Druids Sword (63 page)
WELVE
The Idyll
Saturday, 10
th
May 1941
GRACE SPEAKS
I
couldn’t remember precisely what it had felt like when I’d been a baby and Catling had sent her imps into the Idyll to hex me, but I didn’t imagine it could have felt any worse than this did, right now. Everything happened so fast, and so powerfully. Jack and I had been dancing the Flower Gate into its entirety, and had felt Ariadne and Silvius constructing my mother’s devising. We could feel Catling, feel her anger and malevolence, but we could also feel the Shadow Game’s grip on her, and sense her inexorable journey into the crypt of St Thomas’.
Then Catling did what no one had anticipated—she attacked Ariadne and Silvius, and disrupted the smooth flow of their power. Ariadne screamed, Jack yelled, and suddenly I felt myself enveloped in the devising and was propelled into the Idyll.
I had no time for thought. I
had
to continue the Dance of the Flowers with Jack, had to get that Flower Gate up, but, oh gods, I could feel Catling reaching into the Idyll. It wasn’t just that Catling had disrupted Ariadne and Silvius’ dance, it was that she’d somehow
strengthened
the hex which bound us.
I didn’t think Ariadne and Silvius could strengthen the devising. They didn’t have the power, and my mother’s devising wasn’t strong enough, in any case.
Catling was going to drag me out.
I could feel the pull of the Shadow Game on Catling, and at the same time I could feel Catling’s pull on me.
I went cold with dread. I also felt astoundingly sad, and I realised that the overwhelming emotion that I would feel when trapped in the dark heart with Catling would be this sadness. Not fright or terror or hopelessness.
Sadness, at everything that could have been. It was, I realised in a moment of blinding clarity, the feeling that enveloped many people at the moment of their death.
Sadness, at everything that might have been.
Voices surrounded me, screaming. My mother, somewhere, desperate. Ariadne and Silvius, in agony, as if Catling was devouring them.
Jack, frantic, but still dancing.
I continued the dance in harmony with him.
How heartbreaking, I thought, that I would still do this. How heartbreaking, that I would put duty first before struggling for my own freedom.
And how astoundingly heartbreaking, I thought, that Jack was continuing the dance as well.
We would both prefer to lose our future together, than allow Catling freedom.
The only satisfaction I had was that I could, at the same moment I could hear and sense everything else, feel Catling’s incredulity and growing terror that Jack
was
still dancing, and that the Flower Gate was closing.
I could feel it close. I could see that last flower dropping into place.
And I felt myself being pulled out of the Idyll. Catling had me. Finally, Catling had me. Everything went black, and for all the time thereafter there was only…sadness.
HIRTEEN
Southwark
Saturday, 10
th
May 1941
J
ack felt Catling seize Grace, felt Catling pull Grace, and knew that Grace was lost.
Noah’s devising couldn’t hold her. Ariadne and Silvius had not completed it, or the devising had not been strong enough to start with.
Catling had strengthened the hex beyond anything Jack had expected. Jack could feel it, he could taste it, and he knew that there was nothing left on earth, heaven or hell that could prevent Catling dragging Grace into the heart of the Shadow Game.
He screamed, even though he kept dancing, because he knew he could do nothing to stop Catling.
He screamed, even though he kept dancing, because he could feel Grace’s horror and, worse, her resignation.
He screamed, because he knew Grace was continuing to dance as well.
He screamed, because he knew he could not save Grace, and that she was condemned to eternity locked with Catling in the dark heart of the Shadow Game.
The spire of St Dunstan’s-in-the-East exploded. The high explosive bomb had dropped directly on the
spire, and its detonation blew the entire structure apart. The rest of the building, the nave and outbuildings, caught alight.
Within two hours, the nave was a burned-out hulk, and the beautiful spire that Sir Christopher Wren had designed and personally supervised during its construction was a pile of sooty rubble.
Everything lay in rubble: hopes, dreams and loves.
Nothing could be saved.
OURTEEN
Southwark
Saturday, 10
th
May 1941
“
W
here is she? Where
is
she?
