Lucifer's Crown (48 page)

Thomas met Maggie's anxious glance with a thin smile. Beyond her Mick and Rose sat close together, their faces enrapt, cleansed of every doubt. They'd asked him for a nuptial blessing before the battle to come—that much he could do, joyously.

The voices died away, leaving subtle resonances amongst the wraiths of incense. Another priest walked forward and made the sign of the Cross. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore."

Amen
, thought Thomas.
Amen
.

Maggie, Mick, and Rose stayed with him until the congregation had dispersed. Then the young people, with sympathetic glances at his no doubt pale and fissured face, slipped away. “Come on,” Maggie said, with a tug at Thomas's hand.

They walked past the place of martyrdom and down into the crypt, the oldest part of the cathedral. Massive pillars lifted their carved capitals to the low ceiling just as they had the night Thomas had cowered beneath them, the hounds of hell howling for his soul. But now the subterranean chamber was lit by electric lights and high windows.

They walked from the treasury with its glass doors along the south ambulatory of the Lady Chapel, past the closed door of the Huguenots’ Chapel to where, amidst a semi-circle of pillars, David's shrine had first been set and Henry II knelt to do penance. Then, circling back along the north ambulatory past St Gabriel's chapel, they returned to Our Lady's altar in the center of the crypt.

And yet to Thomas the heart of the crypt, of the labyrinth, was beside and below the place of the martyrdom. Before the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene lay a grave, a cement slab topped by the bas-relief of a Celtic cross and encircled by an iron chain.

"When Henry VIII's commissioners came here,” Thomas told Maggie, his voice husky, “the monks supposedly gave up the bones from the shrine. In reality, I am told, they disinterred one of their brethren and consigned his bones to the flames of the fanatics. Here is where David's relics lie, anonymously and modestly, as he lived. As he died."

"And now you're here to give him his due,” Maggie murmured.

This building has known violence
, Thomas thought,
and yet it is a place of supernal peace
. The silence of the crypt was broken only by the occasional footstep or murmur, like his own conscience walking quietly through the isolation of his soul. Chill welled from stone floor and a shiver wracked his body from crown to toe. He knelt before Mary Magdalene's altar, but his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Kneeling beside him, Maggie echoed his words to her, setting an example for him to follow. “Your pride is preventing you from surrendering to the grace of God which you have been trying your hardest to reject, and yet which is there for you even so."

The red light of the sanctuary lamp blurred and ran. The tears that puddled the frames of his eyeglasses and wet his cheeks were warm as spring rain. What was the song the young people sang,
From the world, the flesh, and the Devil make me anew...

This, then, was God's plan for him, to live to return to this place and to beg for forgiveness, not with his now silent tongue but with his heart, so that he might at last put aside his pride and be reborn. The red light, the color of blood, of passion, of Mary Magdalene, the beloved of Christ, filled him to overflowing. His breath stopped. His heart stopped. Time stopped and the air itself crystallized. His chest cracked open and from it rose a bubble of joy that, bursting, carried away fear, regret, and the last rags of pride. Like a lark ascending, his soul soared up the columns and into the sky.

The beauty and joy of God's creation filled him, gardens and wildernesses, mountains and shore, beasts of field and forest, faces of humankind—he glimpsed circles of blessed souls unfolding in the rose of heaven—Joan, Alice, Esclarmonde—David, who had died so Thomas could live and come to this moment.

"You're glowing like a lamp.” Maggie's voice was filled with both awe and love.

Yes, the vessel that was Thomas London brimmed with the fullness of time and the peace of God, whose plan, with its ironies of fate and fortune, had worked itself out. Enfolding Maggie's hand in his own, he nodded toward the cross. “God has absolved me. And at last, at long bitter last, I consent."

This is it,
Maggie thought.
God help us
.

The night was cold and still, as though the world was holding its breath. Assuming the world had a breath to hold, and the awareness to hold it, an assumption Maggie was fully prepared to make, now. Now that they were eyeball to eyeball with Armageddon.

