The next morning after breakfast the two sat down in their hotel room, various brochures containing maps of the area spread out on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Between those and a few online searches on Cassandra's phone, the Librarian was able to calculate the most likely location in the forest where Branwyn had been buried so long ago.
"I think I've got it, but it might be a good idea if you took a look around the area to see if you can still recognize any landmarks or anything. It might make a difference in my calculations as to where we start looking," she said.
The couple bundled into their coats and began to walk to the castle in the sharp winter air. They passed a small florist's shop that had just opened its doors for the day, and Jenkins stopped in front of it.
"One moment, please, Cassandra." He disappeared into the small shop for a few minutes, then reappeared with a large bouquet of gerbera daisies of different colors.
"It's amazing to stop and think of all the different kinds of flowers available here now that we never even knew existed back then," he commented somewhat sadly as he rejoined his wife and they resumed their trek to the castle. "Branwyn would've loved these. She would've said that they were like small, multi-colored suns." Cassandra only smiled sympathetically as she looped her arm through his.
They arrived at the main entrance of the hulking castle, and Jenkins turned to face the town in an attempt to get his bearings. He looked out over drowsy houses and businesses of the tiny village and the open fields that now surrounded Bamburgh. His face took on a look of dismay.
"I just don't recognize anything," he said, defeated. "Everything has changed so much!" Cassandra wasn't ready to give up yet, and an idea suddenly came to her.
"Jenkins, how did you get to the gravesite?" she asked.
"By horse," he answered simply.
"At a walk, a trot, a canter…?"
Jenkins thought for a moment. "A walk. There was no moon and it was dark, I didn't want to risk my horse going any faster, lest he stumble and injure himself, or me."
"Do you remember what route you took, even just generally?" she continued eagerly. Jenkins pondered thoughtfully as he looked around the area.
"Yes, vaguely. I remember I left the castle through this main gate, took the road that went through the village; the one that's here now still roughly follows the one I took. Then I turned off the main road to go into the forest."
"How long did it take to get to the turnoff?"
"If I recall correctly, about 30 or 40 minutes." The tall man turned to look at his companion. "Do you really think you can locate it?" Cassandra nodded her head excitedly.
"I think so!" Cassandra took a deep breath, then deliberately waved her hands in front of her, calling up the maps and computations that only she could see.
"Now, given that the average walking speed of a horse bearing a rider is approximately 6.4 kilometers per hour…" Jenkins watched silently, amazed and proud, as the Librarian made her calculations, muttering under her breath and flicking her hands to and fro. After a couple of minutes she clapped her hands excitedly.
"Got it! We drive along the main roadway for approximately fifteen minutes; that'll take us past the next village, Glororum. According to the satellite map I saw online this morning, there's an access road for farm equipment there. Hopefully, farmers over the centuries have kept using roughly the same path you took to go into the forest." The immortal gave her a doubtful look.
"After fourteen centuries? That would be an extraordinary piece of luck, Cassandra." The redhead merely smiled confidently up at him.
"Not luck—Mathematics! Shall we?" she said brightly, offering her husband her arm. Encouraged by her optimism, Jenkins slipped his arm into his wife's and they hurried off to pick up their car.
Cassandra slowed the car down as they approached the location she calculated for the turnoff, and Jenkins craned his neck as he began to search along the left side of the road for any sign of a side road. He quickly became excited as he realized that this area looked familiar to him. The area had changed tremendously in the past one thousand years, but there were still landmarks visible.
"Cassandra, stop the car!" The young woman hit the brakes. Jenkins threw open the door and jumped out of the car, running over to the low stone fence facing the road. Cassandra pulled the car off onto the shoulder and turned off the engine, then got out and joined him, remembering to bring his bouquet of daisies with her.
"Did you find the path?" she asked hopefully. He turned to look at her, his eyes shining.
"Do you see that pile of stones over there?" he turned back to his right and pointed at a jumble of black and gray moss-covered rocks.
"That's all that's left of a Roman-era fort," he informed her. "It was much larger back then, it's been pillaged by farmers for its stones over the centuries, but I'm positive that's the fort!" He turned back to the field and scanned it. He walked a few yards down the road in the direction of the castle, then stopped, comparing his position with the location of the fort's remains.
"Here," he said, staring ahead across the barren, wind-swept space. "This is where the turn was, I'm positive!" He turned his head to look at her. "Now what? Are you able to calculate the distance from here to the grave itself?" Cassandra smiled wryly as she quickly bounded over to stand next to him.
"How long did it take you to get there by horse?" she asked.
"As best I can remember, maybe another twenty minutes." Cassandra handed him the flowers, then waved her hands in the air again to make further calculations, factoring in that they would have to walk through open fields in broad daylight rather than through a thick forest on horseback in the dark. Within seconds she had her answer.
