Epilogue

They were a nasty bunch, Edric's soldiers: grimy, bitter and strangely smelly for a gaggle of dead men. Yet, William did not think he had ever seen any group of males put away their weapons of war so quickly as did these men when Bodicea and the Faeries appeared at the edge of the trees.

Looking at the ladies, William's stomach knotted, but not with the fear so plainly to be found on the faces of Edric's men. No, William was not frightened of these lovely, fragile creatures. These ravishing woodland beauties. Quite the opposite. In fact he wished Byron were here to give voice to the poetic undulations that entered William's head, unbidden. And given his usual impatience with Byron's musings, that was saying quite a lot. William was so overwhelmed by their combined beauty that he could not decide which of the Faerie maids he ought to fixate his desires upon.

The men quickly cleared a path for the ladies. Bodicea rapped her spear on the hard packed Earth and motioned for the Faerie women to follow her to the carriage.

"Ladies..." William stammered, bowing with a flourish. On his way back upright, he caught Bodicea's withering glance and his face turned crimson.

""I have brought my prisoners," Bodicea said, her voice almost even enough to cover the annoyance she must have felt at William's chivalrous machinations.

"Prisoners, Bodicea?"

William smiled at the Faerie women as he said this, hoping to curry their favor. The one with the auburn hair let the ghost of a smile flicker around the corners of her mouth, but it quickly disappeared.

"Prisoners." Her tone brooked no argument. "I have won their service in battle-"

"Really?" William chimed in, his eyebrows raised in interest. "What kind of service, did you say? I've been thinking we really should have a few more girls �round the old hearth and home-"

He was silenced by an infant's terrified cry. A moment later, a flummoxed Farris thrust the chubby thumb sucker into William's protesting arms.

"He just began to float away, sir. I grabbed him and that's when he cried out..."

In William's arms, the child immediately clamped its gums around its tiny digit again and burbled happily. A crack of magickal energy filled the air and then Tamara was standing beside the carriage. As she straightened her skirts, she gave Farris a wink.

"It's a spell, Farris. You need not be worried for their safety. The Faerie Princess Godda has lifted her hold on the babies so that they may return to their mothers."

"Do you always spy on other people's conversations?" William asked, relieved to see her but also irked by the method of her arrival.

Tamara laughed. "I wasn't spying, William. One needn't spy on you to know that poor Bodicea did all the hard work here today." She glanced

over at Godda's sullen Faerie sisters as she said this.

William opened his mouth to protest, but no words came out. For in that moment the baby in his arms once more became exceedingly light. With a happy gurgle, the infant slipped from his grasp and began to float heavenwards where it was joined by four others, themselves also floating upwards. Then, together, they promptly vanished.

"Amazing!" Bodicea cried. "Your magick only grows stronger, Tamara."

"I'm afraid I cannot take credit for this doing, Bodicea. The Faerie Princess has reconciled with her husband and she no longer wishes to punish innocents for his philandering. She has relinquished her hold on the mothers and babies and, as penance, she and Wild Edric will take on the parenting of the changeling babies." Wild Edric's men shifted uneasily around them.

"Not them changeling babies," one of the men groaned. "We shan't ever have ourselves a proper hunt with them wee changelings underfoot!"

"What happened to the other two?" William asked, frowning. He glanced at Tamara. "There were seven. What of the two you carried with you out of the hollow in that tree?"

"I've already returned them home," she replied.

Amidst the frustrated grumblings of protest against those "damnable changeling babies," Wild Edric's men began drifting back toward the woods, leaving only the Princess Godda's ladies-in-waiting for Tamara and William to deal with. "Well, Ladies, I hope you have something to say for yourselves about all this business."

The Faerie woman with the auburn mane stepped forward and laid a bejeweled hand on William's shoulder. "Kind, young master, we ladies of the wood were only acting at the behest of our beloved sister. We meant no harm." She wrapped a strand of crimson hair around her finger, fetchingly.

"Of course, of course I can see how family affection would cloud-"

"Really, William, whatever would Sophia Winchell say if she were to see you now?" Tamara asked, her face alight with mirth. "Somehow I doubt she would appreciate your interest in the, ahem, affairs of these enchanting ladies."

William, for the second time in the space of ten minutes, turned red. "Well, I... Well, uhm..." Yet, though he tried for an air of indignation, there was nothing he could say to redeem himself from the wicked thoughts he had just been contemplating about a certain red-haired Faerie.

The lady in question blew William a kiss, as if to say she knew his thoughts and found them quite appealing herself, then turned to Bodicea. "We shall be yours to call upon in times of danger, Your Majesty. Our first loyalty is always to our own royal court, but you have won our allegiance with your great courage and wily cunning."

The ladies curtsied, their long hair spilling across their elegant features. And then they were gone, as if they had never been there at all. Bodicea turned to the Swift siblings, and William thought that she had never seemed more regal to him.

"What we have seen here today is a rare thing, my young friends," said the ghostly queen. "The Faerie world does not willingly mingle with our own. Against all odds we have been victorious and we have won their regard and their kinship. It is a dear thing, not given lightly. In the days to come, whenever darkness falls and Albion is threatened once more, you will be fortunate to have such allies."

William attempted to match Bodicea's serious expression. "Yes, I should say so."

Tamara arched an eyebrow, but then she turned to Bodicea and nodded. "If I were still the girl who ran across the fields behind Ludlow House and climbed trees to be nearer the stars, I would wish the day would never come when we should need our allies. But the struggle is eternal, isn't it, Bodicea?"

Her ghostly form shimmering there at the edge of the road, Bodicea nodded. "Light and darkness are in constant combat. Morning always follows night, and then gives way to evening."

William frowned. "Good God, you two are morose. If it's all so useless, what the hell are we bothering for?"

"Because we must, William," Tamara said. "This is our time. Somewhere there is another little girl running across a field. It's for her that we fight, so she will never know what we know."

"And if you ever surrendered the fight," Bodicea added, "then one day morning might not follow evening, and the darkness would prevail."

William stood a bit straighter. "Right, then. Well, I don't want that on my head. So we'll keep on, of course. But it would be nice if the ghouls and Faeries and demons let us alone for a while."

Tamara and Bodicea said nothing, but William had expected no reply. He knew that any reassurance they might offer would be hollow. As his sister had said, the struggle was eternal. There was no way to know when the Protectors of Albion would next be needed.

Farris coughed, breaking the silence. "Pardon me, Sir. Miss.

But perhaps we ought to be heading back now. You never now what might be lurking in the woods."There was a glint in Tamara's eyes as she turned to William.

"As long as it is not a baby, Farris, I think Master William would be perfectly alright."

She gave William a playful poke as she opened the carriage door and climbed inside. Shaking his head, William joined her.

As Farris cracked the whip and guided the horses away from that darkly enchanted wood, the distant call of a hunting horn could be heard behind them, baleful and resolute.

THE END