Page 56

There was an immediate, positive result to discovering the burial site of the Great Heathen Army.

Leverage. The kind that moved boulders, and mountains, and intractable men.

The Albion Society was forced to parley with her as an equal.

If any of the Fellows wanted access to her dig, she had to form an avowed part of their dig.

The camp and the grave together shed light on the nature of the Great Heathen Army, on life and death in ninth-century England, and beyond.

Cooperation benefited all. That is, if the true goal was the investigation of the remains of antiquity rather than the self-aggrandizement of the Society and its members.

Truly, it didn’t seem to be. But when pressed, everyone had to pretend.

Elfreda wasn’t much good in a parley, even if she went into it humming “God Save the King.” Georgie, however, was brilliant in a parley, not to mention the fact that, as landowner, they held all the cards.

Their easy charm in combination with that hard fact had Mr. Clutterbuck submitting a supplemental charter for Elfreda’s admission to the Society within half an hour.

She’d almost refused. Almost. She’d rather start her own society. But the one didn’t preclude the other. And she vowed to make good use of her fellowship.

Now it was midsummer’s day, and she was walking back to Redmayne Manor after digging, not in Mr. Peach’s field but on the bluff.

Of the items turned up and sorted, her mind kept circling an amber bead with two concentric grooves.

Was it a bead? Or a spindle whorl? And if a spindle whorl, did that indicate women had camped alongside the men?

Did whole families travel with the army?

Gradually, raiders from the north had become settlers.

That very transition was spelled out here, in the dirt of Derbyshire.

As she cut across the woodland clearing, skirting the pond, she realized she wasn’t heading to Redmayne Manor, not quite yet. The willow summoned her like harp song. Lines of her grandmother’s poetry seemed to float on the breeze.

A few minutes of communion.

She parted the fronds, slipped inside the shivering cascade of leaflets, and sucked in her breath.

“I’m all right,” said Georgie, looking up from where they sat, in trousers and shirtsleeves, back against the trunk, arms around their knees. Tears glittered on their lashes. They wiped them away. “Just a storm of violent weeping.”

She dropped down beside them. “Did something terrible happen?”

“No.” They gave a choked laugh. “Yes. Perhaps. I was thinking about my mother. I don’t do this anymore. This. ” They waved their hand, indicating their wet cheeks and swollen eyes, expression frustrated, hurt, and so guilty, she pulled them into her.

“You don’t do this anymore,” she murmured, resting her cheek on their head, remembering their reasoning, “because your mother is alive.”

They grew heavy in the circle of her arms. “And because she did what she did for love.”

Love. Elfreda shut her eyes. She understood it more and less than ever before.

Love wasn’t something you found, or fell into—it was the whole path and the process of seeking.

You had to look where you were going and learn from where you’d been.

You had to treat your wounds, or you wouldn’t get very far.

“Your mother made a choice.” Elfreda opened her eyes.

“You respect that choice, I know. Perhaps it was the right choice, for her.” She shifted, settling them more firmly against her.

“It wasn’t the right choice for you. Admitting that you’re sad, or even angry—it doesn’t mean you grudge her any happiness. ”

They inhaled deeply, but for a long moment, they didn’t speak.

“What if I do, though?” Their voice was clogged with pain.

It made her ache. She wanted to take all their pain from them, to tell them that nothing and no one would hurt them ever again. But she wanted most of all to be true, true to Georgie, and to love’s promise, which was joy, real joy, joy that befriended even sorrow, even grief.

“Then you do,” she said. “You’re sad, and angry, and you grudge her.”

“That’s not who I want to be.”

“You could forgive her.” She hesitated. “You’d have to forgive yourself first.”

All was quiet within the lucent green bell of willow fronds.

They stirred, breaking free, turning from her. “Her letter.” They turned back, a folded paper in their hand. “I was thinking I should destroy it.”

She had to struggle not to snatch it away. “Why today?”

“Phipps brought me this morning to my estate’s most miserable little farm.

Northeast of here, near the village. Untenanted, due to the condition of the buildings.

It gave me an idea.” Something began to bloom in their face.

“The barn is large, two stories, stone built. I want to turn it into a theater, with boxes and a pit, a stage with pulleys and trapdoors for flying and sinking, painted scenes, all the modern machinery. I’ll invite companies to play.

They can stay in the farmhouse. In between, I’ll mount my own private productions.

A small audience of intimates—my staff, of course, and the Janes, Phipps, all the Peaches—they’re rather a numerous family, in fact—and Mrs. Alderwalsey, although I most want to see her on the stage, along with Agnes, and Anne and Rosalie, and, well, there’s time to sort out the cast, and all of it, really.

” They caught their breath. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s perfect.” Her heart soared. “A perfect idea.”

They were rotating the paper lengthwise.

“My mother will never watch me perform. Twynham is the last place on Earth she could ever show her face. I can have the theater. But I can’t have her.

” They stopped rotating the paper, pinching it so tightly, their fingertips went white.

“Today, I realized I needed to let go of that fantasy—my mother in the audience, not just watching, seeing . It’s too late anyway.

