Traitor to the Crown (35 page)

When Grueby turned his horse down Bond Street, Proctor thought he might be going to Gordon’s house after all. But then he turned again, into a neighborhood of mansions that dwarfed Gordon’s house in size and ornamentation the way that Gordon’s house dwarfed a poor man’s farm house. A broad park lined with trees—was it called a commons here? Proctor wondered—sat at the heart of the neighborhood. Grueby entered a large house of beautiful formal proportions at the southwest corner of the park.

“Excuse me,” Proctor said to a stranger. The gentleman ignored him and walked on by. Proctor tried again, this time addressing a man in servant’s clothes. “Where am I?”

“If you ask me, you’re lost,” the servant answered.

“I’m sorry,” Proctor said. “I’ve just arrived in London.”

“You ought to turn around and go back where you came from,” the man said, walking away. “Not much has been right here since the riots.”

“What’s this neighborhood?” Proctor persisted, following alongside him.

“Berkeley Square. Now if that’s all—”

“And that house?”

The man stopped, frustrated but plainly willing to answer one more question if it meant Proctor would stop accosting him. “That’s Lansdowne, the earl of Shelburne’s house,” the man said. “I’ve worked in his gardens. Don’t even think about robbing him.”

“I’m not here to rob anyone,” Proctor said. “I followed a man I know, someone I don’t trust, and saw him enter there.”

“Shelburne’s a politician. They’re always in deep with men who can’t be trusted. And the earl, he considers himself enlightened. Keeps company with scientists and philosophers and all sorts of unsavory, untrustworthy folks.” He tipped his cap to Proctor. “Now good day. And don’t get caught hanging about or they’ll take you before the bench.”

Proctor stood in the park and watched the house while trying not to look like a thief. What were Grueby and Gordon doing here? And did Proctor have to worry about magic again?

He shook his head at that. Gordon wasn’t coming near him.

The house was surrounded by trees and formal hedges. Proctor waited until a carriage had passed, then crossed the street and walked toward the front of the house. With a glance over his shoulder, he slipped into the trees and ventured a small spell to avert any watchful eyes.

Not that there were many watchful eyes. As he circled the house, it appeared to be empty. There were no servants anywhere—even the stable in back was empty except for horses and a carriage. The curtains were all drawn shut as well.

He watched the house, considering what to do next. As he watched, he saw the draperies shift. Someone inside was impatiently watching the street at the rear of the house. Proctor was willing to bet it was Gordon.

He went up to the servants’ door and tried the handle. It was unlatched. He stepped inside and closed it quietly behind him. Voices came from the room where the draperies had moved. One of them was Gordon’s.

Proctor calmed himself. And walked to the doorway.

Three men stood inside the room: Grueby, Gordon—still wearing plain clothes and an air of despair—and a third man dressed more like the French noblemen Proctor had seen. He assumed he was the earl of Shelburne. The walls were lined with furniture of elegant proportions, all spaced evenly and regularly.

Gordon shrank away from the sight of Proctor. “Restrain him at once,” he ordered Grueby.

Proctor knotted his hands into fists.

But Grueby shook his head. “No, sir, I don’t feel like it.” With a look at Proctor, he said, “Thought you would get here eventually. Didn’t think it would be so fast.”

“Mr. Grueby was just describing your remarkable escape from the Bloody Tower to us,” Shelburne said. He was a handsome man in his forties, neat and orderly, with a calm and rational tone to his voice.

“Did they tell you why I needed to escape?” Proctor said. He took a step forward. His hands were still knotted into fists.

“I’m sorry,” Gordon said. “You carried a token of the Covenant. I had to be sure you were not one of their allies.”

“Fighting them, trying to stop them—that wasn’t enough?” Proctor asked.

“You have to understand,” Gordon explained. “A witch appeared, out of America, with more knowledge and power than one would expect from such a place. There is no one there to teach you, no one but the Covenant.”

“You don’t know Deborah,” Proctor said.

“And then you came from France, which is Britain’s enemy. And you—”

Proctor held up his right fist, turned so that Gordon could see the bloody scar of his missing finger. “I’ve bled to stop the Covenant. Have you? Because I would be glad to help you.”

