Wonderful (39 page)

She nodded, unable to speak.

“Come here.” He held his arms open and she fell into them. “Stop crying.” He patted her shoulder.

“You’re back. Oh, God, you are back.”

He tilted her head up and looked into her eyes. “I was never gone. I could not leave you, woman. You said it yourself. You need me.” Then he kissed her.

I kiss her.
Her lips are open
And I am drunk
Without a beer.

—Song of Harper, ancient Egypt

Epilogue

’Twas over three years before the birth of their first child—three long years, considering Clio’s impatient nature. But on a bright spring day when the scarlet poppies bloomed in the stubble of spring brush, Edward Arthur Julius de Beaucourt came into the world.

His mother insisted on examining his toes. Merrick had never heard of such a thing … looking at the babe’s toes. She pronounced them perfect, just like his father, which only confused Merrick more, since Clio had never, to his knowledge, called him “perfect.”

But he knew what they had was as close to a perfect love as heaven allowed.

Over the next ten years, five more sons were born, all with what their mother called “gate guard toes.”

There was Roger John, a lad with black hair and green eyes, just like his oldest brother. Both were brawny boys, with quick minds and brave spirits. They would become two of the greatest knights in the history of England.

Next came William August and Gerald Phillip, both fair-haired with Merrick’s blue eyes and their mother’s glib tongue. They were the scholars, more into experiments and inventions than horses and the practice field.

The last of the sons were Thomas Mark and Griffin David. Or as they were affectionately known at Camrose: Trouble and More Trouble.

They were as different as night from day, but their minds were filled with wonderfully similar ideas … mostly pranks.

Years later, when Merrick’s sight was weak and his limbs not so strong, when his hair was gray—something he blamed on his two youngest sons—and when his grandchildren ran through the halls at Camrose, he still remembered that gift he had been given so long ago.

’Twas still fresh in his mind, as if it had been etched there by the very hand of God. He turned and looked at his wife and saw the look in her eyes, the smile on her lips, the secret bond that still passed between them, the way he could still kiss her and feel drunk without beer.

He was the most fortunate of men, for, just as before, he understood God’s gift to him. God had given him something more precious than gold or wealth or power, that most wonderful of all things.

He had given him this woman.

Dear Reader,

One of the first questions people ask writers is “Where do you get your ideas?” The truth is that ideas come from the strangest places: lines of dialogue that just pop into your head when you’re doing something mundane, like brushing your teeth; sights along a rural roadway; or, as in the case of this book, a beer commercial.

I want to acknowledge some special people whose contributions to
Wonderful
were invaluable. The great medical minds of the San Ramon Women’s Medical Group and Eileen Dreyer, RN, author, and diva—who graciously and patiently shared their knowledge and did not hesitate when I said, “medieval coma.”

A special thanks to my brother-in-law Gerry Stadler for having the foresight to take four years of Latin a long time ago. An enormous thanks to Beth Rowe for her conceptual input, to the Susans—Susan Wiggs and Susan Elizabeth Phillips—for their brainstorming. All helped trigger some truly magical ideas for me. There would be no book without them.

Thanks to my daughter, who gave me the best line in the book, the Pocket miracle team—Amy Pierpont, Kate Collins, and of course, my editor, Linda Marrow, whose patience, insight, and gift of creative license are so important to me.

Historical notes:

The powerful heather ale referred to in this book and its legend are true. As chronicled, “no beer throughout history has aroused so much speculation and curiosity as the lost Heather Ale of the Picts.” The first ale brewed in the British Isles, Pict ale was famous for its hallucinogenic powers.

The secret recipe did die out sometime around the fourth century along with the Picts. However, as late as the nineteenth century, heather ale was rumored to have been brewed in some small isolated areas of Britain.

Interestingly, modern science has found a certain unusual type of red heather to have ingredients similar to LSD. This plant is believed to be the ale’s “magical ingredient.”

Our own thumbs-up sign comes straight from the practice of ale brewers who used this method to determine the readiness of their brew. Most medieval ale was brewed by women. This profession was one of the few ways a respectable woman could support herself and live a life of independence.

And finally, the superstitions mentioned in this book were those of the time, including all the references to hair color and the Church’s philosophy on women. Amusing, isn’t it, that blond jokes have been around as long as men have?

For those of you who hate to say good-bye to the characters in a book, you won’t have to this time. Sometime in 1998, Pocket will publish
Wild
, a second medieval tale tied to
Wonderful
. Clio, Merrick, and some of the others will have cameo roles in Sir Roger FitzAlan’s story, where we will all see if he ever finds that Arab horse again, and what happens when he finally meets the person who stole it.

So, until the next book, I wish you all the very best and hope your days are filled with laughter and love, and all those things that make our lives so very wonderful.

Sincerely,

Jill Barnett