Druids Sword (11 page)

Malcolm nodded towards several shapes looming up from the mist. “See,” he said, a hand on Grace’s back, pushing her gently forward. “They were once my companions.”

Three deer moved out of the mist, their nervousness apparent in their quick, high steps.

Malcolm held out a hand, and they sidled up to him, moving themselves so that he stood between them and Grace.

“Shush,” he said, his voice very soft, “don’t you see she’s been damaged as well?”

Grace stared at him then, as tense and as nervous as the deer.

Malcolm turned his face slightly so he could see her from the corner of his eye; one of his hands rubbed up and down the flank of first this deer, then the next. “Hold out your wrists, Grace. And come closer. Do.”

Do, do, do,
he repeated, over and over, his voice soft and gentle and calming, and before she had quite realised it, Grace took a step forward, extending one of her wrists.

Jack found himself standing on a balcony with Matilda at the very top of Copt Hall.

Noah, Ecub and Erith were somewhere else in the building.

“Jack, how are you? Tell me the truth, you can do that. You can trust me.”

He slipped an arm about her. “Oh, aye, I can trust you.” He moved slightly so he could kiss the top of her head. Matilda was taller than she had been in either of her previous lives, but still short enough that he could pull her in close and cuddle her under his chin.

“Well?” she said, leaning into him, and wondering if it was possible they might restart what had once been a great marriage.

“I feel lost and dislocated,” he said. “Nothing is right. I
was
away too long.”

“Noah…”

“I know. She is lost to me.” He gave a hollow laugh. “But can I accept it?”

“Jack,” she whispered, her arms about him now, “perhaps I can—”

“Look,” he said, his voice lifting in surprise, and she felt his body tense fractionally away from hers.

Matilda looked down. Far below them, at the edge of an overgrown grassy lawn and a patch of tangled shrubbery, stood Malcolm and Grace, close to a clutch of deer.

As they watched, Grace lifted one of her wrists, and one of the deer leaned forward, achingly slowly, and sniffed at it.

“What is she doing down there?” Jack asked. He’d moved completely away from Matilda now, and gripped the balcony railing.

“Finding a friend, perhaps?” Matilda said. “Gods alone know she has precious few of those.”

The deer leaned into Grace, so very, very slowly, and just as slowly Grace leaned towards it. The deer snuffled at Grace’s wrist, then ran its damp nose up her arm. Its tongue gently rasped against her skin. Grace gasped, and for a moment looked as if she was about to pull back.

“Be still, Grace,” said Malcolm. “He will not hurt you. He just wants to know you.”

“I am afraid…”

“I know, girlie.”

At the gentleness in Malcolm’s voice Grace looked at him. “I will destroy them.”

“You are talking of your hex? Afraid it will reach out to snatch them as well? Don’t fear. If that were so then my friends here would not come near you.”

The deer was now standing very close to Grace, close enough that it was leaning its body into the woman. The other two deer had also neared, and were sniffing curiously at Grace’s other wrist.

“Malcolm…Malcolm…who are you?”

“I was once a king, my dear, and these lovely creatures my warrior-priests.”

Jack was looking at Matilda. “Talk to me about Grace, Matilda. She is a puzzle to me.”

Matilda took her time in answering. “She’s lost, Jack. She was so loved and wanted by both her parents, but from babyhood she was lost to them, and perhaps even to herself. She has isolated herself within a ring of fire and of suffering, and can’t escape.”

Jack’s mouth gave a humourless twist.
She is everyone’s “doom
”, he thought.

“Grace has no friends,” Matilda continued. “She allows no one in, and besides…”

“Besides?”

“Jack, Grace has two extraordinary parents: one a goddess, a Darkwitch, and the most potent Mistress of the Labyrinth who has ever existed. The other is a creature so powerful and with such a dark, terrible past that he is, in his own way, as intimidating as Noah.”

“
Intimidating?
”

“Jack, Grace is intimidated by Noah, and by us, Eaving’s Sisters. We represent a past and a bond that she can’t share. You say that you are lost and dislocated, but so is Grace. Worst of all, Grace feels she disappoints Noah. Grace knows full well she can’t be the daughter Noah has always so desperately wanted.”

“Noah suffocates her.”

Matilda looked at him sharply. “Yes, she does, but can you blame her for it? If you had a child that suffered as Grace does—could you stand back and regard her with impartial coolness?” Then she looked down, and gasped. “Jack, look at that!”

Grace was laughing. Watching her, Malcolm had an enormous grin on his own face as he thought that it was possibly the first time Grace had laughed in scores, if not hundreds, of years.

The deer were crowding Grace, but she was not afraid. She patted and rubbed at them, and smiled and laughed, and seemed oblivious to Malcolm’s presence.

Suddenly Malcolm looked up, and saw Jack and Matilda watching from the heights of the hall.

She is accepted among the herd,
he said in Jack’s mind.

So was Judas part of Christ’s herd,
Jack replied, but there was no malignancy in his words, and they did not dampen Malcolm’s grin.

