Epilogue

Late September rolled out like cloth of gold, rich and mellow and warmer than midsummer. Hugh had lately returned from a joust in Picardy, loaded with money, and at once addressed himself to the challenge of their orchard.

“How long has he been picking apples?” David asked.

Joanna looked up from her furnace and frowned. She was counting down in her head and did not want to break off. It was Solomon who answered.

“My son-in-law has been battling with crabs and pear-mains since first light,” he remarked. “I believe the lady Elspeth and your father are now with him.”

“My father was fussing, was he?” David asked.

Solomon glanced at Joanna and nodded. It was common knowledge in both households that Hugh’s father was besotted by the thought of his first grandchild. As Hugh had observed, he and Joanna between them had finally beaten his eldest brother, Nigel, to a claim for Sir Yves’s attention.

Joanna worked the bellows and closed the door to the small furnace. She rubbed at the small of her back.

“I will see to the rest, daughter,” said Solomon. “You must walk now.”

She nodded and eased her way past the delicate glassware on the workbench, smiling at her father as she passed him.

“I am glad I have no stairs to climb here.” She stepped out of the small workshop directly into the yard. “Father loves it here, too. He can stargaze as much as he wishes with clear views of the whole sky.”

“It is a very pretty place,” David agreed, falling into slow step with her. “This was a gift of the lady Elspeth’s, I believe?”

“It was. Her parcel of land. The old shepherd’s hut was already here and Hugh and Father built the workshop. It was the first thing Hugh did, before he went off to tourney.”

“You do not mind his coming and going?”

“It is his trade.” She laughed at David’s startled expression. “Forgive me. That is how I think of it. He has his trade and I, when he is away, have mine. ’Tis true that he has cut down on the number of jousts he attends. He says he no longer has the taste for it and he thinks the time is coming when King John and his barons may wage war against each other here in England.”

David offered her his arm as they crossed over a ditch and out into the narrow track leading to the fields and orchards. “You are comfortable walking?”

Joanna glanced down at her own wide midriff and nodded. In truth she had felt well throughout her pregnancy, although standing tired her.

“Are you comfortable now, David?” she ventured.

“I am accepted back within my order. They accept I have no relics from the Holy Land.”

“Truly?” Joanna still was uncertain about David and the relics, but again he was adamant.

“I have no relics with me.”

He did not say he never had, Joanna noted. The mystery remained, although she found that she did not greatly care. “But are you content?”

“I do well enough at Templecombe.” He turned and walked backward for several paces, watching her rather waddling gait. “I paint when I can. That brings me peace. I finished a new painting yesterday evening: the head of Christ. The head of the preceptory is to install it in his house.”

“He gave you leave to visit today?” Of late David had begun to call on her and Hugh: the entire Manhill family seemed utterly fascinated by her burgeoning pregnancy.

David coughed and shifted to stride forward again. “Sir Brian knows I am here,” he said evasively. “But Joanna—” He stopped her with an arm. “Why are you and my brother on this little small holding? You have a full, rich household and lands.”

“A new stone castle with well-stocked kitchen and buttery, and lands bordering these here,” Joanna agreed. “Lord Roger-Henri delivered most generously on his promises.” To Hugh’s delight and astonishment. “But for my own work, this place is best.”

“Secret, certainly,” remarked David. “I cannot see the homestead now, surrounded as it is by trees and the curve of the hillside.”

“Discreet,” said Joanna firmly, and now she decided to sharpen their conversation. “Why are you here, David? You came but two days ago!”

“I have news. News Hugh will enjoy.” He smirked, suddenly shedding twenty years and looking almost a lad again. “Bishop Thomas of West Sarum is under investigation by his archbishop. The chatter at Templecombe last evening was that he may face charges of heresy, and questions as to his treatment of prisoners.”

“Not so!”

“Indeed.”

“Lord Roger-Henri again?”

“Who knows? Does it matter?”

“Not to me,” Joanna admitted. Nor, she suspected, would Hugh care greatly. She stepped up to a wattle gate and ditch, the boundary of their orchard, and stood aside for David to go first. “If you will tell Hugh I am here, he will fetch me in.”

“I can lift you over the ditch and move that gate,” David offered, but she shook her head. “I have had this already with Sir Yves. Hugh is most determined it should be him and no other.”

“I would be the same,” David remarked. Surprising her then, he kissed her softly on the cheek and touched her forehead, as if he blessed her.

As he hurried away, Joanna thought of how matters had resolved and sublimated of late. Thomas under investigation, David reconciled within himself, Sir Yves closer to Hugh than he had been for years.

And Hugh, her powerful, wonderful Hugh, her new husband, running to her through the orchard, the sunlight honey on his restored, midnight-dark hair. She waited his coming, secure in the knowledge of his love.

“Dear heart!” He reached her and swept her up, big and heavy as she was, circling with her slowly, so she would not feel sick. “You do well, little one?”

“Very well, Hugo.” It amused her vastly that he still called her little. “And you?”

“How can you ask? You are here. The keeper of our child. My beloved.”

She kissed him. “Are you sorry now you took me hostage?” she asked, to tease him a little.

“How can I be?” His blue eyes shone with love and trust as he kissed her in return. “You hold my heart hostage. We are quit in debt. We are equal, love.”

“And safe,” she said. Finally, after years of wandering, she and her father were safe.

“Rich, too, which always helps!”

Laughing, Hugh lifted her again, over the ditch and into the orchard, where she readied herself for many tales of his battling with the apples.