” Noah had her hands on Jack’s shoulders, shaking him slightly every time she uttered the word “is”.
About them the rolling thunder of the air raid continued, distant thuds and explosions, the roar and crackle of flame.
Jack appeared dazed. He didn’t react to Noah’s grip or to her voice, merely stared with glazed eyes out to the water where, only moments ago, he had been dancing with Grace.
But then everything had gone wrong. Catling had snatched…
Jack!
Noah screamed at him.
To one side stood Weyland, looking almost as shell-shocked as Jack. As Noah continued to shake Jack, Ariadne and Silvius appeared, both leaning on each other, both wearing devastated expressions.
Noah drew back one hand and dealt Jack a sharp blow across the face. “Damn you,” she hissed. “Where is Grace?
I can’t sense her!
”
Jack finally responded. He raised his eyes, looked at each person one by one, and finally rasped, “She’s trapped with Catling. We’ve lost her.”
Noah’s eyes went impossibly wide, and she made a sound halfway between a whimper and a groan.
Weyland’s mouth dropped open, very slightly, then
he moved, lunging the two paces that separated him from Jack and grabbing at Jack’s hair, wrenching the man’s head about. “Where…is…my…
daughter?
”
“
She’s trapped with Catling!
” This time Jack roared the words, tearing himself out of Weyland’s grip.
“The devising—” Ariadne began.
“The devising wasn’t strong enough!” Jack said. “Catling had increased the power of her hex.
Grace is trapped with Catling!
”
“No,” Noah whispered.
“Yes!” Jack said. “Yes, yes,
yes!
” He paused, then continued in a whisper. “Jesus Christ…
yes.
”
“Jack,” said Silvius. He moved to his son’s side, hesitated then put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Are you certain?”
Jack raised his face to his father, and Silvius needed no other answer than the despair he could see in his son’s eyes.
“Oh, gods,” Silvius whispered, “Catling took her.”
“No…” Noah whimpered.
Much later, when they were the only ones left on the bank, Ariadne and Silvius turned to study London burning across the river.
“The Troy Game is gone,” Ariadne observed. Her voice was listless, her shoulders slumped.
“Aye,” said Silvius. “Grace must have kept on dancing, even though she knew she was trapped. She and Jack completed the Shadow Game and trapped Catling. The Troy Game
is
gone, but Grace is gone with it.”
Ariadne was silent a very long time. Then, finally, she turned to Silvius and allowed him to envelop her in his arms.
“How can any of us continue to live?” she said.
PILOGUE
St Dunstan’s-in-the-East, London, and Copt Hall 1971
A
crowd of some two hundred people crowded into Idol Lane, spilling over into the churchyard of St Dunstan’s-in-the-East. It was a fine day, and the ruined church, despite its lack of a roof and its blackened walls, managed to look both beautiful and peaceful.
And, somehow, useful.
London had been so devastated by the war, and so much had been destroyed, that rebuilding had taken decades. In the immediate postwar period there had not been the money or the raw materials to rebuild St Dunstan’s. What finance and materials there were had gone into rebuilding homes and businesses and hospitals and docklands.
God’s houses had been forced to wait.
When money and materials finally became available, some twenty years after the war, the ruins of many of London’s ancient churches were bulldozed. As central London had been abandoned to business and finance, congregations of many of the churches had shrunk until there were only a handful of worshippers left. Better to amalgamate parishes than to rebuild everything that had been ruined.
After hundreds of years of ministry, there was no one left for St Dunstan’s-in-the-East. The church came perilously close to being demolished to make
room for an office block, but in the end the decision was made to make the leaning walls safe, and turn the churchyard into a garden and a place for contemplation.
Although the main body of the church was to be left a ruin, the efforts of a small, vociferous group of people—led by the Philpot brothers, who ran the White Queen Security Service in central London, and who personally put up the money—ensured that Wren’s beautiful spire was finally rebuilt.
Today it was to be reopened.
