Avalon (13 page)

“Would you mind waiting? I’ll call him. It won’t take a moment.” A cheerful black woman with her hair in elaborate beaded braids, she spoke with the sun-drenched tones of Jamaica. She picked up the phone and spoke quietly into the receiver. “Mr. Collins is just coming down,” she informed them. “He will be with you shortly.”

Cal flipped through a souvenir guidebook entitled
Royal Britain
, and James gazed at the walls, which were decorated with current covers of the various publications the firm produced: two magazines given to nostalgia for the glory days of Empire, a clutch of glossy pamphlets extolling various royal haunts, and an expensive-looking tome entitled
Almanak Royale
, gilt-edged and bound in red leather. He was beginning to make sense of the operation when they were joined by a thin man with sparse, sandy-colored hair. His suit was badly creased and shiny from wear, but his shoes were polished to perfection. In all, he looked like a rumpled academic who had won a pair of brogues in the school raffle. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” he said, his voice youthful, despite the aged stoop.

“Ah, Collins,” replied Embries with a smile. “Good to see you again. I am glad you could find time for us.” He introduced James and Cal, and then said, “Mr. Collins has been working on a special project for me.”

“And I am happy to say that it is very nearly complete,” the little man announced. “Only one or two bits to nail down firmly, but why don’t I show you what I have so far?” Collins led them through one of the doors lining the vestibule and into a wide semicircular entry hall half paneled in dark oak. A curved stairway led up to an upper floor and an oval gallery.

He ushered his guests through one of the three doors opening off the landing, and they entered a long, high-ceilinged room lined on both sides with glassed-in book-shelves. Beyond this room was a small conference room with a round table at one end and a great old sideboard on the other. There were six chairs around the table, and a silver coffee service on the sideboard.

“I think we’ll be comfortable enough in here,” Collins said. “Have a seat, won’t you? I’ll just get my papers.”

He disappeared back the way they had come. Cal strolled the perimeter of the room and let out a soft whistle. “You’re definitely moving up in the world, my friend,” he said to James.

“What’s this special project?” asked James.

“I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise. Let’s just say it should be instructive for us all.”

Embries crossed to the table and drew out a chair, indicating that James should sit down. Cal took the seat beside him. Sunlight through the window opposite the sideboard filled the room with a wan, wintry light that made James feel as if they were back in school again.

Collins returned and placed a battered Gladstone bag on the table and began pulling out papers by the handful — literally, by the handful, in rumpled bunches, as if they were tissues. He tossed them onto the table and began organizing them into piles. “Peerage law is not my strong suit, I confess,” he began, “but I have enough of the rudiments to navigate my way around.”

“I’m sure it will be adequate for our purposes,” Embries assured him. To James, he said, “Collins is one of the foremost experts on royal succession and title inheritance in the country.”

“History,” Collins said, smoothing a wrinkled sheet of paper on the table, “is my real passion. Hence most of my work is for the
Almanak
.”

“I assume all this has something to do with my inheriting the title and property at Blair Morven?” James said.

The comment was directed more at Embries, but Collins stopped smoothing and looked at him curiously. “I think you’ll find it’s a bit more than that,” he said. “Indeed, it is nothing less than —”

“One thing at a time,” Embries said, breaking in. “Let us concentrate on the title and property for now.”

“Oh,” sniffed Collins, “that is easily done.” He pulled a thick brown book from the bag and dropped it on the table with a thump. “This is a record of the Scottish aristocracy dating from 1610. It was drawn up just after James the First acceded to the throne of England.” He put a hand reverently on the book and, looking for all the world like a courtroom witness taking his oath on the Bible, said, “Elizabeth the First died without issue. Before her death, she recognized King James the Sixth of Scotland as her lawful heir, thereby uniting both Scotland and England under the rule of a single monarch, a situation which has obtained to the present day. This is why —”

“I had Mr. Collins research the history of the Blair Morven title,” Embries interrupted quickly. “He has established a line of ducal succession dating from before the time of King James.”

