"But-what has this to do with John Balliol? Stripped of his kingship, a prisoner of England, what threat is he to anyone?"

"That is what I propose to discover," Jay said. "I find myself increasingly curious about the Stone of Destiny-alleged to be the source of the mystical power which maintains the Scottish kingdom. On my advice, King Edward went to great trouble to secure it and have it brought south to London. And yet, despite losing so vital a national treasure, the Scots refuse to be put in their place. Worse, they find themselves a leader who has brought them a victory we could not have thought possible a few days ago!

"We then must ask ourselves," he concluded, "is Balliol's proximity to the Stone allowing him to draw upon its influence? Does he, even from here in England, exercise a kingly power which enables his champion to wage war against us in Scotland?"

"That hardly seems possible," John said, blinking at the map.

"What is possible is limited only by the breadth of a man's vision," Jay declared. "And I set no bounds upon myself in such matters. Be sure that the struggle in which we are engaged is no mere rivalry of crowns. It concerns the very soul of our Order."

"You're referring to the renegades, Saint Clair and Lennox?" John hazarded.

"Them, and all their impious a.s.sociates," Jay agreed. "I am convinced that some faction within our Order is pursuing secret purposes of its own, which bode no good for England or the Temple."

His mouth twisted bitterly as he fingered the hilt of his sword.

"Many of those who served in the East have forsaken their true calling," he muttered. "They have returned from Outremer with their speech strangely accented, their minds twisted by exotic and heretical philosophies. But that is not the worst of it. Having surrendered to these seductions, they now are striving to subvert their Western brothers. Their objective is to impose their newly learned foreign ways over those of us who have remained faithful to our vows, praying for the victory of Christ's kingdom in those far-off lands while they idled in decadent luxury and dabbled in knowledge forbidden to any true Christian."

The de Sautres nodded their agreement without interrupting their superior.

"They have made a pact with the enemies of Christ," Jay continued in an impa.s.sioned tone, "abandoning His Holy Land in exchange for gold and the black secrets of the a.s.sa.s.sins and the Magi. How else could Christian knights be driven off by infidels, unless they had betrayed G.o.d's holy trust for their own worldly gain? As part of this obscene bargain, they have agreed to remove themselves as far as possible from the scene of our former conquests, to give their new allies the ultimate a.s.surance of victory. And what land in all of Christendom," he finished grimly, "is as remote from Jerusalem as the land of the Scots?-a country still infested with pagan superst.i.tion and dubious forms of worship."

"I still fail to see what Saint Clair and Lennox hope to achieve by aiding these Scottish rebels," John de Sautre said.

Jay's blue eyes were hard. "They see in the struggle for the Scottish throne an opportunity to gain ascendancy for themselves and found a new, unholy order-one dedicated not to the poverty and obedience of true Christian brothers, but to the vices that once were the mark of their G.o.dless enemies.

"Make no mistake: If they establish their authority here- as they clearly mean to do-it will be an end to us.

We shall be copying petty accounts and guarding lonely watchtowers while they lord it over us with their fabled wealth and their sorcerous arts."

Robert de Sautre gazed at their superior with an admiration bordering on awe. "I would never have foreseen this, my lord. I doubt that any man but you could have conceived the enormity of their ambition or the blackness of their crimes."

"Are you with me then," Jay retorted, brushing the flattery aside, "or will you surrender meekly to these vipers which are bent on sucking on the heart of Christendom?"

"We are with you, my lord," John de Sautre affirmed grimly.

"Even to the death," Robert added with an inappropriate grin.

It was after nightfall when Brian de Jay and the two de Sautre brothers dismounted outside the main door of Westminster Abbey, Robert de Sautre cradling a narrow ivory casket under the shelter of his white mantle. The presence of soldiers at the main doors struck Jay as unusual-he could not recall such security at the abbey before the Stone's arrival in London-but he guessed that King Edward was merely being cautious regarding the safety of his prize.

Turning an indifferent eye to the splendor of the great church King Henry III had erected here, and followed closely by his two white-clad escorts, the Master of the Temple strode purposefully up to the serjeant of the watch and handed him a folded order, watched him come unconsciously to attention as he examined the seal. The doc.u.ment was a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury, granting permission for the Templars to have a special Ma.s.s offered in the abbey for King Edward's victory and safe return from France. Jay always derived satisfaction from exercising his ecclesiastical influence; and in this instance, he took added pleasure from the deception involved. Tonight's foray was explained as an inspection of the physical layout of the part of the abbey church intended for use.

