Lammas night

  "Hold!" the monk cried, darting in front of the victim to bar their way with his cross. 'This is the house of God! For the love of God, this is your archbishop! Forbear!"

  "We know the man," FitzUrse said, drawing steel.

  The blade hissed from its scabbard with a sound like a serpent stirred, cold and deadly in the nearly darkened cathedral. It was echoed in the slithering sound of Tracy and le Breton drawing theirs. Behind them, Morville's weapon was already in his hands. FitzUrse heard it clash against stone as Morville secured the transept door and moved to guard the nave approach, for there were archbishop's men in the back of the church who must not interrupt the rimal. The pulse beat in FitzUrse's temples quickened.

  The archbishop stood his ground as they moved yet closer. He knew why they had come. All of them were dancers in the sacred round, playing out their designated parts. FitzUrse would make the pretense of negotiation, as agreed, but the outcome had been decided long ago—sealed by a king's words and the crowning of a young king and the will of the victim himself. It was the sacred year, the sacred hour. The sacred substitute must die, lest the land be afflicted.

  "Do not try to escape, archbishop," FitzUrse called, knowing he would not. "Will you raise the anathema you pronounced on the King's men or no?"

  The victim shook his head, following the pattern.

  "I may not, for the sake of my office."

  "Do not provoke us, Thomas of London!" Tracy retorted. "You force us to drastic measures by your stubbornness."

  "Here am I, the priest of God. Do what you must. I will not be moved," the victim said.

  The tableau seemed to freeze for just an instant, then started again in slow motion. The victim turned insolently as if to walk away toward a downward passage. As FitzUrse lunged forward to seize the archbishop's pallium and pull him back, intending to create just enough of an uproar to justify the water force of swords, Tracy and le Breton joined in the scuffle and also laid hands on him, swords already poised to deal the fatal blows.

  The victim—no stranger to warrior ways—twisted in their grip to fend them off, his eyes hot with anger at their presumption. As his gaze met FitzUrse's in that first instant of protest, FitzUrse feared the man had lost his nerve.

  "No!" the victim shouted. "Reginald, you are my man!"

  The others faltered, well aware that their colleague had been vassal to this man—and that to lay hands on him thus was against all the laws of chivalry—but FitzUrse caught the double meaning and yanked the victim closer, raising his sword. The victim had not quailed but had singled him out to strike the first blow.

  "FitzUrse, you pander! I am your liege!" the victim cried, in unmistakable confirmation of FitzUrse's action. "Remember your duty!"

  At the same time, the flashing eyes were averted to permit— yea, to will —the sacrifice.

  "Take him!" FitzUrse shouted, jerking the man around with such force that his skullcap went flying, leaving the tonsure bare. "In the King's name, strike!"

  The victim's one free hand flew to his eyes to block the sight as the sword descended, lips moving in final prayer. The monk would have interposed himself between victim and blade—still unaware of the true nature of what was hapening—but le Breton caught him in a glancing blow that skittered down the shaft of the processional cross and wounded the man's shoulder even as FitzUrse's blade descended true.

  Blood burst from a hand-sized gash across the victim's tonsure and crown as FitzUrse's blow connected, with Tracy's stroke but a heartbeat behind, cleaving the skull. The victim gasped and staggered to his knees, already dying as le Breton also struck, blade shattering against the stones. Morville joined to strike the fourth and final blow. The victim toppled slowly northward, as was seemly, life already fled. So quickly, the deed was done Breathing hard, FitzUrse leaned on his sword and tried to catch his breath, almost sick at the exertion and the emotion. At their feet, the sacred blood pooled and seeped into the stones.

  struck from the crown that had borne the victim's anointing as archbishop seven years before. There was blood on FitzUrse's blade, and he wiped it shakily on an edge of the victim's sacredotal rcbe.

  The sacred victim was slain, his sacred blood spilled upon the ground. With his sacrifice, he sanctified the young king's life and ensured the prosperity of the land for at least another seven years. FitzUrse played out his part of that pageant and would live out his life in honor for having slain the sacred king's surrogate, though he would endure the form of royal displeasure for a little while.

