The mystic rose cc-3

by Stephen Lawhead

  The mystic rose

  ( Celtic Crusades - 3 )

  Stephen Lawhead

  Stephen Lawhead

  The mystic rose

  PART I

  August 24, 1916: Edinburgh, Scotland

  A young woman of my acquaintance saw a ghost. Ordinarily, I would not have given such a melodramatic triviality even passing notice, save for two pertinent facts. One: the ghost appeared in broad daylight at the same country house where my wife and I had been staying that very weekend, and two: the ghost was Pemberton.

  What made this eerie curiosity more peculiar still was the fact that the spectre materialized in the room we would have occupied if my wife had not come down with a cold earlier that day, thus necessitating our premature departure. We returned to the city so she might rest more comfortably in her own bed that night. Otherwise, we would surely have witnessed the apparition ourselves, and spared Miss Euphemia Gillespie, a young lady of twenty, and the daughter of one of the other guests who was staying that weekend, with whom my wife and I were reasonably well acquainted.

  Rumour had it that Miss Gillespie was woken from her nap by a strange sound to find a tall, gaunt figure standing at the foot of her bed. Dressed in a dark suit of clothes, and holding his hat in his hands, he was, she reported, soaking wet,… as if he had been caught in a fearsome shower without his brolly.' The young lady took fright and issued a cry of surprise, whereupon the apparition introduced himself, apologized, and promptly vanished with a bewildered expression on his face.

  Be that as it may, the full significance of this event did not truly strike home until word of Pemberton's death reached us two days later, along with news of the loss of RMS Lusitania in the early afternoon of 7th May 1915, roughly the time when his ghost was seen by Miss Gillespie.

  This ghostly manifestation might have made a greater stir if it had not been so completely overshadowed by the sinking of the Lusitania. The daily broadsheets were fall of venomous outrage at this latest atrocity: a luxury liner torpedoed without warning by a German U-boat, taking almost twelve hundred civilian souls to a watery grave; The Edinburgh Evening Herald published a list of the missing drawn from the ship's manifest. Among those who had embarked on the trip to Liverpool from New York were a few score Americans; the rest were Europeans of several nationalities. Pemberton's name was on the list. Thus, while the rest of the world contemplated the fact that the war had taken a sinister turn, I mourned the death of a very dear and close friend.

  I pondered the meaning of the spectral portent and, no doubt, would have given the matter its due consideration, but I was very soon distracted by the precipitous and worrying decline in my wife's health. The chill which she contracted that day in the country had grown steadily worse, and by the time the doctor diagnosed influenza, it was too late. My dearest, beloved helpmate and partner of forty-four years passed away two days later.

  Within the space of a week, I had lost the two most important people in my life. I was bereft and broken. Where I might have expected to rely upon one to help me through the death of the other, I had neither. Both were gone, and I was left behind to struggle on as best I could. The children were some comfort, it is true; but they had busy lives of their own, and were soon called back to their affairs, leaving me to flounder in quiet misery.

  Following my dear Caitlin's funeral, I attempted to resume my work at the firm, but quickly found that there was no joy or solace to be had in the to-ing and fro-ing of the legal trade. In truth, I had for some time been deriving little pleasure from the practice of my profession. Now, however, I found the whole enterprise so grindingly tedious that it was all I could do to maintain civil relations with my younger colleagues. I endured the daily agony for three months and then retired.

  All through this time, I had been wondering over the future of the Brotherhood. I daily expected the summons, but it never came. I suppose I began to feel as if the death of our leader had dealt a killing blow to our clandestine organization-in my sorry state of mind it would not have surprised me greatly, I confess. However, the wheels of our Order may grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.

  Owing to the unfortunate circumstances surrounding Pemberton's death, we of the Inner Circle could not officially recognize our leader's demise until certain protocols had been observed. I understand that now; I didn't then.

  Also, owing to the war, Evans-our esteemed Second Principal-adopted a cautious and conservative policy. It would not have been the first time a passenger listed as missing at sea later turned up alive and well. So, we waited until there could be no doubt, and prepared to mourn the death of our inestimable leader in our own way.

