***

Jo peered through the windshield, fighting the heaviness in her eyelids as the long wipers drew great arcs on the rainswept glass. Back and forth. Back and forth. The road stretched out endlessly, the verges beyond the windows blurred gold and mauve with wet ragwort and rosebay, the visibility ahead cut to nothing by the heavy spray thrown up by trucks as they thundered westward.

Once she pulled in at a service station and filled the car with gas. In the bright garish cafe next door she ordered a cup of black coffee and sat at the plastic-covered table, staring at a jam jar full of ox-eye daisies. She ached with fatigue. The long drive through the heavy Saturday morning traffic, the strange muzzy feeling in her head, above all the knowledge, unquestioning and certain, that she had to make the journey, overwhelmed her. She did not think of the future, or of the past. Her mind was drained and empty. She drank the coffee quickly, barely tasting it, and stood up. There was still a long way to go. Wearily she climbed back into the car and headed once more toward the southwest.

The traffic slowed, crawling past some roadworks, then on again, plunging into the New Forest, speeding up as it swept on, then abruptly the highway ended and she found herself impatiently driving down narrowed roads, her speed held in check by the double white line. The rain was still heavy, the windshield wipers endlessly working. On and on. Back and forth. With a sudden shot of adrenaline in her stomach she realized the Porsche had drifted toward the opposite side of the road. She dragged it back as an oncoming car, its lights blazing, blasted her with its horn.

Keep awake. She must keep awake.

She peered at a signpost as it flashed toward her out of the silver streaks of rain and vanished before her eyes had time to focus.

Through Wareham, where she was forced to stop three times at traffic lights, chewing her nails, as the car stood waiting its turn to move, then at last on up the last miles of narrow road.

Corfe Castle loomed on a hill in a gap among the Purbeck Hills, the high fingers of its broken towers reaching up toward the sky, stark sentinels, visible a mile away above the trees, on the narrow, winding road. Jo slowed the car with a jolt of fear. The rain had stopped at last and streaks of vivid blue were showing in the sky to the south. In the rays of sunlight the colors were vivid. Dazzling white convolvulus trailing through the hedges, heather on the sandy verges a brilliant purple, and everywhere the trees washed to deep emerald by the glitter of the sun. Within minutes steam was rising from the tarmac and strings of mist were spiraling up from the trees.

She drove, slowly now, around the foot of the castle hill, staring up with a dry throat at the towering white ruins above her, then she drew up in the center of the old stone village south of the castle and, pushing open the car door, climbed out in a daze.

Slowly she walked toward the ruins, her eyes fixed on the walls ahead of her, and over the bridge and beneath the shadow of the entrance gatehouse. There she was brought up short by the ticket kiosk and a turnstile. A man was staring at her and dimly she realized he wanted some money. She had to pay to get in! A wave of hysterical laughter swept through her and was gone as soon as it had come, as, still in a daze, she groped in the pocket of her jeans and found a pound coin. Then at last she was inside the walls, walking up the steep, narrow tarmac path toward the grotesquely broken towers of the Martyr’s Gate.

The castle was still comparatively deserted after the rain, but she noticed little. She did not see the ancient stones, reduced by Cromwell’s sappers to their present state of ruin, nor see the wildflowers, the thistles, the yarrow, the ragwort, the wild marjoram, or the festoons of clinging ivy. She did not see the blue sky, or the white Purbeck stone with its gray shadow of lichen. Her eyes were growing dark.


***

Carl Bennet swore roundly as he stamped his foot down on the accelerator and threw the blue Mercedes at a gap in the traffic. It roared past two trucks, cutting in with only inches to spare in front of the line of oncoming traffic. Unconsciously Nick was clutching the sides of his seat. He closed his eyes briefly, but said nothing. When he opened them again it was to see the streak of blue in the leaden sky. He glanced down at the road map on his knee.

“Ten miles to go,” he said tautly.

Bennet nodded. His tongue showed briefly at the corner of his mouth as he negotiated a tight bend in the narrow road, then he allowed himself a quick smile. “The rain has stopped, at least,” he said.