  But as he bowed his head in homage to the God lately housed in the cooling body at his feet, his moment of meditation was shattered by a stranger scampering out of the shadows to ghou-hshly scrabble his sword point in the shattered brains. It was all FitzUrse could do to force down the gorge rising in his throat.

  "Stop it!" he hissed, flat blading the man away from the body. "Enough of this. We must all away."

  Then, in a ringing voice, he called toward the rear of the nave, where some of the archbiship's men and a few laymen from the town still cowered—ritual words to those with ears to hear and hearts to understand.

  "Mark well! He wished to be king, and more than king— let him then be king!"

  Then, to murmurs of consternation and affirmation, both, he led the others toward the transept door and into the outer darkness, not looking back....

  Color rippled and swiried behind Graham's eyelids—an interlude of rainbow maelstrom just distinct enough for him to realize he was no longer the Norman knight FitzUrse. Then he was plummeting backward again in time and into another life. He sensed an in-between time in passing that was not limbo but something far more reasoned and orderly—distinct and purposeful, if only he could have lingered to remember—but then he was in a familiar scene and body again, again with a sacred mission. He rode once more in the New Forest, ten seven-years before the death of Thomas Becket, and he knew well the Red King who rode at his side.

  The King was dressed for hunting, rich russets and browns of leather and homespun dark against his pale-grey steed, the heavy face florid as usual, topped by the shock of red-blond hair peculiar to the offspring of the Conqueror. It was Tyrrel— who was Graham—who wore blood red today. The fine crossbow given him by the King was strapped to the saddle by his knee, the sharp steel quarrels in a quiver at the other side. The shadows were lengthening, for the hunt had not even started out until midafternoon.

  "It is the morrow of Lammas, Wat," the King said, drawing rein to gaze across at him in compassion. "Now is the appointed day and the proper hour. Be merry, for thou art much blessed to be the instrument of the God."

  Tyrrel bowed his head and tried not to see the crossbow with its tight-stretched string.

  "You honor me, my liege. And yet I wish that it were some other man you had chosen for the deed."

  "And doubt that the deed was done in love?" The King swung down from his grey with a smile and came around to hold Tyrrel's bridle, stroking the neck of the bay distractedly. "Nay, friend, thou knowest the terms of the sacrifice. Tis not the slaying but the laying down of life for the land, the spilling of the sacred blood—yet, the dying is better if it be at the- hand of one who loves the victim." He laid a gloved hand on Tyrrel's boot. "Dost love me, Wat?"

  Tyrrel closed his eyes and nodded, blinking back tears of grief.

  "Lord, you know I do!"

  "Then come and perform this last act of love in my service, sweet friend," the King whispered. "Come. I am not afraid. It is my destiny. For this was I born."

  Not looking at the King, Tyrrel swung down and began unstrapping the crossbow from its place. The straps in the buckles were stiff beneath his fingers, and he could not reach the quarrels from where he stood. As he went numbly to the horse's other side, the King turned and began strolling slowly away from him, boots turning up dead leaves and moss on the forest floor, making a soft, rustling sound like a deer.

  Tyrrel fitted a bolt to the weapon. Each click of the ratchet, as he cocked
it, seemed to echo through the forest like a new doom. He raised it far enough to ensure that all was in order, then held the readied weapon close along his thigh as he moved away from the horses. No need to show the King his death before he must.

  The King's back was to him, perhaps a dozen steps away. Tyrrel could hardly miss at this range, and he an expert shot, but he moved yet nearer to pause beneath a sacred elder tree. If the deed must be done, it must be quick and sure. Sacrifice demanded that the sacred blood be spilled upon the ground, but it did not require that the victim suffer. As Tyrrel raised his weapon, the King stopped beside a giant oak and turned slightly, one gloved hand resting against the trunk.

  "Twill be a beautiful sunset, Wat," he said softly, not seeming to see the weapon as he turned full body toward Tyrrel and met his eyes, then raised his own to the sunlight slanting through the leaves as his face went set. "Shoot, in the God's name, or it will be the worse for thee!"

