Lucifer's Crown (14 page)

"The End Times. Oh, brother.” She ran her fingers through her hair, as though brushing away cobwebs. Again her eyes cast around, found nothing but earth, wind, and sky, and returned to Thomas's face. “No, I don't want to go. Even though I don't know what to believe, Thomas, except that you're true."

True Thomas
? He looked across the sun-bronzed grass of the great mound, and thought of other mounds opening into the timeless earth, the deep heart's core.
Ercildoune
.

"I mean, you believe you're telling me the truth, and it's hurting you like hell."

"So now, with the truth in your grasp, do you despise me?"

She did touch him then, setting her fingertips against the arch of his cheekbone. “I'm not in the absolution business. I can't make it all right for you."

"No, that struggle I still face. But you have strengthened me to make it."

Her hand fell away and clasped its mate in her lap. After a long moment they loosened, releasing, perhaps, some measure of doubt. “You've got some nerve. At least Calum didn't realize what he was dragging Mick into. You knew exactly what you were doing with me."

"Yes, I did. I apologize most profoundly for my presumption."

She snorted. “I was asking for it. Maybe it doesn't matter whether I believe your crazy tale—and that, that vision—just as long as I go along with it. Maybe I'll get around to believing it. I've always been a sucker for a good story."

Her empathy was cool rain on a parched land. The pain and the weariness drained from his limbs. His voice trembled. “Thank you."

"You're welcome,” she returned. “But you realize I've barely started asking questions. I mean, who the hell is Robin? Was it really you who saved Anna when she was a child? What's all this about relics?"

"I should imagine Anna has re-appeared in my life to recall me to my task...” He had to keep himself from babbling like a river undammed. “Your answers will come, and in quantity, although they will no doubt spark further questions. However, since Robin's favorite tactic is to divide and conquer, I suggest that just now we return to Salisbury for a bit of connecting."

"Only connect. Sounds good to me.” Maggie stood up and brushed herself off, brisk and resolute.

The wind was cold, but for the first time in years Thomas wasn't. He cast one last glance back at the labyrinth—at last, his path lay before him, difficult though it was. Perhaps, in time, he could share the blessing of his faith with Maggie. But whilst she was accepting of his guilt, bless her, she was at yet wary of his affection.

With a long exhalation of relief and gratitude, Thomas struggled to his feet, and together with his new friend walked down the path away from the wasteland.

Mick closed the door of the police station behind him and blinked, blinded by the light.

Calum had been in Salisbury on the Saturday, the officer in charge said. He'd had a tour of the ancient sites with Vivian Morgan. The coach driver knew sod-all, as did the receptionist at Calum's hotel. No, Vivian hadn't stayed there as well. Mick wasn't sure what he thought of that—he would have liked his dad to have a girlfriend, though not one who turned up dead in peculiar circumstances.

No one in Salisbury had seen Calum since the Sunday. He'd even left his things at the hotel. Mick had looked through the familiar old suitcase, its contents smelling so strongly of his dad tears came to his eyes, and found sweet eff-all. At last he'd asked for it to be sent on to Edinburgh.

Back to the cathedral, then. Back to waiting about. Mick trudged down the steps, his shoes as heavy as his heart. Outside a small grocery a rack of newspapers displayed a mixtie-maxtie of headlines: a missionary imprisoned in China, a massacre in Rwanda, ethnic cleansing campaigns in the Balkans, orthodox Jews attacking secular Jews in Jerusalem. The photos of his father were inside, Mick suspected, one missing man insignificant amidst such madness.

The pavement was crowded. It had gone noon. Rose might fancy a lunch. Mick felt better when he was with Rose, lighter, almost hopeful ... “Michael Dewar?” asked a male voice.

Mick stopped dead and looked round. “Aye?"

The man's dark suit, regimental striped tie, and overcoat testified to his line of work before he held up a warrant card. It read not “Wiltshire Constabulary” but “Scotland Yard,” and identified its bearer as Robert Prince, Detective Superintendent.

Mick came to attention. “Oh, aye!"

"Let's stop here, shall we?” Prince waved Mick into a tea shop and settled him at a table in an alcove decorated with one of the William Morris prints his mum had liked, an image of the Lady of Shalott. “Tea and scones,” Prince told the waitress. Then he leaned confidingly across the table. “There are things we can't tell the local plods. Things that are a bit too sophisticated for them."

