Lammas night

  "We'll be with you, Gray," he heard Alix whisper. And as he turned to look at her, he saw the tears starting to well.

  Slowly, he reached up his right arm and drew her down to him, heedless of Selwyn's presence behind him as their lips met. Abruptly, he knew that Selwyn had always recognized the love he felt for Alix and that it was accepted as part of that perfect bond of love and trust that bound all of them.

  Thoroughly at peace now and prepared for whatever might come, Graham let himself sink into the sweet bliss of this one last kiss. He felt the power potentials surge back to their previous levels and beyond as the others settled into rapport once more and the old links fell into place, and he used the energy as a launching point to hurl him back to Dieter. He was hardly aware of hs body, slumping bonelessly back against Selwyn's, as he soared out onto the Second Road again, but he felt the sure support of all of them as he began to focus in on that other place.

  William sensed nothing of what was occurring at Oakwood or in Germany. Kneeling still in his Garter stall at Windsor, the prince had spent the past half hour in fervent if fitful prayer: calling on votive patterns learned as a child, using his candle as a focus as he had seen Gray do, trying to keep his mind on visualizing a weak and vacillating Hitler. His attention kept wandering. He quickly realized that there was more than he thought to the mental discipline Gray and those like him seemed to take for granted.

  He was disappointed in himself for not being able to concentrate any better than he had but realized the limits imposed by lack of experience over which he had no control. Needing a break from the unaccustomed tension, he sat back in his stall and allowed his mind to wander to more immediate and unsettling thoughts.

  Events of the afternoon were the most vivid. Even dismissing the assassination attempt, disturbing enough in its own context, there was still that mind-riveting recall of Becket, at Canterbury, and William's growing perception of what the great archbishop really had been about, in addition to all the pious motives generally ascribed to him by history. Somehow it was not enough only to say that Becket, in addition to his role as martyr for the authority of the Christian church, had also been a sacred victim for the land. Something else was involved that thus far eluded him.

  He understood what Michael had been trying to tell him about the essence of the king and the archbishop being linked. Nor was the periodic sacrifice of the sacred king or his substitute any longer a wholly alien concept, the way both Gray and Michael had explained it. Jesus Himself could be seen in that light, after all.

  But there had been more to it than that. He knew now that he, as Becket, had been the victim in that other life—slain in the place of the king for the good of the land. He had welcomed it, in the end, and had gone to his death with dignity and full awareness of the many-faceted role it had been his privilege to play. But somehow it also mattered that his slayer had been Gray.

  Gray. William was quite sure of that now, just as he was sure that Gray knew the Becket dream had been no dream at all but memory of past lives shared between them. Gray had been the leader of those knights in the cathedral—Reginald FitzUrse; the name came, unbidden—personally chosen by Becket to strike the first blow. That had been nearly as much a privilege and honor to FitzUrse as it had been to Becket to die in that manner. William wondered why Gray had tried to deny it. The bond between slain and slayer was an indispensable one, without which there could be no sacrifice. Even Christ could not have been delivered to His glory without His Judas. William understood now why he had always held a soft spot in his heart for the miserable disciple who had betrayed his Lord. There had been no betrayal. Judas, too, had been playing his part—an honored and essential, if unappreciated role. And Gray?

  William sighed. If he hoped to gain any further insight without Gray to turn to, the only thing he could think to do was to try another regression. The key, he was certain, lay back in that life as Becket. He was not certain he ought to attempt two such operations in the same day or whether he could even get back to Becket again, away from Canterbury and its associations, but the only way to find out was to try. Any qualms he might have had after his difficulty grounding earlier in the day had utterly vanished in light of the even more disturbing notion of himself as sacred victim and Gray as his slayer.

  Gingerly, he shifted position and got as comfortable as he could, though the straight-backed choir stalls were hardly designed for ease of body. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on his breathing for several minutes, searching for and finally finding that inner stillness he had learned to associate with trance. It was easier this time.

