Druids Sword (58 page)

Jack turned to Grace. She was staring at the White Queen, her face ashen, and Jack was appalled to see

once more in her eyes that terrible, haunted, lost look he’d seen when first he’d met her.

He slid an arm about Grace’s waist, holding her against him.

Was
this
his daughter’s revenge?
This
her repayment for his lack of care so many thousands of years ago?

“Then why sit with her at night for so many years?” he said to the White Queen over the top of Grace’s head. “Why grow with her? Why—”

“I watched Grace because I needed to be sure,” the White Queen said, very low, “that she was of strong enough character that she
would
continue to close the Game, even though she was trapped inside it. Imagine, father-Jack…I realised very early on that Grace would be your perfect partner, and thus the ideal Mistress to close out my Shadow Game with you. What you and she could do together…ah, the entrapment would be so
powerful.
But she was hexed to Catling! So I needed to sit with her, and watch what kind of woman she grew into, to make sure she would do what was right.”

“That’s why you asked me if I would die for Jack,” Grace said.

The White Queen inclined her head.

“And why you set the shadow and imps to frighten her,” Jack said, his tone wooden. “You needed to further test her courage.”

“And if I hadn’t had the right mettle?” Grace said. “If you’d doubted me?”

“Then I would have arranged that Noah,” said the White Queen, “or perhaps Ariadne, would do as father-Jack’s partner.”

“You manipulative little—” Jack began.

“Jack,” Grace said. “Don’t. Please.”

“
Why make Grace a part of this, if it will only condemn her?
”

“If you regret not saving me, father-Jack, then redeem yourself by saving Grace.”

Grace pulled away from Jack’s tight embrace. “Jack, it is all right.”

“It is
not
all right! Not! Damn you…” Jack stopped, unable to continue, remembering yet again Boudicca’s words:
I am here to deliver to you a warning. Be careful. Look out for the return swing of the sword, because it may take your head.

“Jack.”

Jack dragged his eyes back to Grace. Oh, gods, Grace…
what had he done?

“Jack,” Grace said, her voice stronger and steadier than it had been. “We will manage. We will find a way.”

Jack could hardly bear it. Now
she
was trying to reassure
him.

“Save her,” said the White Queen, “and you save me. We are both, in our own way, tied to the Troy Game. I by death, Grace by hex. Save us both, father-Jack.” She paused. “But be warned. Catling is using the power of the air raids as much as my Game does, or as much as you can. She is strengthening the power of the hex that binds her to Grace. It may be that nothing
can
save Grace from her fate, Jack. Be prepared for that.”

Jack was silent a very long time. He felt numbed, his mind unable to process even the most mundane of thoughts.

“This is the final tragedy,” said the White Queen. “Just this
one,
Jack. Solve this, and there will be no more. Solve this, and you can walk away.”
And I with you.

Jack took a deep breath, shocked at how it shuddered in his throat. He rubbed a hand over his eyes, trying to force his mind back into logical thought.

“If Grace…” he said, then tried again. “When Grace and I open this Game, will Catling know?”

The White Queen shook her head. “This Game has been tied into her so tightly and so intricately, and has been created as her shadow, that I doubt she will feel the commencement of my Game.” The White Queen gave a short laugh. “Your name for it is very appropriate; my Game shadows her every move, and she will feel little difference between it being potential, and being alive.”

“Define ‘I doubt’ and ‘little’,” said Jack.

“Pick a night like last night,” said the White Queen, “a great raid, and the slight murmur, the almost indiscernible shudder, that will go through her being as the new Game is opened, she will put down to the power of the raid. You may not like what I have done to make this possible, father-Jack, but it
is
the only way it will be possible. The war grants you both power and camouflage.”

“But once the Shadow Game starts to wind the Troy Game in, and entrap it,” said Grace, “
then
it will be aware.”

“Oh yes,” said the White Queen, “and then you will need to be very, very careful. The night that you close the Game will be the hardest night of your lives. The Troy Game will fight with everything it has…and that is a great deal of black power, indeed. Remember, Catling has been feeding, too.”

Jack had heard enough. He increased the pressure of his arm about Grace’s waist a little, thinking to turn for the door, but Grace resisted.

“White Queen,” Grace said, “I have a message for you from your mother.”

“Yes?” the White Queen said.

“Your mother loved you, very greatly. She wanted you to know that.”

For a long minute the White Queen looked at Grace, her face expressionless.

“It was a long time ago,” the White Queen said eventually. “Too long. It makes no difference now, as it made no difference then. I was a dream for her, nothing more. A hope. A fantasy. What I am now is nothing Noah could comprehend; all she would try to see is the daughter she lost. Tell her that I am sorry, but that she is meaningless to me.”

