The Gawain Legacy

by Jon Mackley

  ‘Whose fault is that?’ her father snapped. ‘I didn’t invite you into my house. You were the one who knew it all and was quite happy to leave me here to fend for myself.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Lara said. ‘That’s what you’d have liked me to believe, but there was always my brother, wasn’t there? I’m sure he made sure you didn’t want for anything.’

  ‘What are you burbling on about?’ her father said.

  ‘You’re not going to insult me by telling me that I haven’t got a brother, are you?’

  Her father shook his head. ‘No. It took you long enough to work it out. But I haven’t seen him in about twenty years.’

  ‘But …’ Lara started.

  ‘How clearly do I need to spell it out to you, girl? Your brother left twenty years ago. He left Beaded after a traumatic time at home, for which I was largely responsible, but you were the cause.’

  ‘Stop blaming me!’ Lara shouted. ‘I was four years old. How can you blame a four-year old for ripping the family apart?’

  ‘Because you killed your mother!’ Halpin glowered. ‘And neither of us had anywhere to direct our grief. It ate at us, ate all the good bits and left the rest to rot.’

  Lara wanted to retort, but suddenly her fight was gone. Halpin continued. ‘Your brother went away, joined the Merchant Navy. I didn’t hear from him again.’

  He looked away from her, for which Lara was grateful. He wouldn’t see the relief flooding across her face as she realised she’d been wrong to believe that Marsh was her brother. Instead, Marsh had played upon her father’s weakness.

  Halpin continued: ‘The famous Halpin pride was our undoing. He left, and I spent the next years trying not to talk as though you would live in a shadow if he came back, because he disappointed me. He disappointed me by not resolving our misunderstanding. But you had been the wedge between us. But I tried to love you. I tried to tell you about him through the stories. I didn’t want you to disappoint me the way he had. There were two things you could have done. You could have brought your mother back to me, or your brother.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘But you failed on both scores.’

  Then Will was speaking. ‘Mr Halpin. I read Lara’s file. Her mother died in childbirth. That’s not the kind of guilt you can pin on a child.’

  ‘I’ll thank you for not interfering with my family,’ Halpin snapped. He turned back to Lara. ‘You failed to realise any of my hopes. So now I look at you and say you were a disappointment, and I would willingly change history for a time when you didn’t exist.’

  Lara was floundering, burning with shame. This was more than the paradox of changing time so she and Will never met, so he couldn’t have betrayed her to Marsh, so she could go back and change time. This was the old conundrum of someone going back in time to kill their own grandfather so they could never be born. This was the paradox of willing herself out of existence. ‘This would have affected everyone else in the world,’ Lara said hopelessly. ‘What gave you the right to decide how history was going to change?’

  ‘Your brother had the right to the love I couldn’t provide. He had the right to a mother. I had the right to a wife. And you, you just let yourself be defeated and crawl into the corner, rather than be a part of the most important scientific experiment of all time.’ His eyes blazed. There was no sign of the old man now. There was power behind those eyes, power that had victimised Lara in the past. She found herself cowering from him like a child. ‘You’re pathetic,’ he said, and didn’t try to disguise his contempt.

  Lara’s determination sagged. There was no fight left in her. Halpin sensed his advantage and played his trump. ‘Of course, your whole marriage was a sham, too.’

  ‘It didn’t work out,’ she admitted. Her voice sounded pitiful. ‘It happens.’

  Halpin smiled at her. There was no humour, just baring his teeth in the malicious knowledge that he had won. ‘Michael was working for Eric Marsh. He was employed to keep an eye on you when I felt I could no longer do so without arousing suspicion.’

  Game, set and match.

  Lara gasped. She almost doubled over in the agony of shock, as if Halpin had physically hit her. Michael was a part of this too? It had only been days since she had left Stamford, but she was having difficulty in remembering what Michael looked like. Then she glanced at Will and, finally, her father. Every man that she thought she could trust had been a part of this conspiracy. Every man she thought she’d loved had lied to her.

