Lucifer's Crown (13 page)

"In a way. You see...” Thomas's ear caught the step behind them. He turned. Maggie stared.

Robin stood just outside the cloister walls, his hands on his hips, his head cocked to the side, the sunlight gleaming on his red hair but not touching the cold depths of his eyes. As usual, he was fashionably dressed, thick shoes, denim trousers and jacket, a heather-green pullover.

So then, as he had gambled, Robin could not resist the chance to crow. Thomas pretended indifference, even as his heart pounded loud as a snare drum beating a call to arms. “Maggie, may I introduce Robin Fitzroy?"

Robin looked her up and down. He smiled, his eyeteeth glinting between his pink lips. “Ah yes. You were lecturing your students in Glastonbury Abbey Sunday afternoon. I was tempted to join the group, you were expressing yourself so beautifully."

Maggie's chin went up. “You did join the group, didn't you? But not because of me. You were harassing Rose."

"Now, now, did she say ‘harass?’ I think not. I was merely offering her my help and protection against Thomas here, a well-known liar and seducer. It's not too late for you, is it? What lies has he been telling you?"

Maggie looked sharply from Robin to Thomas and back.

"If
you
were an honest man,” Thomas told him, “you would speak with Inspector Gupta about Vivian Morgan's death."

"I'd be happy to talk to him,” Robin returned, voice like silk. “I have no reason to protect Calum Dewar."

"I very much suspect Calum is an innocent man. So innocent he almost fell into your trap. But he's thwarted you, hasn't he? You may have the Book, but you don't have the Stone."

"The Book?” Maggie repeated. “The Stone?"

Robin's smile faltered. His eyes flicked toward Maggie. Thomas dared to interpret his expression as doubt. And yet the silky voice went smoothly on, “My people have the Book, yes. We'll soon have the Stone. And we'll have your artifact as well, for I have long held you as my vassal."

"You have never been my lord, only my jailor. But I cannot defend the honor of God when my own honor is in doubt. Therefore I shall confess publicly—to a woman, Robin. To a woman."

"That's what you're playing at, is it?” Robin demanded. “She'll not believe you if you do tell her, you fool."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not."

"In all these years you've never had the bollocks to tell anyone the truth. Balls, to our American friend here. Or has she already discovered their absence for herself?” Robin's voice frayed.

Maggie's face was a study in bewilderment, but for once she held her tongue. It took an exceptional person to realize when she was out of her depth, and silently Thomas saluted her.

"To believe you is to despise you!” Robin hissed.

"Maybe so. Still, I hereby reject you and all your deceits.” Stiffly Thomas unfurled his full height. He raised his hand, fore and middle fingers pointed upward. “
Pax domini sit semper vobiscum
,” he said, and traced up and down, left and right.

"How dare you wish me the peace of God!” Robin's face contorted, and suddenly he was no longer handsome. “If you want so badly to suffer, then do so, and the both of you be damned!"

Thomas had only a moment to brace himself. To throw a quick apology toward Maggie. To pray,
Blessed St. Winifred, let her witness
!

Robin gestured, two fingers down, in mockery of Thomas's blessing. The movement drew darkness from the bright sky, darkness split with lightning and the screams of tormented souls.

Unless it was his own scream, of pain far worse than any physical agony. Falling, Thomas landed hard inside the all-too-familiar memory, inside the all-too-familiar illusion that illustrated the memory, not on grass but on stone flags covered with rushes. Darkness encompassed him—no, there was light, guttering torchlight, and the face above him wasn't Robin's but Henry's. Henry, who had been the friend of his soul, until, in their pride, they betrayed each other...

The parchment lay before him. His gold seal touched the wax. The watching eyes gloated. He knew then that to compromise was to put aside pride. And yet pride was knit into every sinew of his body. Pride sustained him from Clarendon to Northampton across the Channel and so to exile in France. There eyes looked at him with respect, even love, love he did not deserve. For seven years he endured those eyes, and at last made his decision.

The towers of Canterbury cathedral were gray against gray December skies. His clerk's sober voice told him that for once he should unbend far enough to take advice. But it was too late, he'd pushed Henry too far. And now their quarrel would end at the sword's point, with him assuming a martyr's crown, with Henry at last on his knees in penitence.

