Excalibur Rising (13 page)

     “So what do we tell Michael?”
     “Oh shit,” said Ryan.  “I wasn’t thinking about Mandretti.”
      “Well, start thinking about him,” said Violet.
      The driver pulled up under the portico at the Dorchester.
     “I could use a drink,” said Ryan. “You want to join me?”
      What Violet really wanted was to go to her room and think, but she realized that Ryan was making a gesture of friendship.  “Sure,” she said. “I’ll have a drink.  I just have to freshen up a little.”
     Ryan headed for the bar, and Violet went to get her key.   As she stood at the desk she saw that the hotel had printed a news bulletin for the benefit of their guests.  How kind of them, she thought, to realize that some people still like to read the printed word.  She glanced down at the headlines, financial news, foreign news, gossip about the royal family.  Now, that would be interesting, just the diversion that her overheated brain needed.  She would like to know more about the shenanigans of the staff at Buckingham Palace as told by a dismissed housemaid, or about the scandalous lifestyle of a certain young royal prince.  She flipped the page and another headline caught and held her eye.  Two children missing from Norfolk village.
     Frantically reading the small print, she learned that an all-out search was being conducted for the children of the Rev. Barry Marshall, Vicar of St. Mary’s, Upper Malden, Norfolk, who had been taken from their bedrooms at the vicarage.      
     “Miss Chambray.”  The desk clerk was trying to give her the room key.
“Miss Chambray, your key.”
     She saw Ryan making his way towards the bar.  She should go to him.  She should say, “Look, I told you so,” but her feet would not move her in that direction.
     “Miss Chambray.”
     She took the key and hurried to the elevator.  She needed to be alone.  She needed to be in the quiet solitude of her room. Images were already forming.  A cord was tightening around her throat.  She was already gasping for breath as she flung herself down on her bed and closed her eyes.
     She had no idea how much time had passed when she was dragged back into the present by the ringing of the phone.  She picked up the receiver and managed a subdued hello. 
      “Where are you?” Ryan said. “I’m waiting down here.”
     Oh God, Violet thought, I was supposed to meet him at the Bar.  What have I been doing?  Was I asleep?  No, not asleep, not dreaming; seeing. She had been with Barry Marshall in the church while the children were taken from the Vicarage. 
     “Marcus,” she said, “go to the front desk and pick up the print out of the news headlines.”
     “Why?” he asked. “I can get headlines on my Android.”
     “Then get them on your damned Android,” she hissed, “or get the print out, or go out on the street and buy the evening paper.  Just do it.”
     She slammed down the receiver.  The room was in darkness.  She barely remembered riding up in the elevator, or opening the door, or flinging herself down on the bed, but apparently she had done all of those things before the vision had overtaken her.  Now she went through the room turning on all the lights.  She wanted the room to be bright as possible and not filled with shadows.  Marshall’s church had been filled with shadows and his attacker had come out of the shadows.  How many attackers?  He had been aware of at least two shadows flitting along the side walls.
      She paced the room waiting for the phone to ring and Ryan to say…what would he say?  What could he say?  This time there could be no denial.
     Instead of calling her on the phone he came to the door, knocking softly, almost apologetically. 
     “How the hell do you do it?” he asked as he stepped in through the doorway.
     “I don’t know,” she said. 
     “But you knew something had happened?” Ryan said
     “I know what happened to the Vicar,” said Violet, “but I don’t know where the children are.”
     “What can you tell me?”
     She sat on the edge of the bed.  She knew that Ryan had seated himself beside her, and she felt him take her hand, but there was no comfort to be found in the brightness of the hotel room, or the touch of a human hand, because there had been no comfort in the cold stones of the ancient church, and no comfort for the frantic father whose thoughts and feelings filled her mind.

     Barry Marshall unlocks the door of the church, his church, the church that is his responsibility.  He stands for a moment savoring the darkness and the stillness and the ineffable sense of centuries of prayer.  Moonlight filters through the stained glass windows and he sees the outline of the carved pews, gleaming dully under their coating of beeswax polish.  Up ahead the red votive lamp above the altar beckons him and he strides forward, his footsteps echoing on the flagstones. 