  Meanwhile, I became a man of enforced leisure. With plenty of idle hours on my hands, I filled my time with little tasks and such chores as I deemed needful or pleasing, and kept an increasingly anxious eye out for the dally post-waiting for the summons I knew must come at some point.

  Spring passed into summer, and the days lengthened. News of the war in Europe-the Great War, the newspapers were calling it-grew more and more dismal by degrees. I forced myself to read the accounts, and was sickened by them; the more so, I suppose, because my own life was sliding into a season of desperate unhappiness. I naturally found myself pondering the recent tragic events.

  Time and again, I wrapped myself in melancholy, recalling some happy time I had shared with my wife, and brooding ruefully on the cruelty of time and the manifold weaknesses of the human frame. Still, I did not descend entirely into the Slough of Despond. I reviewed often Pemberton's attempt to communicate with me on the threshold of Eternity, as it were. That was how I came to see it. That fateful weekend in the country had been planned for some time-part of a confirmation celebration for the young son of a mutual acquaintance – and Pemberton knew about it. Indeed, I had been surprised that he was acquainted with the fiamily in question, and we discussed it. If Caitlin had not become ill, we would have been in that room to see him. Thus, he had appeared in the place he reckoned I was to be found.

  But why me? Why not Genotti, DeCardou, Zaccaria, or Kutch? Why not Evans, our number two? What had he been trying to tell me?

  The quesnon gnawed at me until I decided one day to go and interview Miss Gillespie in the hope of finding an answer. I wrote to her and established a place and time to meet: Kerwood's Tea House on Castle Street, a quiet place where we could discuss the matter discreetly. My guest turned out to be one of those modem emancipated young women for whom conventions of dress and manner are dictated by personal taste and not by tradition or propriety or, indeed, modesty. She appeared wearing one of those shimmery sheaths with little rows of tassels up and down its short, shapeless length, complete with spangled yellow hat and gloves. Confident, educated, and indifferent to matters domestic, she proudly disclosed that she was soon to take up training as a nurse in order to assist in the war effort.

  Despite her deliberately provocative ways, I soon discovered in Miss Gillespie a competent, capable, level-headed young person, not at all given to flights of fancy. She also had a fine sense of humour-as I quickly learned, once the tea had come and we had settled into the discussion which was the purpose of my visit. 'To tell the truth, Mister Murray, I do not know which of us was the more frightened. If you could have seen the startled look he gave me. The poor chap-if he had been a haddock plucked from the sea and tossed into the middle of Waverley Station, he could not have looked more surprised. He was the most polite ghost you could imagine.'

  'Oh, I can well imagine.'

  She looked at me over the rim of her cup. 'Daddy told me you knew the gentleman in question.'

  'I knew him quite well, and I can tell you that finding himself in a lady's bedroom would certainly have given him
cause for alarm.'

  She smiled, her pleasant round face lighting the dullness of a rainy Saturday afternoon. 'I really didn't mean to startle him. But waking up and seeing him standing there at the foot of the bed, all tall and rumpled, and dripping like a drainpipe-well, I'm afraid I shouted at him terribly.'

  'You were frightened, I expect.'

  'I was at first. But that passed in an instant for I could see he was perplexed.'

  'Perplexed?'

  'Yes,' she said, nodding thoughtfully, 'that is the word. He didn't seem to know what he was about. You know how it is-you'll be going on about your business, absorbed in your thoughts, and then you look up… where am I?' She laughed. 'Happens to me all the time-don't tell me it's never happened to you.'

  'It has been known,' I confessed, enjoying the pleasure of her lively company. 'I once found myself in the Royal Museum with no recollection of how I'd got there.'

  'Well, that's how he looked to me-like he didn't quite know where he was or how he got there.'

  'Did you know he was aboard the ship that was sunk by the German torpedo?'

  'So Daddy told me.' She shook her head gravely, and was silent for a moment, then said, 'That would explain the dripping water.'

