Traitor to the Crown (36 page)

“What good will that do?” the king asked.

“I intend to ask it to leave.”

“And if it says no?” Proctor asked.

The priest leaned close to the demon, which turned and bared its teeth at him, making a sound like crackling fire. “Then I shall become persuasive,” the priest said. “Will the three of you stand over there, along the fourth wall? Just as if you were three more statues. My lord, Shelburne, if you would stand in the middle. Thank you. Mister Grueby, if you will fetch my bag from the entry, please.”

They took their positions while Grueby retrieved a plain canvas bag. He handed it to the priest and then
took up his position again as a guard by the door. The priest removed a coil of rough hemp rope from the bag.

“I’m not going to tie you to the chair, Sire,” the priest said. “These ropes will protect you from harm if your guest tries to force his will upon you.”

Proctor almost laughed.

“Speak the truth to His Majesty,” Shelburne said forcefully. “He is your liege and he deserves it.”

The priest paused for a moment, then nodded. “These lengths of rope come from the nooses of hanged men. Or rather, hanged men and women.”

“From the late riots?” asked the king.

The priest nodded.

Gordon stared at the floor again. Proctor thought of Lydia. He had avoided thinking of her for months. Whether she was alive or dead, there was nothing he could do to help her. Seeing the length of rope in the priest’s hand made that feel rather selfish to him. If he had led her to death …

“How do they work?” the king asked.

“We hope to use them to bind your guest, but since your guest occupies a space with—”

“I g-g-get it,” the king said impatiently. “I am not some coward. I am not some delicate flower that needs to be nurtured in a hot house. Show me the enemy, put a sword in my hand, and send me to f-f-face him—”

The demon twisted its arm back and forth inside the king’s skull, and the words stuttered to a halt.

“Our enemies used blood magic to set the spell, so we will use the same to break it,” the priest said. “They used the blood of those shed in the riot to bring harm to you. We will use the blood of the leaders, brought to justice for their choices, to help undo the harm.”

“Get on with it then,” the king said.

The priest wrapped the ropes loosely around the
king’s wrists and ankles. Proctor shook his head. It was only a symbolic restraint. The king and the demon represented the merging of the flesh and the spirit. It would take symbols merged with the actual to achieve a cure. It seemed so obvious.

Symbolic or not, the ropes had an effect on the demon. It twisted its arm vigorously in the king’s head. His eyes rolled back in his head and he began to cough and hack as if he were choking.

The priest wore a heavy silver ring on the fourth finger of his right hand. He held it up to the demon’s face. “Who is present here?”

“I count six men, six frightened men, six mortal men—”

The demon’s mouth moved, but the words came out of the king’s mouth, rough and gravelly.

“Who is speaking to me?” the priest demanded.

“I am.” You could almost hear the mockery in the voice. If it had to answer, and answer honestly, it would also answer unhelpfully.

But the priest seemed to expect this. He was clear and patient. “Who are you?” After a long delay while the demon squirmed and grimaced, he repeated the question. “Who are you?”

Finally, the voice answered. “I am the footman.”

“Whose footman?”

“I am the footman of Balfri.”

“Is Balfri also known as Berith?”

“You tell me. I cannot know how others know him.”

Gordon started forward, angry. “Tell him what he wishes to know.”

A smile spread over the demon’s face, mirrored in a smile on the king. “He wishes to know how his wife died. Whether she died thinking of him, or whether her last thoughts were of the men who held her down and—”

The priest had already jumped up and shoved wax
plugs in his ears. He ran to the other men, shoving wax in their ears as he went. The demon talked vigorously the whole time. The priest reached Grueby last; his usually stoic expression seemed shaken. Then the priest sat in front of the demon and repeated the same question over and over again until the demon answered it and fell silent.

The priest was much paler when he rose again and took the plugs from his ears. He indicated to the other men that they might do the same. Proctor was the first to have his out.

“I should have warned you,” the priest said. “This demon will answer any question truthfully, but he can speak anything he pleases to a statement directed at him. If you speak statements to him, you allow him to lie, and when he lies he can be most persuasive. Although he is one demon, he commands legions of demons, all aspects of the one. I have experience with these creatures, and I beg you let me do the speaking.”