  Going backward was more difficult, especially after his earlier experience, but by remembering Gray's words of guidance and imagining his touch drawing him deeper and more closely centered, he felt his aimless drifting shift to purpose. Abruptly, he hit on the right procedure and found himself hurtling back through time again—though his control was less than sure.

  He flashed on Becket and the knight with Gray's eyes, but he could not hold either one. Even further back he went. In a surge of lightheadedness, he came to a halt in a chamber he knew he had never seen before in his current life—but again, the man seated across from him had Gray's eyes.

  The white-washed walls were hung with tapestries. Sunlight streamed through the open window and onto the benches where he and the man sat facing one another, the other wearing a scarlet tunic. He saw a hand he knew was his lift a jeweled goblet and hold it to the sun in salute, the gems catching the light. Then he drank deeply and held it out to his companion. The man flinched as William put the half-drained goblet in his hand.

  "Drink thou of the cup. I would not have it pass," William murmured, in memory studying the man who lowered his eyes over the goblet's rim. "Canst thou not recall the good times between us? Who better should I ask to do me this last service?"

  The man with Gray's eyes sighed, staring at their booted feet set toe to toe, then shook his head in resignation and drained the cup in four great gulps. When he had set it upsidedown on the bench beside him, he buried his face in his hands, his breathing harsh in the silence. William gave a sympathetic shrug and sighed, lacing his fingers between his knees.

  "Let be, Wat. I know 'tis not an easy burden to accept, but thou knowest the law. For this was I chosen long ago. The cycle must be observed. The succession shall pass in orderly fashion. I have made all the arrangements. Wouldst have some other hand less loving strike the sacred blow?"

  "No." The other man leaned his head against the wall and finally met William's gaze. "I recognize the honor you do me, Lord, and my hand shall not falter when the time comes. It is my mortal heart which aches, heavy in my breast, for I shall miss you. The slayer goes not with the slain."

  "Alas, no."

  Wistfully, William took a long, skin-wrapped bundle from the floor at their feet and laid it beside him on the seat cushion, untying the thongs with steady fingers. Inside were six new crossbow quarrels, the points keen-honed and deadly. Two of these he took out and fondled, testing the sharpness of the barbs against his thumb before holding them out to the man before him.

  'To the best shot must go the finest arrows," he said softly. "I hope that two will be more than sufficient, for I have no niore love of suffering than the next man. I rely on thee to do the task with dispatch. This role of God does not come easily, in its ending."

  The man with Gray's eyes took the quarrels and touched callused fingertips to each point, then sighed and saluted with the shafts as if they were a sword.

  "I shall not fail you, my liege. Only, let us speak no more of this until we must again."

  William smiled and nodded gently, then stood and laid an arm around the other man's shoulders as he, too, stood, and the two of them headed for the door.

  Everything was done. The horses were waiting. The last preparations had been made, and the stage was set. So long as neither's courage faltered at the end, all would be well. This life was cycling to its end, but the ending would ser
ve its purpose. The Norman line established by his father must be wedded to the land with Norman blood. Though not his father's eldest son, he had been born in this land to be its king. The people had known it from the beginning, and so had he. Even through the foolish, futile tries to perhaps avoid it, to set another in his place, he had known that it must come to this. He was ready In Graham's short absence, the very air around Dieter had changed. It was not easy even to find him again, for the closer he got on the Second Road, the more thickly was the atmosphere charged with malevolence, made foul with the psychic stench of power raised for unspeakable intentions.

  Approaching that ill-hallowed circle with dread resolve, Graham gathered the strands of the Oakwood potential into a shining knot and set it unreservedly into Dieter's use as he locked back into the link forged before, his own commitment adding yet another glowing skein to plait into the rest. With an answering surge of relief, Dieter bound his own enormous ability around the shining power Graham had brought. Confident now, Dieter returned his attention to his coming need as he wound and coiled the power, ready to be unleashed. Something else about Dieter had changed, but Graham could not quite pin it down. The instant of reckoning was approaching very, very fast.

