Banners flew from the ramparts. They were white with three pale yellow moons covering them. They fluttered in a soft wind.
The air smelled different. It smelled whole.
They saw Belenus and Sarimund walk out of the vast white palace, onto the ramparts. They were speaking to each other. Another man appeared, a beautiful man, a young man, and he stood there, until Sarimund held out his arms to him. Prince Egan walked quickly to him and they embraced. Sarimund raised his head to look up at them. He smiled.
Rosalind heard him say clearly in her mind, "I thank you for saving my son, Isabella. Egan rules now. He is good. If ever you need me, you have but to call. My lord, your debt is paid. All thank you. Captain Jared Vail thanks you. Go home, Isabella, go home."
Taranis hallowed once more and raised himself straight up. "Hold tightly," he sang to them, and flew straight up directly toward a sun the color of a ripe lemon. They looked down to see the land below become smaller and smaller, then disappear. The air was warm, like swirling silk sliding off their flesh.
All was brilliant and calm, the air so clear they could see through the gems that studded Taranis's back.
Rosalind heard singing—soft, compelling, a woman's voice, and it sounded familiar. It was her mother's voice. She saw a man's face, her father, and he was nodding at her, smiling, his arms open.
She felt Nicholas's arms tighten around her waist, felt his warm breath on her neck. She leaned back against his chest She felt calm, at peace.
Was that Taranis singing to them?
Then neither Nicholas nor Rosalind knew anything more
Epilogue
San Savaro, Italy
They heard cheering.
Their carriage rolled over the cobblestone streets into the sun-baked capital city of San Savaro. Crowds lined the streets, yelling and clapping, waving at them. Behind the crowds were shops and cafes, small parks, horses tethered to posts, carriages next to drays. And flowers everywhere, trellised, in huge pots, in small window boxes, growing out of every spot of green. The colors and the scents were overwhelming.
"What is this?" Nicholas said, staring at all the people obviously welcoming them. "Surely they must believe we are someone else."
They'd left England a month after they'd awakened in their bed at Wyverly Chase to find Richard pacing the drawing room, his mother on his heels, yelling she wished to leave this house because that wretched ghost ignored her— her! —wouldn't even sing insults to her, wouldn't even tilt his chair to acknowledge her presence, and she was tired of her cursed stepson and that hussy of a wife of his lording it over them.
"But he is the earl," Richard said, "it is his right to lord it over us. He is Lord Mountjoy. The hussy is his wife. Accept it, Mother."
Rosalind had said from the doorway, "Madam, I imagine that our ghost has finally continued upon his chartered course. You see, there is no longer a reason for him to remain. Richard, everything will be all right now. All of us will be all right now. You may believe that."
Richard Vail stared at her, then smiled, actually smiled at her, then he smiled at his half brother, a smile so much like Nicholas's that it nearly made her weep, and he said, "Good. That's good."
A sea change? she wondered. She heard Lancelot's sneering voice from the corridor. Perhaps it would be too much to expect a sea change in Lancelot.
"I cannot get over this," Nicholas said now, staring at the crowds of people. "They must believe we are visiting dignitaries."
"Or perhaps they are expecting the Pope," Rosalind said, and grinned at him. She hadn't told Nicholas she'd seen her father in the Pale, that her father had turned to look at her, and she'd known he'd seen her and known she was alive, and coming to him.
She looked up at the brilliant sun overhead and thought of the bright yellow sun in the Pale, and how Taranis had flown toward it, and then—simply nothing. How had they returned to Wyverly Chase to wake up in their own bed, still wearing their cloaks, still holding hands?
But they had. They'd also had some bumps and bruises and sore muscles. Rosalind's chest was a bit tender to the touch. Where Epona's knife had plunged into her.
The crowds thinned as their carriage, pulled by Grace and Leopold, nearly prancing what with all the attention they were getting, rolled out of the center of San Savaro. The cobblestone road widened and began to wind upward toward a crest upon which stood an immense yellow brick palazzo, the yellow as pale as a watery sun. As they drew closer, they saw that the entire length of the palazzo was showcased by a long row of magnificent Doric columns, surrounded by fountains spraying water high into the air from the mouths of nymphs and grinning satyrs. Ancient statuary stood in groups or alone on the grounds, and more huge pots of tumbling flowers than Nicholas had seen since they'd left their own gardens at Wyverly Chase dotted the green scythed lawn. It was elegant and graceful. Nicholas said, "Do you remember?"
"Yes. It doesn't seem quite so big now, if you know what I mean."
"No, not big at all," he said, and kissed her ear.
Their carriage pulled up with a flourish, executed with great panache by their driver, Lee Po, who could do anything, he'd assured Rosalind. He allowed both Grace and Leopold to stamp their feet and snort.
To Nicholas's astonishment, standing at the top of the endlessly wide two dozen marble steps stood a line of people— two men, a woman, and three boys, young, all of them, Nicholas suspected, dressed in their finest. They were all waving madly.
He recognized Rosalind's mother immediately, and knew this was what Rosalind would look like in her older years. A beautiful woman, rounded and soft, with glowing skin, and that glorious red hair glistening beneath the hot Italian sun. She was wearing a green gown of the same style and color Rosalind had worn the previous day. She was holding a babe in her arms.
