Druid''s Sword

  “He’s not Theseus, Weyland.” In his first life as the loathed Minotaur, Weyland had been murdered by Theseus, who had been given the power to destroy him by Weyland’s then-lover, Ariadne.

  “Really, Noah? Everything rides on him. Everything. Us. Grace. This land. The Faerie. He has the power to either save us or doom us.”

  I tried to joke. “But you must trust him if you’re going to give him one of your cars!” Weyland loved his motor cars, and had allowed no one else but me to drive them.

  He grunted, and drained the contents of his glass. “Do you think he will help us?”

  “What choice does he have?”

  I got nothing but a cynical look for that, so I gave up on the conversation and went to the windows to look down on the Thames. We’d been living at the Savoy for about six years. Because none of us—Weyland, myself or Grace—died or aged (Grace had taken about eighteen mortal years to grow to her present height and maturity, and hadn’t aged from that point on) we tended to move from house to house, and neighbourhood to neighbourhood, on a fairly regular basis, generally about every ten years. Every so often we moved into a village in the countryside surrounding London for a period of twenty years or so, so that people in the city would forget our faces.

  The Savoy was proving to be one of our favourite homes. The grand hotel had been built in the late nineteenth century, with no expense spared, and had been modernised several times since. Although the majority of guests were short-term, there were many like ourselves who took one of the larger suites and turned it into a home, staying for many years at a time. Our suite consisted of a large sitting room, a dining room (with a small kitchenette off it, although we mostly had our meals provided from the Savoy’s kitchens), three bedrooms, a box room, a luxurious bathroom, and a powder room, all, save for the box room, appointed and furnished with the utmost sumptuousness and elegance. The luxury of the hotel, and its convenience to central London, were attractions, to be sure, but so also was the sense of “family” among the staff, and most certainly also was the fact that our suite, on the floor beneath the attic level, had windows that overlooked the Thames.

  I could stand there for hours, watching the water sprites at mischief among the pleasure boats.

  We had no entrance to the Idyll from the Savoy. Hundreds of years ago, when Weyland had purchased the house in Idol Lane, he’d constructed a stunningly beautiful, magical, faerie world on the top floor of the house. He called it his Idyll, and used it to retreat from the world. The Idyll had shown me a side of Weyland I’d never suspected—the creative, faerie aspect of him—and it was in the Idyll that Weyland and I had come to love each other. The Idyll still existed, but we could only access it from the Faerie, or from the steps inside the rebuilt spire of St Dunstan’s-in-the-East.

  We rarely visited the Idyll. The intrusion of Catling’s imps into the Idyll in order to place that hex on Grace had destroyed some of its magic for us. As for Grace…I don’t think she ever went back into the Idyll after the Great Fire.

  Catling had caused a great blight on this land. She would prove its death if she could not be destroyed.

  I had to believe that Jack would aid us, and would succeed in aiding us. I had to.

  We spent a desultory afternoon waiting for Jack and Harry. I telephoned Matilda, and spoke to her for a while about Jack’s arrival, and all that he had said and done thus far (I left out the fact Jack had kissed me; that was irrelevant, surely). She asked me to give him her best wishes, and the hope they could meet soon. Then I spent my time alternately flipping through magazines, watching the river from the windows, and walking as silently as I could to Grace’s room, standing outside her closed door with my hand raised to knock, then walking away again, too dispirited to risk a rejection. Weyland went down to one of the bars for a while, where, fortunately, he did not drink too much, then to the garage, where I suppose he spent an hour or so both farewelling one of the cars and instructing one of the mechanics to get it ready for transfer to its new owner.

  Just after six in the late afternoon the internal telephone rang, and Robert Stacey, the concierge who ran the residential guests’ lobby (we did not enter through the main, glittering lobby of the hotel, but a smaller one just around the corner from the Savoy Court), said that two gentlemen were on their way to see us. He already knew Harry, and would have allowed Jack through on Harry’s recommendation, but I wondered what Stacey had thought of him.

