Lammas night

by Katherine Kurtz

  Graham slipped into gentle darkness then, losing the thread of Wallace until the voice called him back. Again, he swooped into another set of memories, though these were more of knowledge than participation. He could sense a rough impatience in that part of him, mirroring the cunning and ruthlessness of the man whose identity he now assumed. "Who are you?" the voice demanded. He was far enough apart to know that it was Alix asking, though a part of him lodged in yet another life.

  "George Plantagenet, brother to the King," he replied briskly.

  "Which King?"

  "Why, Edward, of course—the fourth of that name."

  "I see. And what year do you die?"

  "In 1479, in the sacred month of February. The King is thirty-five."

  "You are a sacrifice, then?"

  "Yes."

  "And how do you die?"

  He smiled—a taut, crafty grimace with no warmth whatever—seeing it all from a point somewhere above the body of the doomed George.

  "A dagger thrust up under the ribs to the heart," he said clinically. "It is very well done. There is little pain, but the blood flows."

  "A dagger thrust?" the voice murmured. "But if you are— tradition has it that you were drowned in a butt of Mahnsey."

  "Has it? I know nothing of that."

  "Well, perhaps tradition is wrong," he heard her murmur. "Are you content to die as sacrifice, then?"

  Graham shrugged. "I would rather die as king than as substitute, but the end is the same. It is necessary."

  "I see. Go forward, then. Who else have you been?"

  He was out of George Plantagenet in an instant, but somehow he could find no other name until he reached Drake. Yet there was something in that intervening time...

  "What after that?" Alix urged.

  "Others played their roles," he found himself saying. "I was called to—other tasks."

  "What other tasks?"

  Stilhiess. A closed door. Somehow he knew he was not. allowed to answer.

  "Can you tell me more of those tasks?" she repeated.

  He found himself shaking his head.

  "Very well. Is there anything else we should explore?"

  He drew a deep breath and rolled his head several times from side to side, not in negation but in a gesture of futility at trying to dredge forth something that would not quite come. There was something.

  "Something—yes. Can't... quite... remember. Something about—Tyrrel... and FitzUrse. Mustn't forget "

  "What mustn't you forget?" she urged. "Go deeper, Gray. Focus on it and bring it to the surface. Read its meaning."

  He shook his head again. "Can't. Not time yet.... William... important... No more "

  The concentration set things spinning. Hands clamped to his temples, he groaned aloud with a physical vertigo as well as a psychic one and tried to pull out. Her touch on his forehead eased the discomfort a little, drawing him nearer to his own body and memories, but he opened his eyes too soon. Disorientation throbbed behind his eyeballs even worse than at Buck-land.

  Wincing, he dropped his head into his hands and shuddered, almost sick to his stomach.

  "Jesus, Alix, I think a bomb went off inside my head! What did you do to me?"

  "Go back under and let's try coming out again," she said, moving to the chair arm and putting her thumbs to his temples. "Relax and take a deep breath "

  He let his hands fall to his lap and obeyed, retreating immediately to the comfort of trance. After a few minutes of concentrating on her words and the light pressure of her thumbs along the sides of his head, the pain subsided, and he let himself gradually come out again. A shadow of dull ache persisted behind the bridge of his nose as he cautiously opened his eyes, but it could almost be a mere lack of sleep. Nothing compared to what he'd felt a few minutes before.

  "Better?'*

  "Much." He sighed as she took away her hands and sat back cautiously. "I will tell you this: I can do without another session like that for a long time. If this is what it takes to be an adept, I'm not sure I want the job."

  "I'm not entirely certain you have any other options," she replied, leaning back to retrieve her notes from the chair. "I could do without the side-effects, however, and I'm sure you could. You went really deep again, especially there at the beginning. Who were you?"

  "FitzUrse again, in detail this time—and Tyrrel, also in detail. I would have given you a running comentary if I'd been able, but—"

  As he shrugged, Alix handed him the typewritten pages.

  "You don't have to apologize. Before you bother to say much more, I think you'd better read this. I don't know whether it will reassure you or scare the hell out of you."

  He sighed. "Why do I have the feeling I was dead right about a lot of details I have no business knowing?"

  "You may wish you'd rephrased that part about being dead-right, but go ahead and read," she replied, quirking a nervous grin at him before going to light another cigarette. "I need a few minutes to think some things through."

  He read what she had written. After the Tyrrel and FitzUrse accounts, he thought he was prepared for the rest. The Swines-head material tallied reasonably well, though there was less to go on, and the death of William Wallace seemed fairly straightforward—though Wallace's mystical observations at the moment of death obviously could not be substantiated.

  What brought him up short were the few paragraphs on George Plantagenet. He had not known, and had not even remembered it in trance, but George Plantagenet had also been a Duke of Clarence.

  He shivered and looked up to see Alix sitting in the chair in front of him again, holding two tarot cards. He could only see their backs, but he had no doubt they were the same two she had refused to read earlier for another Duke of Clarence.

  "What cards?" he asked in a dead voice.

  She dropped them face up in her lap and turned somber eyes to his. "Six of Cups and Hanged Man—though I think you knew that."

