Lammas night

by Katherine Kurtz

  "Quite apart from the fact that Qarence is not involved, one must wonder how Sturm found out something was happening Lammas night," Graham muttered darkly. "Wells never knew that—but you did."

  "You think I told Sturm?" Dieter blew smoke derisively. "My dear fellow, it's the next major Sabbat. Everyone knows that. You must admit there was a certain urgency about your duke's little meetings—only a week's advance notice for royal invitations? Given the third guest list, what other conclusion was possible?"

  He smiled. "On the other hand, who would have thought it possible that your Clarence would be behind such a thing? I, knowing what I do of your Royal Family and of your own scruples, think the entire scenario highly unlikely, but nonetheless, Sturm believes that it is so. I have not misapprised him of this notion."

  "No, you're perfectly willing to let 'my Clarence' take the heat to save your own neck," Graham retorted.

  "To protect my own cover for a while longer, yes. Because with my help, there is another way to handle this which could save him and incidentally accomplish both our goals.

  "Which way is that?" Selwyn asked suspiciously. "And what possible goals could we have in common anymore?"

  "Just this. The Führer is presently under the not inconsiderable protection of Sturm. TTianks to your very inconvenient Mr. Wells, Magister Sturm now expects a direct attack against the Führer on Lanmias night, spearheaded by your duke— which means that Sturm will almost certainly detect and counter any magical working aimed at Hitler on that night, whether direct or indirect. Thus, your very well planned effort, while it might well have accomplished a great deal had it remained unanticipated, now stands little hope of going undetected— unless Stunn is given something else to think about."

  "Just what kind of a 'something' did you have in mind?" Graham asked. "Yet another betrayal?"

  Dieter gave a crooked little smile. "You anticipate me, colonel, though not in the way you suspect. I propose that since Sturm expects a direct attack, he should receive a direct attack—not against the Führer but an attack against himself. From me."

  "What the—"

  "Please hear me out!" Dieter snapped, leaning forward to point with the butt end of his cigarette. "Only Sturm's death can ensure that the Führer is vulnerable to what the rest of Britain's enlightened ones will be working toward on Lammas night. I am not joking, David. I say 'the rest' because I must ask you of the Oakwood family to assist me if we are to be certain of killing Sturm. It is also the only way to keep your royal duke from danger," he added, looking from Selwyn to Graham hopefully.

  Dieter's sheer audacity so stunned Graham for the first few seconds that he could only stare aghast. That the man could actually expect them to work with him and trust him, after consorting so deeply with the very man he now claimed ready to betray, left him speechless. Not so, Selwyn.

  "Goddamn you for a bloody, rotten liar!" Selwyn muttered, so low that Graham almost could not hear him. "How in the name of all you've profaned—"

  "David, David, if we start calling one another names, we are lost!" Dieter whispered, shaking his head and raising one hand in negation. "David, listen to me. You're perfectly within your rights to be outraged. I don't blame you. In defense, I can only say that the Isaiah verse I sent in my signal was sent for a reason. It was meant for your duke as well as the rest of you. I am willing to die to do this, David. It has been my intention from the beginning to give my life, if necessary, to stop Sturm."

  "By torturing and murdering innocent victims?" Graham asked, angrily shoving the pile of photographs in front of Dieter again. "Ask the man you slaughtered whether he was willing to die. Dieter!"

  "Sometimes sacrifices are necessary."

  "Yes, willing sacrifices!"

  "Is your duke a willing sacrifice, then?" Dieter countered. "He had better be. Because if I fail and Sturm does not die on Lammas night, your royal William will be offered up on the altar of Sturm's black intentions like a helpless lamb, both figuratively and literally, and the Führer will grow stronger on his blood!"

  Before Graham realized what he was doing, he was on his feet and going for Dieter's throat, only to be pulled up short by Selwyn grabbing at one shoulder, yanking him back with a wordless cry, forcing him to sit. Dieter, shaken, settled back in his chair and stubbed out his cigarette, all taste for it gone.