The three Templars were admitted and found the interior adequately lit for their purposes. Vespers and Compline were already over, and the monks would not return to the church until much later, for the office of Nocturn. Jay dismissed the guard who had admitted them, and had John de Sautre ensure that the door be secured behind them.

The martial impact of their footfalls echoed in the vaulted nave, where stone pillars loomed on either hand like so many frowning sentries, as Jay led his subordinates through the choir and the sanctuary to the old chapel of Edward the Confessor, the present king's avowed patron, current resting place of the Scottish Stone of Destiny. By King Edward's order, a fair bronze chair was being fashioned to house the Stone, but for the present it rested simple and unadorned in its place. Certainly of a proper size to have been Jacob's pillow, as the Scottish legends claimed, it looked surprisingly ordinary; but the Master of the Temple had learned enough of the mystic ways to know that such impressions were often deliberately deceptive.

Jay took the casket from Robert de Sautre and signed for him to remain at the entrance of the chapel, pa.s.sing the casket to John as they moved into the presence of the Stone. As Jay went to bring a candle from one of the side altars, John de Sautre cast his gaze over the Stone of Destiny itself-a rather unremarkable-looking thing, he thought. As he did so, he was seized by the impression that there was someone standing at his shoulder.

A quick glance around revealed no one else present. He swallowed his uneasiness, knowing that to give voice to such an irrational notion would only invite the scorn of his superior.

Oblivious to his subordinate's discomfort, Jay came back to examine the Stone at close quarters. Other than a faint cruciform indentation, there were no additional markings suggestive of its sacred nature; and when he set his bare hand upon it and closed his eyes in meditation, it gave off no emanations of inner force.

Momentarily turning his back on the Stone, he took the ivory casket from John de Sautre and set it on the floor beside the Stone, crouching down to unlock it. Inside were several items he had prepared in advance for this night's work, but what he removed first was a pair of wooden sticks, half the length of his forearm and inscribed with Pictish runes. After much time spent sifting records in the libraries at Balantrodoch and here in London, and numerous consultations with sources outside the Order, he had at last been able to determine some of the purposes for which these spell sticks of Briochan might be used.

For one thing, they possessed an affinity for supernatural energies that could be utilized by a sympathetic spirit-and Jay was sympathetic to anything that promised to advance his own ambitions.

Clasping a stick in either hand, he returned to the Stone. Motioning John de Sautre to stay well back, he stretched out his arms over the Stone's upper surface and murmured an invocation in a voice too low for the other two men to hear. Repeating the invocation, he pa.s.sed the sticks slowly back and forth, searching intently for some trace of mystical potency, however faint. He had been given to understand that the sticks would twitch downward if the object being so dowsed possessed any mystical potency.

But though he repeated the exercise three times, he obtained no response to suggest that any residue remained of whatever energies had once been invested in the Stone.

Scowling, Jay set the sticks momentarily aside while he pulled from his scrip the pouch that contained John Balliol's hair and nail clippings. Carefully placing the pouch in the middle of the Stone, he reclaimed the sticks and began once again to sweep them above the surface of the Stone. His voice rose and fell in a guttural chant, summoning Briochan's guidance. But still the Stone remained stubbornly unresponsive.

With an exasperated hiss, Jay abandoned his efforts. Letting the rune-staves fall beside the pouch, he turned on his heel and began to pace the floor with angry strides. His subordinates kept out of his way, neither one daring to speak for fear of drawing his ire. After a moment, he came to an abrupt halt, his blue eyes feverishly bright.

"Nothing!" he whispered, flinging up a hand. "There is not so much as a trace of power that should have awakened when I exposed the Stone to the tokens of Balliol's presence! And yet we know that for centuries it has been the mystical key to Scotland's sovereignty. There must be something missing, something we have overlooked."

It was Robert de Sautre who first took the chance of making a suggestion, drifting closer from his guard post by the chapel door.

"Might this not indicate," he said tentatively, "that either Balliol is no true king-or that this is not the genuine Stone?"

"Either that," John added in, "or both are false."

Jay cast his gaze over both men, considering, then slowly nodded.

"Such speculations are hardly likely to impress the king when he returns," he said coldly. "I fail to see how Balliol could be a false king, but if the king's men somehow managed to bring back a false Stone, we had better have some idea how to rectify the situation. We need more information," he continued, almost to himself. "And I do not think we can afford to be overly fastidious as to how we go about obtaining it."

Robert de Sautre blenched slightly. "What do you mean?"

Jay's tight smile bore altogether too much similarity to a grimace. In his heart he was not entirely easy about what he had in mind to attempt, but his ambition drove him on like a gale filling the sails of a rudderless ship, carrying it into uncharted waters that, for all their danger, might hold treasures worth any hazard.

