No matter who had sent it, the words held no comfort.
The winter solstice was fast approaching, and Jack had no idea what to do. No matter what he and Noah (and Weyland and Ariadne and Silvius and the Lord of the Faerie) tried or investigated, no matter how hard anyone prayed or pleaded, there was no solution. No answer as to how they might destroy the Troy Game rather than complete it.
Catling had continued to escalate the terror on London (as Jack had no doubt she continued to escalate the horror for Grace). The nightly air raids on the capital and, increasingly, around all of Britain, became far worse. Tens of thousands perished in blast and fire and rubble. The Faerie suffered along with London. Huge patches of devastation had spread through the forests on the hills adjacent to The Naked, and many of the Faerie creatures were sickening.
Some were dying.
Jack and Noah either had to find a means to destroy the Troy Game, or they had to complete it. Otherwise, London, England, the Faerie and, likely, the entire world eventually, would turn to dust under Catling’s malevolence.
Jack was more sure than ever that Grace had the key; both the shadow and the diamond bands (and also the White Queen Cafe and its strange mistress) had vanished when Catling had taken Grace. Somehow Grace must have, or be, the key.
But Grace was gone, and her only way home was for him and Noah to do what no one wanted.
Complete the Troy Game.
Jack sat hopelessly in the annexe to St Bart’s and watched what remained of Grace, and despaired.
“Grace, Grace,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, but it is the only way I know to save you.”
TWO
December, 1940
GRACE SPEAKS
I was losing touch with reality, and with my sanity. I was caught within a maelstrom of hate and spite which forced me to endure every sin committed by all those I had ever loved—my parents, Jack, Harry, Matilda, Stella—as well as, so it felt to me, the sins of the rest of humanity. The memories, the horrific actualities, overwhelmed me, and I thought that the only way I could survive the memories, the rapes, the murders, the injustices, if not to lose all sanity, was to succumb to a vicious hatred of everyone I loved.
Catling’s malevolence tossed me hither and thither, and as every moment passed I felt myself sliding closer and closer to utter desolation. I had no rest, no comfort. Who were these people? How was it I could ever have thought to love them? They were vile, disgusting, and the damage they had caused to each other, and to all the innocents whose lives they touched, and to my life, was so gigantic it was completely unforgivable.
Amid this maelstrom of hatred, that cold-faced bitch intruded.
So what do you think, sweet Grace, of your inheritance?
I tried to close my ears, but it was no use.
These are difficult experiences for you to endure, eh?
I wept and struggled, but she wouldn’t leave me be. She drifted nearer, her terrible white face close to mine.
Why don’t you talk to me, Grace? I’m here to help, you know.
I flailed out at her, but she wouldn’t go, and I was so lost. No one would come for me, no one could aid me. I was here, in this not-quite-death, caught in Catling’s torment, and I could do nothing about it.
Grace?
“Let me be!” I shouted at her. “What purpose does this serve?”
None, I grant you, save to torment you.
“You cow!” I yelled, furious now, not caring that I sounded like a petulant child (couldn’t I find something more appropriate than “cow”?) and Catling just laughed.
Anger is good, Grace. You should use it more.
The memories took over, and for the longest time I did not resist. I saw Jack, as Brutus, rape my mother and then torment her for decades, with silent horror. I felt it. I endured it. My half-brothers…I saw them in life, with their wives, their children, and I saw them die, tormented by my father.
I wept.
Family is important, Grace. It is good that you weep for them.
Why wouldn’t she leave me alone? Didn’t she have anything better to do?
I watched as the man I knew as Harry, the Lord of the Faerie, lived a life as Harold of Wessex in Saxon times. I saw his love for Swanne, now Stella, and saw her turn against him, betray him, murder him.
Please, please, Catling, let me sleep.
Don’t call me that.
I didn’t care what word games she used with me. I just didn’t care. Leave me alone, Catling. I am sick of you.
And I am sick of you! I shall leave you alone for a while, and let you ponder your misfortune. When you’re ready, call me.
She left, and I was glad.
The assault of images and sound and horror continued. I fell into the life of a boy called Melanthus, a boy my mother had once thought to love, a boy that Brutus, my beloved Jack, had murdered.
Would I never stop weeping?
THREE
Copt Hall
Friday, 13th December, 1940
They sat in a group about the fire in Jack’s drawing room, a heavy, tense silence hanging between them. Noah and Weyland had come straight from St Bart’s, followed shortly thereafter by Ariadne and Silvius, then by the Lord of the Faerie. Stella had remained within the Faerie to carol in the dusk. Separated from those around the fire, Malcolm stood in gloomy silence by the door to the hall, hands folded before him, his eyes unblinkingly on Jack.
Jack was getting sick of Malcolm’s silent regard, and everyone else’s silent tension.
“For Christ’s sake,” he said, “there must be something…”
“What?” said Weyland. “Something to do? Something to say? Something to hope for?”
Over the past few weeks Catling had tightened her grip over the land, and throughout the Faerie. Winter had come early, and had deepened into a forbidding iciness across the country.
Snow had fallen in the Faerie, for the first time.
