The flickers of the light fixtures danced in time with the distant echo of the string orchestra's crescendo in the crowded ballroom below.
Like a scything reave through fields of stocks did the gloom of the midnight illumination blink out one by one down the emerald papered gilded halls of the Earl of Lascelles. The glow of the lamps slowly extinguished into a dim firefly ball kindled within the shaped bulbs, lingering, clinging to life upon the filament. The clicking buzzing of the electricity's forcible and unnatural smothering echoed in a sharp softness like the light itself was being dragged into the depths of the abyss with the sound of its nails scratching on the last doorcase to oblivion. The vibrating tinkle of glass that struggled to hold back surges of power rattled audibly down the hall before finally giving out. Then, there was silence – deep and hollow like the bottom of a well.
Shadows of a lonely winter's night creeped forth from the cavernous darkness within the witching hour of Mab to touch the muted gilding and blackened wallpaper of an ancient décor. Like a miasma of mustard gas, toxic and choking, did a sudden foreboding stillness spread thickly and slowly through the corridor, heralding with its silent trumpets an ominous fanfare that struck deep into the mind a thrill of nameless terror that was known only through its crawling down the spine. Not a tread was heard, not a breath disturbed, but its approach was known in the running sprint of a heart that beats in rhythm like a warning drum to alert the primordial instinct of some approaching predator slinking in the undergrowth.
Unseen and unheard, it is with fantastic horrors of the imagination that conjurors a terrible beast born from the fear of the unknown. And as animals flee from predators in the wild had the very warmth in the halls of Harewood fled the opulence of the Georgian great house in the splendor of Yule merriment. In its place came a dull frigid air that metastasized about the feet and ankles spreading down the corridor like the Angel of Death seeping through the unbloody doors to claim the first born of Pharoah's people. Even the steady tick and tap of the grandfather clock at the end of the hall seemed to slow its cathartic mechanisms till seconds became hours in order to hide itself from the approaching danger.
For there, in the dim desaturated grays and cold blues of the tenuous specter of the winter's gloom, there came shades that cast their ghastly ghosts upon the walls, forming tall grim shapes. They slipped and slid soundlessly through the obscurity with a serpent's gliding ease. Where they passed the last resistance of light gave way within the filaments, seeing no point in holding onto a world in which such creatures existed and roamed free. Thus, they remained unseen, moving in darkness that clung to them like humidity, the cold left behind in their wake like a vortex of artic vapor.
Pale and cataracted eyes gleamed with bright icy coldness in the nightshade as a pack of hyenas caught in the light of the torch upon the dark midnight plains of the Serengeti. Their faces were covered by black balaclavas that obscured their mouth and nose, giving their appearance a lifeless but fierce countenance of a controlled hateful languishing savagery that lingered so shallowly beneath the surface of expressionless eyes. Atop their heads were black berets slouched with the silver badge of their mercenary company. Their uniforms were of a stark gray coloring with black epaulets, collars, and cuffs. Yet, while their shiny black boots were tall and heavy, the private corporate soldiers of the Imperium's new proposed constabulary seemingly made not a noise upon the plush velvet carpet of Harewood's eastern wing. In their cold pale hands, they held to Enfield rifles. Yet, while those in the lead were shown with expert handling of their weapon, there were some in their ranks that took to their rifle with an odd and disjointed grip, as if never having held a gun before - not quite understanding how it all worked.
They were voiceless in a group, moving without hesitation, swarming in a coordinated instinct that was both mindless and impossibly precise. Yet, there was something animalistic and primal – inhuman – about the slouched and hunched gait of their quickened pace that swept down the hall like a blizzard wind. Their ghoulish phantasmal shades of distorted evil shapes wrought upon the walls did not match the silhouettes that moved as a flock of birds in predatory formation. There was something impersonal, cold, within them. A deep and angry, sinister, fountain of hate and rage buried deep beneath a painful burning ice sheet that froze hard till they were but mindless and witless specters of order and obedience to a greater power, a darker will. Their mind and their thoughts were not their own. Emotions and memories of blacker deeds and horrors unimagined lay in check, back building in the dormancy of an impenetrable malice that took hold of them and guided each movement.
Cold leopard eyes gleamed predatorily down the opulent corridor with an emotionless glaze of controlled violence as the mercenaries covered ground quickly toward their destination. The door to Princess Mary's bedchamber had a pale din in the steely blues and grays of the midnight hour in the now darkened stately hall. Off further down the corridor the muted dark wooden finish of Lord Lascelle's dressing room lay unseen but for the copper doorknob that glinted dimly in the sweeping movement of icy shadows that passed by it. When they halted outside the room, there was not a word spoken in order or command, not a plan seemed to be hatched. The mercenaries did not even glance at one another. They simply stood in stalwart attention with an automaton's statue like posture, as if they were windup toys that had run out of inertia in their mechanisms. For a long moment they made no move at all.