“Oh, it goes back much further, I assure you. We have records here” — his gesture took in the entire building — “tracing the various royal lines back at least two hundred years before
that
.” He beamed as if this were in some way a personal triumph. “The Blair Morven title is one of the oldest in Scotland, gentlemen. That much is beyond doubt.”

“Is that important?” Cal asked.

Collins regarded him with a puzzled look, then deferred to Embries.

“Let’s just say that it is germane to this discussion,” Embries replied, “insofar as a clear and continuous line of succession is always desirable when legal problems arise.”

Collins shuffled through the pile of papers before him and snatched up a sheet. He clutched it in his fist, careless of the creasing and bunching of the page. “I can authenticate the line of descent.” To Embries he said, “If you can establish Mr. Stuart’s identity, I can establish his bloodline. It will then be a simple matter of presenting this information to the proper authorities. Faced with the facts, the outcome you predict, Mr. Embries, should swiftly follow.”

To James, Collins’ matter-of-fact assertion made it sound as if the deeply embroiled legal wrangling of the last nine months were nothing more than a playground tiff between schoolboys. James might have been more hopeful — or, ecstatic, even — if not for the unsettling sensation that the other shoe was about to drop.

“You can show all this in your book?” he asked cautiously.

“Oh, I can demonstrate a good deal more.” Collins snatched up another paper with his left hand, crumpling it terribly. The way he grabbed and mauled his documents made his onlookers wince. “This!” Collins said, thrusting the page at James. “This is a summary of my research into the Duke of Morven’s title. Peruse it, if you will.”

James expected some kind of legal document, and was disappointed to see that it was merely a handwritten list containing eight or ten items which appeared to be titles of some sort, along with a short annotation beside each one. The first one said:

Accession of the Comyns
, 1798, (NLS, p. 329). Royal right of ducal title contested. Challenge dismissed. Right upheld.

The second was similar to the first, and made only slightly more sense:

Dalhousie Grants & Tithes of Aberdeenshire
, 1924, (ACL, p. 524). Ducal exemption from tithe recognized.

James read a few more, each time pushing them in Cal’s direction so his friend could read them. He began to sense the drift of the evidence, but wanted an explanation. “What am I looking at, exactly?” he asked.

“This is a list of references I have used in my preliminary research,” Collins explained. “The titles of the resources I have used, the earliest date of publication, and the institution housing the original manuscript or first edition.” He stabbed a finger at the first line. “NLS is the National Library of Scotland —”

“I see,” James murmured, glancing down the list.

“And ACL is the Aberdeen Central Library,” Cal observed.

“Precisely. Very good.” Collins moved his finger down the page to the next entry from the end. “
This
is the one which has brought us here.”

James looked where he was pointing, and read:

Graham’s Peerage
, vol. III, 1844, (BL, p.67). Primogeniture by official government documentation vs. local ecclesiastical record. Gov. doc. precedence established re: unbaptized heir.

“Yes? So?” he asked, unable to keep the wary tone out of his voice. Outside, the short winter day was fading fast in a pale pink and violet haze. It seemed to James that if he listened he might hear the howl of circling wolves.

Picking up the book, the disheveled historian turned the spine towards James, who saw the words
Graham’s Peerage
stamped in faded gold. “This,” Collins said, triumphantly, “clears the way for the state-issued birth certificate to be used to establish titular succession.” He opened the book, and started thumbing the pages. “At issue here was the inheritance of Lord Alexander Seaforth’s son, who — through negligence, weakness, or his own deliberate fault — was never baptized.” Collins smiled at his little joke. “Or, at least, his baptism was never properly recorded.

“As it was a large and prosperous estate, there was a counterclaim, of course,” he continued, flipping through the pages, “which was lent some credence by the fact that there was a documented outbreak of typhoid which swept through the region at the time; ecclesiastical records from the period in question are in some disarray. Nevertheless, the case was undertaken, and a ruling handed down which established the precedent of inheritance by official government birth certificate.” Looking up from the book, he asked, “I assume you have a birth certificate.”