"Aye?"

"Your father, Calum Dewar. He's working for us at present."

Mick's nervous system went like a fireworks display. “He's okay?"

"Yes, quite. If you'd stayed in Edinburgh we'd have contacted you by now, to let you know. It took a bit of doing to track you here."

"But he sounded so ill and scairt when he rang me, and he'd been seen in Glastonbury...”
I canna do anything right
, Mick told himself.

The waitress clattered tea things and a dish of weary-looking scones onto the table. Prince reached into his jacket and pulled out a bit of paper and a snap, a school photo of Mick himself.

Mick had never liked that snap. At fifteen he'd looked a proper gowk, bad haircut, eyeglasses, no chin. But now he seized it. “My dad kept this in his pocketbook."

"He asked me to give it to you as a reference. And this letter."

The blue-lined paper had a serrated edge, as though torn from a spiral-bound notebook. A small flower was drawn in pencil at the bottom. Calum's handwriting filled the top half: “Mick, Sorry to put the wind up you, but I had a bit of a turn. Do you mind Housesteads, the Roman site, we visited there a wee while? Come quickly, I need your help. DON'T TELL ANYONE! Have a care for a man named Thomas London—he's a nasty piece of work. There's a good lad. Dad."

His hands trembling, Mick folded the snap inside the paper and tucked both into his pocket. His fingertips brushed against the
sgian dubh
. It tingled against his skin, sending pins and needles up his arm.
Steady on
. He took the hot cup in both hands and gulped, burning his tongue. “So what's all this in aid of?” he lisped.

"The international trade in illegal antiquities."

"You dinna mean Dad and his relic...” A flash of Prince's green eyes made Mick lower his voice. “Dad's helping Scotland Yard to guard an antiquity?"

"Very good!” said Prince with a smile. “Got it in one!"

"Dad was havering about protecting a relic. From
Am Fear Dubh
, he said, the Black Man, the Devil, but that's not sensible, is it? Unless that's the name of a gang of thieves, like the Mafia's Black Hand."

"London's organization is like the Mafia. They're responsible for museum robberies, antiquities smuggling, raids on excavations, the lot. Calum will tell you everything you need to know at Housesteads. When can you leave?"

"This evening, I reckon.”
Rose. Thomas London. A nasty piece of work
. “London seems a decent enough chap. He's with a group of Americans..."

"I should think they will be safe so long as they don't interfere with his activities.” Prince smeared strawberry jam on his scone, jam as red as his hair and tidily trimmed beard.

"Safe?” repeated Mick. “They might be in danger?"

"The woman found dead at Glastonbury Abbey was a journalist. Perhaps she grew a bit too inquisitive about London and his gang.” Prince's white teeth closed expressively on the bit of scone.

The back of Mick's neck squirmed. “Gupta told me I could trust London. He must be bent himself."

"Gupta, eh? There's your black man, I expect."

"But Dad never made racial..."

"No fear,” Prince went on, “we'll pull the students out if need be. Unless they've been corrupted. The teacher, Maggie Sinclair—well, as they say, crime makes strange bedfellows. And she and London are certainly bedfellows."

Mick hadn't had that notion of them at all. But they'd been planning to go away together this morning, hadn't they?

"Just now, though,” Prince went on, “we can't let London know we're onto him, or we'll lose him and the artifact as well. If we picked it up ourselves, however, your father would be out of danger. Do you know where it is?"

"No, my dad said something about Fortingall, by Loch Tay, and Schiehallion, the mountain further up the glen, save he said it had three peaks, and you could reach it by the A68 ... No, I dinna ken where it is. I dinna ken
what
it is, to tell you the truth."

Again the green eyes flared. “London asked you to repeat what Calum told you, did he?"

"Oh aye, that he did. He seemed to know more about...” Mick stopped dead, only now realizing how easily London had drawn him out. “Oh no."

"We all run afoul of smooth-tongued rogues,” Prince said consolingly. “Calum was clever enough to be cautious with you, and now that you know about London, you'll be cautious, too. Your father's life may depend upon it."

"Oh aye, now I know,” Mick said, even though he felt he knew less now than ten minutes ago.

