Linda Barlow (77 page)

"Francis?" Her awareness of her own minor injury was totally gone.

There was no reply. She heard a cry, but it was not from him. It was Roger, hurling himself to the ground beside them. "Francis? Francis! Dammit, Francis!" He was shaking the body of the man who had been his closest friend. But Francis was motionless. His lifeblood coursed out like a river. Alexandra turned away, sick. The arrow must have severed the artery. No one could lose that much blood and live.

Time passed; she wasn't sure how much. The others were gathering around them, trying to drag them away. She dimly recognized Alan's voice, Richard Bennett's. "Come quickly," said the latter, "the boat is here; we must be swift; there's no time for mourning now."

She looked back at Francis. The artery was already ceasing its frightful spurting. His heart, she knew, had ceased to beat. Oh God! She gazed into his face. Unlike the usual death mask of those who die suddenly, there was no surprise, no rebellion. His features were peaceful and relaxed; his soul, she sensed, was flying free. Tears crowded into her eyes. He had died saving her, saving Roger. Surely God would accept his sacrifice and forgive him for Will and Ned.

Another arrow struck the ground, but it was well behind the spot where Roger knelt. She glanced at him; tears were streaming down his cheeks. She slipped her hand into his. "Roger," she pleaded. "We must go or his death will have been in vain."

But Roger grabbed Francis' shoulder and made as if to pull him toward the boat. "I won't leave him. He needs a surgeon. We must take him with us. We must try to save him—"

Alexandra pried his fingers away from the body. "He's dead, my love. We cannot save him. Not now, not ever. You must accept it. Francis is dead."

Roger's face was a mask of pure agony. "No, Alix. I have to tell him I forgive him. Don't say he can't hear me. I can't let him die thinking I still hate him. I never really hated him, you see. He needs to understand that."

Fresh tears gushed out of her eyes. "He knew you forgave him. Some things are clear without words."

He didn't seem to hear her, he wouldn't leave; he wouldn't turn away from Francis. Desperately she drew his hands against her belly. The babe, who was moving excitedly within her, rolled beneath his fingers. Roger's hands were impersonal for several seconds; then they clutched at her, at the evidence of new life burgeoning within her. She felt him shudder, heard him groan.

"This is your child. She needs you. I need you. The ship is waiting to take us safely from here, and Francis would want us to be on it. Now, come with me, beloved. Come."

Roger regained his senses then. He lifted his head and looked around him, saw Alan and Richard, understood the expressions of haste and desperation on their faces. A few arrows were still falling, but none had the range to reach them now. There were shouts, though, from the direction of the gate through which they had fled. Pursuit. There was no more time to waste. He pushed Alexandra into his brother's arms. "Get into the boat," he ordered in his usual voice. "I'm coming."

They obeyed while Roger bent quickly over the body of the man who had loved him.
Francis.
He stared at his peaceful face, trying to memorize it, imprint it deep upon his brain. Despite the tragic circumstances that had arisen this past year to divide them, only one human spirit had ever been closer to him. And Francis had just laid down his life for hers.

"Farewell, my friend," he whispered. He was crying; he did not care. Francis would have wept for him, too, if it had been his body lying bloodless in the dirt.

Gently he closed those silver-gray eyes forever, and then he did something he had never done, something he would never have dreamed of doing, although if he could have seen it, Francis would doubtless have been gratified. He kissed him full upon the mouth. "God grant you peace." He covered his friend's body with Alexandra's hair, a living, shining shroud. And then he straightened and ran—to his wife, to his child, to freedom.

Epilogue

Whitcombe, June 1559

The small procession winding up the road to Whitcombe Castle halted when the gates of the fortress were flung open and a man came running out into the road. "Alix?" he cried, extending his arms to a slender red-haired woman seated sedately upon a horse.

"Hold the baby, husband," she said, thrusting a bundle into the lap of the man at her side. Then she slid from her horse and threw herself into Alan Trevor's arms.

"Very nice," said Roger Trevor dryly. He too dismounted, carefully cradling his child. "I shall expect an equally warm embrace from
your
wife, little brother."

"And you shall have it," said the quiet voice of the elegant woman who had followed Alan through the gates. She embraced him as closely as her heavily pregnant state would allow. "Welcome home, Roger, Alexandra," said Pris.

Alan released Alexandra, who turned to hug Pris. He offered his hand to his elder brother. "Indeed, welcome to your lands, your castle, my lord," he said with a grin. "'Tis high time you returned to attend to the running of them."

Roger shaded his eyes and considered the newly repaired fortress walls with satisfaction. "I do believe you've found your calling in life, lad. Restoring ancient wrecks. Perhaps I'll take my wife and child back to London and leave the running of the place to you."

Alan waved his suggestion away, but Alexandra met her husband's eyes with a smile, knowing that this was exactly what he intended to do. Roger's place was at the court of the intelligent and farsighted new queen, Elizabeth. And she, his wife, meant to be right there beside him.

"Come within," said Pris. "You have much to tell us." She glanced at the fourteen-month-old infant in her father's arms. "May I take her?"

Roger had his hands full as the little girl began to squirm to wakefulness. He cuddled her, crooning. It was obviously a task to which he was well accustomed. "If she'll go to you. She's a little wary of strangers." He held his daughter up so she could see his brother's wife. Pris smiled and clucked at her; the little girl tentatively smiled back. She had thick black curls, fair skin, and blue-green eyes that were turning greener week by week.