It was night in the cathedral. The monk's voices quavered as they sang Vespers, and the words—
magnificat anima meum Dominum
—resonated eerily amongst the columns. He turned as the knights rushed clattering through the cloister door, and went down to meet them. Edward, go, David, go with him. But in their love the monks stayed beside him, even as swords glinted in quick red reflections of the altar lamp.

Outside the lamp's feeble gleam the shadows thronged thick and black, concealing everyone and everything—except for Maggie in her jumper and jeans, her fist pressed to her mouth, her eyes huge, amazed, horrified,
seeing
...

David stood blocking the crypt staircase, his arms raised like a priest welcoming his congregation. Thomas stood behind a pillar in the musty chill air of the crypt. It was David's voice that called upon St. Denis, one of Thomas's patrons. It was David's voice that was stilled suddenly by blows of metal first upon bone and then upon stone.

The mailed footsteps fled into silence. He stood in the darkness, cold sweat streaming down his back, as above him the monks crept forward. The Archbishop's face was shattered, they said, and the bony crown of his skull lay like a chalice on the bloody pavement. His face—David's face—was shrouded with blood, holy blood, the blood of the martyr.

Thomas's pride dissolved in that blood. The greatest courage, he realized, wasn't pride but humility. Darkness spiraled past his eyes, dark and flame, blood and sweat swirling in a vortex, not sucking him down but pushing him up, as the mouth of Hell spat him out.

Tears burned his cheeks and stone cut into his shoulders. The light was so bright he turned away—they'd found him, hiding in his shame ... No. Clear blue sky arched overhead. The wind sang cold and clean. This was Sarum. The ruined cathedral lay behind him, its stone patterned in the body of Christ, its cloister anointed with the ancient spiral path.

Always before he'd waked from the memory-illusion to find himself lying unmanned at Robin's feet, Robin's laughter acid in his ears. But not this time. This time Maggie's dumbfounded face peered down at him, her eyes small labyrinths. This time Maggie's voice stammered, “Are you—you all right?"

That
, Thomas told himself,
is the question
.

Every fiber of Thomas's body ached fiercely and his stomach churned. That was nothing new. What was new was the sudden hope that he was no longer alone in his agony. He set his hand on Maggie's cheek and lightly brushed her lips with his own. “
Pax domini sit semper tecum
."

"Yeah, sure, peace be with you too.” She sat back with a thump. “I've stopped wondering if you're crazy. Now I'm wondering if I'm crazy."

"You're quite sane, I assure you."

"Yeah. Right. So what was all that—that—I could see the stone and the grass and you right through it but you were in it, too.” Maggie took a shuddering breath. Her eyes darted up, down, to the side and back to his face, wild surmise beating against the borders of rationality. “Okay, I don't see any projectors or whatever, and if I did, I'd still want to know why you were playing tricks on me."

"What you saw was no trick. It was the memory of my guilt. In the words of St Bernard of Clairvaux: “This is the worm that dieth not, the memory of things past."

"Oh yes,” she said emphatically. “But—but—why did you goad Robin into—into doing that? So I could see? Was that your truth? If I know the truth does it set you free?"

"We'll find out soon enough, I expect.” Thomas sat up. He fumbled through the grass, found his eyeglasses, and put them on.

Maggie's features resumed their angularities, each sharp enough to pare away doubt. Her front teeth sank into her bottom lip. Her eyes remained fixed on his face. “You're not trying to tell me you're Thomas Becket, England's greatest saint."

"No, I'm Thomas Becket, England's greatest fraud. Thomas Maudit, Thomas the Cursed."

"Other than the small detail that all that was eight hundred years ago, the knights sure as heck killed somebody!"

"They murdered David, a monk of Glastonbury Abbey who'd come to me only the day before with a message from his abbot. My clerk mentioned how much he looked like me, tall, fair of face and dark of hair. And so did my spiritual son David play Galahad to my Lancelot."

"Succeeding where you failed, you mean?"

"I'd spent years making my decision, but at the last second turned tail and ran, betraying every principle I so loudly declared I believed. In that same second David made his decision and stepped into my place. My sin of omission murdered him as surely as if my hand wielded the sword."

