She put a hand on one side of the gap and leaned out into the lane. He was walking towards Much Wemby.
“It’s that way!” She pointed the other direction. “Trimbleton! The Red Lion!”
He turned and nodded to show he’d heard her and raised his hand to his beaver in a salute, but then he continued on his way towards Much Wemby.
She had failed to send him away, but he was clearly a man who did what he wanted. She went back to the stone and her scythe.
Worry, worry, full of fury, blue-eyed man in a hurry.
Once upon a time, it had seemed incredibly important for no one to know about Augustus. Because of Father. Because of Ned. Because of everyone else in Much Wemby.
Hodge had argued with Susannah but finally agreed.
She stooped and picked up the sickle she had abandoned in the grass. There wasn’t any reason to feel frightened.Nothing was going to happen. Nothing ever happened in Much Wemby.
But she’d just had an adventure of sorts in what was left of Little Wemby, hadn’t she? And an adventure deserved a name.
How Susannah lost her tongue, rubbed dirt on her face, and made a fool of herself in front of the startlingly handsome gentleman.
There was no happy ending promised, but she might invent one.
Four
The concubine laughed when her king told her he did not believe in destiny. But then he looked cross, and she feared she would be treated to a royal sulk.
“Come now,” she said. “A king by birth who thinks fate is humbug? You must see the irony.”
But her king did not believe in irony, either.
—The Concubine and Her King.Unpublished MS.
That had to be the single most prolonged parting of Henry’s life. Even now, he couldn’t imagine why he had let it be drawn out that way.
What an odd woman. Odd, but striking with that wild, gray hair and those golden-brown eyes in that impish, round-cheeked face. And dangerous with that scythe.
But maybe he was wrong to think her odd. She was of a piece with this whole strange, dreamlike morning.
Earlier, before his borrowed horse had lost its shoe, Henryhad ridden past the old church and felt a shiver of recognition along his spine.
He had dismissed it. Naturally, it was eerie to see a church sitting all alone in the countryside with a broken churchyard wall. It had nothing to do with the oversized gargoyle in the shape of an elephant.
Then the shoe had come off, and Henry had dismounted to spare Sir John’s horse, and, as he had walked on, the slower pace had helped him realize he’d stumbled upon a place full of familiar landmarks.
Familiar, yet he’d never seen them before. Not outside of his mind’s eye, at any rate.
He’d heard that sometimes people thought they had been somewhere, seen something previously when they had not. But Henry’s recognition of this place was no figment. It was real, and he could recite why.
He knew the twists and turns of this lane as it approached the river. He knew the bridge he now crossed, the mill next to it, and even the pale color of the stones in the river. He knew them because he’d read about them more times than he could count.
He’d known where to find the farrier—next to the village green, just beside the coaching inn—and he hadn’t had to stop to ask anyone. Because he alreadyknew.
How Tommy took the magic mare to the farrier to mend her hurt leg.
The farrier, a huge man of few words, had ignored Henry but addressed the horse by name.
“Nym.”
“Yes. You know he’s Sir John’s, then. He’s lost a shoe. I suppose he’ll need a new pair.”