“You are welcomed within the glade, Grace,” he said, but he kept his eyes on Jack as he spoke.

The next moment Grace gave a cry, and twisted away from Malcolm and the deer.

I
was with Ecub and Erith, walking the gardens at the side of the house, when I felt Grace’s pain.

Catling!

As always, two emotions consumed me instantly: anger—
fury
—that Catling should so torment Grace, and a bleak impotence that was more devastating than the anger. What could I do? Nothing, really, for all I could do was fuss, and Grace so hated to be fussed over.

I knew from what I could feel that Grace was in the gardens at the back of Copt Hall, and I (as also Ecub and Erith) were with her within moments.

She was not alone. Jack’s valet, Malcolm, was standing by her side, and, as I ran towards Grace, Jack and Matilda materialised directly before my daughter.

I couldn’t look away from Grace. She was now half-crouched, bent over her wrists, and I could
feel
the suffering radiating out from her.

“Grace!” I cried, and ran the final few steps between us.

Before I could reach her, Jack stepped in front of me. “It’s all right, Noah,” he said. “Malcolm can take Grace into the kitchen where it is warm and quiet—”

Quiet? What was he trying to say?

“—until her pain has passed.”

With that he turned away from me, not even waiting for a response, and bent down and said something very quickly and quietly into Grace’s ear. She gave a tiny nod, then rose and, still half-crouched about herself, her wrists clutched to her chest, walked slowly towards the kitchen, Malcolm a half-step behind.

“Jack,” I began, irritated by the way he’d stepped in, but he motioned to me to wait.

“Malcolm can keep Grace company for the time being,” Jack said to me. “He can be quiet for her.”

I was grinding my teeth by this time, but I gave a jerk of my head.

“And while Grace endures,” Jack said, “you and I can talk.”

“Matilda and Erith and I,” said Ecub, “shall clear the tea things from the drawing room—no, do not worry, we shall not disturb Grace in the kitchen—and then wait in the car.” She looked at the other two women and winked. “I’m sure one of us has remembered to bring a flask of whisky with her, and we can spend the time quite pleasantly while waiting for Noah and Grace.”

Jack smiled his thanks, then took me by the elbow and guided me towards a stand of trees beyond the grass.

The trees hadn’t been there a few minutes previously.

Even this evidence of Jack’s power did nothing to quell my ill-temper.

“There was no need to step between us, Jack,” I said, none too gently pulling my elbow from his hand.

“She didn’t want you, Noah.”

That was too much. I stopped in my tracks and turned to him, my mouth opening to let him know what I thought…

“You said to me that she doesn’t like to be mothered,” he said. “Look, I know you want to help her, but…”

Oh, that “but”.

“Perhaps it is better to just let her be,” he finished. “Let her endure alone. She didn’t choose isolation by circumstance, Noah, but by choice.”

“It is easy to see that
you
are not a parent,” I said, and then wished I hadn’t. When he had been William, Jack had been an excellent parent to his and Matilda’s children, and he had been a loving father to our sons as well, even if he hadn’t been the best of husbands to me. And he’d been gone almost three hundred years since last I’d seen him—who knew what children he’d fathered in that time?

“Walk with me,” he said softly, and I briefly closed my eyes, and thought if he’d said that to me when he’d been Brutus, and I Cornelia, with that same measure of warmth and sweetness, then all of our troubles would never have had the chance to start.

So we walked. Twilight was thick about us now, and a heavy mist clung to our clothes and hair. I was glad for the coat I had put on earlier to walk in the garden, and slid my hands deep into its pockets. Above us the trees twisted, their branches mostly denuded of leaves, the earth to each side of our path humped into eerie misshapen swellings with the pressure of the roots below. Our feet crunched on dead leaves and forest litter, and as we walked deeper into the forest, and as the night settled about us, so all of the tension of the past minutes dissipated.

“It feels good,” I said eventually, “to be walking thus with you.”

From the corner of my eye I saw him smile slightly. “Aye, it does.”

I stopped, turning to look at him, thinking how handsome he was. I wish…oh, I could wish for so
many things, and it couldn’t make the world any better a place, would it?

“We should have walked thus a long time ago,” I said.

The amusement dropped from his face, and he regarded me with an intensity that made my stomach twist with emotion.

“What we should have done a long time ago has been a hard and long lesson to learn,” he said.

We fell silent, neither of us able to look away from the other.

“I—” I began.

“We should—” he said at the same time, and we both laughed self-consciously.

Then he leaned forward, and kissed me.

Oh, my. This wasn’t that hard angry kiss he’d given me when I’d met him the night he’d arrived at Copt Hall. This was something altogether different, and far more unnerving.

I drew back a little, just a little, but not far enough, for he merely closed the distance between us and continued the kiss, deepening it a little.

Eventually I managed to draw back enough to break the contact. Gods, what was I doing?

The answer to that didn’t bear thinking about.

He smiled a little, and way too intimately.

“Perhaps we should get back to the house,” I said.

