Avalon

by Stephen R. Lawhead

“Look, maybe we should just break this off. It’s late, and I’m tired, and for the next six weeks I’m going to be up to my neck in an election campaign. We wouldn’t be able to spend any time together. Maybe we should just call it quits.”

  “Just like that,” she said, watching him begin to pace back and forth in front of the bed.

  “A clean break. That would be best.”

  “Oh, no you don’t, my sweet,” she said, rising onto her knees. She knelt on the bed, staring at him. “We’re in this together. You were the one who called me, remember?” Her voice had grown as brittle as glass. “You can’t get me to do all your dirty work and then toss me aside when you feel like it.”

  “I’m not tossing you aside. I just don’t think it’s working out, that’s all. It’s time to go our separate ways.”

  “You worm!” she shouted, suddenly furious. “I am not one of your whores. We made a bargain, my sweet. We are partners. You need me far more than I need you. Don’t ever forget that.”

  The force of her anger halted Waring midstep. He glanced at her and saw how the rage twisted her face into a rigid mask of hate. The expression passed at once, and her mood altered. “You’re worried about the election, Thomas,” she said softly, suddenly reassuring. “You’re under a lot of strain. I understand.”

  “I’m worried about the election — simple as that, is it?” He shook his head slowly. “You don’t have a clue. The election isn’t half of my problems. That idiot Rothes started a brand-new royalist party and then went and got himself killed. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t mind so much; unfortunately, he will now be seen as a martyr to the cause, and that can only increase public sympathy for the bloody fool and his bastard King.”

  “If you ask me, Rothes got precisely what he deserved,” Moira replied. “Consider it a warning to anyone tempted to interfere in affairs that do not concern them.”

  Waring felt himself growing cold, as if the temperature in the room had suddenly plummeted. What did she know about Donald Rothes’ murder? He thrust the question firmly aside; after all, if she was even half as deeply involved as he suspected, did he really want to know the details?

  “Relax, Mr. President,” she cooed. Sliding off the bed, she came to stand before him again, gathering him into her forceful embrace, pressing herself against him. He felt the heat of her body stirring him. He wanted her, and was too tired to fight it anymore. “You don’t have a worry in the world. Trust me, darling. Trust your Moira.”

  Part V

  Forty

  “I appreciate your coming along,” said James as the black Jaguar inched through nearly gridlocked traffic. “But you didn’t have to — especially if you’re not feeling up to it.”

  “True,” agreed Cal. “We could have handled it ourselves.”

  Embries, brooding and silent since his early-morning return from Glastonbury, sat like the shadow of death in the front seat. At James’ suggestion, he half turned to look at those behind. “From now on, we underestimate the enemy at our peril.”

  “What enemy?” asked Cal. “Man, what did you do last night?”

  Embries turned his face towards the front window without answering.

  “It’s to do with Donald’s accident, isn’t it?” suggested Jenny. Following Donald’s death, she and Cal had flown down to London to help lend whatever aid and comfort they could.

  “It was no accident,” muttered Embries; he kept his gaze fixed on the slowly moving traffic outside the window. “That, at least, is beyond doubt.”

  “Then it was murder — is that what you’re saying?” When no more was forthcoming, James said, “Look, if you’re not going to tell us anything —”

  “There are forces arrayed against us,” Embries said sharply, “powers, principalities, rulers of this dark world, which would see the sovereignty of Britain destroyed forever.” He turned in his seat, agitated and upset. “Last night I tried to bind the chief exponent of power….” He paused, his expression turning desolate once more. “God alone knows whether I succeeded.”

  “This is a person we’re talking about, right?” said Cal. “Not a ghost or banshee or anything?”

  “You scoff because you do not know,” Embries grumbled. “You haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

  “So tell me,” said Cal stubbornly. “I want to know.”

  Embries stared out the window, shaking his head slowly. “Like me, she is a relic of a forgotten time,” he muttered at last.