The floodlit towers of the cathedral were silhouetted against a sky like the polished marble of the Stone, broken only by stars as hard and bright as diamonds. The windows of the nave glowed in subtle traceries of color. Maggie walked on past, threading her way through the crowd that was headed toward the New Year's Eve concert. When she came to a gate in the wall east of the cathedral, she tapped her gloved knuckles on the wood. Creaking, the gate opened. In the dim light Mick's gray eyes looked like burnished steel. The willowy figure beside him was Rose. “Did Sean make it to the concert?” she asked.

"He's not about to commit himself to a concert until he's scoped out the party at the hotel,” Maggie answered, “but I think he can find his way to the biggest building in town."

"I hope he comes,” Rose said. “I mean, he's part of the Story."

Yes, he was part of the Story. Maggie looked past Rose into the walled garden. Flashlights gleamed. Several people were clustered around a bench. She recognized Ivan O'Connell, in his black cassock looking like a particularly debonair crow. “Ah, Maggie,” he called. “Good to see you again."

In the far corner a second gate opened and shut behind two men carrying a crate. Manuel Llewellyn and Stavros Paleologos, with, presumably, the Stone, concealed in a tidy wooden box fitted out with brass handles. A similar box sitting on the bench was somewhat smaller, and no doubt held the Book. Thomas materialized from the darkness, his pale face gleaming like fine bone china. “Are we going in with all these people?” Maggie asked him.

"Their presence nearby is what matters. Moral support, as Jivan said.” Thomas marshaled his troops, and within moments everyone was strolling onto the cathedral grounds. Thomas and Mick carried the Stone, Maggie and Rose the Book. They headed around to the north while everyone else took the route to the south, to the main door and the concert.

As they plunged into the dimly lit passageways Rose hesitated, forcing Maggie to stumble. “Sorry,” the girl said, “but the shadows and the ruined arches remind me of the morning I found Vivian's body."

"When my dad phoned me,” said Mick. “We've come a long way since then."

And yet, Maggie thought, they'd also returned to the beginning, several circuits closer to the center.

"Here we are.” Thomas stopped beside another massive door, and, balancing his load, opened it. They eased their burdens through. Maggie realized they were in the north transept of the crypt, beside Mary Magdalene's chapel and David's grave.

Setting the crates before Our Lady's altar, they took off their hats and gloves, but not their coats. Cold oozed from the stone floor and the deep British earth beneath. The murmur of voices from above rose and fell like the rhythm of the sea. Maggie felt as though she were standing on the shore of an island, between earth and water, air and fire. This, too, was
locus terribilis
.... No. Robin could tread here easily, for the relics were under threat. But as yet they were whole.
As yet
, she told herself,
there is hope
.

The occasional light bulb leaked only a few lumens. Mary Magdalene's red lamp glowed. From the two stairwells leading to the upper transepts spilled a warm but faint candle-glow. Only the votives burning in the Lady Chapel seemed bright, making a small but brilliant corona of white light against the surrounding shadow.

"Ivan took the precaution of reserving the front seats along the aisles, whence you can just see the steps, for our friends,” Thomas said.

"At least no one's selling T-shirts,” said Rose. “You know, ‘I survived the Apocalypse.’”

"We've not survived it yet,” Mick told her.

"Thanks,” said Maggie. Was that a furtive scramble in the shadows? Church mice, maybe. Or cathedral mice, correspondingly huge. No wonder they'd seen a cat.

Thomas glanced over his shoulder. “Maggie, let's have a recce, shall we?” Without waiting for her reply he walked across the south ambulatory and tried the door of the Huguenot Chapel. It opened.

"That has an outside door, doesn't it?” she asked, catching up with him.

"Yes.” He disappeared into the black nothingness of the room.

Maggie heard a second door open and shut. She called, “Why aren't you locking these doors?"

"Because,” said Thomas, reappearing with a sardonic smile, “it is the hour of vespers."

Oh. Yes
. He led the way eastward, peering into corners and behind screens, while Maggie kept as close as she could without tripping him up. The shadows that had been soft and evocative during the day were now opaque, filling aisle and alcove with sinister darkness. She kept expecting Robin or one of his bogeymen to leap out at them, but nothing moved except their own tenuous shades.

