Epilogue
Six months later…
T he June sun shone merrily down on the garden of Godwin Castle. The roses were in full bloom, and the peonies and larkspur were competing with them to be the most beautiful. They had competition from the clematis that stretched over the wide trellis that had been constructed with the extra materials that had been used to repair the old part of the castle.
“This truly was the perfect place to finally put Aethelbore and Morgana to rest together,” Muriel commented as she bounced her baby boy in her arms.
“After all the trouble we went through to drag Aethelbore out of his other resting place and transport him here, it had better be,” Cedric grumbled.
One look from his son as the baby cooed up at him, flapping his arms and blinking at the sunlight, and his expression turned to one of adoration.
“I think they look perfect resting here like this,” Bernadette said softly as she snuggled her newborn daughter against her shoulder. “Little Morgana likes it as well, I can tell.”
Baby Morgana was asleep after her afternoon feed and did not have much to add in the way of comment.
“I think credit should be given to the orchestrater of this newly planted garden,” Dunstan said, sliding his arm around Carys’s waist as she sat beside him on one of the garden’s new benches. “She did a lovely job.”
Carys laughed and rubbed her round belly. “I had to occupy myself with something after Uncle Gerald insisted I hand over housekeeper duties to Cousin Gladys,” she said. “I am so used to filling every second of my day with care for this castle and its family that the prospect of doing nothing was terrifying.”
“Well, you will have quite a bit to do in just a few months,” Muriel laughed, nodding to Carys’s stomach. “Believe me. Becoming a mother at an advanced age is a challenge I am not entirely certain I was prepared for.”
“Is anyone truly prepared to be a mother?” Bernadette asked, smiling at her daughter, then at Alden, who sat beside her.
“I am certain that you were, my darling,” Alden said, leaning in to kiss her cheek.
“I am certain you all were,” Lord Gerald said. “That is why I sought to arrange the pieces so that this very thing would happen.”
“You are most fortunate that things transpired the way they did,” Cedric told him with a mock scowl.
“Yes, well, I am fortunate in everything,” Lord Gerald said with a happy sigh. “Ever since Christmas, we have had nothing but the very best of fortune.”
It was a sweet moment, but it was disturbed when Waldorf and Kat came striding into the garden, Minnie and Lawrence with them.
“You will never guess what we have just heard,” Kat said, beating Minnie to the delivery of what must have been exciting news, judging by the expressions they all wore.
“Has another one of Cedric’s investments produced an astounding profit?” Lord Gerald asked.
“No,” Minnie said. “Although I did hear that the Royal Zoological Society of Wessex was interested in granting Alden and Bernadette’s estate special favor as the finest collection of flora and fauna from the Americas in all of Britannia .”
The way she gave special emphasis to the word ‘Britannia’ had all of them sitting up.
“What is this about Britannia?” Lord Gerald asked, his brow going up.
“We have just received word from a messenger who has traveled all the way from London,” Waldorf said, his expression shining with triumph.
“The vote happened last week,” Kat nearly spoke on top of him. “It was a contentious vote with more than a little dissent, but a definitive one all the same.”
“It cannot be,” Bernadette said, sitting straighter and leaning slightly toward the others.
“Did they vote to unite the kingdoms of Britannia?” Muriel asked, handing her son over to Cedric so that she could rush forward and grasp Kat’s hands.
“They did!” Kat exclaimed.
“And they have been united under Mercian law!” Minnie added in a shout.
The four friends shouted with glee, and Carys along with them. Each in their own ways, they had fought so hard for exactly that outcome, for the rights of women throughout Britannia.
“Well done, all of you,” Lord Gerald said, rising and coming over to shake hands with each of his daughters- and nieces-in-law. “What a fantastic outcome to years of hard work.”
“I am convinced breaking our family’s curse has something to do with this,” Dunstan said, rising and joining the circle of celebration as well.
Alden laughed and slapped him on the back. “You are convinced that lifting the curse has affected every good thing that has happened to our family in the last six months,” he said.
“You must admit that we’ve had extraordinary luck this year,” Lawrence said, standing with them. “Both Cedric’s and Muriel’s businesses have been thriving, Alden and Bernadette have received great acclaim for their terrarium, Waldorf and Kat have been up to something mysterious and covert, which must mean they have fallen back into favor with whomever they have been working for, and Minnie and I quite enjoyed our highly successful trip to Hamburg this spring.”
“Do not forget that you have been invited to show your sculptures at a prominent gallery in London this autumn, my dear,” Minnie called out to him as the celebrations continued.
“And I have my grandchildren,” Lord Gerald said, perhaps more satisfied than anyone there. “If this is not cause for a celebration, I do not know what is. Gladys, have champaign brought up for us all at once!”
“Or perhaps tea for those of us who are not inclined to celebrate with wine,” Bernadette added quietly, though Little Morgana had already awakened and started to fuss.
“Whatever we do or consume to celebrate,” Dunstan said, taking Carys’s hand and drawing her into his arms, “it will last for but a moment. The good fortune of this family and of this country will continue for a long time to come, however.”
“It will indeed,” Carys said, hugging Dunstan with a smile. “We have built everything on a foundation of love. From there, we can achieve anything.”
***
I hope you have enjoyed Carys and Dunstan’s story! And yay for the Curse of Godwin Castle being broken at last, and for Britannia being united!
A lot of the inspiration for this entire series came to me when I was visiting a friend in Scotland who lives in an eight-hundred-year-old castle.
It was a magnificent place to stay, and while I was there, we toured several other castles as well, some of which had originally been built in the days of Morgana and Aethelbore!
I was surprised to find that it was actually a fairly common practice to bury people within the walls of castles, especially if they had an important part in the construction of the castle in the first place.
At one of the castles we visited in particular, Fyvie Castle, there had been a rumor for centuries that the remains of the founding lady of the castle were contained within the walls, but the rumor was dismissed as just a story.
Then, in 1920, the remains of a woman were found behind a bedroom wall during renovations.
Those remains were moved to the local cemetery, but after that happened, strange noises and a string of bad luck befell the residents of the castle.
So they exhumed the remains and put them back in the wall…and the haunting stopped!
Fyvie Castle also provided the inspiration for Morgana’s curse.
As one of the guides told us, there was a woman who was wronged in love by a member of the family who placed a curse on the family that the firstborn son would never inherit the castle until the three Weeping Stones, which marked the boundaries of the castle grounds, were reunited.
Only one of those stones has ever been found, though, and true to the curse, tragedy has always befallen the firstborn son of the family, preventing him from inheriting.
The truth is stranger than fiction sometimes!
One other detail from this story is based on actual events as well.
When I was touring St.
George’s Chapel within the walls of Windsor Castle a few years ago, I learned about the remarkable thing that happened when the casket of King Charles I was discovered.
It had always been known that several kings had been buried in the crypt of St.
George’s Chapel, but if you remember your history, King Charles I had his head cut off by Oliver Cromwell, who wanted to have the poor guy’s body desecrated and put on public display.
That didn’t happen, however.
A few men loyal to Charles stole his body, sewed his head back on, and whisked him away in complete secrecy in the middle of the night to St.
George’s Chapel.
For almost two centuries, no one was entirely certain that the casket held in the crypt with several others actually belonged to Charles…until it was decided that they should open the casket in 1813.
According to a first-hand account of the exhuming that I read, when the casket was unsealed and opened, King Charles’s startlingly blue eyes were still intact and stared accusingly out at the men who had disturbed him…for only a few seconds before oxidation turned them to dust!
So yep, a lot of the circumstances surrounding Morgana were most definitely based on things that have actually happened!