Lammas Night (26 page)

William felt a little initial awkwardness with Richard and Geoffrey when he first returned to the flying boat, but that soon evaporated in the face of the two younger men's good spirits and obvious warmth toward him. He could not put a finger on the reason for it, but he decided not to question it. Somehow he felt far less the outsider among them today, though they still deferred to his rank with respect and careful courtesy.

As soon as they were airborne, he was again invited forward to occupy the second pilot's chair for the duration of the flight. To his unexpected pleasure, they spent the next half hour in good-natured bantering, as if the night before had not occurred—or perhaps because it had, he later realized. When, just before landing, Geoffrey hesitantly invited him to join them for lunch at their officers' mess, he never even thought of declining.

After lunch, the two took him on an informal tour of their base—an activity for which he ordinarily would not have been able to muster much enthusiasm, seeing more than his fill of such tours in the course of his more usual duties—but somehow this was different. Wherever he went, his presence seemed not only well received but actively appreciated by officers and men alike. He stayed far later than he had planned, but he found he was oddly reluctant to leave these men who were so intimately connected with the world he had glimpsed the night before—though neither of them spoke a word about it.

He thought more about the previous night on the way to the train station, and on a whim asked Wells to check the departure schedule from Winchester, twelve miles farther north on the line. When he found that it was possible to connect with a London train at seven, he asked their driver to take them there instead. He had never seen the cathedral, and it seemed a shame not to stop, since they were so close and had the time. His own staff seemed a little surprised, but their plucky WRNS driver headed north without a word of comment.

Dusk was falling and Evensong halfway done by the time they reached the cathedral. He left Griffin with the car and driver—and would have left Wells, except that the aide would have been scandalized at the thought of his royal master entering so public a place unattended—then slipped quietly through a side door and along the dim south aisle. The choir was singing the Creed.

A verger started to intercept them, for visitors were discouraged from wandering about the cathedral during services, but when the man saw Wells's staff aiguillette and got a closer look at William, he bowed and quietly ushered them to seats in the back of the south choir stalls. William and his aide were not the only men in uniform in the rows behind the choir boys, so they were able to blend into the shadows without arousing undue interest as the sung
Amen
faded away in the stillness and everyone knelt for the Lord's Prayer. William bowed his head and half covered his eyes with one hand as he slipped to his knees, glad for the dimness and the anonymity it afforded. After a few seconds, he was not even as keenly aware of Wells kneeling in the stall beside him.

He was not sure why he had decided to come. It was true that he had never been to Winchester before, but that never would have mattered in the past. Though he regarded himself as a reasonably religious man, he had never thought of cathedrals as being much different from one another except in architectural terms. Winchester's difference lay in the fact that William Rufus was buried here. He had known that before, but somehow it was a more important consideration after last night's conversation with Gray.

It was not so much what Gray had said but what he had not said that sparked William's interest. William had the distinct impression that Gray had been evasive, that he had not told all he had seen of the redheaded Norman king. Gray had wept while in his trance—something William had never seen him do even when his wife died. It was so astonishing that William had not even dared to ask about it.

Had he wept for Rufus? Had he perhaps
been
Rufus and seen and experienced his own death in that New Forest hunting mishap? William was not at all sure he believed that Rufus had been some sort of pagan sacrifice, but the death certainly had occurred. Could Gray have seen a glimpse of that?

The officiating minister stood, and all eyes turned toward him as he sang alone, only his face and hands illuminated by the dim reading lamp on the prayer desk before him.

“O Lord, shew thy mercy upon us.”

“And grant us thy salvation,” the choir answered.

“O Lord, save the King.”

“And mercifully hear us when we call upon thee.”

The litany continued, sung back and forth between minister and choir, and William let his thoughts wander again, eyes searching the cathedral.

The cathedral was beautiful. The graceful sweeps of carved wood and stone gave his heart joy. He liked the very feel of the place—the smells, the spaciousness of soaring arches, the lush resonance of voices raised in prayer as they had been for at least a thousand years.

He studied the play of lamplight on the tracery of choir stalls, screen, and pulpit while a part of him listened. Turning his gaze upward, he drank in the colonnades and fan vaulting, though the great windows were boarded up because of the blackout and the glass removed to preserve it. Color remained in the choristers' cassocks and surplices, however: subdued splashes of crimson and white against the age-worn patina of the stalls, and the glow of the reading lamps reflecting off snowy linen and polished brass fittings.

“Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord,” the minister intoned, “and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night. For the love of thy only Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.”

The people sat. The choir stood to sing the evening's anthem. William listened attentively for the first few bars, easing to one side in his seat so that the deep framing of the stall kept his face in shadow, but the young voices gradually encouraged his thoughts to wander again, lulling him into some other dimension.

Just ahead of him, down at the level of the choir floor, his eyes came to rest on a scarred black tomb slab, slightly peaked along its length and resting on a base of creamish stone like that of the floor paving. It looked very old, and he wondered idly whether it might be William Rufus's resting place. High on the stone screens farther to his right, he could just make out several painted mortuary chests, but he thought they were from an earlier time. He remembered reading once that they contained the bones of early Saxon kings and queens and bishops.

He wondered who they were and whether all of them had followed the Christian faith—what it might have been like to be alive in a time when the two faiths had walked side by side. Was it really possible that they still did?

He was jarred back to the order of the service by the minister's call for prayer for the King's Majesty, and he slid dutifully back to his knees.

