She was listening intently.
“Don’t misunderstand me. I think being Christian means becoming in some sense stronger—at least, more complete, more truly human. But that’s not what Christianity is basically about. It’s like marriage. A good marriage will make you stronger, but obviously being stronger isn’t what marriage is about. It’s about faithfulness and loyalty between two people. Are you all right?”
She drew a sharp breath. “I’m fine. Please go on. I want to hear what you have to say.”
He looked at her for a moment, then continued.
“Well, I’d say that when Christianity—and, incidentally, Judaism and Islam—are true to themselves (of course they often aren’t!) they’re about mercy and justice in our relationships with God and with each other. But the academy’s socalled ‘spirituality’ isn’t about relationship with God at all, it’s about the mastery of spiritual forces. And the Academy isn’t looking for mercy or justice, it’s looking for power. I imagine it’s because those who run the place care only for power that they feel so free to treat ruthlessly those who can’t keep up with them. They use them and then throw them aside. As far as the Academy’s concerned, the weak have no value except as food for the strong. And the strong, because they’re strong, have a right to control the weak.”
He sighed again. Then he said, “Am I answering your question?”
She nodded slowly. “I think you’re beginning to. But do you think people can actually get power this way? I mean, real power. Power to do things.” She thought of the men who had died twenty years ago. “The power, say, to kill people?”
“I suppose that depends on how far they go with it. If you deal with something only for what you get out of it, I suppose generally you get something. Power. Satisfaction. Maybe in this case power to kill people. There’s a long tradition of rebellious forces in the universe ready to make use of rebellious men and women. Yes, you’ll get something, for a while. In the end, of course, it’s nonsense.”
“Nonsense?”
“Yes, I think so. This quest for power, for control, all it really means is that we’re trying to be gods—little gods! Like the story of Adam and Eve: ‘You shall be as gods.’ And of course it’s nonsense. I admit there are times when it seems as if there’s no God anywhere—no meaning, no sense. I can understand that.”
For a moment he paused, and though the pain that shot across his face was gone in an instant, she thought she knew why he could understand it. He’d been there.
“Even our Lord had a moment on the cross when he felt abandoned,” he said. “But to suppose that through something I did I could somehow make myself into God?” He shook his head.
“At any rate,” Cecilia said, “you personally regard this thing—this false religion—as dangerous?”
“I regard it as diabolic. It takes the best and corrupts it. To use sex or politics as weapons of control is bad enough, but to use religion!”
“Do you think the academy is involved in Satanism or anything like that?”
“I don’t know. Certainly people have said strange things, but vague talk by unstable people isn’t information.”
“No. Of course not.” But she was thinking back to that scene in the cathedral. The dead old man in the cassock. His foulsmelling candle. He’d been worshipping the devil, hadn’t he? And that inexplicable trail of death following Wheatley? Just what was she up against?
“Tell me, Michael, what would you do if you thought you were up against witchcraft—the devil? The real thing, I mean.”
He looked sharply at her before he answered.
“First,” he said, “I should try not to take my own role in the matter too seriously. If the devil is to be defeated— and he is—then it won’t be by you or me or a thousand like us. As Christians, we believe God has already won the only victory that matters. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying evil isn’t frightening and horrible. I am saying that nothing—not Satan and all his hosts—can finally separate you from God’s love in Jesus Christ if you don’t want it to.” There was a pause. Then, “Do you believe that?”
Cecilia, who had been contemplating the fire, looked up slowly and met his eyes. She considered. Papa had brought her up to scorn the church, but never the faith.
Still, she was a little surprised at how quickly she answered.
“I think I do.”
“Good. Because if you didn’t, my advice would be, don’t have anything to do with the matter. But if you believe? Then, I suppose you must do whatever seems to be your duty.”
Now it was her turn to sigh. Again he looked at her quizzically. She smiled.
“Mind you,” she said, “about believing, it’s not always the same. I say, ‘I think I do,’ because I have different sorts of days. Just now I’m here with you and feeling ever so believing and hopeful. But there are some days when I feel that everything’s just meaningless. Then Figaro does something ridiculous, or I hear some lovely music, or… well anyway, suddenly I feel hopeful again.” She thought for a few seconds. “The best I can say as to whether I believe is, I suppose, that I’m mostly an optimist. I mean, I generally decide to go along with the hopeful feelings, not the others.”
Michael was smiling at her. “Have you ever read ‘Bishop Blougram’s Apology’?” he said.
“I don’t even know what it is,” she said.
“It’s a poem by Robert Browning. Not perhaps the best he ever wrote. Anyway, how you’ve described yourself is just about exactly how he describes the life of faith. Having doubts, but choosing to take a chance on the hopes.”
“Oh.”
“The only thing is, to say all this took Browning about a thousand lines of rather tedious blank verse. I wasn’t counting, but you seem to have it pretty well covered in about fifty words!”
thirty-two
London. Friday, October 31.
