Woburn Park, Bedfordshire

John Thornton woke suddenly, his heart thumping.

Someone was in the bedchamber.

He rolled his head to check on his wife, Sarah.

She was sleeping soundly.

There was a soft sound by the window.

Thornton turned his head to look.

Noah stood there, her mouth curving in a smile. “Hello, John.”

“Lord God!” Thornton said in a hushed voice. “What are you doing here?”

Noah glanced at Sarah, still soundly asleep. “Come to visit, John. Perhaps if you’d like to put on a shirt and breeches, and some stout shoes, we can walk in the park.”

Then she faded away, and John was left staring at the frosted window. He took several deep breaths, then, very carefully, he extricated himself from the bed, gathered his clothes and shoes, and left the bedchamber.

John Thornton still tutored the earl and countess’ younger children, but now that he was married, with children of his own, the earl had given him a house on the estate. It stood just on the edge of Woburn Park, under the trees, where it overlooked the gently rolling hills, and where the deer wandered past twice a day on their journey to and from the lake to water.

Thornton loved the house, for it represented the chance for him to build a marriage and a family with Sarah.

Here he could try to forget Noah, and all she had been and might have been to him.

Consequently, by the time Thornton had struggled into his clothes, grabbed a cloak, and left the house as quietly as he was able, he was in a state of combined high anxiety and righteous anger.

He had wanted to forget Noah as best he was able. He had thought she had forgotten him.

So what now was she doing appearing in his bedchamber in the middle of the night? God, but if Sarah had woken and seen her…

By the time he had stomped down the front path, Thornton was in a temper such as he rarely felt. He had achieved a kind of fragile peace in his life, and with this single visitation Noah had murdered it forever. He would spend the rest of his life wondering if she would appear again, keeping alive that fragile, terrible hope that she might actually return his love.

“John…”

Noah stood just beside him, smiling. “I am sorry to wake you so.”

“What do you want?”

“There is a bench under that tree. Will you come sit with me?”

“Damn it…” But she was already moving towards the tree, and Thornton had no choice but to follow her.

Once he reached the bench, Thornton stood a moment looking at her. She was in her most magical form, the green eyes shot through with gold, the strange diaphanous robe that should have left her half frozen with cold but which, instead, seemed to clothe her in warmth.

She was lovely, far lovelier than Thornton had remembered, and he had thought his memories too beautiful for truth.

He sat down with an angry thump, which Noah ignored. She took his hand and held it in her lap, and the warmth that had enveloped Noah now encased Thornton.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“Really?”

“I have missed you, John.”

“Do not do this to me, Noah.”

“I need to talk.”

“God, woman, you have half of England’s men trailing after you. Could you not talk with one of them?”

“I find myself at a crossroads.”

He didn’t answer. He was looking now, not at Noah, but at the distant shape of a tree. He concentrated on it with all his might, praying that he would somehow survive this night without his life falling apart about him.

“You will never escape me, John.”

“Don’t do this,” he whispered.

“John, I am in a bind.”

Again he didn’t reply.

She drew in a deep breath. “There is something I want to tell you.”

He still refused to look at her.

“It is a story,” she said, “which goes back three thousand years. If I tell you this story, I risk trapping you within it.”

“Then why take this risk?”

“Because I need your advice very badly. John, I need your permission to tell this tale. I need you to know the risk I am taking with your future…lives.”

John stared at her.

“We all come back, John. Life after life. If you are caught up in the Game that has ensnared me, then you will become ensnared in my life also.”

“I already am ensnared, Noah.” Then he sighed. “Just tell me this damned story.”

And so Noah did. She sat for over an hour, talking, sharing with him her growth through her different lives, and the growth of the Troy Game which had not only ensnared her, but most of England besides. She told him of Brutus, and Coel, of Eaving’s Sisters, of Catling’s true identity, and of Asterion, and how she had either loved or hated all of them.

She told him of how she had come to love Asterion in this life.

She told him of her true origins, and of the darkcraft seething through her blood.

“You appear very content with yourself,” said Thornton as her voice drifted into silence. “Why tell me all of this? Why are you here?”

“I need your permission for what I am about to do.”

“Why my permission, Noah?”

“Because you represent to me the mortal world. And for what I am about to do, I need to know that I have its understanding and permission.”

“And you are about to do…what?”

Noah told him, and Thornton’s face, already pale, became completely colourless.

“Why ask permission for that piece of foulness, witch?”

“John, don’t, please.”

He looked away from her, staring into the moon-dappled landscape. “My life would have been so much more peaceful without you in it, Noah.”

“It would have been a tame thing, John.”

He smiled slightly, wryly, and gave a small shake of his head. He would never be free of her, and in some strange way, he found himself grateful. She was right, his life would have been a tame thing indeed if she had not been at its heart.

He sighed. “I understand what you are going to do, but, oh God, how can I condone it? How can I grant you permission?”

“There will be little loss of life, John. If any. There will be material devastation, there will be grief, but not for loss of loved ones.”

“You can manage that?”

“Yes.”

He sat a while, before finally speaking. “This is the only way?”

“It is the only way I can think of.”

He sat again in silence for some time. “Very well,” he eventually said, his voice flat as if he thought that, with this, he betrayed his God, “you have my permission.”

Her hand touched his. “Thank you, John.”

“And as for the father of your new and only daughter…do what you have to. I think he will be a far better lover to you than…well, than I could ever have been.”

“You are a generous man, John, and I shall be everlastingly grateful to you.”

“Noah…”

“Yes?”

“If I come back again, as you intimate I will, then I hope to God I will lead a happier life than ever I have in this one.”

Her face paled, and he was glad that at last she knew how badly she had hurt him.