Gordon fell silent. Grueby rolled his tongue through his cheek.

“You can attack us if you wish,” Shelburne said calmly. “You can expend your first breath of freedom and possibly your last breath in pursuit of revenge—”

“I was thinking of it in terms of justice,” Proctor said.

“Fair enough,” Shelburne answered. “Or you can use your power to help us defeat the Covenant. It is why we are here today. Mister Brown—and please forgive me for forgoing the formalities of introduction—I appeal to your rational side.”

Proctor slowly unballed his fists and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m listening.”

“We have come here today to save the king. Your talent and experience may be of practical assistance.”

Proctor boggled. “What cause do I have to save the king?”

“The cause of freedom. You oppose the Covenant. I have spent my whole life fighting the machinations of that occult cabal, just as my father did before me. Yet they are closer now to taking their next great step to power than they ever have been before. For almost two hundred years, their goal has been to build an empire that circles the globe. If they can possess His Majesty’s will, as is their intention, nothing will stand in their way.”

“Nothing but the will of the American people to be free.”

“You may believe that if you wish. And given the evidence of your own desire to be free, and your ability to achieve it, I would hesitate to underestimate our American cousins. But if His Majesty’s will is possessed by the Covenant, you can be sure they will turn all their attention to subjugating America.”

“It seems like that was exactly what was happening when His Majesty’s will was his own,” Proctor said.

There was a tap at the door.

“They’re here,” Grueby said.

Gordon looked as if he wanted to run to the doorway, but was afraid to pass Proctor. He cupped his hands to his mouth and called, “In here.”

Shelburne met Proctor’s eyes. “I appeal to your own self-interest. I appeal to your love of your native country. If you will not help us, do not hinder us. But the choice, of course, is yours.”

“It always has been,” Proctor said.

Shelburne took this rebuke with magnanimity, bowing his head slightly and opening his palm.

Two men appeared in the doorway, one of them cloaked and hooded. Proctor recognized him at once from the visit to the Tower, even before he removed the hood and revealed the leering demon squatting on his shoulder. The demon chuckled. He had one ethereal arm plunged into the back of the man’s head. He was accompanied by an Anglican priest.

“Your Majesty,” said the three men, all of them bowing.

“One of them is looking at me,” the king whispered to the priest. “Why is he looking at me?”

“I don’t know who he is, Sire,” the priest said.

“He’s an American, Sire,” explained Shelburne.

King George pounded his fist into his palm. “Americans. Y-y-you’ve been a thorn in our side these past few years—”

“Sire,” the priest said. He was a compact man with sun-darkened skin; despite his delicately framed spectacles and scholarly air, he appeared to be someone who spent more time out of doors than secluded in some dark chapel or musty library. He also held great power. “We are here for a reason. We don’t know how long our attempt will take. Perhaps we’d best get started.”

“Yes, right, of course, that’s why we’re here,” George said. “Where are we going to do this?”

“In the dining room, Sire,” Shelburne said, indicating the way with a gesture of his hand. “We have been preparing it for several months.”

King George’s face fell. “I thought it might be best to do it at some sacred place of great power like Stonehenge.”

“Stonehenge is aligned with the stars,” Shelburne admitted, “which does give it great power. But it was built thousands of years ago, and I am reliably informed by our astronomers that the stars no longer align.”

“How can that be?” the king asked.

“Given a great enough span of time, everything changes.”

The men spoke as they followed Shelburne through the halls. Gordon stayed close to the king and the priest. Proctor followed at the rear, behind Grueby. He felt lost, as if he had walked into the middle of not just a conversation, but one in a different language.

The king sighed. “So even the firmament is not so firm as we once believed. But isn’t that where our friends have been at work on our behalf?”

“If you mean the white horse at Cherhill, Doctor Alsop has seen to its completion,” the priest said.

“I’m sorry,” the king said, pausing at a closed door. “We seem to have forgotten introductions. Do all of you know the special secretary to the Archbishop of Canterbury?”

“Your Reverend,” Shelburne said, with a smaller bow of his head than he had offered the king.

Gordon extended his hand, but the priest did not take it. “I’m sorry, Your Reverend,” Gordon said. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“I have no name,” the priest replied. “I exist only as an office.”