"Weren't you wearing your archbishop's robes?"

"No. I was cold, and wore an ordinary black cloak and monk's cowl. In the darkness and confusion, our—exchange—went unnoticed."

"No one wondered what happened to David?"

"Many men ran away from the scene. His abbot may have inquired after him. I don't know. I do know that I compounded my sin by concealing the truth. For although I made a good confession and was absolved, and tried to put things right by showing forth David's example, I have never admitted publicly that I stole the name of martyr, his name, until now."

"You didn't mean for it all to happen like that...” Maggie stopped dead, apparently realizing she'd just expressed belief. But whilst her brow was furrowed, her shoulders weren't stiff and square but rounded, and her hands lay open in her lap.

Thomas felt as though he were bleeding into those cupped hands. “Soon after David's murder I walked barefooted to Jerusalem and joined the Knights of the Temple. But my guilt followed me. I took no major wounds, and the minor scrapes and burns to which flesh is heir healed cleanly. I grew no older, and in time realized that by God's judgment I was made immortal."

"That would be a curse, all right.” Maggie's wide brown eyes were the eyes of the Magdalene in his vision, bright with irony.

"In my first life I was a proud and often violent man, sharp-tongued, stiff-necked, narrow-minded. I not only wielded great power in both secular and spiritual worlds, I cast ambitious eyes upon heaven itself. It is not surprising that the pattern of my life has been left incomplete until I truly learn humility. And until I complete that supernal pattern which has been taking shape here, in Britain, since well before I was born."

"Which brings us back to the relics and Robin and all that.” She waved her hands as though forcing her way through a thicket. “I know one thing, when he left here he was royally pissed."

"Realizing that no protestation on my part could have convinced you of the truth nearly as effectively as his demonstration. You drove him away, I take it?"

"Me? Well, yeah, I guess so. He was standing there with that smug smile—smug people just infuriate me—Danny, my ex, he was like that, so superior...” Maggie shrugged, a gesture meant to be casual and yet was anything but. “I told Robin it was all a trick. I told him to leave you alone. Then he sneered something about ‘As for you!', which scared me bad enough I yelled, ‘For God's sake go away!’ He sort of reeled back, then stomped off. I looked down at you, and when I looked back up he was gone, like the earth swallowed him up. Which isn't a bad idea, come to think of it.” She smiled weakly. “Must be your influence, I don't usually go around calling on God."

"Well played,” said Thomas, and his lips, too, managed a pinched smile. With a faint purr of engines a solitary airplane passed overhead. The wind smelled of many things, smoke, animals, but no longer of incense.

Maggie raised her hand toward him but took it back without touching him. He was sorry—very rarely did anyone touch him. “Why me? I'm honored and everything, but two days ago we were total strangers."

"'Be not forgetful to entertain strangers,'” he told her, “'for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’”

She laughed bitterly. “I'm no angel. I don't even have any faith."

"Don't you? You're making a leap of faith in believing me."

"That's because I don't want to believe I'm nuts."

His smiled softened. “We've never met before, so the truth shan't betray a friendship built on my false pretenses."

"Okay,” she said warily.

"You're a scholar, a truth-seeker. You already know the pattern not only of my life, but of my work. You recognized the seals in the cottage, for example. You appreciate the significance of mythology and legend."

"I was joking about a historical test."

"You're a woman. The most profound of alchemical signs is the union of male and female...” She stiffened. “On a metaphysical level. Wisdom is personified as female. It's for good reason Robin abhors women."

She nodded. “Right."

"I was given a sign the day you arrived at Temple Manor. My carving of Mary Magdalene looked at me with your eyes. As, by the by, my painting of St. Bridget looked at me with Rose's."

"And my name turns out to be Magdalena—not to mention Sinclair—and hers Kildare. Okay, I can see why you'd say we were brought here for a purpose. But as far am I'm concerned, I came here because I wanted to."

"So you did. Every free choice of your life has brought you here, for the connection between choice and destiny is as subtle as an alchemical reaction. You can just as freely choose to go—perhaps you have served your purpose here today.” He leaned toward her. “I should, however, like you to be my friend. I should like to have you beside me in the End Times."