here, in this parish.” His shoe tapped against the tarmac. “They were buried here, a thousand years ago. I came to pay my respects.”

“How loyal. I am pleased. I like loyalty. I hope also that you will remember your loyalty to me.”

Jack inclined his head in an ambiguous gesture.

Her voice hardened. “You wouldn’t want to forget it, Jack.”

“No. Of course not.”

“Ah, you’re looking for a means by which to destroy me, aren’t you? Grubbing about the streets, hoping lost souls will whisper secrets into your ear?”

Jack went cold, but then realised that she knew or suspected nothing specific. She was goading him, hoping he’d let slip secrets himself.

He chose to change the subject. “Noah and I are going to make the Great Marriage.”

“Yes? What of it?”

“You should be pleased. The Great Marriage will unite your chosen Kingman and Mistress of the Labyrinth together in such strength that your final completion will be all the more powerful. After all, you did tie yourself in with the land. The Great Marriage will enrich you.”

Catling’s face went expressionless, then she smiled. “Then I
am
pleased.” She resumed her peculiar
sliding gait down the roadway, and Jack followed, keeping enough distance between them that they did not inadvertently touch.

“When?” she continued. “Perhaps I’d like to attend.”

Jack shuddered. “In May next year.”

Catling slid to a halt. “May? Next
year?
”

“The best possible day to conduct the marriage is on May Day, Catling. That date, spring resurgent, will bring the most power to the union. You’ve waited this long to be completed. Another six or so months won’t hurt.”

“You want the time in which to plan to destroy me.”

“Yes!
Yes,
I do. I admit it. You have been the greatest mistake of all my lives, Catling, and I will do anything I can to unwind you.”

“I can’t be—”

“I know what you have told me. Perhaps you are right. Perhaps all I can do is complete you and take what comfort that gives me.”

Her eyes narrowed until they were bleak gleaming slivers. “And you
will
be comforted, Jack. If I am completed, then this land and the Faerie will be saved. Payment enough, I should imagine.”

“Perhaps,” said Jack. The idea of the land and the Faerie under Catling’s dominion did not sound much like salvation to him.

Catling stepped very close, and put a hand on Jack’s arm; he had to force himself not to flinch away as iciness crept down through the layers of his coat, jacket and shirt.

“It won’t be that bad, Jack. The ordinary man on the street, and the average woman at her knitting, will never know the difference. Besides, what has mankind ever achieved with his freedom? War, pain, brutality. So what difference
me?
”

Come now, Jack. It won’t be too bad. The Faerie will be safe, finally you can have Noah, and Grace can be freed from her pain. Isn’t that a good deal?

Jack suddenly realised that Catling
did
think this was reasonable, and that he would truly be tempted.

And why shouldn’t she believe this, eh? If he’d been either Brutus or William he would not have hesitated.

Although, if he’d been Brutus he may have asked for some gold as well.

Catling watched Jack walk away down Ferndale Road.

He wanted to delay any attempt to complete her.

The delay (if not Jack’s reason for it) suited Catling perfectly. Gods alone knew she needed the time to bolster her
own
strength for Jack and Noah’s inevitable attempt to destroy her.

But she wasn’t happy. She glanced upwards at the sky. Damn it, she needed to feed in order to strengthen herself.
When
would the horror start?

She looked back along the street.

Jack had disappeared.

What was he planning?

Coming to a decision, Catling vanished.

It took her over an hour to intuit the imps’ location, but once she knew precisely where they were, Catling wasted no time in making her presence known.

“What are you
doing?
” she hissed, stepping forward to see just what it was the imps crouched over under the porch of the church.

Bill and Jim leaped back, mewing in their startlement, and Catling’s hiss turned into a gasp.

A woman’s body lay sprawled on the stone. It was naked, its torso torn and bloodied.

Catling crouched down beside the mutilated corpse, keeping her skirts carefully drawn aside lest they be dirtied. She studied it closely, then looked up at Bill and Jim. “Just having fun, then?”

The imps hung their heads.

Catling stood up. “
Just
having fun?”

Their heads swayed slowly from side to side.

“We thought it would please you,” whispered Jim.

Catling looked down at the corpse again. “You’ve torn her womb out.”

The imps nodded.

Catling giggled. “Where is it?”

“In the river,” said Bill.

“Oh.” Catling shrugged. “Never mind. Well, obviously you have too much time on your hands. You need something to keep you busy.”

“Yes,” Jim said doubtfully.

“I need you to keep an eye on Jack. You know who I mean, surely. Brutus-reborn. He had come back as Louis the last time—”

“We know who you mean,” the imps said together.

“Good, then. He’s up to something, walking about all over London, much as he’d like to disguise it. I’d like to know what it is.”

