by C. C. Finlay
“What will make you leave?”
The king’s hands jumped up and started to choke the priest, who hesitated to lay hands on His Majesty. Proctor had had enough. The ropes, looped loosely around the king’s wrists and ankles, unraveled and reached for the arms and legs of the chair. As soon as they touched wood they wound like a windlass, drawing in the king’s arms and legs and binding them tight where he sat.
The priest fell back to the floor, clutching his throat.
“Did the demon do that?” Gordon asked.
“No,” the demon said. And then it roared in frustration. “The American did it—they mean to break the empire, they mean to throw down kings. Someday they mean to be greater than England. He is no friend, no friend to you.”
“We must untie those bonds at once,” Shelburne said as soon as he understood what had happened. He stood up from his seat.
“Oh, enough of this,” Proctor said. He used his power to push Shelburne and Gordon back into their seats. He grabbed the priest by the wrist. He felt him trying to pull away, using both his physical and spiritual strength. But Proctor was tired of letting others make the choices. He dragged the priest across the floor and jammed the silver ring against the demon’s forehead. Fire shot down through his arm. “Did you try to possess my daughter?”
Words tumbled reluctantly out of the king’s mouth. “Balfri wanted your child, and he sent his left hand, but he was stopped.”
“Did you try to possess Deborah, my wife?”
“Balfri sent his left hand again, in power and glory, but he was stopped.”
“Who or what is the left hand?”
“The footman, the herald, and the left hand—these are three aspects of Balfri. One to serve, one to announce, and one to rule.”
“Does Balfri possess Deborah now?”
The demon opened its mouth and screamed at Proctor directly. It moved its hand in the king’s skull, and words came out of his mouth. “She is in his presence.”
It was a trick answer and Proctor would not let himself be blinded. He slammed the priest’s ring into the demon’s face again. “Does Balfri’s left hand possess my Deborah?”
“She is with the herald.”
“Is she alive?”
“Her body lives.”
They were true answers, but they were not the true answers he wanted. The demon was trying to provoke him into speaking directly or lashing out. Proctor felt the rage and fear building inside him. Red swam before his eyes, and he wanted to take the priest’s hand and strike the king’s mouth. He wanted to beat it until it swore to leave Deborah alone.
Calm, the priest whispered. It was merely a voice in his head, not even a word on his lips.
And Proctor calmed. He realized he was squeezing the man’s wrist so tight, the skin paled. He almost let go, but the priest looked at him through his spectacles. In his head, Proctor heard the thought, Go ahead and ask your questions. Finish.
Proctor loosened his grip on the priest’s wrist but strengthened his will. “How do I get Deborah or my daughter back if you’ve possessed them?”
“You can’t.”
“How does anyone do it, how do we get you out of our bodies?”
The king’s head lolled to one side. A chuckle formed in his throat then blossomed into full-throated laughter, even with his eyes rolled back. “You must kill the body to release us from the body,” said the voice.
Shelburne was up in a heartbeat. “That’s unacceptable.”
“Surely there’s some other way,” Gordon said.
King and demon smiled. The demon began to describe in elaborate and gruesome detail the various ways they could kill the king. Proctor flung the priest’s arm aside in disgust, and the priest rose and passed out the earplugs again.
“It’s lying,” Proctor said to the priest.
What do you mean? the priest mouthed. He rubbed his wrist to make the blood flow into it again.
Proctor didn’t know what he meant. He looked at the king tied to the chair, the way he thrashed and pulled against his bonds, and the demon sitting on his shoulder like a coachman at the reins.
The possession wasn’t complete.
If the Bloody Tower had so many protections against malevolent magic built into its walls, how many protections were built into the Crown and kingdom? Especially after a thousand years? The Covenant, for all their power, had only managed to break through part of the king’s protections.
Proctor studied the demon again. When he’d seen it in the Tower, the demon only had its hand wrist-deep in the king’s skull. Now it was sunk to the elbow. Eventually, given time, it might possess the king completely. But not yet.
“Give me the ring,” Proctor said.
The priest hesitated. Then he pulled it off and dropped it in Proctor’s hand. It was a heavy silver ring, with the signet of the cross on it. A line from the Lord’s prayer had been engraved inside the band.
DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
Proctor slipped on the ring and walked over to the demon. He calmly and deliberately rested the ring against the tip of its nose. With the ring on his own hand, the demon felt almost solid.
“What happens if we cut off your arm?”
The demon screamed at him.
“What happens if we cut off your arm?”
The king’s head snapped back as if he’d been struck. His body shook and strained against the ropes, and gibberish poured out of his mouth.
“What happens if we cut off your arm?”
The king’s head flew forward and he spewed vomit in Proctor’s face. Proctor wiped it off with his free hand and didn’t budge. When he repeated the question again, the king thrashed from side to side, spewing forth words in many different languages, some inflected, rolling like the hills, some as harsh and flat as a wasteland. The priest leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the king’s lips, his own lips moving with the king’s words. He seemed always on the verge of understanding. His fingers ticked upward every time he picked up a word or a phrase.