     He is concerned for his children, but they are asleep in their beds, and he will only be a minute.  He only needs to refill the sanctuary lamp and then he can go home again.  The lamp must never be allowed to go out.  Of course no one would know, no one would see, but he would know and it would be on his conscience. 
     He wishes that his wife were home, but she has gone on a journey, a parent’s death in a faraway place.  He’s lost without her. She’s his anchor, the one who helps him with his skittish, unreliable memory, who keeps the confusion at bay. She is the one who makes it possible to remain as Vicar despite the progress of his illness, despite the tumor growing so slowly in his brain.  They have told no one, not even the Bishop. 
     As he approaches the altar his every day thoughts become prayers, and he drops to his knees on the stone steps.  The steps are hard and uncomfortable but he doesn’t care.  He looks at the window above the altar; the Savior with his hands spread and welcoming.  He remains kneeling for a long time accepting comfort from the stained glass Jesus, praying that he will be healed, that the tumor will shrink. 
     He rises to his feet.  It’s time to go back to the Vicarage.  The children will be fine, he has been gone no more than ten minutes, and they were sleeping.
     Even as he turns to leave he hears a door slam with a sound that echoes through the church.
        His heart begins to pound.  He’s afraid now.  Bad things have been happening in other parishes.  Even in front of the altar he feels unsafe.  He should have locked the door behind him.  He should have turned on the lights.  He peers into the gloom.  He hears the rustling sound of feet shuffling across the flagstones.  Someone is slipping towards him along the side aisle.  He creeps closer to the altar and presses himself into the shadows.  An image comes into his mind, Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered on the altar steps by order of Henry II.
        He is still thinking of Thomas, saint and martyr, when he sees shadows flit along the side walls among the burnished brass memorial plaques.  He hears voices whispering.  He thinks there are two attackers, Thomas a Becket had been brought down by three, but here there are only two.  The soft light of the votive lamp illuminates a pair of red shoes, or perhaps they are not red, perhaps it is the light of the lamp that turns them red.
     He wants to defend himself.  He tries to reach up for the heavy candlesticks on the altar.  He thinks about the consecrated host kept in a safe behind the altar; he plans to defend it from the Satanists.  He pauses and tries to feel concern for the troubled souls in front of him.
     “Let me help you,” he says. “We can talk.”
     “Not interested in talking,” says the intruder. “Just give me the sword.”
     “I don’t have it,” says Marshall. 
     “Then who does?” asks the intruder.
      “I don’t know.  No one knows. You need to leave now before I call the police.”
     “Oh, you won’t be doing that,” says the intruder.
     A sudden, fierce blow knocks Marshall to the floor.
      “Where is the sword?”
      “I don’t know,” says Marshall frantically searching through his unreliable memory for something, anything, to say.
     “Take the children,” says the second voice. “Perhaps that will jog his memory.”
    “That’s all I know,” Violet said.  She was still clasping Ryan’s hand, clinging to it as her only link to reality, trusting him to be the anchor that would hold her in safety in the brightly lit hotel room.
     She could see that he was shaken by her story.  He had scoffed at her description of the night that King John’s treasure had been lost, and he had dismissed her knowledge of Carlton Lewis’ death as a lucky hunch, but how was he going to get around this?  Would he put this down to imagination?
     “I can’t see the children,” she said.  “I’ve tried, but I can’t see the children.”
     “You will,” said Ryan. “Give it time.”
      He was still holding her hand. 
     “You really think so?”
     “I don’t know what to think,” said Ryan, “but your visions are all we have to go on.”
     “It’s not enough,” said Violet.  “We have to tell someone.  The police?”
     “They won’t believe you.”
      “No,” said Violet, “I suppose not, and I don’t really know anything.”
     “There’s something else,” said Ryan. “I haven’t been totally honest with you.”
     “Really?”
     “I haven’t told you everything,” he said.
     “Oh?” She waited.  She didn’t want him to let go of her hand.
     “The girl we met, the blonde__”
      Now she tried to pull away from him.  What was he going to do?  Was he going to confess that she was someone he knew?  Was she an old girlfriend?  Did he think she would be jealous?