But the stillness of the night was cut by the creaking of a bed, the muffled noises of a struggle, and most of all … the ethereal music of a necklace. The otherworldly hum, the ancient hymnal of combined totems was like light to a gnat, the smell of decay to flies, and within the lifeless eyes the hatred and cruelty began to crack the ice wall over the frozen lake the drowned their emotions. To hear its call mixed with the muffled fearful moans and groans from behind the Princess's door let slip a terrible anticipation, a blood lust. When all other human emotions were forgotten in service of animal instinct, the cries of helplessness of a weakness or vulnerability from a trapped prey overwhelmed the predator that lay in the basest of all humanity when reason is lost. The creaking of the bed, the moans of fear and physical exertion that caused the ancient necklace to sing its tenor under the door gap was painful to those motionless figures that were but feet away, tormented by the inability to strike.
Then, as if being cranked again, the cold lifeless cataract eyes awoke with a grim and dark gleam. No hand signal, no order was given, they all fell into a new formation in perfect swarming movements. Only one stood apart, a tall gaunt figure of dark pallid complexion that carried in its hands a shotgun. While the other members of the squad formed up to breach the bedchamber door, the gaunt shotgun man slipped to the Earl's dressing room adjacent to Princess Mary's bedroom. For a pause they stood in cold silence as the desperation of physical movement increased within the bedroom. The bed squeaked and a muffled moaning of exertion could be heard clearly making the hum of the triple diamonds' crescendo in their jostling and swaying. Once more not a glance nor checking gander was given to the shotgun man at the dressing room. There was no signal, there was no sign, not even a nod, when the lead mercenary turned the knob of the chamber door.
Like the winter wind had the armed company swept into the room, not a boot made tread nor noise upon the rug or wood finished floorboards. The mercenaries' entrance was thorough and neat – single file and with a double striding quickness. The lead members of the squad had their rifles drawn, cocked, and loaded, as they aimed straight ahead. They gave a momentary glance at the empty vanity, the closed entrance to the dressing room, and the open bathroom door on the other side of the bedroom. But eventually they all paused, halting once more in perfect synchronicity. They did not lower their weapons, but their eyes gave a uniformed glint in their cataract irises when they glanced at what lay in front of them at the foot of Princess Mary's silk covered bed.
Silk scarfs meant for a more elegant bondage sexual experience found Lady Mary Crawley as planned when the queen brought them for her night of pleasure. The marble cut ivory beauty stood at the foot of the bed of silk with her slender white wrists and ankles bound to the back posters of the large king-sized bed. The tall pale woman writhing and struggling against her restraints was stripped down to her silken lingerie. Her tight silver brassier was glossy and smooth, refracting the dim hot light of the searchlight beaming through the closed curtains. Her tight silken knickers with lace fringe hugged to her sumptuous ivory curves. Matted dark hair in falling ringlets like a luxurious chocolate fountain ran down her bare shoulders sticking to the sweaty slick sheen of anxiety, fear, and recent sexual encounters.
Her red tinted amber eyes were wide and afear – taken by surprise by the mercenaries' entrance into the room, having not heard their approach. Her speech was muffled, and her cries constrained by the wadded pearly white silk of her long opera gloves that had been stuffed into her mouth. Out of instinct Lady Mary tried to flee but the bed creaked and groaned when holding back its beautiful submissive captive. As she gave a fruitless evasive dance, the bobbing and clattering of the heavy ancient necklace drew the mercenaries' glare.
The vibrance of its song stoked the fires in them, calling out like a beacon, attracting them in a killing frenzy of violence at the heavenly beauty that hummed through the air upon each movement of the half-naked great lady whose slender white neck it had been clasped upon. The evil and hateful gleam of their predatory nature made the frightened woman bey in a horrified voiceless scream as all their malice and wild cruelty of anguish fell upon her like the sun magnified through a lens. She could feel the rage – black and coursing – that filled them, cracking the icy layers that held their feral violence in check and under control. With each hum of the diamonds about her neck the more Mary could feel their want, their need, the very compulsion to tear her long slender limb from beautiful smooth limb.
But it was then that there came a flutter of fabric and the sharp ring of drawn steel.
Slipping the pool of shadows cast behind the chamber door was a hooded figure that threw back the folds of his cloak to appear from out of plain sight like an illusionist magician. From his side he drew a Sikh Rajput saber whose rune etched blade glowed with a fiery pale light of war. With a slash the youth cut the hamstring of the nearest mercenary who let out a frightening and inhuman phantasmic roar that nearly sent Lady Mary into a comatose state of otherworldly fear. No blood nor sinew erupted from the wound where the blade carved through flesh like a hot knife through butter. Instead, there was nothing but ash and ember, as if the glowing saber had cleaved a dying campfire in the hour before dawn. Clutching its crippling wound, the mercenary fell to the floor, it's cry in the ambush drawing its compatriots to the sudden surprise assault.