  Stacey was a Sidlesaghe. He always appeared in some form or other at whatever front door we kept, as our doorkeeper and watcher.

  I don’t know who he watched more: me or Grace.

  I put down the telephone, then realised I’d been standing there staring at it too long, and that Weyland was watching me.

  I smiled wanly. “They’re on their way up.”

  Weyland looked at me a heartbeat longer, then gave a tight little nod, and left the sitting room. I heard him knock softly on Grace’s door, then enter her bedroom.

  I wish I’d had the courage to do that earlier.

  Oh, gods, the nerves were fluttering in my stomach. Please, please let Jack be able to help Grace.

  I took a deep breath, walked slowly to the front door of the suite, and, by the time the knock on the door came, hoped that the smile on my face was steady.

  “Harry,” I said as I opened the door. “Jack.” I kissed Harry on the cheek, as I always did, hesitated awkwardly, then greeted Jack in the same manner.

  Both men appeared tense and tired, and I wondered what had happened while they’d been out walking the City. Had Catling appeared to them? I hadn’t seen her since that terrible day she had dragged Weyland and me down to the heart of the labyrinth, but she would surely approach Jack at some time, now that he was home.

  Harry had led Jack through into the sitting room, and I followed.

  Weyland and Grace were already there, sitting on the sofa, and I was glad to see Grace had changed into something a little less inhibited than her earlier blouse and skirt. She wore a flowered linen dress I had given her some months past, but which I always had to badger her to wear. I wondered whether Weyland had urged her to change, or if she’d shown some initiative herself.

  Weyland stood up from the sofa to shake both Harry’s and Jack’s hands. Harry nodded a welcome at Grace, but Jack leaned over to shake her hand, which I thought a trifle too formal. But Grace looked him in the eye as they shook, so I was grateful for that small mercy at least.

  “Well?” said Weyland, not pausing for any verbal niceties, although he’d gone to the drinks cabinet to pour everyone a drink.

  Harry and Jack glanced at each other, and I felt a premonition of dread.

  “Sit down,” I said, then sat myself as Weyland brought me my glass.

  Harry and Jack took two of the armchairs, but Weyland sat back next to Grace on the sofa.

  “There’s something different,” Jack said without any preamble.

  I didn’t know what he meant. Yes, London had changed…but surely he would have expected that? “Catling has grown,” I said. “She is stronger than ever.”

  Jack stared searchingly at me as I spoke, as if he expected me to say something different, or as if I might be hiding something. Then he turned his head towards the sofa. “Weyland?”

  “What do you mean, Jack?” Weyland said. “What do you want us to say? What is different?”

  Jack moved a hand, delaying his response to Weyland for a moment. “Grace?” he said.

  She’d been staring at her lap, but now she raised her face to him.

  “Different?” she said. “Do you mean wrong?”

  Harry glanced sharply at Jack at that question, and Jack himself leaned forward in his chair. “Is there something wrong, Grace?”

  She didn’t answer immediately, but held Jack’s gaze for a long moment, then looked back to her lap where one of her hands was wrapped about her other wrist. “Everything has been wrong for a very long time.”

  It was no answer and
it didn’t satisfy Jack, but he let it go. On my part, I was amazed at how much Jack seemed to get out of Grace. Jack got sentences. The rest of us got little more than monosyllables.

  “There’s something different, or ‘wrong’, about London,” Jack said, passing a hand over his face as if very, very tired. “I can’t define it, I can’t describe it, I don’t know what it pertains to…save that it touches in some way upon the Troy Game. Noah…you are a Mistress of the Labyrinth, a powerful one, have you felt nothing?”

  “No. Jack, what can you mean?”

  He gave a confused shake of his head, and so I turned to Harry. “Harry?”

  “I can’t add anything more to what Jack has said. He can feel this, I can’t.”

  Harry was frustrated, but I could tell he didn’t disbelieve Jack.

  “We walked all over central London,” Harry continued, “from the Tower where you dropped us, around the northern line of old London Wall, to St Paul’s, to Southwark. Jack says that whatever the wrongness is, it is huge.”