  Still almost rigid with rage, Graham closed his eyes and forced half a dozen deep, shuddering breaths, shaking his head as scenes of slayer and slain flashed behind his eyelids. He was still trembling when he looked up, but in control. He nodded curtly at Selwyn, for he still did not trust himself to speak to Dieter. He could almost feel the chill as Selwyn gazed across the table at his former brother-in-law.

  "All right, let's hear your plan, Dieter," Selwyn said. "And it had better be good. Next time I won't be responsible for anyone's actions but my own."

  Dieter nodded, toying uneasily with his cigarette case.

  "Understood. I shall try to go directly to the point." He drew a deep breath and let it out. "In order to be sure of killing Sturm, I need more power than I can raise by myself. I propose a psychic bonding between myself and Graham on the Second Road to permit focusing the power of the Oakwood group on Sturm."

  "Why Graham?" Selwyn asked.

  "Your antipathy for me—his personal stake in what happens to Clarence. He is also your man in black, for purposes of the grand coven, is he not? It is therefore fitting that he focus the power of the group for my attack on Sturm."

  "Your attack?" Graham began hotly. The notion of Dieter controlling the psychic link he proposed was unthinkable.

  "Of course. I will be there; you will not. I know Sturm; you do not. With Oakwood's power at my command, I can turn it against Sturm when he least suspects: stop his heart, perhaps cause a stroke—any of a number of fatal possibilities."

  "You could also turn it against me," Graham said.

  Dieter shrugged. "If Sturm should prove too strong, he could turn it against you—against all of us. With the kind of link I'm asking, a backlash is always a dreaded but very real possibility."

  "And the backlash might not necessarily be at Sturm's instigation," Graham persisted. "Suppose you're lying? You've lied to him, after all—or have you?"

  "My dear Graham—"

  "I'm not your dear anything. Dieter! I want to know what's to stop you and Sturm from turning our own power against us—augmented by whatever he's capable of—to destroy everyone at Oakwood. And if Oakwood goes, what about the grand coven? What about the duke?"

  "What about them?" Dieter snapped. "Hasn't it occurred to you that Sturm, by himself, might be powerful enough to do whatever he wants despite anything we could do to stop him?

  What must I do or say to con vice you of my honest intentions? I can't undo what's already happened."

  "No, you can't," Selwyn said quietly.

  Shoulders slumping in defeat. Dieter sighed and lowered his eyes, turning his cigarette case several times in his hands.

  "I have only one hope," he said after a moment when neither Selwyn nor Graham spoke. "I've brought a surety for my good behavior. If you were to agree, this would be Graham's link to me. It is also a good deal more, as you know."

  Opening the cigarette case. Dieter pried at the back of what Graham had presumed to be an empty compartment and extracted a skein of thin scarlet cord wound loosely back and forth on itself many times, stained across one end with rusty brown. His measure: the length of cotton or silken thread laid 'round the measurements of an initiate's body at the time of reception into the old faith and sealed with his own blood as a mark of dedication to the elder gods. The measure was a profoundly powerful talisman, with arcane bindings to its owner that could be harnessed by the possessor for good or ill. This Dieter laid on the table before Graham as a pledge of his faith.

  Graham stared at it for an instant in shock. His first thought had been that it could not possibly be authentic, for he could not believe Dieter would give anyone that much
power over him. Before he could pick it up, however, Selwyn's hand clamped around his wrist.

  "Let me," Selwyn whispered, his eyes fastening on Deiter's. "Alix and I took this when he and Merilee were handfasted. If it's really his, I'll know."

  As Graham nodded minutely and withdrew, Selwyn extended his hand flat above the measure for several seconds and stared at Dieter, neither man wavering. Then Selwyn cupped his hand over it and closed his eyes.

  For nearly a full minute, no sound intruded save the tiny clock and the muted, muffled noises of the ship outside—and then footsteps approaching hesitandy and the low buzz of voices, Denton's and someone else's. For the first time since Dieter entered, Graham thought of the U-boat lurking in the dark waters outside.