Stealthily attacking, the youth came unawares upon the undisciplined sect of mercenaries that did not know how to use their rifles. Thus, rather than point and shoot at the young swordsman, the nearest soldier of fortune gripped the barrel of his Enfield and swung the stock of it at the youth's head like a club. With a quick dive and roll, the youth summersaulted under the powerful swing of the rifle butt. With the wave and miss, the boy sprang from a crouch when he rolled to his feet.
Then, he was among the foes.
Small and evasive to the instinct and skill of the mercenaries, the boy was lost within their ranks. There was a sharp swish and the clatter of steel on metal as the youth parried away the barrel of an Enfield with his saber blade when one of the merc's aim had found him. With one smooth motion, coming right out of his summersault, the youth swept the rifle barrel and its owner in a circle of his momentum. The room was filled with the sound of deafening cracks of rifle shots being fired by the mercenary as the youth redirected its aim with a circular push of blade on barrel. With each wild bullet the off-balance soldier of fortune fired into its own men around them, punching holes in hips and torsos, and felling its comrade in the back of the head who tried to club the youth.
However, before barrel or stray bullet could find a helpless and bound Lady Mary, the youth twisted under the rifle and in misdirected momentum brought his blade across the stomach of the merc, opening its bowels with a dragging slash. However, once more, no blood nor intestines spurted or fell out of the gaping wound. Instead, a violent bright white flame belched from the mercenary's stomach. Fire consumed the innards of the silent foe while its entire mid-section simply dissolved into ash as if having burned on a pyre. Mary's eyes widened as torso slid from legs and the merc fell while cleaved in two in a cloud of dust and embers.
It was then that the door to the Earl's dressing room broke open and – as planned by an unseen dark will – the gaunt shotgun armed figure appeared aiming for the boy. The youth loosed his bull whip and with a casting snap and crack caught the barrel of the shotgun with the coiling leather tendril. The youth gave an evasive roll that just missed the concentrated volley of buck shot that tore a splintered hole through Princess Mary's wardrobe. It was then, coming on a flanking movement in front of Lady Mary, that the last trained rifleman with a comrade's slug in his hip aimed for the youth.
However, coming out of his roll onto a knee to anchor his strength, the youth ripped the whip's grip on the double barrel shotgun in the merc's hands. The force turned the aim and when the finger instinctually pulled the trigger, the second barrel's blast of buckshot was aimed right at the flanking merc. Mary flinched and bit on her silk gag as she watched a large hole explode right through the chest of the rifleman in front of her. The force of the blast sent the private corporate soldier flying across the room. The sound of glass shattering was cringing in the stillness as the pointblank shotgun blast rag dolled the rifleman through one of Princess Mary's windows. Astonishment and wonder were upon the King's Own formed up upon Harewood's lawn when they saw the bloodless and gaunt remains of the merc laying in front of them in the yard.
The sudden flood of hot pure white light from the broken window fell upon the shotgun armed merc. Under its spotlight, the armed figure let out a terrible screeching cry that froze Lady Mary's blood in all its ghoulish inhuman awfulness. From the extreme illumination, naked and undimmed from window or drape, she could hear the fizzle of a fell smelling steam start to rise from its exposed dark pallid skin as if the rays of light were cooking it alive. Subdued, the youth wrenched free the empty shotgun from the screeching merc's hand with a tug of his whip.
Yet, rather than catch it, the youth instead swept it about him in a single fluid motion of building momentum. The wide arc of captured shotgun coiled by whip was swung about his head like a Morningstar, creating space from his foes about him. Then, with a flick of the wrist he cast the full weight and speed of the careening shotgun at the keening pale eyed merc. It was with a sickening crunch that a flying shotgun stock slammed into the crown of a head. Then, the demonic screeching suddenly quieted forever more. Mary's bare marble belly tightened visibly at the ugly deathly sound while her eyes squeezed shut while she looked away in revulsion at the gruesome sight of the caved in skull.
With all of the trained rifleman slain, and a majority of the others wounded by their own comrades, the four remaining squad members threw discipline to the wind. Armed with upturned Enfield's or even bayonet in hand like a dagger, the four remaining faceless figures surrounded the youth on all sides. Rifle butt and bayonet raised; they knew that the youth couldn't fight all of them. Cruel and evil noises in caterwauling screams of ghastly hate filled the room as they rushed the youth. Mary's sudden panic and muffled cries of warning were unheard by the youth who looked only once over his shoulder with a side-eye glance as they had circled him. But when they all converged on the swordsman, the youth twisted his hips and leapt.
With a cry of releasing energy from behind his scarf, the youth gave a deadly pirouette of spinning sword blade. Of the lost and forgotten "Spin Attack" known by the Royal House of a lost Raj had it taken the youth years to master, even after Captain Nemo had taught it to him. And while this whirlwind of blade did not tear limbs and torsos into ribbons as the youth's master could, the potential was in full effect as the young swordsman's imperfect replication took the remaining mercenaries' heads off in one clean spinning sweep. As Lady Mary heard the ugly bowling pin sound of heads clatter and thud to the floor her red tinted amber eyes were lit by a bright flash of four jets of white flames spring from the cloven necks of the mercenaries. For the last time any blood or gore that might have come from the butchery was nonexistent, only dusty ash filmed and piled from their lifeless husks like broken marionettes with their wires cut.