  'Did he say anything? Did he make any sound at all?'

  'He did indeed. He said he was sorry for disturbing me; he told me his name and begged my pardon. Then he wished me a good day-at least that's what I thought he said. I can't be at all certain.'

  'Why is that?'

  'He was already vanishing by then, you see. He didn't go all of a snap!' She clicked her fingers. 'He began to fade away-like when a cloud passes over the sun and the day goes dim.'

  'I see. Well…' I regarded the young woman. As much as I appreciated the information, it carried me no closer to the solution of the mystery which so exercised my mind.

  A frown of concentration appeared on Miss Gillespie's face. 'There was one more thing.'

  'Yes?' I leaned forward, eager to pounce on the smallest scrap of information.

  'I had quite forgotten until just now,' she said slowly, as if trying to remember precisely. 'Just before he faded away completely, he looked at me and said-if I recall it correctly-something like: "The pain is swallowed in peace, and grief in glory."'

  The message was obscure. It made no sense to me, and of all the things he might have wished to say, I could not think this had any importance whatsoever. 'Forgive me, Miss Gillespie, but you're certain that is what he said?'

  She shook her head vehemently. 'No, Mister Murray, I'm not at all sure. It was very faint and by then he had mostly vanished. Nevertheless, that's what it sounded like to me.' She regarded me with a hopeful expression. 'Does it mean anything to you?'

  'I fear not,' I sighed. 'But perhaps something will yet come of it.' We finished our tea then, and made our farewells. 'I thank you, my dear, for taking the time to speak to an old busybody,' I said as we parted. 'Please, give my kind regards to your parents.'

  The rain had stopped and so I walked with her to the comer, whereupon we went our separate ways. As the day had come clear and bright, and I had nothing pressing for my attention, I decided to take a turn or two around the park. I walked to the little square just down the street, and entered by the iron gate. A few children had come out to play; their voices jiggled as they skipped and ran to the accompaniment of a barking terrier. A young mother pushed her baby in a large black pram, stopping every now and then to tuck up the blankets, all the while doting on the face of her infant.

  I strolled awhile along the fresh rain-washed gravel paths, taking the air and watching the clouds as they broke apart and drifted eastward towards the North Sea. After a time, I sat down on a bench and dozed only a moment, it seemed to me-but I awoke to find the lowering sun had disappeared and a wind was blowing stiff and chill out of the west where darker, more ominous clouds had gathered.

  They were, it seemed to me, clouds of war, shadows of the great evil rushing eastward to feed and strengthen the darkness already rampant there. The political quagmire of the European noble houses was inexorably sucking one government and power after another deeper and deeper into the ruinous morass. The fighting, which had now spread on many fronts, grew continually sharper, more brutal and vicious by the day. As yet there was no end in sight.

  The splendour of the summer day was, I reflected, like our own lives upon the earth: short-lived, and bounded by darkness on every side.

  It was in this sombre mood that I turned my steps towards home. By the time I reached the house, the weather had turned foul. I unlocked the front door just as the first drops of rain spattered on to the pavement behind me.

  I quickly stepped inside and, as I turned to close the door behind me, my eye fell upon a small, buff-coloured envelope lying on the mat. I turned it over and saw my name neatly lettered in black ink. My heart began beating faster as I opened the envelope and saw the single word: Tonight.

  CHAPTER ONE

  At the pronouncement of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the bride was carried from the cathedral on a silver bed draped with cloth of gold. Alone on that wide and glittering expanse, she looked frightened, cowed, and far younger than her thirteen years. Before her went a hundred black-robed monks chanting the Gloria, followed by the stiffly dignified metropolitan in his high-crowned, ruby and ivory-beaded red satin hat; the imposing prelate carried a large silver frame containing the Sacred Mandelion: the cloth bearing the indelible image of Christ, one of Byzantium's most highly valued treasures.

