“Blimey,” Alf said when he read it. “Housesteads. That’s one of those old Roman forts along Hadrian’s Wall. A long way from here.”
“Rose ran off with Mick?” Sean’s expression slipped off balance, incredulity warring with indignation. “Jeez.”
“Ellen?” Thomas asked. “Do you know Robin Fitzroy at all?”
The girl sent an apathetic glance toward the note. “I’m a member of the Freedom of Faith Foundation, aren’t I?”
As he feared, then. Robin had found himself yet another group of damaged souls who would be susceptible to his poison. “And Calum Dewar?”
She stiffened. “Yeh. He’s a member as well, isn’t he?”
The knocker on the front door thudded home, but before anyone could answer Jivan let himself in. The knot of people unraveled before him. “What’s this about Miss Kildare?” he demanded.
Alf handed him the note. Jivan’s features darkened as he read it. “Robin Fitzroy, eh? He’s lying—we’ve heard sod-all about Calum Dewar, haven’t even turned up his car.” His eye fell upon Ellen. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“She’s my daughter, Ellen Sparrow,” said Bess.
“Been going about with this Fitzroy chap,” Alf added.
Jivan whipped out his notebook. “Do you know where he is?”
“Nah,” Ellen replied with a yawn.
“Could you show me the lad’s room?” Jivan asked Alf. They went up the stairs. Doors opened and footsteps walked overhead whilst the faces in the lounge turned this way and that, not connecting. Then Jivan was back. “Nothing. Did anyone take notice of his car?”
“A Fiesta,” said Sean. “Kind of a dirty red. A rental.”
Ellen edged away. “Here, it’s been a long day, I’m off.”
“Do you need…” Bess began, but Ellen didn’t stop.
Sean watched her plod up the stairs, his confusion almost palpable. Having a word with the lad wouldn’t help, not when he was at the mercy of that hormonal imperative which could so often led men into blind folly.
“I’ll notify the authorities in Northumbria.” Jivan shut his notebook. “Thomas…”
Thomas led Jivan outside, Maggie close upon their heels, and was halfway across the courtyard before he realized Anna was hurrying to catch them up. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I’d like to help, if I may.”
“Yes you may, with thanks.” Thomas ushered everyone into his cottage and narrowly avoided shutting the door on Dunstan. With infinite dignity, the cat settled down on the hearth to wash his face.
The embers of the fire filled the room with a liquid orange glow. Thomas switched on the electric light and pulled out a chair for Anna. She is less fragile than she seems, he thought. She refused to trust the evidence of her senses and accept that they’d met in her childhood, for doing so would conflict with her understanding of natural law. Her refusal was her choice. He could not—he should not—go about ripping the veil of reality for everyone.
Jivan sat heavily down. “Miss Sparrow knows Fitzroy, does she?”
“I remember her as a fearful and embittered child, just the sort Robin easily exploits,” Thomas said. “He’s using her as a spy, I expect. Mick told me Calum was writing checks to her.”
Swearing more audibly, Maggie took the fourth chair. “I saw her in Salisbury cathedral. She wasn’t wearing the hooker outfit then.”
Jivan’s notebook reappeared like a rabbit from a hat. “I’ll lay you odds that Fitzroy’s lured Mick away because of this relic business. But where does the Foundation come into it? Morgan was a member, we’ve learned. Dewar as well. Fitzroy is a consultant.”
“Consultant!” Maggie laughed sarcastically.
From his coat Thomas produced the paper he’d pulled from the cathedral notice board. “I’ve kept an eye on the Freedom of Faith Foundation for some time now, wondering if Robin were at work behind the scenes.”
Jivan took the notice and read it aloud. “‘Are you concerned about the erosion of family values in Britain? Then attend the Freedom of Faith Foundation lecture at the Assembly Rooms, Glastonbury, Friday November 5.’”
“With the Guy Fawkes Carnival beginning on the Saturday,” said Thomas, “the Foundation will find a wider audience here than they might normally do.”
Jivan tucked the notice into his notebook. “A Foundation candidate just won a by-election in Leeds. My old chum Abdullah isn’t best pleased. He thought he was simply voting for a conservative candidate, but now the Foundation is forcing through a measure to have the schools teach non-Christian children that their own faiths are wrong.”