“With thy favour to behold our most gracious Sovereign Lord, King George,” the minister recited, “and so replenish him with the grace of the Holy Spirit that he may always incline to thy will, and walk in thy way. Endue him plenteously with heavenly gifts. Grant him in health and wealth long to live. Strengthen him that he may vanquish and overcome all his enemies, and finally after this life he may attain everlasting joy and felicity. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

William lost the thread of the set prayers for the rest of the Royal Family and clergy even though he knew he was included in them, if not by name. Now he was remembering his family in his own way: proud Mama, alone now, with Papa gone; Bertie and his beloved Elizabeth and the two adored nieces, Lilibet and Margaret Rose; his sister Mary and her husband and sons, and Harry and Georgie and all their families—and his brother John, who had died when they were thirteen; and especially the exiled David, who had been so kind to him as a boy, and given up his crown, and might as well be dead.…

By the time he had prayed for them all, the service was ending. The choir and ministers filed out through the choir doorway, followed by a more random trickle of laymen and women who had attended the service, civilian and Forces. William remained kneeling, his face partially covered with one hand in hopes that no one would disturb him, but after a moment, the verger appeared in the choir doorway with an older man he thought was the minister who had led the service.

William sighed and stood as the two men hesitantly started toward him, putting on one of his more approachable demeanors. If he could manage it without seeming too awkward, he wanted a few minutes alone with Rufus's tomb before he left—though at this point, he was not even certain he had identified it correctly.

“Sir, would you rather be left alone?” Wells murmured, rising to stand beside him.

“No, it's all right.”

William moved down into the choir and nodded toward the two clergymen, inviting their further approach with a smile.

“Your Royal Highness?” the verger said tentatively.

“Good evening. I hope I haven't intruded.”

“Certainly not, sir. It's an honor to have you here. May I present Canon Thompson, our minister this evening, who wished to pay his respects?”

“Your Royal Highness. We are most honored by your visit. May I or one of the vergers show you anything of particular interest?”

“Thank you, no. I see that you're about to lock up for the night, so I shan't keep you. I was on my way back to London, and it occurred to me that I had never visited your beautiful cathedral. I believe that some of my more remote ancestors are buried here, are they not?”

The verger basked in the royal interest.

“Indeed, they are, sir. Up there on the choir screens, you can see funerary chests containing the bones of many of the Saxon kings and queens: Canute and Emma, Kynewald, Kenulph; Matilda, the queen of Henry I. And of course, Henry's elder brother, William Rufus, is there under the tower.”

“Indeed? That one over there?”

“Why, yes, sir.” The man raised a well-bred eyebrow as he nodded toward the tomb slab that William had already suspected. “I suspect you know, of course, that it's said Rufus was not a true Christian. When the entire tower fell a few years after he was buried here, some attributed it to divine outrage that such a man should be buried in consecrated ground. It all had to be rebuilt,” he ended wistfully.

“Not that he was a bad king,” Thompson hastened to add, lest the prince infer some criticism of the current royal line. “Times were different then, and we must not judge his morals too harshly by our own standards.”

William chuckled and held up a hand in amused protest. “You needn't defend him to me, gentlemen,” he said. “He's but a distant and collateral ancestor. All we share is a name.”

As the others joined his amusement with obvious relief, William realized that if he were going to have his moment alone with Rufus, it would have to be soon. Quiet descended even more heavily as the last of the people filtered out through the rear doors. Wistfully, he allowed his gaze to sweep around the choir and sanctuary as he sighed.

“What a beautiful place, and how peaceful. Do you suppose I might have a few minutes alone here, canon, before you lock up? I've seen so much of war in the past few days. It would be a welcome interlude, and deeply appreciated.”

Phrased thus, his request could hardly be refused. Assuring him that his tarrying would not at all inconvenience them, the two clergymen took their leave and bowed themselves out of the choir. William sent Wells after them to wait at the car, then sat in the closest stall and listened for the last footsteps to recede down the nave. Only then did he rise and move silently to the black tomb slab. He stood at its head and let one hand rest on it casually, just in case anyone should come upon him, then allowed his eyes to sweep its length. The stone was unadorned with cross or script or any other decoration, but its stark simplicity was the more compelling for that.

So, William Rufus
, he thought, wondering whether the living Rufus had ever stood where he now stood.
What were you really? What were you to Gray, in that vast other time, that he should have wept for you? Were you really a pagan, slain for your gods? What does that mean exactly?

He glanced at the sanctuary and altar screen beyond, at the carved Christus on its cross, at the figures of the saints grouped around it in dignified attendance, then returned his attention to the king whose mortal remains lay under the stone beneath his hand.

Gray says that all the gods are One—that Jesus, up on that cross, was but one of many great men made gods incarnate to teach us how to love. An interesting theory, and not what I was taught—and yet it doesn't seem wrong somehow—only different.

What kind of force is Gray meddling with, though? I believe him when he says it isn't evil, that Drake had nothing to do with the Devil—with Satan, rather—but they used to hang and burn people for what Gray and his friends are doing, even though he does claim it's for the good of England
.

He glanced furtively at the crucifix on the altar screen, then shook his head and smiled at himself—feeling guilty for talking to a long-dead king!

Now I
am
overreacting! But you know all that, don't you, old boy? And you probably know about Drake, too, don't you? If you were of the old faith, then perhaps you already understand this link that Gray hasn't been able to forge yet: the secret of how to get the magical folk of today to work together
.
It has to do with garters, doesn't it? That's why he remembered that scene on the
Golden Hind.

He thought about the Garter star he would have worn on his breast in peacetime and then about the Garter itself. Garters. And Queen Elizabeth—another monarch who, like Rufus, had left no offspring. Could there be some vague connection there, perhaps? Was that why Gray had seen Rufus unexpectedly, after seeing Elizabeth?