Lucifer's Crown (51 page)

Maggie, too, stood up. But Thomas stayed on his knees, his eyes fixed on the altar and the statue above it. He'd survived. He needed to work through that. The best thing she could do was leave him alone—maybe, just maybe, she'd done the right thing and was going to be rewarded for it.

Ivan O'Connell walked down the stairs from the nave, followed by Anna Stern and Inspector Gupta. All three shared the same expression, curiosity edging into caution and then, seeing Thomas on his knees, alarm.

Maggie looked down at the top of his head. He still hadn't moved. She touched his shoulder. “Thomas?"

He whispered, “Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit,” and slumped forward onto the floor.

He lay in the same pose, face down, arms outspread, as he'd lain the night Maggie had peeped into his chapel. The day she'd discovered who he was. The day she'd begun loving him.
Oh God
! She dropped the knife. With the help of the others she turned him over and lifted his head into her lap.
Oh God
!

His sweater was soaked in blood. His glasses were bent, one lens scratched. Gently Maggie pulled them from his face. Barely two weeks ago they'd been smudged by her own warm skin. And she'd stood here flattering herself she'd done the right thing while he bled to death at her feet.

Each inhalation was long and rasping, drawn from far beyond his mortal body. His burned-over eyes were a dark amber-gold, rich and rare. Maggie bent over him, trying to dive into his gaze, but its depths eluded her.

She'd dreaded this moment, she'd had nightmares about it, she'd thought it wasn't going to happen after all and yet here it was. Her heart melted like the brass crown and trickled hotly through her body. “Thomas, no."

He smiled. His right hand twitched, as though in his own extremity he blessed her again, and fell heavily so that his fingertips just touched the Book. “Yes,” he said. A shudder ran through his body and his eyes dulled, emptied of his spirit, of his soul, of his long mortal life.

Tears spilled down Maggie's face. Thomas's head was heavy in her lap, a dead weight. She set her trembling fingertips on his eyes and closed their lids so he could rest at last. A sob burst from her chest. She was going crazy. She couldn't handle this.

She thought, “'Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place.'” But Thomas wasn't going to come back with, “Thomas Malory."

Someone was holding her—oh, it was Mick on one side and Anna on the other. Gupta was crouching beside her, his black eyes brimming. Beyond him Rose was crying, too. Mick reached out with his other hand and took hers. O'Connell picked up the Book and held it against his chest like a shield.

Maggie's hands were covered in blood. His precious blood, the blood of the martyr. Of St. Thomas Becket, not England's but Britain's greatest saint. Although she couldn't see the crown of gold shining on his brow, she knew it was there. It wasn't her reward that mattered, but his.

His face was as serene as the face of the Lady, who had been queen of heaven for millennia before Arthur rode to battle with Our Lady's image on his shield. Beyond the Word, She had said, beyond the Blood, lay silence.

The music of the organ stopped. The bells stopped pealing. In the hollow hush one soprano voice sang, “The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you, the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you peace."

"Amen,” said many voices. The vaults echoed with the whispered word.

"What happened?” O'Connell asked shakily.

"Robin Fitzroy was trying to stab Ellen and Thomas intervened.” Maggie didn't have to add that by corrupting Ellen, Robin had defeated himself. Thomas was no doubt fully appreciative of the irony.

"Fitzroy's legged it, has he?” asked Gupta.

"We won't be seeing him around any more, no,” Maggie answered.

Mick said, “But his power's been broken."

"Robin's power has been broken. I have the awful feeling, though, that what we've won tonight is the chance to keep on struggling against his relatives. To choose to set a good example...” Maggie's voice broke.

Anna's intelligent eyes met hers. “It isn't incumbent on you to finish the task, but you are not free from beginning it."

"Oh yes,” she agreed in a whisper. “Yes."

Ellen crept up, leaning heavily on Sean. Her face looked like a nuclear wasteland. And yet the light of the relics lingered, a furtive reflection in her eyes. “I never meant it."

"Yes you did,” Maggie told her. “When you gave yourself to Robin you chose to mean it."

"I don't mean it any more, do I?"

