Lammas night Page 12

  "Not in any technical sense, no."

  "But there are individuals?" William guessed. "At least a-few. Like Michael."

  Graham shrugged noncommittally.

  "They're outside MI.6, then?"

  Graham gave another nod.

  "And you're their—their man in black?" William ventured, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar term.

  "For now. Our real leader is serving with the Forces, as one might expect, though he comes back when he can. That's part of what I was talking about when I told you I was having to do a job for which I wasn't really trained. I'm not un-trained," he added, "but these are hardly ordinary times. I think even— the real one would be hard pressed under the circumstances."

  William blinked and suddenly seemed to remember he had a drink at hand. He took a distracted swallow, coughing a little when it did not go down quite smoothly, then looked up carefully at Graham again, "What—what are you supposed to do?" he asked.

  "Let me see if I can explain it in terms you'll understand," Graham said slowly. "We are trying to stop Hitler by magic, the way Drake did, but obviously a mere storm won't be sufficient. So we raise a cone of power—a visualization of mental energy, I suppose you could call it, or a telepathic thought wave—and we direct it toward Hitler. We try to put the idea in his mind that he shouldn't even attempt an invasion—that if he does, he'll fail. We've done this once already—last month, on the Eve of May—and we'll try it again this Friday, which is the Summer Solstice. A third working is planned for Lammas, the first of August. That's where Drake comes in—and my problem."

  'The thing you aren't trained for?"

  Graham nodded. "It's traditional for these things to be done in threes, with the third usually being the most powerful. My superiors have decided that the Lammas working should involve a grand coven, to boost our power and increase the chance of actually getting through to Hitler. Everybody doesn't have to be in the same place for the actual working, but we do need to get the key leaders of the various groups to agree to do basically the same kind of thing at the same time."

  "I shouldn't think that would be too difficult," William said.

  "More difficult than one might think. I've been ordered to convene the grand coven, but the various leaders are very jealous of their own traditions and authority and see no reason why they should cooperate with someone else's man in black. Drake knew how to get around this problem. Unfortunately, I don't."

  William had been listening so raptly that the cigarette in his fingers had burned down almost to his knuckles. With an exclamation, he stubbed it out in the nearby ash tray and rubbed his fingers briskly. As he settled back in his chair and picked up his brandy again, he was very thoughtful.

  "There's something that doesn't make sense here," he said after a moment. "If it's actually possible to—to raise this kind of power—if magic really works—why not just kill Hitler and be done with it? Save everyone the trouble. Aren't witches supposed to be able to kill people?"

  Graham winced, almost instinctively glancing around the room.

  "I was afraid you'd ask that. Actually, I won't say it's impossible under the right circumstances, but the price can be dreadfully high, and one never knows whether such an act is in keeping with the overall plan. Direct murder is rarely a solution. It's—a little complicated to go into the ethics of the thing right now. Let's just say that changing someone's mind, their inclination, is generally easier and far safer than trying to change something in their body or environment to kill them.

  Besides, we know he has black adepts working to protect him from such direct attacks, like the fellow Sturm I told you about. What we're planning is indirect and may not be detected as a threat. That makes it far more likely to succeed."

  "I see. Or actually, I don't see," William replied. "My mind tells me you're speaking English, but I'm not certain I've understood more than two words you just said. But put that by the way for a moment. Back to Britain." He gestured with his glass. "If everybody is so keen to stop the invasion, why won't these chaps you've been approaching cooperate? I would assume, from what you've said, that they all do some form of—'white magic' If I understand that correctly, then they should be in favor of anything which would stop a chaotic force like Hitler."

  "So one would think," Graham agreed. "Unfortunately, they're frightened."

  "Frightened? Of what? Hitler's chaps? Do they think this Sturm fellow will strike back at them with his black magic?"

  Graham shook his head. "I doubt that even crosses their minds. Most of them don't even know he exists. Besides, as powerful as we suspect Sturm to be, even he would find it difficult to retaliate against individuals if they were all working toward a common goal.