When the youth landed, he remained in his killing pose, saber held out, knee crouched, and leg drawn back. For a long time, he held his finishing stance, his breath coming hard as his mind adjusted to the quiet stillness after the rush of absolute deadly violence that had engulfed the room. Eventually his hard and fiery cerulean eyes glanced up and locked to the petrified and silent Lady Mary that watched her child with amazement and wonder. She had seen him fight twice in his life since Caroline's death. One of such was a contrivance of her own making with the young Earl of Warren – of which she learned that day never to test her child again, for she still had lived with the shame and humiliation of both Earl and her being beaten so thoroughly. The second had been in the same library right after "The Gambler" had wrapped – the day that Granny died. Then, he had fought almost the entire library and won handedly, while striking her in the face hard enough to leave a painful bruise.
It was then, afterward, in line at the Craft Service buffet dinner that they ate as a family with their guests that Bertie had commented to the losers of the fight that they had gotten off incredibly easy. Both Edith and he attested from their time on the Prince of Wales's disastrous African Tour that George Crawley was far more dangerous than he showed his family that day. The thought – and the pain of her severely bruised cheek – had made Mary doubtful of Bertie and Edith's tales of their horror filled African adventure, that her son was capable of all that was spoken of throughout the Imperium of his heroics and rescue of the Prince of Wales's captured party. But now, tonight, seeing what could be done when a sword was in her boy's hands … Mary could believe George was capable of anything.
And it was with eyes finally wide open that Lady Mary Crawley saw her child, who he was, what she made him one fateful Christmas Eve morning, for the very first time.
The deep intimate stare down in the falling violence of the battle's lull was interrupted when the ugly noise of panted wheezing growls echoed through the stillness of the cold room. Mary caught sight of a figure pulling itself toward her across the floorboards slowly. The buttons and pins on its black and gray uniform jacket rattled and slid on the wooden finish as it slithered forward. The mercenary who had been crippled by a slashed hamstring in the opening movements of the fight was now muttering to itself in some horrible and ghoulish growling demonic voice. However, of the language it spoke, had Mary not recognized it, though it was somewhat familiar to her. For the English it spit like venom – ear splitting and hair raising in its ghastly gravelly voice – was old, ancient even, then the modern version they spoke. They were curses and promises of a degraded and tormented mind as a cold pallid hand reached for a fallen bayonet in an ash pile upon the floor. Its finger groped than grasped the material of the handle. Once in grip it would finally put an end to the holy chimes of the necklace about Mary's neck … by slashing it.
The snap and crack of a whip rented the air as a leather thong smote the wrist of the mercenary with deep lash. The youth, at the last moment, pivoted in his stance and whirled about, flicking his wrist at the clawing pale hand reaching for his mamma's ankle. The clatter of the bayonet was metallic and chiming as it flew out of the mercenary's hand and skittered across the floor under Princess Mary's vanity. The gash that was left was deep and black as midnight on the dark pallid skin. Yet, the wound was coagulated and bloodless. The noises the pathetic figure made were painful and angry, though something about its tone suggested that all of the torment did not come from the whip nor the severed hamstring.
Striding toward his mamma, George Crawley stalked over to the cursing and spitting figure that made cringing and unsettling animal noises, as if the wounded merc was in deep uncomfortable pain, straining to settle or stretch into a tight restrictive space. The audible and purposeful menace of the boy's footsteps upon the floor gave pace of an executioner's drum cadence. Coiling his whip, a shadow crossed over dark flashing cerulean eyes that observed the crippled and beaten foe trying to make it to Mary – to the horrible necklace that drove it insane. As the growling and straining snarls slid slowly by his feet just in reach of Mary's slender white ankles, the youth jabbed his foot under the mercenary's ribs and kicked it over onto its back. With sharp eyes of battle still upon them, George hammered a boot onto the mercenary's chest to keep it pinned.
Mary gave an unsettled breath in close up sight of the cataract eyes and pale icy skin that seemed to glow in the dark with a sinister din. The figure at her feet was ruinous and grim, its eyes evil and hateful. Its growling and writhing were unsettling to the constitution of the great beauty of the House of Grantham. It seemed to stretch and twist as if bound or entombed in some prison unseen, unnatural, confined to something ill-fitting or suffocating. Its words were slurred and drunken, filled with an insurmountable suffering hatred that was blistering in its frigid growling and snarling – like a wounded feral animal bound in a too small iron cage. Everything about the figure upset and frightened Lady Mary to the very core of her soul. And yet, her boy did not blink, did not flinch, in the weathering barrage of hateful and spiteful curses of Old English shouted at them.
"Crowley!" It snarled in accusation with gasping and painful feral voice.
"Crowley!" it cried again, looking from mother to son, mother to son, before settling on George.
"Walhaz Crowley!"
