Jack walked to meet her, Grace watchful and tense in his arms.
“Boudicca,” Jack said as he halted before her.
Boudicca acknowledged him with a tip of her head and an assessing glance from her sharp eyes, then turned her attention to Grace.
“Can you not stand?” Boudicca said.
“I’m sorry,” said Grace, struggling a little in Jack’s arms, and he set her down carefully, keeping a hand on her waist for support. “She has been ill,” he said to Boudicca. “She is weak.”
Again a glance from those sharp eyes. “I know that,” said Boudicca, then she looked past Jack and Grace to where Prasutagus had stepped up, and smiled so gloriously that Jack felt his heart stop for a brief moment.
“Prasutagus!” Boudicca said, and her husband moved past Jack and Grace and took Boudicca in his arms, kissing her brow, her eyes and then her mouth before hugging her tightly to him.
“We have not seen each other for some time,” said Prasutagus, finally letting his wife go. “Not since I came back as Malcolm.”
“Why didn’t you both come back?” Jack said.
“Prasutagus was always the stronger druid,” said Boudicca. “He had the strength, not I.”
“And why are you back, whether in flesh or spirit?” said Jack. “Is it to reclaim your sword? To wield it?”
Prasutagus put a hand on Boudicca’s shoulder, and looked at Jack and Grace. “We did not wish to speak to you until you knew of the woman you call the White Queen.”
“Your sword,” said Jack. “The druid’s sword.”
“Your daughter,” said Boudicca, “and Grace’s sister.”
“Tell me of her,” said Grace. She was now leaning against Jack for support, and he had an arm about her waist. “How is it she is involved in this? And what is your role?”
Prasutagus briefly told them of his and Boudicca’s background. How they’d ruled over the Iceni, and how they’d attempted to negotiate a settlement with the invading Roman army.
“But then something poisoned my husband,” said Boudicca, “and he died.”
“In death,” Prasutagus said, “I became aware that a terrible calamity had befallen this land. It had been infected with a presence so loathsome that I despaired. But then a little girl came to me, a girl with a cold, cold face and an icicle for a heart, and told me she could be my sword, the land’s sword, if we conducted an alliance with her.”
Jack almost could not breathe. He wondered why Prasutagus had done this, why he’d taken the risk.
“Because nothing else could have saved the land,” Boudicca said. “You couldn’t.”
Jack winced at that.
“Why did she need you?” said Grace. “Why approach you?”
“She needed to be bound to the land in order to create what she needed,” said Prasutagus. “She needed Boudicca and me to arrange a Seething, a druid ritual of binding, so powerful it needs a death to work it. We trusted her.”
“But I think we may have been ensorcelled,” said Boudicca, “to ensure we did what she wanted.”
Jack closed his eyes momentarily, his hand unconsciously tightening about Grace. “And thus, ensorcelled and trusting, you killed yourself,” he said finally, looking at Boudicca.
She shrugged a little. “I thought it was for a good reason.”
“For gods’ sakes,” Jack said. “Are you here to tell us that this White Queen, your sword, is as bad as that which you hoped she would destroy?”
“No, actually,” said Prasutagus. “We have watched the White Queen for two thousand years. She’s not particularly likeable, and some of her methods are damnably frightening, but we think we were right to trust her.”
“Then why are you back now, in this lifetime?” said Jack. “Why here now, to talk to us? Why drag Grace out in the middle of the night, when she should be asleep?”
“I am back in this lifetime to guide you, and to serve you,” said Prasutagus. “This is the lifetime in which all will be won or lost. Boudicca would have returned also, but she did not have the power for rebirth.”
“And we called you out here tonight,” said Boudicca, “because it is a night of power, the turning of the year, and we wanted to bless you, and wish you well. Do what the White Queen asks of you. It is your only hope, and it is the land’s only hope.”
“There’s another reason you’re here, isn’t there?” Grace said.
“Aye,” Boudicca said softly. “Do what the White Queen asks, but remember always that she is the druid’s sword.”
“And?” Jack said.
