Eventually Jack spoke. “Why don’t you want to go home?”
“I want to be with you tonight, Jack.”
He breathed in deeply. “Why not Copt Hall?”
“It can’t be there. We need to use the power of the air raid.”
Those words almost choked me, but I had to say them. Jack and I were not only about to consummate our relationship, but also consummate the bonding of a Kingman and a Mistress.
We needed to use the power that the White Queen has given us. But, oh, what a loathsome way to cement a union.
He freed one of his hands from mine and cupped my face, kissing me gently.
“Do you think it would be the same between us,” he said, “if I were just a soldier and you just a girl?”
“Yes,” I said, “I think it would.”
His face, his entire being, relaxed. “Aye, you’re right. It would be the same.”
“We need to do what we must if we are to destroy the Troy Game,” I said. “It is our choice if we allow it to destroy us or not.”
His hand moved against my face, so gently, and he gave a slow nod.
“If you had been Genvissa, or Noah, or even Matilda,” he said, “I would have allowed the power to corrupt me. But you…you are the temple bell, and you will keep me true.”
I winced. I hated that temple bell metaphor, and he laughed and kissed me again. “We need to find a bed,” he said. “Soon.”
We found a small rooming house not two streets away. It was—remarkably considering the air raid
—still open for business.
The proprietor was a small middle-aged woman with an air of world weariness that must have come from the continual passage of strangers through her home.
She emerged from a trapdoor set below the stairs
—the house must have had a cellar which she used for shelter—at the sound of the bell tinkling as we opened the front door, and inspected us up and down, arms folded over her apron.
“You’ll be wanting a room, then?”
“If you please,” said Jack.
I bit my lip to keep from giggling. I knew what we must have looked like to her: the foreign soldier about to deflower the naive English girl.
The woman pulled out a book from a drawer in the hall table, opened it to a page marked with string, then picked up a pencil which hung at the end of the string.
“Your names?” she said.
“Major Jack Skelton,” Jack said, his American accent more pronounced than it usually was.
“And…?” said the woman.
“Grace…” Jack said. “Grace…What did you say your surname was, Grace?”
“Orr,” I said, not able to keep the giggle inside any longer. Jack had a mischievous gleam in his eyes that I found immensely reassuring.
“And do your parents know where you are, Miss Orr?” said the woman, looking up from her book.
Now I really had to bite my lip hard. What in the world did I say to that? Incapable of speech, I shook my head.
“Humph,” the woman said. “Don’t expect to get a ring out of this, young lady.”
I suppose I could have drawn the sleeves of my coat up and shown her the diamond bracelets, but I contented myself with wrapping my hands about Jack’s upper arm and gazing up at him adoringly. “I trust him entirely,” I managed to say.
The woman harrumphed again, then glanced up as a plane passed particularly low overhead. “You sure you don’t want to go to one of the shelters?”
“Absolutely not,” said Jack. He winked at the woman. “The excitement, you know.”
What she must have thought of us! In the end she contented herself with frowning at both of us, took payment from Jack, wrote him out a receipt, then gave him a key to a room on the first floor.
“There’s a bathroom at the end of the corridor, and don’t forget to keep the blackout curtains closed.”
That was a reasonably pointless piece of advice, I thought. With all the fires throughout the city, the Luftwaffe would have absolutely no trouble finding London tonight.
We went up the stairs, and Jack unlocked the room.
It was terrible, a cheap soulless room that must have seen the passage of countless people. An iron bedstead (which looked as if it had been purchased at a hospital sale) stood against one wall, the bed covered with a pale green, threadbare, candlewick bedspread. There was a chest of drawers against a wall with a window draped in black curtains, and there was a wooden chair set against another wall, a chipped chamberpot underneath it.
The room was lit by a bare bulb hanging from the centre of the ceiling.
We stood in the doorway, looking into it.
“Well,” I managed eventually, “at least it has the advantage of not having a Malcolm likely to interrupt us with a plateful of sandwiches.”
Jack turned to me with an arch expression on his face. “What manner of Mistress are you, then? What manner of Darkwitch, that you would allow a hamand-cheese sandwich to distract you from me?”
I laughed, loving him, and he closed the door, hung his cap on the hook behind it, then turned to me, putting both his hands on my shoulders. “I have made marriages in palaces in Greece and Europe,” he said. “I wish I could do better for you than—”
I put a finger against his lips: “Shush.” Then I leaned forward and kissed him.
When finally I leaned back, Jack turned out the light, then walked to the window, drew back the curtains and persuaded the stiff sash window to open, allowing the sounds of the air raid and the flickering glow of the distant fires to wash through the room and over our bodies.
We made love on that bed—on top of the bedspread because neither of us felt like crawling between the thin, cold sheets—and let none of our fears spoil it for us. Jack had set the tone with his jesting earlier, and we laughed at both surrounding and circumstance, and at ourselves and with each other.