"I must be off. No rest for the righteous, eh? I'll meet you in Northumbria, and then you and Calum and I will fetch the artifact.” Prince laid several coins on table, slipped on his overcoat, edged gracefully through the now crowded shop, and disappeared out the door before Mick could so much as thank him, let alone ask more questions.

He should be making somersaults of joy. Instead he was sitting there all cold and shilpit, the ashes of the fireworks drifting greasy gray across his mind. He swallowed the last of the tea. Odd, how fast it had chilled.

My telling you will have them after you, too
, Calum had said. So why was he bidding Mick into danger after all? The relic? Mick knew about relics. The Honors of Scotland in Edinburgh Castle had been hidden and recovered again and again. He'd seen the crown, the sword, and the scepter when he and Calum viewed the Stone of Scone, newly returned from London, where for seven hundred years it had sat in the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey.

Well, not quite. In the early fifties a group of Scots Nationalists had pinched it and left it at the altar of Arbroath Abbey in Scotland. The Abbey dedicated to Thomas Becket by King William the Lion. The Abbey where King Robert the Bruce and his followers signed the Declaration of Scottish Independence.
It was at Arbroath Abbey
, Calum had said.
Sinclair came to my father and me and we helped him shift it
.

That afternoon at the Castle he'd stood by the display case and laughed beneath his breath. The Sassenach had stolen a common building block, he'd said. Robert the Bruce hid the true Stone. Mick could still see his father's face reflected in the glass, floating ghost-like above the ordinary red sandstone lump. “Bugger,” Mick whispered. London wanted the Stone, the real Stone, the ancient inauguration Stone, the hereditary symbol of Scottish unity.

Several inches of hereditary steel lay heavy along Mick's ribs. London knew about the
sgian dubh
. Did he want it as well? Why tell Mick to keep it with him, then, when he could've nicked it from his room?

He'd believed London, even when he'd said nothing was a coincidence. Calum had said that, too. A few days ago Mick would've thought that daft. But now the familiar patterns dissolved, and daft might well be sensible.

The waitress cleared away the dishes. Mick pulled himself to his feet and toddled unsteadily out the door.
It's our duty
, Calum had said. Was this mysterious duty more important than the both of them? Was it more important than Rose? She wasn't part of the puzzle, Prince had owned as much. He'd also told Mick to trust no one.

Despite the hurrying pedestrians, Mick had never felt so alone. He lifted his eyes toward the spire of the cathedral. Thin streamers of cloud flowed past it, so that it seemed to be leaning into the wind. Gritting his teeth, Mick walked toward it.

Gingerly Rose turned a page in the book that lay before her. It was an actual original source, a 1529 copy of Thomas Malory's
Morte d'Arthur
. “It befell in the days of y noble Utherpendragon whn he was kynge of Englande and so regned there was a myghty and a noble duke in Cornwayle..."

Yeah right
, Rose thought. Like Arthur's mother Igraine hadn't known it was Uther crawling into her bed. All that about Merlin disguising him as her husband was just a convenient cover-up. What had Igraine felt when she found out she was a pregnant widow? Probably not much like Mary.

Through her lashes Rose glanced at Anna, who was writing busily, and Sean, who sat with his chin propped on his fist. His face had settled into soft curves that made him look young and vulnerable. No wonder he tried so hard to be macho.

Mick wasn't trying to be anything except himself, confused and hurting. Rose was pretty confused herself, not to mention tender around the emotional edges, but while she may have lost some innocence the last few days, she hadn't lost any family members.

She glanced at her watch. Almost noon. She picked up her bag, tiptoed across the creaking floor—it'd be hard to sneak up on anyone in England—and asked Mrs. Howard, “Where's the rest room, please?"

The librarian looked puzzled.

"The loo,” translated Rose.

"Oh! It's downstairs, just off the cloister."

"Thank you.” Rose sensed Sean's eyes follow her out the door.

She paused on her way back from the bathroom to admire the way the sun shone through the arcades of the cloister, drawing parabolas of light and shadow on the flagstone walk. Inside the nave of the cathedral she pondered the interlaced stone vaults. This beauty was long lasting, as long as it was cared for. She slotted a pound coin into the collection box.

The blue and silver miraculous medal on its chain was tucked in her billfold. Although her mother hadn't worn it for years, she'd insisted Rose take it with her. “For luck,” she'd said, but Rose knew better. She'd behaved herself so far, hadn't she, although more for lack of serious temptation than through any particular virtue.