Jack thought that that would be the last thing he would tell Noah. “Does
anything
mean anything to you?” he said.

“Oh, yes,” said the White Queen. “The Troy Game’s demise. That is all I exist for.”

Grace stared at the White Queen. “And when the Troy Game
is
trapped? What then for you?”

The White Queen gave a smile of infinite sadness. “Why, then I will be free, but who knows what that freedom might encompass.”

Much later that day Jack and Grace sat in the drawing room of Copt Hall. After leaving the crypt and returning to the car, they’d driven in complete silence, both too wrapped in their own thoughts to want to talk. Malcolm had met them at the door, taken one look at their faces, and vanished back to the kitchen to make tea.

Now they sat, their tea growing cold, both staring at the fire.

Jack was finding very little comfort in the flames. He felt terribly responsible. More than anything he wanted to be able to hate the White Queen, but he couldn’t. She had built a Game centuries before Grace had been born and trapped. There was no reason to suppose that she could also magically produce out of her hat the spell that would shatter Catling’s hold on Grace.

He dragged his eyes away from the fire to Grace. Oh, gods, he felt so guilty. Over the past year she had blossomed into such an amazing woman, so full of confidence, and then to see it shattered so easily in that crypt at the thought of being entombed for an eternity with Catling…

“I will find a way,” he said, relieved his voice sounded a great deal more confident than he felt.

Grace turned her eyes to him. She had recovered remarkably well from that terrible moment, having regained most of her poise, but still there lingered that haunted air in the shadows of her eyes.

“Jack, even if you don’t—”

“I
will find a way.
”

Tears filled her eyes, and he was instantly contrite and filled with hatred for himself at the same time. If only…if only…if only…

He rose and walked over to Grace’s chair, and, taking her hands, pulled her up into his arms. “I
will
find a way,” he whispered into her hair.

“
W
hat do you think will happen?” said Jim. He was sitting with his brother and the White Queen on the tomb of the Trandescants in St Mary-at-Lambeth, both imps having returned from Europe the previous night. Once they would have sat on old London Bridge, but that had been demolished a century ago. All of them sat with their arms about their drawn-up legs, chins resting on knees. Air raid sirens sounded dimly from the north and east.

It was going to be a bad night.

The White Queen shrugged, more out of melancholy than disinterest.

“
We’d like you to consider all the trouble we’ve been to,” said Bill.

“
Indeed,” said Jim, “we helped you put the finishing touches to your Game
—”

“
And then we led Wilkinson by the nose to all the places you told us
—”

“
And whispered in his ear about what was important and not
—”

“
And then we went over to Germany and started whispering again, and
—”

“
I get the point,” said the White Queen. “You’ve been very good. Veritable treasures.
”

“
I mean,” said Jim, “where would this country be without us?
”

The White Queen burst into laughter, making the imps’ eyes widen in startlement. “In a great deal of trouble to be sure,” she answered finally.

“But,” said Bill, “all will be lost if Brutus-reborn can’t manage
—”

“
Or his girl doesn’t carry through
—”

“
Or if
Catling—
” both imps hissed as one
”—
gets wind of what’s about!
”

“
Who’s to say, then,” said Bill, “that
we
won’t get eaten up instead of Catling?
”

“
No one is to say,” said the White Queen, very quietly. “No one can tell. I certainly can’t. We’re either going to win or lose with this one, my fine black fellows, and from this point on there’s nothing any of us can do about it.
”

“
Nothing?” squeaked Jim.

“
Well…” said the White Queen. “I do need several more rather fun air raids organised, if you could manage it.
”

“
Just tell us when!” said Jim, and both imps brightened.

A
fter that terrible morning in the crypt of St Thomas’, Jack withdrew into himself a little for a few days. He felt so guilty, and so helpless, and so desperate, and that made me feel worse. Jack kept protesting that he would find a means to break me free from Catling’s hex, but, oh, the emptiness of those protests. He hadn’t been able to do anything before, how could he now?

I tried not to think about what the White Queen had said.
I would do the right thing, and continue to ensure my own destruction, together with Catling’s, once I’d been dragged into the dark heart of the Shadow Game.
If I thought about that, if I let even a single contemplation of it scamper across my mind, then I knew I would succumb entirely to despair.

I couldn’t think of it.

I couldn’t.

So I had to believe Jack. There had to be a way, and Jack would find it.

He would.

He
must.

