Lammas Night (64 page)

Instead of going home, he went back to his office after he left Ellis. He spent the rest of the night in his chair, with instructions for his night staff to wake him if anything came in that might give reprieve. There Denton found him the next morning when he brought in tea and the morning papers.

The rest of the week was little different from the beginning. Graham and the brigadier dined with Michael and the prince on Friday at the brigadier's club, as was their wont when all four were in the city, and on Saturday, Graham and Michael drove to Calshot and back. Sunday was the worst bombing day yet; attacks began before noon and continued on into the night, with heavy losses on both sides. That night, the prince dined at Graham's flat for the last time.

They dressed formally for dinner. Denton prepared one of his gourmet meals and then tactfully withdrew. Afterward, the two men stood outside the French doors on the balcony and watched the clouds of German bombers overshadowing the moon. Searchlight beams and tracer tracks criss-crossed the night sky, giving glimpses of barrage balloons and an occasional nightfighter. From below, fires lit the London skyline. Ash rained down, powdering the dark mess dress tunics with dust that even William ignored, fastidious though he usually was. The gun batteries pounded steadily, punctuated by the dull thud of bombs that sometimes detonated all too close for comfort.

Despite the danger, William declined to move inside. Instead, he stood with an uneasy Graham and gazed up avidly into the war-torn sky while they drank Napoleon brandy, in ironic commemoration of the speech the prime minister had made the week before. During a lull, William glanced wistfully at his host and then gestured with his glass toward the moon.

“She's almost full tonight, isn't she?” His tone was light, but Graham caught the brittle edge to the real reason for the question.

“Yes, one more day,” he said quietly, watching the royal silhouette against the fires burning all around the city.

William nodded slowly and sipped at his drink, savoring the civilized moment amid the chaos of war, then raised his glass a second time.

“Let's drink a toast to the King's health, shall we?”

As Graham touched his glass lightly to William's, the chime of the crystal cut through all artifice.

“Let's drink to
both
kings,” he replied.

William tensed for just an instant, hand clenching around the faceted stem of the glass, then bobbed his head in agreement and drank blindly. After a moment, he turned his face slightly toward Graham again, though he would not meet his eyes.

“It
is
tomorrow, isn't it?” William whispered. “Don't tell me details. Just answer yes or no.”

Graham swallowed a mouthful of brandy, which had suddenly lost all taste, and allowed the prince a sparse nod.

“Yes.”

“I thought it would be,” William breathed, glancing at his glass. “The news has been too grim for the past week. And then Winston's speech about Armada times and Napoleon. I knew it had to be before the moon waned, too.”

“It wouldn't
have
to be, but yes, that was a consideration.” Graham swirled his drink and stared into the fire-lit gold. The crystal was Waterford and far too civilized for such a moment.

“It still isn't too late to call it off, you know, if you've changed your mind,” he ventured when William did not seem inclined to speak—though he knew the hope was futile. “We don't know that the sacrifice will make a difference.”

“Don't we?”

With a strained smile, William turned and sank to a sitting position against the wall of the balcony, oblivious to the havoc he was wreaking on his dress uniform.

“Sit,” he said, patting the cement beside him. “Let me tell you what I remember, and then you tell me if you don't think it will make a difference.”

A bomb screamed overhead, thumping into a building in the next block and raining fine debris almost as far as their balcony. Graham ducked and shielded his head with one arm as he dropped to a crouch beside William.

“Are you crazy? We're going to be killed if we stay out here much longer! At least let's go inside to talk.”

“Nope. This isn't how I'm supposed to die. I should think that's quite clear by now. It can't be your time, either, since you have to stick around for me. Sit down.”

If Graham believed in what they were doing, then he supposed the logic did make an odd kind of sense, though he was not sure it held for his own safety, since his part had already been done. Nonetheless, he edged a little closer to William and obeyed. The prince stretched out his legs straight in front of him, head resting easily against the concrete wall behind him, and ran a thumb along the rim of his half-filled glass as Graham settled.

“There was sunlight that other time, not the light of a burning city,” William finally said, holding up his glass and letting his eyes focus on and slightly through it. “Do you remember? We had dined then, too. You wore a scarlet tunic. You knew what I had asked.”

As William turned his glass slightly in the light of the fires and explosions, Graham put his own aside and focused on the glint of the cut crystal, catching his breath as he felt himself drawn into that other life, other mind, other time. He let it happen, seeing the fire flashes of the crystal facets turn to jewels on gold, watching as the cup went to the King's lips and
he
drank deeply of it. He flinched as William put the cup into his hand, seeing beyond the goblet's rim a florid face with redder hair superimposed on William's.

“Drink thou of the cup. I would not have it pass,” the sacred king murmured. “Canst thou not recall the good times between us? Who better should I ask to do me this last service?”

The memory was poignant, familiar, the conversation one that had haunted Graham through many lives—the seal of duty set upon one whom the fates knew strong enough to bear the burden without breaking, though it did not make the sadness any less in the final hours.

Cup in hand, Graham let the memory run, then gave his head a little shake and drained the goblet to the dregs. The fiery gold burned his throat far more than wine had done that other time, and he coughed once as he set the empty glass upside-down on the cement next to his own, covering his face with his hands.

“Let be, Wat,” William whispered. “I know 'tis not an easy burden to accept, but thou knowest the law. For this was I chosen long ago. The cycle must be observed. The succession shall pass in orderly fashion. I have made all the arrangements. Wouldst have some other hand less loving strike the sacred blow?”

Graham heard himself whisper, “No,” for all that the prince was saying was as true in the here and now as it had been in that other life more than eight hundred years before. A sacred king was observing the sacred cycle, a willing sacrifice to ensure the survival of the land. The succession would be assured, at least for a time. Nor would this king find a more loving hand to serve him in this hour of need.