This despite that what we did was in no way just a simple coupling between a man and a woman. It was a marriage, but not the usual kind that people make. It was the union of a Mistress of the Labyrinth and a Kingman who were soon to open a Game, and thus this lovemaking was the opening of that Game. We did not just use our bodies and our emotions to make love, but also the powers of the labyrinth. We twisted the harmonies out of our surroundings, from the shabby cheap room, from the creaking of the old house, and, most importantly, from the sounds of the aircraft, and of the explosions, and of the crackling infernos that raged to the east and north, and from the emotions that poured out of the city—the fear and horror, the pain and bewilderment, the desperation and panic.
We brought the vileness of the air raid, of the entire war, into our bed and into our bodies and used it to make our marriage—a marriage between man and woman, between Jack and Grace, between Kingman and Mistress of the Labyrinth, and between Ringwalker and Darkwitch. It could have been horrific, but we did not allow it to overwhelm us. Of all the marriages made atop that candlewick bedspread that night, the most important was between Jack and Grace. We were aware of all other unions, we revelled in the power we twisted out of the pain and fear of the air raid, but it was secondary to what we felt for each other.
We started it as Jack and Grace, and we ended it as Jack and Grace.
The Troy Game and the White Queen could twist and warp and manipulate, but they couldn’t change who we were that night, nor what we made of ourselves.
When finally they slept, the White Queen stepped into the room. She stood for a long time by the bed, looking down at their entwined bodies, her face white and cold and utterly expressionless.
Eventually she moved to where Jack had draped his clothes over the wooden chair. She leaned down, stretched out a hand, hesitated, then picked up his jacket, rifling through his pockets until she found his wallet. This she carefully opened and withdrew the receipt that the woman had given him. She returned the wallet to its pocket, then dropped the jacket back on the chair.
The White Queen stared at the
receipt, then lifted her eyes back to the couple. Slowly, with almost crab-like movements, she moved about the bed to where Grace lay.
She lifted the hand holding the receipt, then, very carefully, inch by inch, dragged it over Grace’s ankles. Grace still wore her silk stockings, now tangled about her calves and ankles, and the receipt caught in them once or twice, dragging the delicate fabric against Grace’s skin.
The White Queen froze as Grace murmured in her sleep, and shifted in Jack’s arms.
They both stirred, and the White Queen drew back sharply, her eyes all black alarm.
But the couple relaxed into sleep, and finally the White Queen, too, relaxed. She leaned back down, drew the receipt over Grace’s ankles one last time, then vanished.
TEN
Southwark, London
Thursday, 20th March 1941
Jack woke slowly. He was aware that it was daylight, and that it was cool, but he did not open his eyes. He thought very briefly about slipping under the covers, but couldn’t be bothered.
He was aware of Grace in his arms, her body laid against his, her back to his abdomen, warm and relaxed.
He didn’t want to awake to any further awareness than this. The daylight, the bed, and Grace in his arms. It was, he realised, the first time in all his lives that he had woken up in bed with a woman and not had his thoughts immediately filled with thoughts of another woman, or of power, or ambition, or loss.
He was content with all that he had in his arms, and he smiled, and kissed Grace softly between the shoulder blades.
She stirred. His smile broadened a little, and he ran one of his hands over her abdomen up to one of her breasts, silently thanking Malcolm for all the good food he had fed Grace. She’d been so desperately thin, and now she—
Grace lurched upright with a cry of sheer terror.
Jack’s eyes flew open. “Grace?”
She was staring down at her ankles, which she had somehow managed to slide under the bedspread at some point during the night, grabbing at them with both her hands.
‘Grace!’
She cried out again, a formless cry of fear, then struck out with both her feet. Now the bedspread, as well as her stockings, was tangled about her feet, and Grace once more tried to grapple with whatever was wrong with her lower legs.
Jack leaned down, desperate to see what was amiss.
“She’s tied me!” Grace cried, and Jack felt sick at the fear in her voice.
He pushed away her hands, managed to grab the bedspread and toss it to one side, then seized her stockinged ankles in both his hands.
Gods! It felt as if Grace’s ankles were manacled under the rumpled silk stockings!
He turned back to her, and laid one hand gently along her cheek. “Shush,” he whispered, and kissed her very softly. “Be still. I will see.”
Grace was breathing heavily, her eyes wide and frantic, but she gave him a terse nod.
Jack kissed her again, then turned back to her ankles. Very slowly he smoothed away her stockings from whatever bound her ankles and then…
Sat back, astounded.
About Grace’s ankles were the remaining two golden kingship bands of Troy.
Jack stared, hardly able to believe what he was seeing, then met Grace’s shocked eyes.
“I thought…” she said. She looked back to her ankles. “I…”
Jack was as incapable of coherent speech as Grace. He ran a hand down her right thigh, over her stockinged calf, and brought it to rest on the kingship band around her ankle.
“She’s been in here,” he said, hoarsely. “The White Queen. As we slept.”
“And bearing gifts,” Grace said, her voice much firmer. She pushed Jack’s hand aside and slid the bands off her ankles. “When I woke, I thought I’d been bound. I thought…oh, gods…I had not thought this.”
Grace sat back against the head of the bed, hefting the two heavy bands in her hands.
Then she raised her eyes to Jack, still sitting towards the foot of the bed.