The Lord of the Faerie told them that trees, even on undamaged hills, were dying, and there were some creatures—the cavelings, the sylphs—that no one had heard from or seen in months.
The bombing continued, with the Luftwaffe campaign of terror and destruction now spread across Britain.
Complete me or extend the suffering, was the uncompromising message from the Troy Game.
Jack thought he was going mad. His mornings spent with Grace trapped him in a never-ending downward spiral of despair and guilt, while the everworsening bombing campaign and the Lord of the Faerie’s news merely deepened both despair and guilt.
There were days he hated life, and wondered if death were a possibility.
“What can we do?” whispered Noah. “I have done everything I can. Turned every stone and peered under it, sought every opinion, from those ten thousand years dead and those still alive, seeking a solution, and yet there is nothing…nothing…”
“If you complete the Troy Game, and Grace wakes, could she then provide us with some kind of weapon—” Weyland began.
“Don’t be a fool!” Jack snapped. “Nothing will be able to touch the Troy Game once it is completed.”
“But Games have been unwound before,” Weyland said.
“This one is too powerful, Weyland,” Ariadne said softly, and Weyland turned to her, his face tight with anger.
“If it wasn’t for you—” he said.
“Stop it,” said Silvius, wondering if his entire life would be spent keeping the peace between these two. “Jack, Noah, what are our choices?”
Jack looked at Noah, and wondered who would be the one to say it first. “We have no choices,” he eventually said, “save that we either destroy the Troy Game, or we complete it, and we do not have the knowledge or the tools to destroy it. Ergo, we must—”
“Don’t say it,” said the Lord of the Faerie. Don’t say it!”
There was a short silence, then Jack spoke softly. “Noah and I will need to begin the preparations very soon,” he said. “The solstice draws near. Catling
needs to see that we are preparing, and…and if we are to do this, then we need to be ready.”
Jack couldn’t believe he’d said that. The very thought of completing the Game sickened him physically and emotionally—and yet somehow imparted a sense of relief. If he completed Catling, then the death and horror would cease.
“Grace is the key,” said Malcolm from his doorway. “She and the White Queen.”
“Grace is lost to us!” Jack shouted, half rising from his chair before Silvius put a calming hand on his shoulder. “And the damned, cursed White Queen, whoever the fuck she is, has vanished as well!”
“Jack…” Noah said quietly.
“And the shadow is no more,” Jack continued, his tone slightly less aggressive now. “We have nothing left. Nothing.”
“Not to mention the final two kingship bands,” Ariadne put in helpfully.
“Jesus Christ, woman,” Jack said, his voice now horribly tired, “have you nothing positive to contribute to this conversation?”
“Well,” said Ariadne, “surely someone needs to point out to you, Jack, that without those final two bands you can’t even complete the Troy Game.”
Jack leaned his head back against his chair, and put a hand over his face. “Will someone please make a helpful suggestion?”
“Jack,” said Noah, “you made those diamond bands for Grace. They are magic. Can you not use those?”
“They’re gone, too,” said Jack. “Gone to wherever Catling has incarcerated Grace.”
Another momentary silence. Everyone capable of it—the Lord of the Faerie, Ariadne, Jack, Noah—had looked for Grace wherever they thought she might be: trapped in this world, or in some forgotten corner of the Faerie, or wandering the paths of the Otherworld, and yet she was nowhere. Catling had taken her to a place no one could discover.
“Can’t you make some more bands?” said the Lord of the Faerie.
Jack’s face twisted, but Ariadne spoke before he could answer.
“It isn’t that simple, Faerie Lord. A new set might be made, although we have neither the time nor the resources for that to be done—we’d need the original Great Founding Labyrinth, not a re-creation of one, to do it. But replacement bands? No, especially not for a set as important as the kingship bands of Troy. Jack needs to use the same bands he started with. The same set, not a combination of four of the original ones plus two new.”
“So are you saying,” Weyland said, “that we can neither destroy nor complete the Troy Game?”
“That would be about it,” said Jack, and let the bleakness overwhelm him.
FOUR
December, 1940
GRACE SPEAKS
Iremembered something. I should have remembered it earlier. Sometimes I am very stupid.
When I went with Ariadne so she could further my training in the arts of the labyrinth, Catling struck me with agony the instant I stepped inside Ariadne’s front door. The violence of the attack crippled me, and I know that Ariadne thought her re-creation of the Great Founding Labyrinth, which she’d set up in her drawing room, was close to killing me.
Then Ariadne had called to me. Use the pain, Grace. Use it to concentrate your mind and power! I had.
I used the pain. The pain still existed, but it did not trouble me; indeed, it became a valued asset, fuelling my concentration.
Very good. You should have remembered that earlier.
She was back, and my moment of hope evaporated.
I don’t know why I try to help you, Grace. You are stupid on occasion.
I tried to marshal what vestiges of intelligence I had left. The trouble was, I could not believe what my intuition screamed at me.
I could feel her watching me, keenly, and I felt a terrible flash of embarrassment at the things I had said to her.
“You’re not Catling,” I whispered. “My gods, who are you? Who are you?”