  Tyrrel felt his vision blurring as he shouldered the weapon and sighted, but he did not falter. Only as his finger tightened on the trigger did he see the King's eyes drop to his again for just an instant. In that fraction of hesitation, he fired and the bolt went just a little wide, glancing off the tree trunk before burying itself in the King's breast.

  "Sweet face of Lucca!" the King gasped, one hand catching himself against the tree as the other clutched involuntarily at the barbed death in his chest.

  The crossbow fell from Tyrrel's numbed fingers as he stared in horror. "William, my God!"

  "Not thy fault, Wat. Stay back!" the King murmured through clenched teeth as he sank to his knees. "Hard enough for thee. I distracted—Finish it... myself...."

  With that, he pitched forward on his face, driving the bolt out through his back and dying instantly.

  Tyrrel ran to him then and caught up the King in his arms, but it was over. Like Ishtar weeping for her son-lover Tammuz or Isis for Osiris or the Marys for the White Christ, he held the still-warm body close and let the tears stream down his cheeks—tears of grief and thanksgiving. As he laid the body back upon the earth and rose to leave, his destiny fulfilled, Graham was once more able to draw himself apart.

  "Gray ..."

  He could hear Alix's voice coming from far away, but a part of him still did not want to listen to her.

  "Gray, you're too deep. Come up a little, so you can talk to me," the far-off voice insisted. "Look at the lives and tell me what you see. Tyrrel... FitzUrse... Wallace... George... the monk named John...."

  He managed to fasten on the final name, and an image formed behind his eyelids of a man riding into a monastic courtyard with a handful of ragged men-at-arms. Somehow he knew that he was a brother of that community and that the new arrival was the King. Unlike the FitzUrse and Tyrrel memories, however, a part of him now knew he was but observer, even though he saw through other eyes.

  "He has not done well by the land," he murmured aloud, seeming to watch the King from some vantage point outside the refectory door, where the royal party entered to dine. "His barons are in revolt. Even as he joins us, he flees from them. They say he has lost the royal treasure in the Wash."

  "What is the year?" a woman's voice asked softly. "What is your name?"

  " 'Tis the seventeenth year in the reign of King John," Graham replied. "I am Brother John, a monk of Swineshead Abbey."

  "What are your orders, brother?" the voice asked. "Have you been told to kill the King?"

  He swallowed and saw himself in memory, preparing the cup.

  "It is known what must be done. The King himself has said that if he lives another six-month, there will be famine in the land."

  "Why is that?"

  "He is forty-nine and has found no substitute to die for him," Graham replied. "Even though his heir be not of age, the land cannot stand another seven-year without the blood."

  "Do you kill him, then?"

  He nodded, a curt, nervous gesture, for he sensed the chill of his own approaching death, but there was resignation in his voice as he replied.

  "I am infirmarian here at Swineshead. We have the knowledge to extract the poison of a toad, to distill it into the very metal of the cup," he said softly. "The King will drink, and it will soon be over. He is one of us. He will know his fate and accept it when it is upon him."

  "But if the King dies by poison, how can his blood be spilled upon the land?" the question came. "Is this not required?"

  He smiled—a patient, secret smile. 'Those who prepare the body know their duty, lady. When he is boweled, they will see that the blood goes where it ought. It is ever thus when a king dies that his parts be buried throughout the land and the blood spilled to lend their blessing."

  "Was this done?"

  "I know not, lady."

  "But he does die in that year," she said. "Does he drink the cup, or is it other death? Go forward in time and tell me what you see."

  Graham turned his head against the chair back, not wanting to go on, yet compelled by the voice.

  "He drinks, but I must drink before him," he said uncomfortably, grimacing as a ghost of remembered cramping in his gut started to double him over with very real pain.

  "Enough. Do not relive your own dying," she commanded. "Let go of this life and move on. Go forward in time and tell me what you see."

