The single candle’s flickering light abstracted the form into mysterious planes. Still, she recognized the face, older than the one she knew so well, and felt the power of the presence. It awed her that something made of stone could possess so much life.

“It captures him too well. It is as if his spirit dwells in it.”

The quiet voice startled her. She swung around to see Marcus leaning against the opposite wall of the transept, studying the statue from the dark.

He came over to her, and the light affected his face much as it did the statue’s. It was as if the stone image over the crypt had come to life to walk among the living, rejuvenated.

“My sister made it, along with her husband. It took many years, and now I wonder if she delayed the completion, so that she could keep it with her. Perhaps she relinquished it now because she sensed that I needed it, so I would remember.”

“Do you need a statue to remember?”

“I need nothing to remember him. But the rest …” He gestured to the stone floor. “His bones were not here when I got Anglesmore back. He had died a traitor, and only saw a decent burial because the castle priest helped my sister take the body to a village plot. His crime had been to stand by his king when all others forsook him, and to hold to his oath of fealty while others violated theirs.”

Nesta knew he was speaking of the deposition of the current king’s father. Everyone knew how Marcus’s father had not joined the rebellion led by the Queen and Roger Mortimer, and how he had paid when it had been successful.

“An oath or a promise is not to be broken,” she said. “Everyone understands that, and if Mortimer had not been so ambitious in these parts it would have been different for your father.”

“Perhaps, but it was not.” A thin smile lined his mouth. “My father left me a rich legacy, and his example through his death is part of it. A man sworn to a king does not forsake that king, even if he is not fit to rule.”

His tone surprised her. It carried a note of resentment, and a hint of the rebelliousness that could show in him sometimes.

“Do you blame your father for the stand he took, Marcus?”

“Much pain and grief flowed from it, and not to the good. I cannot blame him, but I can see that he might have been wrong.” He stepped into the alcove and gave the statue a closer inspection. “I am told the craftsmanship is superior. What do you think?”

“I think that it was carved not only with skill, but with heart.”