Lammas Night (25 page)

He wondered why. Though William had always been close-mouthed while actually working on an assignment, it was not like him to keep silent once a tight spot was past and questions could be asked. Certainly Graham did not expect silence after their conversation on the trip out. As he watched William light his second cigarette since their departure, the brief flare of the match illuminated unexpected nervousness and even apprehension. That surprised him even more. As far as he was concerned, the worst of the night was over. Why, then, was William still so edgy?

“Are you all right?” he finally asked in a low voice. “Is something bothering you about what happened back there?”

William drew smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled it briskly over his right shoulder, where it dissipated through the partially open window.

“I could ask you the same question.”

“But you haven't. Why not?”

“Because I've been waiting for you to jump all over me for not following your orders!” came the terse reply. “Go ahead and get on with it. I deserve it. I was wrong. I admit it.”

Graham quickly skimmed back over the past three hours in his mind and was still puzzled. What was William talking about?

“I must be too exhausted to follow you. What orders do you mean?”

“What other orders did you give?” William snapped. “You told me not to move from where you put me. I moved. Selwyn and the lady seemed not to mind,” he added defensively.

Instantly, Graham flashed on the hands drawing him away from the abyss as he fought his way forward from the memory regression: Alix and Dav—bloody damn! So that was it.

He had assumed the man's hand was David's, but in fact it must have been William's. Yet the feel of it, psychically, had been so solid, so familiar.… Was it possible that he really
had
known William in another life? Their charts had hinted at it, but he had all but dismissed that before as wishful thinking.

He remembered glancing back at William on the settle, and the look on his face, and wondering what had kept him there. Now it was clear: nothing had. William must have recognized his distress and rushed to grab his hand before Selwyn could, somehow knowing instinctively how to help Alix pull him back. Why hadn't Alix said something?

He pressed the heels of both hands over his eyes and tried to think. She had, of course. Her words simply had not penetrated his fatigue. Something about William probably sensing more than meets the eye.…

Well, William had done that, all right—and bloody well, too. A breach of orders, yes, but hardly one to which Graham could take violent exception under the circumstances.

He glanced at William again, suddenly remembering that he had not yet answered the prince's taut self-accusation. The fine hands were clenched white-knuckled on the steering wheel, only barely discernible in the faint illumination from the instrument panel, the tension in the face more sensed than seen. Berating himself for the inexcusable delay, Graham shook his head and reached across to touch the prince's arm in reassurance. William flinched.

“Jesus, Will, don't jump out of your skin!” Graham breathed. “I'm sorry. I just
now
realized that it was your hand and not Selwyn's—which should tell you something important about whether it seemed right at the time or not.” He shifted his gaze out to the darkness ahead of them, watching the narrow headlight beams sweep the road as they went around a curve.

“Frankly, I'd have to say that you probably did exactly the right thing,” he admitted, “though I'd rather not even think about the headache I'd probably have if it
hadn't
been all right. So I suppose I'll have to forgive you for not following orders
this
time—but don't let it happen again.”

The falling tension was almost tangible. With an enormous sigh, the prince pulled over and stopped, shoulders slumping in relief as he leaned his forehead against the steering wheel between his hands and took a deep breath.

“Please don't ever do that to me again, Gray,” he whispered, raising his head. “When you didn't say anything for so long, I didn't know what to think. God knows, you'd made a big enough issue about not interfering. I wouldn't blame you if you were sorry you ever let me come.”

“No, I'm not sorry,” Graham replied, suddenly aware that it was true. “Are you?”

“Good God, no! I'm totally confused, of course—though that can hardly come as a surprise. What happened? I got the impression that things didn't go exactly as planned.”

Graham snorted at the eagerness in the voice. “I'll say one thing in your behalf: you've a bloody marvelous gift for understatement. We'd better keep driving, though, if you feel up to it. To tell the truth, I'm not exactly sure what
did
happen.”

“Well, did you find out about Drake?”

“Drake? Yes, indeed. Damned if I can figure out what it all means, however. Part of it had to do with Queen Elizabeth.”

“Good Queen Bess, eh?” William had eased the car back onto the road, and now he glanced at Graham as he increased speed. “What did you see? Maybe I can help.”

“With respect, I doubt it. If Selwyn and the others haven't been able to crack it yet—”

“With respect, maybe a fresh point of view is exactly what you need,” William replied, almost a little archly. “I do have some insight into the thinking patterns of monarchs, after all. In any case, it can't hurt, can it?”

Graham supposed it couldn't, so as they drove, he briefly outlined what he had told the others about the scene on the
Golden Hind
. William asked a few questions during the recitation, but he was silent after Graham had finished. Graham began to wonder whether it had been a waste of time until William cleared his throat and glanced his way again, a dark shadow against the darker shapes of fleeing countryside.

“You may be right,” the prince admitted. “Perhaps I need some time to digest the bits about Drake and old Bess like the rest of you. I have a feeling I'm going to be doing a lot of that in the next few days—maybe with some mental indigestion, too.”

Graham chuckled, but his amusement was quickly dampened as William went on.

“Let's talk about that final part for a moment, though, if you don't mind. What happened then? Your hands were gripping the chair arms so hard, I really wondered whether the oak could take it. And your face—Jesus, Gray, your face! I think that's the only time I was really scared.”

Graham drew a deep breath, suddenly cautious. He had not been going to tell William anything about the unplanned memory excursions.
Slayer of kings and slain for kings
—he was not sure the prince was ready to handle that. For that matter, Graham was not sure he was ready to handle it himself.

He could safely talk about past lives in general, however, perhaps even mentioning a few names. He would bypass the talk of slaying and slain.

