Thomas pictured the desperate man brought to bay in such a cold and lonely place, and winced. “I suspect that your grandfather and Alex hid their stone there, in plain sight, so to speak. With its history, Housesteads was not an inappropriate hiding place.”
“That stone has a important history,” Rose said, “but still…”
“…Robin wasn’t fooled.” A spasm of pain contorted Mick’s face. Rose raised her hand toward him, then let it fall again. Silently Thomas repeated a prayer for Calum’s bloodied but ultimately unbowed soul. “I have notified friends, who will find another place for the Housesteads stone.”
Maggie tilted her head quizzically. “And the genuine Stone?”
“The genuine Stone is a black marble altar, perhaps of meteoric origin like Islam’s sacred Kaaba. Supposedly it was Jacob’s pillow, making it older even than Moses’s tablets. It served for many years as King Solomon’s altar, encased in metal latticework decorated with emeralds, and was kept with the Ark of the Covenant in the temple in Jerusalem, The Ark itself disappeared many years before Christ, popular films to the contrary.”
Everyone smiled, if wanly.
“When the temple in Jerusalem was looted by Roman troops, the emeralds disappeared into the imperial treasury. The Stone was in turn looted from Rome and kept for many years in Merovingian France. Thence it was carried to Ireland, and by St. Columba to Iona, where it served as his altar. After his death it became the inauguration stone of the earliest Scots. In time it was brought east, first to Dunkeld and then to Scone, as a symbol of the inclusion of Scot and Pict, of Briton, Northman, and Norman, in the British story.”
“So far so good,” said Maggie. “What about Robert the Bruce?”
“Bruce was crowned upon the genuine Stone at Scone on Annunciation Day of 1306.”
“Lady Day,” said Rose. “March twenty-fifth. The day Gabriel appeared to Mary.”
“Bruce carried the Stone with him when he fled west after his defeat at Methven soon after. With the English and their Scots allies hot upon his heels, he gave it into the keeping of Malise, the deoradh of St. Fillan in Glendochart. The name Malise, Mick, comes from the Gaelic Maol Iosa, ‘servant of Jesus.’ In Bruce’s haste the Stone was accidentally chipped. Malise affixed the chipping to a sgian dubh.”
Mick jerked as though he’d been stung and put his hand to his waist.
“Does anybody know where the Stone is?” asked Rose.
“I don’t believe so, no,” Thomas replied. “Indeed, that question should remain unanswered, as Robin manifestly does not know either.”
“Let sleeping stones lie,” said Maggie.
“But Robin will not be letting us lie, will he now?” Mick demanded.
“No. Robin traced Calum through the story of the Stone, hoping he would reveal its location—although Robin might have settled for the sgian dubh, which can guide him to it. Now that his deceits have failed to win him either, well…” Thomas paused.
Outside a horn honked. Footsteps raced out the front door, “Bye Mum, Dad, after school, then!” Voices speaking in different accents echoed from the dining room. Through them all ran George Shaw’s affable, “Good morning to you, a grand day, isn’t it? Are you having a good holiday? Kippers, is it? Miso soup and rice? Right you are.”
Mick’s clear gray eyes demanded and accused at once. “So who’s Robin, then?”
“He was once Robert, Duke of Normandy, father of William the Conqueror. In his arrogance and greed he murdered his older brother and took the dukedom for himself. Some years later, in 1035, he ostensibly made a penitential pilgrimage to Jerusalem and died on his way back. In actuality he lusted for even greater power, and so sold his soul to principles of evil. Now he moves from Dreamtime to real time and back as it serves his will.”
“Whoa,” Maggie said, sitting up. “Robin is Robert the Devil? An old Norman legend says he’s doomed to wander the Earth until Judgment Day.”
“So legends often reflect a reality beyond history.” Thomas leaned back in his chair, tired, knowing he had no time to be tired. Judgment Day was upon them all.
“He said he was Lucifer’s son,” Rose said. “That makes sense—Lucifer is the symbol of pride.”
“So Robin proudly asserts himself the equal of Our Lord, God’s son.”
“That’s where he gets ‘Fitzroy,’” said Maggie. “And Robin may be a nickname for Robert, but it’s such an innocuous Camp Fire Girl name.”
