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relief of the land of England.
    Marguerite reached out a hand. It trembled a little, and she had to clutch it momentarily in order to still it. Then she said, “Eaving? Eaving? Where are you?”
    The emerald silk again moved, now forming a lake, and then it shimmered once more, and its surface became opaque, then clear until an image formed within it.
    A great house that sat nestled in rolling hills.
    “Woburn Abbey,” Charles said.
    “You know it?” said Louis.
    Charles nodded. “Aye. I’ve been there twice as a child. Woburn Abbey is home to the earls of Bedford. Gods… Eaving ? Are you there ?”
    Again the silk shimmered, and the image of the house rushed towards them until a single window occupied the entire silken lake, and in the window…in that window…
    In that window a girl of some sixteen years lay in a bed. As if she felt the weight of their regard, she woke, and rose so that she sat staring out of the window. She was beautiful, her heavy hair framing a face made almost luminous by its pale, translucent skin, and containing the most wondrous pair of deep blue eyes.
    Her mouth moved, forming soundless words, but each of the three watchers heard them in their minds.
    Brutus? Brutus? Is that you, Brutus ?
    The image faded, and Charles put his face into his hands, and groaned.
    Marguerite hesitated, then picked up the silk and folded it into a tiny square in her hands where, once again, it became the piece of browned turf and crumbled soil.
    They sat a very long time in silence, each lost in their own thoughts, until finally Charles stirred himself.
    “She is in Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire,” he said.
    “Far from London,” said Louis.
    “Far from Asterion,” said Marguerite. “For now.”
    She put the turf back in its box, put the box into the centre of the circle they still formed, and for the rest of the night they sat there, staring at it, their thoughts filled with Eaving.

Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire

NOAH SPEAKS
    A h, gods, to wake up and feel him staring through the window at me! Not even Asterion suddenly appearing all leering and lecherous beneath the sheets could have killed the joy of that single, fleeting moment.
    I felt Mother Ecub there, too, and Coel. All three of them, close, bonded with a deep friendship and loyalty and something else…a sexual intimacy, I think. Their shared closeness reached out and touched me, comforted me. Their care enveloped me, nurtured me. All in that instant.
    But of all that love and care and intimacy that had reached me, what I remembered long into the night as I sat there in my third-floor bedroom, arms about my knees, was how Brutus had felt as his presence had merged so fleetingly with mine. He felt…oh, I don’t know. Distant perhaps, but then Brutus was always distant. Uncertain, and that was something new. Unsure, and that heartened me.
    I sat there through the long night, my arms wrapped about my legs, my chin resting on my knees, and wept for sheer joy.I had been three years at Woburn Abbey, and it had been a good three years for me. Lady Anne, the Countess of Bedford, was a kind woman, if a trifle reserved to the point where she sometimes gave the entirely wrong impression of distance. But she loved me in her own way, and had accepted this poor, distant cousin into her family as one of her own.
    She put me to school with her children where I tried not to befuddle the tutor, the Reverend John Thornton, with my knowledge of history, as well as several ancient languages. She dressed me in clothes that her own children wore: sober clothes during my early years with her, but now, in my seventeenth year, she allowed me more brightly coloured and daringly cut textiles. I loved the clothes! Oh, this was Cornelia emerging all over again, and I did not begrudge her this delight: the stiff-boned bodices, the full skirts, the embroideries, the silks and satins, the cascading lace of chemises and underskirts, and the delightful brocaded slippers with their