  Again, Graham caught snatches of visual impression: the triple ring of Sturm's black adepts, grim mouths set in obscene anticipation, hungry-eyed behind their masks ... the Führer seated in their midst, stiff and almost rigid with the power being raised—a satanic overlord holding court, masked face lit eerily by torches and candlelight... Sturm himself bowing low before the satanic throne, SS blade held horizontal above his head in both hands in terrible salute....

  The cupbearer kneeling between Sturm and the Führer, raising the golden cup in offering... and the doomed victim forced to his knees before it, chest thrust rigidly forward from the pressure of a warder's knee in the small of his back, neck bent back taut and straining, mouth agape, the eyes dulled past caring, as Sturm laid one hand on the pulsing throat and raised the knife in his other—

  God, how long would Dieter delay?

  Only as the blade started to flash downward did Graham sense Dieter's full intent—not only the psychic assault for which he had begged their aid but destruction less subtle than magic emerging from beneath his robe in a desperate attempt to make the most of what the fates had dealt.

  Fire spat from the cold iron in Dieter's hand: once through the victim's heart in mercy, once at the man in the chair. The second shot incredibly pinged off the golden cup, hitting one of the torchbearers as he bowled over chair and occupant, flinging himself across his Fiihrer's body in death.

  Another shot went wild as men tackled Dieter from either side and manhandled him to the floor, but he twisted the gun into the belly of one of his assailants and fired a fourth time at point-blank range. As he squirmed out from under the body that collapsed across him, he backhanded another man brutally with the barrel and managed to wrench free as the others faltered before his defense. Rolling to his knees. Dieter fired again in the direction he had last seen Hitler.

  Black-robed bodies amassed over the spot where the Führer had disappeared, becoming human shields to save their leader's life. Though Dieter continued to pump round after round into their midst, heedless of their screams and the hands dragging him down again, he knew that it was futile. Another weapon spoke—this time from Sturm's hand—but Dieter's clip was empty, the Luger being twisted from broken fingers, useless against Sturm's gun. Now he shifted focus for the other assault, the last one, the one for which he had summoned Graham in the first place.

  Dieter hardly even felt the crippling bullets that slammed into both his legs, for he was out of his body with a snap, yanking Graham with him, his will a burning lens focusing all their power on Sturm.

  Now! came Dieter's sharp command, cutting through Graham's shock and hesitation. This chance we still have!

  The order helped Graham concentrate. Detached with Dieter now, he gathered the plaited strands of the power he bore and fed them all to Dieter—pulling the energy from willing sources, deep, deeper, ramming it through the nexus of Dieter's intent with a force that would not be turned aside. The bolt went straight toward Sturm on the Second Road: a clear, sun-bright beam of cleansing psychic fire, burning through all resistance and subterfuge.

  Sturm seemed not to feel it at first. Scarred face contorted with rage, he waved his men aside with a curt gesture of his weapon and took three swift steps toward the motionless Dieter, sighting along the barrel to take deliberate aim. His first shot shattered Dieter's right arm at the elbow, but Dieter was beyond pain now, eyes only glaring back defiance as the power continued to pour through him from Graham.

  Sturm faltered as his finger jerked a second time, the shot going wild. Then he clutched at his chest and staggered, collapsed, his eyes glazing over. The gun, which slipped from lifeless fingers, skittered to a stop at the feet of Adolf Hitler.

  Dieter might expect no second victory over such as this. The sudden flare of Sturm's dying was enough to catapult him back into his bleeding body, and Graham with him. Contorted and paralyzed, he groaned aloud at last, giving release to the pain so long denied.