“‘Family values,’” Maggie said, “is one of those loaded phrases, isn’t it? If you disagree with the candidate who uses it, then you’re automatically against mom and apple pie.”
“I’ll attend the meeting on Friday,” Anna said. “An educational experience would be an appropriate way to begin the Sabbath.”
“I’d greatly appreciate your report,” Thomas told her. “We may not be back by then.”
“Back?” asked Jivan. “We?”
“I intend to go after Mick and Rose. Will you come with me, Maggie?”
“I think I should, yes,” she replied with a frustrated gesture.
Jivan’s dark eyes held depths of thought. “You know more about Fitzroy’s motives than you’ve let on, Thomas.”
“No use crying wolf until the beast enters the sheepfold,” Thomas replied, adding silently, Please, Jivan, trust me.
Jivan’s moustache curled upward. His fringe of dark lashes fell over his eyes. He nodded, almost imperceptibly.
Thank you. Thomas glanced at his watch. “Have you any news about Vivian Morgan?”
“Yes. The cause of death was suffocation. Not only did the pathologist find broken blood vessels in her eyes, but also microscopic green wool threads in her nose, throat, and windpipe. The bruising on her face is very faint, but if she’d been caught unaware…” He let the implication dangle.
Maggie didn’t. “There’s a nightmare for you. Smothered during sex. In medieval times they’d say she was taken by an incubus.”
And so she was. Thomas could visualize the scene—the compliant woman, Robin’s embrace, the cloak. “She wore a green cloak to the ceremony, didn’t she? When Rose first saw Robin she thought he was wearing a cloak.”
“That does make Robin out to be the man who was with Morgan, rather than Dewar. Still, we have no evidence he killed her.”
“Why would either man kill her?” asked Anna.
“We are lacking a motive,” Jivan admitted. “Perhaps Morgan was planning to expose Fitzroy in her newspaper for, well, for something. As for Dewar, we’ve very little evidence as yet, save that he wore shoes the same sizes as the prints in the mud. I’ve left messages at Foundation headquarters, but Fitzroy hasn’t returned a one. I can have him brought in, I expect. Even if we find Calum alive and well, though, it would be the one word against the other.” Shutting his notebook, Jivan massaged his eyes with his fingertips. “What was that ghost ship, the Flying Scotsman?”
“Flying Dutchman,” Thomas told him. “Nothing so apt, I’m afraid.”
“Right.” Jivan stood up. “I’ll walk you back to the house, shall I, Mrs. Stern?”
Anna scooted back her chair and rose. “Good night Thomas, Maggie. Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on Sean. And Ellen.”
“Thanks,” said Maggie. “It’s not your responsibility, but…”
“Strangers took responsibility for me when I was young,” Anna said, her eye straying to Thomas. “I can’t pay them back, but I can pay forward.”
“So should we all,” Thomas told her approvingly. He opened the door for Jivan and Anna. “May God, in every name you know him, bless you both.”
Shutting the door, he stood for a moment with his hand on the knob. This morning he’d been swept by the Holy Spirit, washed by the Blood of the Lamb, cleansed. And now? He was tired, yes, and paradoxically stronger than ever. His path
lay before him. He had only to make one step at a time—and pray that each one went aright.
Maggie was gazing into the fireplace. Either her face had regained its color or the pink of her cheeks was only an illusion of the dying fire. “Gupta’s sure cutting you a lot of slack,” she said.
“We’ve had many compare-and-contrast conversations. I daresay he has no problem accepting the implications of the Unseen in this case.”
“It’s the Seen that worries me.” Maggie turned to him, spread her hands on his chest, and tilted her face back to look into his.
Even in distress her eyes were a warm brown. If Rose is air, Thomas thought, then Maggie is earth, the deep heart of the world. He took her arms. His breath, his spirit, stirred her hair, which emitted a fresh herbal odor at odds with her often caustic words. The beat of his heart echoed in her palms so that her body quivered like a tuning fork. How many times had his heart beat over the years? More times than there were stars in the sky, probably. “Have faith,” he told her. “This is all…”
“…happening for a reason.” Maggie’s face relaxed into a wry smile.