“An effective nom de mal for one so deceptive. ‘Robin’ is old French for both ‘Devil’ and ‘ram.’ You’ve seen, surely, the images of Robin Goodfellow, the spirit of the woods—horns, cloven hooves, caricatured sexual organs. Robin claims to be ‘ram of God,’ as Our Lord is ‘lamb of God.’”
Rose was looking downright queasy.
“Robin sent the ghosts after us at Housesteads,” said Mick.
“When he failed to trick you with Calum’s image, he proceeded to frighten you, so that you would turn to him for rescue. But you drove away his illusions on your own. Save for the figure on horseback, that is, which was a manifestation beyond his control.”
“Death,” Rose murmured. “You’re right, that one actually bowed to us.”
“Not to you, I should think, but to the name you invoked in St. Patrick’s Breastplate, he who conquered Death.”
“Why would the name of Christ drive away pagan ghosts?” asked Maggie.
“Firstly, because the Celtic church was well aware its roots run very deep into pagan thought and imagery. Saints Patrick and Columba were even regarded as Druids of a sort. And secondly, because the particular spirits Robin evoked were those who in life would have been welcomed by the Cross, but who chose instead to dash themselves to death against it.”
Rose pulled her Mary medal from inside her sweater. “I called Her, too, and she helped.”
She helped. “Well done!” Thomas told her.
Mick shook his head so briskly his tail of hair made a fluid figure eight. “Sorry, but I’m not so keen on religion. Look at Scotland’s history, fanatics persecuting and murdering in the name of God.”
“As have done many of Robin’s finest followers,” said Thomas. “‘Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.’”
“Blaise Pascal,” said Maggie. “He should have included convictions like Communism, Nazism, or even Robespierre’s ‘liberty.’”
“Even though every faith has adherents who drive apart rather than bind together, that doesn’t mean faith itself is evil,” Thomas counseled. “Coerced faith isn’t true faith. True faith is lucid, not blind. It can only be taught by example, and freely chosen with knowledge, intent, and consent.”
“Lucid faith,” murmured Maggie.
“I suppose I’m agnostic,” Mick said. “Needing evidence, like.”
“If what we saw yesterday wasn’t evidence,” asked Rose, “what is?”
Maggie raised a professorial forefinger. “Evidence is material we choose to admit, and facts are evidence we choose to accept.”
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Thomas concluded. Sunlight struck the far wall of the room, illuminating row after row of well-used books. Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
Mick shut his eyes. Rose gazed somberly at him. Maggie was eyeing Thomas. “If God can’t stop evil,” she said, “then He’s powerless. If He could but He won’t, then He’s malevolent.”
“God gave us free will so that we can choose between Good and Evil,” Thomas answered.
“Wiggled out of that one,” Maggie returned.
Mick looked up, his face taut as a drumhead. “If Robin sent ordinary yobs after us, or told his followers they’d be doing a good deed by murdering us, would a prayer see them off?”
Rose slipped her medal back into her sweater, awaiting an answer.
The only one Thomas had was, “Perhaps. In prayer as in magic, motive is everything.�
��
“But my dad…”
“Chose death over dishonor. There are worse things than death. Mick.”
This time Rose did touch the young man’s arm. He glanced at her gratefully.
Stubborn lot, the Dewars, Thomas thought. Thank God. He extended his hand. “May I see your knife?”
“Oh aye. Odd sort of thing, that. It—it tickles.” Mick hiked up his jumper, plucked the sgian dubh from his waistband, and handed it over.
The leather sheath was recent—Thomas didn’t recognize it. But the bone handle of the knife itself, and the black stone chipping lodged securely at its end, he knew. “A long time it’s been since I’ve seen this,” he murmured, and drew the knife from its sheath.
The blade was heavy, smooth and sharp enough to leave a shallow groove in his thumbnail. A sliver of his face reflected from the shining metal. Memory cascaded over him, sweeping him into reverie…
He smelled unwashed men, horses, and smoke. A cleaner smoke than that of the pyre that had burned sullenly before the cathedral of Our Lady in Paris. There the last Grand Master of the Temple and the preceptor of Normandy had died under the self-righteous gaze of King Philippe, as a red-headed advisor murmured in his ear, “They worship the Devil. Kill them all, take their wealth, and they will never again dispute your power.” So were the Templars brought down not only by Philippe’s pride and greed but by their own.
