Lammas night

by Katherine Kurtz

  The brigadier had ridden back with him and stayed the afternoon, ostensibly to assist in a special report Graham had in progress. Michael and Denton were in and out, both of them quite aware of what was going on.

  But by dusk, Graham could stand their solicitude no longer, well meaning though it was. He had to get out, away from the clattering teletypes and cipher machines in the next room, whose every new spurt of printing could be bringing the news he both dreaded and longed to hear.

  He had Denton drop him off near Deptford, at the high embankment beside the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. Watching the moon rise and listening to the sirens and the thump of bombs and the urgent chatter of the batteries seeking out the bombers, he tried not to think about that other plane or the men who flew her.

  Collar turned against the damp and chill, he waited on the same observation platform where, not very long ago, a royal duke had offered him a flat black jeweler's box with a star inside. He closed his eyes to shut out the dockside fires across the river that now blotted out the light of any star, not wanting to remember, but he remembered all too well. He walked some, but he always came back.

  The last time, just after midnight, two uniformed figures were waiting for him, one of them smoking a pipe. Denton had a duffle coat for Graham and insisted he put it on before he would leave them alone. After Graham buttoned up the coat, he glanced at the silent brigadier. Ellis was gazing down at the river, elbows leaned wearily on the railing, puffing on his pipe. Cautiously, Graham joined him at the rail, following his stare to the water below.

  "You'll find something in the left-hand pocket of that coat," Ellis said, not looking up. "He wanted you to have it, but not until—now. You'll understand when you see what it is."

  Chilled, Graham hesitated for just an instant, staring at the smoke curling from the brigadier's pipe, then eased his hand into the deep patch pocket and felt fine linen knotted loosely around something hard and flat, perhaps a little larger than a two-shilling piece. The wrapping was one of William's mon-ogranimed handkerchiefs, he saw, as he drew his hand out into the light, the royal cypher stitched in one comer.

  He stepped back from the rail to undo it, fearful of losing whatever was inside. A handsome chain slithered from one of the folds first, cold across the back of his hand, and then he cupped the object in his palm. He stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket as he tilted his hand to get a better look.

  At first, he thought it was one of the link pieces from William's Garter collar, for it was about the right size, with what appeared to be an enameled Garter around the outer edge. Then he realized that it was silver, not gold, and that the center was not the expected red rose. As he canted it toward the firelight and brought it closer, he caught his breath, and his hand began to shake.

  It would have aroused no special notice by anyone except himself. The piece was a traditional silver clan badge of the Graham family crest, winged falcon preying on a stork in the center. He had one very like it at home in a drawer somewhere, done as a cap brooch. What made this one unique was that the strap and buckle design around the edge had been filled in with blue enamel. The Graham motto shone bright silver against the Garter blue, the words suddenly taking on a meaning they never had before: Ne oublie —"Do not forget.''

  He closed it in his hand, his eyes closing, too, against the glare of the fires across the river and the silhouette of Ellis standing at his elbow. Afraid even to try to speak, he pressed his balled fist against his lips and could only think of William's hands encircling his own, as the Garter encircled the Graham crest—protecting, cherishing, binding, though all of this would be only in memory from now on, at least in this life.

  After a few seconds, he opened his eyes and looked at his hand again, though he did not open it. Now he held William's memory and honor in his hand just as William had held his. It was a precious, sacred trust.

  "I—only now realized who gave you the Saint George medal you wear around your neck," he whispered, almost afraid to look at Ellis. "It was your victim, wasn't it?"

  The brigadier nodded, but he did not speak. When it became clear he was not going to, Graham shook out the kinks in the chain and slipped it over his head. He pressed the badge briefly to his lips in renewed homage before clasping it in his hand again like a protective talisman, remembering how his prince had clutched the Great George of his Garter collar in a room at Laurelgrove. He knew Ellis remembered it, too, as he glanced aside at the old man—and he knew there was one more question he had to ask.

  "You have something else to tell me, don't you?" he said softly.

  Ellis nodded and pulled some folded papers from an inner pocket with infinite care. Suddenly, even the sounds of war seemed to recede as he opened the first one.

  "I have—several items you should be aware of," Ellis said. "Shall I read them to you?"

  Graham forced himself to nod.

  "This first one ran on nearly all the wire services. It will be in tomorrow's papers," Ellis continued, pausing to swallow with difficulty. "The headline is 'Duke of Clarence Dies in Crash Hying to Wales.'"

  Graham closed his eyes and bowed his head, the badge biting into his clenched palm as the brigadier began to read haltingly in the light of moon and fires.

  "'The Admiralty regret to announce that H.R.H. Captain The Duke of Clarence, K.G., was killed on active service yesterday afternoon when a Sunderland flying boat crashed in South Wales. His Royal Highness was proceeding to Wales on an inspection tour. All the crew of the flying boat also lost their lives. This tragic news was announced by the Admiralty early last evening."

