Lucifer's Crown (31 page)

"It doesn't matter,” Thomas said, “that you and Jivan are not Christians. In his pride and greed, Robin is no Christian. He squeezes the Unseen through the empty setting in Lucifer's crown, and the narrow aperture distorts it beyond all recognition."

"Ah, the consolation of metaphor,” murmured Maggie.

"We must recover the Book,” Thomas said, “and find the Stone. The Dewars guarded it for centuries—a chipping from it is in the handle of the
sgian dubh
—but Calum didn't know its location. Nor does Mick."

"What of the—ah—Grail?” asked Jivan.

"Until I myself bring the Cup from its hiding place, it is safe."

Anna sat back in the chair. “God is involved with the world, just not in the way we expect. And I certainly didn't expect this."

"This is just the sort of thing that would happen in Glastonbury,” moaned Jivan. “Thomas, you've mucked up my murder investigation. I can't tell the chief constable our prime suspect has psychic powers, let alone that his motive is, well, Armageddon."

"I'm sorry, Jivan,” Thomas said. “But I doubt you'll ever bring Robin to justice for Vivian's murder. Or for Calum's, although someone else could well have struck the actual blow at Housesteads."

"Robin isn't beyond God's justice,” Anna said.

"He will be if I do not reveal the relics at the appointed time—or if he has them destroyed. Robin and his ilk want us to forget that we have a choice between good and evil."

"How can I help, then? By working with Ellen? I'd do that anyway."

"Everyone who accepts the grace of God rejects Robin and therefore weakens him,” Thomas told her. “So, Jivan, Anna, show forth your own faiths, and the variety of God's creation."

"That doesn't seem like much,” said Maggie.

Thomas could only say, “The best revenge is not to do as they do."

"Marcus Aurelius,” Maggie returned. “Yeah, we're the good guys. By definition, the good guys don't shoot first."

Glancing at his watch, Jivan stood up and rolled his shoulders wearily. “I'll see to getting you copies of the police reports on the theft of the Book. But just now I'd better be taking Alf's and Bess's statements."

Anna, too, got to her feet. Thomas expected her to ask,
and just how do you know all of this
? But she said, “Thank you for letting us know what's going on here, Thomas."

"Knowledge is strength,” he returned.

Jivan paused. “Thomas, I ... Well, I've no time for more metaphor just now. Cheers."

Thomas started to stand, but Maggie was ahead of him. She ushered Jivan and Anna out and waited until the cat trotted after them. Then she went round the room collecting the empty cups. Thomas levered himself to his feet by leaning on the table. He was quite fatigued. He must be getting old. “I'll clear away."

"No problem.” Maggie piled the dishes in the sink, ran water into the kettle, and placed it on the electric ring. Her movements were stiff, sinews and nerves wound to their tightest, each plane and angle of her face cut like a facet of a gemstone. When she started washing up, Thomas hobbled to her side and picked up the tea towel.

She smiled wryly up at him. “Gee, you're handsome when you're mad."

"Mad angry or mad insane?” he returned with a smile of his own.

"I don't think you're crazy, not any more. You may be a card-carrying heretic, but you're not crazy. You simply have very broad horizons."

"Thank you.” He turned a wet cup thoughtfully in his hand. “The Cathars of southern France were heretics. They believed that Our Lord had no human nature. They had the wrong end of the stick, but their beliefs could not possibly threaten God, only the power of the church."

Again memory carried him into reverie...

He saw not the ceramic cup but a thick glass drinking vessel. For the first time he felt that sound and heard that sensation which plucked every fiber of his being. “Thank you for this gift,” he said.

A good Cathar, Esclarmonde de Perelha saw only a common Roman cup. “You are welcome to it."

"Don't give yourself up to the Inquisitors. They are too frightened to be merciful."

"My kingdom is not of this world. Now take your relic and go, before your friends find you here with me."

So be it. Bowing, Thomas took his relic into the torch-gutted night, leaving her to her fate in the meadow below Montsegur, where even now, centuries later, the winds of the mistral stirred the bitter ashes of the burning...

"Hello?” Maggie was holding a saucer toward him. “Flashback to the Albigensian Crusade?"

"Yes. Sorry.” He took the dish.