Mary didn't understand why it was saying their last name in such an odd way, a foreign way. But George was cold as the steel in his hand, for he understood his foe and what he meant. Anglo-Saxon, Old English, "Crowley" – Crow. "Walhaz" – Foreigner, colloquial Proto Germanic for 'Roman'. The mercenary writhing at their feet looked at mother and son – looked into George's eyes – and called them by the old name, the Anglo-Saxon name for their sworn enemies in the days of Arthur and Camelot - "Roman Crows" … Crawley's. Black of hair, Latin brow, and deep intimate eyes of the beautiful Celtic Enchantress of the Old Ways of whom was the beloved of the last Centurion of Britian. For the love of his wife and vow to defend her people did he and his remaining legionnaires forsake Rome and its fall to take the lordship of the Fortress of Downton upon Spectacle Rock of which had but a single abbey at its foot.
And like its first death did the twisting and growling feral figure lay upon the ground while one more Lord of Downton – Last of the Romans – placed a boot to its chest. With a flourish of an enchanted glowing blade, the young Lord of Downton, as his ancestor before him on the battlefields of the North, in repelling the Saxon invader, drove his magic sword into the gaping open mouth of the Saxon warrior. Mary watched in horror as the glowing pale blade impaled the mercenary through the head. The hateful words in Old English were a gargled by hideous choking noise of helpless rage.
No blood spilt from the wound, no squelching flesh nor spurting sinew came forth. Instead, foul-smelling steam rose from its wounds and then a bright flare of pale flame erupted from its head. Lifeless cataract eyes burned away to ash as flames outflowed from their sockets while the white flash of purifying light vomited from its mouth. Then, grotesque skin and cold flesh melted from the head into embers and ash that surrounded a bleached chalk white human skull covered by black woolen balaclava and empty beret.
When George pulled his sword from the open maw of the skull, the point of the glowing blade was covered not with blood but ash and dust. With a flourishing sweep of the sword the foul powder slipped from the saber in a cloud that danced in the desaturated glare of the search lights. For the rest of it, he distractedly placed his blade into the fold of his closed elbow where he wiped the rest of it in one swift swipe of his jacket sleeve. As he placed his whip back at his side and sheathed his still glowing blade with flourish, he gave only a side-long glance at his mamma who was transported and transfixed on both the violence and the strange supernatural world that was happening all about her suddenly. Her eyes stared in shock at the skull lying in an ashen pile where a head had been.
Paying no heed to his mother, the youth knelt beside her bare slender thighs at the side of the now decapitated body at her feet. George seized the uniform through the buttons. With a sharp noise of tearing fabric, the youth ripped open the body's jacket and undershirt. At sight of what was underneath, the bed rattled as Mary slammed into the foot board in an instinctual attempt to back away in horror. Meanwhile, George physically flinched with such a close-up and intimate exposure to a purer evil. He let out a muffled groaning sigh, turning his head away as if being assailed by a pungent and offensive odor, while his mamma could not fathom what she saw with her waking eyes.
Sunken and blackened was the pallid and gaunt flesh of a skeletal and fell body that was decayed and in full rot of several months in death. Open rancid sores were yellowed and oozed where decomposition ate away at the flesh. Blackened veins connected the weeping pestilence like highways and byways of a road map linking major city to major city. Yet the sight and smell would've been foul enough had it not been for what was upon the body. Mary might have balked at the corpse, but it was the coagulated carvings upon the cadaver's flesh that repelled George. Symbols, arcane and cursed, long curving characters of a beyond ancient black speech of pre-history trailed vertically down its torso, while Adamic runes formed a quadrant on each shoulder and hip. They were spells as ancient as they were evil, unseen and unlooked for in this age of men, and just as powerful as they had been in the high days of their forefathers.
This was not the work of the living …
"Wights!"
The shock lasted only a moment in George's muffled voice before his eyes narrowed as a shadow crossed his countenance. He had heard of them, read about them, but had never seen one up close – no one had for tens of thousands of years. Of all the darkest of arts and vilest of witchcrafts, Necromancy was the evilest. For it took a greater power and deeper understanding of an arcane and wicked black magic to trap a spirit. But for one who could raise rageful and violent poltergeists from ancient battlefields and burial mounds of the moors and place them into the bodies of the dead to use as their personal foot soldiers against the living … that required a power of sorcery that George Crawley – nor anyone - had ever seen before.
When he found those SPECTRE documents in the safe, he hadn't a clue what to do, but there were still options. There was still his Aunt Edith and "The Sketch", there was his Uncle Bertie and perhaps Lord Flintshire in the House of Lords and the Foreign Office. When it came to the political and power struggles of the living, there were answers. But when walking into a trap set for him by a Necromancer, with the fell spirits of every warrior and soldier from every war and battle fought on English soil, at its command, the boy knew when it was time to run. For never before had a child been so terribly out of his depth when fighting the cruel poltergeists of fallen warriors of a kingdom's epoch imprisoned within reanimated corpses.