For years, he had harbored increasingly definite suspicions regarding the existence of some esoteric cadre within the Order, who had access to mystical knowledge that conferred power. His attempts to seek them out had been singularly unsuccessful-perhaps because he was too cautious, knowing full well how interest in such subjects would be regarded as heretical, if it came to official notice. But gradually, he had found others outside the Order who were willing to accept him into their ranks, to teach him, and he was determined to be revenged on those who had rejected him. He was now certain that Saint Clair and the upstart Lennox were among their number.

Whatever it was that Saint Clair and his confederates were seeking, it seemed clearly bound up with the aims of the rebel Scots. It followed that whatever would do damage to one would also injure the other-and achieving such damage might well be possible by working through the Stone, which was said to embody mystical significance to the Scottish cause. Jay had long ago decided that no risk was too great to make himself master of its secrets, even if it meant dabbling in pagan sorceries.

Returning to the open casket, he reached along one side to finger out a flat-folded packet of parchment, the center overlap and turned-up ends sealed with wax. He opened this to remove what appeared to be a smaller, thicker piece of parchment inscribed with the triangular, horned shape of a bull's face. A musty, coppery smell came from it as Jay laid it on the Stone.

"You did well to send me that," Jay said, rummaging again in the casket. "Not only does it give us the symbol under which the Comyns' pagan sorcery operates, but the blood residual in the flayed skin will provide us with the admittedly unwilling blood offering of one of their co-religionists and the dark G.o.ds they serve. And this"-he removed a fragment of bone from the casket-"is from the forefinger of Briochan's left hand-he who served those G.o.ds a thousand years ago."

So saying, he set the bone atop the parchment token and handed flint and steel and a small charcoal brazier to John de Sautre, directing him to set it alight while he again delved into the casket. The lighted brazier was set on the floor before the Stone, after which Jay laid a twist of parchment on the glowing coals and ordered John de Sautre to withdraw beside the chapel door with his brother, whence neither was to move or to speak. There was an edge to his voice that drove his two a.s.sociates to obey him without question.

Curls of bitter incense rose to form a cloud of circling smoke as Jay gathered up the rune-staves and the finger bone of Briochan and resumed his original position. Like a priest standing over an altar, he once again elevated his arms, the rune-staves in his right hand, the bone fragment in his left, and began a Latin chant: the nearest embodiment of the ancient lore that he had been able to piece together from his contacts in London's mystical subculture.

Vestiges of ancient Celtic wisdom, Mithraic rituals introduced by the Romans, and other strands of magical tradition had been reinvigorated by an influx of cabalism and esoteric Sufi beliefs brought from the Holy Land by returning crusaders. Such information was carefully guarded, but Jay had discovered that a man with sufficient influence and wealth could unlock the hidden doors of the occult societies and gain access to much of their forbidden knowledge.

Now he armed himself with this knowledge as another man might don hauberk and shield to protect himself against a legion of enemies, and thus fortified, chanted his invocation with the fervor of a true initiate, oblivious to the uneasiness of his two fellow Templars.

"Per deam terrae sub pedibus et stellarum caelestium, per taurum magnum qui dexteram bellatoris firmat, iubeo te hanc sanguinem imbibere et secreta saxi sancti revelare."

Multiple repet.i.tions brought no apparent response, and Jay began to doubt the efficacy of some element in the spell. Just when his patience had been stretched almost to the limit, however, he saw the parchment token on the Stone suddenly begin to quiver.

Smoke began to rise from it, acrid and sour, but he did not break off his chanting. Slowly a shadowy suggestion of shape began to form, drawing substance from the smoke, hunched over the Stone in a predatory att.i.tude-a gaunt, bearded man in long tattered robes, disheveled hair hanging lankly over bony shoulders, a crown of withered leaves encircling his tonsured brow. John de Sautre suppressed a gasp, for he could have little doubt that the apparition was the same unseen presence he had sensed on first arriving in the chapel. Briochan had been here with them all along, either in antic.i.p.ation of this moment or because his spirit was bound to the artifacts that had been taken from his grave, and had followed wherever they might be transported.

The specter turned its head, calling in a hollow voice like the cry of a lonely seabird sounding over the black waters of a benighted ocean.

"G.o.ddess, O my G.o.ddess, queen of fire and wave, mistress of the depths of the birthing earth, I hear your call, but I cannot answer," it lamented.

The Templars shrank back from the outstretched hands as Briochan's shade drifted away from the Stone and made a halting circuit of the chapel, as if vainly seeking an exit, accompanied by the sullen clanking of chains he dragged at his ankles, hampering his every step. The eyes were wide open, yet he appeared not to see them until Brian de Jay accosted him by name.