“A garage in Glastonbury provides me with a vehicle from time to time if you don’t want to drive your mini-bus.”
“Why not? In for a penny, in for a pound.”
“Very good then. Let’s get on with it.”
“Give me five minutes.” With a double thump on his chest Maggie turned away. “God for Harry, England, and St. George! Banzai! Remember the Alamo! Beauseant!” The door shut behind her.
Beauseant, both the battle cry and the battle standard of the Knights Templar. He hadn’t heard that one for a long time. With a wry smile of his own, Thomas got on with it.
Chapter Seventeen
Mick turned into the car park, behind the sign reading “Housesteads Roman Fort. English Heritage.” The Information Center was shuttered and the car park deserted except for a police car, its diagonal orange stripe shining fitfully as the sun played dodg’em with the clouds.
“Prince must be here,” Mick said. “My dad rode with him, I reckon.” Rose looked down at the bittie medal on a chain she’d been holding since they left the motorway café. “What’s that?”
“A good luck piece my mother gave me.”
“You’re expecting bad luck, then?”
“Yes.”
“But you came away with me even so?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not sensible, lass.”
“That makes two of us.” She draped the chain over her head and dropped the medal inside her jumper. “I ought to call Temple Manor now.”
“Oh aye.” The mobile lay on the floor of the back seat. He switched it on for her, then parked the car beside one of the exits. Odd, he’d thought having a late night whilst swotting for an exam was tiring. The exhaustion he felt now welled up from the depths of his soul, dreich and dull.
Rose groped in her pocket, pulled out an index card, and punched the buttons. “Hello, Mrs. Puckle? This is Rose Kildare. Yes, I’m fine. Can I speak to Maggie, please? Thanks.”
Mick climbed out of the car, forcing his aching body to straighten. The police car was empty. Prince and Calum must be waiting at the ruins.
He and Rose had debated half the night just who Robin Fitzroy/Robert Prince was, what his motives were, and whose side he was on. The rest of the time they talked about relics, reviewed their life stories, and sang along with “First Rites” on the radio … from alpha to omega, from word to blood, set a circled cross by the singing stones, here, at the end.
It had gone midnight when they pulled into a layby. Mick’s sleep had been ripped by passing headlamps and the roar of motors. When he jerked himself awake he didn’t know where he was, save cold and alone. But the bonniest lass he’d ever seen lay asleep in the back seat, the light of dawn gleaming pink and soft on her face.
“Hello, Maggie?” Rose said into the mobile. “Oh, Anna. Hi. I’m fine. Yes, he’s right here.” She shot Mick a quick cautious glance.
He hadn’t laid a finger on her, although the thought of touching her floated in the back of his mind like a vision of the Grail wafting just beyond the reach of unworthy knights.
“I see. Don’t worry, we’ll be okay. Thanks. Bye.” She switched off, frowning.
“Maggie’s not there?”
“She’s out looking for us.” Rose handed back the mobile. “Now what?”
“We climb.” Feeling even guiltier than he had done already, Mick chucked the mobile into the bin and slammed the door.
White and gray clouds scudded overhead, pierced by shafts of sunlight. The countryside to the south was vast, drab, and empty. To the north rose a low hill thatched by brown bracken and heather, cut by a path. A few scattered sheep looked like dirty bundles of cotton wool. One bleated mournfully.
Rose turned up her collar, jammed her hands into her pockets, and followed Mick around the Information Center and onto the muddy path. Up they went, to the top of the hill. There, on the next hill, lay the fort, low, pinkish-gray walls cutting right angles across the hillside.
They walked down and then up the long slope to the fort. Of several buildings to the left the smallest was the museum. Mick had thought the model fort inside was brilliant. Calum had had to drag him away to view the ruins of the real thing.
“You know,” said Rose, out of breath, “this area has as many stories of Arthur as Somerset. Guinevere was a Pictish Queen. Camlann was at Camboglanna just west of here. Mount Badon was Dumbarton, outside Glasgow.”
“My dad says Dumbarton was called Castrum Arthurii up into the Middle Ages.” Mick shouted through the south gate, “Dad? Are you here?”