"She's beautiful!"

"Her parents believe her to be the most comely child ever born," Alexandra laughed. "And the cleverest, of course."

"You darling," Priscilla murmured, taking the child. "What is her name?"

"We call her Frances," Roger said.

Pris met Alexandra's eyes briefly. "It is a lovely name."

An hour later, Alexandra and Roger sat on the dais in the great hall at Whitcombe with Alan, Pris, and Dorcas, eating, drinking, telling tales of their adventures, and explaining the circumstances that had brought them home to England after a year and a half of exile abroad. "When Mary died and Elizabeth took the throne, we wondered what the new queen would do about the religious strife that has plagued our country for so many years," said Roger. "It appears now that sectarian prosecution has ceased. Elizabeth has declared that she wishes to open no windows into men's souls."

Alexandra took up the story: "After Mary's death, my father petitioned our new queen for a pardon for Roger. We finally heard this spring that it had been granted." She smiled and touched her husband's sleeve. "He returns to England a free man."

"Thank God!" said Dorcas. Although she still wore mourning for her husband, the dowager baroness looked happy and content, her expression more carefree than it had been when she had so worried over Richard Trevor's illness. "I had a feeling it would happen, that we would all be together again."

"I had no such confidence, I'm ashamed to report," said Alexandra. "I had begun to despair of ever seeing my home and family again."

"Have you visited your parents yet?" asked Alan.

She nodded. "They are in London. After Roger's escape from prison, my father was dismissed from his post at court and imprisoned. His alienation from the court proved advantageous, though, when Mary’s health declined." Alexandra felt a pang of sorrow for her dead mistress, whose last few months, by all accounts, had been as joyless as the rest of her life. "He cultivated new friends who were quietly planning for the day when Elizabeth would take the throne. He is now advising the new Queen."

"He is a clever man, with brilliant political instincts," said Roger. "If anyone advances within this realm, it will be your father."

"I think not," Alexandra said. "Oh, he
could,
that’s true, but when we spoke in London he told me he had given over his quest for power. There are personal quests more important, he said."

"Meaning what?"

"My mother is with him. They have made peace with one another, and are happy, I think, for the first time in years."

"You, my love, have a romantic soul."

"No, truly, they are reconciled. She told me so herself. She even told me..." She paused, sending a mischievous wink to Pris and Dorcas "...that lovemaking is more pleasant now than it was when she was a girl."

Alan cleared his throat, looking embarrassed, but everybody else laughed.

"I sincerely hope that twenty-five years from now I may say the same thing!" Alexandra added.

Roger grinned at her and winked. "I plan to keep you well satisfied for at least twice that long, poppy-top."

* * *

"You are happy, Pris?"

Alexandra and Priscilla were alone briefly while Alan took his brother on a tour of the renovations.

"Very much so, can you not tell?"

"In sooth, you look it. Alan too."

"Life is wondrous strange. I have loved two brothers. When Will was alive, it never occurred to me that Alan and I would ever suit one another. Yet we do, exceedingly well. He composes poetry, did you know that? And he plays sweet music on his lute that touches me deeply. He sang to me at our wedding. I wish you had been here for that."

Alexandra smiled. "We were sorry to miss your wedding. 'Twas at Christmas, was it not?"

"We wanted to wait for you, but we were not sure when you would return, and, well…" She touched her full belly and laughed. "We could wait no longer, I'm afraid."

"No, I imagine not! So it was Alan's gray eyes that struck you to the heart?"

Priscilla's expression sobered. "Yes. You were right about that. You said it was a metaphor for love, not death." She paused. "I heard that Francis Lacklin gave his life to save yours. Is that true?"

"Yes." Alexandra felt the old sorrow as she remembered the eventful night of their escape and the long period of grieving that had followed. For Roger especially those weeks had been sad and cruel. "He saved Roger from the scaffold and me from certain death at the hands of the Tower guards. 'Twas the final act of his life. God will forgive him, surely, for everything else."

"Do you forgive him?"

"With all my heart."

"So, then, do I."

Later that afternoon, Alexandra dismounted in front of Merwynna's woodland cottage. It looked just the same—the trees rose dark behind it, and before it the bright water of the lake shimmered. Roger, with a wakeful Frances seated on the horse in front of him, rode down to the water. Their daughter loved water of any kind. Like her father, the girl loved to be at sea with the waves rolling beneath her.

Just as Alexandra raised her hand to rap upon Merwynna’s door, it opened. The old woman with her white braids and fierce black eyes hovered on the threshold, her forbidding face cracking in a grin. "So here ye are at last. I saw ye in my dreams, crossing the sea, wending yer way to the north. I prayed to greet ye once more before laying my sorry carcass down in the earth forever."

"Merwynna." Alexandra opened her arms and hugged the wisewoman tightly. "Don't you dare speak of dying. You look hale as ever, God be thanked."

Merwynna held her away and looked into her eyes. "Aye, lass, and so do ye." She glanced at Roger, who had also dismounted. He was trying to coax Frances away from the lake.

"So." Merwynna strode over to the little girl. "And this is the bairn who insisted upon getting a start in her mother's belly long before her parents were wed?"

"She's a spirited lass who knows her own mind, just like her mother," said Roger with a grin. He lifted the child so Merwynna could get a better look at her.