  He was dimly aware of hands roughly turning him on his back, stripping off his mask—the ripple of reaction at his identity, the loathing—but all that was as nothing. Through a haze of distant pain. Dieter watched Hitler yank off his own mask and swoop to pick up Sturm's gun, eyes wild with impotent fury. Dieter felt no fear as death stalked him—only a profound sense of fulfillment: Sturm, at least, was dead.

  As the Führer bent over him and raised the gun two-handed, shaking with rage. Dieter smiled a little and closed his eyes. No longer aware of Graham, he commended his life into the judgment of the lords of karma. Graham, too stunned to pull out from the link, felt the cold barrel of the pistol against Dieter's temple and even heard the faint click just an instant before the bullet exploded into Dieter's brain.

  The force of the shot reverberated all the way back to England, catching Graham even as he tried too late to disengage. No cry escaped his lips, but his body convulsed in echo of all the agony felt by Dieter in that final instant. Then merciful blackness claimed him.

  A single low moan was the first thing William heard as he dropped back to his own body and time with a jolt, but it did not occur to him that the faraway sound came not from himself but from Michael, lapsing into deep unconsciousness with the shock of Dieter's passing. William found himself gasping with his own terror, fingers locked around the carved animal heads of the stall's arm rest in mute appeal for some reprieve. Surely what he had seen had been part of some terrible dream!

  But as he stopped gasping at the air and ceased his shaking, he knew that in lives past he had played the sacrificed king himself as well as sacred substitute! Not only had he been Becket but also that other William, the very Rufus whom Gray had often cited as a slain sacred king and with whose tomb William himself had held idle converse not many weeks before. Had some deep part of him suspected even then?

  And Gray had been with Rufus as well as Becket! Did he know? Had he read his own role as king slayer and simply not told William, fearing at some deep level, perhaps not even conscious, that the two of them were scheduled for a repeat performance of old, familiar roles? Was that what the Rufus and Becket memories meant? Was Gray fated somehow to slay him in this life as well?

  The connection came to him so abruptly that he gasped aloud. The notion terrified him, suddenly taken out of the realm of the abstract, but all at once a great deal seemed to make sense.

  He had been Rufus in some other lifetime, and he had also been Becket. Becket had been the substitute victim for his king, who was acknowledged as the incarnate god by the very fact of his anointing and recognition at his coronation.

  But William had also put himself in the role of the incarnate god in this lifetime, when he offered himself as the focus for the oaths taken by the grand coven leaders. Gray had seen it and had warned him at the t
ime that the others might have seen it thus, but the impact of that warning had been lost on both of them in the urgency of Wells's betrayal and because they did not want to see it.

  The signs had been present even earlier than that, when William handed Gray his Garter star at Deptford and offered to bring the grand coven together in the first place. That had been but a parallel of his Hatton role—but now he knew he had been the sacrificed Rufus as well as catalyst to Gray's defender. If he had also been Becket, who had combined functions in his martyrdom as Christian saint and sacred substitute, was it possible that he was being called upon to combine roles again, as Becket had already done? Having already catalyzed the work necessary to protect England, as Hatton had done, was he now destined once again to substitute for his King to seal that work, after having taken on the role of god in the eyes of those who still observed at least a part of the old faith that protected England? Was that where it was all leading?

  He shivered and hugged his arms across his chest, refusing to believe it. The very idea was absurd. The old gods did not demand the sacrifice of their kings in these modem times. He was not even certain he believed in the old gods. One God was enough for him.

  But as he re-examined all that had happened in the past few months, he had to admit that everything could be interpreted that way. And if it was needful for the king or his substitute to die periodically, perhaps to ensure the success of the very venture now in progress all around him, then who was better suited?

  Not the King himself, whose leadership and example were so badly needed and whose death would put a defenseless young girl on the throne prematurely to bear burdens that might well crush her. Not his brothers, Gloucester and Kent, both of them vitally involved in the war effort and, furthermore, married and one of them with children. Not his sister Mary, also married and with little ones. And David had already been offered the chance and refused. The sacrifice must be willing.