But Proctor didn’t understand and had no patience to sort it out. “How do I make you explain it in English so I can understand you?”
“I’ll drive him mad,” screamed the demon. “I’ll wring his stomach into knots until he pisses blood. I’ll steal the sense from his thoughts and the words from his lips. I’ll make his life a living hell.”
Proctor shoved the ring against the demon’s face, bending its head backward. It twisted from side to side, trying to escape. “Will Balfri control him?”
“I will drive him mad, mad with pain, mad with desire. I will break him—”
“Will you control him?”
“NO!”
The king’s head rolled forward onto his chest, and he sagged in the chair.
“How do we cut off your arm?” Proctor asked.
“Blood and silver,” the demon said, its voice a wretched sob.
Proctor stepped away from the creature and noticed everyone looking at him. Gordon’s eyes were wide with fear. Shelburne’s face was composed and thoughtful. Grueby turned his head away quickly, staring at a blank spot on the wall.
“I need a silver knife,” Proctor said.
“I have one in my bag,” the priest said.
“We cannot proceed without asking His Majesty’s permission,” Shelburne said. “I very firmly insist. We must explain the situation to him and ask what he wishes.”
Proctor nodded. If he faced forty years of pain and despair, he might choose death instead. Proctor undid an imaginary knot with his fingers, and all four ropes fell to the floor.
The priest knelt at the king’s side. “Your Majesty,” he said softly.
The king raised his head and sat up straight. He rubbed his wrists where they had been bound. “There is no dignity in this,” he said, shaking his head. “No dignity at all. It is wrong.”
“We have something we must explain to you,” the priest said.
“I heard all of it,” the king said. “Like an arg
ument happening in the next room, behind only a thin wall.” He looked to Shelburne. “Thank you. Your attention to propriety will not be forgotten.” To Proctor, he said, “Do I understand correctly that this creature has attacked your wife and ch-children?”
“My daughter, yes,” Proctor said.
The king reached out and patted him on the arm. He seemed at a loss for words, reaching up to wipe a knuckle at the corner of each eye. The demon on his shoulder had a furtive, trapped look about it now.
“I would like to be present for what ever else you do,” the king said. He clapped his hands on his knees.
“Do you want to take a break—prepare for another day?” the priest asked.
“Let’s be done with it,” he said. To Proctor, “Can you do this?”
The demon began to thrash and struggle, trying to pull its arm free of the king’s head.
“Sire,” Shelburne said. “Did you clearly hear the consequences?”
Proctor guessed that the loss of reason was something Shelburne feared more than death.
“Madness and pain,” the king said. “I’d rather not go into the details. But I remain my own man and England’s king.”
The priest handed Proctor the silver knife. He drew it across the scar on his hand. Let the wounds that the Covenant had given him be their undoing. He grabbed the demon’s wrist with his ringed hand. The creature slashed and bit at him, tearing open real wounds in his flesh. The physical world and the spirit world were as one.
Proctor stabbed the bloody knife into the demon’s arm where it touched the king’s skull.
“Oh,” said the king. “I feel that.”
Proctor ignored him, sawing all the way through the arm. The demon yowled in rage. The instant Proctor severed its arm the sound vanished. The demon’s arm slipped out of Proctor’s grip as it floated away. A bright white light appeared in the room and the creature turned to smoke, then disappeared.
As he watched it go, Proctor wondered if he could do the same thing to Deborah and Maggie if they were only partially possessed. Could he condemn them to a life of suffering to free them from a demon?
Could he free them any other way if they were entirely possessed?
The priest stared at Proctor as if waiting to see what he would do next.
Proctor tossed him the silver knife and said, “God save the king.”
Chapter 23
The priest took Proctor aside. “What you did here today was remarkable. Have you ever considered a career in the priesthood?”
Proctor was taken aback. “I have a wife and a daughter,” he said.
“That is no barrier in the Church of England,” the priest said.
“But I’m not English.”
“Are you Christian?”
“Of course.”
“That is all that matters. You must realize that your wife and daughter are in terrible danger.” When Proctor tensed, the priest held up his hand. “I speak not of anything specific, nor to be cruel, but to prepare you for the unhappy fact.”
Proctor did not need anyone to feed his fears for Deborah and Maggie. It was too easy to imagine Maggie as a blood sacrifice and Deborah possessed by Balfri.
“You may return home to find them not as you remember them,” the priest said. “If you find them. You may not find them at all. A life of service would be a fitting tribute to their memory.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
The priest blinked. Recovering, he offered Proctor a melancholy smile. “Nothing has ever happened to me,” he said. “You must remember that I have no name. I am no one.”
“Thank you, but all I want to do is return home.”
“Please consider sending a letter to the office of special secretary at Canterbury if you ever change your mind.”
“How will it reach you, if you are no one.”
“Because the office is always there,” the priest said. “Your letter will reach someone.”
The other men had joined them. King George spoke quietly to Lord Gordon. “I w-w-will see that you have the best legal minds to advise and represent you. But you-you-you must go to the Tower and you m-m-must go to trial.”
