Lammas night

by Katherine Kurtz

  At Collier's gasp, Graham reached across and traced a sign on the back of the man's hand with his fingertip. Collier bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut in denial, but Graham knew his sign had been recognized and accepted.

  "So you do understand what I'm talking about," Graham continued. "You should also know that I was very distressed to learn of your decision not to cooperate with Lady Selwyn. It's one of the most important things that people like us can do to help win the war, frater. The threat of invasion is no less serious today than it has been in other times when our ancestors and predecessors did their parts. Why did you refuse?"

  Collier swallowed hard and opened his eyes to stare at the attache case on his lap, shoulders slumping dejectedly.

  "Those were different times, colonel. It's too dangerous now. If you know that recognition sign, you should understand that."

  "I know many signs," Graham countered, though he did not raise his voice. "And I am more aware of the danger than you can even begin to guess. However, I ask you to consider the possible alternative if nothing is done. Concerted action is our very best hope: unanimity of will to break Hitler's nerve and put a stop to his threats of invasion once and for all. This island must not be conquered!"

  "No one could argue with that," Collier muttered. "Your nrKDtives are sound. But the implications of a joint enterprise— I simply cannot ask my people to do it. You're talking about a grand—you know what you're talking about!" he said a little belligerently, with a glance at the apparently obHvious Denton. "How dare you even ask it? You haven't the authority. You know as well as—who the bloody hell do you think you are?"

  Graham sighed. By who. Collier actually meant what —and that, Graham could not tell him because he did not yet know himself. Nor dared he insist further, else he might undermine whatever slender vestige of authority Collier did feel he had, forever destroying the possibility of future concord.

  They were headed up Buckingham Gate now, so he leaned forward and tapped on the glass in signal to proceed to their original destination, resigning himself to yet another defeat.

  "Never mind, then, major," he said in a low voice. "I'm sorry if I wasted your time or gave you cause for alarm. I understand your fear. Perhaps I had simply hoped for a little more courage."

  "It takes more than courage, colonel," Collier said as the car pulled up in front of Wellington Barracks. "I have to say that I admire yours, but it takes more than that. Don't bother your driver to let me out. I can manage. Thank you for the lift."

  As the door slammed, Graham leaned back in the seat and sighed.

  "And that, I suppose, is that," he said to no one in particular. He lowered the partition once again. "Might as well take me back to the office, Denny. Maybe I can get something done this afternoon. I certainly didn't just now."

  His office was to prove no refuge, however. He found IMnce William sitting behind his desk waiting for him when he returned, immaculately polished shoes resting casually across one comer and elbows propped on the chair arms. As was typical of late, when he wished not to draw attention to himself, the prince wore the plain service uniform of a naval captain, without decorations. He smiled good-naturedly at Graham's expression of unabashed surprise and swung down his feet.

  "Hello, Gray. Your chaps in the next room said you'd probably be back from your meeting soon, so I decided to wait."

  Graham tossed his hat on the coat tree and yanked his tie loose, trying not to look as unsettled as he felt. The last person he wanted to see today was the prince, especially when he had so much to do. All he needed was a mental sparring match with him, on top of Collier's refusal and the pressure of trying to crack the Drake connection. Nor could he read any hint of the reason for the royal visit on William's face.

  "I must say, you've caught me at rather a busy time," he said quite frankly. "I've been running all morning, I haven't had a thing to eat, and I don't know when I'll be finished tonight. I don't mean to be rude, but was there something in particular you needed me for?"

  William raised both eyebrows. "Why, what a warm greeting for an old friend," he said mildly. "You might have said, 'How nice to see you, William,' or 'I trust your trip back from Plymouth was pleasant, sir,' or even murmured low under your breath, 'Your Royal Highness,' and rendered a smart salute in appropriate military greeting. I don't demand a great deal of formality from my friends, as you know very well. Gray, but I do expect simple courtesy and would demand it of anyone else but you. Do you think I'd intrude like this, without even ringing in advance, if I didn't feel it was important?"