  She looked up at Halpin. She suddenly saw him for what he was: a sad, pathetic old man who’d never found the courage to confront his tragedy. She had expected to be angry at his mocking, condescending tone. She had expected to be upset by his vehemence towards her. But, as she straightened herself and refused to break her stare, she felt nothing. She had left here three years ago, and soon she would do it again. ‘You’ve consoled yourself with a story of time-travel and you only loathe me because you don’t have the courage to loathe yourself. Face it: my mother’s death was a tragedy. I may not have seen the signs that I had a brother, but at least I didn’t spend my entire life trusting in a serum that didn’t work. And if it had worked, I wouldn’t have brought my mother back. What makes you think she’d want to spend another second with such a … cruel man.’ She smiled confidently. ‘The serum doesn’t work. It never did.’ This was a gamble. She didn’t look at Will, but time seemed laden as she waited for him to speak.

  ‘She’s right,’ Will said eventually. ‘There’s no secret serum that can take you back in time. Even if there were, it wouldn’t change things. It’s all to do with cause and effect. No action of the future can affect the past. The past is a written book that cannot be changed.’ Lara saw beads of sweat on his forehead, and she placed a gentle hand on his arm. ‘Accept it, Mr Halpin. Our business is concluded.’ He leaned forward. His face was steely; there was darkness in his eyes. ‘Lara no longer has to watch out to see if you, or Marsh, or Michael, or anyone else is following her,’ he said. His voice was powerful. For a moment, Will reminded her of the way Tantris spoke with hidden power. ‘It’s over.’

  Halpin maintained an almost perfect poker-face. The only betrayal that he was feeling anything was an almost indiscernible narrowing of the eyes.

  She turned and walked away. There was nothing more to say. She didn’t want him to see the tears burning her eyes. She gently slipped through the front door, the door that evoked so many memories, and walked towards the car.

  Will did not follow immediately. She wondered, briefly, if his statement that Marsh’s experiments had been a failure was only a carefully constructed lie to deceive her once more, and to deliver her to him once again. But when he returned, he was sombre, as though he had to pass on bad news. ‘Your father won’t bother us anymore,’ Will said. ‘I explained to him you should be left alone in terms he’d understand.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Lara asked.

  Will gave a nonchalant shrug. ‘I told him I’d break his fingers if I found anyone following you. He seemed to understand.’

  When Lara sat in the car, a spring of triumph started to bubble inside her. But it was quickly substituted for rage. She thumped against the dashboard. ‘How could he?’ she screamed. White hot anger flashed across her eyes.

  Will shrugged. ‘I can understand what he was doing, even if I don’t agree with it. He loved your mother so much that he couldn’t bear the thought of life without her, and would have stopped at nothing to bring her back.’

  Lara felt like she had been forced to take a bitter pill. ‘I understand that,’ she said. ‘I just hate the thought that my father saw me as an expendable pawn, just a stone to kick along the roadside.’

  Will nodded. ‘Yeah. Talk about casting pearls before swine. He never saw your true worth, did he? After all, you’ll always be my precious pearl.’

  *

  Lara was glad that Will drove away from Beaded and didn’t suggest stopping somewhere en route. Exhaustion was driving skewers into her back. Her arms and legs
felt limp. Her neck screamed at her every time she yawned. Even so, she needed to get away from here. And even though they had reached the end of the trail, she had a nagging feeling her journey wasn’t completely over. She had been running, and she still had nowhere to go. She needed to find a place where she could start again and establish herself. Then, she thought, only then will it be truly over.

  There was little traffic at this time, except for a steady stream of haulage lorries, but Lara needed to look over her shoulder. She was suspicious of any car that followed for more than a short distance.

  She felt safer once they had passed the RAC building and the slip-road for the M5. After all, it had been in Birmingham where she had joined the chase. Now everything had turned full circle. Will must have sensed her relief as he turned and smiled at her. She glanced behind them at car lights, but Will placed a gentle hand over hers.

  ‘You still worrying about Marsh?’ he asked softly. ‘You don’t need to.’

