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But it hadn’t felt like a dream in Albion either, and that had been far from real. With a start, the memory of Morgan’s trick returned to her and she backed away from him quickly, sliding against the floor.

“Then you’re an evil creature,” she said nervously, her hands reaching behind her for her cloak. The firestone; was it still there? “You’re here to deceive me!”

“My love,” he said. “I would never deceive you, unless there was no other way, and I promise you that this time it really is me.”

Tristran laughed, and pinched himself. “I should think not,” he said, then placed her palm against his face. “Don’t I feel alive?”

“Yes,” Ailyth replied, but this time she would not be so easily fooled. She had been too eager to believe that he had returned to her before; this time she would be certain.

Placing his hands behind his back, Tristran produced the bowl, already spilling water. “I had an idea you would need proof,” he laughed, but there was nothing mocking about the way he smiled at her doubt. He passed it carefully to her, and stared serenely as she stared into the bowl.

Taking a deep breath, Ailyth fixed her eyes to the water. “Show me Tristran,” she said solemnly. “My Tristran. The real one.”

The water rippled to some unseen movement, and a picture appeared. It wasn’t a real reflection, as it had been before, but showed the same view of the smiling, fair, summer-blue eyed boy who sat before her.

“It’s you,” she breathed, placing the bowl carefully on the floor and launching herself at him. “My love, it’s really you!”

This time there was no trickery, no magic to fool her into thinking that her dream had finally come true. It was him, she knew that from the feel of his lips on hers, his hands clasping her to him like a drowning man clutching a float. She covered every inch of his face with kisses, and held him so tightly there was no way they could be parted again.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she said. “I ached for you every day, dreamed about you. Oh Tristran, where have you been?”

But she didn’t hear his words as she remembered something important, something that had slipped to the back of her mind briefly as her world was made complete. RiffRaff. RiffRaff was well, and now he could meet Tristran.

“Riff’!” she called. “Riff’, come over here. I know you’re not dead, I know you’ve been healed, come out! There’s someone here I want you to meet.”

There was no noise, and the silence hung in the air, a tension as the rat failed to reappear. With each passing second Ailyth’s spirit sank. He would never have left her. He had been brought back to life, hadn’t he?

“I’m sorry,” she apologised to Tristran, realising she hadn’t explained fully what she was doing. “It’s a friend...I want him to meet you. But I don’t know where...” she turned around, scanning the floor, “where he is.”

She turned back to Tristran, who was looking at her with a strange smile on his face. “Ailyth,” he said. “I’m here.”

Ailyth stared at him for a few moments, trying to understand what he was saying. Then, without saying a word to him, she lifted up the bowl and spoke into the water, “Show me RiffRaff.”

She looked up at Tristran, and back at the bowl, before letting it drop. The water spilled around her feet as she moved closer to him and said quietly, so that he could hardly hear her, “you’re RiffRaff?”

Tristran stared into her dancing violet eyes and said simply, “I’ve been with you right from the day that you left Topsham, and I’ve been with you every step of the way since.”

The flash of anger that filled Ailyth’s mind was as unexpected to her as it was to him, but she couldn’t hold back her questions. “Then why didn’t you tell me?” she cried, pulling away from him slightly. “I’ve been grieving for you for months, I thought you’d died! I blamed myself for your death!”

Tristran leaned forward and silenced her with a kiss. “Will you just shut up?” he said playfully, breaking away, “and let me explain?”

She looked at him doubtfully for a moment, then nodded, a small smile on her mouth. “All right,” she said. “Let’s hear it.”

The tale that Tristran told her began with the day he had killed the White Hart, and this Ailyth knew. She listened intently as he explained that, because of their actions, they had both been cursed. Her curse was to lose all she had loved but, distressing though that had been for her, his punishment would be far worse, as it was he who’d struck the fatal blow.

“The faey’s of Albion were angry with me,” he explained. “They loved their Lord, and wished to see me dead, and that would have been my penalty, had it not been for Heloise. She was there, you see. At the gathering that would decide our fates. When she heard what your punishment would be, on top of having to lift the prophecy, she tried to argue against it, but to no use. Then, when she found out my punishment was death, she intervened and said she would deal with that herself.” He looked at her fondly. “She knew how much you meant to me,” he said, “and she was determined that we should not be parted.”

He went on to account for his sudden disappearance on the night of the full moon, the moment the curse began, telling Ailyth that how, after their fight, he had been plunged into a depression and decided to end his life, and would have done so if he hadn’t seen Heloise look down from one of the windows.

