Noah reached out a hand and laid it gently against Grace’s cheek. “Gods’ damn it,” she said softly, “I wish I could protect you.” Her mouth gave a rueful quirk. “But I know I can’t, and I know I’ve tried too hard to shelter you. Fly off with my blessing, Grace, but don’t ask me to stop worrying about you.”
Then she looked back to Jack. “And remember always that she is my daughter, Jack, and that I love her above anything else. Don’t hurt her, please don’t hurt her.”
Then, before either Jack or Grace could respond, Noah turned and walked back inside.
They watched her go, waited until the door closed behind her, then lapsed into a momentarily awkward silence.
“Noah has a highly uncomfortable way of talking truth,” said Jack. “I have a terrible reputation with women, Grace—”
“I trust you, Jack.”
“Surely Matilda and Ecub have told you some terrible tales.”
“I trust you, Jack.”
I’m not too sure I trust myself, Jack thought, keeping the thought from Grace.
“Shit,” he muttered, “I’ve been doing this for at least three thousand years. You’d think I’d be a bit better at it by now.”
“Jack?”
He reached out a hand and cupped her face, then leaned forward and kissed her very softly, very quietly.
Grace’s mouth twitched. “That’s all you’ve learned in three thousand years?”
He laughed, once again taken by surprise by her sense of humour. “Grace Orr, I am very much going to enjoy getting to know you.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, now that you’ve had what you wanted from me.” Once again, rich humour ran through her voice.
“I said, Grace, that there were four reasons I wanted to get to know you better, and the fact you carried the four bands within your flesh was the fourth and least of those reasons.”
She held his eyes easily, but when she spoke, it was to change the subject, and Jack realised that this getting-to-know-her process would necessarily be done slowly.
Surprisingly, for a man who had once been Brutus, the thought caused him no impatience at all.
“Why did you call Malcolm ‘Prasutagus’?” Grace said.
“Do you know the name?” “It is familiar, but I don’t know why.” “King Prasutagus was Boudicca’s husband.” Her eyes widened. “Malcolm is Prasutagus?” “Aye. It is why he came to me at Copt Hall.” Grace frowned. “I don’t understand.” “You don’t know the legend of Boudicca?” “I’ve heard of it, yes. But the details? No.” Jack leaned back against the wall of the house, folding his arms. “Boudicca and her army faced the Romans in Epping Forest. Ambersbury Banks was her last stand. She lost, and some sixty thousand of her soldiers died on the ancient fort.”
Grace’s mouth dropped open, but Jack continued before she could say anything. “Boudicca survived the slaughter and fled, the Romans harrying at her heels. She went to the site of Copt Hall, and there, with her daughters, took poison. Both Ambersbury Banks and Copt Hall are important sites for Prasutagus. He’s not merely a king, Grace, but a powerful druid as well.”
“Ah, then no wonder the druidic magic that surrounds Copt Hall and Ambersbury Banks. Why is he back, Jack?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. I sense he is trustworthy, and that he is for the land, but Malcolm—Prasutagus—is none too forthcoming when asked a direct question.”
“Why did you call him Prasutagus today?”
Jack hesitated a little before replying. “Because I wanted him to hand me those bands in his capacity as a druid, not a servant.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted those bands to be as special as possible.” Because I wanted them infused with druidic power.
She took a deep breath, her eyes bright with emotion.
Jack could see she was struggling to find the right words to say, so he slipped his arm about her back and pulled her to him gently. “Just dance with me, here on the terrace, with no one to witness but the stars and the trees.”
“Tell me you know where you’re going, Jack.”
He knew she referred to so much with that question.
“Grace,” he said very quietly, resting his cheek against her curls as they started to dance slowly about the terrace, “I will go wherever you lead.”
