I drew back a little, just a little, but not far enough, for he merely closed the distance between us and continued the kiss, deepening it a little.
Eventually I managed to draw back enough to break the contact. Gods, what was I doing?
The answer to that didn’t bear thinking about.
He smiled a little, and way too intimately.
“Perhaps we should get back to the house,” I said.
He didn’t move. “I can scarcely believe that you will fetch those bands for me willingly. For years you’ve hidden them from me, and refused me access.”
I was still so befuddled by the kiss, and so confused by my own reaction to it, I wondered if he was talking about the bands…or something else.
“And you will just fetch them from the Faerie for me? Whenever I ask?”
Just the kingship bands, then. “Of course,” I said. “Whenever you ask.”
Again he gave me that odd look he had given me earlier when we’d talked about the bands.
“Jack,” I said, “I’m sorry that I kept them from you all these years. You know I had reason enough.”
He gave one of those infuriating slight shrugs. “I know you thought to have reason.”
I was about to snap, but he spoke before I could manage it. “And they’re in the Faerie?”
“Of course they are, save the two I sent into the Otherworld.”
And yet again, one of those strange looks.
“Jack?”
He smiled then, easy and relaxed, and changed the subject. “Have I mentioned today how beautiful you are?”
“Jack, don’t.”
He reached out a hand, and ran his fingers softly down the side of my face.
“Are you sure I can’t win you away from Weyland?”
“Jack…”
He turned his face then, staring back to the hall. “Catling has retreated,” he said, “and Grace’s pain has faded. We should go back.”
I was disappointed at his words, yet at the same time relieved. Yes, we should go back.
Back to Grace.
I sighed.
Part Two
GRACE
London, 1014
For scores of years the Danes and Norwegians had fought the Anglo-Saxons for control of England. First an Anglo-Saxon king sat the throne, then a Dane, then a Norwegian, and always there was yet another contender sailing up the Thames to launch an assault on London in order to gain the throne.
In 1014 the English King Aethelred, aided by the Norwegian King Olaf, made a desperate assault on London, trying to wrench it away from the Danes, who had seized the city and elected Cnut to the throne of England. The Danes had fortified the city well, constructing bulwarks and ditches in Southwark, reinforcing their castle on the site where the Tower of London now stands, and barricading the wooden bridge which straddled the Thames between London and Southwark.
By evening of the day of the attack the battle had reached its most desperate. Neither Aethelred nor Olaf could manage to breach the defences at either the castle on the northern bank of the river, or the defences on the southern bank at Southwark.
Olaf, an experienced Norse warrior, didn’t know what to try next. His men were nearing exhaustion, the Danish defenders appeared to have limitless supplies of ammunition as well as men, and it seemed to him that they would be beaten back to a humiliating defeat by star rise.
Olaf! Olaf!
Olaf was standing in the belly of one of his warships, gazing in frustration upriver to the bridge, when he heard his name being called.
He frowned, looking around the boat. It was filled with Norse warriors, and yet that voice had sounded as if it had come from the throat of a small girl.
A movement on the south bank of the river caught his attention.
The bank was far distant, but Olaf found he could see as clearly as if the bank was no more than ten feet away.
A small girl, five or six years old, stood there. She had long black curly hair, the whitest face imaginable, and was dressed in a dark gown of what, to Olaf, looked like a most expensive and exotic material.
Then, suddenly, the little girl was standing beside him in the belly of the ship, and Olaf made a sign against evil, knowing he stood in the presence of a malignant spirit.
“Do you want to win this city or not?” said the girl-spirit. “Yes? Then set aside your fear of me. Listen to me, Olaf, and hear how you can take this city from the Danes.”
Four hours later, under cover of full dark, Olaf directed his fleet of fifteen warships upriver towards the bridge. As soon as they came within range of the bridge, the Danes cast down spears and arrows and great stones, but they bounced harmlessly off Olaf’s ships, for Olaf had taken the spirit’s advice and fixed thick screens of woven hazel over and around his ships.
Once at the bridge, Olaf’s men worked quickly, casting strong cables around the piles of the bridge. As they moved out from under the cover of the hazel screens many were struck by missiles and fell into the river, but within minutes the cables were secured, and Olaf screamed at his men to row back downstream.
It took less than three minutes for the piles to give way. The bridge collapsed into the river, taking with it thousands of Danish warriors. Those that didn’t fall into the river fled into London, or into Southwark.
Aethelred and Olaf then set their warriors against the bulwarks and fortifications in a renewed assault. The loss of the bridge, and the thousands of Danes who had been crowded upon it, had broken the nerve of those Danes left, and by dawn London belonged to Olaf and Aethelred.
Once the city was secured, the Norwegians and the English set to feasting. Great quantities of drink and food were consumed and, as part of the celebrations, a Norse wit by the name of Ottar composed a short verse to celebrate the critical moment which had won the day.
London Bridge is broken down. Gold is won, and bright renown, Shields resounding, War-horns sounding, Hildur shouting in the din! Arrows singing, Mailcoats ringing, London Bridge is broken down! London Bridge is broken down!
In her dark corner of existence, the little girl did not even raise a smile at the drunken revelry. There had been only one thing she’d wanted, and that was to destroy London Bridge.
“London Bridge is fallen down!” she whispered. “London Bridge is fallen down!
“Now, let us rebuild it to what I want.”
ONE
Copt Hall
Thursday, 7th September 1939
GRACE SPEAKS
All my life, so it seems to me, has been spent watching everyone about me Waiting For Jack. It was like a parlour game that we all played whenever we had nothing else to do. When there was a lull in a conversation, whenever thumbs began to twiddle, if a book grew boring or an afternoon stretched ahead without a single amusement ready to fill the empty hours, then we played Waiting For Jack.
All my life. For almost three hundred years. Waiting For Jack. His name changed occasionally, of course. In my early years it was Waiting For Louis, or sometimes Waiting For Ringwalker. Occasionally someone would forget themselves entirely and play Waiting For Brutus. Life held its breath, Waiting For Jack.
It was a torment. Much of my life was a torment, but most particularly the Waiting For Jack part of it. I was the only one who didn’t know him. Everyone else had an opinion and, more importantly, a long history with this mythical creature. My mother had loved Jack, and had then abandoned him for my father. My father had spent the greater part of his life hating him, and then the remainder of it terrified that Jack would somehow snatch my mother back. Harry was Jack’s friend, but that friendship was based on a peculiar mix of shared murder, women and ambition, and I had never pretended to understand it. Stella had been Jack’s lover and (most importantly) his partner in building the Troy Game, Matilda had been his wife, Silvius his father, Ecub and Erith his lovers as well, while Walter had simply existed, so far as I could tell, on a diet of unrelieved dislike for Jack…which was a breath of fresh air amid all the other shared histories of love and betrayals.
Everyone waited for Jack, everyone knew Jack, and I was the only one so completely excluded from all this history that I had no idea at all what to expect, or what to wait for.
Jack assumed almost mythic proportions in the time he was gone. This wasn’t just in my mind, but in everyone else’s as well. The Troy Game dominated our lives completely—whenever people weren’t playing Waiting For Jack then they were playing What Can We Do About The Troy Game. No one could get on with their lives until something was done about the Troy Game, and it appeared that the only person who knew what to do about the Troy Game was Jack.