Boudicca looked steadily at Grace. “A druid’s sword was always double-bladed. Twin-edged. On the cusp of the old year and the new, I am here to deliver to you a warning. Be careful. Look out for the return swing of the sword, because it may take your head.”
Part Seven
LONDINA ILLUSTRATA
London, Christmas 1739
London had set itself to rights after the great storm of thirty years earlier, although it had taken several years to find enough tiles to reclad all the roofs and enough bricks to rebuild the chimneys. Now, it was Christmastime, and the city was in full festive mode, even though it was in the grip of one of the coldest winters in living memory.
The Thames had frozen over, and Londoners took the opportunity to hold a Frost Fair. Colourful canvas tents were pitched on the ice selling food and drink, bowling alleys were established in the middle of the river, daring youths tied dogs to carts and held races from the bridge to Blackfriars, and fiddlers and pipers wandered among the crowds, playing popular tunes for a penny a time.
It seemed that the entire population of the city was having fun on the ice. Nevertheless, once dark fell and the revellers returned to their homes and warm fires, two lost urchins were left to huddle together, desperate for warmth and comfort, under the eaves of St Thomas’ Chapel on London Bridge. The youths were thin and poorly clad, their hair black and curly, their complexions swarthy, as if they were coalminer’s children who had made their way down to London to find their fortunes—and failed dismally.
There was no one else about. Everyone was at home and at cheer, and bundled up before warm hearths. Just after midnight, one of the shivering youths opened his eyes, then gasped. “You said you didn’t want us!” he exclaimed.
His brother woke with a start, then trembled as he saw the little black-haired girl standing before them.
“I said no such thing,” said the little girl.
“You did! You did!” said the first.
“Never,” said the girl. “I wouldn’t throw away such as you.”
The second imp looked carefully at the little girl. “Hang on,” he said. “You’re not—”
“No need to speak names,” said the girl. “After all, none of us have them.”
The two imps looked at each other, then simultaneously shrugged their shoulders. True enough.
“Nonetheless,” said the first imp, “you are little Mistress Surprise, aren’t you?”
Now it was the girl’s turn to shrug. “I’ve lived under this bridge for years. Can’t think why no one seems to know I’m here.”
The imps giggled. “Do you want us then? She has grown tired of us.”
The girl pouted as if she wrestled with heavy thoughts. “Well now, I’d hate to have you tell on me. I wouldn’t be Mistress Surprise, would I, if she knew about me?”
The imps giggled some more. “We won’t tell.”
Suddenly the little girl vanished, replaced by a sense of such terrifying oppression that the imps shrieked and huddled down on the ground, their spindly arms over their heads.
“Don’t! Don’t!” they cried. “We won’t tell! We won’t!”
“Good,” said the little girl, now returned to her less threatening aspect. “Be sure you don’t. I can be just as nasty as my sister when the inclination takes me.”
The imps sulked silently for a while, and the little girl let them think about it.
“On the othe
r hand,” she said, “I can be a great deal nicer, too.”
“Why would you want to be nice to us?” said one of the imps.
“Because I am engaged in a project,” said the girl, “and it is getting too big for me to manage by myself. I am in grave need of assistance.”
“And you’d trust us?”
“Trust is not quite the word I’d use…but I do need you, and you can be a help.”
The imps thought about it for several heartbeats.
“Do you have a nice warm room to keep us?” one of them asked hopefully.
“Of course,” said the little girl, “and not far from here, actually.”
She held out her hands and, after a fractional hesitation, the imps rose and each took one of her hands.
ONE
Copt Hall
Wednesday, 1st January 1941
Noah sat, wan and trembling, in the drawing room of Copt Hall, staring first at Jack, then at Grace, then at Weyland, who sat next to her holding one of her hands. Jack had asked her and Weyland to the hall first thing—Ariadne, Silvius, the Lord of the Faerie and Stella were due later—but Jack and Grace had needed to speak to Noah beforehand. They didn’t want to break the news of the White Queen, her daughter, in the presence of a roomful of people.