For at least a week we kept apart from everyone else, save Malcolm. Harry was desperate to see us, no doubt to tell us of the latest disaster to befall the
Faerie, and my parents pestered, but Malcolm turned away all of them. I know my mother’s creed and very reason for existence was to provide shelter, but that week Malcolm made a damn good job of it himself.

After three or four days Jack and I began to spend hours each day walking Epping Forest, often well into the night. We rarely spoke, but we did not need to in order to communicate. After the shock of our meeting with the White Queen, we used those walks to draw gradually back together again. We might start out walking side by side, but by the end of the walk, after hours spent on the paths and under the trees, our steps would slow and we would link arms, and walk so close that our bodies bumped and touched in myriad different places. Spring had arrived, and the increasing warmth of the sun and the bright green of new, vibrant growth pushing through the mouldy leaf litter increased our spirits until one day, without thinking, we laughed at a tiny fawn that had stumbled into our path and stood staring at us until his mother nudged him back into the undergrowth.

These walks helped as nothing else. Just being close to Jack, trusting in him, feeling his strength and determination, made me feel as if there might be a way, and I wouldn’t need to spend eternity trapped with Catling…
No!
I couldn’t even think of that. I couldn’t.

I mustn’t. I would go mad if I allowed that thought to intrude.

One night, after a long walk, when we’d felt closer than previously, we made love for the first time since we’d rented that little room in Southwark. Very gently, very slowly. Afterwards, dozing in Jack’s arms, I imagined myself lying in a glade in the forest on a warm summer’s day, looking up through the forest canopy to the sky so
far above, and every time Jack moved slightly in sleep, so the forest moved very slightly about me. When I drifted into a deeper sleep my dreams took over where my imaginings had left off, and I spent that night in the warm embrace of the forest, feeling more loved than I had ever thought possible.

In the morning, Jack rose, kissed me, and said that he needed to go out this evening.

“Where?” I asked.

“To see Ariadne,” he replied.

I sat up in the bed. “Jack? Of what did you dream last night?”

He stood the longest time, not answering, looking with unfocussed eyes at the pattern of the bedspread.

Eventually he raised his eyes to me. “I dreamed of hope,” he said.

T
he Robin Hood Inn stood at the entrance to Epping Forest, to one side of a roundabout on the A11. Ariadne met Jack there, just after dusk. She had driven herself, and was drawing off her driving gloves when she walked in the door of the inn, pausing just inside to look about for Jack.

The five or six other patrons of the inn all turned to stare at her. Jack, sitting at a table in the shadows of a shuttered window, wasn’t surprised. Ariadne cut an exotic figure in what was a fairly rundown establishment.

He didn’t think the Robin Hood would see many like her.

Ariadne caught sight of Jack almost immediately and walked over. He rose, and helped her slip out of her ermine coat (only Ariadne, he thought, could have worn ermine to a casual meeting in a pub).

“A drink?” he said.

“Martini,” she replied. “Dry.”

Jack fetched her the cocktail, then sat down on the other side of the table with a pint of ale for himself.

“I’m assuming a disaster,” said Ariadne, taking a sip of the martini and leaving a smudge of her bright red lipstick on the glass. “I can’t think why else you’d want to see me so fast, and alone. And…here.”

She arched an eyebrow, and looked about.

“The Shadow Game’s purpose is to trap the Troy Game within its dark heart—” Jack began.

“Which is under the remains of old London Bridge,” Ariadne said. “I admire the concept, if only for its dramatic appeal. But we have not yet arrived at the disaster.”

“The new Game does nothing to release Grace from the hex with which Catling has bound her. If Grace and I dance the Shadow Game, raise it into life, then it will trap Grace, with Catling, in this dank chamber. For eternity. When Catling is dragged in, so also will Grace be dragged in.”

“But that means that…”

“It means, Ariadne, that Catling will be dragged in as the Flower Gate closes, but so will Grace, although the White Queen claims her Game can save the land and the Faerie. Apparently—” Jack had to pause to regain some control of his voice “—Grace can still complete her part of the dance
inside
the Game’s dark heart. The White Queen sat for years by Grace’s bed to make sure she could rely on Grace to do the right thing—continue the dance even though she was trapped.”

Ariadne looked at Jack, her scarlet lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. “Dear gods.”

Jack gave a slight shrug: he didn’t trust his voice at the moment.

“I bred cruel daughters with Noah,” he said after a few minutes. “Catling and the White Queen are true sisters, indeed.”

“Well,” Ariadne said quietly, and Jack thought it was the first time he’d ever heard her speak without a hint of affectation in her voice, “that
is
a disaster, and no wonder that you and Grace have cut each other off from everyone else. Noah is quite frantic. And no wonder you chose this ancient edifice in
which to meet. You didn’t want to travel too far from Grace, yet you didn’t want her overhearing our discussion.”