“I didn’t want her to see me,” he said. “I didn’t want her to tell you what I’d done, so I climbed out of the water and was about to go into the woods when she caught up with me. Heaven knows how she moved so quickly, but she put her hand on my shoulder and said: “You would never leave my Lady, would you?”

“As soon as I’d said no, I felt smaller, more nimble. Instead of killing me as she’d been instructed, she’d turned me into a rat...”

“Well, no,” Tristran said. “As soon as I’d put my four paws on the earth, I didn’t know I was me. The spell had cleaned my memory and, as far as I was concerned, I’d been a rat all of my life.”

“Even though you couldn’t remember anything from your ‘rat past’,” Ailyth remembered, bringing to mind her conversation with him in Crediton.

“Exactly. Heloise, although she used her faey name of Grethel to me most of the time, told me that I had a very important task to do.”

It was soon after, Tristran explained, that he was given to Ailyth as she left Topsham, although Ailyth was disappointed to know that the sight of her hadn’t triggered his memory at all.

“But I knew you were special,” he told her, kissing the side of her head. “As soon as you took me from Heloise’s hands, I felt a love for you, like we were two halves of a whole. I felt I belonged with you and, as we became friends, I would have done anything for you. You were my reason.”

“Only when we went to Albion did I begin to ask questions. Not knowing much about myself, I hoped I’d feel like I’d come home, but I didn’t. The place was a strange to me as Bristol was, and I didn’t feel any connection to the other rats I met, enchanted or not. That’s when the Green Man saw me. He knew who I was...well, he knows everything. He told me I was Tristran, the boy you dreamed about and loved so much, and as soon as he told me I felt a fog lift, and I remembered. And it hurt.”

“Because I knew you were suffering my loss, and I knew I wanted to hold you again, but I couldn’t. And there was no saying if I would ever be a man again. In some ways it worse knowing the truth, and not being able to do anything about it.”

“Because I couldn’t. Such was the nature of my curse. I found out then that I would only become a man if you were prepared to give your life up for me, without knowing that you would bring me back. What a choice to make; a short life as a rat, with you, or to be a man again, but for you to die for that to happen. I couldn’t ask that of you. I’d rather have stayed as RiffRaff than watch you die. No, I couldn’t say anything then, much as I wanted to.”

Ailyth sat up slowly, and looked at Tristran with a face bursting with realisation. “You know what this means, don’t you?” she said excitedly.

“I’m in the home of my fathers’,” she whispered, staring at him. “Man became beast when Canute and the villagers started behaving like animals, and now...beast has become man!” She grabbed his hands and jumped to her feet. “Tristran, you know what this means! We’ve done it! It’s finished! The prophecy has been fulfilled!”

There was silence again in the hall as Ailyth watched him expectantly. There were no sounds of rejoicing from outside the manor, no serfs could be heard calling out that their loved ones had suddenly made a miraculous recovery, but even so Ailyth knew that her quest was complete. Everything was still.

Of course, Heloise had been in the hall too, and Ailyth turned to where she had crouched, to see her faithful, loyal nursemaid sprawled on the floor.

Wrapping his arms around her in comfort, Tristran pulled Ailyth away from the body. “I don’t know, my darling. I don’t know.”

They stood together, quietly in each other’s arms, ‘til the break of day, each tired and relieved that the plague had finally been halted, yet each hardly daring to believe it was true. After such a struggle to return to the manor, and having seen so many people die of the painful illness, it was hard to take in that this had now come to an end.

Heloise’s body lay in the hall, covered by Ailyth’s cloak, and neither went back to it after it had been hidden. Ailyth wouldn’t look at it, and couldn’t bring herself to cry for her, although she felt her loss as a sharp ache in her chest. How could she be dead? It was be a mistake, it had to be. But then, they could sense the figure lying still behind them, and Ailyth knew what she had seen. How, then, could it be a mistake?

The sun was pale as it filtered through the windows with the rising of dawn, and it played lightly over Ailyth’s tired, drawn face. In truth she was exhausted, both in her body and mind, but she had to see morning come. She had to know that night and day were still following each other and, with the birth of a new dawn came the start of England’s recovery. Today, they would start to rebuild the manor.

“Then go to bed, then,” Tristran ordered kindly. “You’ve done so much, I’m surprised you can even stand. You deserve a rest.”

