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 berated 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.”
“But why keep herself away from me?” Noah muttered.
Grace glanced imploringly at Jack.
“Noah,” Jack said, very gently, “we have only just learned of the White Queen, and none of us really knows what she truly wants. We know the potential for a new Game exists, we know that it has the capacity to destroy Catling, but we don’t know how. Grace says this is a Game such as none of us have seen before. I don’t think your daughter is snubbing you, or punishing you—gods alone know she has no reason to want that or to feel resentful towards a mother who loved her so greatly—but I think she is revealing herself only in snatches and only as the need dictates. All of us are brimming with questions, Grace and me included, and I think all of us are going to have to be patient for the answers.
“Grace needs to regain her strength,” Jack continued. “We can do little until that happens. Then she and I need to discover what this Game is about, what its purpose is, how it can be used to destroy the Troy Game without destroying Grace at the same time.”
“Wait,” said Weyland, “haven’t you forgotten something? The imps? Their murders? What kind of Game is this that relies on blood?”
Jack and Grace exchanged another glance.
“We have not forgotten, Weyland,” Jack said. “Grace and I approach the White Queen and this Game with the utmost wariness. We still don’t know the connection between the Shadow Game, the imps, and the murders. We will find out all we can about this Game before we touch it.”
“And how to do that?” said Silvius. “I remember how, when you’d first become aware of the shadow, and aware of its labyrinthine nature, you thought it would take years to walk it out, to discover its extent. Does that still hold true, or has the White Queen given Grace some clue?”
“Oh, aye,” said Grace, a rueful expression on her face, “she showed me clues as visions while I lay unconscious in St Bart’s. However, those visions were so fragmentary, and there is so much I don’t recall. But there was something…”
Silvius, along with most others, raised his eyebrows.
“She showed me a tall, thin man, crawling about crypts and ancient byways of London. He was dressed in the manner of a late Georgian gentleman. I do not know his name…but I remember seeing him arguing with a typesetter over the title of a book he had written.”
“And?” said Stella.
“Londina Illustrata,” said Grace. “The book was called Londina Illustrata.”
“Then all we need to do, or all that Grace and Jack need to do,” said Silvius, “is discover the book, and perhaps all of the White Queen’s secrets shall be revealed. How hard can that be?”
TWO
Copt Hall
January-February 1941
GRACE SPEAKS
Alittle harder than it sounded, as it transpired, but at least Jack and I could bury our disquiet about the White Queen by hunting for the book. After all, what harm could a book do?