  He closed his eyes briefly, inexplicably chilled, then rose and began pacing restlessly, tossing the notes on the table in distaste, not meeting her eyes.

  "You got to the part about the other Duke of Clarence, didn't you?" she said.

  He paused by the fireplace and leaned his elbows on the mantel. Clasping his hands before his chin, he stared sightlessly at the stonework a few inches away and thought about the man asleep upstairs.

  "Are you implying that there's a connection between the two?" he said after a moment. "That something from a past life of William's may account for his being thrust into our work just now? Is that what the Six of Cups means?"

  "It's a sobering coincidence of names, you must admit," she replied, not answering his question. "As a matter of fact.

  it's a rather ill-fated title. Only one Duke of Clarence has died in his bed, at a ripe old age. That was William IV."

  "And what about our William?"

  She shrugged. "Well, we know that at least one of his past lives has touched you in this life or you wouldn't have mistaken him for David that night at Buckland. That same night, he asked you about hypnotic regression and expressed an interest in finding out more about his own past lives—and tonight he set himself up to do just that, though I doubt he's aware of any of this on any conscious level."

  "Well, at least he can't have been that other Clarence, because I was," Graham said, looking back at her in faint challenge.

  "No, but perhaps he was one of Drake's Garter Knights, and that's what has led him to offer his assistance the way he has," she replied thoughtfully. "That one incarnation could account for everything we've mentioned. There— is another possibility, however," she added, glancing down at the cards.

  Graham blinked, his throat suddenly going very dry.

  "What—other possibility?" he managed to ask.

  "Well, the Six of Cups could mean a great many things, many of them quite benign," she said reluctantly. "It could refer to the Garter connection I mentioned in front of William, but it's also a card of inheritance
and lineage. He is of the old line, after all; the line of the sacred kings. When you add to that the Hanged Man—" She picked up the card and gestured toward him with it.

  "The Hanged Man is all those lovely, physically awakening things I said when he was here. Gray, and I'm sure they all apply—but look at the literal meaning of the card. The Hanged Man is a sacrifice —and that was William's outcome card."

  Graham was hardly aware of crossing the space between them or snatching the card from her hand, though the chill of growing dread sat on his chest like an evil spectre.

  "Do you know what you're saying?" he gasped, staring at the card in trembling fingers. "Do you realize what you've just suggested?"

  "I'm saying," she said softly, "that I want to know where that puts our present-day Duke of Clarence in relationship to what you've just been reading. I especially want to know where he fits into the rest of what you've been starting to remember— the recalls besides Drake,"

  Numb with the implications, Graham felt his way to the edge of his chair and sat, weak-kneed.

  "You think he might have been one of my victims?" he asked.

  "I think we must consider that possibility—yes," she replied.

  "No. I won't accept that." He tossed the card back in her lap angrily, eyes defiant. "Even if it were true in the past, it isn't now. Why couldn't I be the Hanged Man? It's only natural that I'd show up in his reading. I've been the catalyst for everything he's done so far. I think it's fair to say that he wouldn't have become involved in any of this if I hadn't stupidly given him the opportunity."

  "That's true."

  "Besides, you and I have talked before about the remote possibility of a sacrifice being necessary to seal the Lammas working," he continued desperately. "If there has to be one, I'm it. I accepted that role when I agreed to act for David. Obviously, it wouldn't be the fu-st time I've functioned in that capacity."

  "All that you've said is true," Alix said. "Are you suggesting that William might be your slayer, then?"

  "I'm not suggesting he has a part in anything to do with that," Graham returned hotly. "But better that than for me to be his. That's one thing I won't do, Alix, no matter who orders it."

  Alix sighed and shrugged. "Well, with any luck, neither you nor he will ever have to make such a decision," she said. "Perhaps we're both overreacting. Perhaps I saw more in the cards than is really there. We do need his help for the gathering of the grand coven leaders, though. If he hadn't offered, we'd still be wondering how to do it."

  "We haven't done it yet," Graham muttered.

  "No, but I think we will now. If Emma agrees to her part— and I have no reason to suspect that she won't—there's really very little room for things to go wrong." She laid a hand on his arm in comfort.

  'Try to forget I even mentioned the other, Gray. We've probably been worrying for nothing. Besides," she added with a sly little grin, "we need not be compelled by the past any more than we let ourselves be ruled by my cards—or your stars."

  He had to smile at that. He told himself that she was likely right. He wanted to believe it. But as he made his way up to his room a little later, he found himself remembering Tyrrel and FitzUrse. He tried not to think about the men they had slain in the names of the sacred kings.

  Chapter 15

  AT BREAKFAST THE NEXT MORNING, A BRIGHT AND cheerful William gave no sign that he remembered anything unusual about the night before. Nor did he mention it when he and Graham drove back to London. They chatted about logistical details for the three receptions, and William inquired casually how Graham's session with Alix had gone, but he accepted Graham's vague reassurances at face value and did not press for details. He dropped Graham at the office near St. James* Park in plenty of time to make his own engagement and put Wells to work on the invitations that afternoon, since the first of the receptions was only a week away.