  He didn’t say any more; Lara had learned that Will would tell her in his own time. The rhythmic flash of the motorway lights was beguiling. Lara closed her eyes for what seemed to be a few moments, but then she heard the change in the engine’s pitch and Will was driving along the road towards Home Forest House.

  ‘Slix’ll be in bed,’ he told her as they got out of the car. ‘But I know where she keeps the spare key.’

  ‘She won’t mind us being here?’ Lara said.

  Will frowned. ‘A big house like this, all to herself? No, she’ll welcome visitors.’ Then he grimaced and rubbed his cheek. ‘Most of the time.’

  She waited while Will hunted under plant pots for the key, then he unlocked the door and returned to pick up some of the manuscripts. ‘Besides, I told you, it’s our house.’

  The plants seemed to prickle as if sensing intruders as Lara and Will walked through to the kitchen. Lara was almost certain she heard something whispering amongst the foliage as the plants reassured themselves that these visitors were friends. Despite the welcome she had received from Olivia, Lara still felt this was a spooky place; there was something … primeval … about it.

  Will set the kettle to boil, then sat her down with a cup of coffee before he left her for only a few moments. When he returned, his arms were full of the remaining parchments. Lara watched him, fascinated by his childlike innocence. His eyes widened with excitement as he scoured through the pages. He traced his finger along the lines of script, reading under his breath the words in Latin and Middle English, and in other languages she didn’t recognise.

  She tried to stay awake, but the pressures of the day were taking their toll and her vision started to swim as her head dropped lower and lower towards the table. ‘That came over all sudden …’ she thought, as her eyes closed. It was as if she’d been … drugged.

  She began to panic, trying to fight the overwhelming urge to sleep, but it was a useless struggle. She might as well have been chasing a rainbow. Her last thought before her eyes closed was the realisation she shouldn’t trust Will. He had sold her out to Eric Marsh once again.

  20

  She woke to the sound of clattering: rain upon the conservatory roof. Lara half-roused herself. She had laid her head on the table and not moved. Her eyes were still heavy with sleep. Will was still sitting in front of her, his eyes had the same rheumy sheen as someone who had been drinking, although Will had probably spent the entire night focused on the minuscule letters of various documents. He didn’t even glance up at her when she moved. He was obsessed with what he was reading, working like an automaton, taking copious notes, marking pages in documents with torn slivers of paper.

  Gradually, she became aware of her surroundings: she was sitting in Olivia’s kitchen. Olivia was sitting outside in the conservatory. When she saw Lara had opened her eyes she smiled and gave a little wave. Lara smiled back uncertainly and brushed the last of the sleep from her eyes and staggered over to where Olivia was sitting.

  ‘I can’t believe he left you there all night,’ Olivia said. ‘I mean, he didn’t even see you safely to your room before starting his single-handed cataloguing of the entire collection.’ She shook her head in mock despair. ‘Men!’ She smiled again. ‘You have two choices: coffee with me, or getting some proper rest and I’ll go back to reading my book.’

  Lara smiled weakly. ‘I think I’ll try coffee and conversation.’

  ‘That’s more than he’s tried,’ Olivia said, indicating to Will. ‘I can’t get a coherent thought out of him at all. It’s like those papers are going to run away if he takes his eyes off them.’ She got up and went over to the kettle. ‘I’ll drip-feed him caffeine every hour and see how long he goes until he collapses with exhaustion.’ She smiled, remembering. ‘That’s Will for you. Always the obsessive and always got his nose in a book.’

  Lara chatted with Olivia for the rest of the morning, although she realised she was doing most of the talking, and Olivia had hardly said anything about her own life.