“You want us to follow him?” Jim said.

“Not obviously, you fool!” Catling said. “Just…
discover
what it is he and Noah plan, why can’t you?”

“It’ll be dangerous,” Bill said.

“Not half as dangerous as I can be,” Catling said.

The imps nodded, pretending to think about it. “Of course we can help you,” Jim said. “Discover what Jack and Noah are about. Certainly.”

Catling stared at them. “Good.”

Then she was gone, and the imps were left standing under the porch of St Magnus the Martyr
with the corpse of their latest victim at their feet. They looked each other in the eye.

“Never any mention of payment,” Bill said.

“Doesn’t she realise we’re professionals now?” said his brother.

“Even Weyland realised we’re professionals,” said Bill.

“Bet we won’t get a penny out of
her.
”

Bill sighed, then poked a foot into the corpse. “All we need now is for Jack to turn up and ask us to keep a watch on himself.”

H
is encounter with Catling both unnerved and relieved Jack. He was relieved that Catling hadn’t argued about the delay in completing her, yet that very lack unnerved him. Why wasn’t she angry? Why hadn’t she pushed for completion?

Jack was also unsettled by a third murder of a woman on the night he’d met with Catling—the murderer had left his victim’s mutilated body under the porch of St Magnus as he had the first two.

While the papers gave no details, they did allude to the means of mutilation and Harry’s prediction soon proved correct. The papers picked up on Scotland Yard’s epithet “the Penitent Ripper”, and now headlines once given over exclusively to the war in Europe took a vacation into the horror at home.

Ripper Rises from Grave!

Penitent Ripper Haunts the City!

London’s Women Live in Fear!

Jack shuddered every time he read another lurid headline. The murders disturbed him deeply, although he wasn’t certain why. Surely he was inured to death and pain by now?

Four days after meeting Catling, Jack managed to have a quiet word with Noah. He recounted to her what had happened in Ferndale Road.

“I am glad enough she didn’t push for completion,” he said, “but I worry about it at the same time.”

Noah gave a shrug. “Perhaps she accepted your argument that the Great Marriage not only needs to be done to strengthen us both, but needs to wait for May Day.” She gave a small smile. “And maybe Catling really believes that you will be happy enough to complete her if it means you will have me at the end of it.”

He leaned forward—they were alone in the lee of her mobile canteen, Eaving’s Sisters bustling food and drink into a community hall on the other side—and gave her a soft kiss on her cheek.

“Do I have a chance with you, Noah?”

“No.” But she said it a little too quickly, her gaze sliding away, and Jack’s eyes narrowed fractionally.

Finally he laughed, very softly, and leaned back, wondering why he didn’t push the issue.

“I know the Great Marriage will cause difficulties for you at home,” he said.

“Weyland and I will manage, Jack.”

“Noah…”

She looked up at him then, and Jack’s heart leapt in his chest.
I
do
have a chance,
he thought.

“Noah…” He leaned down to her, but just before his mouth touched hers they heard Matilda and Ecub approach the van, and they drew back from each other.

Jack sought out Grace in early December. He’d seen her on several occasions over the past two months, mostly with Noah’s mobile canteen, with which she helped from time to time. She’d been at Faerie Hill Manor one day when he’d visited Harry, and similarly one afternoon when he’d gone to the Savoy to see Noah (Weyland being conveniently out). On that day Grace had been very tense and watchful of
her mother with Jack, and he knew Grace did not like the idea of his trying to prise Noah away from Weyland.

Apart from that afternoon, when Grace had been obviously tense, Jack had noticed a subtle change in her over the months. It was most apparent in her relationship with Noah. The wariness between the two had dissipated a little bit, and both of them seemed more relaxed around each other. Certainly Noah was more relaxed with her daughter, although Jack suspected it was something that Noah had to work at assiduously.

And Grace was more confident within herself. Again, it was not a dramatic change, but it was there. Noah told him that Grace was going out more by herself, and that she and Weyland had taken to enjoying one or two nights dancing to the big band music of The Orpheans in the hotel’s ballroom.

One afternoon, when he knew Noah and Weyland were out, Jack, dressed in military uniform, stood patiently before Robert Stacey’s desk as the concierge rang Grace to see if she wanted a visitor.

Stacey had to wait in silence for a considerable time as Grace thought about it, and Jack half thought Grace would refuse to see him, but then Stacey spoke, put down the receiver, and nodded Jack towards the lifts.

“It is good to see Miss Orr receiving a gentleman, Major.”

Jack almost smiled as he realised Stacey thought he was paying court to Grace. “Do you have any advice for me, Mr Stacey?”

Stacey’s eyes wandered upwards, as if he could see Grace through all the intervening layers of concrete and marble. Then he looked at Jack, his gaze flinty. “She is a very special young lady, Major. None of us here would like to see her hurt.”