  “It has spread far further than just central London,” Jack said. “Long fingers.”

  “Long fingers?” Weyland said, the instant before I asked the same question.

  Jack waved a hand in the air, a gesture of utter frustration.

  Weyland and I shared a look—one of utter dread.

  “Is it Catling?” I asked softly.

  He took a long time to answer. “No,” he said finally, “I don’t think so. It doesn’t have the feel of the Troy Game about it, although this difference, this wrongness, somehow is connected to the Game. I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t trust my judgement on this.” He took a sip of his drink. “It is all so…so…shadowy.”

  Grace made a move then, just a slight one, a turn of her head, but given she was normally so still it attracted everyone’s attention.

  “Grace?” Jack said again. “Is there anything you know? Anything you feel?”

  “I can’t be of any help to you. I’m sorry.”

  “Grace,” Jack said, and I swear before all the gods I have ever known I have never heard his voice so gentle, “I value your opinion as much as anyone’s in this room. More, in fact,” his voice now became a little teasing, “as you have not yet given me the chance to distrust you.”

  My face flamed. Was that a barb aimed for me?

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I can’t help you.”

  Jack gave a nod of his head, then sighed. “I have never felt anything like this before. Not as a man, not as a Kingman, not as Ringwalker.”

  “But it is threatening,” Weyland said. “Yes?” He stood, and was now freshening everyone’s drinks.

  “I don’t even know that,” said Jack. “It is just there, it is huge, and it is unknowable. So I find it threatening, but,” he gave a disarming smile, which made my heart lurch uncomfortably, “it could, of course, be an early Christmas present left by…well, by whomever.”

  “It could be a trap,” Grace said in a voice almost a whisper. Her gaze had returned to her lap.

  Jack regarded her thoughtfully. “Sure, it could be a trap.” He paused. “Ah, certainly it is a trap! When has anything good ever happened for us, eh?”

  I was looking at Grace, but then caught Weyland looking at me. Grace was supposed to have been a gift for us, but then she had been trapped, and all of us with her.

  “I can’t sort it out tonight, or even tomorrow or the month after, I think,” Jack said. “I need to think about it…explore it. Run the forests.”

  A peculiar sense came over him then, a wildness, and I knew he was longing for the dark secret spaces of the trees.

  “I have ordered a meal from the restaurant,” I said. “It should be here within the hour. Perhaps Weyland can take Jack down to the garage and sort out the car before then?”

  I was babbling, but to be frank, right at this moment I was both so scared and unnerved I didn’t know what to say.

  “No,” said Jack. “I can pick up the car later. For now, I think, I want to have a look at Grace’s wrists.”

  TEN

  The Savoy

  Sunday, 3rd September 1939

  Jack was glad of his earlier promise to see if he could untangle Catling’s hex, because now it gave him the perfect excuse to sit close to Grace and observe her. He’d been unsettled ever since arriving in London—everything had been such a strain—but since this afternoon’s walk about London his anxiety had increased tenfold.

  Something wrong. Something undefinable. Something unexplainable. Something shadowy.

  And now Jack was certain that Grace knew something about it. He wasn’t sure if she was deliberately withholding information from him, or whether, whatever she knew, she believed it was so trivial as to be of no importance.

  As he sat down next to her, gently taking her wrists between his hands so that she was forced to turn a little to face him, Jack wondered at what she had said earlier. Grace had known instinctively something was wrong.

  Everything has been wrong for a very long time.

  Was it just the Troy Game? What else had been wrong for a very long time…Jack certainly hadn’t felt anything when he’d been in London during the 1660s.

  Or had that remark been nothing but a grab for sympathy? No, he thought not. There had been nothing pathetic or piteous about it. Merely a bland statement of fact, and of resignation.

  He put his thoughts of the “wrongness” aside for the moment, and concentrated on Grace.