Gordon’s face was grave. He glanced at the king’s head where the demon had been amputated, then looked at the ground. “Yes, sir.”
Shelburne stood with his hands behind his back, staring Proctor in the eye. “It is my goal to render your kind powerless. When men no longer believe in magic, sorcerers like Dee will not be able to channel the untapped talent of ordinary men to evil purposes.”
“I don’t believe that will ever happen,” the priest said.
“W-w-we must all work to elevate reason,” the king said.
Proctor watched the others seem to let that stand as the last word, but he was not content. “So how do we go after Dee now? I want to go with you.”
“Dee and his followers have left the country,” Shelburne said.
“It’s why we finally considered it safe to bring His Majesty here,” the priest said.
“Where have they gone?” Proctor asked.
King George seemed almost apologetic. “I-I-I assumed that you knew. They’ve gone to Am-m-merica.”
Grueby brought a shay around from Shelburne’s stables, and offered Proctor a hand up to the seat. “Lord Gordon has commanded me to deliver you to the destination of your choice,” he said.
“There’s a farm outside Salem, in the state of Massachusetts,” Proctor said.
“I believe he meant within the vicinity of London.”
“I have to find a ship to America,” Proctor said.
“There’s a place down near the docks that I believe will suit,” Grueby said. He snapped the reins, and the spritely gray mare clopped off through the streets.
Proctor was lost in thought about his next steps. It might be best to find some way back to France, maybe with some of the smugglers whom Digges knew. From France, he could surely find an American ship or at least a ship bound for America.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Grueby said as they rolled through the streets. “How exactly did you turn the spell and escape from the Tower? I didn’t think that was possible.”
“I’d better keep that secret, in case I ever need it again.”
Grueby nodded. “Gordon was convinced that you were a member of the Covenant. He thought they would come visit you in prison. I was to wait and spy on you to see if they came. The goal was to follow them back to their residence.”
“And after eight months?” Proctor said.
“I don’t blame you for being bitter,” Grueby said, keeping his eyes on the road. “I just wanted to explain. I was coming for you today because our plans changed with Dee’s departure. He just appeared in a carriage at the docks and hired a merchant ship to America for himself and several passengers.”
“And you were simply going to tell the guards that I was the wrong man and they would have set me free?”
Grueby was silent as the blocks rolled past. The carriage had excellent springs. Proctor thought he had never had a smoother ride. They had passed from the London of mansions in classical styles unknown in America through streets lined with spacious homes, modest by comparison, that rivaled the best his homeland had to offer, and had come to the kind of buildings one found everywhere he’d been yet, slapped-together structures that seemed to stand up by leaning on one another like a group of drunks. They were infinite in their variety—this one had a balcony, that one had an overhanging roof, one over there had shutters on the windows—and identical in their dreariness, dilapidation, and decrepitude. The smell of water—of fish and slime and sewage—filled the air.
“I’m sure I can find a ship to America from France,” Proctor said. “Are there smugglers down here who will take me there?”
“It’s someone who can get you to France,” Grueby said. “I’ll wait while you go talk to him, if you prefer. But if this doesn’t work, I’ll see if we can find passage for you on one of the militar
y ships.”
“That would be less than ideal,” Proctor said. “Although it would be better than prison.”
“It’s the door on the right,” Grueby said, pointing.
Proctor climbed down from the shay and walked up to the door. Voices inside were having a hushed but heated discussion. Proctor felt like a beggar again, realizing that if he didn’t have enough of Digges’s money left, he’d have to ask Grueby for more. He wiped his palm on his pants and rapped on the wood, which hung so loose it rattled in the frame.
The door opened a crack. Eyes peered at him out of the dark.
“Hello,” Proctor said. “I’m looking for—”
The door opened wide. Thomas Digges stood there. The sailor’s jacket and breeches he wore looked as natural on him as the cook’s apron he had worn when he brought Proctor food in prison. A shadow stepped out of the dark recesses of the room behind him.
Proctor threw himself through the doorway and wrapped his arms around the second person. He squeezed tight and then thrust her back at arm’s length.
“Lydia! I thought you were dead. I thought I’d never see you again.”
Out in the street, Grueby cracked the reins and the mare pulled the carriage away from the curb. It rolled off into the night.
Digges shut the door. “If I’m that easy to find, I’ll have to change addresses again. I worried that I had been staying here too long.”
“Lydia, I …”
“I’m glad to see you too, Mister Brown.”
“Proctor. You better call me Proctor. How did you—Where did you—?”
She stepped away from him and composed herself again. “I got caught up in the riots, just as you did, I suspect.”
“Were you at Newgate?”
“I was drawn there, like a bee to honey, but when they set it on fire I fled.”
“I arrived as they were pulling prisoners out of the flames. And then the distillery fire—we thought we saw you there.”
“I was there,” she said. They all fell silent for a moment at the memory of that horrible fire, the rioters shot by the troops, the people burned alive. Finally, Lydia said, “John was one of the men they captured and hanged.”