I needed her to see me years and years ago, not now.

” They frowned down at the paper. But when they glanced up at her, their eyes were aglow.

“I do feel seen. You see me. That makes it easier.”

She held their gaze, a lump in her throat. “May I?”

They handed her the paper. It wasn’t the letter itself but rather an envelope protecting it.

The letter was a fragile, ruined thing, smoke stained and charred.

She needed more light. She went out from beneath the willow and sat cross-legged in the sun near the water, examining the words that were there, pondering the words that weren’t.

After a time, Georgie joined her. “Any discoveries?” They were teasing. And also, not.

“Your mother called Lady Beverly by her Christian name.”

“Penelope. That’s hardly a discovery.”

“It means the Beverly lower down can only refer to her husband.”

“Where does it say Beverly ?”

She showed them, the distinctive capital B evident in a soot-darkened sentence that terminated early, bitten off by the flame.

They scrunched their brow, trying to make it out, then gave a defeated shrug. “I have difficulty deciphering everything after the first paragraph.”

She nodded. The first paragraph was unscathed. The apology, the revelation, the farewell—all there, in a hurried but elegant hand. Reading the rest required eye strain and inference.

“Tell me about Lord Beverly.”

They snorted. “My mother usually referred to him in Welsh. I forget the phrase. It translated to sheep’s fart. As good a description as you’ll ever get.”

“So he wasn’t like your father, aware and accepting of his wife’s entanglement?”

“ Lord Beverly? ” They were incredulous. “He was the unwitting cuckold par excellence. A horned sheep’s fart, you could say.”

“What does this mean to you?” She squinted. “ Beverly was for Auch… It’s too burnt.”

“Auchmithie,” they supplied. “The village where Mother and Lady Beverly were staying.”

“Was it widely known that Lord Beverly also went to Scotland that spring?”

“I’ve never heard that he did. Parliament was in session. He wouldn’t have traveled for pleasure.”

“Not pleasure,” she mused. “Dominance. Revenge.”

Georgie stared. “You suggest he learned of the infidelity? And pursued them? To do what? Drag his wife home? Slay my mother?” Their mouth had a sarcastic twist. “How very Gothic.”

“It’s not any more Gothic than his lady wife and her lover faking their demise.”

Georgie’s features gentled as they studied her. “You offer me a villain, to make my mother’s actions more forgivable. Thank you. But it’s not necessary.”

“I don’t think it’s necessary. Only possible.”

They loosed a breath and gazed moodily over the fishing pond. “Beverly is dead now. Maybe he did pursue my mother and Lady Beverly with evil purpose. I can’t know for certain. I’m not sure how much it would change things if I did.”

“There’s something else.” She pointed at the letter’s ragged black bottom, the very last semilegible line. “Something your mother wanted your father to tell the king when…”

“The king?” Their gaze swung back to her. “When…when what?”

“That part of the sentence is cinders.”

“The king .” They frowned. “Could she have wanted my father to denounce Lord Beverly? I can’t really picture him banging on the door of Kew Palace.”

“Georgie.” She was almost afraid to say it. “Could you be the king?”

Their face was suddenly naked. “Me? How could it be me?”

“I saw that model ship.” She gave them a wry look.

“Your handiwork wasn’t at all subtle. Your father never mentioned it to you, but what if it became a little joke between him and your mother?

And their pet name for you?” She could imagine Mr. and Mrs. Redmayne laughing about the youthful vandalism, amused, exasperated, and fond, and so proud of their child, for whom the name Georgina didn’t quite fit, along with the too-tight pronouns he and she .

She could see that Georgie was also imagining it. Tears stood in their eyes.

“King Georgie?” Their throat worked. “You think they called me the king? That my mother wanted my father to tell me. That he would have done it, if he hadn’t…” They bit their trembling lip. Another instant and they were shaking their head. “I can’t know that for certain either.”

“You can’t.” She tucked the letter back inside its envelope. “But you know it’s possible.”

They narrowed their eyes, tears brimming. “Isn’t this the same as your father believing he’s the Barrow King ? Am I deluding myself? If I believe?”

“With Papa, it’s egotism. With you, it’s openness.

” She hoped her face was open and showed them the truth in her heart.

“You’re allowing that your parents saw more than you’d come to assume.

Your kingship isn’t about wielding power.

It’s about mutual recognition, and care.

You and Papa aren’t the same kind of king. ”

“King Georgie,” they whispered, still shaking their head. Their smile was as wide as possibility itself, as wide as the whole world. And then they sighed. “I wish I were king of the fairies. I’d use my magic to get back your amulet.”

A fish jumped in the pond. Elfreda started, and Georgie laughed.

“Maybe a fish did swallow it.”

“Is that your excuse? To stop looking?”

“I’ll never stop,” they said, looking at her. “I hope it takes forever.”

And when she pushed their shoulder, they obliged her by tumbling right into the water.

And when she splashed in after them, they kissed her.

And when she floated on her back, she gazed up at the sky, and it might have been any day in any century since the origin of love, or all of them, and she sent her laughter into the infinite blue.