  Before anything else could be said, Rhys announced, “We’re almost there, sir. And it looks like it’s going to be a scrum.”

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a brilliant idea after all,” said James, looking at the swarming mass of people awaiting his arrival.

  “You’ll be wonderful,” Jenny assured him. “After today, the whole world will know what kind of man you are.”

  “Pray that is so,” murmured Embries darkly.

  Thus, the typical Saturday-morning turnout for the nation’s traditional observance of democracy in action — also known as Speaker’s Corner, where mostly harmless eccentrics unburdened themselves to a chorus of robust heckling — had ballooned from the normal few dozen diehards to several thousand. From the look of it, the King would have a sizable audience for the launch of his charm offensive.

  The closer they got to Hyde Park, the greater seemed to be the crowd converging on Marble Arch. Why not? wondered James. It was a brilliant winter day: mild and sunny, and with a strong whiff of royal disgrace in the air. People by the hundreds were streaming towards the site. Come what may, he’d have a full house to witness his performance. At least, he concluded gloomily, the masses might be entertained by the sight of their King ahoist on his own petard.

  The Jaguar crept to a halt before a police cordon, and Rhys leaped out to open the King’s door. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” said James, taking a deep breath. “Here goes.” Jenny gave him a kiss for good luck, and he stepped from the car to face a sharply ambivalent public.

  The Metropolitan Police, anticipating a larger-than-usual turnout, had set up barriers along the pavement; and, although James could see a few dark-blue uniforms scattered in among the crowd, the police presence was minimal and seemed to be concentrating mostly on keeping traffic moving. Several TV crews and a host of journalists and photographers were ready and waiting at the end of a small walkway formed by two double-length sections of barriers. James was quickly met by two bobbies, who greeted him and conducted him to the official Speaker’s Corner soapbox, a sturdy wooden red-painted box about a meter square.

  At James’ appearance, people began to clap and shout. Many people lining the police cordon had brought signs and placards; a quick visual tally revealed roughly as many for the monarchy as against. James was heartened to see that the Save Our Monarchy activists — presumably, the ones who had decided a scandal-ridden house of Moray was better than no house at all — had turned out in force. Although, amid the applause there were shouts of “Down with the King” as well.

  Here and there, clusters of balloons swayed in colorful profusion above the heads of the crowd, and James could smell roasting chestnuts on the air. Whatever else happened, a few enterprising souls would make a bob or two out of the event.

  Escorted by two police officers, walking in slow procession through the tightly packed, gawking throng, James felt like a condemned man being led to the gallows. The feeling increased as he reached the soapbox to a crescendo of catcalls. The hostility and anger on their faces as they ranted and screamed seemed to James all out of proportion to any actual crime he might have committed. It was more on the order of the sort of outrage usually reserved for child molesters or dangerous perverts. Looking at all those hate-twisted faces, he could only conclude that there was something else at work in people’s hearts and minds — something far deeper and much more significant than anything he might have done. Who, after all, gets so worked up over events that may or may not have happened years ago to people no one ev
er knew or saw or cared about in the first place?

  The police had established a clear zone extending in an arc from the foot of the soapbox to a barricade line ten meters away. Pressed up against the barriers were television cameramen and other media types; he could see no sign of Jenny, Cal, or any of the others.

  James mounted the small wooden platform and looked out across that narrow divide, and saw the people gazing back at him, their faces pinched with sharp expectation. So like children, he thought, angry and frustrated because they wanted something but did not know what it was or how to ask for it. This nameless yearning had soured inside them and made them bitter.

  “You will have heard it said,” he began, speaking with slow and deliberate emphasis so his words would not be lost or misunderstood, “that I dishonored myself and my country while serving as an officer in the army.”

  He paused, to allow this to sink in. Someone in the crowd yelled, “Abdicate!”