Beside the Jesus Chapel, Thomas stopped and looked down at her. She'd seen his face in daylight and darkness, in firelight and shadow. She'd seen him laughing and frowning. She'd seen him cold as marble and warm as wool. Now he was lit from within, like a candle burning down into its own wax and yet at the end throwing out the brightest, clearest light of all. He was fey—he was facing doom and destiny both. He wasn't hurried along by forces outside himself but was walking calmly and consciously forward.

He set his hand on her head. His voice plumbed the silence like a deep pool. “Your faith has made you whole, Magdalena.
Pax domini sic semper tecum.
Go with God, and with my love."

She felt tears starting in her eyes and blinked them away—that was the last thing he needed now, a weepy woman. His hand slipped down the side of her face and his mouth pressed hers, firm and warm. Then he was gone, and the dampness on her lips turned to ice. But the bargain was sealed. She was here, for God's sake. She was here for God's sake and Thomas's. Her nervous system felt like the fur on a startled cat's back looked, every fiber on the alert, scared, angry, elated.

Side by side they walked along the north ambulatory and around the corner into the Lady Chapel, where Mick and Rose were sitting in the front row of chairs. “...Hogmanay,” he was saying. “Used to be I'd call round the neighbors just past midnight, playing the first foot."

"What?” Rose asked.

"A man with dark hair first across your doorstep in the New Year brings good luck. Some old pagan custom, Thomas will be saying."

"I'm sure that it is,” Thomas replied. “Rose, Mick—you asked for my blessing."

"A nuptial blessing,” Rose explained to Maggie's elevated brows, “announcing our engagement.” She took Mick's hand and together they knelt in front of Our Lady's altar.

Thomas stepped up. “Maggie? You are their witness."

"Rose...” The words clogged her throat—
what will your parents say—don't rush into anything—if you just want to sleep together why
... She smiled.
The right thing for the right reason
. “Go for it."

Thomas lifted his hand above the two bowed heads, light and dark. “Look O Lord, we beseech Thee, upon these Thy servants, that they who are joined together by Thy authority may be preserved by Thy Help. And may the blessing of Almighty God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, descend upon you and remain with you always, amen."

"Amen,” Maggie whispered.

"Amen,” Rose and Mick said together. Sharing a look that was partly shy, partly triumphant, they got to their feet and traded necklaces, his mother's Celtic cross for her mother's miraculous medal.

A breath of fresh air rippled the flames of the votive candles, as though Our Lady herself sighed. Then Thomas said quietly, “We should be opening the boxes. It's gone eleven."

He swung back the hinged lids. With Mick, he lifted out the Stone and placed it on the gray carpet runner several feet from the altar. Maggie and Rose laid the Book on top, just contained by the Stone's four horns. The creamy suppleness of the vellum contrasted with the hard black stone. The colored patterns of the pages repeated the embroidered fruits and flowers of the altar cloth and the carving of the stone screen behind.

The Stone was the past
, Maggie thought. The Book was the future. All they needed was the Cup, the present, because you always lived in the present, after all ... Upstairs the audience fell silent. An organist began to play “Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring."

Rose sang along, “Come with us, thou blessed Jesus.” Her clear voice rose like a bubble of light. If she was only the second soprano in her choir, Maggie thought, who was first? Beverly Sills?

Mick looked at her like a pilgrim would look at a long-desired shrine. Thomas gazed into space. Much as she'd rather pace back and forth, Maggie sat down. The song ended and Rose's voice slipped away into breath and heartbeat. Then the organ began another melody and the voices of a full choir rose to heaven, “...when you look down on Magdalena, the flames of love you wake in her, make soft a heart once frozen.”
Yes
, thought Maggie, even as she heard another scrape in the shadows.

Thomas said, “I was born and baptized on a Tuesday. I left Northampton after defying Henry on a Tuesday. My exile from England began and ended on Tuesdays. David accepted martyrdom on a Tuesday and his remains were translated to the new shrine on a Tuesday. It was a Tuesday when we found the Stone and dealt Robin a defeat. And my birthday, the solstice, fell this year on a Tuesday. The day named for the Norse Tiw, god of swords. I expected this day to be a Tuesday as well. But then I discovered that today would be—is—a Friday. Named for the goddess Freya, an avatar of the Lady. For when swords have gone at last to rust, she waits with Our Lady, at the center ... What's that?"