“Whoa,” said Sean. “Devil-worshippers.”
“Technically,” Rose said, “you have to believe in the Bible to believe in the Devil.”
“Although ‘Devil’ with a small ‘d’ includes a variety of beings, depending on which Dreamtime you’re evoking,” added Anna.
Without getting the other side of the story, the news announcer segued into a commercial. A hyperthyroid actress chirped, “Mood Crisps! Crisps dusted with St. John’s Wort satisfy your mind as well as your body! The new snack food for 2001!”
Maggie had paused in her pacing long enough to mutter, “Bah humbug,” when the sepulchral thud of the iron knocker made everyone jump. A moment later Alf ushered Gupta, live and in person, though the door.
“Alf, Bess, if you’d join us?” the detective asked. “Could you switch off the telly, lad? Thank you. Sorry to be in a bit of a rush, but I need to get myself back to the station as soon as may be.”
So much for the dog and the slippers in front of the family hearth, Maggie told herself. But other than a loosened tie and the whisker-shadow on his cheeks, Gupta didn’t seem too much the worse for wear. He pulled two photographs from his jacket, one the all-too-familiar instant, the other an image on a sheet of fax paper, and handed them to Bess.
“Oooh-er,” she said. “What a pity, that.”
Gupta said, “We’ve identified the dead woman as Vivian Morgan, an investigative reporter for the Oxfordshire Observer.”
A murmur ran around the room “Who’s this other, then?” asked Bess.
“Calum Dewar, a wool-merchant from Edinburgh. He’s gone missing, and this time there’s suspicion of foul play.” Gupta handed Maggie the paper, his dark eyes not shying away from her silent why am I not surprised? “Is this the man you saw?”
Maggie held the black and white photo far enough away she could focus on it. She recognized the man’s dark hair gone gray at the temples and his forehead creased by worry. What she hadn’t noticed yesterday were the upturned lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth which implied humor, even imagination, although in the photo they emphasized the dour respectability of his expression. His eyes were light-colored—they might reflect oddly. Passing the photo on to the students, she said, “Yes, that’s him. Why do you suspect foul play?”
“Calum rang his son from Carlisle this morning, cutting up rough, saying someone was chasing him. I thought Thomas might recognize him or Vivian from some conference or other, but he doesn’t.” With a thoughtful frown, Gupta collected the photos and tucked them inside his jacket.
A telephone chirped and Bess hurried off to answer it. “And?” Maggie prompted.
“We traced Vivian to the Shambhala Guest House. She left late last night, wearing a green cloak with gold embroidery, away to the Samhain ceremony at Baltonsborough, or so she told the proprietor.”
“A cloak,” repeated Rose.
“The ceremony that turned into a riot?” Maggie asked.
“The very same.”
Sean asked, “Did you find a knife to go with that sheath?”
“No.”
“And you don’t know how Vivian died?” asked Anna.
“Not as yet.”
Alf clucked his tongue. “Nice young lady like that. And the Scotsman—well, he’ll turn up right as rain, just you see.”
“I hope so,” said Gupta. “We’re expecting his son here tomorrow. Don’t you have a single room empty yet, Alf?”
“That we do. The lad’s welcome to it.”
Maggie opened her mouth, then shut it. The Dewar boy didn’t have an infectious disease. They owed him some sympathy, already.
“I don’t suppose we can tell him anything more about his father and Vivian,” said Anna “but he might feel better if he tells us about them.”
“Perhaps,” returned Gupta. “Save the lad’s never heard of Vivian.”
“Oh…” Rose’s voice trailed away, as she no doubt visualized half a dozen possible scenarios.
Maggie didn’t need to visualize any scenarios at all. Her stomach felt hollow, as though she were riding a rapidly dropping elevator. But taking the kids and running back to London wasn’t an option. They’d signed up for a course in Arthurian legend and history and that’s what they were going to get, even if the syllabus included footnotes in crime and weirdness. It would all blow over soon … Yeah, right said the part of her mind which was like a pebble in her shoe.