***

The constable was waiting for them, his face set grimly in the flickering light. The king’s orders were still in his hand. As the horses drew to an exhausted standstill before him, he read them silently once again, still not wanting to believe. Then slowly he reached for one of the flaring torches and held the parchment in the flame until it blackened and curled.

The oubliette lay beneath the floor of the western tower. Will fell heavily as they pushed him through the trapdoor, his legs buckling under him, and he lay still in the dark. With Matilda they were more gentle, lowering her down beside him and flinging down a sheepskin and some sheaves of straw. She looked up, dazed; faces peered down, torches flashed and smoked above her and there was air. Then the great stone slab fell.

Light came fitfully, creeping icily through the drain gulley in the base of the wall. Kneeling to peer through it, she could see the hill opposite the castle. It was white with snow. The silence was profound, save when Will groaned. She had tried, groping in the dark with gentle fingers, to ease his leg; feeling the splintered bones and the blood, she had wept.

The light of the setting sun slowly faded from the gulley and no one came. They had no food, no water. She gnawed at the heads of wheat still clinging to the straw. Will burned beneath her hand. “Blessed Virgin, save us. Sweet Lady, intercede.” Daylight came again and brought no comfort. She clawed at the walls, tearing at the stone, and wept again.

As it grew dark once more Matilda took Will in her arms, his limbs already wasted by the fever, his face beneath her hand contorted with agony. Twice he screamed out loud as she held him close and she remembered the day of his birth-the agony of the black wizened face in her arms; and she knew there could be no hope.

When the light appeared again at the drain and a white sea mist drifted up across the hills, her eyes were too dim to see. Will lay already stiffening in her arms and she unbraided her hair, spreading it across his face, cradling him close, rocking gently to ease the pain.


***

Sam found a room in the rue Saint Victor.

His eyes were still swollen with grief as he pulled open the double mansard window six stories up and pushed back the shutters looking out over the rooftops of St. Germain. Then, turning, he managed to smile at the concierge, who, puffing from the steep climb up the stairs, had followed him into the room. Giving her a wad of francs, he persuaded her to fetch him a bottle of cognac with the promise that she could keep the change. His thoughts were all of Jo. Not once had he remembered Tim.

When the bottle came he locked the door. From outside the window, above the distant roar of traffic, he could hear a church bell ringing. He stood, glass in hand, looking at the street far below. He could smell new bread from somewhere and coffee and garlic and wine. The smell that was the smell of Paris. From the room next door he could hear the sound of muffled laughter.

He refilled his glass. He hadn’t eaten for over twenty-four hours, and already the drink was going to his head. Another glass followed, tipped down his throat, and then, impatiently, he thew the glass into the corner and drank straight from the bottle. His vision was beginning to blur.

He stared up at the sky, frowning, trying to see. The clouds were lifting. A faint ray of sunlight illuminated the line of raindrops on the wrought-iron railing outside the window in front of the parapet, turning each one into brilliant diamonds. He stared at them hard. The tears were coming back. He made no attempt to stop them, feeling them coursing down his face, soaking into his shirt. He took another drink, then, carefully putting the bottle down on the table, he stepped up onto the low sill. It was no problem to climb over the railing. He rested his hand for a moment on the warm slates of the roof and then, swaying slightly, stepped up onto the parapet.

His last thought, as he leaned forward into space, was of Matilda.


***

Ann stared ahead of her at the gap in the Purbeck Hills. There was no mistaking the angry silhouette of the castle, rising high above the sea of forest. Above it lay the huge cold arc of a rainbow as the last of the soft black clouds slipped away.

She saw the Porsche at once, parked carelessly, next to the market cross, and drew up near it, stiff and aching from the concentration of her journey. She wasn’t used to driving any distances these days, never mind the tortuous cross-country trip she had just made from Frome.

After slamming the van door, she set off at a run toward the broken masonry arch over the bridge across the dry moat, her sneakers silent on the road. Like Jo, she was brought up short by the need to find her entrance money. Then, already panting, she ran up the lower ward, following the path across the huge area of grass toward the causeway that crossed the inner moat and ran between the massive towers of the Martyr’s Gate.