  Eventually, like a long-distance underwater swimmer, Will came up for air. He seemed bewildered when he gazed around, as if surprised that so much time had passed and the sun had risen. He eventually focused on Lara and smiled, rubbing tired eyes and massaging his temples. ‘Anything interesting?’ Lara said.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe it,’ Will replied. ‘There’s something here which explains why the poet made the clues.’ He rummaged through the papers and pointed to one of the parchments. The ink had faded in the light; the pages had become brittle. He winced. ‘These need to be stored in the right conditions,’ he said in a hollow voice, realising that in order to preserve the documents, he would have to surrender them to someone else. ‘The plan to write Sir Gawayne was conceived by the monks in Chester. They felt that writing a poem showed religion in a new light; it’s a constant trial and testing against an unknown foe. It’s an allegory for life itself. The Church was divided with the Papacy moving to Avignon, and there were the further worries over Wycliffe’s paper which rejected the Biblical basis of papal authority.’

  Lara yawned. ‘All very interesting. What does it mean?’

  ‘It shows that for the times of William de Masci, the papal struggles and the Protestant reform attack were rocking the Catholic Church. You’ve also got long periods of war. The idea of the Chester monks was to establish a backdrop everyone would understand: Arthur’s court, and so, they created an antithesis of the troubles of England at the time. You’ve got a depiction of a stable and noble monarchy, the brotherhood of religion, a devotion to God without the questions of papacy and Protestantism and a noble knight who is prepared to lay down his life to protect the honour of his King.’

  ‘And what about the trail?’

  ‘Sir William wrote the poems with the guidance of the Benedictine monks, and so they had enough influence to include a discreet stone in the building of the south transept, containing the kind of language the poet himself would have used. The Cathedral also owned the site of Holywell, and so they were quite capable of tying in the legends of Gawain; they could also influence some of the building of the chapel there: the Star Chamber is an example of that. When the Pope realised that something was going on, he summoned Sir William to Avignon. He went and explained that his family were descended from Sir Gerard, a Templar, that the family had been guardians of the Ring of Solomon for a century and he needed to keep it hidden. Clement V wanted to ensure the survival of the Templars despite the pressures from the French King, and Clement VI, a Benedictine himself, understood the urgency of the mission, so, instead of commanding him to leave the Ring in Rome, he agreed to include part of the clues in the Palais des Papes. He ensured the complete details of the fresco would be saved and the depictions restored when age took their toll on them. He wasn’t to know it would be Napoleonic soldiers, rather than age, that would destroy the frescos – or maybe he did, because he was known to have consulted astrologers.’ Will considered. ‘Or maybe the ring had certain other powers. Anyway, Clement VI enjoy
ed his comforts, and he turned the Palais into a palace for princes, a place where he could entertain the ambassadors to the Christian Church, rather than the cold fortress it had been before. He also oversaw the building of the Église Saint-Pierre, with a special directive as to which statue should stand beneath the fifth station of the cross, and what it should represent. Sadly, those papers must be lost, or held in some Vatican archive where we’ll never find them. One thing is for certain, the de Masci family were respected by the highest orders of the Church, if even the Pope would bow to his almost childish treasure-trail.’

  ‘If the Pope knew about the ring and the location of the Seals of Revelation, then how could he allow them to fall into anyone’s hands?’

  ‘Perhaps because they believed in predestination, and that the seals would be found when the time was right. Perhaps it was because even the Pope has to answer to the powers Tantris spoke of. I just don’t know.’ He looked back at the documents. ‘Sir William also says he planned to include a trap in his own tomb just so the unwary – grave robbers – wouldn’t stumble across the manuscripts, and that was why he had Margery buried in the garden, rather than the family vault. Anyway, the de Masci family owned significant amounts of the land around Beaded. Peasants who worked on the land raised the Village and the Parish Church was established as a focus of Village life, exactly what Father Timothy wanted from it. It’s too bad that there’s been a steady decline in moral standards, and the people were so resilient to change.’

  ‘All these years and Beaded hasn’t known what a great heritage it’s had. The only thing we knew was that it was a thirteenth century church.’

  Will regarded her seriously. ‘Hardly a great heritage, when you think about it. It was established through treasures stolen from Jerusalem. Some of the Templars were noble knights, Gerard de Masci is an example of that, but others were downright bloody butchers.’

  ‘I was talking about the fact that Sir William – and the whole of his family – lived in Beaded, and we never knew anything about it. I assume he must have lived in a manor or something. I wonder what happened to it?’