Always he paused by St Thomas’ Chapel, sometimes to enter for a few minutes’ prayer, sometimes to stand on the bridge staring at the skyline before him, and sometimes to pass the time of day with a small black-haired girl who would wait for him in the shadows of the chapel.
Wren had come to accept, somewhat grudgingly, the presence of this odd little girl in his life. They shared an interest in the rebuilding of London, but they did not share a friendship. For a little girl, she was strangely knowledgeable, supernaturally knowledgeable, and Wren knew that she was far more than just a “little girl”. Exactly what more she was Wren did not like to contemplate.
The Great Fire had razed London to the ground and, in the doing, exposed ancient plague pits and burial grounds. Sometimes, in his nightmares, Wren saw the little girl climbing out of one of these exposed pits where she’d been buried for a millennia or more. He would have liked to have been able to avoid her completely, but Wren needed the girl.
As an assistant she was utterly extraordinary.
Every time Wren thought a problem unsolvable, the girl had the answer.
Every time he thought he’d go insane with his workload, he’d rise one morning to find architectural plans finished and a detailed list of design ideas to one side for whatever new project had been sent his way.
Every time Wren thought he had no ideas left, then he’d have a brief chat to the girl and, suddenly, inspiration struck.
Her input was invaluable. She had interest in the strangest of things: this church, that warehouse, this wharf. Whenever Wren saw her waiting for him, he knew that she would have a new suggestion for him. Perhaps she might suggest he realign a hospital or house he was designing, just slightly. Maybe she would suggest the height of a chimney stack, or the orientation of windows. Possibly this steeple could be realigned, just a fraction, to match the angle of a street than ran alongside it.
The only building the girl was no help with whatsoever was St Paul’s.
“St Paul’s is none of my concern,” she told him once, when he’d asked. “It is a foreign land to me, and I am not welcome there.”
While St Paul’s may not have interested her, the small girl did have a lively interest in the church of St Dunstan’s-in-the-East. One morning in early 1670 Wren was crossing the bridge when he saw the girl waiting for him.
He was not surprised, for in his leather satchel he had the plans for the new spire of St Dunstan’s.
“Well?” The girl stepped forward, her eyes bright. She’d been badgering him for weeks to see this design. She’d made several suggestions as soon as she heard Wren had been commissioned to rebuild the spire, but out of sheer bloody-mindedness Wren had not yet shown her his final design.
For a moment Wren did not respond. Then he sighed, and pulled a rolled-up piece of paper from his satchel.
Before he could speak, the girl snatched the paper from Wren’s hands, and unrolled it. Her eyes brightened as they ran over the design. “It is very beautiful,” she said.
“Very different from my other spires.”
“And there are stairs?”
“Yes.” Wren turned the paper over. “Here. See?”
The little girl drew in a deep breath, then she nodded, and handed the plans back to Wren.
“It is very fine,” she said. “Thank you.”
Wren rolled up the paper, regarding her quizzically. “Why is St Dunstan’s-in-the-East so important to you?”
“It will be a tomb one day, Mister Wren, and I wanted it to be an especially fine one.”
“A tomb?” Wren suppressed a shudder. “Why the stairs, then?”
The girl smiled, the expression so cold Wren actually took a step back. “Because every tomb needs a way out, don’t you think?”
ONE
The Faerie, and Ambersbury Banks
Sunday, 22nd September 1940
Epping Forest lay quiet and still under the warm sun. Pollen motes danced in the shafts of sunshine lancing down through the forest canopy, and the leaves of the trees stirred gently, turned by the warmth of the air rather than by any breeze. It was a quiet, still, warm September day.
Several score cyclists, hikers and horse-riders made the most of the warmth, moving languidly along the forest paths. Some of them approached Ambersbury Banks, thinking either to partake of a picnic lunch atop its rise, or to take in the view, but without fail every one turned back when they approached within a hundred yards or so of the Banks.
They suddenly thought of something better to do, or a movement to their flank distracted them, or they abruptly remembered they should be turning for home, right now.
The mortal world left Ambersbury Banks well alone on Sunday the twenty-second of September 1940.
The ancient battlefield and pagan centre of worship was shrouded with druidic magic. Here the shafts of sunlight were wider and brighter and more numerous, so that the summit of Ambersbury appeared as if bathed in a golden, dancing waterfall.
The woodbound altar stone gleamed and, periodically, shafts of sunlight refracted off the stone and shot silver and gold splinters of light back into the treetops.
Figures moved slowly about the edges of the summit. Members of the Faerie, gods and those once-mortals who had been entangled in the machinations of the Troy Game had gathered here to witness, finally, the handing back to the Kingman, to Ringwalker, four of the golden kingship bands of Troy.
The gathering consisted of Sidlesaghes, water sprites, many of the forest deer, as well as Noah, Weyland, Eaving’s Sisters, the Caroller (who stood slightly apart from Eaving’s Sisters), Malcolm (who had a briefcase sitting on the ground several feet behind him) and Silvius. They stood in a rough circle about the central altar where waited Jack Skelton—Ringwalker.
Jack was dressed in the white linen hipwrap he’d once worn as Brutus, bound with a scarlet and gold corded waistband. As Brutus, Jack had worn sandals, but now his feet were bare so that he might keep constant contact with the land.
Across his shoulders, the markings of the Stag God appeared very dark. Occasionally they became a little indistinct, as if they quivered.
As Jack waited, he walked slowly about the altar stone, keeping his eyes averted from all the watchers. He felt peaceful and still, a state of being he’d never enjoyed as Brutus, or as William, or as Louis. Everything about the day felt right. Today four of the kingship bands would return to his flesh, a homecoming for which he’d been aching for over three thousand years.
And yet all he felt was stillness and peace, and a sense of such wellbeing and warmth, both physical and
spiritual, that Jack thought he could wait here for hours (days, months, years) and still not fret.
Jack understood that this sense of peace and wellbeing and stillness had very little to do with the knowledge that within an hour or less four of the bands would be his once again. Instead, it had everything to do with Grace. He knew that if it had been Noah who was to hand the bands to him, he would be feeling anxious and impatient, and would have spent this time pacing up and down wondering what else Noah might possibly do to upset him, to hinder, to create chaos.
From the moment he’d first met her as Cornelia, Noah had brought nothing but disarray and disharmony to his life. Oh, there had been joy and love as well, but those had been such fleeting moments, they’d been all but lost within the turmoil.
Grace was the temple bell, ringing out amid the disorder.
Jack stopped his slow wandering about the altar stone. He stood still, centred in a broad shaft of sunlight, struck by the realisation that Grace meant very much more to him than just a perfect, harmonious match of power, or a desirable woman. She was what he had always lacked in a long series of tumultuous lives—his keystone. A kernel of peace to which he could always return.
At that very moment Grace appeared at the edge of the summit. Ariadne—who had spent this past hour preparing Grace for the ritual—stood just behind her.
Grace was dressed as a Mistress of the Labyrinth, wearing a long white linen skirt, bound at her waist with a match to Jack’s scarlet and gold waistband. Her breasts were bare of any covering, her limbs of any jewellery, her short curls brushed loose and free.
“Grace,” Jack said.
She walked towards him, slowly, gracefully, and if she was nervous then she did not show it. She came to within a pace of him, her eyes direct on his, then halted.
Jack could not believe how composed and how lovely Grace looked. She was still a little too thin, but held herself with enough poise that it did not detract from her overall loveliness.