31

The tide of cold earth broke over them, down upon them, and Davis took a last breath, and reached out his hand toward Irene. He struggled through the churning mud, toward the crack of light, and the fragment of light was closing as he swam toward it.

The ancient king writhed to escape, making a long, airy scream. Davis dragged him. A hand thrust toward them from the outside, from the day.

Davis gripped the hand, and turned to find Irene. But Irene was already there, struggling through the slit of daylight. Then there were two hands reaching back for him, one of them Irene’s. The hands had him, had both of them, as Davis wrestled with the earth that closed around him.

The sky. Davis was blinking up at the sky that fell over him, wet, cold. Irene’s face was there, and Langton’s. Langton was panting, and his face was mud-starred. “You were gone so long,” said Langton. “I came looking for you—”

The mist was heavy, so heavy that it was premature night. Stone and mud continued to fall, churning, within the chamber until the crack was a bare scar on the surface and the empty chamber was a welter of rubble.

The king flexed, and Davis wrapped him in his arms. Langton’s eyes were wide, and he backed away, splashing through the water.

“I need a sheet of plastic or canvas—whatever we have,” called Davis. “And rope.”

Irene was gone, too, and Davis was alone with his adversary. The leather body spasmed, but Davis held him from behind. The arms lashed the mist, and the legs worked to wrap around Davis, but Davis gripped the body hard and promised the king that all would be well.

“We’ll find peace for you,” said Davis.

For all of us.

The great vault of the Minster’s nave arced high over them. It was night, and the ancient building was still. The only light came from beeswax candles. The flames were tiny, flickering cuts of cold, bare pinpricks at this distance.

It had to be dark, though. The Minster had to resemble a space that the king would recognize. Of course the medieval aspects of cathedral had been constructed long after this king’s death. But it had been a cathedral in his day, and now it would be called upon to be an earlier, darker version of itself.

It was past midnight before Langton returned from London with the treasures they would need. The events of this day had given Langton a battered vigor. He was tired, but he had a warrior’s enthusiasm for staying awake as long as possible. Dr. Higg’s staff had raised an eyebrow or two. Langton had been his most peremptory. Let them wonder. Necessity was power.

Davis took the pack from Langton reverently, and did not speak for a moment. He was nearly afraid to look inside. What if Langton had brought the wrong treasures?

“They’re all right,” said Langton. “The circlet crown, and the enormous hilt. Go ahead and look.”

Skip dug, his mattock rising and falling with a surprising lack of sound, beside the stones he had pried to get at earth. The eye adjusted to the dark, but the ear could not entirely adjust to the silence.

Skip plied his mattock, and at last climbed from the pit he had carved in the Minster floor.

The dirt was a small, dark mountain in a tarp. Skip gathered it together, and dragged it off. He used a broom, and then stood back to admire his work.

“Just like in medieval times, I’d say. You couldn’t have much better than that.”

“The question will be,” said Davis, “will it look like a fit grave to an Anglo-Saxon king?”

“I thought you were sure of that,” said Skip.

Davis shivered. “I wish I were.”

Skip looked upward, at the roof he could not see in a darkness made magnificent by invisible architecture. “Let’s find out.”

There was the faintest scent of honey from the candles as they approached Irene, off in the darkest hollow of the nave, beside the wrapped, trussed body of the king. Irene knelt beside it, singing a soft, angular tune, her hand on the rolled tarp that imprisoned the body.

Davis nodded to Skip. The time had come.

Davis returned to the grave and rested the two treasures beside him, on the floor. But that was not right. That seemed disrespectful, somehow. He held them in his hands, and gazed down at them. He would cling to them, hoping for power from them. But there should be vestments and chanting. He hadn’t even brought a Bible. They should have frankincense, and a priest.

Davis knew from Irene’s cry that something was wrong. He turned, and a shape like a dark bird of prey skimmed through the dark, nearly flying across the stone floor, and was on Davis.

Davis grappled with the king, and worked the leather body to the floor. The shapeless skin gathered itself, but Davis stopped it with his hands, and with his thoughts.

The king knew. He knew what was about to happen, and he could hear what Davis was thinking, reading his prayers as he would have read written words.

We mourned you, said Davis in his mind, in his heart. We did not know what had happened. It is a terrible thing to be the living left behind. You do not know where the lost one has gone. You do not hear the step or the laugh.

Where do you go, now that you leave us, now that we go forward without you, into fortune and misfortune, and other loves, and age? Do not come to us, we cannot help you. It is you who help us, triumphant in your sleep. Look—what I have for you, honored, beloved dead.

They were in his hands, the circlet crown, and the sword hilt. For you, and for Margaret. These treasures, but more, our memories, and—our memories being so much of what we are—our lives. We bury them with you. Keep them for us, as you keep yourselves.

Davis sucked in a long, trembling breath. Warm blood trickled down the inside of his pant legs.

He gathered the king in his arms, and leaped down into the grave. He reached up to receive the treasures from Irene’s hands. He thrust the hilt into the ancient hands. He placed the golden circlet around the ebony head. He turned, and could not escape.

He tried to climb from the grave, but sank to his knees. The king will not let me go, thought Davis. The dead will not let me live.

They are not finished. What more do they want from me?

But warm hands reached down for him, and friendly voices called his name.

His friends pulled him out of the darkness, onto the floor of the Minster.

Davis was weak, but Skip helped him to his feet.

“It’s all right, then,” said Skip. “He’s going to be fine.”

They were all silent, gazing into the grave. Irene ran to one of the candles, and hurried back with it. The dark tilted, and shifted around them as she approached.

“He is quiet now,” said Irene.

The hands held the hilt. The head rolled slightly and the circlet crown rolled with it.

The body was still.

Davis could sense it. All over York the broken fragments of darkness dissolved. The thrashing spirit was asleep. And not only in the city. It was within him, too, this spreading, invisible light.

“May he rest in peace,” breathed Langton.

For a moment no one could speak.

“Shall I bury him, then?” asked Skip.