      He would not release her hand.
     “Violet,” he said, “listen to me.  I didn’t want to say anything because it was just so strange, really, really strange, but now….well, it’s not any stranger that anything else, I suppose.”
      “What do you mean?”
      “When I was in Norfolk, at Marshall’s church, something happened.  I still don’t know really what it was, but it happened.”
      He was staring into her eyes now, begging to be believed. 
     “Go on,” she said.
     “I was in the graveyard, at the end of a path, and suddenly there was a mist, and I stepped through the mist and…”
       “And?” she said encouragingly.  She remembered how she had felt the first time she had told someone of a vision.  She had been young, barely old enough to talk, but she knew she had seen something that she couldn’t possibly have seen, and she had not known how to tell anyone.  Now, so many years later, she could not even remember who she had told, or whether she had been believed.
     “Go on,” she said.
     “I was somewhere else,” said Ryan.  “I was on a dock, a stone dock, in a harbor.  The sea used to come right up to the church at one time, but that was centuries ago, but I saw the water, and boats, like Viking longships, and one other thing….”
      Violet waited.
     “That girl was there, on the sea wall, talking to another woman.  I saw her.  I know it was her, but I don’t know how it could have been her, and I don’t know how I could have been where I was, but I was.  What on earth have we gotten ourselves into, Violet?” he asked. “Do you have any idea?”
      “No,” she said, “but it’s way bigger than Michael Mandretti looking for an old sword.”
     He patted her hand. “He’s not going to like it,” he said.
     “And which one of us is going to tell him?” Violet asked.
     “I don’t know,” Ryan said. “Let’s sleep on it.  The police are already looking for the children, and we can’t do anything more tonight. It’s been a hell of a day. I’ll see you in the morning; perhaps it will all make more sense in the daylight.”
     “I doubt it,” said Violet.
     “So do I,” he agreed. “But what choice do we have?”
     She followed him to the door.
      “Good night,” he said. “Thanks for listening.”
     “Sure,” she said. “No problem.”
     He hesitated with his hand on the door knob.  “Will you be alright on your own?” he asked. 
     “I don’t___”
     “I could stay with you,” he offered. “Sleep in the chair, just in case you have any more…”
     “No,” she said hastily.
     “Of course not,” said Ryan, and he sounded offended.
     “I didn’t mean…”
     “I know what you meant,” he said.  “Goodnight, Violet.”
     “Goodnight, Marcus.”    
     She closed the door behind him and turned the lock.  She reached up to turn off the lights and changed her mind.  She couldn’t bear the thought of the darkness.  With the lights on she could just about bring herself to think about the day’s events, and wonder what it was that Ryan had seen through the mist.  If she turned off the lights she would be back in the darkness watching Barry Marshall’s assailant slipping through the shadows in his red shoes.
CHAPTER NINE
Violet
      Once again it was the sound of the phone that dragged Violet from her sleep.  She opened her eyes and blinked against the brightness of the room.  She had slept with all the lights blazing, but, blessedly, she had not dreamed.
     Ryan was on the phone.  “Get downstairs,” he said. “We have a visitor.”
     “What?”
     “There’s someone here to see us.”
     Violet remembered him sitting on her bed and holding her hand while she poured out her fears.  And he had told her his secret, the unfathomable thing that had happened to him; how he had seen what he could not possibly have seen.  They were friends now, she thought, and no longer competitors in the scramble for Mandretti’s money. 
      “Hurry up,” said Ryan. “He can’t stay long.”
      Violet rubbed her eyes.
     “I need a shower.”
     “Not now,” said Ryan.  “This is important.  I don’t care what you look like.”
     “I care,” she said.
      “Violet,” said Ryan, “I’m in the lobby.  I have someone with me, and I need you to come down now, so just get over yourself, and get down here.”
     She heard the click as he hung up the phone, giving her no time to argue with him.