A fantastic terror suddenly came over Lady Mary Crawley as she stared at the decayed and desecrated body that lay before her. The nearness of it froze her toes and feet as if she were standing barefoot in a snow drift. The name that her son uttered quietly and with grimness was not unfamiliar to her. The thought of it alone, the implications, made her realize that for all her grandeur and self-importance of which she bore in any interaction or situation, she was in fact a small person in a bigger and far older world than she realized. She grew up and lived in the noontide, in the dominant era, of the British Empire. With her breeding and fortune impeccable, this alone allowed her access to the very halls of governance to world shaping institutions. But now in the battle she watched between her child and the reanimated dead, she saw that there were greater powers than her sainted imperium and far older and eviler than the mundanity of the highest of High Society of which she lived. And it was then that a sliver of cold venomous dread for her everlasting soul came over her when she realized just which side she had joined.
It was a sentiment that was shared, that dominated the mind of both mother and son, as if they could hear one another's thoughts and share one another's hearts. For upon appraising the wight, seeing the great evil that had come for him tonight, his head turned slowly, and his eyes slid to the half-naked great lady that he had tied to the back posters of Princess Mary's bed. His mamma watched silently as the boy slowly rose to his feet and turned to face her. He had not acknowledged her since he trussed her up to be used as bait. She had been lying on the silken bed when the youth grabbed her by her silky knickers and dragged her off.
She would've fought him but when she stood the boy stretched out his hand toward her and said words, ancient and forgotten, in some proto-Hindi spell craft. Then, to her wonder and amazement, the beautiful multicolored diamonds began to glow white, yellow, and blue in a brilliant warm radiance. And, as they glowed, the hum of their vibrance melded into an ethereal hymnal that entrammeled Mary's mind with thoughts of Matthew's smiles and Mamma's frocks while basking in the warmth that entered her chest with the holy light of the ancient necklace's glow. Her heart was assailed with a deep nostalgic love that clung to her like a warm hug from a beloved figure.
Yet, when it passed, she found herself tied to the bed posters with her own opera gloves shoved in her mouth as a gag. It was then that Mary knew that George was in possession of a deeper knowledge of the necklace about Mary's supple throat. Enough to hypnotize her so that he could tie her up as bait for the undead. It was a hateful thing to do, dark and twisted. Yet, it spoke still to the very anger and disgust for her that George carried of the events of the night. And in her heart, after all that she had done, if her boy had protected her in the fight or if she was simply lucky that she hadn't caught a stray. It would be a question that she was sure would be answered shortly while the youth stared her down quietly.
The last of the pretenses, the veil, had fallen between them.
Of the wights that had been deployed outside Harewood House right under everyone's noses, George was sure that Mary had no idea, no one could. Of the trap that had been set for him, he also was sure that his mamma had no idea. But that did not mean that Lady Mary Crawley was not working and plotting against her own son. She had already chosen her side in the conflict. For George had perceived much in his conversation with the King and learned even more from observing the Queen. And what he knew was simply that the trap that had been laid for him by the Necromancer had been orchestrated by his own mamma. Perhaps she did not know who she was baiting, nor to what plans she was helping, nor what goals they would achieve that night. But there was no mistaking that Lady Mary Crawley had been willingly instrumental in it.
When the King denied his knowledge of SPECTRE, of the many Royal Decrees and documents that entailed the secret shadow organization's formation, there were very few suspects who would've known or had access to the vault. But when George saw the Queen's jewels inside, he knew that it must have been someone close to the queen. Then, it came to him, who it had been that had planted the SPECTRE papers. It had been Lady Mary. The world – the royal court – would be led to believe that the Queen had groomed and targeted his mamma in want and need. And perhaps she had. But it certainly wasn't the Queen's idea alone. Lady Mary Crawley had been placed in front of her purposefully, teased to her, and by wiles and craft made appealing in subtle arts to the Queen of England. For such a purpose as moments like tonight when a trap would be set or for appearances to be crafted just so in the service of other people's agendas, Lady Mary Crawley was a planted operative in the bosom of the Royal Household. There she would play whatever role she needed in the heart or the bed of Queen Mary of Teck or the King himself.
For Lady Mary Crawley was a founding member of SPECTRE.
And tonight, and for many years yet, had it placed George and Mary, mother and son, on opposite sides of a shadow war fought for the soul of a decaying empire and nation. It never occurred to either of them through their assumed ignorance that either were a part of this. But at that moment, with the felled bodies of the undead about them, it all became crystal clear. There was a shocked silence, a brief glare of wonder, at one another when the unspoken finally was brought to the forefront. But it was quickly replaced with a battling of wills and immovable convictions. As before, as it will be for most of their lives, neither Mary nor George believed that the other had thought things through, utterly convinced that the other was not just wrong but 'dead wrong' about their entire position.