  “You will have heard it said,” James continued, unperturbed, “that I participated in criminal and immoral activities, and enriched myself with the proceeds. You will have heard these and other allegations about me, my friends —”

  The heckler shouted, “We’re no friends of yours! Bastard!”

  “These accusations are lies,” James declared sternly, then repeated it for emphasis. This assertion was met with a fidgety silence, which he took as a good sign, so he continued, saying, “I come before you this morning to put an end to these rumors and to stop the lies. More important, I come before you this morning to tell you something of the vision I have for Britain.”

  “Who cares?” shouted another heckler.

  “I’ll tell you who cares,” replied James evenly. “Every single person here today cares; you wouldn’t be here otherwise. You care, or you wouldn’t have bothered to come down here to make your feelings known. Every single person here today cares very deeply; I know because I, too, care very deeply about this country of ours and what is happening to it.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, James saw Cal and Jenny slide into the front row behind a nearby barrier. Cal gave him a thumbs-up sign, and Jenny gave him a wink.

  “Most of you believe that the monarchy is dead and ought to be buried, that it’s an institution well past its sell-by date, that it is nothing more than a holdover from a once-grand past which has long outlived its usefulness. But I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong.

  “This nation needs the monarchy — perhaps now more than ever before,” James declared.

  “We don’t need you!” someone shouted.

  “My friend,” said James, “I am precisely the one you need. You need me because I am all that stands between us and a system of government which will effectively obliterate the last vestiges of British sovereignty. Once the monarchy is gone, there will be nothing to prevent the proliferation of parliamentary power — or its escalating abuse.”

  The words were still on his lips when James felt a sudden twinge between his shoulder blades — a piercing ache so sharp he thought he’d been stabbed. Never had the fiosachd come upon him with such force.

  The flesh on the back of his neck writhed. He turned quickly and scanned the crowd. He saw a woman with striking red hair pushing through the crush of people. He had but a fleeting glimpse of her face as, in the heightened awareness of the fiosachd, darkness descended like a cloud, and he was overwhelmed by a feeling of fearful oppression. Into his mind flashed the image of blood pooling in the street, and he heard as in a dream the droning whine of sirens and the screams of the people as they fled.

  He looked out on the unsuspecting crowd and felt a crushing weight settle upon his chest. Death was here.

  “Ah, well,” James concluded lamely, “I guess that’s all I have to say right now.”

  Stepping quickly down from the speaker’s box, he crossed to where Cal and Jenny were standing. She saw the set of his jaw and asked, “What’s wrong, Why did you stop?”

  “Where’s Rhys?”

  “He’s waiting with the car,” replied Cal. “Why?”

  “There’s trouble.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Get Rhys on the mobile. Tell him to get over here fast. Then follow me.”

  “What about Jenny?”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Jenny told him. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Just get hold of Rhys,” said James, “and then follow me!”

  Even as he spoke, James became aware of a movement in the crowd — like a ripple in a stream as water flows around an obstacle. He caught a glimpse of black leather and the cold metallic glint of chain and, emerging from the close-gathered throng, a man dressed in black tee shirt and jeans, his feet laced into heavy steel-toed bovver boots. His head was shaved completely, and he had a black tattoo of a dagger on the side of his neck. A painted red swastika glistened on his forehead like a wound.

  More thugs pressed in behind the first; each with a length of pipe or a section of chain. Their shaved heads and tattooed faces gave them the look of barbarians of another age.

  Embries, ever alert to the transient moods of every situation, appeared and stepped quickly to James’ side. “You’ve seen something.”

  “Skinheads — they’ve come to disrupt things,” James replied. “Get the police over here now.” James turned and made to step back onto the box when a brick smashed on the pavement at his feet.

  Another brick struck the side of the soapbox. This one was accompanied by a shout: “Death to the King!”

  The crowd gave a shudder and edged back in alarm.

