Druid's Sword

  “Grace,” my mother said, “surely you’re coming around to thinking it is a weakness? After Jack’s and my success last night?”

  “Perhaps,” I said to my mother, mainly to stop her arguing with me, and she smiled, patently relieved.

  She turned to my father then. “Soon I’ll fetch Jack’s kingship bands from the Faerie.”

  “Well,” Weyland said, “Jack’s welcome to them. And the other two? The ones you sent into the Otherworld?”

  Noah shrugged. “Either the Lord of the Faerie can take him through, or Jack, like as not, will be powerful enough with four in his possession to get them himself.” She smiled. “In a little while, we can start to make a move.”

  She reached forward over the table, and took one of my hands in hers. She turned it over, and her thumb stroked very gently at the scars and welts on my wrist.

  “Before too long, Grace, perhaps you will be free.”

  I didn’t say anything, for the simple reason that I simply could not imagine freedom.

  Later that day Jack telephoned.

  “Grace,” he said, “can you meet me at five this afternoon?”

  “Why?”

  “I need your help. Can you meet me on the Surrey side of Westminster Bridge at five?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Good, see you then.” He rang off.

  I put the phone down and spent the rest of the afternoon wondering.

  At five to five I walked across from the northern side of Westminster Bridge. I tried to slow my steps, tried to while away those five minutes so that at least I’d arrive on time and not too early, but by the time I had a clear view of the end of the bridge I could see that Jack was already there.

  It was a cold, blustery day, skittering rain every five minutes, and he was well wrapped in a military greatcoat, its collar turned up, his cap pulled down over his brow, his hands thrust deep into the coat pockets. I guess I looked much the same, closely swathed in a calf-length camel coat, a scarf about my neck, but without a cap—the lack of which I’d been regretting ever since I left the Savoy as the wind snapped my curls back and forth over my face.

  “Grace,” he said. His face and the collar and shoulders of his coat glistened with raindrops, but he smiled easily, and leaned forward to brush his lips against my cheek as I walked up to him.

  “I’m glad to see you well,” I said, “after last night.”

  “I know you were worried, Grace, but—”

  “I saw Catling last night.”

  Jack went very still. “And?”

  “She seemed to know what you and my mother were doing, Jack, and she wasn’t worried. She said that you were doing very well, but that both of us had a way to go. She didn’t appear weak, Jack.”

  Jack stood silently, looking at me.

  As always, I responded to his silent scrutiny by talking too much. “I was so worried for you last night. On—” Damn it, why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut? “On the night the imps attacked me, I felt the shadow rushing towards me, as if it was going to snatch. It was so malevolent, so alive…and I thought that it might attack you and my mother.”

  “Oh, Grace. Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

  “You don’t want to hear anything save that the shadow is a weakness of the Troy Game, Jack.”

  “Ouch. I suppose I deserved that. But, Grace, I wish you’d told me…”

  He sighed then. “I’m sorry. I wish you could trust me more, and that’s not your fault, but mine.”

  I was starting to feel very uncomfortable, and wished I’d never opened my mouth. “Why did you want to see me tonight?”

  He gave a funny little smile. “I can see I am going to have to work hard to retrieve the situation. I want to talk to you about something, but not here, not on this bridge. Will you stroll with me a little way?”

  He gave me no chance to answer, but slid an arm through mine and guided me down the steps which led to the pedestrian subway under the bridge and onto Lambeth Embankment.

  We walked in silence for some time, my mind churning. I always felt guilty when someone said they wanted to “talk to me”, and at the same time hated that I did feel guilty. I wished I could be more confident, more like my mother, or Matilda, or even Ecub. Jack must find me so tiresome. I wished that I had told him earlier about my sense of the shadow rushing in towards me.

  We were walking along that part of the Embankment directly opposite the Houses of Parliament, when the wind suddenly gusted. I had to pull my arm away from his to get my hair out of my eyes, and he stopped, turned to me, and slid both his hands about my face, holding my hair back for me.