He didn’t move. “I can scarcely believe that you will fetch those bands for me willingly. For years you’ve hidden them from me, and refused me access.”

I was still so befuddled by the kiss, and so confused by my own reaction to it, I wondered if he was talking about the bands…or something else.

“And you will just fetch them from the Faerie for me? Whenever I ask?”

Just the kingship bands, then. “Of course,” I said. “Whenever you ask.”

Again he gave me that odd look he had given me earlier when we’d talked about the bands.

“Jack,” I said, “I’m sorry that I kept them from you all these years. You know I had reason enough.”

He gave one of those infuriating slight shrugs. “I know you thought to have reason.”

I was about to snap, but he spoke before I could manage it. “And they’re in the Faerie?”

“Of course they are, save the two I sent into the Otherworld.”

And yet again, one of those strange looks.

“
Jack?
”

He smiled then, easy and relaxed, and changed the subject. “Have I mentioned today how beautiful you are?”

“Jack, don’t.”

He reached out a hand, and ran his fingers softly down the side of my face.

“Are you sure I can’t win you away from Weyland?”

“Jack…”

He turned his face then, staring back to the hall. “Catling has retreated,” he said, “and Grace’s pain has faded. We should go back.”

I was disappointed at his words, yet at the same time relieved. Yes, we should go back.

Back to Grace.

I sighed.

F
or scores of years the Danes and Norwegians had fought the Anglo-Saxons for control of England. First an Anglo-Saxon king sat the throne, then a Dane, then a Norwegian, and always there was yet another contender sailing up the Thames to launch an assault on London in order to gain the throne.

In 1014 the English King Aethelred, aided by the Norwegian King Olaf, made a desperate assault on London, trying to wrench it away from the Danes, who had seized the city and elected Cnut to the throne of England. The Danes had fortified the city well, constructing bulwarks and ditches in Southwark, reinforcing their castle on the site where the Tower of London now stands, and barricading the wooden bridge which straddled the Thames between London and Southwark.

By evening of the day of the attack the battle had reached its most desperate. Neither Aethelred nor Olaf could manage to breach the defences at either the castle on the northern bank of the river, or the defences on the southern bank at Southwark.

Olaf, an experienced Norse warrior, didn’t know what to try next. His men were nearing exhaustion, the Danish defenders appeared to have limitless supplies of ammunition as well as men, and it seemed to him that they would be beaten back to a humiliating defeat by star rise.

Olaf! Olaf!

Olaf was standing in the belly of one of his warships, gazing in frustration upriver to the bridge, when he heard his name being called.

He frowned, looking around the boat. It was filled with Norse warriors, and yet that voice had sounded as if it had come from the throat of a small girl.

A movement on the south bank of the river caught his attention.

The bank was far distant, but Olaf found he could see as clearly as if the bank was no more than ten feet away.

A small girl, five or six years old, stood there. She had long black curly hair, the whitest face imaginable, and was dressed in a dark gown of what, to Olaf, looked like a most expensive and exotic material.

Then, suddenly, the little girl was standing beside him in the belly of the ship, and Olaf made a sign against evil, knowing he stood in the presence of a malignant spirit.

“
Do you want to win this city or not?” said the girl-spirit. “Yes? Then set aside your fear of me. Listen to me, Olaf, and hear how you can take this city from the Danes.
”

Four hours later, under cover of full dark, Olaf directed his fleet of fifteen warships upriver towards the bridge. As soon as they came within range of the bridge, the Danes cast down spears and arrows and great stones, but they bounced harmlessly off Olaf’s ships, for Olaf had taken the spirit’s advice and fixed thick screens of woven hazel over and around his ships.

Once at the bridge, Olaf’s men worked quickly, casting strong cables around the piles of the bridge. As they moved out from under the cover of the hazel
screens many were struck by missiles and fell into the river, but within minutes the cables were secured, and Olaf screamed at his men to row back downstream.

It took less than three minutes for the piles to give way. The bridge collapsed into the river, taking with it thousands of Danish warriors. Those that didn’t fall into the river fled into London, or into Southwark.

Aethelred and Olaf then set their warriors against the bulwarks and fortifications in a renewed assault. The loss of the bridge, and the thousands of Danes who had been crowded upon it, had broken the nerve of those Danes left, and by dawn London belonged to Olaf and Aethelred.

Once the city was secured, the Norwegians and the English set to feasting. Great quantities of drink and food were consumed and, as part of the celebrations, a Norse wit by the name of Ottar composed a short verse to celebrate the critical moment which had won the day.

London Bridge is broken down. Gold is won, and bright renown, Shields resounding, War-horns sounding, Hildur shouting in the din! Arrows singing, Mailcoats ringing, London Bridge is broken down! London Bridge is broken down!

In her dark corner of existence, the little girl did not even raise a smile at the drunken revelry. There had been only one thing she’d wanted, and that was to destroy London Bridge.

“
London Bridge is fallen down!” she whispered. “London Bridge is fallen down!

“
Now, let us rebuild it to what
I
want.
”