The terrible visions still swam before me, but I realised that while Catling may have sent me to this hell, she hadn’t followed me here.
She had, after all, more important things to do.
Who are you? I said, now using my power.
Never mind that for the moment. Remember only what you were considering before I disturbed you.
It was difficult, for all I wanted was to discover who this cold-faced woman was, but I managed to turn my mind back to the original problem. I had used Catling’s torment when Ariadne had thrust me into the Great Founding Labyrinth to concentrate my mind. Not only that, I had literally used it as a power source.
Ah, I breathed, relief and hope flooding through me. I can use this hell, too. How stupid I am, indeed.
She smiled, this creature who stood just within reach of the corner of one eye, and I felt from her a glimmer of sheer happiness. She didn’t say anything, but that glimmer was enough.
I laughed, and, summoning my power (why had I forgotten it? Was despair truly the greatest enemy a person had?), began to bend this overwhelming cacophony of images and memories to my will.
Show me what I need to know, I commanded.
Everything changed.
FIVE
Epping Forest
Monday, 16th December, 1940
Noah stood bathed in moonlight under a tree in the forest just north of Faerie Hill Manor. Jack thought that if it wasn’t for the terrible expression of hopelessness on her face, she would never have looked so beautiful.
“You know,” she said, “you and I have never talked about Grace. What you and she, um…what your…” She stopped and, remarkably, blushed.
Jack almost managed a smile. “What my intentions are, Noah?”
She looked embarrassed. “Yes.”
“Strange that you and I should be having this conversation.”
“It is certainly a long way from our initial conversation in Mesopotama.”
They both thought about that for a while, their first disastrous life together.
“It is strange how life turns out,” Noah said eventually, and Jack gave a short laugh.
“Aye, that it is. I remember when I first heard you’d given Weyland a daughter. I was so furious. So furious. I could never have imagined what that daughter would come to mean to me.”
Noah waited.
“I have treated you so badly, life after life,” said Jack. “This time around being no exception. I was angry at first because I’d convinced myself I could win you away from Weyland, then discovered that wasn’t possible. And then Grace began nibbling away at all my preconceptions of her, and, one day I woke up—probably with a push from Malcolm—”
Noah smiled.
“—and realised I loved her, and that love was a peaceful thing compared to what I felt for you.”
“But better.”
“Yes. You don’t mind?”
She shook her head. “I don’t begrudge my daughter your love, Jack.” She paused. “Although it took me some time to come to terms with it.”
“And that’s my fault. I could have let you know in an easier manner than I did.”
“Jack, we have spent all our lives in an eternal cycle of love and anger and apology. Can we break that cycle now?”
“You don’t want me to apologise?”
“No. I…I just want you to save Grace, and this land, and the Faerie, and me besides.”
“Oh, well, thank the gods for that. I thought you were going to demand something hard from me.”
Noah tried to smile, but sudden tears glittered in her eyes.
Jack pulled her gently into his arms, and held her close. “Noah, this isn’t much, but—”
She pulled back. “What?”
He hesitated, and his uncertainty frightened her.
“Jack…”
“When I agreed with Weyland last Friday that without the final two bands we could neither destroy nor complete the Troy Game…I wasn’t quite correct. Silvius had a word to me afterwards.”
“What did the damn fool say?” Noah said in a tight voice.
&nb
sp; “He reminded me that I could actually close out the Troy Game with only four bands.”
“But Catling thinks that you need the six bands. Wouldn’t she know?”
He gave a shake of his head. “She’s only insisting on the six bands because I’ve been insisting on it. I don’t know if she really knows the full intricacies of how a Game is woven through to completion. Closing the Game is nowhere near as difficult as opening it. Opening a Game requires the full strength of the bands.”
“Get to the point.”
“You and I could complete the Troy Game with just the four bands, Noah. It would be difficult, and we’d need to use every ounce of power we commanded, both as Kingman and Mistress and as gods of this land. But…”
“Jesus, Jack,” Noah whispered, suddenly realising where he was heading. “Don’t say it!”
“But,” Jack whispered, and now the tears glittered in his eyes as well, “I wouldn’t survive it, Noah.”
SIX
December, 1940
GRACE SPEAKS
Impossibly, the images became even more jumbled, but their nature changed entirely.
I continued to see images of my mother’s and Jack’s past lives, and while many of these were uncomfortable, they were not of the horrific variety Catling wanted me to see. I saw also fractured memories of people I didn’t know, all associated in some way with London: builders and craftsmen, ferrymen, priests, architects.
I saw faint memories of a little girl with black curly hair and a cold face—but I was now not so foolish as to be certain of her identity.
I saw a tall man with a lovely, gentle face, peering into the ruins of…a church, I think.
I saw Jack, Brutus as he had been then, and my mother making frantic love inside a circular hut somewhere close to where Lambeth is now.
I saw Jack’s two lost bands, but indistinctly. They looked to be lying on an altar, next to what appeared to be a plate of food.
They were waiting for him.
I saw Christopher Wren inspecting, not St Paul’s, or any other of his famous churches, but what was probably Greenwich Hospital.