  As the brigadier paused to swallow audibly again, Graham could see William's face behind his closed eyelids, smiling in the sunlight as Graham last had seen him, Richard and Geoffrey to either side. He tried to hold their images as Ellis resumed reading.

  "'The duke, youngest brother of the King, had celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday only two months ago and had distinguished himself in various prewar operations connected with naval intelligence, for which he was made a Knight of St. Michael and St. George. He had become a Knight of the Garter in 1921 and had been created Duke of Clarence only in 1937, shortly before the tragic death of his fianc6e, the Princess Caroline-Marie, and as part of His Majesty's coronation honours.'"

  The brigadier paused to draw breath. "It goes on to list more of his specific achievements. Then: 'Those of the Duke of Clarence's party were also killed with him: his secretary and aide. Lieutenant James Flynn, RNVR, appointed to that post only a few weeks ago; and his valet of nearly twenty years. Chief Petty Officer Donald Griffin. The crew of the Sunderland included two grandsons of a hero of the Great War: Flight Lieutenant Richard Graham, RAF, captain of the flying boat, son of Colonel Sir John Cathal Graham, V.C, K.C.M.G., and Flight Lieutenant Geoffrey Ellis, RAF, second pilot, both of them grandsons of Brigadier General Sir Wesley Ellis, K.C.B. Also killed were...'"

  Ellis went on to read the names of the rest of the crew— eight young men from some of the oldest and most respected families in the country. Graham was shaking his head as Ellis finished reading, too stunned even to cry. He had known it must end this way as he watched the flying boat disappear into the overcast this morning, but the stark reality of the words that the whole world soon would read seemed somehow part of a very bad dream.

  He heard Ellis shuffling paper again, and he glanced aside dully, forcing his fingers to uncramp and let the clan badge hang on its chain, rubbing absently at the indentations the medal had made across his palm. High overhead, the drone of aircraft began to intrude once more—wave after wave of new bombers coming in, with the tiny, darting shapes of the defending night-fighters and raiders alike lit by searchlight spears. Explosions jarred the city to the east again, punctuated by the ineffectual but reassuring chatter of the Ack-Ack guns, but something in Ellis's manner with a second sheet of paper made Graham ignore the sounds of war and gaijc at him in question.

  "I said there were several items you should be
aware of," the brigadier murmured, uRcreasing a yellow cipher flimsy and flattening it against the heavier teletype paper. 'This came in just before I left to find you. Grumbaugh penciled out a rough translation and said to tell you it had been hand carried from Bletchley Park. I suppose that means it's an Ultra intercept?"

  Graham found his vision blurring, and he had to brush at his eyes with an awkward hand as he nodded. Grumbaugh would not have entrusted even Ellis with Ultra material unless it were very, very important. Dared he hope that news could have come so soon?

  "Read it for me, will you?" he whispered.

  The brigadier cleared his throat. "It's from the German general staff to the officer in charge. Air Support Operations, Holland. Usual amenities, etc., etc., Heil Hitler. 'As of this date, you are authorized to begin the dismantling of the air-loading equipment at all Dutch aerodromes.' There's more, but that's the crux of it."

  It took a few seconds for the significance to penetrate Graham's benumbed mind.

  "Dismantling? In Holland? But that's one of the main staging areas for the invasion!"

  "That's right, son."

  "Then it's off!" Graham murmured. "The invasion is off. We've won!"

  "We've won this round, at any rate," the old man returned gruffly. "There will be no invasion this season, which was what we feared the most. And if our lads continue to pound the Jerries up there"—he glanced up at the planes and the tracer-filled sky—"it won't come at all."

  "Then—was today necessary?" Graham breathed after a long pause. 'Tell me, Wesley. I have to know. Did I kill all those people—my prince and my own son and nephew—for nothingT'

  Ellis shook his head, the old eyes misting at last. "We'll never know for sure, Gray," he whispered. "If today had gone differently for us, perhaps it would have gone differently in other ways as well. Everything pointed toward what was done today. We have to believe there was a reason for that."

  "A reason," Graham repeated numbly.

  Slowly, he took the last signal from Ellis and read it for himself, the penciled words slightly blurred in the moonlight, the printed German clearer but hard and cold. He scanned the words again, shaking his head.

  When he had read it through a third time and still had divined no answers, he began methodically shredding it into tiny pieces, his mind going back over the past months. When none of the pieces were larger than his thumbnail, he opened his fingers and watched the bits float to the river like faded, obscene confetti. For just an instant, his hands caught the reflection of the burning city and seemed to glow red.

  Slayer of kings and slain for kings am I....

