None of the memories were pleasant. She lived through the sack of Troy, and the rape and murder of all those Trojans who had not managed to escape the Greeks.
She endured each violation, each death, as if it were dealt to her own body.
She endured through Ariadne’s Catastrophe, suffering along with the tens of thousands who were the Darkwitch’s victims.
She suffered with her mother, at the hands of Brutus, and then at those of her father, Asterion.
She despaired with all those who had been Asterion’s victims—the women he had raped, the men he had murdered (and, oh, gods, these included her own half-brothers, the sons of Cornelia and Brutus!), the children he had tortured and sodomised, the girls he had prostituted.
She suffered under her father’s hands every indignity, every vile nightmare, he had visited on other women.
She felt every stab, every hurt, every wrench to flesh and spirit and soul.
Grace knew what was happening. Catling was tormenting her in order to destroy her.
And Grace thought the only way she could survive this was to lose her sanity.
Today was one of the worst days for Jack, and, sitting here with a faraway Grace, he’d sunk into his deepest despair yet. He had picked up a copy of the Daily Express on the way to the hospital, and sat in the waiting room and read it while the nurses bathed Grace.
The paper reported on a speech Hitler had made yesterday. It included a translated transcript of the speech, and Hitler’s opening words made Jack’s blood run cold.
We are in the middle of a conflagration which is not just a struggle between two countries. It is the struggle of two different worlds. There is no way for these worlds to exist side by side. One of them must perish.
The struggle of two different worlds, for which there was no hope of existing side by side…Jack wondered who had sent this message, for no matter what Hitler himself may have thought, those words were put into his mouth by someone, or some thing, else.
A message from Catling? Why not? It would serve her purpose well enough, and the bearer even better.
But it might just as well have come from the Faerie…perhaps even from this mysterious White Queen.
No matter who had sent it, the words held no comfort.
The winter solstice was fast approaching, and Jack had no idea what to do. No matter what he and Noah (and Weyland and Ariadne and Silvius and the Lord of the Faerie) tried or investigated, no matter how hard anyone prayed or pleaded, there was no solution. No answer as to how they might destroy the Troy Game rather than complete it.
Catling had continued to escalate the terror on London (as Jack had no doubt she continued to escalate the horror for Grace). The nightly air raids on the capital and, increasingly, around all of Britain, became far worse. Tens of thousands perished in blast and fire and rubble. The Faerie suffered along with London. Huge patches of devastation had spread through the forests on the hills adjacent to The Naked, and many of the Faerie creatures were sickening.
Some were dying.
Jack and Noah either had to find a means to destroy the Troy Game, or they had to complete it. Otherwise, London, England, the Faerie and, likely, the entire world eventually, would turn to dust under Catling’s malevolence.
Jack was more sure than ever that Grace had the key; both the shadow and the diamond bands (and also the White Queen Cafe and its strange mistress) had vanished when Catling had taken Grace. Somehow Grace must have, or be, the key.
But Grace was gone, and her only way home was for him and Noah to do what no one wanted.
Complete the Troy Game.
Jack sat hopelessly in the annexe to St Bart’s and watched what remained of Grace, and despaired.
“Grace, Grace,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, but it is the only way I know to save you.”
TWO
December, 1940
GRACE SPEAKS
I was losing touch with reality, and with my sanity. I was caught within a maelstrom of hate and spite which forced me to endure every sin committed by all those I had ever loved—my parents, Jack, Harry, Matilda, Stella—as well as, so it felt to me, the sins of the rest of humanity. The memories, the horrific actualities, overwhelmed me, and I thought that the only way I could survive the memories, the rapes, the murders, the injustices, if not to lose all sanity, was to succumb to a vicious hatred of everyone I loved.
Catling’s malevolence tossed me hither and thither, and as every moment passed I felt myself sliding closer and closer to utter desolation. I had no rest, no comfort. Who were these people? How was it I could ever have thought to love them? They were vile, disgusting, and the damage they had caused to each other, and to all the innocents whose lives they touched, and to my life, was so gigantic it was completely unforgivable.
Amid this maelstrom of hatred, that cold-faced bitch intruded.
So what do you think, sweet Grace, of your inheritance?
I tried to close my ears, but it was no use.
These are difficult experiences for you to endure, eh?
I wept and struggled, but she wouldn’t leave me be. She drifted nearer, her terrible white face close to mine.
Why don’t you talk to me, Grace? I’m here to help, you know.
I flailed out at her, but she wouldn’t go, and I was so lost. No one would come for me, no one could aid me. I was here, in this not-quite-death, caught in Catling’s torment, and I could do nothing about it.
Grace?
“Let me be!” I shouted at her. “What purpose does this serve?”
None, I grant you, save to torment you.
“You cow!” I yelled, furious now, not caring that I sounded like a petulant child (couldn’t I find something more appropriate than “cow”?) and Catling just laughed.
Anger is good, Grace. You should use it more.
The memories took over, and for the longest time I did not resist. I saw Jack, as Brutus, rape my mother and then torment her for decades, with silent horror. I felt it. I endured it. My half-brothers…I saw them in life, with their wives, their children, and I saw them die, tormented by my father.
I wept.
Family is important, Grace. It is good that you weep for them.
Why wouldn’t she leave me alone? Didn’t she have anything better to do?
I watched as the man I knew as Harry, the Lord of the Faerie, lived a life as Harold of Wessex in Saxon times. I saw his love for Swanne, now Stella, and saw her turn against him, betray him, murder him.
Please, please, Catling, let me sleep.
Don’t call me that.
I didn’t care what word games she used with me. I just didn’t care. Leave me alone, Catling. I am sick of you.
And I am sick of you! I shall leave you alone for a while, and let you ponder your misfortune. When you’re ready, call me.
She left, and I was glad.
The assault of images and sound and horror continued. I fell into the life of a boy called Melanthus, a boy my mother had once thought to love, a boy that Brutus, my beloved Jack, had murdered.
Would I never stop weeping?
THREE
Copt Hall
Friday, 13th December, 1940
They sat in a group about the fire in Jack’s drawing room, a heavy, tense silence hanging between them. Noah and Weyland had come straight from St Bart’s, followed shortly thereafter by Ariadne and Silvius, then by the Lord of the Faerie. Stella had remained within the Faerie to carol in the dusk. Separated from those around the fire, Malcolm stood in gloomy silence by the door to the hall, hands folded before him, his eyes unblinkingly on Jack.
Jack was getting sick of Malcolm’s silent regard, and everyone else’s silent tension.
“For Christ’s sake,” he said, “there must be something…”
“What?” said Weyland. “Something to do? Something to say? Something to hope for?”
Over the past few weeks Catling had tightened her grip over the land, and throughout the Faerie. Winter had come early, and had deepened into a forbidding iciness across the country.
Snow had fallen in the Faerie, for the first time.
The Lord of the Faerie told them that trees, even on undamaged hills, were dying, and there were some creatures—the cavelings, the sylphs—that no one had heard from or seen in months.
The bombing continued, with the Luftwaffe campaign of terror and destruction now spread across Britain.
Complete me or extend the suffering, was the uncompromising message from the Troy Game.
Jack thought he was going mad. His mornings spent with Grace trapped him in a never-ending downward spiral of despair and guilt, while the everworsening bombing campaign and the Lord of the Faerie’s news merely deepened both despair and guilt.