“My Katherine. Do you not see what is beside you?” The voice has surprising strength, and gentle good humor. “Master Saunders has loved you these three years past; and he is an honest and well-disposed young man. Do not fight against what is well for you, Kate.” And he turns over, and sleeps again.

MARCH 25, 2004, MANHATTAN

ROLAND AND SIMON SUDDENLY BROKE FROM THEIR CATCH-UP CHATTER, and all three of them stared as some outer paper and corrugated cardboard fell away. Lucy pulled free an exquisite, hand-stitched needlepoint object from some tissue paper, which itself had been encased in heavy plastic sheeting. It was an envelope-shaped bag—like a slipcase. Made of a base fabric of heavy linen, tasseled at the corners, it was lavishly embroidered with colored silks, predominantly red, gold, and creamy parchment; and it was buttoned at the center with a large tear-drop pearl. As she held it up, the light revealed the details.

On the rear side, in colored cottons, she examined a rendering of the now-familiar mulberry tree, entwined with an odd-shaped, formal symbol of a moon linked through a sun. This was worked in pale colored silk threads, which Lucy thought was perhaps satin and seed stitching. But on the front buttoned side, fashioned in silk threads in what Lucy would call raised work, there were two simple red roses in one corner, a red and golden border that reminded her of an ancient folio design, and a depiction of the Chartres labyrinth, which was rendered, as though flat, from the bottom of the case into an open luminescent void beyond. On closer scrutiny she could see some gold-inked script, faded in places, which ran across the face of it. It seemed to have been silk-screened, or even underpainted, in gold leaf or ink upon the linen base fabric, and some of the words stood in bolder relief within the verse lines. She noticed “seek,” and “sleeps,” and “Lady”; and possibly “Venus” and “meeting.” It would take some work to decipher, but what struck her most was the effect of total enchantment created by the whole piece. This had been a labor of love for someone, and no one would have placed such an object in the ground for long, no matter how well protected from the elements. Had it been one of Diana’s final acts to set it there?

The two men, equally, were mesmerized, and time dallied for several minutes, until Roland spoke.

“The moth, or the butterfly, in the top corner, signifies a reincarnated or awakened soul. What have you got here?”