“Then I will take care, Mr Stacey.” Jack tipped his cap at the concierge, then made for the lifts.

“Major?”

Jack turned, then drew a sharp intake of breath. Stacey’s form shimmered, and suddenly there was not a man standing there, but a Sidlesaghe.

“None of us,” said the Sidlesaghe, his mournful face drawn in long lines, half raising his long arms, “would like to see her hurt.”

Jack wondered at this special protection afforded Grace, and became even more determined to discover her secrets. “Then, as I said, Sidlesaghe, I will take care.”

The Sidlesaghe’s form shimmered, and Robert Stacey, staid and nondescript, once more stood before Jack. “Have a good visit, Major,” he said.

Jack nodded, and turned back to the lifts.

Grace was clearly disconcerted by Jack’s visit. She opened the door slowly, and stood, looking at him. “Yes?”

“Your mother told me you would be in. I wanted to see you, so I came to visit.” He paused. “May I come in?”

She hesitated a moment longer, then nodded and opened the door wide, standing back to let him through and close the door, before walking past him to lead him into the apartment’s drawing room.

Grace was dressed in clothes different to anything Jack had seen her wearing before—another change, and definitely for the better. Whereas Grace had earlier worn very demure, and often downright shapeless, skirts and blouses, now she wore a closefitted blue linen dress that suited both her colouring and figure. She was wearing high heels, too, and Jack suddenly realised that Grace’s legs were almost as lovely as Ariadne’s.

The entire ensemble, Jack decided, was a remarkable improvement.

“Yes?” Grace said again as they sat down in opposite chairs in the drawing room.

“I won’t bite, Grace.”

She coloured a little. “I’m sorry. I’m just surprised to see you. I thought you preferred my mother.”

Jack ignored the remark about Noah and decided to waste no time on preliminaries about the weather. “I wanted to talk to you about the shadow I feel about London. It is labyrinthine, it somehow concerns the Troy Game, I can
feel
that—” he tapped at his chest “—and yet only I, and you, I suspect, can sense it. Grace, talk to me.”

Grace fiddled with a fold of loose material over her stomach, her eyes turned to the view out the window. “My mother has told me that you’ve been exploring.”

“Yes.”

Her eyes finally came back to him. “What have you discovered?”

“More questions than answers. As I said, it has a labyrinthine quality, but I have not been able to trace its entire extent, or anything like its true nature or purpose. Because it touches my Kingman blood,
calls
to it,” Jack tapped his chest again, “then everyone else with training in the skills of the labyrinth should be able to sense something of it, too. But your parents can’t. Stella can’t. Ariadne and my father likewise. But I think that you can…Grace,
can
you sense it?”

Her fingers had stilled, and she watched him with wary eyes.

“Grace?”

Finally Grace nodded.

“But why
you
,” Jack said, “and not your mother, or Stella? They are the two Mistresses of the Labyrinth most intimately connected with the Troy Game, and there’s no other Game that—”

Jack stopped abruptly, and at the same moment Grace tensed and looked to the window.

Something had shifted outside, something in the Embankment along the Thames beyond the Savoy’s windows, but it was so fleeting, and so ethereal, that Jack would have put it down to his imagination.

Save that Grace had clearly felt it as well.

“Grace?” He leaned forward in his chair, concerned. Grace was still staring at the window, her face drawn and pale, her hands clutching at the arms of her chair. “Grace? Are you all right? What was that?”

She didn’t move, and Jack slid forward on his own chair, enough that he could reach out and put a hand on her knee. “Grace?”

She jumped as he touched her, and jerked her face back to his. “Nothing. There was nothing.” She gave a forced laugh. “Aren’t most women in London seeing the Penitent Ripper behind every shadow these days?”

Jack winced. “Grace—”

“It was nothing, Jack.”

“Grace—”

“Whatever this shadow is,” Grace said, “I am
certain
it is a trap. I know it.”

“And what if it is not?” he said. “It doesn’t feel like a trap to me.”

“What does it feel like to you, then?”

He hesitated, unsure about voicing the conviction that had been growing over the past few weeks. “I think it is a weakness within the Troy Game,” he said finally.

“If it was a weakness, then my mother and Stella would feel it.”

“I don’t know why they can’t. It just doesn’t feel like a trap to me.”

“Jack—”

“Grace, I know you don’t agree with me, but is it possible that you could help me?”

Grace retreated into stillness.

“You can feel it. I can feel it. We’re the only two. Grace, I need your help to trace out the extent of this strange shadow. I can’t do it on my own, and Catling watches me too closely. You have a little more freedom.”

Grace’s mouth twisted at that last, but she gave a small nod. “What do you want me to do?”