By noon on Friday justice had been done in the queen’s name, and Cecilia found herself with a free afternoon. She went back to her hotel room, laid out on the bed every item of clothing that she had brought with her, and surveyed them. Her suits and low-heeled shoes were elegant, of course—but in the context of a dinner party? Sensible and boring! Looking at them, she suddenly became aware just how much she did not wish to appear in a suit before Michael and Papa’s and Mama’s other friends. Papa would have boasted about her—he always did. So didn’t she owe it to him to present la bella figura? Of course she did!
A few minutes later she was at the concierge’s desk, bag over her shoulder.
“What’s the quickest way to get to Bond Street, please?”
In the window of the very first shop she looked at in Bond Street she saw a dress she liked. She went in, tried it on, and loved it. At which point it occurred to her to ask the price. It was far more than she’d intended to pay, but by then she was a lost woman.
Naturally she needed shoes and a handbag to go with it.
***
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The Academy for Philosophical Studies, that evening.
“The police-woman in London?” Wheatley said. “But that ruins everything.” “Not at all,” the chairman said. “I have known Cavaliere was in London all the time. All that matters is her parents. If anything, her absence is advantageous to us.”
“How so?”
“Alone, her parents will certainly be more vulnerable.” “And the parents alone will be enough?”
“Of course they will be enough. They are the offering. The
daughter, if you will, can be destroyed at leisure, perhaps after she has sufficiently savored their death.”
“You’re sure?”
The chairman said nothing, and Wheatley bit his lip. The question was superfluous.
Saint Andrew’s Vicarage, the same evening If Cecilia had any doubts about spending all that money (actually, she hadn’t) they would have been assuaged when Michael opened the vicarage front door and she saw the look on his face.
“Cecilia, you look absolutely stunning in your ‘working clothes’.”
“Oh, thank you! I must admit this isn’t exactly—I mean, I didn’t want to let you down. Or Mama and Papa.”
“I don’t think there’s much fear of that,” he said. “Anyway, come on in! David and Naomi are here. They’re looking forward to meeting you.”
The Academy for Philosophical Studies, a few minutes later.
“There is, however, another matter,” the chairman said. “It concerns the ritual, the Ceremony of Power. I have studied it. And
siding stAr 143 I now see that it must begin in a place dedicated to our enemy. A church, a synagogue, a mosque, it does not matter. But the enemy must be challenged in a place dedicated to his name. To that extent Kakoyannis was right. And you were wrong.”
“But I thought—” “Do not argue. I have examined the rite carefully. Look. You should have seen it.”
Wheatley looked. Near an opening section of the text, some words had been minutely inscribed in the margin. This blasphemy, it said, must be uttered in “miqdash la-miqdash”—“a holy place for the sanctuary.”
“It means what it says,” the chairman said. “The rest we can do here, in our own temple, with the others. This part, not.”
“I didn’t think—“
“No, you did not think. You were careless. But I have a contact, a man who will admit us to a Christian church. There we shall do what we need to do. But it is some distance from here. You will need to drive us there now. At once. Then we must return here and complete the Ceremony in the temple with the others. There will just be time.”
“Of course I will do anything that—“
“Your acquiescence is assumed. But first we shall complete your dedication. You have what is necessary for that?”
“Yes, of course. Here. Here it is.”
Hands trembling, Henry Wheatley produced what he’d been instructed to acquire—oddments gleaned from the Cavalieres’ house and its environs. Paint from a gate. A piece of cement chipped from between bricks. Small items taken from a clothesline.
Together, they considered the pathetic remnants with utter gravity.
“It will suffice,” the chairman said. “You left the talisman? As I instructed?”
“Pinned to the door.”
The chairman nodded.
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“Then it is satisfactory. I shall prepare the chalice. Kneel.” Henry Wheatley sank to his knees and prepared to make his dedication.
Saint Andrew’s Vicarage, a little later.
Cecilia found the evening delightful. For one thing, David and Naomi Cutler, who both taught classics, were admirers of her father’s work, and she was always pleased when any spoke well of her Papa.
“That last book of his— Rome and the Gods—it’s quite the best thing I’ve seen on the subject,” David said. “He’s pulled all the threads together. I’m particularly impressed with the way he’s tackled Gradel’s hypotheses…”
Then there was the meal itself. Though normally relying on a housekeeper, Michael enjoyed cooking for his friends when he could. He’d made a coarse duck pâté, which he flanked with black and green olives, bright radishes, and good French bread. When justice had been done to that, he produced salmon steaks in white wine, with small boiled potatoes and sliced cucumber.
“Ooh, lovely!” Cecilia said, once she’d savored her first mouthful. “Wild salmon! Yes? It’s getting quite hard to come by in Exeter.”
“You like it? Good. I’m always a bit nervous when I’m cooking for Italians. You’re all such marvelous cooks.”
“Well you needn’t be nervous about cooking for this Italian!”
Saint Saviour’s Church, Bayswater, about an hour later. Wheatley did not like churches. In this case the mere sight of the gothic windows and weeping stone angels made him uncomfortable. Still, the chairman walked without hesitation to the side of the building and rapped at the faux medieval arched door, so Wheatley followed.