Mary had a strong belief that her son and heir were naïve about how the world works, that he could not see the bigger picture or the pressing need of their family and estate's survival in this. Meanwhile, George thought Mary frightfully ignorant, not realizing nor understanding the magnitude of how great and powerful an evil was bending her to its will. That there is no bargaining with figures of dark sorcery who mock God and his gift of death to men – for they take the offered price and withhold the reward. It wasn't just a clash of ideas, of ways of thinking, but indeed a clash of the future of a family that was at the heart of a struggle for the soul of a listless and damaged nation. In between them was bereft a direction of a culture and society shepherded by a new generation of young men that was lost on muddy and sandy battlefields of a great war. It was an empire filled with fatherless youths neglected by modern enterprising mammas and old Victorians afear of the Plutonian hand, doubling down on anachronisms without sons to challenge them. And no better was all of this seen than in the fight between Mary and George.
Had Matthew been alive he would be ashamed and shocked that Mary – his Mary – would ever be on the opposite side of their child, that she would throw her lot in with such corruption. But Matthew wasn't there … and Mary was. She had been taught from a young age that they were custodians and caretakers of Downton Abbey. That their way of life, their traditions, were what was most important. The idea of doing the right thing for the sake of it being right, the thinking of Matthew, of George, and of every Crawley of Nampara since the days of Ross and Demelza Poldark, was an unrealistic black and white view of the world. Yet, Lady Mary Crawley had never seen the world, had never lived in it with all its ugliness and horrors … but George had.
The youth had seen the corruption of societies, had seen the monstrous acts of those in power that turn a blind eye to tyranny in fear to protect their status and power while losing everything else that made them human. Mary and SPECTRE would freeze time, keep a nation, a society, in stasis, so that they might maintain the world as it is and control it ever more as they deemed it should be. But to whom does this Frankenstein's monster serve in the end? How far would it go? How far would they take it? Is the brick and mortar of Downton Abbey so sacred that it must be watered by the trampled blood of innocent commons? For a simple house, for no greater sake than tradition, would evil be tolerated? And when the commons are subjugated, how long before evil comes for the Great Houses, its shadowy grasp taking hold of their fair country palaces?
George Crawley had seen and fought the primordial darkness at its very root. Evil was not a blunted object that can be wielded like a weapon for the good of society or a family. Evil was a toxic fume, a virus, that seeps and spreads through arrogance and ambition. Evil was a miasmic sickness of greed, subversion, and avarice, till one cannot remember who their former self once was after so many justifications whispered to the dark for the blood that soaks the hands. Evil has no friends nor allies, only rivals – current and potential – that must be dealt with before they deal with you … for it suffers to share its dark power with no other master.
For once you embrace the dark call of evil, never again will your fate or doom hence be free from its will.
He could've told his mamma such things as he had seen of the world and battle, tried to make her understand. But at a glance, George could see that she knew it already … yet she did not care anymore. There was something broken and fey in the irreverence of Lady Mary Crawley's heart. At the end was there only despair without hope in her red tinted amber eyes in the loss of her husband, her daughter, and the utter destruction of the superficial new era of her reign of the family estate. The nights had closed in about her, the days grew shorter, and in her sorrowing grief had she coveted too fiercely the legacy of her family – the only lasting legacy she believed she had left. In her mind and soul had she believed that the line of the House of Grantham had ended with her in the unworthiness of George and his alien ways. Thus, Mary had stopped minding the future and sought only to increase her own power, to maintain her holding of Downton Abbey and its estate, fearing the utter end of her beloved way of life. For the shadow of greed was upon her in the guise of a steward of her family's heritage and traditions and in guard against George who would end them.
It was there, in Princess Mary's bedchamber, that they were at an impasse that could not be solved. For it was with complete contempt that Mary Crawley glanced at her child. Her enduring love mingled with the hate of fear for the unknown that he and his very appearance represented. It would not be said nor have to be uttered again after so many times before. With a cold despairing pride and darkness at the very heart of her black emotions did Mary make clear but once more to her child that she would rather that he take his blade and slash her in the heart than she would ever turn over her beloved Downton Abbey over to him. Indeed, only death would remove her from her treasure hold, for she would not part with a single sundry of the House of Grantham's estate nor suffer it to be in the hands of one she deemed a thief. Thus, though she was greatly frightened by the evil that was revealed, she had thought it a price worthy to pay in whatever interest compounded for the safety of her granny and papa's legacy from those who wished to destroy it, believing that she herself had nothing worthy left to live for anymore.
With a frigid haughty look did she fearlessly glare through gag and bound hands, unflinching at the blade drawn once more upon her. With dark hateful intimidation did the boy threaten the beautiful half-naked woman, the humming sharpness of the blade brought to her neck just under her pallid chin, as he brought himself close to her. Her breath hot against his face, her bare sweaty ivory cut belly taut against him as the glowing blade shaved the invisible hairs of her flawless tight jowls. Yet, she fed him nothing but a contemptuous stern decorum on her freckled countenance. With condescension and prejudice did she behold him as if he were an urchin or beggar in the street pretending to be her equal, to hold himself to one of her breeding and birth. He might cut her throat, might take 'her' estate, but he would never be what she was, never be to her level!
And in the understanding that he never wanted to be any of those things in the first place, that was what made George truly the greater of evils in Mary's eyes.
