Free Druids Sword by Sara Douglass Page B

response.
    “I don’t want to be a nuisance,” Grace said, and now both her words and the expression in her eyes (terror, that he would think her a burden) , made Jack instantly ashamed of himself.
    He halted partway out of the car, then slid back in. He reached out his left hand, grasping her right hand gently, then sliding his fingers under the cuffs of blouse and cardigan to encircle her wrist.
    It felt like the wrist of a child; so thin, the bones so vulnerable.
    “Anyone in this car,” he said, “can tell you I’ve never bloody well troubled myself with ‘nuisances’. Not for three thousand years and more. I’m not going to start now.” His face relaxed slightly, the skin about his dark eyes crinkling. “You are not a nuisance, Grace.”
    And then he was gone, the door closing behind him, and Grace was left with her right hand a little extended, as if she could still feel Jack’s fingers about it.
    “She must be tearing Noah and Weyland apart,” Jack said to Harry as they watched the Daimler disappear into the traffic.
    “That’s extraordinarily perceptive of you,” Harry said, “particularly when you’re not normally given to that quality.”
    “Is she always so difficult to reach?”
    Harry nodded. “No one really knows her. The gods’ know we’ve all tried.” He paused. “I was her lover for a while, but even then—”
    Jack’s mouth dropped open. “I don’t believe you,” he said. Then, before Harry could answer, Jack grabbed Harry by the shoulder and turned him slightly, using his other hand to pat down Harry’s back. “No. I don’t believe you. You’re not full of holes, and if you’d been Grace’s lover I am certain Stella would not have hesitated to fill your back with puncture wounds. Did she know?”
    “Well, yes,” Harry said. “I imagine so. I’m sure I mentioned it to her.” Then he laughed at the expression on Jack’s face. “I doubt that there are too many other pretty young girls I could have taken as my occasional lover without Stella turning slightly murderous, but Grace is the exception. Stella is probably closer to Grace than anyone, including Noah and Weyland.”
    “Stella doesn’t pity her,” Jack said.
    “My,” Harry said softly, “you have acquired some perception. Now, Jack, let’s walk about this damn city and you tell me what it is that we face. Noah keeps telling me the Troy Game grows stronger anddarker, but, the gods alone know, that’s not what I want to hear from you.”
    They began to walk, slowly and silently, about the northern side of the Tower. Harry hung back a little, allowing Jack to take the lead. When they got to Great Tower Hill, on the immediate western wall of the Tower, Jack stopped and turned back to Harry. “I want to walk about the old route of London’s wall, up north, then west, then south to Blackfriars Bridge. Then across that to Southwark and east along the river back to Tower Bridge. Are you up to it?”
    Harry nodded. “Is it enough?”
    “Not particularly ‘enough’, but it will do. It’s a broad circular route through the oldest part of the city, and it will give me Catling’s strength.” Strange, he thought, that now he could only think of the Troy Game as Catling. “Good Lord, Harry. This place has changed.”
    He looked down to his feet, and tapped one shoe against the tarmac. “There’s a subway down here.” He lifted his head, turning it westwards towards the city. “They riddle the city.”
    “Aye. Since the late Victorian age the railroaders have been digging under the streets. Jack…are they…?”
    “A part of Catling? Yes. Every tunnel, every walkway, every subway, every street and laneway add to her web.”
    “You’ve been gone too long.”
    Jack lifted his eyes up to Harry’s. “I couldn’t have stopped this, Harry. I don’t think anyone could.”
    They began to walk, skirting the Tower once again and moving on to the ancient street known as the Minorities, which led up to