By mid-afternoon the speeches drew to a conclusion. A curtain was pulled back to reveal a plaque. The crowd clapped, then broke into small, chattering groups as cups of tea were handed about.
Within the crowd the Philpot brothers shook hands enthusiastically with the Lord Mayor and the elderly gentleman who had been the vicar of St Dunstan’s during the war, leered at several young girls in mini-skirts, and winked conspiratorially at the tall, black-haired woman with the white face standing at the back of the gathering.
Finally, after an hour, the crowd started to thin.
The Philpot brothers disappeared, the white-faced woman with them.
Workmen dismantled the small dais on which the dignitaries had sat, and took away the chairs and teacups.
The final few stragglers went home.
The newly opened spire and the churchyard gardens were left deserted.
Dusk drew in. The City closed down. Night fell.
Then, very softly, almost hesitantly, there came the sound of footfalls descending the stairwell within the spire.
The knock at the front door startled Malcolm. Hardly anyone came to visit these days. Noah and Weyland, never. Silvius and Ariadne only occasionally, and their last visit had been two weeks ago. They would not have come back so soon. Jack went to visit the Lord of the Faerie and Stella occasionally, but, like Noah and Weyland, they never came here.
Malcolm sighed, put down the dishcloth, and walked through Copt Hall to the front door, glancing up the staircase as he did so.
There was no sound from Jack, upstairs in his bedroom.
When he reached the front door, Malcolm peered through the glass set into the wooden panels, but it was so dark outside he could make out little more than a shape.
A woman. Malcolm frowned. Stella?
Then he opened the door, and his world stopped.
Grace stood there.
She looked wan, and too thin, and very tired, but it was Grace, and if her face was weary, and her eyes brimming with emotion, then she also looked very peaceful.
Malcolm could not speak. He stood, his mouth gaping, staring, unable to comprehend what he saw.
She smiled, very slightly, a little sadly. “Hello, Malcolm.”
He managed one word. “
Grace?
”
“Oh, Malcolm,” Grace said, and burst into tears. She stepped over the threshold and hugged him, only managing a tremulous smile when Malcolm lifted his own arms and hugged her fiercely back.
“How?” said Malcolm. “
How?
”
“The Idyll saved me,” Grace said as, finally, she stepped back, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Catling had me. The hex was so damned strong.
My mother’s devising was never going to hold me. But the Idyll…” She took a deep shuddery breath. “The Idyll had been breached once before by Catling—the day she sent her imps to place the hex on me. The Idyll never forgot it, nor ever ceased to resent it. When Catling reached in again, this time to use the hex to drag me into the dark heart of the Shadow Game with her, the Idyll…” and she gave a small laugh, as if she could hardly believe this herself, “…the Idyll lost its temper. That’s the only way I can describe it. The Idyll lost its temper, repelled Catling and…and undid the hex.”
“
What?
”
“The Idyll knew how to unwind the hex, because it had seen how it was applied in the first instance. No one else. The Idyll understood the hex.” Grace paused. “And having repelled Catling, and having undone the hex, it then blew apart St Dunstan’s-in-the-East’s spire, destroying any way in or out, making
certain
Catling could not reach back in once more—but neither could I reach out to anyone to let them know where I was. It was my father who created the device that saved me, not my mother. Malcolm,
is
the Troy Game trapped?”
“Yes, and all this time we were sure you were trapped with it.” Malcolm stared at Grace, still barely able to believe she was standing before him. “But you have been trapped in the
Idyll?
”
She nodded. “And it was only today that the spire was re-opened. Only today that I could leave. Malcolm…how is Jack? Is he here?”
“Gods, Grace. It has been terrible. He thought, we
all
thought, you were in the Shadow Game’s dark heart. We didn’t…” His voice broke and he hugged Grace tightly to him once more. “The past thirty years have been terrible,” he whispered.
“It has been
thirty years?
” Grace said. “My gods, how has Jack managed?”
Jack sat in the wing-backed chair by the bedroom fire, staring unseeing at the flames.
This was the only way he could bear to live—alone save for the ghostly presence of Malcolm, isolated, unthinking.