“I’m off, then. Thank you,” Gupta said to everyone, without quite looking at anyone, and turned toward the door.
“I’ll see you out.” Maggie grabbed her coat and followed him out the door and across the cobbles of the courtyard. When they were past the deep shadow of the archway she asked, “So Rose is still on the hook?”
“If I say ‘no,’ will you stop worrying yourself about it?”
“But I’m living proof worry is effective. Ninety per cent of everything I worry about never happens.”
Gupta smiled at that. “Lovely evening,” he commented, and climbed into his car.
That he hadn’t answered her question was answer enough. Maggie stood with her arms crossed as he drove away. A scent of smoke teased the frosty wind. The lingering glow of the sunset made the sky a translucent Prussian blue. One bright light hung above the horizon, a planet or maybe even a UFO. Funny, people used to see angels and demons and now they saw UFOs. Signs and portents, oh my.
She heard a bell ring, and again, and then again. The pure notes spread outward like ripples in a pond, seeming to still the wind and quiet the noises of the town. Was that St. Bridget’s bell tolling the end of All Saints’ Day, the eve of All Souls’? That was pre-Reformation practice, but then, a lot of early rituals and symbols had been revived, to illustrate transcendence for a material and secular age.
Maggie’s shoulders loosened. The stars blossomed, one by one, as the clear peal of the bell filled the night. When it stopped the silence echoed. And then from the depths of that silence came a reply, distant music played on some subtle wind instrument. The slow lilting melody was a lament. It was a lullaby. It was unearthly and otherworldly and fingered her spine like a flute. And yet a laughing ripple of harp strings ran through it as well, and she laughed in delight.
Then the music was gone, leaving only a resonance in her mind. A car drove by. The wind gusted so fiercely her hair blew back from her scalp and her nose tingled. Shaking her head—was it Glastonbury’s reality that had lost its edge, or her own?—she walked back toward the house and the task in hand.
Chapter Seven
Thomas shut the door of the manor house behind him, making the knocker creak. Despite glints of sunshine the wind was chill, scented with sea-spray and the tang of cold iron.
The Puckles were doing right by Temple Manor, bless them. They had been only briefly his employees. Now they were friends, eager to feed him sumptuous meals and lend him their electronic equipment. This morning, though, Thomas had purchased his own cellular telephone. He strode off across the courtyard, once again berating himself for believing that he could go through the End Time without incident.
The phone number in his address book for Alex Sinclair had connected him with a fish and chips shop. Alf’s Internet terminal had listed several Alex Sinclairs, none of them the right one. Finally, hope failing, Thomas checked the archives of the Edinburgh records office and there found Alex’s name. He had died in an automobile crash fifteen years ago.
A series of telephone calls had determined that his other fellow guardians were well, their relics safe. It was Ivan who, through no fault of his own, had lost the Book. And Alex, too, had died without fault, but also without issue, so that the location of the Stone died with him. Although Alex had never been the relic’s actual caretaker. Thomas himself only now suspected who was. For a man named Dewar, an old Gaelic word meaning “guardian,” to go missing, leaving behind a woman dead in a significant place, was no coincidence. It was deliberate challenge.
Robin Fitzroy. His enemy’s name
sliced his mind like a sword.
Just outside the archway a rubber ball flew by his face and bounced off the wall behind him. “Sorry!” exclaimed the MacArthur lad. “I was going in for a lay-up, with that bracket up there as the goal, you know?”
“Hey, Sean!” Maggie’s voice came from inside the courtyard. “I’m on the five-yard line!”
“Hail Mary!” Sean returned, and threw the ball toward her.
The American dialect had certainly produced some arresting idioms. “Maggie,” Thomas called, “would you care for a cup of tea? We should discuss your students’ curriculum.”
“Oh,” she said. “Sure. I’ll get my laptop.”
“My cottage is just off the chancel of the church.” As he had feared, Maggie had interpreted his reaction to her name yesterday as dislike, perhaps even professional jealousy. He mustn’t become so distracted by his age-old task that he neglected contemporary courtesies.