Ailyth shook her head. “No, I’m all right,” she said, stretching slightly. “I want to look over the manor, see what needs to be done, take stock of things...” Her eyes drifted towards Heloise, under the cloak. “And I want to find somewhere to bury her,” she said, a crack in her voice. “We can’t just leave her there. Maybe we could take her to the woods, she’d like that.”

She looked thoughtful, her mind in a time when Heloise would tell her stories of the hidden people in the evening, and pour cold water over her in the mornings if she refused to get out of bed. Those days were gone. She wasn’t a little girl any more; she was the Lady of the manor now, and there was a lot to be done if Topsham were ever to recover from the effects of the Black Death.

“We need to make a list of all the people who have died,” she said to Tristran as they left the house, holding each other’s hand. “We need to know how many people we’ve got left, and what skills they have. I don’t know what we’ll do if the carpenters have died...” Her mind trailed off and caught up the thread of another topic that was worrying her. “And we’ll need to bring in the harvest, as soon as possible,” she muttered to herself. “There’s still time, and we can all help with that...no, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Her eyes caught a house that had been burned to the ground and, for a moment she thought of Crediton, and wondered if the same thing had been happening here, until she saw the disgruntled family looking at the ruins and realised it must have caught fire during the witch-burning the previous night.

“You will stay in the manor house, yes?” she called to the family, who looked up in surprise at the sound of her voice. “We will begin the rebuilding of your home as soon as the harvest is in.”

The father of the family scowled at the suggestion that they live with the woman who some still thought a witch, and Ailyth knew that that was a stigma she would always have to bear. The mother, however, smiled gratefully, and Ailyth felt the hope that mayhap, in time, they would forget and see her as she truly was.

“I picked up a thing or two from my parents,” she replied back, and there was a positive note to her voice. Tristran saw that she was looking towards the gate to the manor, and followed her gaze.

“Can you see that?” she asked, awe-struck, and began to trot towards the bright white shape that was standing there, waiting for her. Tristran soon found himself being dragged along after her and, together, they came to a halt in front of a skinny white fawn.

The creature looked up as the lovers approached, and fixed its liquid black eyes on them reproachfully for running in such a haphazard way. One of its large, white ears flickered as Ailyth reached out her hands, and the velvet, moist nose nuzzled her palm.

“Calling me by my real name now, eh?” Grethel bleated, unsteady on her new spindly legs. “Well, I suppose that’s proper. I’m a nursemaid no more.”

“I knew you weren’t dead,” Ailyth said softly, crouching down and wrapping her arms around the fawn’s slender neck. “I knew that you were all right really!”

She turned to Tristran, and saw him for the first time. Stepping closer to him she nudged his hand and said, “I’m sorry I turned you into a rat. But I hope you understand, it really was the only way I could keep you and Ailyth together.”

“So,” Grethel said, staggering back and surveying the two with her wise eyes. “You ask me what you’ll do next. Well, you’ll return to the manor house, you’ll marry and have children, and together you’ll run the manor. That is your only task now.”

Panic gripped Ailyth. The plague hadn’t gone? Had the prophecy not really been completed? Was there something else that needed to be done?

“Yes,” Grethel said and, although it was hard to tell, it looked like she was smiling. “I will grow to be the new guardian of England, but that will take time. A year, mayhap, and my powers of protection will grow with me. When I am an adult; then will I be able to put a stop to this Black Death.”

Ailyth would have been lying if she’d said that she wasn’t stunned. “You mean more people will die?” she asked. “Then what was the point in all of this? What was the point in the prophecy, if I hadn’t put an end to all of this death?”

“Oh, but you have,” Grethel assured her. “The second Tristran returned to his true form, and the prophecy was fulfilled, I died in human form and was reborn as you see me now. If you hadn’t completed your quest, that could never have happened. You’ve started the chain, Ailyth, and without you the plague would have gone on for many, many years; maybe until there was not a single soul left in England. Now at least we know it will end. It will definitely end. My task now is to make sure of that.”

She trotted back a few paces, muttering, “Stupid four legs, won’t balance properly. Tell me, Tristran, how on earth did you manage?”

“Yes, well, we shall see,” Grethel said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I shall make my way to Albion...I don’t want to risk any more young knights firing arrows at me to impress their maidens.”

“But you’ve both been punished, and you’ve made right what was wrong,” Grethel added. “And now your time with me is over. I will go, and you must go and live your lives too.”

There was no need for sentimentality, no need for goodbyes. The fawn simply walked out of the manor and passed into the woods, as Tristran and Ailyth held each other and watched her go.