“I assume I do,” James answered.

“Most people do these days.” Collins made it sound as if it were some newfangled invention or a fad he hoped would swiftly pass.

“What Collins is saying,” Embries interjected, “is that a valid birth certificate is all we will need to establish your claim to the ducal estate and title.”

“Then it’s true,” Cal blurted, a grin breaking across his face. “James really
is
the Duke of Morven.”

“More than that, Mr. McKay.” Straightening himself, the thin man made a little bow in James’ direction as he said, “Mr. Stuart is the rightful King of Britain.”

The rain spattered like soft bullets on the windscreen, making the road ahead a blur of gray bounded on either side by long streaks of dull, formless green. James felt as if someone had put grains of sand under his eyelids. The train had been late into Pitlochry, and it would be light before they reached Braemar. Cal was slumped in the passenger seat beside him, his head resting against the window, dead to the world.

“You sure you’re okay?” Cal had asked for the twenty-fifth time as they climbed into the faded blue vehicle in the train station parking lot.

“I’m fine.” James unlocked the door and climbed in.

“Look, why don’t you let me drive?” offered Cal. “You can take it easy — sleep if you want. I don’t mind.”

“I’m fine,” James insisted.

“I don’t mind.” Cal hovered at the driver’s-side door.

“Will you get in already? Close the door, it’s cold.”

“All right, all right, have it your way,” Cal agreed reluctantly; he walked around the Land Rover and got in.

“Why this concern all of a sudden?” James asked, switching on the engine. “Much as I might appreciate it, it isn’t necessary.”

“What concern?” Cal scoffed. He slammed his door, and James pulled out. They cruised slowly through the sleeping town and out onto the highway. It started raining as they began the long drive home.

Amazingly enough, Cal respected his silence — again, unusually considerate for him — contenting himself with the odd anxious glance, for which James was grateful. He drove through the rain — eyes on the road, hands on the wheel… mind stuck in London, endlessly churning over the events of the last two days, trying to make sense of it all.

Even now, with the windscreen wipers smearing the rain across the fogged glass, he heard again the unbelievable words Collins had spoken, and he was once more in that room; he felt again the jolt of alarm.

“More than that, Mr. McKay,” Collins was saying, making his comical little bow. “Mr. Stuart is the rightful King of Britain.”

James stared at Collins in amazed disbelief.
Either he is mad
, he thought,
or I am
. In that first instant, it never occurred to James to imagine that what Collins said was even remotely true. He glanced at Cal, who was literally agape with wonder. Embries, manifestly unhappy his secret had been revealed this way, glared sourly at the rumpled historian. But Collins had been itching to tell what he knew, and it had just slipped out. He looked suddenly abashed, and came over all apologetic.

“The King,” James repeated dully. “Is that what this whole big charade is about?”

Collins shot a worried glance at Embries, who frowned, and then put his hands on the table and rose to stand in his place. “Listen to me carefully, James,” he said earnestly. “It has been my intention all along to tell you in a way you would accept.”

“You think I’m accepting this?” James demanded.

“I thought,” Embries replied, “that if you accepted your identity as Duke, the rest would follow in course. I meant to give you a little time to get used to the idea, however.” He darted a quick look of reproach at Collins, who seemed to have shrunk to half his size.

“First Duke, now King,” James said, his voice growing thick with derision. “All in all, not a bad day’s work, I’d say. By dinner, I should be Pope.”

“It is no joke,” Embries said.

“It’s well beyond a joke!” James snarled, angry now. “If you had something to say, why didn’t you come out and say it — instead of playing all these little games?” He flicked a hand in Collins’ direction.

“I, for one, have never been more serious in all my life,” Collins put in. “I assure you, Mr. Stuart, my work will stand up in any court of law in this land, the European community… the world. I know what I am talking about.”

“King of Britain.” James shook his head. “This is nuts.”

Cal, speechless still, stared at James as if an alien suddenly dropped into their midst.