Maggie pulled Thomas's blood-soaked handkerchief from inside his sweater. She looked from it to the bloody wound on Ellen's neck, and the one on her hand that lay open and helpless in Sean's, and could only say, “Get help, Ellen."

"Counselors,” said Sean. “Prozac."

Gulping down something between a scream and a hysterical laugh, Maggie laid Thomas's head upon the stone floor and folded his hands on his chest. Between them she placed the tiny knife—now it was a relic too. Beside it she left the bundled handkerchief, looking like a full-blown red rose.

She wondered whether his body would disintegrate into dust or be assumed into heaven or glow with light as the relics had glowed ... No, he'd remain as modest in death as he was in life, and return quietly to the earth whence he came so many years ago. Her nostrils filled with a fresh, clean scent. Frankincense, myrrh, spring flowers and the earth after a rain. The odor of sanctity. She breathed in deeply, and the pain began to ebb from her limbs.
Set me as a seal upon thy heart, for love is as strong as death.

O'Connell inhaled. His already shocked eyes widened even further. “Who was he? What was he?"

"A saint,” Maggie said, “leading us by example. A light so powerful it lifted all our souls."

Anna pressed her shoulder. “You go on, I'll take care of Ellen and Sean."

Mick helped Maggie to stand up. Rose got her coat and held it for her. She slipped her rust-red hands through the sleeves.

Clearing his throat, Gupta turned to the deflated balloon that was Reg. “Reginald Soulis, I charge you with the murder of Calum Dewar."

"Eh?” asked Mick.

"Amongst the crime scene evidence Mountjoy here collected was a bit of polished stone with your father's blood on one end and Reg's fingerprints on the other. Taken with Felton's testimony..."

Dully Reg looked up at Gupta's mahogany complexion, which made his own doughy pallor look defective. “I was just standing up for my beliefs."

Mick leaned his face against Rose's hair. Gupta began to caution Reg. Lydia stared blankly while Mountjoy sank his face into his hands. O'Connell considered Thomas's body, abandoned like the chrysalis of a butterfly, and shook his head. “There'll be an inquiry, I expect."

Let the police investigate
, Maggie thought. Let the church come to whatever conclusion it wished. Faith had nothing to fear from rational thought.

The bells began to peal again, joyful and triumphant, notes cascading from heaven to earth while the angels sang—no, it was the choir, their voices flourished in the
Te Deum
. The cat sat before Mary Magdalene's altar, paws primly together, head cocked to the side, eyes glowing green. Maggie nodded her thanks and, by placing one foot before the other, walked away.

With Mick and Rose on either side, she went up the stairs into the northwest transept, past the Altar of the Sword's Point, out the heavy wooden door, and into the cloister. Here the peal of the bells was louder, each rich, full note falling into the night and spreading outward like ripples in a pool.

They went on around to the lawn, where the air was crystal cold and clean. People stood in knots, upturned eyes shining ...
Oh!

The sky was no longer black. It shimmered with light, rays, screens, crowns, the colors flowing with the pealing of the bells. The light of the relics really had shot up into the sky, Maggie thought. The Aurora Borealis was pouring its luminescence down the northern skies just as it had in December of 1170, when the body of another saint lay before the altar of Canterbury.

Now it was January of 2001. “Well then,” Mick said huskily, “heaven will be having good luck for a thousand years to come—the first man past the pearly gates the morn had dark hair."

No, Maggie thought, she wasn't going crazy. She'd never felt more sane. Drained, shaky, grief-stricken, joyful, but sane. The last two months hadn't been a dream. She'd been asleep all her life and now was awake.

Robin was gone, the relics were gone, Thomas was—no, he wasn't gone, he was with her always. “So is the Story,” she said aloud.

"A romance,” said Rose.

"An epic,” Mick offered.

"Tragedy."

"Myth."

"All of it,” said Maggie, “true if not real. All of it real, if not true. Written small and personal, affecting all existence."

"You sound just like him,” Rose said.

Maggie smiled even as the tears ran down her face like warm kisses. The aurora filled the sky with light. The bells pealed. And she knew that while it might be hours yet before the dawn, the dawn would come.