"Briochan, servant of the once-great G.o.ddess," the Templar Master said sternly, "I charge you by your own lost deities and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to stand fast and harken to my words."

Briochan spun to face the Templar Master, his face contorted in a grimace of pain, as though Jay's words had the stinging force of a slave master's whip.

"Seek not to hold me, man of the cross," he bl.u.s.tered, "or the G.o.ddess will surely feed your entrails to the starving hounds of darkness!"

"Speak no idle threats, spirit!" Jay commanded firmly. "I possess the tokens of power that bind you to my will-both the heritage of your own spells and the last of your earthly remains. By the strictures of your own dark sorcery, you are compelled to obey me!"

Still clutching the relic of finger bone in one hand, Jay shifted the rune-staves to hold them like a cross between him and the spirit. Briochan's shade doubled forward, his ghostly essence writhing like a streamer of smoke tattered by a breeze, emitting a long, drawn-out moan. The sound was like the creaking of a ship's timbers under the pressure of the tide.

"Say what you require of me, servant of the murdered G.o.d!" he croaked, averting his tormented gaze from the Templar Master.

Jay indicated the Stone with a jut of his beard. "This is Scotland's Stone of Destiny, brought here to end the reign of her rebel kings. I order you to open its heart and show me the power that lies within. Tell me how its potency may be turned to my service."

He uncrossed the staves but continued to hold them ready. Briochan's shade eased itself upright, its tortured grimace yielding to an expression of hauteur. The ent.i.ty spared a disdainful glance for the de Sautres, as though noticing them for the first time, before turning to face the Stone. The sullen clank of sc.r.a.ping metal accompanied him as his feet dragged their chains across the floor.

He overshadowed the charcoal brazier, taking greater substance from the smoke, and held his arms palm-downward above the surface of the Stone. As his eyes fluttered shut and his lips began a whispered invocation in the harsh Pictish tongue, a pale greenish glow emanating from his thin body slowly expanded to encompa.s.s the Stone in a pulsing aura of sickly flame.

A chill breeze stirred the air. The shade's chant of power subsided into an extended sigh, and for a moment the chapel was gripped by a breathless stillness, like a pendulum balanced at the far point of its swing.

Then Briochan's eyes snapped open, his head flinging back in a harsh explosion of cackling laughter. Jay went rigid with astonishment. As the laughter gradually subsided, lingering in the echoes amid the surrounding walls, the sense of derision was unmistakable.

"This is not the cursed Columba's gift to King Aidan!" the shade announced. "This is an impotent lump of worthless rock, foisted upon you in the stead of the true Stone. Your king is a fool, as are all of you!"

Brian de Jay's chin lifted in defiance, his brow darkening dangerously. Shifting the staves in his hands, he made a swift gesture that choked the wizard's laughter off short and sent fresh paroxysms pulsing through the shade's thin frame. But even that anguish could not entirely erase the scornful defiance from his features.

"I did not summon you here for your amus.e.m.e.nt," the Templar Master warned sharply. "If these words of yours are false, I swear that you shall never be free, but shall walk in torment through the land of the pagan dead for all eternity!"

Briochan's voice was dry and husky, but still carried the authority of his ancient calling. "You have brought such mockery down upon your own heads, to be so lightly deceived," he retorted. "You cannot put the blame on me, when you yourself have forced me to be the messenger of your shame."

John de Sautre's throat was so dry, it was an effort to speak even a few words. "Does he speak the truth, my lord?"

"He does," Jay admitted reluctantly. "The spell is too strong for him to resist."

"Now will you free me, and allow me to answer the G.o.ddess?" Briochan demanded.

"No!" Jay retorted. "You will tell me who has the true Stone, and to what purpose they are turning it!"

Briochan raised his eyes to the chapel's ceiling, as though searching there for a vision. "I cannot see so far, bound as I am by these cursed chains. The true Stone is meant for foundation, I know-for a temple of Columba's intention-but yet might it better serve the temple of the G.o.ds, should its power be thus diverted.

"Wind and flame hold to no cause other than to destroy what stands against them," he continued, his tone now faint and faraway. "The fates are in disarray, and the face of the king changes with the pa.s.sing of day and night and day. The lightning hangs poised to strike to west or east, to affirm the line of kings or light the way of the G.o.ddess from out of the exiled depths."

"What empty ravings are these?" John de Sautre whispered.

"Do not let him fob us off with these riddles!" Robert urged. "Task him, my lord, and squeeze the truth from his marrow!"

Briochan turned on the brothers, baring his teeth in a feral snarl. He stretched out his hands toward them, the fingers curling like the claws of a beast, and both men pressed their backs to the chapel's walls.