  I started to pull back, but his hands tightened.

  “Don’t move,” he said. “Please…”

  His face went very still, and his dark eyes became far keener than usual. I trembled, for I felt the marks over his shoulders start to move, sliding down his arms.

  I shivered as they flowed over his fingers onto my face.

  “There has been something troubling me about you ever since I first met you,” he said.

  I tensed, and knew he could feel it under his hands.

  “I’ve never been able to read you,” he said. “I’ve never been able to understand you.”

  I tried to pull away, and again his hands tightened.

  “Please don’t be afraid of me,” he whispered, and the touch of his hands became infinitely gentle.

  “It took me a while to realise that this didn’t have anything to do with you, but with me,” he continued. “I thought you were the shuttered one, but I had been.” His voice became teasing. “I hate it when I realise I’ve been an idiot.”

  He was being too kind, and I was sure it was because he was about to tell me that he and my mother had decided to abandon all caution and renew their love affair. “Jack—”

  “Do you remember,” he said, “what I said to you atop Ambersbury Banks?”

  “You said many things.”

  “The night you watched me being marked. I said you were either the most shuttered person I’d ever met, or the most transparent. I’d almost got it with the transparent, but not quite. Grace, you’re the most extraordinary person. You have no artifice about you. Absolutely none. I’ve never met anyone, no one, in all my time on this earth like you. You have nothing to hide. You don’t even try.”

  The marks were moving slowly about my face now, so soft, so caressing, and I think that I could not have moved had Hitler personally leaped up from behind the Embankment wall and thrown a hand grenade or two in our direction.

  “I didn’t trust that at first,” Jack continued. “I couldn’t believe it. Surely everyone has something to hide. Some artifice needed to promote their own agenda. But you don’t.” His thumbs were stroking very slowly against my cheeks. “You don’t. You’re…” he paused, seemingly trying to find the right words. “You’re as clear and as pure as the peal of a temple bell through a snowy night.”

  He stopped, giving a half-embarrassed laugh. “Now I’m getting as lyrical as my father.”

  I didn’t understand that last (and, in truth, I was having some difficulty with the rest of it, as well) and he laughed again, more confidently this time.

  “See?” he said. “Your confusion is written all over your face. Everything is written all over your face. You let it shine forth.”

  “I thought you were angry at me,” I said.

  “I’m not angry,” Jack said. “I know why you didn’t tell me about the shadow.”

  He smiled a little then, his fingers moving very gently against my face. I didn’t know what he wanted, or where this was going, and, oh gods, if what he was saying was true, then surely he could read this all over my face.

  His smile broadened, just very slightly, then I felt the touch of the marks withdraw, and a moment later that of Jack’s hands. He slid his arm back through mine, and we resumed walking along Lambeth Embankment towards Lambeth Palace, the ancient stronghold of the Archbishops of Canterbury.


  My thoughts were so confused I felt numbed. For the past months Jack had been friendly, but somehow distant. Now all that distance had gone. In fact, Jack seemed hell bent on closing it as fast as he could.

  “On the night of the parish dance,” he said, “I said that Noah was not my life. I meant it, Grace.”

  I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Surely he really meant that—

  “I’m tired of loving her, Grace. I can’t be bothered any more.”

  I blinked. I had heard the words, but wasn’t sure I had actually understood them.

  “That sounds pretty damned selfish and selfcentred, doesn’t it?” Jack went on. “During the night of the Great Marriage, Grace, I discovered that I’d been yearning for a dream…and it wasn’t your mother.” He paused again, while I concentrated very hard on my breathing. For some reason it didn’t seem to be coming and going as easily as it should.

  “Can I tell you a home truth?” he continued. “It was a relief to leave Noah the morning after the Great Marriage. That night was an ending for us, Grace. It wasn’t a beginning or a promise or anything else. It was an ending. A completion.”