Gordon laughed nervously. “The office of secretary?”

“A secretary is one who keeps secrets,” the priest answered. “And no secret is more important than this. Again, I suggest that perhaps we should not waste our time.”

“No, of course we shouldn’t,” Gordon agreed. He looked to Shelburne and indicated Proctor with a nod of his head. “Should we include him in this?”

“I want to be included,” Proctor said.

“Yes,” said Shelburne. “If he wants to help us after the great injustice that has been done to him.”

“What injustice?” the king asked.

Gordon stared at the floor. Shelburne pushed open the door to the ballroom, saying, “It is no concern of yours, Sire. It was done, it has ended, and it will be remedied.”

“Any injustice that happens within the compass of my realm is my c-c-concern,” the king insisted. His face had grown red, and the words came out haltingly, turning into a stammer by the end. The demon stirred on his shoulder. In the daylight, it was hard to see the creature. Proctor was not even sure that anyone else could spy it. He drew power into himself to take hold of it if he could.

“Interesting,” murmured the priest with no name. He looked straight at the demon. So two of them knew what they faced. The priest held out his palm, indicating to Proctor that he should stay back. “Be calm,” the priest commanded.

The king drew a breath. The demon’s twitching subsided.

“How did … that happen?” Proctor said.

“He’s looking directly at me again,” the king whispered to the priest.

“He doesn’t know any better,” the priest said. “But you may answer him. When he saw the danger, his first instinct was to come to your aid.”

“Dee, the necromancer, has been plotting this a very long time. He attempted to possess my father first, only it killed him, and I ascended to the throne in-in-instead.”

Shelburne opened the door and entered the room ahead of them. It had high ceilings, with marvelous natural light. A large crystal candelabra hung from the ceiling,
catching and refracting light throughout the room. The ceiling was decorated with elaborate plasterwork. The same patterns were picked up in the imprints of urns and vines spaced evenly around the walls. The walls without windows were set with nine niches. Each niche held a life-sized statue, carved in marble, as beautiful as the ones that Proctor had seen in the gardens of Paris. The neutral paints were chosen to bring out the natural color of the statues. Chairs and serving tables lined the rail along the wall.

“Yes, yes,” murmured the priest in satisfaction.

As King George entered the room, his knees buckled. No one dared catch him, but he caught himself on the priest, who stood as still as a doorpost. “M-m-may we be-begin this business?”

“Are you well enough to continue, Sire?” Gordon asked.

“Yes,” the king said. He mopped his forehead with a handkerchief, pasted a smile on his face, and struggled to sound normal. The demon struggled, just as it had at the doorway to Proctor’s room in the Bloody Tower. “Is that Tyche?” the king asked, pointing to one of the statues.

“Yes, Sire,” Shelburne replied.

“The god of luck,” the king said to the priest. “Though we all know there is but one God—may He have mercy on our souls—nevertheless I think I shall prefer to be seated where I can look on Tyche and he can look on me.”

“I think that’s very logical,” the priest said.

“This whole house is designed as a tribute to rationality and the great works of man,” Shelburne said. “When we embrace the rational and scientific view of the world, we will weaken and perhaps destroy the power that Dee and others like him gain by drawing on the unwitting contributions of the ignorant and superstitious.”

He grabbed one of the chairs from against the wall and swung it into position in the center of the room.

The king started to sit down, then popped up again immediately as if it were hot. “It-it-it wants me to l-l-leave—”

“Calm,” the priest said, with the same motion of his hand at his waist.

The king sat, but he seemed very twitchy, as if he was fighting the urge to rise. “Is this going to hurt? I’ve heard that Gassner strikes his patients on the head.”

Proctor wanted to ask who Gassner was, but refrained. “Maybe if we hit him hard enough, we can knock that creature loose.”

“He’s joking, Sire,” Gordon said. “No one is going to strike you on the head.”

“I will not call the German exorcist a fraud,” the priest added quickly. “But I have observed him at work, and the good he does is as much by chance as it is by design. Like many men, he neither comprehends nor holds in leash his own power.” He stared meaningfully at Proctor. “Sire, we need to begin by speaking with your guest.”