Siding Star 145 The man who opened it surveyed them for a moment, then stepped aside so that they could enter. He said nothing but led down a short passage and into the body of the church, which was high, cold, and silent, illuminated by the yellow glare of streetlights shining through Victorian glass. Wheatley shivered. Still their guide said nothing, merely pointed them toward the central aisle that led to the altar.
The chairman walked forward and Wheatley fell in behind him. Their guide remained where he was. Then, when they were almost at the sanctuary steps, he shouted to them, his voice giving Wheatley a shock as it bounced and echoed off the vaulted ceiling.
“You’ve got one hour. Then I’ll come by and lock the outer door. If you aren’t out of here by then, you’ll be locked in.”
Wheatley whipped around, but the man had already gone.
A door slammed.
The chairman did not look back.
“Come,” he said.
He advanced to the altar, placed the book on it, and lit a single candle. There was just enough light to read by.
“Begin,” he said, pointing to the place.
Wheatley, his voice trembling only slightly, began.
thirty-three
Saint Andrew’s vicarage.
“T
hank you for all your help with the book,” Cecilia said, after David and Naomi had left. “The Zohar and all that. It must be pretty obvious that this business I’m involved in… well, I’m really not at all sure what I’m up against.”
Michael smiled. “I’d rather gathered that. I’ll pray for you.” “Will you? That would be nice. Thank you!”
He grinned. “Don’t mention it! It’s what we priests do! And if
the academy’s involved in Satanism, I suppose tonight I ought to pray for them, too.”
“Why tonight?”
“Don’t you know the date?”
“October the thirty-first,” she said.
“All Hallows Eve. Samhain—‘summer’s end.’ Traditionally it’s the night when the powers of darkness do their thing.”
“The witches’ Sabbath and all that?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, yes, I’ve heard of that. I just didn’t connect it with this.”
Suddenly there was a kind of awkwardness between them, as if he no more than she quite knew what to say.
148
ChristoPher BryAn “Well, thank you Michael. And thank you for a lovely evening. Good night!”
“Good night, Cecilia. God bless you. Take care.”
Cecilia walked slowly back to her hotel. The streets in this part of the city were quiet though by no means deserted, and the evening was mild and pleasant—very mild for the end of October. Once back at her room, she realized that she felt by no means ready for bed. Though she’d thoroughly enjoyed Michael’s cooking and his wine, she’d eaten and drunk lightly, as was her habit, and she still felt fresh and alert. Indeed, the evening seemed to have stimulated rather than tiring her.
She looked at her watch. 10:15.
Why not carry out a little surveillance? It was absurd, when she came to think of it, that she’d spent so much time worrying about the academy and yet she’d never actually seen the place. And tonight of all nights was, perhaps, the time to change that. If the powers of darkness were going to do their thing, why not go and watch?
She had the address. She had a decent camera in the car— since once missing some crucial evidence on a case, it was her practice never to travel without one.
She caught sight of herself in the mirror. Well, yes. First, perhaps, she’d better change into something a little more suited to action.
She was amused by the look on the concierge’s face when she approached him—not a half-hour after appearing in her finery—wearing a blue track suit, trainers, and a blue baseball cap with a tricolore shield and “Italia” on the front.
Surprised or not, in three minutes he’d seen to it that her Fiat was at the
hotel entrance, engine running.
thirty-Four
The Zoological Gardens,
Regent’s Park, London. The same evening.
Once again, like the stirring of a memory, Katie was moved by longing to escape. But this time it was different. The former longing had been tinged with other emotions, guilt among them thanks to her keeper’s “Thou shalt not.” The ardor she now felt was without guilt—wholly righteous, wholly zealous, as if the greatest and truest of all keepers summoned and must be obeyed. She rose, tail sweeping from side to side, ears pricked, her whole being tense with collected power.
Then she stopped.
The gate to her enclosure was shut.
She pushed against it, but it did not yield. She pawed at it,
then stepped back with a little whimper of frustration. Then she grew still, gazing intently, her eyes fixed on the barrier before her. It seemed to her that the great keeper was still calling her—but in a new way. The great keeper was telling her something. Something important.
She tensed.
Listening.
Watching.
Remembering.
Humans coming and going through the gate.
150
Christopher Bryan The nice human in white who talked to her.
The nice keepers who fed her and played ball with her. Always coming and going.
When they came and went, the little box spoke, and the gate
opened. Always the little box called, and the gate obeyed. Katie shook her head and whimpered again.
It wasn’t enough. Still the great keeper was urging her. Look
at them! Look at the humans. Look at them coming and going. Katie looked.
The box spoke and they came and went.
They touched the box and the box spoke and—Katie uttered
a triumphant yelp! She’d seen! They touched the box! Again she bounded towards toward the gate but this time she did not push at it. Instead she reared on her great hind legs and supported herself on her forepaws, placing one on the crossbar and one on the box itself. And now it was hard for her. Her paw was not shaped like a human paw—but the great keeper called, and she must try. So she balanced herself on one foreleg, thrust her other foreleg between the railings, then pressed her paw against the far side of the box. Once. Twice. Nothing. Again she whimpered with frustration. Again she heard the great keeper urging her, and again she thrust, and pressed her pads as best she could against the box.
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