Druids Sword Read Online Free

every right to say it any way you want, Silvius.”
    “Ah, Jack, we shouldn’t have to spend the rest of our lives apologising. In our time I’ve been a pitiful father and you’ve been a lousy son. We’ll just have to live with it.” They’d reached the revolving doors leading out from the station into the street. “Now, what say you we see what the London night has to offer, eh?”
    As he had in his dream, Jack paused once they stood on the pavement outside. There was a fair amount of traffic on the road—mostly lorries and taxicabs, all with their headlamps dimmed—but few pedestrians. Many buildings were darkened, and many streetlamps left unlit.
    Most people would be home, glued to the wireless, waiting on news from Europe.
    Or Downing Street.
    And, as he had in his dream, Jack looked northwards. It was difficult from this angle, but hethought he could make out the dome of St Paul’s across the Thames.
    He shivered again, and silently cursed the fact he’d agreed to come home.
    “The car’s this way, Jack,” said Silvius, nodding to a point further along the road.
    “You’re driving?”
    Silvius ginned. “Yes. Normally Harry would have given me a driver—he’s certainly surrounded with enough lackeys at Faerie Hill Manor—but I thought that for tonight we might like to talk. Catch you up on the news, so to speak.”
    They’d been walking along the pavement towards Silvius’ car, but now Jack stopped again. “Harry?”
    Silvius shifted the weight of Jack’s holdall into his other hand. “Brigadier—retired—Sir Harold Cole.” His grin spread a bit wider as he waited for his son’s reaction.
    Jack suddenly realised who Silvius meant and gave a short nod of understanding. Coel, reborn as Harold, King of England, reborn as Charles II—the Lord of the Faerie. Harold Cole now, in this mortal world. Jack hadn’t realised, as the only times he’d met with the man was when he walked in his Faerie form.
    “When he’s in this land of toil the Lord of the Faerie becomes Harry Cole,” Silvius said as they moved on. “He lives as a sort of…oh, a sort of a ‘boffin’ up at Faerie Hill Manor in Epping Forest. No one—beyond those of us who have known him for the past few thousand years, of course—really knows what he does, but he is trusted within the highest echelons of government and military and is consulted by both on matters of intelligence and defence. He’s a close friend of the king.” Silvius slid a look Jack’s way. “You know…”
    “That John Thornton has been reborn as George VI? Yes, I knew that.” Jack gave a short laugh.
    “We’ve been handing that pretty title about our group fairly evenly, I think.”
    “Very democratically,” Silvius agreed. Then he stopped by a huge black saloon car. “Here we are.”
    He stowed Jack’s holdall in the boot, nodding for Jack to get in the passenger side.
    When he was behind the wheel, Silvius took a moment to draw on his leather gloves. “It’s been bad without you, Jack,” he said, looking ahead at the road rather than at his son. “None of us know what we can do against the Troy—”
    “I don’t want to talk about that now,” Jack said quietly, his own eyes fixed ahead. His hand fumbled about in the pocket of his greatcoat and he drew out his cigarettes and matches. “Smoke?”
    Silvius shook his head. “Jack—”
    “Not now, Silvius, please,” Jack said, then struck a match and drew deeply on his cigarette. “Not yet.”
    Silvius sighed, started up the car, and drove off.
    Within moments they were on Blackfriars Bridge, and moments after that Silvius turned the car right, up Ludgate Hill.
    “Silvius?” Jack straightened in his seat. “Where are we going?”
    “To pick someone up,” Silvius said. “Another reason neither Harry or I wanted a civilian driver tonight.”
    Jack tensed, his cigarette forgotten in his hand. They were driving directly towards St Paul’s Cathedral.

T WO
London
Saturday, 2 nd