“May we have chairs?” Proctor asked.

“Of course,” the priest said. Proctor retrieved a chair for each of them.

“How can we help?” Gordon asked. “We want to help.”

“With your permission, we may come to a point where I will draw on your power,” the priest said. To Proctor, he added, “Yours, too.”

“Help is where we all work together,” Proctor said.

“Someone must lead,” Shelburne said calmly. “The secretary has treated dozens of demonic possessions. We should let him lead.”

“He can lead,” Proctor said. “But this demon, or another aspect of it, tried to possess my wife and daughter. So if I can help it back to hell, I’ll help. And I won’t ask for permission.”

“We should remove him,” Gordon said, growing in courage the longer Proctor ignored him.

The priest held up his hand. “I accept that,” he said. “But follow my guidance, and don’t speak to the guest directly.”

He settled down at the king’s side again, holding up the silver ring to the demon’s face. “What will make you leave?”

The king’s hand flew up and slapped the priest, knocking his spectacles across the room. Grueby calmly retrieved them. The priest put them back on.

“What will make you leave?”

The king’s fist moved with lightning quickness, clipping the priest on the jaw again. This time he held on to his glasses and forced the ring into the demon’s face.

“What will make you leave?”

The king’s hands jumped up and started to choke the priest, who hesitated to lay hands on His Majesty. Proctor had had enough. The ropes, looped loosely around the king’s wrists and ankles, unraveled and reached for the arms and legs of the chair. As soon as they touched wood they wound like a windlass, drawing in the king’s arms and legs and binding them tight where he sat.

The priest fell back to the floor, clutching his throat.

“Did the demon do that?” Gordon asked.

“No,” the demon said. And then it roared in frustration. “The American did it—they mean to break the empire, they mean to throw down kings. Someday they mean to be greater than England. He is no friend, no friend to you.”

“We must untie those bonds at once,” Shelburne said as soon as he understood what had happened. He stood up from his seat.

“Oh, enough of this,” Proctor said. He used his power to push Shelburne and Gordon back into their seats. He grabbed the priest by the wrist. He felt him trying to pull away, using both his physical and spiritual strength. But
Proctor was tired of letting others make the choices. He dragged the priest across the floor and jammed the silver ring against the demon’s forehead. Fire shot down through his arm. “Did you try to possess my daughter?”

Words tumbled reluctantly out of the king’s mouth. “Balfri wanted your child, and he sent his left hand, but he was stopped.”

“Did you try to possess Deborah, my wife?”

“Balfri sent his left hand again, in power and glory, but he was stopped.”

“Who or what is the left hand?”

“The footman, the herald, and the left hand—these are three aspects of Balfri. One to serve, one to announce, and one to rule.”

“Does Balfri possess Deborah now?”

The demon opened its mouth and screamed at Proctor directly. It moved its hand in the king’s skull, and words came out of his mouth. “She is in his presence.”

It was a trick answer and Proctor would not let himself be blinded. He slammed the priest’s ring into the demon’s face again. “Does Balfri’s left hand possess my Deborah?”

“She is with the herald.”

“Is she alive?”

“Her body lives.”

They were true answers, but they were not the true answers he wanted. The demon was trying to provoke him into speaking directly or lashing out. Proctor felt the rage and fear building inside him. Red swam before his eyes, and he wanted to take the priest’s hand and strike the king’s mouth. He wanted to beat it until it swore to leave Deborah alone.

Calm
, the priest whispered. It was merely a voice in his head, not even a word on his lips.

And Proctor calmed. He realized he was squeezing the man’s wrist so tight, the skin paled. He almost let go,
but the priest looked at him through his spectacles. In his head, Proctor heard the thought,
Go ahead and ask your questions. Finish.

Proctor loosened his grip on the priest’s wrist but strengthened his will. “How do I get Deborah or my daughter back if you’ve possessed them?”

“You can’t.”

“How does anyone do it, how do we get you out of our bodies?”

The king’s head lolled to one side. A chuckle formed in his throat then blossomed into full-throated laughter, even with his eyes rolled back. “You must kill the body to release us from the body,” said the voice.

