the Mayfair family. Now, how was this to be done except in the ways that we did it? Stuart, we have nothing to be ashamed of in our actions. What we seek makes these things utterly insignificant.”
Marklin tried desperately to conceal his sigh of relief.
Stuart looked from Tommy to Marklin and then back again, and then out over the pale landscape of gently rolling green hills, and then up to the peak of Glastonbury Tor. He turned his back on them to face the tor, and he hung his head as if communing with some personal deity.
Marklin drew close, and he placed his hands very tentatively on Stuart’s shoulders. He was far taller now than Stuart, and Stuart in old age had lost some of his earlier height. Marklin drew close to his ear.
“Stuart, the die was cast when we got rid of the scientist. There was no turning back. And the doctor …”
“No,” said Stuart, shaking his head with dramatic emphasis. His eyes were narrow and fixed on the tor. “These deaths could have been blamed on the Taltos himself, don’t you see? That was the beauty of it. The Taltos canceled the deaths of the two men who could have only misused the revelation granted to them!”
“Stuart,” said Mark, very aware that Stuart had not sought to free himself from his light embrace. “You must understand that Aaron became the enemy of us when he became the official enemy of the Talamasca.”
“Enemy? Aaron was never an enemy of the Talamasca! Your bogus excommunication broke his heart.”
“Stuart,” Marklin pleaded, “I can see now in retrospect that the excommunication was a mistake, but it has been our only mistake.”
“There was no choice in the matter of the excommunication,” said Tommy flatly. “It was either that or risk discovery at every turn. I did what I had to do, and I made it damned convincing. I could not have kept up a bogus correspondence between the Elders and Aaron. That would have been too much.”
“I admit,” said Marklin, “it was a mistake. Only loyalty to the Order might have kept Aaron quiet about the various things he’d seen and come to suspect. If we made an error, Stuart, the three of us made it together. We shouldn’t have alienated him and Yuri Stefano. We should have tightened our hold, played our game better.”
“The web was too intricate as it was,” said Stuart. “I warn you, both of you. Tommy, come here. I warn you both! Do not strike against the Mayfair family. You have done enough. You have destroyed a man who was finer than any other I ever knew, and you did it for so small a gain that heaven will take its vengeance on you. But do not, for whatever remains to us now, strike against the family!”
“I think we already have,” said Tommy in his usual practical voice. “Aaron Lightner had recently married Beatrice Mayfair. Besides, he had become so close to Michael Curry—indeed, to all of the clan—that the marriage was hardly required to cement the relationship. But there was a marriage, and to the Mayfairs marriage is a sacred bond, as we know. He had become one of them.”
“Pray you’re wrong,” said Stuart. “Pray to heaven you’re wrong. Risk the ire of the Mayfair witches, and God himself couldn’t help you.”
“Stuart, let us look at what must be done now,” said Marklin. “Let’s leave the hill and go down to the hotel.”
“Never. Where others can hear our words? Never.”
“Stuart, take us to Tessa. Let us discuss it there,” pressed Marklin.
It was the key moment. Marklin knew it. He wished now that he had not said Tessa’s name, not yet. He wished he had not played to this climax.
Stuart was eyeing both of them with the same deliberate condemnation and disgust. Tommy stood solidly, gloved hands clasped in front of him. The stiff collar of his coat rose to hide his mouth, and thereby leave nothing to scrutiny but his level, untroubled gaze.
Marklin himself was close to tears, or so he imagined. Marklin had actually never wept even once in his life that he could remember.
“Perhaps this is not the time to see her,” Marklin said, hastening to repair the damage.
“Perhaps you should never see her again,” said Stuart, voice small for the first time, eyes large and speculating.
“You don’t mean what you say,” said Mark.
“If I take you to Tessa, what’s to stop you from doing away with me?”