There was Rosalind's older brother, Raffaello, a tall, handsome young man who looked very familiar to Nicholas, and surely that was odd. Then he looked at his wife's father and stilled. No, he thought, it couldn't be possible.
"No," he said aloud. "No."
"They did not want to let you out of their sight. I wondered if they will let me snag you away when it is time to return home to attend Grayson's wedding in September." He paused and looked around. "Was this your bedchamber?" He pulled off his boots and began unbuttoning his shirt. He was hot.
"Yes. They didn't change anything in it."
Nicholas opened all the windows and leaned out to breathe in the unique scent of Italy. Her bedchamber faced the east gardens and the air was warm and smelled of jasmine. And what? Excitement, he thought. There was so much excitement in the air itself since they'd arrived this afternoon.
Nicholas said, "I like your brothers. And Raffaello is a good man," he said, turning to look at his wife as she pulled on a lovely peach silk dressing gown. How lovely that the gown beneath it was as sheer.
"Yes, I like them too. The young ones don't know what to make of us—of me—but they will come to accept me as their sister and you as another brother. I brought a dozen boxes of English sweetmeats. Those candied almonds, in particular, should help them accept us all the more quickly." She paused a moment, frowned. "How odd that Raffaello is a man grown now. I can see him so clearly as a boy."
"Your father, Rosalind , he—"
"Yes, I know. I wouldn't have realized it, though, if I hadn't seen the portrait."
"Your father is the bloody image of Captain Jared Vail." There, it was said aloud.
"Sarimund said our lines crossed somewhere back in medieval times, a very long time ago. Still—Nicholas, it's not as if my father is the exact likeness of Captain Jared. There are differences, just as there are differences between you and Richard."
"Yes, but Richard is my half brother, we live now, at the same time, only five years between us, not some three hundred years."
Wizardry, he thought, he hated how it twisted and turned in on itself and made no sense to a human brain. He said,
"Let me see your f
inger, the one you pricked on Taranis's scale."
He took her hand in his and examined her finger. He stilled. "You've looked, haven't you?"
"Oh, yes. It becomes more clear every day. Do you think it is Taranis's mark?"
He said, "It must be, but why a bolt of lightning, I wonder?"
"I don't know."
Nicholas kissed the finger. "I wonder. I wonder," he repeated, and knew, simply knew, that in the future, in some way, that pale red mark would mean something in their lives.
She said, "Vittorio escaped."
"Yes, I know. Your father is powerful enough to find him."
"Yes, he is. He blames himself for telling Vittorio he knew I was alive and that I was coming home. It is a pity his man, Erasmo, died. I would have liked to take him to the Pale and toss him in a fire pit."
"I'm thinking Vittorio killed him."
"You are probably right. I daresay my father will kill Vittorio for what he did. He will find him, Nicholas." And they both knew she was speaking of her father's magic.
"At least Vittorio's second wife is free of him." He walked to her and scooped her up in his arms. "Imagine. My wife, my simple red-haired wife, is a damned princess."
"Well, I'm only called a damned signora, no fairy tale in that title."
"You're still royal, thus a princess. My poor stepmother actually sputtered when I told her—I don't think I've ever really heard a person sputter before. I thought for a moment, once she believed me, she would curtsy to you before she caught herself."
Rosalind giggled. "Well, you did announce me as an Italian princess. Just before they left, she hissed at me that I was still a strumpet, a foreign strumpet, and we would learn that my father had disowned me. A princess, ha!"
He kissed her ear. "I appreciate that she has remained her malignant self, no change in her at all. Otherwise I might have to like her. Richard now, I begin to believe he and I will rub together very well. That makes me wonder if he will influence Aubrey in my favor."
"So long as Lancelot and Miranda remain nasty, I'll be content." She laughed and held him tight. "All right, I am a princess, a foreign princess. What do you think of that?"
He held her away from him a bit and looked into her eyes. "I'm thinking my foreign princess would enjoy visiting Macau. Actually, Lee Po suggested it. He allowed that you would take the population by storm."
She fell silent. "Do you think you could teach me Portuguese by the time we arrive?"
"Oh, yes, and Lee Po has already offered to teach you Mandarin Chinese." He began kissing her, then stopped suddenly, stepped back. "You should have told me your father knew you were alive and coming back."
"Would you have believed me?"
"No. Yes." He cursed, plowed his fingers through his hair. "Probably, dammit."
"Kiss me, Nicholas. We are magic, accept it."
He muttered under his breath, but not under enough. "A witch, my foreign wife is a damned witch."
She laughed, stood on her tiptoes, and whispered against his neck, "And you, my lord, are a damned wizard."
As he nuzzled her neck, Nicholas thought of one of the statues he'd seen, nearly covered with a wildly blooming red bougainvillea. It wasn't very large, but it was extraordinarily lifelike—a shining marble statue of a dragon with glittering eyes and scales that l o oked sharp enough to prick a finger.
The dragon's snout reminded him of Clandus.
Catherine Coulter, Wizard's Daughter
(Series: Sherbrooke Brides # 10)
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