  The go-ahead from Alix came through the following day, and the invitations went out. Graham did not hear from the prince for several days after that, for William left on Thursday for a long birthday weekend at Windsor with the rest of the royal family, inspecting military units in London with the King's party on Saturday and attending Sunday services at the Royal Chapel, in Windsor Great Park. Given their previous discussions, Graham suspected that the prince would somehow find the time to visit the Garter Chapel in the course of the weekend. His suspicion was confuined when William returned on Monday to dine with him, Michael, and the brigadier in a belated birthday celebration. Later that evening, Graham and the prince began to go over the background William would need to set the stage for him and Alix at the final reception. The first one was to take place the following evening.

  All three receptions were held at Laurelgrove, the brigadier's country house near Eynsford. The brigadier hosted the first two at the prince's side, as would have been expected, but the other attendees were never aware that Graham and Alix were also present. Hidden behind the one-way mirror installed for the occasion between drawing room and parlor, they observed William's handling of the fu-st two groups of guests and afterward offered critiques. William needed no coaching on his actual handling of people, for he had long ago excelled at going out and mingling, but by the third night, they had helped him establish a smooth and predictable pattern of timing.

  Timing was important for several reasons. One of the most important was the problem of Wells, William's aide. As was appropriate, he was at William's side for the first two meetings. He had seen to the preparation of the invitations, was aware of the official reasons for the composition of the guest lists, and could hardly be excluded without arousing unwanted curiosity.

  But nor could they allow him to be present for at least the heart of the third meeting—and slipping him a doctored drink was too risky to try a second time so soon. A ruse would be necessary to draw him away for a few hours. They decided it would take the form of a call from the Admiralty at the appropriate moment, requiring some trustworthy agent of the prince to pick up a confidential dispatch at once. Since William was planning to stay the night at the brigadier's rather than drive back under blackout conditions after the reception, the message could not await William's return. It made perfect sense to send Wells on the errand.

  Thus, while William and the brigadier mingled with their guests as they had the previous two nights and waited for the call, the unsuspecting Wells was never far away. Because it was wartime, William had opted for naval dress uniform rather than civilian evening attire, wearing with it a gold staff aiguil-lette, as one of the King's personal aides, and the riband and star of the Garter. He would add the Garter collar after Wells had gone. Several of his guests, male and female, had chosen military garb as well, and the room glittered with the various orders, medals, and decorations to which they were entitled.

  From the other side of the one-way mirror, Graham, like the prince, also waited for the call that would lure Wells away. He was restless by the time the brigadier left William and joined him. They had decided to underline his role as man in black, so rather than a uniform, he wore his usual black polo sweater with a black jacket and trousers—an image that would register with most, though not all, of the evening's guests. He gave Ellis a bleak look but said nothing.

  After a few more minutes, Alix came in and slipped an arm around each man's waist. Her gown was the exact shade of William's blue Garter riband, the long, pale hair braided and coiled around the top of her head like a tiara, adding inches to her height and an even greater command to her presence. She smiled reassuringly as she gazed up at Graham, the brown eyes coolly appraising.

  "My, but you do look wonderftilly powerful and persuasive in all that black, doesn't he, Wesley?" she said.

  As the brigadier snorted approvingly, Graham grinned, completely destroying the somber image.

  "The butterflies in my stomach needed that," he said. "Has the call come in yet?"

  "No, but it shouldn't be long now. How is our royal host doing?"

  "His usual, charmi
ng self," Ellis rephed. "Everyone always says that Kent is the most outgoing and personable of the brothers, but I don't see it. They haven't watched Clarence in action. He has them eating out of his hand."

  "Let's just hope they keep eating," Alix muttered, surveying them briefly. "He does have that charisma, though. How about our guests? Any fireworks yet?"

  Graham shook his head. "Not that I've noticed. Oh, a few of them have recognized one another. Those who are rivals have managed to gracefully move on to more congenial company, but it doesn't seem to have occurred to any of them that H.R.H. could be in on a deliberate gathering like this. They think it has to be coincidence."

  "We'll see how much they still believe in coincidence when they see the two of us," Alix said dryly. "If they don't become hysterical in the first thirty seconds, we may actually have a chance of getting them to talk about something besides the weather, the war, and how utterly too-too it is to be recognized by a royal duke."

  "I shouldn't hold my breath if I were you," Graham said, peering more intently through the glass as a footman entered and spoke with the equerry in attendance at the far door.

  "A-ha! That will be our phone call. Our good Mr. Flynn tells His Royal Highness—and H.R.H. feigns surprise and excuses himself as planned, leaving his ever-faithful but over curious aide to attend to his guests."

  They watched William disappear through the door nearest them, and very shortly, Flynn was sent to fetch Wells. Soon after that, William joined them in the parlor, worrying at the knot of his tie with a nervous gesture.

  "Well, he's off to London," the prince said, peering through the mirror with them. "Gray, are you sure we've got the right list tonight? They all seem so—normal."

  Graham could not help a grin. "I hope you weren't expecting tails and cloven hooves after all we've told you. The vicar over there would be absolutely scandalized."

  William bit back a smile as he followed Graham's gaze to a man in clerical collar talking animatedly with Dame Emma.