Thomas’s chain mail jangled. Except for similar janglings, and the quiet ripple of the Bannock Burn at the foot of the hill, the camp was quiet, as were all camps the night before battle. He’d had a stomach full of battle in Syria and southern France. And yet he’d come here, to Scotland, a land whose misty greens and blues soothed his eyes so long dazzled by sunstruck yellow. The remaining Templars needed a refuge. The Bruce needed help in his quest for Scottish independence.
A man came through the darkness, white robe gleaming, staff striking the ground. Thomas rose to his feet. “Who goes there?”
“Malise, the deoradh of St. Fillan. I’ve brought the relics for his majesty.” The white-bearded man held out three parcels, two large, one small. His clear gray eyes shone with a light of their own, reflecting no scarlet from the fire.
“Very well,” said Thomas, and turned toward the tent behind him.
Its flap opened. William Sinclair, Bishop of Dunkeld, peered out into the night. The wind fluttered his robes, revealing the glint of steel beneath. “Malise,” said Sinclair. “Come in.”
The deoradh entered the tent. The flap fell behind him. Male voices rose and a bell rang. The Bruce was praying tonight to his favored saints, not only Fillan, but Andrew, Cuthbert, and Thomas of Canterbury, who had also defied an English king. The smoke blew into Thomas’s face and he coughed. On the far side of the burn, the English were praying, too.
Yesterday Bruce had bested an English knight in single combat. The soldiers said this was a sign that God was on the side of the Scots. Thomas suspected it was a sign of Bruce’s strong arm, that God had already averted his face from the coming slaughter. Such suspicions had destroyed not Thomas’s faith in prayer but his faith in battle. And yet here he was, for the Bruce spoke words that stirred his soul. … it is freedom alone that we fight for, that no man will lose but with his life.
Eighteen years before, Thomas thought, King Edward not only stole the crown of Scotland and with infernal presumption gave it to—David’s—shrine at Canterbury, he forced Bruce to swear on Thomas’s own sword to remain loyal to England. Whether that oath was binding was a fine moral point indeed.
The tent flap opened. Starting down the hill, Malise stumbled. Thomas caught first his arm and then the bundles as they slipped from his grasp. Beneath the wrappings of the largest, silver filigree winked. The second clanged gently. “St. Fillan’s staff? His bell?”
“Yes.” Malise took back the relics and swaddled them securely. “Would you like to see this one as well?”
Thomas unwrapped the smallest parcel, revealing a knife. Its bone handle felt warm. Curiously he drew it from its sheath. Was it the steel blade that flashed, or its guardian’s eyes?
The knife was heavy, smooth, sharp. Thomas felt rather than heard the black stone chipping in its handle ring against his fingertip. The hairs rose on the back of his neck. “What trick…” But he knew what it was he held. Once already he’d sensed that part sound, part touch, like the sting of a bowstring snapping raw flesh—when he’d accepted a plain wooden box from the hands of Esclarmonde de Perelha.
“The Stone was meant to break,” said Malise, “so this morsel could echo the whole.”
The chipping chimed, beyond hearing, resonating in Thomas’s heart, thrilling his soul. It was but one note, clear and strong, of a three-part chord. In time, he told himself, he’d hear that third note. For the myth demanded evidence, exacted revelation, showed itself so that the people of the north and west would know faith. “Magnificat anima meum dominum,” he murmured, and with a genuflection returned the knife to its keeper.
Malise made the sign of the Cross over him and kissed his face. “Pax domini sit semper tecum, Thomas.” The old man faded into the shadows before Thomas realized he’d never told him his name…
“Thomas!” said Maggie’s acerbic alto. “Hello!”
He was in a homely room filled with light. His chest felt hollow as the cold fireplace, and yet amidst the ashes and cinders his heart still burned.
“You spaced for a minute,” said Rose’s sweet soprano.
Mick enunciated, repeating the question Thomas no doubt hadn’t heard, “My great-grandfather showed you the sgian dubh, then?”