  “I don’t think it was ‘an ending’ for my mother.”

  “Ah.” We walked in silence a while. I wished I knew where Jack was going with this conversation.

  “That sense of ending was underscored last night, Grace,” Jack said, neatly evading the implications of my statement. “Noah and I matched powers beautifully…but it was as nothing to what I felt with you.”

  “But…but…Jack. Stop. Please. I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.”

  “Because you need, and deserve, to know how I feel about Noah. You also need to know how I feel about you.”

  I stopped, staring at him.

  “I am both fascinated and terrified by you, Grace.” He gave a small, lopsided grin. “Much as, I suspect, you feel about me.”

  I couldn’t breathe. Not at all.

  “Recently my father gave me a bit of advice.”

  Finally, I managed to take a breath, but was somewhat dismayed to find I couldn’t look at Jack. I was instead sliding my eyes up and down the Thames as if I expected to see the first wave of German invaders at any moment.

  Gods only knew what he must have thought.

  “He said I should get to know you better,” Jack continued.

  “Why should he say that?” My voice squeaked at the end of the sentence. I couldn’t believe it.

  Jack reached out a hand and took one of mine, pulling it close to his chest.

  “Because we dance together so well. Because we’re the only ones who can work out this shadow. And because you are…so…damn…beautiful.”

  At that my breathing gave out completely.

  Jack gave a funny little smile, and squeezed my hand very slightly. “And because you have something I want, badly. And of all these things, Grace, even I don’t know which is the most important to me. I suspect it might be the third thing I mentioned, but I need to be sure. All right?”

  “All right.” I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to agree to, but I seemed to say what he wanted.

  “Good.” He gave my hand one more squeeze, then let it go. He slid his arm through mine, and again we resumed walking along Lambeth Embankment.

  Everything was taking on a slightly surreal quality. I was aware that it was misting rain, and that it was very cold. I was aware of the occasional barge that puttered up the river, and of the birds that lifted off the Embankment walls as we passed.

  But none of it seemed real.

  I wanted to believe that Jack had just said those words to me, but I couldn’t quite manage it.

  “Silvius made one other suggestion to me,” Jack said as we walked past Lambeth Palace.

  “Yes?”

  I saw him smile from the corner of my eye.

  “He suggested I hand you the sky, Grace.”

  After that strange statement there was nothing said for a while. At the end of Lambeth Palace we turned east away from the river towards the little church of St Mary-at-Lambeth that crowded against the palace’s southern wall.

  I thought we were to go inside the church, but Jack led me towards the gate in the dilapidated paling fence that encircled the churchyard.

  “Why—” I began.

  “Wait,” he said, leading me into the graveyard.

  The wind continued to blow icy and uncomfortable, but the rain had dissipated. Even so, the graveyard of St Mary’s was a singularly cheerless place. It was unkempt: roses and weeds competed for space between dirty, leaning headstones, while broken shards of headstones past had been used to make an uneven path which wound through the graves and around the church.

  “Jack?” I murmured.

  He didn’t answer, merely leading me further along the path until we had come to the back of the church. Here there were several large tombs, and we wandered past them.

  I pulled Jack to a halt at one.

  “Captain William Bligh,” I said. “This seems such a sedate home for him.”

  “Far from the wind-tossed mutinous seas,” Jack murmured, and led me to the next tomb.

  This one made me shiver, for it was decorated in part with verdant trees and acorns, and in part with a multi-snake-headed monster writhing triumphantly over a skull.

  “It is the tomb of the two John Tradescants,” Jack said.

  “And they were…?”

  “Famed gardeners of the late-sixteenth and earlyseventeenth centuries,” Jack said. “Many of the plants now so beloved of English cottage gardeners were originally imported by the Tradescants.”

  “Why are you showing me this, Jack?”