Rose sat on the bench by the garden gate, writing in a blue copybook. Her cheeks were pink, her hair tousled, her eyes shining like a glimpse of heaven. It might have been autumn on the calendar, not to mention in Thomas’s soul, but this vision of spring made his heart leap with joy. He would have knelt at her feet, but Dunstan was already there, grooming his sleek black flank as though visions were an everyday occurrence.
And yet Rose was no angel. She would come down from her pedestal, sooner rather than later—a pedestal provided very little room to move, after all, and the mud beneath was the source of life. But how and when she descended had to be her own choice. He could only pray that she’d taken his veiled warning about Robin to heart, for it was Robin, he felt sure, who’d seen her with his eyes of adamant in the Abbey yesterday morning.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hello, Rose. You’re hard at it, I see.”
“I’m trying to recreate the notes I took and then lost. Maggie says she free-associates when she lectures, but between us we’ll get most of it.”
“Maggie’s a good teacher, is she?”
“Oh yes. She even knew why there was a bell ringing last night.”
Did she now? “And why was that?”
“Ringing a church bell on the night of All Saints’ Day wards off evil spirits. Like throwing salt over your shoulder, except that’s superstition.”
“One man’s sacrament is another’s superstition.”
Rose grinned agreement. “Were you ringing a bell in the chapel?”
“Yes. A replica of St. Bridget’s bell.”
“Once a priest, always a priest, I guess.”
“Yes. Even so, I’ve been—inactive—for many years now.”
“Did you leave the church,” asked Maggie’s voice, “or did the church leave you?”
Thomas looked round.
“Sorry,” Maggie went on, “I was eavesdropping.”
“My faith is no secret.” Thomas replied. “Would you care for a cup of tea, Rose?”
“I promised Sean I’d play basketball,” she answered. “Thanks anyway.”
“Please don’t break anything,” Maggie told her. “I’d like to get y’all back to your parents intact.”
“No, ma’am,” said Rose with her brightest smile. Dazzled, Thomas managed to escort Maggie toward the outside door of his cottage without tripping over his own feet.
“That smile is like a flash bulb going off in your face,” she said.
“Breathtaking,” Thomas replied. “What a shame there are—shall we say vandals?—who would spoil such beauty. But I would assume from your Freudian slip you know that.”
“Freudian slip … Oh no.” Maggie’s face went, appropriately enough, the magenta of a Rosa gallica. “Return her to her parents intact. Like a girl that age is going to be a virgin. Sorry.”
“Your concern does you credit. Jivan—D. I. Gupta—expressed concern as well.” Opening the door, Thomas ushered Maggie into the house that had once belonged to the chapel’s priest, two minuscule rooms up and down.
The staircase to the bedroom was little more than a ladder. A medieval hooded fireplace contained soot-blackened andirons and a pile of ashes. Bits of shabby furniture stood upon a threadbare carpet. A computer and an audiotape player were conspicuously anachronistic. Lancet windows in the massive stone wall admitted a modicum of afternoon light.
Maggie set her laptop computer on the table. “Yeah, I feel responsible for the kids. I don’t have kids of my own. I’m—ah—I’m divorced.” She turned toward the nearest bookcase, presenting Thomas with her knotted shoulders. Choosing a book, she ran her fingertips down its spine as though she were stroking a lover’s body.
Her windblown hair made an auburn halo that softened her angular features. A steadiness in her gaze testified to an exacting intellect, and a tightness at the corners of her mouth suggested unresolved regrets. Her rounded body carried itself with the nervy poise of a thoroughbred horse. Thomas filled the kettle and set it on the electric ring. “You must find the students stimulating as well as worrying.”
“The campus in the fall is downright intoxicating. The changing leaves. The smell of new books. All those bright young faces.” She replaced the book and combed her hair with her fingers. “I like the way you write, putting the religious and social aspects into context. Most historians use past events to beat their own ideological horses.”
“St Bernard said, ‘Every word one writes smites the Devil.’ Mind you, it’s fashionable nowadays to consider religious faith either a psychological idiosyncrasy or a deficiency in character. We rationalize away evil and medicate away visions.”