Suddenly the diamond bands about her wrists and forearms blazed into life.
Jack swivelled about on the bed, slowly, so that his feet faced Grace.
His eyes did not once leave her face.
Grace moved forward on the bed. As she did so, she slid the ankle bands over her hands so that they rested on her wrists.
For an instant the diamonds and gold intertwined, blazing forth in shimmering fire, then the glow died down, and there was only the gold over the diamonds.
Grace was on her hands and knees now, her eyes locked into Jack’s, moving cat-like over the bed towards him. She put both her hands on his ankles, then leaned forward, seizing his mouth against hers.
Suddenly she was all movement, her hands sliding up Jack’s legs, then up his body to clasp about his face, pulling him forward into her embrace. She clambered forward, wrapping her legs about his hips, pulling his face down to her breasts.
He pushed her back to the bed, kissed her once, hard, then sat back, examining the two bands which now encircled his legs just below his knees.
“What?” Grace said. “You prefer the bands to me?”
He glanced at her, grinning. “You’re easier to catch than these bands.”
She laughed, lounging back against the pillows as he ran his hands over the bands. “So how does it feel, Kingman, to finally have all six of your kingship bands returned to you?”
“Would you like to know how it feels?”
“Absolutely.”
Now his attention was all on her, and he slid forward on the bed towards Grace, his eyes dark with emotion.
“Not half as good as it felt to be with you last night,” he said. He cradled her head in his hand, his face only inches away from hers.
“I’m sure that damned woman downstairs will be along eventually to hurry us out,” he said, and kissed her, very slowly. “But not for an hour or two yet, I hope.”
ELEVEN
The Crypt of St Thomas
Thursday, 20th March 1941
By ten a.m. they were on the street, walking back to where Jack had parked the Austin. While the Luftwaffe had long gone, the feel and sense and power of the air raid continued to hang heavy in the air. Fires raged in the docklands and the East End, as well as in eastern Southwark and to the south. Dust clouds drifted over much of the city. Those survivors not yet in the care of the Red Cross or volunteer organisations wandered aimlessly through the streets, coated with blast dust, ash and caked lines of blood. The sense of fear and desperation of what had been the heaviest raid on London to date had yet to dissipate.
Jack and Grace were in a sombre mood. The earlier closeness and warmth had vanished, suffocated under the ash-laden air and the terrible silence of the air raid aftermath. They walked silently, nodding to the occasional person they met on the street, pausing now and again to stare eastwards or northwards at the towering columns of smoke rising from the docklands. Eventually they arrived at the Austin. Both stopped, looking at the car.
Neither moved to get in.
“Jack…”
He sighed, and lifted his head towards the river. Jack felt an appalling sense of impending doom every time he thought about St Thomas’ crypt and what might wait for them there.
“We need to go down sooner or later,” Grace said very softly.
Jack continued to look towards the river. She was right, they did need to go down. What they had started the night before could not be stopped now. He felt his stomach turn over, partly in fear that they might not survive this, and partly in dread at meeting his long-dead daughter. The White Queen was all the guilt he had accumulated from the mistakes of his previous lives incarnate.
“Let’s get it over and done with then,” he said, and held out his hand to Grace.
The rowboat was still where they had left it. Grace sat down in the prow, then Jack climbed in and pushed off. As he settled down to row, Grace leaned forward and put a hand on one of his arms.
“It wi
ll be all right,” she said.
“It has never been ‘all right’,” Jack replied, looking past her into the cold grey waters of the river. “I can’t see why it should start now.”
The river was hardly deserted—barges and boats plied up and down—but no one took any notice of the man in American military uniform and the girl in her dress and coat in the rowboat. Jack and Grace used no power to cloak their movements. All of London was in shock, and the sight of the two people in the tiny rowboat was not enough to make anyone wonder.
When they arrived at the spot over St Thomas’ crypt, Jack stowed the oars. The river breeze ruffled his short hair as he sat, looking at Grace.
“Let’s do this,” he said, and she nodded, then smiled.
“Jack, it will soon be over.”
He took a moment to respond. “Do you know,” he said, “after all this time, I find that so hard to believe.” Jack’s sense of impending disaster grew stronger by the moment.
She sat forward in the boat, making it rock, and kissed him gently. “It will soon be over,” she said again.
He rested his forehead against hers. “I have such a bad feeling, Grace…”
“That’s because we are sitting in the middle of a river, in a tiny rocking boat, in a cold wind heavy with ash and the stink from the burning wharves, and neither of us have had any breakfast. You’re feeling seasick, Jack.”
I’m feeling heartsick, he thought, and wished that he could recapture, if only for a moment, the contentment of last night. But he would need to wait for that. Wait until they came out of the dark heart of the White Queen’s Game. Perhaps wait until it was all ended, and they were free of the Troy Game.
“Let’s go down,” Grace said.
They used the power of the labyrinth, and twisted out of the air the residual power of the air raid. Within moments the frozen whirlpool and steps had reappeared, and this time with a convenient waisthigh twisted column of water to which Jack tied the rowboat.