  The first of the gang had almost reached the barrier. People were shoving back, trying to get out of the way. Moving towards the commotion, James saw three skinheads climb over the barricade and step into the cleared zone. The two nearest police constables were running to stop them. As the bobbies approached, the three intruders suddenly squatted down; two more rose from the crowd behind them and let fly with bricks. One missile caught the foremost policeman full in the face; his legs buckled and he toppled backward onto the pavement. His partner was struck in the chest and went down; he lay writhing and clutching his heart. Instantly, the nearest thug was on the wounded officer, kicking him and beating him with a length of lead pipe.

  “You’re mine, friend,” James growled and started for the fray.

  “James, wait!” Jenny shouted as the King darted to the injured man’s defense.

  Forty-one

  James reached the injured policeman just as his attacker landed an expert kick in the officer’s stomach. When the thug drew back his boot to launch a kick at the bobbie’s unprotected throat, James seized the skinhead’s ankle from behind and yanked it hard up towards the small of his back, throwing him forward. His face struck the pavement; and he came up gasping and spluttering like a crimson geyser, blood spurting from his nose and mouth. James applied a firm tap to the base of his skull, and he subsided with a groan.

  The two remaining skinheads saw their chance and advanced. The first lunged clumsily, swinging at James’ head with a length of pipe. James easily sidestepped the blow, took hold of the thug’s arm as it swung past, and gave it a sharp downward yank. The thug sprawled forward onto his hands and knees, and the pipe went spinning out of his grasp.

  Before James could remove him from the fight, however, the second was joined by another. James did not wait for them to make the first move but met them on the run, taking the nearest head-on. The skinhead had a meter of rusty chain in one hand and a lead pipe in the other, so James aimed a swift kick at his kneecap. The ruffian shrieked in pain and dropped the pipe to grab his leg. His descending chin met James’ knee on the ascent, and the attacker’s mouth snapped shut with a teeth-shattering clack.

  The bruiser’s companion gave a shout and loosed a wild roundhouse with his chain — which James easily ducked, coming up with a fist under the hood’s ribcage, driving the air from his lungs. He gasped for breath, and James seized his throat, closing
off his windpipe. The skinhead’s eyes bugged out and his mouth gaped open for breath, but James held him just a little longer and then shoved him into the path of two more skinheads, who had darted into the walkway behind him. One tripped over his gasping partner, forcing the other to dodge awkwardly.

  James went for the awkward dodger first, stiff-arming him in the chest as he tried to charge. Already off balance, his feet flew out from under him and he smacked the street with his backside. James heard a crunch that might have been his spine giving way, and the bully fainted.

  James stepped back, looking for the police and wondering why they were so slow in responding to the situation. He was starting back towards the injured constables when someone shouted, “Behind you!”

  He pivoted, jerking his head from the path of a downward arcing section of pipe, taking the blow on his shoulder. The pain brought tears to his eyes, and he fell onto his side and tried to roll away. The skinhead gave a wild shriek of triumph and leaped forward. James saw the pipe swing up into the air, and threw his arms over his head to protect his skull.

  As the pipe started down, however, a strange thing happened. The troublemaker’s arm seemed to fold inward upon itself — as if he had suddenly developed a second elbow in the middle of his forearm. The lead pipe spun with a dull clank to the ground as the bully grabbed his broken arm, his face alive with wonder. There came a meaty thwack, and the skinhead’s eyes bulged with pain; he fell, clutching his shin, a curse between his teeth.

  James lowered his hands and saw Jenny with her fist clenched tight around a section of pipe. She stood over the thug, breathing hard, silently daring him to get up. Cal scrambled up behind her and stooped down to help James to his feet. “Man, can we no’ take you anywhere?” he said.

  “Where is the riot squad when you need them?” asked James, rubbing his throbbing shoulder.

  The skinheads who had come through the barricade were hugging the pavement. “That looks like the lot,” Jenny observed with relief.

  “Maybe we should get you two to the car,” said Cal.