Noah and Weyland had arrived almost breathless with excitement at the prospect of seeing Grace. Having discovered from Harry that Grace was at Copt Hall, they had been ringing several times a day since the morning of the thirtieth trying to talk to their daughter. Either Jack or Malcolm had put them off, saying that Grace needed to rest, but that they could come visit soon.
Their joy at seeing Grace, at being able to hug her and exclaim over her and ensure for themselves that she was back whole and in fair (if thin and exhausted) condition, was quickly dampened by the news of the White Queen.
“She’s alive?” Noah whispered.
Jack glanced at Grace. “Alive” wasn’t quite the word he’d use to describe her. “She can use a glamour to take form,” he said, “but she’s not back in the flesh, Noah.”
“My daughter,” Noah said, dashing away some tears with a trembling hand. “I thought…”
Everyone knew what Noah had thought. Almost four thousand years ago she’d lost the baby girl when she was seven months pregnant with her, and the baby had not survived the birth. Then Noah had seen what she’d believed to be her daughter in her vision of the stone hall, but which had turned out to be Catling. Then, in the seventeenth century, when Noah had become pregnant to Louis, now Jack, she’d believed that pregnancy had been a rebirth of the daughter she’d lost.
But that girl had been the Troy Game, growing into flesh incarnate as Catling.
Noah had resigned herself to believing she’d never have the baby girl, lost so many thousands of years ago, returned to her. Now, to hear that the girl had life in spirit if not in flesh, and had been communicating to Grace and Jack, was almost too much for Noah.
“Why not me?” she whispered. “Why talk to you and not me?”
There was no answer for that, and Jack dropped his eyes, unable to look at Noah. He felt guilt and anger in equal degree: guilt that he’d conversed with the White Queen, and not Noah; and anger that the White Queen had not once thought to communicate with the mother who had so wanted and loved her.
It was one more reason for him to distrust the White Queen.
He looked over to Grace, who was watching her mother with worried eyes. Look out for the return swing of the sword, because it may take your head. Oh, Christ. Jack felt a terrible premonition of losing Grace. Would you die for Jack, Grace? Would you?
“What the hell is she here for?” said Weyland, angry not so much at Jack, but at Noah’s misery. “What does she want?”
“The others should be here in a moment,” said Jack, glancing at Weyland sympathetically. Grace’s long illness had brought Noah and Weyland much closer, healing the rift between them. For this, at least, Jack was grateful. “When they’re here,” he continued, “Grace and I will go through what we know. I don’t want to tire Grace out by going through it twice.”
Ariadne and Silvius arrived in a few minutes, closely followed by Stella and Harry. They were all delighted to see Grace, although Jack noted Harry looked a little awkward with her (likely regretting his harsh words to her when he’d discovered Grace at the side of the road to Epping Forest), while Stella warmed to the point of almost-effusiveness.
Ariadne had brought with her a large suitcase which she put by the side of Grace’s chair.
“Your clothes, my dear,” Ariadne said, handing her coat to Malcolm (and giving him a broad smile as she did so), then sitting down on the sofa alongside Silvius. “I packed everything. Well, most things. I admit to handing over to the Red Cross the worst of your fashion disasters. I’ve taken the liberty of replacing them with a few items of a more colourful nature.” Her smile widened until it was positively lascivious. “Now that you’re with Jack, of course.”
“Ariadne…” Grace murmured, then gave up and grinned. “But thank you.”
Malcolm served tea and coffee, then withdrew to the hall door to stand leaning against the jamb.
Everyone was quiet now, the new arrivals having noted Noah’s misery.
“Grace has a long tale to tell,” Jack said, “and of many strange things.” He paused. “I asked Noah and Weyland here a few minutes ahead of the rest of you because, as you will hear, some of that story Noah needed to hear first. It is an extraordinary tale.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “There are better ways, perhaps, to tell this, and less bald means by which to impart the information she has, but the last thing I want is for Grace to exhaust herself by going through the same story over and over for individuals. The grouping of us here today represents the core group who must be, who are, concerned with the destruction of the Troy Game. You all need to hear this and I hope that, like Grace and me, you come to the end of the tale with more hope in your hearts than dismay.” He shifted a little in his chair. “As you can see, Grace is physically, emotionally and spiritually at a low ebb. The months she lay in a coma and what happened to her during that time, along with the expenditure of power to escape and then reach Noah and me on the twenty-ninth, have combined to leave her dangerously weak. Please, in however you respond to what she has to say, remember that.”