Shelburne was up in a heartbeat. “That’s unacceptable.”

“Surely there’s some other way,” Gordon said.

King and demon smiled. The demon began to describe in elaborate and gruesome detail the various ways they could kill the king. Proctor flung the priest’s arm aside in disgust, and the priest rose and passed out the earplugs again.

“It’s lying,” Proctor said to the priest.

What do you mean?
the priest mouthed. He rubbed his wrist to make the blood flow into it again.

Proctor didn’t know what he meant. He looked at the king tied to the chair, the way he thrashed and pulled against his bonds, and the demon sitting on his shoulder like a coachman at the reins.

The possession wasn’t complete.

If the Bloody Tower had so many protections against malevolent magic built into its walls, how many protections were built into the Crown and kingdom? Especially after a thousand years? The Covenant, for all their power, had only managed to break through part of the king’s protections.

Proctor studied the demon again. When he’d seen it in
the Tower, the demon only had its hand wrist-deep in the king’s skull. Now it was sunk to the elbow. Eventually, given time, it might possess the king completely. But not yet.

“Give me the ring,” Proctor said.

The priest hesitated. Then he pulled it off and dropped it in Proctor’s hand. It was a heavy silver ring, with the signet of the cross on it. A line from the Lord’s prayer had been engraved inside the band.

DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

Proctor slipped on the ring and walked over to the demon. He calmly and deliberately rested the ring against the tip of its nose. With the ring on his own hand, the demon felt almost solid.

“What happens if we cut off your arm?”

The demon screamed at him.

“What happens if we cut off your arm?”

The king’s head snapped back as if he’d been struck. His body shook and strained against the ropes, and gibberish poured out of his mouth.

“What happens if we cut off your arm?”

The king’s head flew forward and he spewed vomit in Proctor’s face. Proctor wiped it off with his free hand and didn’t budge. When he repeated the question again, the king thrashed from side to side, spewing forth words in many different languages, some inflected, rolling like the hills, some as harsh and flat as a wasteland. The priest leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the king’s lips, his own lips moving with the king’s words. He seemed always on the verge of understanding. His fingers ticked upward every time he picked up a word or a phrase.

But Proctor didn’t understand and had no patience to sort it out. “How do I make you explain it in English so I can understand you?”

“I’ll drive him mad,” screamed the demon. “I’ll wring
his stomach into knots until he pisses blood. I’ll steal the sense from his thoughts and the words from his lips. I’ll make his life a living hell.”

Proctor shoved the ring against the demon’s face, bending its head backward. It twisted from side to side, trying to escape. “Will Balfri control him?”

“I will drive him mad, mad with pain, mad with desire. I will break him—”

“Will you control him?”

“NO!”

The king’s head rolled forward onto his chest, and he sagged in the chair.

“How do we cut off your arm?” Proctor asked.

“Blood and silver,” the demon said, its voice a wretched sob.

Proctor stepped away from the creature and noticed everyone looking at him. Gordon’s eyes were wide with fear. Shelburne’s face was composed and thoughtful. Grueby turned his head away quickly, staring at a blank spot on the wall.

“I need a silver knife,” Proctor said.

“I have one in my bag,” the priest said.

“We cannot proceed without asking His Majesty’s permission,” Shelburne said. “I very firmly insist. We must explain the situation to him and ask what he wishes.”

Proctor nodded. If he faced forty years of pain and despair, he might choose death instead. Proctor undid an imaginary knot with his fingers, and all four ropes fell to the floor.

The priest knelt at the king’s side. “Your Majesty,” he said softly.

The king raised his head and sat up straight. He rubbed his wrists where they had been bound. “There is no dignity in this,” he said, shaking his head. “No dignity at all. It is wrong.”

“We have something we must explain to you,” the priest said.

“I heard all of it,” the king said. “Like an argument happening in the next room, behind only a thin wall.” He looked to Shelburne. “Thank you. Your attention to propriety will not be forgotten.” To Proctor, he said, “Do I understand correctly that this creature has attacked your wife and ch-children?”