  "No, fear of persecution is the key here, I think. They're afraid someone outside of their group will talk and their activities will become known. I know the thought has crossed my mind."

  William's jaw dropped.

  "But it isn't as if they burn witches and magicians anymore, Gray. This is the twentieth century."

  "Yes, and the stake is not the only place where one may bum," Graham returned a little sharply. "Under the best of circumstances, a modem occultist will probably be branded as an eccentric, if not a charlatan. The latter is what the law would say. Not everyone has as good a cover as I do. For most people, the reality is that discovery of one's occult connections can spell the end of one's social standing and even one's job. Remember what we discussed at Windsor? You had and still have the power to utterly destroy me, at least career-wise, even if you weren't who you are. Can you imagine Whitehall's reaction, for example, if you were to go to them with what I've just been telling you? Some of the others have as much or more to lose."

  "I hadn't thought of that," William said after a moment. "Back to this grand coven, though. What will happ>en if you can't get them to cooperate?"

  Graham shrugged and sighed. "We'll do the best we can, I suppose. There's a woman down in Hampshire who's been backing us all along. She has a large group, and they'll work with us. There are a few others we can count on. In the meantime, we're also working on a direct link to the Drake incident, to try to find out how he convened a grand coven. He must have had some way of ensuring that they would come, some way of putting out the call with sufficient authority."

  *That sounds promising. How can you find that out?"

  Graham hesitated. William's questions were getting a little too specific. Though he still seemed honestly receptive and not at all frightened or hostile, too m.uch information would serve neither his nor Graham's best interests.

  "Well, that's the tricky bit," Graham said slowly. "I—seem to have an affinity with Drake. Maybe I'm his reincarnation in this century, like Blake and Nelson before. In any case, I'll be doing a—it's rather like a hypnotic age regression, really. If it works, maybe I'll learn what Drake did. It wouldn't hurt to learn a little about his weather magic, either," he added with a grin, hoping to defuse some of the impact of what he had just said. "Bad weather, on top of everything else, could foul the most astute German invasion plans. You saw what the right weather did for Dunkirk."

  "Dunkirk?" William raised an astonished eyebrow. "You don't mean to say—"

  "Good heavens, no!" Graham laughed, grateful for the diversion. "I wish we did know such things. Our people have been accused of 'whisding up the wind' for centuries, but I suspect that actually they were just good at reading the early signs of already extant storms and such. It would have seemed like cause and effect to people who were already prepared to believe it could be done. Drake does seem to have done it, but I tend to believe he was an exception. I don't really expect anything to come of that part of my inquiry."

  William continued to look just a little dubious.

  "What—kinds of things are involved in finding out about the other?" he asked hesitantly. "If you can tell me, that is."

  "Well, we'll want—to collect some items that belonged to Drake, for their association value—things like t
hat. With any luck, we'll be doing the actual working at Buckland Abbey, down in Devonshire. That was Drake's estate, you know.' Graham lowered his eyes, running a fingertip idly along the rim of his glass. "This must all seem very strange to you. You must think I've gone quite ma*"

  "No. I only wish I knew how to help you."

  "Just listening helps," Graham replied with a smile. "Thank you."

  With a wistful shrug, William unstoppered the brandy decanter and poured them each another cognac, a wordless operation that yet carried a measure of thoughtful camaraderie. When he had finished, he sat back in his chair with a heavy sigh and gazed at the fireplace over the rim of his glass.

  "Is anything wrong?" Graham asked after a mom.ent when William did not speak.

  William shrugged. "Nothing that hasn't been for some time. I envy you, Gray. You're doing something useful, both in the Service and in this other—thing." He gestured with his glass. "And what do I do? The fifth wheel spins and does nothing. The extra prince smiles, shakes hands, inspects factories and troops, and makes the same dreary little speeches over and over. And none of it means a bloody damn!"