"No, I'm sorry that you have such terrible memories. But I suppose that's why the broad horizons.” He handed her the towel and she dried her hands. “So I guess what
I
do now is my job. You'll still lecture, won't you?"

"Of course. I shall follow the example of St. Dunstan and work and study. And pray for inspiration. ‘In Thy will, our peace.’”

"Eliot?"

"Dante."

"So how do you know what His will—no, don't tell me. You base your decision on what's inclusive, compassionate, and will serve others."

"Very good,” he told her.

She clasped the necklace tightly, her eyes large, dark, and deep. He was certain she was going to throw herself into his arms, and he wondered how he'd respond. But with a rueful laugh she turned toward the door, saying, “You've got me between the Devil and the deep blue sea, you know that?"

The door shut. Thomas gazed at its blank face. Was Maggie his last temptation? Not her body, pleasing as it was, but her wounded heart that called to his own? While Robin could never force him from his path, Maggie could lead him from it.
Caught between the Devil and the deep blue sea
...

Mary's cloak was the deep blue of the sea as well as of the sky. St. Andrew's bones had been brought across the sea to Scotland. St. Andrew was the first apostle called by Our Lord. The Stone was the oldest relic. The deep blue color of the flag of Scotland was emblazoned with a white
crux decussata
, a St. Andrew's cross. An X, which marks the spot.

Bruce, who fled westward from Methven, called upon St Andrew, St. Fillan of Glendochart, and St. Cuthbert of Melrose. Melrose lay below the triple peaks of the Eildons. The triangular mountain Schiehallion rose above Glenlyon, which paralleled Glendochart. Fortingall guarded Glenlyon's eastern end. The eastern end of a church was where the altar stood. The Stone was originally an altar.

St. Bridget of Ireland was the Mary of the Gaels. The triad, the triplet, the trinity, was a metaphor bedded deep in the consciousness of men from Gaelic Ireland to Aryan India. Extending the edges of a triangle would make three St. Andrew's crosses, one at each corner: St. Fillan's shrine at Tyndrum in Glendochart, Bruce's battle at Methven, and Fortingall, where grew the oldest tree in Europe save for the tree of the Cross itself.

And in the center of this imaginary triangle? Inspired yet again by the quick tongue of Maggie Sinclair, Thomas reached for his Ordinance Survey map of central Scotland.

No day was a grand one for a funeral
, Mick thought, but he supposed Remembrance Day was good as any. It used to be Armistice Day, when the Great War ended, the eleventh day of the eleventh month. But there had been a greater war since the Great War. And now he was about the greatest of them all, it seemed, because no armistice was possible.

Beyond the window the lights of the city smeared and ran in the mizzle. Traffic lights, Christmas lights, the windows of homes and pubs. Somewhere in the dark beyond the lights rose Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags.

This afternoon the sky had been gray, the buildings gray, the ground gray except for the black gash of the grave. After the funeral he'd put it about that Calum was robbed and murdered on his way home from a business trip. True, as far as it went. Dad had given his life for the Story. Now he and Mum were both cold in the clay, and the Story went on without them.

Wiping his eyes, Mick turned away from the glittering darkness. Calum's secretary Amy pushed through the kitchen door. “There you are, Mick, the food's cleared away. I'll bide a wee while if you like."

"No, no, Amy, get on home.” He took her coat from the rack and helped her on with it. “Thank you for helping me put the flat to rights."

"Shocking, yobs breaking and entering during a man's funeral. Good job nothing was stolen save some loose coins."

Odd, Mick thought, that nothing was stolen save some loose coins, when every cupboard and drawer in the place had been turned over. But then, he knew what the yobs were after. He'd had the
sgian dubh
with him, humming gently in his sock as the hem of the kilt teased his cold knees.

"The solicitor is calling round to sort the will the morn.” Amy's eyes brimmed with tears. “I'm so sorry, Mick. Calum was right lonely after your mum died. I thought that Foundation lot would help. He was right chuffed when the red-haired chap called in. But then he went—nervy."

"I dinna think the Foundation was what he expected,” Mick told Amy, and saw her out. He'd see to repairing the broken lock tomorrow—just now, he dragged his mother's heavy kist against the door. Then he went into his parents’ silent, empty bedroom.