“I’ve seen it before, yes.” Thomas touched the marble again, wondering whether its chime came from within it or himself, and handed the knife back.
Mick weighed it in his hand. “You’re telling me, then, the Stone is important enough to die for?”
“Yes,” said Thomas. “I am. It is a vitally important relic, one of three. Robin already has one of the examples of inclusion, the Book, the Lindisfarne Gospels. The Stone is the second. I keep the third.”
“Robin says ‘artifact,’” Maggie put in, “not ‘relic.’”
“Because a relic—particularly these relics—reveal the presence of God, which Robin himself has rejected and would therefore deny us all. He cannot even touch the relics himself.”
“Like matter and anti-matter?” Maggie turned to Rose’s and Mick’s blank faces, “Robin wants to destroy the relics. At the stroke of midnight, Greenwich Mean Time, New Year’s Eve. And if he does, we turn into pumpkins.”
“Eh?” Mick asked.
“As you saw at Holystone,” said Thomas, “Robin wants us to renounce our shared beliefs, the roots of our faith, thereby leading us to choose evil over good. If his followers destroy all three relics, he would be immeasurably strengthened.”
Mick and Rose stared at Thomas. Two days ago, he thought, they would not have believed a word of it. But what was one more leap of faith when they’d already bridged perceptual crevasses?
In the hall the dog’s collar jingled merrily. An infant laughed. The different accents in the dining room made an intricate composition, a canon, perhaps. Mick said, “Just who are you, then, Thomas?”
His gray eyes, Rose’s blue eyes, Maggie’s brown eyes, each bright and sharp as Excalibur, turned upon him. He faced them squarely. “In my earliest life I was Thomas Becket. I was not killed in 1170. I let someone else take my place, and it was he who died.”
Neither Mick nor Rose so much as blinked.
“I am like Robin, in a way. But he exists beyond the veil through which I can only peek. He evokes the powers inherent in the dark places of the world and of the human mind, and uses them to corrupt and control. I have no powers, save those I can invoke through prayer.”
“You were called to oppose him?” Rose asked.
“Yes. For my greatest sin, like his, was pride. We first met during the Crusades, a time of pride gone mad.”
Ma
ggie looked at Rose. “At Old Sarum Thomas told me—showed me—who he is. It shook me up. I can imagine what Robin said happened there.”
“Don’t,” Rose told her.
“Supposing,” asked Mick, “Thomas is one of Robin’s illusions?”
“Would one of Robin’s illusions drive him away with the sign of the Cross?” Rose retorted.
“Well, no.” Shaking his head, Mick started to laugh. A thin, painful laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. “No offense,” he said to Thomas.
“None taken,” Thomas returned with a smile.
Mick slipped the sgian dubh into his waistband. “If we’re accepting everything else you’ve told us, why not who you are as well? In for a lamb, in for a sheep, or whatever the saying is.”
Maggie waved her hand. “I’m not sure whether you really need to believe him or not, Mick. Just go with the flow. Works for me.”
“As for our going…” Thomas glanced at his watch, “I want to ask advice of an old—friend—near Melrose.”
Maggie grinned. “You? Ask advice?”
“I have learned a modicum of humility over the years, thank you. Mick, I assume you and your father visited Melrose?”
“When my mum was alive we’d go every year—she loved the Eildon Hills above the town.”
“Is that where you heard the music you were playing the night you and Rose left so abruptly?”
“Oh aye, just there. My mum said it was fairy music.”
Yes. “Melrose is like Glastonbury, a place where worlds intersect.” Thomas leaned forward, intent. “Mick, Rose, remember that Robin’s favorite tactic is to divide and conquer.”
The young people glanced awkwardly at each other.
Maggie added, “‘If we don’t hang together, we will most assuredly hang separately.’”
“Benjamin Franklin,” Thomas said. And that sentiment made a fine conclusion. Standing up, he stretched, every fiber creaking.
“We get the message,” Rose said, and with a lopsided smile at Mick, “Come on, let’s get our stuff. Looks like we ain’t seen nothing yet.”
“Oh aye,” Mick said, eyes wide. Side by side, if not quite together, they walked out of the room.
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