Ravens flew upward, their harsh cries his only answer. With a sigh, Mick led Rose between walls that still stood to head height—one Roman, Calum had pointed out, and one medieval—and up several broad steps. Past the foundations of several ruined buildings, they came at last to the Wall itself, poised above a steep embankment. Here, at the peak of the hill, the wind came down like a fresh, cold mountain torrent. Mick’s dark hair and Rose’s blonde streamed away behind them like battle standards.
East and west Hadrian’s Wall snaked along the rim of the hills. Traditionally, this was the border between Roman and Caledonii, between Saxon and Pict, between English and Scot. Between civilization and barbarism, as the southrons told it. But these harsh lands had known barbarians from both sides of the Wall.
To the north, the craggy hills fell and rose, fell and rose again in shadings of blue and gray, like ocean waves dashing themselves against the border of Scotland. The icy air crackled. Blue-black clouds massed on the horizon. “Can you imagine some poor Roman soldier getting transferred here from Glastonbury?” Rose asked with a shiver. “I bet the first thing he did was write home for socks.”
Usually Mick loved the wilderness, the free expanse of land and sky, but now he felt the hills and the scrubby trees and the stones themselves were watching, not in disinterest, but in some sort of ironic intelligence.
“There’s a horse,” said Rose, “next to that stream.”
Mick’s eye followed her pointing finger. A gray horse stood beside the burn, its hooves sunk in the water-plants and mud. “My great-grandfather Malise had a tale about the each uisge, the water horse. If you climb onto its back, it will carry you away.” He shook his head, but the gesture was more of a shudder. “I was but a wee lad then, I believed such things.”
I didna believe it, but it’s true. Calum’s voice was so clear in his mind he spun around. And the voice went on—save it wasn’t the same voice, it was tighter, hoarser. “Mick! Mick!” A human figure rose from a cellar-hole and waved.
Mick’s heart somersaulted. “Dad!” He raced across the turf to the center of the fort, Rose running like an antelope beside him.
None too steadily, Calum climbed from the hole and stood, his tie and jacket fluttering. Hadn’t he a coat? Had he been sleeping rough? “Dad! You’re all right then, I wasn’t half worried ab
out you!”
“Then you took your sweet time getting here!”
“Hello, Mr. Dewar,” Rose said. “I’m Rose Kildare.”
Calum stared at her, his face pasty white, his lips crusted, his eyes red-rimmed and not quite right. Grizzled whiskers roughened the angle of his chin. Despite the cataract of wind Mick could smell his father’s sour odor, as though he’d been sick. No, more than that. He smelled like the compost heap in the back garden after the neighbor’s cats had been at it. “Dad, we need to be getting you to hospital.”
“I told you not to tell anyone.” Calum’s hostile gaze turned from Rose to Mick. “What’re you playing at?”
“Dad, it’s okay, Rose is…” The man wasn’t sensible. “Come along, Dad, can you walk to the car park?”
Calum evaded Mick’s outstretched hand. “God himself has done me over, why not you as well? Redeem yourself. Help me remember when my friend Sinclair came to me. Do you mind what he said about the relic?”
“What? No, I dinna mind, I was wee then. What relic?”
“The Stone, of course. What else would I be talking about?”
The Stone of Scone? Mick’s thoughts went spinning like leaves in the wind—a relic, an artifact, a ring of thieves, Scotland Yard … The Stone.
“Where is it, Mick?” Calum’s feverish eyes darted up, down, right, left, and fixed on a spot behind Mick’s back.
Mick’s flesh crawled. He looked around, but saw nothing but ruined walls, grass, and a sky jostling with clouds. Rose seemed to have subtracted herself into her coat. He’d no business bringing her here, he had to see her safely away. He had to see his father safely away…
Calum seized Mick’s forearms, his grasp like the talons of hunting bird, his voice so rough and hoarse it was unrecognizable. “Help me, Mick! Where’s the Stone, not the new copy nor the old one, but the true Stone?”
Mick’s eyes watered at the stench. “If you’re telling me that Grand-dad and old Sinclair were in on the taking of the Stone of Scone in ‘50, fine, but they returned that one, we saw it in the Castle—if there’s another, an original, I haven’t the foggiest…”
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