Elia gave her a hurtful look. “I think he feels more for you than he will admit.”
Kes left her chair and wrung her hands together. “I wish he hadn’t left. They always leave, Elia. It seems time doesn’t change anything.”
“How is he supposed to fight and stay alive if losing you is fresh on his mind?”
Kes’ shoulders sagged. How could she blame Nicholas for staying away, or Elia for understanding why he did?
Well, she understood, too, and it was time she stopped acting like a selfish brat. She couldn’t have Nicholas and then be done with him when it was time to go home.
She swallowed her tears and squared her shoulders. “I understand, Elia. Please tell him that. He’s doing the right thing. I’m being selfish.” She took her friend’s hands and swallowed back her tears. “Don’t tell him though that I miss him more than breath if I was suffocating.”
Elia smiled at her and pulled her in for an embrace. “’Tis easy to see why he is mad over you, Kes.” She withdrew, sniffed, and looped Kes arm through hers. “Look, ’tis a beautiful day. Let us take a walk outdoors. ’Tis stuffy in here.”
Kes nodded. She could use some air. “I will tell you what Walter’s friend told me about the brooch. And Elia,” she told her on a soft breath, “he can disappear and reappear. I’ve seen it. He left and returned a minute or two later with a gold cuff he’d just stolen from Cleopatra!” She nearly squealed her softly spoken words.
Elia stopped and her mouth opened into an O. Then, a breath before she said, “Cleopatra? How? How can he do it?”
Kes told her about his curse and everything he told her about Sir Gawaine and the brooch, and about the Pendridge name meaning Pendragon.
“Do the knights think you or Nicholas is…”
“No. They’re searching for their…” the thought of Mr. Green’s company letterhead invaded her thoughts as if to drive the truth home. ISOAP. In Search Of Arthur Pendragon. “If they thought they’d found him, they would have acted upon it. Celebrate. Something.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know if I was supposed tolandhere. I think it was a mistake and that’s why I appeared in the middle of a battlefield.
“Unless,” Elia pointed out with a growing look of horror on her face, “the brooch is their way of eliminating an enemy and they sent you to that field to die.”
“Elia,” Kes said calmly. “It doesn’t make any sense that Arthur’s knights would be sending people to their deaths. No. They’re looking for him. I may have Pendragon blood, so I may be a key.”
“I hope you are correct. I would not want to fight Sir Gawaine.”
Kes cast her a surprised look mixed with emotion. “Thank you.”
Elia nodded.
“But you would lose.” Kes smiled and then they both laughed.
After that, Walter had tea made for them and brought to his gardens, where the ladies sat under the sun.
“’Tis lovely here,” Elia said, looking around.
“Yes, and there are even more treasures inside.” Kes knew the fruit-bearing trees and the multitude of flowers spread out around her with shy butterflies pausing above them were beautiful, but the artifacts inside were priceless to her.
What if she didn’t go back? What if she stayed here and catalogued Walter’s pieces? She could learn to embroider, maybe have exercise classes for the girls, learn to play a new instrument, have children.
No more father, no more roommates, or phones, or traveling, credit cards, dentists. The list went on. She leaned back in her garden chair and sighed to the sun. These things were difficult to give up.
But why should she give up her life when Nicholas was going off to fight and could be killed?
“How long will he fight for York?” Kes asked.
“However long they take to win.”
“And if they don’t win?”
Elia’s eyes opened wide and changed from golden to green. “You know, do you not?”
Kes nodded. Oh, she would burst if she didn’t tell someone. “Richard will be defeated by Henry Tudor.”
For a second or two, Elia’s look of horror returned. And then it disappeared. “Mayhap ’twould be for the best,” she whispered.