Greater love hath no man
.…

He raised his head and leaned it calmly against the wall to gaze back at the King in the semidarkness, a great peace filling his soul.

“I recognize the honor you do me, Lord,” he heard himself say, echoing that other man's words so many years before, “and my hand shall not falter when the time comes. It is my mortal heart which aches, heavy in my breast, for I shall miss you. The slayer goes not with the slain.”

“Alas, no.”

There had been arrows before, Graham suddenly remembered. No—crossbow quarrels. He flashed on a later memory: of putting nock to string and cranking back a crossbow screw. There would be no arrows tomorrow or crossbows or even the sword that had served them both in yet another time and place, but the words they exchanged were fitting. He watched William glance at the cement between them, making the mental adjustment, and he knew what would come next.

“To the best shot must go the finest arrows,” the prince said slowly, almost by rote. “I hope that two will be more than sufficient, for I have no more love of suffering than the next man.” His eyes sought Graham's in silent plea. “I rely on thee to do the job with dispatch. This—role of God does not come easily, in its ending.”

Cold inside, Graham gazed long into the eyes of the two Williams, seeing the device he had installed in the belly of the Sunderland mirrored there. Then he eased roughly to his knees and took one of the royal hands, kissed it in homage, held it clasped in both of his in comfort.

“I shall not fail you, my liege. Only, let us speak no more of this until we must again. I promise, you shall not suffer,” he added softly.

With a shudder, William closed his eyes and nodded, then sighed and looked up again. This time, there was only one William looking back, and Graham, in a blink, shed his other self as well. Smiling more easily now, he released the royal hand and retrieved the upturned glass along with his own.

“More Napoleon, my prince?” he asked, ducking instinctively as a burning Dornier screamed past and crashed nearby. “And why don't we go inside? We may well be indestructible tonight, but I think my sitting room is a far more comfortable place to celebrate our godhood.”

William grinned at that and let himself be helped to his feet and ushered inside. They finished the bottle that night and stayed awake, talking, until dawn brought respite, at least from the bombing.

C
HAPTER
26

The morning was overcast, with rain and low cloud mercifully misting the still-smoking London skyline, matching their mood. They drank strong, steaming cups of Denton's tea while Graham changed from mess dress to service uniform. William seemed a little surprised at the voluntary donning of proper dress, but Graham could tell that he was pleased even though he did not comment. After that, Denton drove them to the Palace so William could bathe and change before leaving on his Welsh tour.

Graham lounged in the royal sitting room and made small talk with Flynn and several other officers while he waited for the prince to finish his toilette, feeling the effects of the sleepless night. He had no stomach for the breakfast a butler offered all around. Half an hour later, an immaculately turned out William emerged in his customary service dress uniform. Uniforms of other services in which William held rank were packed in the valises that Griffin snapped shut on the bed, for many varied activities were planned for the prince's stay in Wales, but Graham knew that this was one time when Griffin's efficiency would never matter. He was silent as he led William down to the waiting Bentley again, Flynn and Griffin following with a footman and the luggage.

Griffin alone, of the five going on to Calshot, had no inkling of the true tenor of the day. They had tried to contrive an excuse not to bring him, but there was no reason they could find that would not have aroused later suspicion, at least on Griffin's part. Royal dukes did not travel overnight without their valets, and Griffin had been the prince's man since William was old enough to have a valet of his own. He had served the Royal Family all his adult life and had no other kin. Kindest, by far, to let him come.

But for his sake and for other reasons, no one said much on the drive to Southampton. Nothing more really needed to be said. William yawned pointedly several times at the beginning and laughingly blamed his seeming lethargy on the late hours he and Graham had kept the night before and the excellent bottle of brandy they had sacrificed in the cause of princely amusement. Then he appeared to doze, though Graham was certain he was doing no such thing. Sitting there at William's side, so close and yet so far away, Graham wondered whether the prince was remembering another drive nearly three months before when the two of them had made a shorter trip from Plymouth to Buckland. Even then, life had seemed far simpler.

They arrived at RAF Calshot all too soon, pulling up on the tarmac near the end of the quay just at noon, right on time. A guard of honor came smartly to
present arms
as the car stopped. Denton and Flynn made a brisk show of opening doors and seeing the luggage taken down to the waiting motor launch with Griffin. A hundred yards out from the end of the quay, the Sunderland rode its moorings like a motley, captive swan in the light chop, straining for flight already, unaware of the death it carried in its belly.

As the guard of honour ordered arms and their officer started toward the prince, William signaled Flynn to go ahead and turned back to Graham, standing attentively beside one open rear door. A gentle mist was falling, but the accompanying breeze was quite warm for September. The prince's face was serene in the shadow of his cap visor, the ribbons of his orders and medals bright splashes of color against his breast. The blue of his Garter ribbon seemed brightest of all.

“I'd rather you stayed with the car if you don't mind,” he said quietly. “I don't think I could stand a public good-by at the dock.”

“Nor I,” Graham murmured, trying to keep on a brave face for all their sakes.

He started to make a proper, formal bow, mindful of curious eyes upon them, as was always the case when Willaim appeared in public; but then William gripped his hand in that familiar, intimate clasp of one hand between his two, grinning broadly, his smile like the sun, which chose that moment to emerge from behind the clouds. Graham thought it was probably the most courageous thing he had ever seen William do.

“Not all
that
formal, my friend, after all we've been through together,” the prince said softly, looking him straight in the eyes. “Good-bye, Gray.”

To those watching, Graham's bow over their joined hands might have been simply an elaboration of the bow he had begun before. Surely no one besides the two of them heard Graham's whispered “Good-bye, William” or caught the added significance when Graham fleetingly slipped the fingers of his other hand between William's just before they drew apart.