Black Pearls (22 page)

"I told them, too, that you ne'er go abroad without your gowns and rings. 'My aunt is a fine lady,' I says. 'Mind ye put that in your song, or ye shall soon have black eyes as well as purple shins.'"

I could not help myself. I threw my arms around the sprite,
rewarding both her saueiness and the injuries she had done. I stooped to run my finger around the empty space in the wall. "I shall speak to your good mother," I promised. "It seems to me this lovely niche you've contrived is the very spot for the flower urn I mean to give her."

Naturally, there is more to tell, things that happened later, when both Leofric's children were grown—my husband's death, Ælfgar's victories in battle, and Ebba's marriage to a wealthy merchant. But I prefer to end my tale here, with the moment I will relive until my current affliction carries me away. While I suffer the leeches and foul-tasting medicines my physician brings me daily, while I wait for Our Holy Father to call me to him, I still take delight in remembering that girl-child. How she stamped her feet and kicked boys' shins. How she changed a song and built the world anew in the image of her love.

Kate O'Sullivan has been, while these stories unfolded, as close as any human could come to the Ideal Editor. I laugh each time I remember her wry comments in the margins of the manuscript; I smile when I think of the cartoons, movie reviews, and other mood-lifters she sent my way; and I remain nonstop grateful for the way she "got" what I was after from the start, for the grace and tact with which she helped to grow this book.