  With a sigh, Graham leaned both hands heavily against the edge of the desk and bowed his head. He had almost presumed too far, even allowing their friendship.

  "Please accept my apology, sir," he murmured contritely. "William, I'm sorry. I've just had rather a large setback that I can't really talk about here. I didn't mean to be short with you or to show disrespect."

  "That's better." William stood and picked up his hat. "As a matter of fact, I'd come to collect you for a drive. Don't take off your coat. I shan't take no for an answer. I found I hadn't any engagements for today, so I gave my staff a well-deserved day off and drove myself over. I've even brought along a lunch of sorts. Don't argue. Just come along."

  "A lunch?" Graham watched incredulously as William set his hat jauntily in place and came around the desk, good humor apparently restored. "Where?"

  "I haven't decided yet. Right now, I have this yen to look at some docks."

  "Docks?"

  "You heard me. Come along now. Don't be cross. We'll take my car. As you can imagine, I've been doing a great deal of thinking since we last talked."

  '"I'll bet you have," Graham muttered under his breath as he grabbed his hat and straightened his tie. "Will you please tell me where we're going so I can at least give Denny some idea where to find me in an emergency?"

  "Deptford" was all the prince would say.

  He was more talkative once they were in his car and on their way, heading out the Old Kent Road. He told Graham briefly about his morning and slipping away alone, then asked Graham about his. Graham told him, without mentioning names. When he had finished, William was aghast.

  "You mean this chap just refused, flat out?"

  Graham shrugged. "He was very polite about it, almost to the end, but yes, I would have to say it was a flat refusal. He was a frightened man."

  "How frightened?" William asked. "I mean, now that he knows what you are, you don't think he'd expose you, do you?"

  As they turned more easterly toward Greenwich, Graham shook his head. "No. He was upset but not that upset. And he doesn't know entirely what I am. He simply didn't accept my authority to ask what I was asking. I don't suppose one should blame him. He did acknowledge my recognition sign, however. Years ago, I Worked in his tradition, as I've worked in several others in addition to my own. His order is—similar to Freemasonry in its degree system."

  "You don't follow it anymore, then?"

  "Not actively, no, though I still respect its tenets. And oaths such as he and I swore are binding for life, as you know. I don't believe he'll break his."

  William snorted. "Not if the penalties are anything like the ones for the oaths I took. My brother George is grand master now, you know. He succeeded Great-uncle Arthur last year. You aren't really a Christian, are you?"

  Graham had been half expecting the question for some weeks, but its context now, when finally asked, brought a smile to his lips despite the awkwardness of the subject matter. There had been hardly a pause between Great-uncle Arthur and the fatal query.

  "Your leaps of unabashed logic never fail to amaze me. How detailed an answer would you like?"

  "I didn't think I'd get a simple yea or nay, knowing you," William replied. "Keep it fairly short. We're nearly there."

  "Very well. In the most orthodox sense, no, I'm not, though there are aspects of that particular faith which I admire quite a lot. The old and new religions have coexisted for
a very long time. It's unfortunate that so many people have been tortured and killed for the narrowness of other people's religions instead of rejoicing in the common fullnesses. No one has a monopoly on truth, I think."

  "I can't argue with that, I suppose," William said. "But don't you believe in Christ and the Trinity and all that? I've seen you in church before. You didn't seem uncomfortable."

  Graham chuckled, his own good humor completely restored by the prince's directness.

  "Part of it is protective coloration—church attendance, I mean—but why should I have been uncomfortable? Do you think it matters where or how one bows one's head to truth? The creative force wears so many forms and guises—why should anyone be forced to honour only one?"

  William was silent after that, though obviously thinking. Very soon, he parked the Rolls behind the Royal Naval College and led Graham around to the river embankment, Graham toting the paper sack that the prince had produced from the back seat. After a short stroll along the promenade, they found an empty bench set back from the pavement and sat down to eat. A metal guard rail partially obscured their view of the Thames itself, but hardly half a mile farther up river to the left lay the Deptford dock area. William did not mention it as they ate their meat pies and chips.