  Veiled in delicate silver netting from the top of her golden wedding crown to the tips of her white-stockinged toes, the young woman's slender form shimmered in the light of ten thousand candles as she passed through the standing congregation, borne aloft on the shoulders of eight black Ethiopians in yellow tunics. The noble groom followed his new bride on a white horse, leading a dove-grey mare; both animals were caparisoned in scarlet edged with silver, and both wore white ostrich plumes attached to their silver headpieces.

  From her place in the gallery high above the floor, Caitriona, mute with amazement, gazed upon the dazzling spectacle and knew she had never seen anything half so magnificent, and probably never would again. Everything, from the golden crowns to the purple clouds of incense drifting like the mists of Heaven, worked an enchantment of wealth and power that left her breathless.

  When the wedding procession passed beneath the upper gallery of Ayia Sophia, all the onlookers rushed to the opposite side and leaned over the marble balustrade to see the towering iron-clad doors of the great church flung open wide and the newly married couple depart on billows of pink rose petals. The crowds which had been waiting outside the church since dawn roared with delight to see the royal party as it began the parade through the city to the Triconchos Palace where the official marriage banquet would be held amidst the marble columns of the Hall of Pearl.

  'Well, dear heart,' said Duncan to his daughter, 'what did you think of that?'

  'You were very brave to bring me here,' Caitriona replied. 'I have always admired that in you, Papa.'

  'Indulgent, perhaps. But why do you say brave?'

  'Because,' she said, her lips curving with sardonic glee, 'now that I have seen how a lowly niece of the emperor is feted on her wedding day, I shall accept nothing less on mine.'

  Duncan clucked his tongue, and said, 'If I thought there was even the slightest chance you would deign to marry, I swear this cathedral would witness a ceremony far more grand than that which just took place.'

  'Bring on the king and golden bed,' snipped Cait. 'Let us get it done here and now.'

  'Is it too much for a father to hope the treasure of his life might find a little happiness in wedlock?'

  'And ensure the continuance of the noble line, yes.' She frowned dangerously. 'Look at me, Papa, and tell me the truth: who in their right mind would want to marry me?'

  'Any number of men, dear heart, given half a chance.'

  'Papa!'

&n
bsp; 'There are fairer women perhaps,' allowed Duncan delicately. 'But the beauty of the soul far outlasts the charms of the flesh.'

  'Show me a man enraptured with the beauty of the soul, and I will show you a eunuch.'

  Duncan sighed. His daughter's refusal to consider a suitable marriage had long been a thorn in his flesh. While Cait herself imagined it was her lack of loveliness which kept acceptable men at a distance, her father strongly suspected it was the quick, dagger-like edge of her tongue. Why, oh why, did she have to be so hardheaded and immovable? It was, he realized, the family curse.

  'Poor, poor Papa,' she cooed, sliding her arm through his. 'Lumbered with a thankless wench of a daughter who makes his life a dreary cavalcade of suffering from dawn to dusk. Oh, will this unendurable misery never cease?'

  Leaving their places at the marble rail, they began following the other nobles from the gallery. Once in the outer corridor, they entered the slow-moving stream of people shuffling towards the wide staircase leading down to the main floor of the cathedral. 'I suppose,' mused Duncan philosophically, 'there are worse things than having a daughter who thinks she is King of Caithness.'

  Cait laughed. The sound delighted her father, who heard in it the echo of her mother's voice. Alas, that was all she had inherited from her mother; Caitriona's green eyes and long black hair were hers alone. Tall and long-limbed like her forefathers-her stature made the vaunted Grecian beauties seem scrawny and underfed -. she was a fully fleshed woman whose imposing presence easily dominated the more demure members of her sex.

  Few men could match his wilful daughter for strength of resolve and cold, clear-eyed reckoning, he admitted to himself; fewer still were keen to try. The ancestral blood which flowed through her veins contained too much wild Celt, and too little refined nobility. It was, he knew, often remarked that she was more at ease with a spear in her hand than a spindle-but what of that? When Cait passed by, one caught the scent of sea air and rain-misted heather; the bracing, blustery wind off the highland moors was in her hair and in her impetuous, exuberant nature.