Before she could answer him, she had the overpowering sense someone else was in the room. She spun around in time to see a broad-shouldered, muscular man step into the antechamber. His long dark hair was tied back with a leather strip, and he wore a familiar blue cotehardie with a sword sheathed at his belt and leather boots laced against his calves.
“Will?” Her heartbeat clanged wildly.
He didn’t turn but instead disappeared inside, the door falling closed behind him.
She lunged after him, fumbling with the door and swinging it open. The room was dark and contained the same shelves crowded with the same items from moments ago. There was no sign of Will, except she could hear the squeal of a distant door opening and cool musty air rising against her face. Was he descending into the vault?
“What’s happened, love?” Harrison asked behind her.
Marian blinked several times, desperate to bring Will into focus. If only she could look into his face for a minute and explain what had happened to her. But the sensation of his presence disappeared just as quickly as it came.
“Did you have a time overlap?”
“Yes, I saw Will. And he was heading down into the vault.” She pressed a hand against her chest, against the ache of missing him. Something squeezed hard, pinching and crushing all at once, so much that she sucked in a breath. A dull throb radiated in her left arm up to her neck and then jaw.
“Marian? You all right?” Harrison’s voice sounded distant, as though coming from a different part of the house.
She spun around to face him but couldn’t get her voice to work.
His brow furrowed. “You’re looking very poorly.”
The tightening in her chest choked the air out of her lungs. Was she having a heart attack? Although she’d never had one before, she’d studied the symptoms. Everything she was feeling pointed in that direction.
She motioned toward her heart.
Harrison watched her, confusion written on his face. He probably thought she was pining over Will, that she was grieving his loss. While that was true, she had to make Harrison understand she was experiencing very real chest pains. He had to call his physician and get help.
She swayed. Dark spots clouded her vision.
Suddenly she realized what was happening. Her body in 1381 had lasted as long as it could without the aid of modern advances. The past had caught up with her. She was on the verge of dying.
~ 29 ~
WILL STOOD AT THE CENTER of the vault, panting from his exertion. He’d torn asunder every corner, every chink in the wall, every cavern. He’d left nothing in the treasure room untouched. Nothing.
It was his third time searching the underground chamber, this time more frantically than the last. Yet he was as empty-handed now as he’d been before.
With a groan that echoed off the stone walls, he dropped to his knees and buried his face into his hands. “Saint’s blood.”
Marian was weakening with every passing day. When he’d sat by her this morning, the paleness of her skin was almost the same bluish white as goat’s milk. Her breathing was shallow and her body more listless—the signs of death. He’d seen them oft enough in his fallen comrades on the battlefield. He’d sensed she had only hours left, if that.
Although he’d commanded his servants to work throughout the night to spoon herbal remedies into her mouth, it wasn’t enough. He’d had a local physician bleed her once. But that had only seemed to weaken her more.
“God in heaven, have mercy.” His whispered plea was hoarse. He’d spent hours on his knees in the chapel begging God to spare Marian. Why would God spare him and not the ones he loved?
If only he could find another ampulla somewhere. But his searching had been in vain. He’d even returned to the crypt underneath Canterbury Cathedral for the second ampulla. Though Marian had meant it for her sister, he hadn’t been able to let her sacrifice herself, had told himself they’d find another to replace it.
But it had been gone. Someone had gotten to it before him, likely someone retrieving it on behalf of her sister.
He’d pleaded with the monks to help him locate another original St. Thomas ampulla. But they could find naught beyond what they currently sold.
Of course, Will had purchased one, hoping and praying Marian had been wrong, that the blessed water would heal her just the same. But it hadn’t worked any more than the bloodletting.
He groaned again.
“Sire.” Thad’s voice from the top of the steps penetrated his misery.
“Go away.”
“A messenger is here.”
“I have no wish to see anyone.”
Thad hesitated the length of a dying breath. “Sister Christina sent the messenger. She received word of your wife’s illness this morn and sends you hope.”
“There is no hope!” Will’s voice echoed off the walls and throughout the empty chambers within his soul. “It is too late.” He did not want to break down and weep in front of Thad, but he had the feeling he would if Thad didn’t leave erelong.
“Sire.” Thad’s voice drew nearer. “Sister Christina has valuable information regarding a spring of holy water at St. Sepulchre she said might help Lady Marian.”
A spring of holy water? Marian had spoken of it. She’d called it a spring that had true curative properties and claimed it was once used to fill the original St. Thomas ampullae.
Will’s head snapped up, and he met Thad’s steady gaze. The young steward’s eyes beckoned him not to forfeit Marian’s life yet, to take hold of the proffer of hope even if it was a thin thread that could unravel and snap.
“The spring is likely buried deep in the ground. But Sister Christina said she will take you to the location.”
Will pushed himself to his feet and stalked to the stairs. “Assemble shovels and hoes and choose another trustworthy servant to aid us. We shall be off at once.”
* * *
“Dig deeper.” Will plunged his pick into the dirt, shoulder deep in the trench. “We are surely getting close.”
The branches of the ash above provided shade to their labor. The small leaves flitted in the summer breeze, capturing the air and sweeping it away before it had a chance to soothe Will’s overheated face.
Through the canopy, he gauged that the sun had moved directly overhead, signaling the passing of two hours.
Two hours of digging.
Next to him, Thad’s face was red and perspiring, his hair matted to his forehead, but he jabbed his hoe into the hard earth.
Will grunted and hefted another bucketful of dirt up to Johnny, the stable boy who had accompanied them. The boy’s breathing was ragged and his face perspiring from the heavy lifting of the soil and rocks, but he worked tirelessly.
Will appreciated that Thad and Johnny were willing to continue to do his bidding even though by now they must believe he was addled for this mission. If they didn’t discover a spring within the next passing of an hour, he would send them home.
Whilst Will hadn’t supported the recent revolt, he’d learned much through it, especially the need to show more consideration to those who lived on his land and served him.
Will had heard news that John Ball, the priest who’d performed his wedding ceremony, had finally been captured. The king had hanged, drawn, and quartered Ball at St. Albans. His head was on display on London Bridge. The quarters of his body had been taken to different towns throughout the countryside to serve as a lesson to anyone contemplating further rebellion.