  He sighed and released it, grateful for the respite, and merely drifted for several heartbeats. Then, with a wrench, he was else-when again—sitting a horse behind his Scottish schiltrons on a slope east of Falkirk and waiting for an English charge.

  "Who are you?" the woman's voice came to him softly, intruding on his concentration as he examined the scene behind trembling eyelids. "What do you see?"

  He shook his head, seeing the faces of his Scots spearmen turned trustingly to him for words of cheer and knowing there were none to offer. They faced a far superior force.

  "I have brought you to the ring, lads. Dance if you can!" he cried aloud.

  Even as they cheered him, loyal to the last, he was plunged into the midst of battle: leading their charge against the heavily armored English knights, watching his men fall before Edward's Welsh bowmen.

  "What is your name?" the woman's voice persisted. "Stand back and observe. Tell me what you see."

  He moaned as the scene of carnage rippled away, then stiffened as later memories of the same life intervened.

  Betrayal and capture. English knights taking their prize back to London. And he was that prize.

  *'Who are youT the outside voice insisted.

  "Oh, God!" he sobbed, still far too deep to respond to anything but the terror of sudden comprehending. 'They mean to slay me for another land, another king! I would gladly die for my own lord—but for this English usurper?"

  He was gasping for breath, his head rolling from side to side, but the grasp on his wrist began to pull him out a little and calm him as the woman's voice soothed.

  "Detach yourself!" the voice demanded. "Do not feel it. Tell me only what you see and hear. Are you Wallace?"

  Shuddering, he gave a curt nod—felt her hand tighten on his wrist to keep him from slipping deep again.

  "Good. Tell me what you see, then. You were captured by the English at Glasgow after being betrayed by your own. Tell me of your trial. Remember it—do not relive it."

  He drew a deep breath and felt a part of him relax, watching as the scene took shape before him.

  "Westminster Hall. It is the sacrificial month. They say I have forsworn my oath of fealty to their English king and set myself as king in my own land. They crown me with laurel to mock me."

  "Yes, go on "

  "They—seat me in their great hall facing north, with the laurel on my head, and the travesty of trial proceeds. But they know, as well as I, what they really do. It is not the King they mean me to die for but the Lord Edward, who is twenty-one and needs a life."

  "Do you offer a defense?"

  He shrugged and gave a weary smile. "To what purpose? The English know my innocen
ce. I never gave my oath to any English king. But the English prince must have his sacrifice, and they have chosen me."

  "You know this to be true?"

  "Of course. It is plain for anyone with eyes to see. My life must end before the month is out."

  "You need not relive that."

  Despite her words, he sensed the further memory welling up to consciousness, though this time he felt nothing. He was totally detached from what the eyes of the doomed Wallace saw.

  They name it traitor's death," he murmured, "but the form of execution is time hallowed. They drag me on a hurdle to a place called Smithfield. The ground is sanctified by other sacred blood. A peacefulness surrounds me as they walk me to a copse of elms where a noose awaits—and other things."

  "Do not go on," the voice said sternly. "You need not live this death."

  But he paid her no mind. He was victim this time, not the instrument of sacrifice. His body would be slain and might cry out in its weakness, but the sacrifice was all a part of the pattern. He found himself fascinated by the different perspective.

  "The rope is rough around my neck, but there is no pain as they hoist me off the scaffold," he whispered. "Daricness en-crouching on my sight, and then a great jolt as they cut me down still living—a burning in my belly—" "Gray, don't!"

  He could feel her nails digging into his wrist, but he shook his head and almost smiled. There was no cause for fear.

  "I am apart from the pain," he assured her. "My dying eyes behold my blood streaming from the wounds they have given me. I watch it soak into the earth. I retreat to the Second Road as I have been taught to do. I look down at what they do to my body, beyond their pain, and it occurs to me that it does not even matter that I am dying for a foreign prince.

  "Only the land matters—the Isle of Britain—not just Scotland, England, or Wales. Thus have died the long line of sacred sacrifices through the eons, to fecundate the land and make it fruitful. The Lord Edward knows it. I think he even sees me as I drift above my body and gently loose the silver cord...."