  He bowed his head then, stifling a sob in his throat, but he did not weep. Clenching his fist to hold the blood he had shed, he paid homage to all the dead who, down the centuries and the seven-years, had given life itself to keep this island safe. With the bombs falling all around and the fires blazing in the nearby docks, he stood arm in arm with another man who had lived the grief and hope before.

  Together they watched until the morning light: one warrior old and scarred by other wars, the other man of lesser years, but also, in this leaden dawn, a man no longer young—both, in that brightening moment, worn but faithful servants of the sacred king.

  Afterword

  THE CHARACTERS DEPICTED IN THIS STORY ARE PURELY

  fictional, and any resemblance to real people, living or dead, is quite coincidental. However, the historical setting and chronology for the summer of 1940, the months of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, are real. So are the secret units of Britain's MI.6 and their parallels in Berlin, which were concerned with utilizing the occult sciences to further the progress of their resp>ective sides in the war. The use of astrology, the Nostradamus prophecies, and pendulum dowsing by both sides is a matter of record. The Thule Gesellschaft was but one of the German occult orders that attempted to use black magic against the Allies, though its activities on Lammas night itself are unknown. Hitler was an initiate of this group and was at the Berghof on Lammas night.

  The details surrounding the Lammas working against Hitler are conjectural but are based upon the best information now available, more than forty years after the fact, when nearly everyone who was involved has passed on. At least one New Forest coven did go down to the sea and raise a cone of power for that purpose at least three times that summer. Dion Fortune and some of her associates did engage in an occult operation involving the visualization of archangels guarding Britain. Other groups may have done more or less than that.

  Where descriptions of various occult practices diverge from published material currently available, particularly regarding witchcraft, one should remember that before about 1950 and the pioneer work done by Murray, Leland, Gardner, and others, little was written down or otherwise codified concerning native British occult traditions. Thus, it was necessary to construct a suitable background for the Oakwood group based upon what seems fairly universal in present published material on the Old Religion and what was told to me by British occultists of various persuasions concerning what it was like in 1940. To the best of my knowledge, there is no group precisely like the one headed by Mix and David Jordan and no Oakwood Manor with its magical maze. Nor do I know for a fact that any joint gathering of British occultists was held to coordinate a common working for Lammas of 1940—though it seems to me that there should have been and certainly could have been.

  Concerning historical precedents for using magic to prevent the invasion of England, I wrote from the section on Sir Francis Drake in Doreen Valiente's An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present, which was one of the early catalysts for this project:

  Sir Francis Drake is known in all English history books as the man who delivered England from the Spanish Armada. Not so well known is the fact that in his native Devonshire he is reputed to have belonged to the witch cult.

  During the Second World War, at the time when England seemed in imminent danger of invasion, a large gathering of witches took place in the New Forest, to work a rite to protect the country. It was recalled then that similar rituals had been carried out in past years against Napoleon, and before that against the Spanish Armada. (The ceremony against Hitler took place at Lammas 1940; and the writer has known personally two people who took part in it.)

  Many legends have gathered about Drake and his defeat of the Armada. That of Drake's drum is well known: and its ghostly beat is said to have been heard during both the First and the Second World Wars. In the West Country, Drake is told of in winter evening fireside tales, as a particularly active ghost, who has been known to lead the Wild Hunt on dark nights of wind and storm Other stories say that, because he practiced witchcraft in his lifetime, Drake's soul cannot rest. This is why his ghost drives a black coach and four about the Devonshire lanes on stormy nights.

  Another version of the story says that Drake sold his soul to the Devil in return for the defeat of the Spaniards, and this is why his soul is doomed to wander. Both tales are basically versions of the same thing, that Drake belonged to the Old Religion.

  Regarding Drake's actual involvement and that of the Order of the Garter, I stand by what the characters have said. What they have stated as historical fact is true to the best of my knowledge; where they have speculated, so must we, for no one knows for certain. Similarly conjectural is the material on the deaths of Thomas Becket and William Rufus, which was partially developed from Hugh Ross Williamson's The Arrow and the Sword.

  As for the theory of the sacred king, I refer the reader to Margaret Murray's The Divine King in England. Like Brigadier Ellis, I can only suggest that each must draw his or her own conclusions to decide whether or not the seven-year cycles continue and whether there are still those who serve the sacred king.

  About the Author Katherine Kurtz was born in Coral Gables, Florida, during a hurricane, and has led a somewhat whiriwind existence ever since. She was awarded a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Miami, and attended medical school for a year before she decided that she rea
lly wanted to write about medicine rather than practice it. She earned an M.A. in medieval English history from UCLA while writing her first two novels.

  Recently married, Miss Kurtz lives with her husband in Sun Valley, California, where she devotes her time to writing.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Afterword