  Because of the threatening sky, only a few of the other benches were occupied. Pedestrians along the promenade were also scant. Still, enough other servicemen were about that Graham and the prince could pretend to be just two more men in uniform, enjoying a quick lunch in the out-of-doors—though the oak leaves on their cap peaks did command the occasional closer look from passers-by. The attention was always discreet, however, and reminded William of his experience at the bake shop where he had bought their lunch.

  "It's always the same," be murmured, drawing the peak of his cap closer over his eyes as an old pensioner on crutches took a sharp look at him and then continued on by as if he hadn't seen him, after all. "They knew it looked like me, but they decided it couldn't possibly be me—all by myself, buying Cornish pasties like anybody else—so they pretended not to notice. Sorry there's nothing to drink."

  Graham chuckled companionably and said it didn't matter, feeling far more mellow with food in his stomach, and both of them drank from a public water fountain after they tossed their luncheon debris into a wire dustbin.

  "As you may imagine, I've given a great deal of thought to what we discussed the other night," William said a short time later as the two of them continued walking slowly westward along the promenade. "Some of it is just plain incomprehensible, quite frankly, but I did check on a number of the historical details. Did you know, for example, that shortly after Drake's knighting, the Golden Hind was permanently laid up in dock at Deptford as a sort of Elizabethan tourist attraction?*'

  Graham flashed an incredulous grin. "Was she really?"

  "She was. She was starting to rot away by 1600. A Swiss traveler reported taking a piece back home with him for a souvenir. I suppose the chairs must have been made shortly after that. There are four, by the way. I didn't have a great deal of luck locating the exact position of the dock, but it was probably somewhere along there."

  He gestured toward the vista of the river before them, where the banks of the Thames curved away to the right, then shoved his hands into his pockets and was silent as they continued walking. Graham wondered where all of this was supposed to lead—the prince was on to something, or thought he was— but he tried to curb his impatience as he waited for the next link in the chain of logic. This could be no easier for William right now than it was for him.

  "Did you really have to bring me here to tell me that?" he asked lightly after a considered pause.

  A sheepish smile tugged at the comers of William's mouth. "Well, you said that places can hold associations, didn't you? If that weren't true, why did we go all the way to Buckland?"

  "Well, I asked for that," Graham retorted, though he smiled as he said it. He thought further about the implications of what William had just said, then continued. "Are you suggesting that being here might make it easier for me to remember more?"

  "I thought it might. Why don't you tell me again what happened when the Queen lost her garter?"

  Graham stopped and stared at him. "You really do believe me, don't you?"

  William shrugged, but his attempt at casual nonchalance did not quite succeed.

  "I'm not completely gullible. I did some checking." He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and unfolded it.

  "I was looking for some evidence that Elizabeth herself felt there had been some kind of supernatural intervention in the Armada victory. If what you've been saying is true, it wouldn't have been overt, of course, but—well, there were several medals struck to commemorate the event. "Afflavit Deus et dissipati sunt,"" he read from his paper. "That's what it said on one of them. *God blew and they were scattered.' This drawing was on the reverse of the medal. Is it a magical symbol of some sort?"

  The sketch the prince handed Graham had been hurriedly done, but the intended meaning was clear enough to make him raise one eyebrow in surprise. He did not answer just then, for they were coming abreast of an old man feeding pigeon's from a wheelchair. The pigeons parted as the two of them strode through the flock, re-forming behind them as the old man stared. When they were well past, Graham handed the paper back.

  "It's a sort of magical protection—a circle warding. Probably Dee's work."

  "I thought it might be, if the rest was true," William replied. "Mind you, I'm not saying I believe everything you've said, but I do believe something extraordinary happened Friday night. I can't explain it—but I thought we might see what happened if we tried to use the information as if it were true. Does that sound at all useful?"

  Graham gave a wry smile. "That sounds pretty qualified to me—but go on, I'm listening."