  The sound roused Selwyn, too, and he stirred to brush at his eyes with one unsteady hand, half turning his face away from the skein of scarlet cord.

  "It's his," he whispered, rising to turn away completely and lean heavily on the nearby desk.

  Graham stared after him for a moment, sensing the pain felt for the sister who was no more, whose essence yet remained in the measure with Dieter's, then looked back at the German. Dieter, too, looked white-faced and drained. Though Graham did not want to believe it, he was suddenly hit with the awful possibility that everything Dieter had said might be the truth.

  "I hope you realize I can't give you an answer tonight," Graham said. "What you're suggesting would require a great many changes in our plans— if I decide you haven't been lying through your teeth. What will you do if I refuse?"

  Dieter seemed to pull himself together with an effort. "Go ahead, regardless. And so will Sturm, if he isn't stopped. I only pray I can do it alone."

  "Humility doesn't sit well on you. Dieter," Graham said coldly. "Perhaps it's because you've used it so often in the past as cover for something else."

  "I deserve that," Dieter agreed, starting a little as Denton tapped on the door outside.

  "My lord, the bridge requests me to tell you the sub is standing by."

  "Thank you, sergeant," Selwyn called. "Tell them we'll be there directly."

  With a laconic little smile, Dieter rose and retrieved his oilskins and began pulling them on, looking many years older than when he came in.

  "Unfortunately, I can't tarry to plead with you anymore. If you decide to join me, you'll be most welcome, just as in the old days. If not—well, in either case, there's my measure to do with as you see fit. I can do nothing more."

  Graham rose slowly as Dieter finished donning all but his ski mask, but when the German started to extend a hand across the table, Graham merely folded his hands behind his back and inclined his head slightly. Dieter smiled and turned his own motion into a raise of one hand in farewell.

  "I'll say aufwiedersehn rather than good-bye, then, Graham," he said softly, following Selwyn to the door. "Perhaps, if I am very, very fortunate, I shall see you on the Second Road as an ally, come Lammas night, eh?"

  When he and Selwyn had left, Graham sat back heavily with Dieter's measure on the table before him as the little clock across the room chimed one.

  Chapter 19

  GRAHAM DID NOT RETURN TO LONDON IMMEDIATELY as planned, though he sent Denton back to cover for him. He needed time to think. He did not want his decision making clouded by William's close proximity even though the prince was a prime factor in his consideration. He stayed aboard Selwyn's ship in a kind of retreat, telling Denton to expect him no later than the thirty-first. In the meantime, William was to know only that Graham was still in the field.

  Graham's evaluation of William's mental state was perhaps less accurate than he believed. The prince had, indeed, managed to put things out of mind for the first few days after his session with Graham despite his own nightmares of the night itself. But by the weekend, the notion of a connection with the martyred Thomas Becket began to haunt him. Nor would the spectre of Gray's eyes in his murderer's face be exorcised.

  Tom between caution and foreboding, William thought about seeking advice from the brigadier or even the Countess of Selwyn in Gray's absence, but he did not know how much Gray had told them. With Lammas but days away, he assumed they would be increasingly preoccupied. Michael, though at hand and apparently uninvolved in the actual Lammas preparations, seemed reticent about discussing anything to do with the occult, probably on Gray's orders.

  William understood that. Obviously, the trained energies of the Oakwood folk must be directed toward the more important considerations of the work to come in preference to a prince's self-induced nightmares. Besides, William had his own rounds of royal duties to attend to—activities that occupied his days but rarely his nights. Increasingly, he found himself reading late to bring on sleep, assimilating everything he could find on Thomas Becket, unsure whether he wanted something to strike a more familiar chord or not. He learned a great deal about the historical circumstances of Becket the archbishop and his classic confrontation with k king, but Becket the man continued to elude him.

  The fascination would not be put aside. By Thursday morning, the day of Lammas, when William still had not heard from Gray, he was so convinced of an affinity that he had Michael drive him to Canterbury. He did not tell the younger man what he planned, for he was not sure himself. All he knew was that he wanted to visit the cathedral again, to look through new eyes at the place where Becket had died. If Buckland and Beptford had worked to trigger deeper memories for Gray, perhaps Canterbury would do the same for him.