"Enough!" Jay cried, making a gesture of dismissal with the rune-staves.

A blast of cold, foul-smelling wind rushed through the room, and the specter vanished like a candle flame abruptly snuffed out by a draft from an open door. The ensuing silence seemed to enfold the three Templars like the stifling thickness of a death shroud.

Drawing a deep breath, Jay wiped a trickle of cold sweat from his brow and cleared his throat before replacing the magical items in their casket.

"Snuff out the brazier, and leave no trace of this night's work," he ordered John de Sautre. "And you-make certain no alarm has been raised by any sounds," he added to Robert.

As the latter hurried to obey, Jay crouched down opposite John de Sautre, laying a hand on the Stone.

"So the true Stone is still in Scotland," he mused. "But where?"

"The Comyns might have it," John de Sautre ventured, snuffing out charcoal with the pommel of his dagger. "That might explain why the ghost would not reveal its hiding place."

The Master of England shook his head, still thinking. "No, it is Wallace who is now wielding the power of kingship. Did he not raid Scone itself, driving out King Edward's justiciar, before his victory at Stirling?"

John de Sautre inclined his head in gruff affirmation. "True enough. The switch would have been made long before that; but if the Stone had been concealed thereabouts, Wallace might well have got his hands on it."

"Exactly," Jay agreed, as Robert de Sautre reappeared in the doorway and nodded his rea.s.surance that all was well. "It strikes me that this upstart somehow may have found the means to draw upon its power, even without being crowned. And I begin to wonder whether our two errant brethren might, somehow, have aided him in this deceitful act of usurpation. We know they were about something at Scone, before riding on to Iona. If we are to retain King Edward's favor and patronage, we must somehow put an end to Wallace, and ensure that no Scots king thereafter is crowned upon the Stone."

"How are we to accomplish that?" John asked, as he packed the charcoal brazier back into the casket.

"Wallace has already broken one army."

"If you wish to overcome a pack of ravenous hounds," Jay said thoughtfully, "toss them a bone and they will tear each other apart fighting over it. I think the Comyns have no more good will for Wallace than we-and we have a bone they are surely hungering for."

He slammed the casket shut on Briochan's relics and cast a darkling glare at the false Stone. "A fresh army is mustering to meet Wallace in the field, but it will take more than military might to defeat him. We must return to Scotland, brothers, and put an end to this matter once and for all."

Chapter Twenty-four

IT TOOK MANY MONTHS OF CAREFUL PLANNING FOR THE Master of England to advance his purposes. Not until July of the following year did King Edward again march north to wreak retribution in Scotland; but when he did, Brian de Jay and John de Sautre were riding at his side, poised to further both his ambitions and their own.

Meanwhile, those of their own Order whom they suspected of working to thwart their purposes-still regarded as renegades by Jay and de Sautre, despite official vindication from as august a superior as the Visitor of France- were camped with the Scottish forces fighting for the rights of the still-captive King John Balliol, whose cause had been a.s.serted so forcefully the previous year at Stirling Bridge.

Still under secret orders from their superiors in Paris, Brothers Arnault de Saint Clair and Torquil Lennox had returned to Scotland some eighteen months before, not as Templars but in the guise of ordinary men-at-arms, quietly offering their services to Bishop Wishart of Glasgow and James the Stewart, the greatest magnate in the west of Scotland-and easing their way into the core of Scottish resistance focused in the southwest, which maintained that John Balliol's abdication and subsequent removal from kingship was invalid because obtained under duress. William Wallace, second son of a simple knightly family who were va.s.sals of the Stewart, had been among those local patriots continuing to foment resistance to English occupation; and when he burst into prominence following his slaying of William Hazelrigg, the English Sheriff of Lanark, sparking the new rebellion that was to have its day of glory at Stirling Bridge, he kept silent about the true ident.i.ty of two "scouts" who had attached themselves to his service and provided occasionally stunning bits of intelligence.

Nearly a year had pa.s.sed since the battle of Stirling Bridge-a triumph that had cost the life of the brilliant and gallant Andrew Murray, mortally wounded in the battle. But the victory had led to Wallace's election as sole Guardian of Scotland, who thereafter styled himself "commander of the army of the Kingdom of Scotland, in the name of the famous prince the lord John, by G.o.d's grace ill.u.s.trious King of Scotland, by consent of the community of that realm." Formal knighthood had shortly followed. Under the continuing leadership of Wallace-and taking advantage of the absence abroad of Edward of England-the Scots had reclaimed their native countryside, leaving only a handful of lowland castles in English hands.