Jack looked over to Grace, and gave a lovely, gentle smile. “Grace?”
She took a deep breath, and, in a soft but clear voice, related what had happened to her from the moment the bomb fell on Coronation Avenue.
Everyone listened in silence. No one looked away from Grace for an instant.
Until she revealed the identity of the White Queen.
Then every eye swung to Noah, now far more composed than earlier.
“My daughters have ever astonished me,” she said.
Stella gave a small bark of surprised laughter. “Certainly your daughters with Jack,” she said. “Weyland has proved by far the better sire.”
“And I am not going to argue that point,” Jack said. He caught Grace’s eye. They’d revealed much about the White Queen, but not what Malcolm—Prasutagus—and Boudicca had told them. Revealing her connection with the ancient druids would only muddy the issue, and further worry Noah.
“My half-sister,” said Grace, “the White Queen, has been the one to construct this ‘shadow’ which has so puzzled us all.”
Briefly Grace told the group what she had learned of the shadow: it had the potential of a new Game, a Game that could be used to destroy the Troy Game. She also told them that the White Queen had the final two bands (although Grace could not pinpoint the location), and that it had been the White Queen who had sat by her side at night through all those years, not Catling.
“Both Grace and I have seen her,” said Jack. “I have spoken to the White Queen, to my daughter, as well, save at the time I thought her Catling, and called her vile things.”
Noah shook her head at this. “I had berate
d myself for not knowing Catling sat with my daughter at night. Now I discover it wasn’t Catling, but my long-lost daughter. Come to visit with Grace, but not me.”
“Mother,” said Grace, “I think the ‘daughter’ part of her vanished millennia ago. She is the White Queen now, and has been for a very, very long time. I don’t believe she even thinks of herself as your ‘daughter’.”
“But why should the White Queen appear,” said Stella, “and reveal this ‘Shadow Game’ now?”
“I can answer that,” said Jack. He explained that he and Grace were meant to dance the Shadow Game. “She wants us as its Mistress and Kingman.”
There was a little silence, then Noah spoke. “I don’t want to sound resentful,” she said, “but…why wouldn’t our daughter have wanted Jack and me to dance this Game she has made? That would make sense, wouldn’t it? Not Grace and Jack?”
“Because,” said Stella, “whatever Jack has said, there has never been much peace between you and him. You share a history of conflict. Whatever brief ‘peaces’ you conclude are always shattered at some point. But Jack and Grace, on the other hand…”
She didn’t need to finish, but already she’d said too much. Noah stiffened, and looked away.
“Well,” said Ariadne brightly, “what a little minx this child has turned out to be, eh? Do you think the White Queen thought of this all herself, or has she, in turn, been the pawn of someone else? The ally of someone?”
Noah sat back in her chair. “Weyland once said to me that he couldn’t understand why, during that terrible night when my daughter and I both died, Mag only saved my life. If she had the ability to save the life of a woman who had been torn apart, then she should have been able to restore breath into my stillborn daughter. So, perhaps…”
“The White Queen has been in cohorts with Mag, with the land, all this time?” said Harry, who until now had been content to listen, if with an expression of the utmost incredulity on his face. “I find that difficult to believe. Why keep it such a secret from—”
“The White Queen has existed in utmost secrecy,” said Jack, “because it is the only thing that has kept her, and this strange potential for a new Game she has created, away from the Troy Game’s attention. If the White Queen had gambolled out of the mists at any time in the past few thousand years, if she had made herself known to anyone over that time, then the chances are that Catling would know of her. She’s been kept, or has kept herself, well away from the Troy Game, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”