Epilogue
Canterbury—September, 1405
Edward strolled through the bustling main thoroughfare of Canterbury, Rosalyne on his arm. They had not been back to the city since they had left it many years ago. Now, Rosalyne was two score and he would reach that age in another six months.
He glanced down at the woman who had held his heart for so long. Though her blond locks still caught the sun, he spied a few gray hairs mingled within. Tiny laugh lines had been etched around the corners of her eyes but her figure was still trim—even after birthing four sons and two daughters.
“It seems so odd to be back,” she remarked. “Everything seems vaguely familiar and yet it’s almost as if I have never been here before.”
“Cities change,” Edward said. “People change. We have changed.”
Rosalyne gave him a warm smile. “I don’t mind change. As long as I am with you.” She squeezed his arm affectionately.
“I feel the same.”
They stopped where they had once purchased a meat pie and decided to share one. The owner looked the same, as if no time had passed at all, but Edward realized it was the man’s son who served them because he caught sight of the father helping someone else.
They returned to the street after they’d eaten. The cathedral loomed in the distance.
“I am glad you wanted to return,” Rosalyne said.
“I promised myself years ago that once Master Yevele completed the nave, I had to view his finished work. It was already impressive enough when half-completed.”
“At least England has calmed enough for us to travel,” she remarked.
The current state of affairs saddened him. Richard no longer held the throne. He had lost it shortly after Edward and Rosalyne left court, when the Lords Appellant took control. Though the king claimed his throne again a year later, he waited years before taking revenge on the aristocrats who had ousted him, exiling some and executing others.
Then Richard’s first cousin and childhood playmate, son of the Duke of Lancaster, deposed the king and claimed the crown as King Henry the Fourth. The former king died in captivity soon after. Edward had heard the rumors that Henry starved Richard to death but, knowing the former king, Richard just as well might have starved himself since he no longer held any power.
“Henry has had a rough go of being king,” Edward said, “what with Owain Glyndwr and the Percys in a constant state of rebellion against him.”
“It would not surprise me if a new king asserts himself not too long from now.”
Edward thought his wife might be right.
They walked in silence after that until they reached the great cathedral. Pausing before it, Edward drank in the building’s grandeur.
“Shall we enter?” he asked and led Rosalyne inside.
Henry Yevele’s new nave had taken a score and five years to complete but it was well worth the wait. Both the nave and transepts had been rebuilt. The perpendicular nave ran from the entrance all the way down the central aisle to the altar far ahead, with the transept crossing it, forming a true cross inside the cathedral. The old aisle walls had been torn down. Tall, slender pillars now supported the structure, with exceptionally high arches in their place.
They walked the length of the cathedral and back, admiring the new stained glass windows that had been placed inside the church. A new choir screen stood at the east end of the nave.
“The details are incredible,” Edward said, in awe of the structure.
“It took a true master to create this vision and see it to fruition. As an artist, I can appreciate what it took to bring this to life.”
“Shall we visit Trinity Chapel—and your triptych?” he suggested.
They went to the chapel, still full of pilgrims who came to see where Thomas Becket had been martyred. Edward steered Rosalyne toward her panel, which remained near the shrine to the Black Prince. It saddened him that Richard, being so young, had never really known his father as the rest of England had. And poor Richard had never had any children of his own. His beloved Queen Anne had died childless. The king mourned her death and only married again for political reasons. His child bride, only seven years of age, became a widow soon after, ending the line the Black Prince came from.
Edward allowed Rosalyne to study her work at length. He knew she viewed it with a critical eye yet he couldn’t help but remember the days in which she had created it. How he had helped her prepare the wood and sand it down and coat it with the sparkling gesso. Those were his earliest memories of their time together. They would go with him to his grave.
“Are you ready to depart?” his wife finally asked.
“Only if you are,” he replied.
She nodded and he escorted her from the cathedral. As they took to the streets again, the September sun beat down upon them, heating his clothes to the point where they were hot to the touch.
Much like the many nights of heat and passion that he had spent caressing the woman beside him.
“You know you mean the world to me,” he murmured into her ear, sensing her shiver at his touch.
“You are the world to me, Edward de Montfort,” Rosalyne told him. “You always have been and always will be. My love for you has grown stronger, day by day, as each year has passed.”
Despite being in the midst of hundreds of people, Edward stopped and took Rosalyne into his arms and kissed her with all the passion and fire that had never died in the years of their marriage.
Breaking the kiss, he smiled and told her, “I need your bare skin against mine, my sweet baroness. I plan to take you back to the inn and make love to you until we leave for Shallowheart tomorrow.”
Rosalyne’s palm touched his cheek. “I am forever yours, Edward. Lead the way.”
The End
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