  The day was cloudy and brisk but clearing as they headed east, arriving midmoming. Though the town of Canterbury received its share of air raids like the rest of the southeast coast, the cathedral thus far had escaped any direct hits. It was rumored that Hitler was sparing many such historic sites so that he might enjoy them intact when he occupied England. Besides, German pilots were said to use the cathedral's distinctive towers as a navigation landmark for bombing runs farther inland. Sandbags were stacked neatly around the lower levels of the cathedral to protect the stonework. All the stained glass not blown out early on by nearby concussions had been taken out and stored for safety, the now-blind windows boarded up.

  The interior was quite dim as a result, but that suited William very well. This was a private pilgrimage, and he hoped to avoid recognition. Both he and Michael wore duffle coats to hide the rank insignia on their uniforms, but he still felt exposed with his cap tucked under his left arm. At least that hid the oak leaves on the peak. Had it been proper in a church, he would have raised his hood for further anonymity.

  Fortunately, the small but steady stream of visitors seemed more intent on the beauty of the cathedral or on prayer than on the faces of fellow pilgrims. Even so, William kept his head down as he and Michael walked briskly down the south aisle of the nave and up the first set of worn steps. Skirting the quire and chancel, they climbed the Pilgrims' Stairs and paused to gaze up at the tomb of the Black Prince, behind its black iron railings. This Edward had been one of the founding Knights of the Order of the Garter. Beyond his tomb, in the Trinity Chapel behind the high altar, lay the former site of Becket's shrine.

  Nothing remained of the shrine, of course. The eighth King Henry had seen to that four centuries before. A placard on a stand at the rounded east end of the chapel displayed an artist's rendering of what the shrine probably had looked like at the height of its glory, but today only a difference in the tesselated pavement at their feet marked its former location. William circled around and stood for several minutes with his back against the tomb of Henry IV, nephew of the Black Prince who lay across the way, but he could divine no new insight from merely staring at the floor. He would find no answers here.

  With a sigh, he slipped out of the chapel and down the other set of Pilgrims' Stairs, head ducked in thought as he led Michael along the north quire aisle. There was still the place of martyrdom. He glanced over the railing and into the transept as he went down the last set of stairs, but the area was deserted. He paused by the door that led out
to the cloister—the door through which the knights had come in his misty recall—then crossed slowly to the door of a chapel that extended to the east. There was no one there, either. Words chiseled in the wall to his right declared this to be the spot where Thomas Becket, archbishop, saint, and martyr, had died on Tuesday, the twenty-ninth of December, 1170.

  This was the place. Casting a surreptitious glance up the way they had come, he stooped and laid both hands flat on the floor beneath the inscription for a few seconds, Michael watching him oddly. He was not sure why he was doing it or what he was supposed to feel as a result, but he detected nothing. Dusting his palms together distractedly, he stood and beckoned Michael closer.

  "Did Gray tell you anything about what we did last week?" he murmured, craning his neck to glance down a passage farther to the right that led into the undercroft.

  Michael shook his head, mystified.

  "No, sir."

  "Well, we did a past-life regression that seemed to touch on Becket. I think I need to find out a few more things. I'm going into the chapel to see what I can do, and I'd like you to see that I'm not disturbed."

  Michael looked very doubtful. "Does Colonel Graham know what you're planning, sir?"

  "No. But he didn't say I shouldn't."

  "With respect, sir, I doubt he said you shouldn't conjure demons, either, but one would hope you'd know better than to try. You can't possibly have a great deal of exper—"

  As a young couple emerged from the crypt, lost in one another, Michael smoothly shifted into a low-voiced explanation of some feature of the carved screen separating the chapel from the transept where they stood. William glanced at them in surprise and caught back a pang of bitter grief and loneliness, for the young man's lady reminded him very much of Caroline Marie. But the two did not even seem to notice him and Michael as they passed through and out the cloister door.