  He didn’t immediately respond, reaching out with one hand to touch the carved flowers on the Tradescant men’s tomb. “Look at this,” he said, his fingers now running over the snake-headed monster. “Amid the flowers, the monster.”

  I was feeling more unsettled than ever. “Jack?”

  “It reminds me of the Flower Gate,” he said, glancing at me. “You know what that is?”

  “Of course. Catling needs you and Noah to dance the Flower Gate enchantment which will finally complete the Troy Game.”

  He grimaced, lifting his hand away from the tomb. “Amid the flowers, the monster,” he repeated.

  It was now starting to grow dark, and colder with every passing moment. What in the gods was Jack up to?

  He looked at me directly. “Could you dance the Flower Gate into existence, if I asked, Grace?”

  The world stopped about me. I don’t think I even breathed for a very long minute. “I can’t do that.”

  “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  “Can’t and won’t, Jack. I’m just not good enough. And, for gods’ sakes, you have my mother. She’s the powerful one! I can’t do it! I can’t. I’m bound to Catling, and I can’t—”

  He pressed his hand against my mouth, stopping the flow of my fear.

  “If I handed you the sky, Grace, would you dare to fly?”

  What was he suggesting?

  “Grace, if I asked you to deepen your training and experience of the labyrinth, would you do it for me?”

  He finally removed his hand, and I could speak. “Why? I mean, why would you want me to do that? I can’t—”

  He made an exasperated sound. “Grace, you could dance both Ariadne and Stella into the dust, if you so desired, and I suspect your mother also. I want you to fly, just for the sheer beauty of it, and because I think you’re going to be so damned, cursed useful that…”

  He stopped, looking away, a muscle moving slightly in his jaw.

  Then he turned back to me, took my hands in his, and slid his hands up my arms, rucking up my coat sleeves.

  “Grace, there is something I suspect you are not truly aware of.” His fingers were running up and down each of my forearms, and now they halted just above my elbows. “Don’t you know what you have? Don’t you know what you hide?”

  I frowned at
him. The wind was frigid now, and the churchyard dark, and all I wanted was to get back to the Savoy and think over everything he had said, search out every hidden meaning, discover what he might have—

  “Grace, within the flesh of your upper arms and your forearms, you carry four of the golden kingship bands of Troy. Did you not know that?”

  I shook my head slowly, not believing, not even understanding, what he had just said. “Those bands are in the Faerie.”

  “No. Those bands are in you.”

  “No.”

  “Yes,” said another voice.

  I gave a low cry, and spun around—or as far as Jack’s grip would allow me.

  Ariadne stepped into view. She was closely bundled in a fur coat, with a silk scarf over her carefully coiffured hair. “You wore the bands as ribbons into the Faerie,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, “but then…”

  But then what? I couldn’t remember. I was a very aware baby, and I remember when my parents met with the Lord of the Faerie on London Bridge, and my mother handed over to the Lord of the Faerie the four kingship bands of Troy that she possessed. The Lord of the Faerie, I think, had turned them into ribbons about my limbs, and had taken me into the Faerie…but then everything had collapsed: Catling had caught my parents during the Great Fire and pulled them into the dark heart of the labyrinth, tortured them, tortured me when I went to save them…

  What had become of the bands?

  “They never left you, Grace,” Jack said gently. “Don’t you feel them?”

  For the moment the idea that I held four of the golden kingship bands of Troy within my flesh was too much to even begin to comprehend, so I concentrated instead on Jack’s request for me to deepen my training in the arts of the labyrinth. “So that’s why you want me to learn greater skills with the labyrinth,” I said. “You need the bands back.”

  I want a great deal more from you than those four bands, Grace.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Ariadne said. “Stop doubting yourself. The bands didn’t just forget to leave; they picked you to hand them back to Jack. They’ve been matchmaking. None of this is a mistake, or an error, or something we’ll all regret horribly in the morning. Just say you’ll come train with me, Grace, and let me get out of this godforsaken graveyard before I freeze to death.”