  He quickly drained his glass and poured another without looking at Graham, his face set in bleak isolation. Graham was stunned. Of all the reactions he had prepared for, he had not even dreamed of this one. William was slipping into one of his despondent moods again, unconvinced of his own worth and unaware how his mere existence made a difference—and not only to Graham.

  Could he not see that the inspection tours, the speeches, were just as important a part of the war effort as anything Graham was doing? Had he forgotten his actions at Dover? The people loved and revered their Royal Family with a fierce devotion that had not dim.inished over the centuries, even if most of them, including that family, did not remember the sacred ties with the past. William was a prince of the blood and a part of all that even if he did not know it. But how to convince him of that?

  "You don't see the meaning, do you?" he said quietly. "You really don't see how it all connects, even with what I'm doing."

  "Don't humor me," William muttered. "I'm not a child. You don't have to pretend. Spare me that, at least."

  "By God, I won't spare you!" Graham said softly, his eyes going cold as William looked up in surprise. "I'm tired of hearing you sell yourself short."

  William scowled and glanced away. "Now you are presuming on our friendship."

  "Indulge me, then. God knows, I don't ask that very often. You really don't think any of this touches you?"

  The prince shrugged and lit up another cigarette, a sullen expression making his face a mask. As Graham's eyes swept the stiff, immaculate figure, abruptly he knew the approach to take.

  "Very well," he said after a moment. "Tell me about that star you're wearing tonight—the one that doesn't match mine."

  William glanced down at his chest in automatic response, a look of confusion cracking the mask.

  "You mean my Garter star?"

  As Graham nodded, the prince sat back and peered at him oddly, already off balance.

  "Now you have gone daft."

  "Perhaps. Perhaps not. How much do you remember about the founding of the order?"

  William grimaced and rolled his eyes ceilingward. "Is this to be another of your improbable history lessons?"

  "If you don't wish to find out what I have to say, you have only to say so."

  When Graham said nothing more, William put aside his glass with an impatient sigh and made an elaborate show of tapping ash from his cigarette. When a response still was not forthcoming, he sighed again and inclined his head.

  "Very well. What about the order?"

  "Thank you," Graham said with a slight dip of his chin and the ghost of a smile. "Suppose you first give me a historical setting in which to place my tale. Tell me about the institution of the Order of the Garter."

  William took a deep drag on his cigarette and folded his arms across his chest as he glanced idly at the ceiling. "The order was founded by King Edward III in the mid fourteenth century after a lady dropped her garter at a court ball," he said as if reciting from rote. "To save her reputation, the King is supposed to have buckled it around his own leg and said, 'Honi soil qui mal y pense' —dishonoured be he who thinks evil of it—and that became the motto of the order which Edward formed shortly after that."

  He looked at Graham at last. "Why are you asking me this? You're surely not going to try to tell me there's something— what was your word?— esoteric about the Order of the Garter, are you?"

  "No, I just thought I'd ramble on about a totally unrelated subject." Graham relaxed a little and had another sip of cognac. "Are you aware, William, that a blue or a green garter was anciently the sign of leadership in the witch cult?"

  At the prince's surprised intake of breath, Graham continued smoothly. "I thought not. England was not Christianized as quickly or as completely as orthodox historians would have one think, you know. That's hardly surprising when one recalls that most literate men of those days were of the Christian clergy. It stands to reason that written history would have a decidedly Christian bias.

  'The matter of historical accuracy is not confined to religious matters, however," Graham went on. "The winners— the people in power—write the histories or have them written. Look at your much-maligned ancestor Richard III as just one example. If he'd won at Bos worth Field, I dare say the chronicles of his reign would have presented him in quite a different light. But since he lost to Henry Tudor, we have only the Tudor-told tales of what a terrible king he had been—the horrible hunchback uncle who murdered the little princes in the tower and all. If Thomas More and Shakespeare had been writing for Plantagenet patrons instead of Tudors..."