  Dear gods, she was thin! Not just her wrists, but all of her. She was close enough to him that he could feel her warmth and see the rise and fall of her body with each breath, and with both warmth and breath Jack could sense her essential fragility. Under his fingers he felt the fluttering of her pulse—she was very nervous having him so close.

  She was so afraid.

  The room was silent, everyone staring at Jack, save for Grace, who had her eyes downcast.

  Jack had her wrists enclosed within each of his hands, and now he ran his thumbs very slowly along the raised scars that twisted about her wrists, and then ran up her arms, curling over and about, almost to her elbows.

  What he sensed there stunned him, and his eyes flew to Grace’s face.

  She was staring directly at him now, but he could not work out if she was frightened or just…simply didn’t realise.

  Jack opened his mouth, intending to say something, but Grace’s face closed over, shutting him out completely, and she averted her face.

  “Jack?” Noah said.

  “Nothing,” he muttered, sliding his fingers back down Grace’s arms to her forearms and wrists, trying to drag his disordered thoughts back to Catling’s hex around Grace’s wrists.

  He had to have a quiet word with Noah, and soon.

  Jack took a deep breath, and finally managed to concentrate on the hex. He ran his thumbs over the scars around her wrists and forearms, feeling them, discovering their nature. He understood that every time Catling struck, then these wounds opened anew.

  Finally Jack raised his eyes to her. “Grace?”

  She still had her face averted from his, and made no sound or movement.

  “Grace, look at me.”

  Reluctantly, she turned her face to his.

  “I am going to do something now that will cause you some discomfort. Not real pain, but it will be uncomfortable. I’m sorry.”

  She gave a jerk of her head.

  I’m sorry, Grace. Jack moved his thumbs again, this time shifting them so that they both lay beside the largest line of scarring on each wrist. His hands tightened very slightly, then he slid his thumbs under the lines of red scarring, and lifted the scars away from Grace’s flesh as if they were silken ribbons.

  Grace gasped, and tried to jerk herself back, but Jack had a firm grasp of her wrists, and she could not move.

  Behind her, Weyland put his hands on her shoulders, either to keep her in place or to comfort her.

  “Take your hands away, Weyland,” Jack
said quietly, not looking up, and, very reluctantly, Weyland lifted his hands away from his daughter.

  Hello, Jack. Welcome home!

  Jack froze, and he jerked his eyes upward.

  Grace had heard that as well, but no one else had reacted.

  Isn’t she lovely, Jack? Don’t you want to save her?

  Grace started to tremble under his fingers, and he used his fingertips under her wrists and lower arm to stroke once or twice; gently, reassuringly.

  Don’t think you can work out the knots binding these sweet little ribbons, Jack. It’ll kill her, and you, if you try.

  “It’s all right, Grace,” he whispered. His thumbs had moved further up under the scarring onto her lower arms, and Grace moaned very softly.

  No. It is not “all right”, Jack. Poor Grace suffers. You haven’t seen how badly she can suffer, yet. Would you like to now?

  Abruptly Jack pulled his hands away from Grace.

  “I’m sorry, Grace,” he said. “I can’t help you.”

  Her blue eyes went almost black with emotion, and to Jack’s horror he realised it was despair. He reached forward again, and took one of her hands. “It is not because of what was just said—” not because of Catling’s threats “—but because this hex is so intricate, so powerful, it has literally bound your life to the twists of the labyrinth. I can’t help you. And I am sorry about that.”

  “Grace,” said Noah, who had risen and now leaned over her daughter, “perhaps you need to rest.”

  “I don’t need to rest,” Grace said.

  “She doesn’t need rest,” Jack said at precisely the same moment. Then, as an awkward silence descended, he said, “I wish I could help you, but I don’t know how.”

  Grace turned her head away, and Jack had the feeling that it wasn’t in dismissal, but once again, as he’d felt in the car, that she was withdrawing because she didn’t want to be a nuisance.

  Somehow they got through dinner. It was a generally silent affair, punctuated only with some self-conscious conversation, and the sound of plates being pushed away, their contents barely touched.