She made the slightest noise through her nose when the weight of the ancient sacred necklace was torn from her long supple white neck with a chime. Red markings were left on her silky fine porcelain skin where George had ripped it from her. He placed it into one of his jacket pockets, closing the flap over it. And it was there, after nearly hundred years of ownership by German born queens of England, that the ancient necklace stolen from the sacking of the hidden kingdom of a now fallen ancient race, was taken from the Royal House of Windsor.
Embittered would they ever be toward the heirs of the House of Grantham – their blood rivals - demanding its return through the decades. Yet, of Kings Edward, George, and Charles, as well as multiple threats of Queen Elizabeth II, were they fed heartily stinging mockery or a contemptuous silence of a cold shoulder by every exiled Grantham Lord of that fallen ancient house. Nor would such a necklace grace a woman of the Royal House of Windsor for a century hence, till the night the star-crossed and forbidden love of the beautiful Princess Romana and her beloved exile Jason Crawley is declared by the star mirrored river by Oxford.
Yet, that fairy picture of great and ennobling forbidden true love of a distant future was under threat and seemed so far away as its two architects held it hostage under matching hateful glares. Of the existence of such a future was its very thought deplored heartily by its foremother in its kindling she saw in the very eyes of its ancestor and creator. For it would be George Crawley's ways which would mold the House of Grantham into his image that would endure in its unbroken line from father to son long after Lady Violet Crawley and Lord Robert Crawley were dust and forgotten. And in that fear of a future in which Downton is lost, drawing a direct line from the two lover's silhouettes of Royal Princess and exiled Great Detective to the eyes of her son, would Mary rather smother every one of her and George's unborn sons in their cribs through the century. For her and Matthew's heirs to bear empty meaningless titles, to have the pride and dignity of their House forgotten, Granny and Papa's blood spent utterly by nameless exiles dwelling in the shadows.
And it would've been better still that George should kill Mary now, for she would plight her troth to the greatest of evil than let such a fate befall her family.
Yet, when George slashed, it was not his mamma's throat, nor her heart. Instead, with a blink of surprise, one of her arms fell free from its silken restraint. For one last time, in whatever affection he had for Mary – little as there was left in those stores – he had given her fair play from complete humiliation. Yet, it could not be mistaken as a gesture of love of a son for his mother. Instead, Mary would see in full, for the first time, what it would be to face George Crawley not as her child, but as her foe in war and battle. Thus, was she the recipient of his gallantry and code of honor that matched intensity with his enemy and gave them sporting chance – never cowardly nor cruel. He would not free his enemy fully, but he would give them a fighting chance before abandoning them to their fate to meet again on some distant battlefield on equal terms … and meet again they would.
"Farewell, My Lady …"
George sheathed his glowing pale saber. His voice was cold, refusing to address Mary as his mother. For no mamma of his would ever ally herself with evil. He paced away, grabbing up the loaded wine bottle hidden under the bed. He slipped his grip to choke up the neck of the green bottle smoothly as he made his way to the exit. But as he reached the open door, he turned back to Mary one last time as she removed her gag.
"May you live forever."
Then, as he slips from the grasp of an enemy, George Crawley suddenly disappeared from all sight and knowledge.
In his wake, Mary Crawley was left bereft and without. It hurt deeper and with much more anguish than she could imagine to be disowned by her child, for him to look upon her as a stranger, without love or affection. After so long play acting, putting up a façade of not caring for, not loving, her boy any longer, for her to be on the receiving end of such things tore her heart out and carved into her soul. Only then did she understand how terrible of a mistake she had made in her treatment of her child. She almost reneged and bitterly repented everything she ever said and did under such cutting torment of the shame the pain felt for one of whom she loved most in the entirety of existence to finally give up on her and treat her truly as his foe.
But what haunted her most was his parting words. 'May you live forever' rang languishingly within her though she knew not why. And that, in itself, was more proof than not that she was on the wrong side of the conflict between them. Fore death and the fear of it, the unknown of it, was at the core of SPECTRE and its members. They accumulated power and held dearly to it - forsaking and betraying all in their midst in paranoia and avarice. They all were willing to make dark deals with an eldritch dark lord to stave off the Plutonian Hand, hording material in a nihilistic frenzy. Thus, to be wished immortality would seem fair a compliment but for the sting in Mary's heart.
For death was a gift from God to men, and of this was George taught and had he believed truly. That the reward of leaving the Circles of the World, to leave behind all sorrow and pain of the mortal plain, to stand in glory undimmed at the throne of the Father for eternity was as great a gift as life itself. And to fear death, to believe in the blackness of the void in which nothing resides, prolonged the suffering and toil of an imperfect world, weighing deathly upon a soul trapped in stagnation. The grief, despair, and suffering bread from that fear was as worse a fate, a torment, than any that could be wished upon even the bitterest of foes.
And long would Lady Mary Crawley, in sorrow and defeat, ruminate in self-hatred of George's parting words to her that night.