  "No, it's my turn to listen, your turn to tell me."

  They had reached an observation platform jutting out from the river bank, a little more secluded from the traffic of people going back and forth along the promenade. Gesturing for them to go out on it, William stuffed his paper back in his pocket. Only an occasional gull winged in low to investigate the possibility of a handout.

  "Let's go back to the beginning," William said. "Tell me again what happened when the Queen lost her garter."

  Graham rested his forearms across the rail and interlaced his fingers, gazing down into the water. He supposed it was worth a try.

  "Everyone got very quiet," he said softly, letting himself begin to see the images again on the eddies and currents below. "There were three Garter Knights in her party—Leicester, Howard, and Burghley—and they went absolutely wooden. No one wanted to move except the Frenchman. He would have run and picked up the garter, but the Queen's glance froze him on the spot."

  "Then what happened?" William urged.

  "Then she looked at me. Something seemed to pass between us—an electricity, almost. She looked very pointedly at the garter. There was no question in my mind that she meant me to pick it up."

  He swallowed, aware that he was being drawn even deeper into the memory, and his voice dropped in volume and pitch, less like his own.

  "I moved to obey her. I couldn't have helped myself if I had wanted to—and I didn't want to. No one made a sound as I picked it up. Somehow I knew that it was far more than just a garter. That was why I kissed it before I gave it back to her. It might have been a holy relic. My kissing of her hand, then, was an act of profound homage, not only as her new-made knight. And when those three men bowed to me, I marked them for the future: Leicester, Howard—"

  He gasped and blinked, then shut his eyes and let himself go deeper into trance, for a new set of images was forming. A part of him was aware of William watching expectantly, even a little anxiously, but another part trusted that the prince understood enough of what was happening not to be afraid or interfere.

  Assured at that, he put William out of mind and turned his attention wholly inward,
shakily drawing a slow, steadying breath. As he let it out, he was plummeted back to that dark hilltop above Plymouth Harbor, in the midst of the grand coven.

  He was not alone before them this time. Though he stood there as her man in black tonight, there were two others with him— Garter Knights, dark mantles almost black in the firelight, the garters around their knees unmistakable, though their faces were masked!

  They had helped to call the covens here, lending their weight to that which she had already granted him against this time. The masks were a formality, almost a ritual accoutrement, for nearly everyone in England knew the two knights by name, if not by sight. Howard was the Queen's great-uncle once removed, married to the daughter of Lord Hunsdon, who was nephew (and some said half brother) to the Queen through Mary Boleyn. Hatton was lord chancellor now, and himself only just gartered a few months before as a fresh reminder to the people of his favor with the Queen—and he, too, had been present seven years before. No wonder the grand coven had come.

  The two clasped hands with him wrist to wrist, one after the other, then backed into the shadows, their point made. Now Drake was alone before them, raising his arms to enjoin their attention. As he opened his mouth to speak, Graham felt the image waver and let it go. When he opened his eyes, he was back beside the Thames, with William looking at him in elation.

  "You did see something else! I knew I was right to bring you here! Are you all right? What did you see?"

  Slowly, Graham nodded, disentangling his fingers and flexing them several times as he shook free of the final vestiges of other, "I made another connection," he said carefully. "It may even mean something for our present dilenmia. Somehow, the Garter Knights are the key. Look."

  From his breast pocket, he drew out the two lists Selwyn had made: Elizabeth's Knights of the Garter and those alive today. On the Elizabethan list, he pointed out four names with circles around them.

  "Now here are the men who saw the incident on the Golden Hind: Leicester, Howard, and Burghley. And here's Hatton. Hatton wasn't a Garter Knight at the time, but he was by 1588. He was present with Drake when the grand coven was convened, and so was Howard. Howard was related to the Queen by blood and by marriage with blood as well as being Drake's superior as lord high admiral. With them at his side and seven years for stories of the incident aboard the Golden Hind to have spread, how could anyone have refused if asked to come and help?"