demanded. The body in her arms was dissolving, fading into the mist. There was a new life inside her waiting to be born. She had to come back. She had to obey, to give him the chance to atone…
“Jo?” Nick was willing her back to life. “Jo, can you hear me?”
There was a very slight change in her now. He couldn’t name it, but it was as if her resistance were weakening. She had changed her mind. She was going to return. “Jo, my darling, you’re going to make it.” He shook her again. “It’s all over, love. All over.”
She touched his jacket experimentally, as if testing the command she had over her fingers, and winced at the pain. “Over?” she repeated, dazed.
Behind them Ann and Carl Bennet exchanged glances. Ann was smiling, but there were tears in her eyes.
“It’s over,” Jo repeated slowly. “She died. Here, beneath this tower.”
“I know, love.”
“They took the bodies out of the oubliette after eleven days. They laid them in a single grave. Will was in her arms. They couldn’t separate them at the end. There was no cross, no stone. The king wanted to forget…”
“He never forgot, Jo. He never forgot.”
She extricated herself from his arms slowly and for half a second he moved to try to restrain her, then he stood back as she walked, shakily, across the grass to the crumbling wall behind them. “Here,” she whispered. “They are here, in the foundations of the wall. They threw them in the rubble and piled the stones on top of them.” Slowly she stooped, then, gently snapping off a stem of wild marjoram, she walked to the shadow of the wall and laid the flower on a shelf in the stone. For a moment she stood staring down at it, then she turned and began to walk back toward the shadowed entrance to the Martyr’s Gate.
Nick hesitated, then he followed her as she made her way slowly back down the lower ward and out across the bridge. The Mercedes was parked outside the pub. Bennet opened the rear door and obediently she climbed in, sitting back, her eyes closed. In silence Ann climbed in beside her and put her arm around her shoulders.
“She needs a brandy,” she said.
Bennet shook his head. “That’s the last thing this girl needs,” he said curtly, “on top of all that Valium. I’ve got some coffee in the back.”
Nick was standing uncertainly beside the car, watching as Jo clasped the mug of hot sweet coffee in her hands, sipping it. He glanced at Ann, then at Bennet. They were both preoccupied with Jo. Quietly he turned and began to retrace his steps into the castle.
Bennet looked around. For a moment he did not move. He frowned, then he handed the Thermos to Ann. “Take care of her,” he whispered. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
Nick was standing looking down at the spray of tiny mauve flowers lying in the shadow of the stone.
Her hair had been redder than Jo’s, her eyes a little greener perhaps. She had been so full of life, so graceful, so vivacious. And she had been broken by him.
“Forgive me.” He did not realize he had spoken aloud. Slowly he knelt in the wet grass in silence.
It was five full minutes before he rose slowly to his feet. Without looking back he turned and headed toward the cars. Bennet was waiting for him in the shadow of the huge stone gateway.
Suddenly noticing him, Nick stopped, looking embarrassed.
“I thought I was alone.”
Bennet smiled gravely as he fell in step beside him. “You were not alone,” he said. “Someone was listening. I think, for some reason, you have been given a second chance.”
Nick nodded. “I believe I have.”
In the back of the car Jo reached across and touched Nick’s hand. She was staring at the wet, muddied knees of his trousers. “Thank you,” she whispered.
He put his arm around her. “It’s finally over.” He pulled her against him.
“For them.” She gave him a shaky smile. “But what about for us?”
“For us it is the beginning. A new beginning.”
“And Sam?” she whispered.
“I don’t think Sam will come back.” His arms tightened around her. “And nor will Tim, Jo. They had a fight last night. Tim slipped and cracked his skull.” He hesitated, feeling her body tighten. “He’s dead, love.”
She tried to swallow her tears. “But why? Why Tim? He never hurt anyone.”
“It was an accident-”
“It wasn’t an accident,” she cried miserably. “Nothing has been an accident. It has all happened by design. Every single thing, from that first time I met Sam in Edinburgh. I should have known then. I should have recognized the danger.” Her voice rose. “It has all been Sam, hasn’t it? Every bit was staged by him. It wasn’t real. You weren’t King John. I wasn’t Matilda. He set the whole thing up. He’s been laughing at us all the time.”
Nick said nothing. He was gazing past her out of the car window, up at the silhouette of white stone against the brilliant blue of the sky.
He did not see the huge cracks in the masonry. He did not see the fallen slabs of stone or the weeds and the ivy. He was looking at the solid, newly built keep of a powerful great castle, with the three huge snarling leopards of England streaming in a blaze of red and gold from the topmost battlements.
He had been there before.
Epilogue One
10 October 1216
Margaret de Lacy pushed back her hood and carefully straightened her gown, shaking off the rain. The roars of merriment from inside the dining hall showed the people of Lynn were enjoying the feast they had prepared for the king as he progressed through the eastern counties of his realm. She took a deep breath and nodded to the page at the door, who, having bitten her coin, had pocketed it cheerfully. He pushed it open with a flourish and winked at her. The hall was packed with people and noisy, but determinedly Margaret pushed her way toward the high table where the king was eating.
He did not notice her at first, raising his goblet to toast the fat sheriff. There had been supplicants on and off all evening and he was disposed to be benevolent. Then he turned and saw the woman who waited at his elbow, her green eyes fixed quietly on his face. Slowly his smile faded and he lowered his goblet. Sweat stood out on his brow and he wiped it with the back of his hand. Rising to his feet, he pushed back his chair with sudden violence. Silence fell over the table as curious faces watched on every side.
John crossed himself, and she saw his lips move, questing, toying with a name.
She curtsied to the ground. “I am Margaret, sire. Her daughter.”
She heard the whispers running down the hall and saw the excitement and puzzlement on the faces near the king. He had grown pale as he watched her and his expression was guarded.
“I have come to beg a grant of land, Your Grace. To build a convent to my mother’s memory. I hoped you would do that much for her-now.” She looked down, not wanting, suddenly, to see the pain in his eyes.
“Of course.” She hardly heard the words, but she saw his lips move. “Where?”
“In the Marches that she loved, sire.”
He saw her eyes through a swimming haze, green and beautiful, flecked with gold; the eyes of another woman.
Suddenly the king doubled over, racked with a spasm of pain. He clutched his stomach, retching, and the