     She sat for a startled moment and then untangled herself from the bedclothes.  Get over herself? What was that supposed to mean?  No one had ever said that to her before.  The sting of the words propelled her from the bed.  She looked at herself in the mirror, assessing her own pale, frightened face and tangled hair. It would take hours to restore the image she had worked so hard to portray, to smooth out her complexion, restore luster to her dark hair, and replace the mask of cosmetics that gave her age and sophistication.
     She squared her shoulders and faced up to the fact that she didn’t have time to spend on herself.  While she obsessed about her appearance a murderer was approaching ever closer, kidnapping children and silencing the people who might give her answers, but right now Ryan was in the lobby with someone who might help untangle the mystery. He was right. It was time to get over herself.
      Not daring to look in the mirror again, she threw on a pair of pants and a sweater, ran a comb through her hair and hurried down to the lobby.
Ryan, dressed in the ill-fitting tweed jacket that Todd had given him, was seated in a quiet corner at a conversational grouping of sofas and armchairs.  He was deep in conversation with a man who wore dark glasses and had a baseball cap pulled down low on his forehead.  In the elegance of the Dorchester’s lobby he stood out like a sore thumb.
     She hurried over to them.  The man remained seated, his head down as though he was hiding from the world.   
     “Violet,” said Ryan, “this is Rev. Barry Marshall.”
    “Oh,” said Violet.
     She dropped down into the chair next to the Vicar.
    “I know what happened to you,” she said. “I felt it.”
     “The children?” he asked.
     “I’m sorry,” said Violet. “I don’t know anything them.  I only know about you.        
      “They want the sword,” said Ryan.
      “Who does?” Violet asked.
      “I don’t know,” said Marshall. “They said they will contact me and I should tell them everything I remember.”  He took off his dark glasses and swiped a hand across his red, swollen, eyes.  “They have my children,” he said softly.  “My children.”
     “Just tell them where the sword is,” said Violet impulsively, forgetting about Mandretti, her paycheck, her house in the Keys, and everything else. “If you know something, just tell them.”
     “I didn’t know anything,” Marshall stammered, “or at least I didn’t think I knew anything.  I panicked.  I couldn’t think straight.  I have this thing in my brain …
     “A tumor,” said Violet.  “It’s benign.”
      “How did you____”
      “I just know,” said Violet.
     “I’ve been awake all night, and this morning my mind cleared.  That’s the way it’s been lately.  I can’t remember things, and then suddenly I remember.  My wife has always helped me, but____”
     “She’s away,” said Violet.
     “New Zealand,” said Marshall. “Her mother died.  I haven’t even phoned  her yet, about the children.”
     “You should call her,” said Ryan.  “It’s in the newspapers.  You don’t want her to read it on line, do you?”
     “I thought that if I could give her good news; if I could say I remember where the sword is…”
      “Do you remember?” Ryan asked.
     The Vicar shook his head. “Not exactly, but there is something.  I couldn’t even think of it last night, but this morning I remembered something.  That’s why I came to see you.  The police don’t even know I’m here.  It’s something, a start, a beginning, and I’m hoping you could follow up.  It’s what you both do, isn’t it?”
      “Yes,” said Ryan.  He looked at Violet.  “We’ll work on this together.  What do you have?”
     “Well,” said Marshall, “when you came to see me I told you I didn’t know anything about the sword.”
      “Yes,” said Ryan.
     “That wasn’t completely true.  It was true that I don’t know where the sword is, but I do know how it was found.  I didn’t want to say anything because it reflects badly on one of my predecessors.  At the time that seemed important, now I don’t give a damn.  I just wish I’d remembered it last night and then maybe they wouldn’t have taken the children.”
     “They would have killed you,” Violet said with certainty.  “If you had told them what you knew, they would have killed you, that’s what they do.”
      “But the children would be safe,” said Marshall.
     “They’re still safe,” said Violet.  “Nothing is going to happen to them, if we can help it.  Tell us what you know.”
     Marshall reached into the pocket of his raincoat and produced a sealed envelope, and a little notebook.  “It’s all in here,” he said.  “I wrote it down on the train, while I still remembered.”
     He flipped the notebook open.  “God forgive me,” he said, “it really makes the man look bad, but I don’t think he was.”