  William, who had been listening in astonishment as Graham spoke, recovered his previous skepticism with a blink and flicked ash from his cigarette with a sly grin.

  "You're digressing. Gray. Get back to the garters and the witches. This is very entertaining, but I don't think you can bring this one back on the track and make me believe it."

  "No? Let me tell you a little about the witch cult in England, then. You said you'd done some reading in the past week, but you obviously didn't do enough. In the Middle Ages, the old religion—paganism, if you will—was still flourishing among both the common people and certain of the nobility. The real cult, involving worship of the ancient gods and goddesses of Britain, had little to do with what later became the subject of the so-called witch hunts, A great deal of what came to be believed about the witches derived from the same sort of mentality that produced the Inquisition and the crusades against other kinds of heretics on the Continent: Cathars and Albigen-sians and even some remnants of Templar belief. As a Freemason, you're aware of that aspect of my story, I'm sure."

  "You're saying that Jacques de Molay and Geoffroi de Char-ney were witches." William said indulgently. "Do go on. This gets more fantastic by the second."

  Graham sighed patiently. "You're not listening, William. In France as well as in England, the ecclesiastical hierarchy was aware that the conversion to Christianity was incomplete, that paganism was flourishing side by side with orthodox Christianity. Officially, they did their best to discourage it.

  "But even the priests often managed to meld the two traditions into an acceptable blend without qualms. Many pagan customs were simply assimilated wholesale into Christianity. That same kind of synthesis was involved in the formation of the Order of the Garter."

  "Strange, I always thought it had been modeled on the court of King Arthur and his knights," William said archly.

  'That was one of the outward justifications," Graham agreed. "But let's look at the lost garter incident more closely. You didn't say whose garter it was, but that isn't particularly important, anyway—only that the lady was of very high rank at court. It could have been Philippa, Edward's queen, or the Countess of Salisbury. Or even the King's own cousin, Joan the Fair Maid of Kent, who later became Countess of Salisbury herself—
and Princess of Wales after that, as wife to the Black Prince. I tend to suspect it was Joan."

  "Go on, go on," William urged, gesturing with his hand.

  "I am. In any case, when as important a lady as any of those lost the garter of her pagan rank at a court function before the King and probably assorted ecclesiastical authorities, things could have gone very badly for her," Graham continued. "When Edward picked up that garter and buckled it around his leg with the immortal words, at very least he was taking her under his protection. He's also said to have mentioned something about making it 'the most honourable garter that ever was worn, e'er long'—though Edward may already have been aware of its significance, since he later asked his private secretary to look into the 'background and traditions of the Order of St. George and the Garter.' It makes little sense to have inquired about this unless there was an earlier significance to the garter, and Edward knew of it."

  William frowned. "You seem to know quite a lot about an order to which you don't even belong."

  "It's my business to know," Graham returned softly. "I told you I wasn't totally untrained. I've given you the more conservative interpretation of Edward's actions in picking up the lady's garter. Shall I suggest a broader one?"

  "Why not?" William smiled ruefully. "I don't believe a word of this, anyway."

  "I know you don't. Humor me just a little longer. If Edward was aware of the esoteric meaning of the garter, we might construe that, by his action, he was essentially acknowledging his own support of and possibly membership in the very cult signified by the garter—maybe even taking on the position of an incarnate god for his subjects who still followed the path of the divine king. He would have been neither the first nor the last of your illustrious ancestors to assume that role."

  "The divine king?" William interrupted. "Wait a moment. Are you saying that the idea of divine right came from—"

  "The very thing. Anciently—and by that I mean from the earliest tribal times—the king was the embodiment of the land and life-giving forces. As such, he had to remain strong and vigorous if the land was to prosper. It followed that as his strength waned—as he got old—it became necessary to replace the aging king with a new, younger vessel to carry the strength of the land.