FOUR
The Otherworld
Monday, 23rd September 1940
“Well, Jack, are you ready?” Jack stood with the Lord of the Faerie at the summit of The Naked, dressed as he had been the previous day atop Ambersbury Banks, in his white linen wrap. He felt very calm, and curiously detached. He’d been worried about the first four bands—could Grace truly do it?—but these…these would be easy. The Lord of the Faerie was so powerful that not even a trip into the Otherworld would tax him. The bands were an hour away at best.
“You’re sure you remember where you left them?” he said. When the Lord of the Faerie had been merely Harold of Wessex, Coel-reborn, he’d taken the remaining two bands, the leg bands, into the Otherworld at the time of his death in order to keep them safe.
“Of course. Are you sure you can handle the power?”
Jack grinned. That final comment had been pure Coel. He raised his arms, crossing them over in front of him and running his hands over the bands on his biceps and upper forearms. “Are you afraid of what I might do with the power?”
The Lord of the Faerie laughed. “Aye, indeed I am. Tell me, Jack, do you feel different?”
“Every breath feels sweeter, Coel. The sun shines more warmly. I feel complete. Almost.”
Jack had not slept at all the previous night. Instead he’d lain awake, feeling the four golden bands with every sense that he had. They felt so right. They felt as if they had never been away. And, aye, he did feel almost complete. In the past twenty-four hours his every sense had sharpened: those he commanded as a man, as a Kingman, and as Ringwalker, god of the forests. He felt as if he understood more, and when he thought on the shadow over London, then its truth seemed so close, as if all he needed to do was reach out and grab it…
Those final two bands, and he’d have the truth, once and for all.
Another hour, and his path ahead would be clear.
“Let’s go,” he said to the Lord of the Faerie.
They stepped off The Naked and directly onto the road for the Otherworld. Jack was awed by Coel’s power; Jack could not have done this so easily.
The road stretched out before them, a faint track through a grassy field.
Jack looked about curiously. This wasn’t the first time he’d travelled the road into the Otherworld—he’d died as Brutus and as William—but this roadway was different from either of the two roads he’d taken before.
“The road is different each time and for each person,” said the Lord of the Faerie, who walked a half pace ahead of Jack. “For us, now, it will be short. We have not come to stay, but only to visit.”
“We won’t go entirely into the Otherworld?”
“No.”
“But then how will you find the bands?”
The Lord of the Faerie grinned a little at the anxiety in Jack’s voice. “I gave them to someone who has kept them safe. He knows we’re on our way and will meet us at the border. With the bands.”
“Who did you give them to?”
The Lord of the Faerie nodded ahead. “Him.”
Jack looked forward. There was a faint line of trees in the distance, and he could just make out the shape of a man standing beneath them.
As they neared, the man stepped forward into the open, and Jack saw that the man had shoulder-length black curly hair, and wore the costume of an Aegean prince.
“Do you recognise him, Jack?” the Lord of the Faerie said.
Jack nodded. “Oh, aye,” he said softly.
When they got to the man they halted, and Jack bowed slightly. “Greetings, Aeneas,” he said. Aeneas, his forefather, son of Aphrodite and a prince of Troy.
Aeneas stared a long moment at Jack, then he stepped forward, put his hands on Jack’s shoulders, and kissed him on each cheek.
“Greetings to you, Brutus. I have been watching you, off and on, for all these years.”
Jack grimaced. “It must not have been pretty viewing.”
Aeneas grinned. The Lord of the Faerie thought that he looked strikingly similar to Jack, although his forehead was broader and his nose blunter.
“None of us lived pretty lives, Brutus,” Aeneas said. “You have been no worse than any of your line.”
“Not even in re-creating the Troy Game,” said Jack, “in such a vile form that—”
“Brutus,” Aeneas said, “the Troy Game was always vile. What do you think destroyed Troy?”
Jack stared, shocked.
“It wasn’t the Greeks,” said Aeneas. “Not at the final count. Our Game, she who was supposed to protect us, decided she wanted to destroy the city of Troy and all who lived in it.”