“I went into a series of flashbacks to other lives besides Drake's,” Graham said carefully. “I'm not sure why, and I don't remember much about them other than very brief images, but those were what caused the reaction you saw. It isn't that uncommon, though the intensity was a little more than I would have expected. Actually, one rarely knows what one is going to get in the usual run of past-life regressions.”

William seemed to be turning that over in his mind as he negotiated a narrow turn. Then he said, “These other lives—were you able to identify any of them?”

“A few. The clearest one was an ancestor of yours: old William Rufus. I think I was one of his retainers.”

“Rufus? Really? I seem to recall he's buried at Winchester.”

At Graham's grunt of agreement, William went on.

“As a matter of fact, you've mentioned him before, haven't you? Something about his death being some sort of pagan sacrifice, wasn't it?”

Graham smiled, though a vague foreboding was stirring at the back of his mind. Why had he even bothered to censor his account?

“Something like that. You know, you're getting quite a knack for pulling odd bits together. Why the great interest in old Rufus?”

William chuckled. “He's another William, of course. When John and I were small, we spent a lot of time indoors because John was sick so much. Nanny used to read to us about our ancestors. I can tell you all about Williams I and III also, if you like. Ask me anything.”

The prince's voice was jovial, almost inviting a response, but Graham resisted the temptation. He was too tired for mental sparring and definitely reluctant to explore the other past life material with William until he'd had a chance to think about it more on his own. The unsought recall made him very uneasy, and somehow the uneasiness had to do with William as well as himself.

“Not tonight, I think. You're entirely too cocky not to be telling the truth.” He paused. “On a more serious note, however, we'll be arriving back at your quarters very shortly, and there may not be an opportunity to talk privately again for some time. Was there anything else you wanted to ask about tonight?”

William drew a deep breath and let it out audibly.

“Boldly into the breach. Yes. The woman who seemed to be in charge—is she Selwyn's wife?”

“She is. But remember what I told you about letting on that you know in the future.”

“I'll remember. Ah—what did she do behind us, just after we went in?”

Graham glanced at the prince in mild astonishment. He had been almost sure William hadn't noticed.

“I told you before that the room would be prepared before we arrived,” he said truthfully. “Cleansed of negative elements and sealed off so that no distractions could enter while we worked. She was closing the gate she'd opened before we came in.”

“I see. That's why we had to wait outside for a moment after you'd knocked. And the brigadier was opening it up again before he took me out?”

“You really don't miss a thing, do you?” Graham replied, verbalizing what he had only thought before. “Anything else you'd like to know? State secrets, perhaps?”

“Well, you asked whether I had any questions.” William took another deep breath. “This gate—if it hadn't been opened, could we have entered the room, anyway?”

“I wouldn't have wanted to try,” Graham said. “Would you?”

“Ah—pass on that one for now. That's really out of my depth.”

“Well, at least you're beginning to realize that some things are.”

“Now who's being cocky?” William returned. “Another question: how did you go into trance like that? I've read more about hypnosis since we last talked about it, and the countess—what was her name, if I may ask?”

“Alix. You'd find out, anyway—damned MI.6 smart aleck!”

“Why, thank you. You did train me, after all. At any rate, I was wondering how you went into such a deep trance without her saying anything. I remember you spoke to Michael that day in Dover—and I would assume that you're both experienced subjects.”

Graham let himself relax a little. They were almost back. If he could stay on this relatively safe topic long enough, there would be no more heart-stopping questions about matters arcane until he could think things through. Surely things would look better after a good night's sleep.

“We
are
experienced subjects, but there are a lot of factors that can influence response. Pain, for example, can make it very difficult to concentrate on a purely mental process. That's why I talked Michael into a trance, even though ordinarily he could go quite deep with a touch or any of a variety of other nonverbal signals—which is what Alix did with me. Going into trance is easy. Using it for something definite can be quite another story. There's nothing magical about a trance per se.”

“Indeed. Do you suppose I could be hypnotized?”

“Surely. It isn't a parlor trick, however. I thought I'd made that clear.”

“You did. I still might like to try it some time, though. Who knows? Maybe I've even had some of these past lives you keep talking about.”

William chuckled at that, and Graham laughed with him, but as they threaded their way through the wet, silent Plymouth streets, Graham wondered whether the prince realized how close to the truth his speculation might be. William's intervention and the rightness of it at the time pointed to some kind of connection that could quite well involve past lives, some of them undoubtedly touching Graham's. Nor could Graham deny the rush of warmth from the thought.

But the intervention raised other questions—immediate questions that almost invariably led to an even greater involvement on William's part.

Was William, the Knight of Wands of Alix's reading, destined to play a part in what was unfolding? Or had Graham merely seen William in the cards because he was looking for justification for his own actions and wanted the card to be William?

And if the Knight of Wands
was
William, how far dared they let him go? Did they even have any control over it anymore, or must they simply stand by and accept things as they came, trusting that some provident fate would keep the prince from getting in over his head?

Above all, if Graham and William had known one another in some previous life and Graham had been slayer and slain, then who had William been?

William's flight back to Southampton the next morning was uneventful but not uninteresting. The Sunderland took off shortly before noon into a sky washed bright blue and pristine from the night's rain. William watched Plymouth and Lord Selwyn's warship grow smaller and smaller as they climbed for altitude and headed east, but his thoughts invariably ranged back to the night before and all that he had seen and heard.

At least a night's sleep, however truncated, had taken the edge off his confusion. He felt far more confident now that he was in a familiar environment again, heading back to London. Griffin was a little stiff this morning—Denton had put him back in his chair to sleep off the night's “drink” when William and Graham returned—and Wells mentioned a slight headache at breakfast, but neither man seemed any the worse for wear or found anything particularly amiss. Denton apparently had done his job well.