'I knew him quite well, and I can tell you that finding himself in a lady's bedroom would certainly have given him cause for alarm.'
She smiled, her pleasant round face lighting the dullness of a rainy Saturday afternoon. 'I really didn't mean to startle him. But waking up and seeing him standing there at the foot of the bed, all tall and rumpled, and dripping like a drainpipe-well, I'm afraid I shouted at him terribly.'
'You were frightened, I expect.'
'I was at first. But that passed in an instant for I could see he was perplexed.'
'Perplexed?'
'Yes,' she said, nodding thoughtfully, 'that is the word. He didn't seem to know what he was about. You know how it is-you'll be going on about your business, absorbed in your thoughts, and then you look up… where am I?' She laughed. 'Happens to me all the time-don't tell me it's never happened to you.'
'It has been known,' I confessed, enjoying the pleasure of her lively company. 'I once found myself in the Royal Museum with no recollection of how I'd got there.'
'Well, that's how he looked to me-like he didn't quite know where he was or how he got there.'
'Did you know he was aboard the ship that was sunk by the German torpedo?'
'So Daddy told me.' She shook her head gravely, and was silent for a moment, then said, 'That would explain the dripping water.'
'Did he say anything? Did he make any sound at all?'
'He did indeed. He said he was sorry for disturbing me; he told me his name and begged my pardon. Then he wished me a good day-at least that's what I thought he said. I can't be at all certain.'
'Why is that?'
'He was already vanishing by then, you see. He didn't go all of a snap!' She clicked her fingers. 'He began to fade away-like when a cloud passes over the sun and the day goes dim.'
'I see. Well…' I regarded the young woman. As much as I appreciated the information, it carried me no closer to the solution of the mystery which so exercised my mind.
A frown of concentration appeared on Miss Gillespie's face. 'There was one more thing.'
'Yes?' I leaned forward, eager to pounce on the smallest scrap of information.
'I had quite forgotten until just now,' she said slowly, as if trying to remember precisely. 'Just before he faded away completely, he looked at me and said-if I recall it correctly-something like: "The pain is swallowed in peace, and grief in glory."'
The message was obscure. It made no sense to me, and of all the things he might have wished to say, I could not think this had any importance whatsoever. 'Forgive me, Miss Gillespie, but you're certain that is what he said?'
She shook her head vehemently. 'No, Mister Murray, I'm not at all sure. It was very faint and by then he had mostly vanished. Nevertheless, that's what it sounded like to me.' She regarded me with a hopeful expression. 'Does it mean anything to you?'
'I fear not,' I sighed. 'But perhaps something will yet come of it.' We finished our tea then, and made our farewells. 'I thank you, my dear, for taking the time to speak to an old busybody,' I said as we parted. 'Please, give my kind regards to your parents.'
The rain had stopped and so I walked with her to the comer, whereupon we went our separate ways. As the day had come clear and bright, and I had nothing pressing for my attention, I decided to take a turn or two around the park. I walked to the little square just down the street, and entered by the iron gate. A few children had come out to play; their voices jiggled as they skipped and ran to the accompaniment of a barking terrier. A young mother pushed her baby in a large black pram, stopping every now and then to tuck up the blankets, all the while doting on the face of her infant.
I strolled awhile along the fresh rain-washed gravel paths, taking the air and watching the clouds as they broke apart and drifted eastward towards the North Sea. After a time, I sat down on a bench and dozed only a moment, it seemed to me-but I awoke to find the lowering sun had disappeared and a wind was blowing stiff and chill out of the west where darker, more ominous clouds had gathered.
They were, it seemed to me, clouds of war, shadows of the great evil rushing eastward to feed and strengthen the darkness already rampant there. The political quagmire of the European noble houses was inexorably sucking one government and power after another deeper and deeper into the ruinous morass. The fighting, which had now spread on many fronts, grew continually sharper, more brutal and vicious by the day. As yet there was no end in sight.
The splendour of the summer day was, I reflected, like our own lives upon the earth: short-lived, and bounded by darkness on every side.
It was in this sombre mood that I turned my steps towards home. By the time I reached the house, the weather had turned foul. I unlocked the front door just as the first drops of rain spattered on to the pavement behind me.
I quickly stepped inside and, as I turned to close the door behind me, my eye fell upon a small, buff-coloured envelope lying on the mat. I turned it over and saw my name neatly lettered in black ink. My heart began beating faster as I opened the envelope and saw the single word: Tonight.
CHAPTER ONE
At the pronouncement of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the bride was carried from the cathedral on a silver bed draped with cloth of gold. Alone on that wide and glittering expanse, she looked frightened, cowed, and far younger than her thirteen years. Before her went a hundred black-robed monks chanting the Gloria, followed by the stiffly dignified metropolitan in his high-crowned, ruby and ivory-beaded red satin hat; the imposing prelate carried a large silver frame containing the Sacred Mandelion: the cloth bearing the indelible image of Christ, one of Byzantium's most highly valued treasures.
Veiled in delicate silver netting from the top of her golden wedding crown to the tips of her white-stockinged toes, the young woman's slender form shimmered in the light of ten thousand candles as she passed through the standing congregation, borne aloft on the shoulders of eight black Ethiopians in yellow tunics. The noble groom followed his new bride on a white horse, leading a dove-grey mare; both animals were caparisoned in scarlet edged with silver, and both wore white ostrich plumes attached to their silver headpieces.
From her place in the gallery high above the floor, Caitriona, mute with amazement, gazed upon the dazzling spectacle and knew she had never seen anything half so magnificent, and probably never would again. Everything, from the golden crowns to the purple clouds of incense drifting like the mists of Heaven, worked an enchantment of wealth and power that left her breathless.
When the wedding procession passed beneath the upper gallery of Ayia Sophia, all the onlookers rushed to the opposite side and leaned over the marble balustrade to see the towering iron-clad doors of the great church flung open wide and the newly married couple depart on billows of pink rose petals. The crowds which had been waiting outside the church since dawn roared with delight to see the royal party as it began the parade through the city to the Triconchos Palace where the official marriage banquet would be held amidst the marble columns of the Hall of Pearl.
'Well, dear heart,' said Duncan to his daughter, 'what did you think of that?'
'You were very brave to bring me here,' Caitriona replied. 'I have always admired that in you, Papa.'
'Indulgent, perhaps. But why do you say brave?'
'Because,' she said, her lips curving with sardonic glee, 'now that I have seen how a lowly niece of the emperor is feted on her wedding day, I shall accept nothing less on mine.'
Duncan clucked his tongue, and said, 'If I thought there was even the slightest chance you would deign to marry, I swear this cathedral would witness a ceremony far more grand than that which just took place.'