The King's Deception

He brought his face close. Breathing was difficult for her. She thought about resisting, but everything she knew about this man signaled that he was a coward.

He’d only go so far.

She hoped.

“Rot in hell,” he said.

Then he shoved her to the floor and left.

She’d not thought about that day in a long time. Her hip was sore for a week afterward. Antrim had tried to call, leaving messages of apology, but she’d ignored them. A month before that last encounter he’d written a glowing recommendation for her SOCA application. He’d volunteered to do it, revealing to her then his CIA employment and saying a good word from him couldn’t hurt. She’d been debating whether to forgo the law and become a law enforcement agent, but their violent parting convinced her.

Never again was that going to happen to her.

So she learned to defend herself, carry a badge, fire a weapon.

She also developed a reckless streak, and often wondered if that happened because of Antrim or in spite of him.

Men like Blake Antrim lived by convincing themselves that everyone else was inferior to them. Believing yourself on top was far more important than actually being there. And when that fantasy became fouled by a conflicting reality the response was violence. There was something unhinged about him. Never would he go back. He couldn’t. He not only burned bridges, he left them radioactive, forever impassable.

Forward was the only way for him.

Mathews may have been wrong about this.

Her approaching Antrim, after ten years, could be harder than anyone thought.

Part Two

Sixteen

8:30 PM

Kathleen always liked returning to Oxford. She’d spent four years studying there. So when the narrative on the laptop directed her to drive sixty miles northwest, she’d been pleased.

A town had existed since the 10th century, and the Normans were the first to erect a castle. A college was established in the 13th century. Now 39 distinctive institutions, each independent and fiercely competitive, filled the honey-colored Gothic buildings. They carried names like Corpus Christi, Hertford, Christ Church, Magdalen, and Trinity, together forming a federation, the oldest in England, known as Oxford University.

The Thames and Cherwell rivers merged here, and Kathleen had enjoyed many an afternoon punting down the placid waterways, becoming quite apt at maneuvering the flat-bottomed boats. King Harold died here. Richard the Lionheart was born here. Henry V was educated and Elizabeth I entertained and fêted among the spires, towers, cloisters, and quadrangles. This was a place of history, theology, and academics, where great politicians, clerics, poets, philosophers, and scientists were trained. She’d read once that Hitler supposedly spared the town his bombs, as he planned to make it his English capital.

Oxford was exactly what Matthew Arnold called it.

The city of dreaming spires.

She’d thought about Blake Antrim on the drive. The prospect of seeing him again seemed revolting. He was not a man to let go of anything. His ego was far too fragile to seek forgiveness. How many women had there been since her? Had he married? Fathered children?

Mathews had provided no relevant information on this second briefing, telling her only to head straight to the hall at Jesus College, which sat in the heart of the city, among the shops and pubs. Founded by a Welshman, but endowed by Elizabeth I, it remained the only one of Oxford’s colleges created during her reign. Small, maybe 600 students among undergraduates, graduates, and fellows. She’d always loved its unmistakable Elizabethan feel. She knew its great hall, which reminded her of the one at Middle Temple. Same rectangular shape, carved wooden screens, cartouches, and oil portraits, one of Elizabeth herself dominating the north wall above the high table. But no hammerbeam Tudor ceiling here, only plaster stretching overhead.

She’d wondered about campus access, considering it was a Friday night, but the gate at Turl and Ship streets was open, the hall lit, and a woman waited for her inside — short, petite, her graying blond hair drawn into a bun. She wore a conservative navy suit with low heels and introduced herself as Dr. Eva Pazan, providing a title, professor of history, Lincoln College, another of Oxford’s long-standing institutions.

“I actually studied at Exeter,” Pazan said, “and I understand you attended St. Anne’s.”

Both were part of Oxford’s thirty-nine. St. Anne’s had always been more open to students from a state-education background, like herself, as opposed to the private preparatory schools. Gaining admission had been one of the highlights of her life. Kathleen was curious, though, about Pazan’s age, as she knew Exeter had been all-male until 1979.