Tristran had decided to teach Ailyth to read and write; a necessary skill now that she was to run the manor, without the help of Edward the steward, who had joined the mass of victims to the plague.

Tristran dove into his pockets and pulled out a flat, round piece of woody dough. Ailyth examined it for a few moments, then rapped it on the table top. It made a solid, banging sound.

“Hmm, well, we can’t eat that,” she said, and placed it next to her writing. Without realising that she was doing it, her hand went up to her shoulder and, just as quickly, dropped back down to the table.

Ailyth frowned at him, confused, before realising. “Ah,” she said. “Do you remember when you used to sit on my shoulder?” she said. “Every now and then I’d feel to make sure you hadn’t fallen off.”

“And that time when Matthew saw you outside the church, and he tried to run you through with his sword, but I saved you.”

“Did I?” Ailyth smiled. “I can’t remember saying that.” She stared at him fondly. “I quite miss you being a rat,” she said.

“No, I mean...I’m glad you’re you again, but...well, it was nice carrying you around and no-one knew you were there, and I could talk to you. And you’d curl up into a ball and fall asleep in the crook of my arm...”

“Well, I’m just glad I don’t have fleas any more,” he said, before scratching his head. “Well, fewer fleas, at any rate.”

“He is. But...well, he wasn’t alone, was he. He had been sent on his quest by higher orders. Supposing more monks are sent to kill me...”

Tristran put a finger against her lips. “They won’t,” he said. “We both know that men of the church have been dying as often as any other man...perhaps more so. Don’t forget, they comfort the dying, so their numbers must be falling heavily. I think the Abbot Canute was under orders from must know that by now. He was wrong. It’s not his fault, but he was wrong nonetheless and he’ll realise that hurting you will not help that at all.”

Ailyth realised that he was probably right. After all, he had been there too, and his rational head worked far better such situations.

Shooting up from her chair, Ailyth grabbed Tristran’s arm. “Let’s go outside, for a while,” she said. “I want to see how the manor’s doing.”

It was early sunset as they walked through the manor, weaving amongst the quiet houses against a backdrop of autumnal golds and pinks in the sky. Soon the manor would go to sleep, and the next day might bring another death, or a respite from illness for a while. The plague, whilst still present, was slowing in time for winter, and she prayed that come the following year, it’s return would not be strong. Already the plague pit she had insisted on having made was nearly filled. It would be a hard year to come, but at least the harvest for this year had now been brought in.

Tristran had stopped, and was towards a tiny hut. Ailyth wasn’t sure she knew who lived there, until he whispered quietly “Meg.”

The one name that threatened to spoil Ailyth’s happiness with him, and she shuddered at its sound. She didn’t mean to freeze, but Tristran noticed her discomfort and smiled sadly at her.

“There was no way her baby could be mine, Ailyth,” he said to her, ruffling her hair. “The father was Eric Oakwood, the carpenter’s son. They were engaged to be married, until he disappeared. I saw him in Crediton, you know, with another girl.”

“I saw Meg,” he went on with a deep breath, “and we talked, and she told me what had happened to her, and that she was with child. I gave her a hug and told her it would work out for the best, and the next thing I knew everyone was saying that I was the father. Meg was too scared of what people would think to correct them.”

“Because she would have been humiliated, and dishonoured,” he explained. “I had always expected, or hoped, that you would understand, and give me the chance to explain.”

Ailyth thought back to the time when she had first heard of Tristran’s ‘death’, and how unimportant it had seemed. She wasn’t prepared now to rake up an old, wrong argument, in case he was taken again.

“Perhaps we should go and see how she is,” she suggested, and made her way towards the house until Tristran pulled her back.

They had been gone so long from the manor that, now she was home, she knew that she would never leave it again. The setting sun rested against Topsham, making it blush with all the colours of the evening sky and, as she turned to look down the hill to the houses where they’d just been walking, Ranulf appeared, carrying in his arms the youngest of the stolen children from Albion. Ailyth took her from him, and held the baby in her arms, cooing at the pink, wrinkled face and long dark lashes. She was asleep.

“No,” Ailyth said. There would be a time for action later; a time to carry on with the daily grind of running a manor in harmony with nature, and a time to work at the soil. There would be the dead to bury, the living to protect, mouths to feed and mayhap more tears to shed. But now was the time for quiet, for holding onto love and watching the sun set, and waiting in peace to see what the morning would bring.

The End