“You two don’t have to stay after the pictures,” I said to them. “I know you don’t want to be here.”

“Aren’t we having this whole party for him?” Bill said.

“Don’t be silly. This party is for me. He can celebrate any way he likes.”

“Okay,” the photographer said. “Big smiles, everybody.”

Bernice gave me a smug look and squeezed my hand again.

CHAPTER 63

Gentry

   Nigh three years to the day, Lady Zhorzha and I returned to Bryn Carreg. ’Twas bright April, with all things turning to green but the air still full of winter chill. Deep in the woods, rimes of snow clung to the ground, bedded on pine needles.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to carry anything?” my lady said. She walked before me a few paces, but turned back to ask again.

“My lady, knowest thou, if I need thee to carry aught, I will ask thee.”

I would remind her that she carried things for me I could not. I would remind her that ’twas by her labor Bryn Carreg was still mine, but such words dis-eased her, so I spake them not.

I raised the pavilion upon the hill beside the tower, tho ’twas not my custom, for there was no protection from the wind. Yet I desired we should sleep in sight of the work that lay before me. Soon enough I would have other work, the building of flying machines if my father could make it so. Some other thing if not. For the nonce, I longed to finish the eastern tower, and lay as many stones as I might upon the southern tower ere winter returned.

While I began setting the scaffolding that would serve me to lay courses of stone, Lady Zhorzha swept out the leaves that had blown into the towers and bailey. Marcus and Leon weaved in and out, seeking rabbit nests and other matters of great import to boy and dog. Weren they inclined, I would train them together on the hunt. ’Twas a thought that called to mind Sir Edrard, and I longed to see him, knowing I could not.

“What else can I do?” My lady’s shadow fell across where I worked upon the scaffolding. ’Twas work made easier with two, but if I looked upon her, I would be reminded that we two carried the blame of Edrard’s death.

“Thou might clean also the bathing pond, for it will be choked with leaves. The net may be found with the other tools in the eastern tower.”

“Okay.” She went away, calling for Marcus: “Come on, come help me!”

“Leon!” Marcus shouted, and they three went down the hill. For some while I was alone with my labors and my grief. In such time the desire to be alone passed.

“Thy moody countenance will send her from thee as surely as sharp words or a heavy hand,” Gawen said.

“He would be better parted from her,” Hildegard said. Some days, methought to take once more the physic that silenced her, but it quieted also the black knight.

“She cometh of her own will and might go of her own will,” I said, tho in truth I would not have her go.

“So might thou. Go to her if it thee liketh,” the Witch said. “Thou art free.”

I had not yet laid the planks upon the scaffold, but I climbed it that I might see Lady Zhorzha. Aside the ponds, she and her nephew had gathered a mound of leaves, branches, and other things that had fallen in the water over three winters. They two stood at the lip of the bathing pond, where she held the net braced upon the ground like a shepherd’s crook. At my lady’s bidding, Marcus ran up the hill toward the keep. When he departed, my lady lay down the net and took off her blouse. As I watched, she stepped out of her shoes and brought her hands to the clasp of her trousers.

Two things stirred in my breast: a great longing to see her disrobed under the bright sun, and a great uncertainty. The water was too cold for bathing. What meant she do?

I climbed down from the scaffolding and ran out of the bailey. As I went down the hill, I met Marcus.

“Did thine aunt send for me?” I said, and turned him back to accompany me.

“No. She told me to go up to the tower.”

“Wherefore?”

“I dunno. I was supposed to get something but I don’t remember what.”

I made haste ahead of him, for my lady no longer stood at the edge of the pond. I saw her not, nor whither she had gone.

When I reached the pond, my lady’s garments lay aside her shoes. Ere I called for her, Lady Zhorzha’s head broke the surface of the pond. She took a great gasp of air and coughed it out.

“Oh, fuck, that’s cold!” she said, but to herself alone, for she knew not that I was there, until she drew her hair back from her face, and opened her eyes.

She looked upon me and I upon her. I knew not what to say, for fear I broke some unspoken vow in spying her at her bath.

“Aunt Zee, are we going swimming?” Marcus said.

“Oh my god, no. I told you to get me a towel.” My lady’s teeth chattered together. “They’re in the basket in the tent.”

At the center of the pond the water reached nigh her chin, but after Marcus went, she crossed to where I stood. As she stepped from the water, her hair lay in dripping strands upon her breasts and shoulders, and water-beaded leaves clung to her skin like faerie jewels, for she had gone into the pond all unclothed. Steam rose from her flesh like mist at sunrise. I drank her up from the crown of her head to the curve of her hip, til I saw what she bore in her hand.

’Twas my sword. The first true sword I owned that long hung above my bed in my father’s keep. When I returned from Malvern, the sword was gone, and Trang knew naught but that my mother it took. Just or unjust, I asked her not, for my mother had endured much by cause of my folly.

Yet there was my sword, some rusted but whole. Lady Zhorzha grasped the hilt in both hands and lifted it clear of the steps, tho ’twas too heavy for her to hold it aloft. When she reached the top step, she brought the point to rest in the grass.

I knelt to her, as I had knelt many years before when I was knighted. She laughed, I knew not why, but ’twas a glad sound. Her right hand remained upon the hilt, and with her left, she grasped the blade to lift it before her.

“Your sword, Sir Gentry,” she said. When I raised my hands, she put it into them.

Acknowledgments

   My sincere gratitude to the following people:

Liberty Greenwood, my favorite traveling companion and my favorite stay-at-home companion.

Robert Ozier—friends who keep showing up are the best friends.

My agent, Jess Regel, who continues to take a chance on my weird ideas.

My reckless but brave editor, Tara Singh Carlson, and the wonderful people at Putnam: Helen Richard, Sally Kim, Ivan Held, Alexis Welby, Ashley McClay, Meredith Dros, Maija Baldauf, Joel Breuklander, Anthony Ramondo, Monica Cordova, Nayon Cho, Katy Riegel, Brennin Cummings, Jordan Aaronson, Elena Hershey, Bonnie Rice.