“You should turn to writing detective fiction, Ariadne. You are too, too good.”

She laughed softly, then took another sip of her martini.

Jack didn’t even raise a smile. “Ariadne…”

“I don’t know how to help you, Jack, and I don’t know how to help Grace. I would give anything to be able to help her. I have spent sleepless nights wondering how Catling’s hex could be removed. I had opportunity to study that hex when Grace lived with Silvius and me.” She paused. “Although possibly not the same kind of access I believe you might be enjoying now.”

“Ariadne!”

“Sorry. Jack, I don’t know how to help. If I’d had the magic solution I would have applied it long ago. You know that. Why ask me now?”

“Because you’re sly and devious and cunning, Ariadne, and I need all that to help Grace.”

“Ah, and I thought you weren’t the complimenting kind. Any chance of another?” Ariadne held up her empty glass. What Jack had told her had truly shaken Ariadne, and she needed time to think.

Jack rose, and fetched Ariadne her drink.

“Thank you,” she said as he set it down before her.

“Ariadne,” Jack said, “when the Flower Gate closes on a Game, it traps
everything
inside, yes?”

“Of course.”

“The Shadow Game is powerful, stunningly so. Catling will be trapped inside so tightly that she could extend none of her influence outside it.”

Ariadne paused with the glass halfway to her mouth. She set it down again without drinking.
And
Grace will be trapped in there with Catling,
she thought. “And…?”

“What if Grace
wasn’t
in there with Catling? The hex would be broken as the Flower Gate closed. Catling’s power would be confined to the dark heart of the Shadow Game. If Grace was still outside, then the hex would be broken.”

Ariadne thought there was a hint of desperation in Jack’s voice. “Maybe. But such speculation is pointless. Grace
will
be in the dark heart of the new Game with Catling.”

Jack didn’t say anything. One hand shifted his half-drunk glass of ale idly about in circles as he gazed at Ariadne.

“
Jack?
”

“Bear with me…I’m thinking this out as I speak. If Grace was on the outside when the Flower Gate closed, as the Shadow Game completed, the hex would be broken. So long as Catling remained trapped, then Grace would be free from the hex. Free.”

His voice was more confident now, but Ariadne didn’t understand why.

“Jack. Catling
will
drag Grace through into the dark heart with her. The Shadow Game will trap both of them. You need to break the hex
before
this Shadow Game begins to drag Catling through to its dark heart.”

Jack was silent, studying Ariadne, his hand continuing to turn his glass of ale about in idle circles.

“For gods’ sakes, Jack—”

“Just let me think aloud, Ariadne. If, as according to the White Queen, Grace can still dance the Shadow Game to completion while she is trapped in the dark heart with Catling, then she can also dance it to completion somewhere
other
than the dark heart. Somewhere safe from Catling.”

“Well, theoretically, yes. But how are you going to get her away from Catling? Catling is not going to let go that hex. She will do everything in her power to drag Grace inside the dark heart with her, because she thinks it will be the only way to save herself. She’ll be certain you won’t complete the Dance to trap her, if it means trapping Grace as well.”

“Yes, yes, yes…but what if I
could
get Grace somewhere safe where Catling couldn’t pull her into the dark heart with her? Answer me, Ariadne, please.”

“Damn it, Jack. In theory, yes, it would work.”

Jack had dropped his gaze now, and was staring at the table. As he’d been twisting his glass of ale, it had left concentric damp rings on the pitted, scarred wood.

“Jesus bloody Christ,” he muttered. Then he looked up at Ariadne with what she thought was an expression of mad hope, leaned forward, kissed her hard and briefly on her mouth, then strode out of the inn.

Jack drove through the night and the forest, forsaking the road, using his power as Ringwalker to guide the Austin smoothly over territory it was never meant to traverse. His eyes were flat and unblinking, his hands rested white-knuckled on the steering wheel, his mouth moved silently, as if he rehearsed a speech in his mind.

He immersed himself in a memory of the night he’d taken Grace dancing in the Savoy. Noah and Weyland had been there, and Ariadne and Silvius also, and the Savoy had witnessed the strangest of ancient spectacles, three Mistresses and three Kingmen, circling the floor of the ballroom to the soft music of the Orpheans.

Then, something had tugged at Jack’s mind, as if he should have learned something from this oddity. Then, he’d not grasped it.

Now he did.

Damn it,
this was so dangerous,
so
dangerous.

But it might just work.

It would be Grace’s only hope.