His opening Maddy's jewelry box set “The Bluebells of Scotland” to jingling. She had preferred books to ornaments, but her engagement ring had a wee diamond ... There it was. And below that lay a ceramic Celtic cross, glazed in a blue shading from royal to turquoise, like the sea about Iona.

Mick remembered the cool, fresh wind rattling the door to the Abbey gift shop, and the sunlight reflecting from the white-painted walls as Calum searched out a cross blue as Maddy's eyes. She'd worn it as her body wasted away and her eyes grew deep as the sea, her soul shining through the flesh. Mick thought she'd been buried wearing that cross, but here it was, a kiss in the palm of his hand. “Thank you, Mum,” he whispered, not quite sure which mother he was thanking.

Mick changed into everyday clothes, fastened the necklace about his neck, and dropped it down inside his jumper to lie next his skin. When he settled the
sgian dubh
in the waistband of his jeans it plucked his skin the way the Lady had plucked his heart, part caress, part demand.

Closing the drapes above Calum's desk, Mick sat down and booted up the computer. The hard drive held only business spread sheets and genealogical charts. He inserted the diskette marked “Personal,” the one he'd found with the insurance forms, into the drive.

Slowly he scrolled down through the entries he'd already read. Calum's grief at Maddy's death, and his loneliness after his son went off to university—none of that surprised Mick. His father's deep affection for him had done. “.... years to build up the business, years I could have spent with Maddy and Mick ... he's a clever lad."

Mick scrolled down past Calum's economic worries. “...Inland Revenue their pounds of flesh, I may have to make some of the shop assistants and warehouse men redundant. So many lazy sods won't work, it's not right to sack the ones who will do ... immigrants take the jobs that should go to our own ... government regulations, the taxes—businessmen aren't criminals, a strong economy is to everyone's good."

And the social ones. “They've women ministers now, they're changing the old rites ... parents are scared to discipline their weans. We took a firm hand with Mick and he's one to make any father proud.” A firm but fair hand, Mick thought. Even when he saw his dad only at bedtime, their discussion of the day's events and the night's story had seen him into his own Dreamtime safe and secure.

"...the first time since I joined up Fitzroy's visited here. He's a leader for troubled times ... I never realized just what was going on in Whitehall and the EU, it's frightening ... Fitzroy's taken a liking to me, says I can play an important role in the FFF. I'd like to make a difference."

"You did do,” said Mick.

"...a woman named Vivian Morgan. She's a New Age loony, joined up more out of curiosity than conviction, I reckon. We went to an Indian restaurant. It was like my face broke open, I'd forgotten how to laugh. She might like to be more than friends, but no, sex outside marriage is wrong, and I'll not re-marry."

Mick grimaced, thinking of a couple of casual encounters at university. Rose now, Rose was another matter.

"...Ellen Sparrow not like Vivian, all smiles and daft notions. Ellen's scared. I offered her a job but she's wanting to live in London ... gave her some books, hoping she'll make something of herself...

"...Fitzroy is keen on genealogy, said my pedigree is impeccable, I'm just his sort of folk, gey respectable ... going on at me about writing the Dewar family history. But beyond my grandfather it's not history, it's legend. Old Malise ran on for hours about fairies and magic stones and iron driving away evil spirits. When I told Vivian that last she took it dead serious. I gave her a knife from the shop and told her it was a valuable heirloom, taking the mickey out of her..."

The phone went. Mick snatched it up. “Hello."

"Michael Dewar?” asked a dry male voice. “D. C. I. Mountjoy here. We spoke on Monday."

Mick had taken himself to Edinburgh police headquarters and talked with several detectives. Mountjoy was the one who looked like he had a red hot poker up his arse. “Oh aye."

"D. S. Mackenzie tells me your flat was done over this afternoon."

That was fast. “Oh aye. They took a few pence is all."

"Do you have anything you'd like to add to your statement about your father's death?"

"I canna tell you any more today than I did do on Monday."

"Nothing more about Thomas London?"

"I just met the man last week."

"Your father was in Glastonbury. London was at Housesteads. They knew each other, stands to reason."

"I'm the connection, Inspector. My dad never met the man at all."

"Are you sure? If you searched your father's office..."

"Mackenzie already has done."

"But he didn't know what to look for, did he?” said Mountjoy. “I could call round with a warrant, if necessary."