Maggie glanced back at him. “I wondered if religion was your horse.”
“One to ride, not to beat.”
“Do you ever question your faith?”
“Frequently. And it always answers. To paraphrase Plato, the unexamined faith is not worth believing.”
“Your faith answers? Not the church? Is that why you left it?”
“As with any event, there were many reasons.” The evasion came smoothly to his lips, but this time left a bitter aftertaste. Again he felt strong as any physical appetite the need to speak the entire truth. And yet how, when the truth would appear the most bare-faced of lies?
“Not that I know anything about it,” Maggie told him. “I was brought up Episcopalian, and would probably be a Unitarian, except…”
That would require belief, Thomas concluded for her.
She considered two stitchery samplers hanging above the books. One was in Latin, the other in Greek, both illuminating St. John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Below them stood a lead cross covered with misshapen capital letters. “Hic jacet sepultus inclitus rex arturius in insula avalonia, Here lies buried the famous King Arthur in the island of Avalon. This is a copy of the cross which turned up in 1191 in Arthur’s grave in the Abbey, isn’t it? Not that the grave really was Arthur’s, but if you can’t prove it was you can’t prove it wasn’t, either. The cross was probably a twelfth-century forgery…” Maggie spun round. “This can’t be the original!”
“Can there be an original of a forgery?”
“Sure. If this cross was made in 1191 it would be an important antiquity. It would be a truth, just not the truth you expect.”
“The cross was given to me. I couldn’t say whether it’s the original or not, to tell you the…” Thomas busied himself with the tin of tea. “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
“To thine own self be true,” she replied, “thou canst not then be false to any man.”
Speaking with this woman was like speaking a litany. “Sometimes the truth depends upon your point of view.”
“From the Bible and Shakespeare to Star Wars?”
“Every age rewrites the old myths, but they remain valid.”
“Yes,” Maggie said, but her brittle tone said, maybe. Stiff as a crab, she sidled past the fireplace to another bookcase, where she stared into a flat box. S
he groped in her pocket for her glasses. “Good Lord, you’ve got a set of his seals.”
The kettle whistled. It took Thomas a moment to realize what the shrill noise was. He rinsed the pot with boiling water, then added a spoonful of tea leaves and more water. Steam wavered upward and caressed his cheeks, but his face was already warm.
“Beautifully preserved,” Maggie went on, her nose almost touching the two oblongs of gold. “In the official one you can see each wrinkle in the robe and the ribbons on the miter. And each little letter is perfect: Sigillum Tome dei gratia archiepiscopi cantuariensis. The seal of Thomas by the grace of God archbishop of Canterbury.”
Odd, his hand was trembling. Still, Thomas managed to pour milk into a pitcher without spilling it.
“And the second one here, with the Roman figure in the middle—Mercury?”
Mercury, thought Thomas. The patron of alchemists. And liars.
“This one says sigillum Tome Lund big as anything. ‘Lund’ being short for ‘Londoniensis.’ Thomas of London, which he was before he became a V.I.P. I bet there have been lots of Thomas Londons over the years, not just the ones in your family.”
There’s only ever been one Thomas Maudit. He placed cups and saucers on the table.
“But we know him as Thomas Becket. Becket was his father’s name, a place name, ‘Le Bec’ in Normandy maybe. Or a nickname, ‘Beaky,’ like a prominent nose, you know?”
Thomas knew.
“I always liked the Norman ‘fitz,’ son of, from the Latin filius. Often the bastard son, although you have Henry FitzEmpress, who was thoroughly legit. Good old Henry II. Or, in this context, bad old Henry II. Have you seen the movie Becket? The one based on Anouilh’s play? Terrible history, but a good story, even though Becket himself is played way too detached. The real man had to have had ambition and the guts to match to rise from merchant’s son to Chancellor of England. You have to feel sorry for Henry, he thought if he put his buddy the Chancellor into the Archbishopric he could manipulate the church. But Becket turned against him, whether out of a higher loyalty or an excess of pride is hard to say.”
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