"About ten minutes or so, we should be at the general location. After that, we'll have to just look around and see if we can find that stone with the hole in it." She took the bouquet from Jenkins and went to the stone fence, then turned around toward him. "Help me over?" The Caretaker hurried over and quickly lifted her over the stone wall, then followed her, his long legs making short work of the barrier.
After ten minutes of picking their way through several fields and over a dozen fieldstone fences, the pair found themselves in an enclosed field that looked very much like all the others they'd just hiked through. They stopped and stood looking around, resting for a moment as they caught their breath. The field was empty, except for scattered stones, weeds and grass.
"Well, here we are," said Cassandra, idly kicking a small rock at her feet. "How large was that stone you used?" His earlier infusion of excitement now gone, the Caretaker turned around, taking in the field, his expression bleak.
"I fear this is a fool's errand, after all, Cassandra," he said apologetically. "The stone, even it's still even above ground, will be very difficult, if not impossible to find, if it's even still in place. My memory is more than likely faulty; we could be miles from the correct location." He held his long arms out from his sides for a moment in a shrug and then let them drop helplessly. Cassandra gave him a sympathetic look, then shivered involuntarily in the cold air. Jenkins saw it, and sighed quietly.
"I'm sorry, my dear; I shouldn't have dragged you out here like this. This was a mistake. Let's go back to the hotel." He held out his hand. Cassandra slipped her gloved hand into his and squeezed it.
"We've come all this way, we might as well take a look around," she said, then looked intently into his eyes. "If you don't at least try, you'll always regret it." Jenkins straightened to his full height as he looked down into her wide blue eyes.
"What an uncommonly wise young woman you are, Mrs. Jenkins," he rumbled warmly, squeezing her hand in return before raising it to his lips and kissing it. Cassandra smiled shyly at him.
"We'll cover more ground faster if we split up," she said, letting go of his hand and moving off to begin the search.
The pair scoured the area for several hours under the cold, gray English sky, moving from one small field to another. As the time passed, their optimism on finding the ancient gravesite faded, until even Cassandra began to doubt. By late afternoon she and Jenkins were cold, tired and starving.
"I think it's time to concede defeat, my dear," said Jenkins sadly with a sigh. "I appreciate your patience and understanding, indulging me this way." He put his arm around his wife as they rested against the stone fencing.
The Librarian pressed her lips together in resignation. "At least we tried," she said, leaning her head on his shoulder with a sigh. A shiver ran through her small body suddenly and her teeth began to chatter.
"Come, my dear," he said, standing as he held out his hand. "I'm a terrible husband, keeping you out in this cold for so long! Let's go back to the hotel before you catch your death. We'll have a nice, early tea and sit by the fire and get you thawed out." She put her hand into his and they set off back to the road.
They trudged silently through the fields, hand in hand. Jenkins sensed that Cassandra was too tired for conversation, so he left the silence between them unbroken. Instead, he simply enjoyed her closeness, and quietly thanked Heaven for such a good, kind and supportive mate. As the immortal's thoughts wandered, Cassandra suddenly stumbled and tripped. Her hand slipped from his as she fell forward flat onto her face.
"OW!" she yelped. Jenkins was instantly at her side.
"Cassandra! Are you all right? Are you hurt?" he asked anxiously as he helped her back to her feet.
"Yeah, I'm okay," she said, brushing her knees off. "I tripped over one of the seven million rocks in this field!" She marched back and kicked the offending stone in irritation. "Stupid rock!" She stopped suddenly and stared at the dark gray stone.
"Jenkins?" she called, her eyes opening wide. "Jenkins! Jenkins!" He hurried to her side, alarmed.
"What's wrong, Cassandra?" he asked. She pointed at the ground, indicating the stone she had tripped over.
"I think I found it!" she answered, wonder in her voice. "I think I found the stone! Look! It's half-buried, but that looks like a hole in the middle of it! Is that the stone you used?"
Jenkins dropped to his knees onto the frozen ground and bent low to examine the rock closely. He tore away the surrounding the grass and weeds, their roots ripping away large clumps of dirt with them. He pried some more of the frozen turf from around the stone with his bare hands, exposing a bit more of the old stone. The canted, nearly-buried stone showed clearly that it had a smooth hole in the middle of it. The Caretaker slowly sat back on his heels, eyes staring in disbelief.
"This is it," he breathed. "This is it." He slowly turned his head up to look at Cassandra standing next to him. "This is it!"
The young woman's eyes glowed with happiness. She quickly ran over and picked up the bouquet of daisies she had dropped when she tripped. They were now slightly bedraggled-looking, but she handed them to the kneeling man anyway.
"Here," she said, holding them out for him to take. "I'll just go over there, let you have some privacy." She walked away out of hearing and waited for him, making herself as comfortable as possible as she leaned against the cold stone fence.
Jenkins turned back to the stone in the ground in front of him. He slowly removed the cellophane from the flowers and stuffed it into his coat pocket, then gently laid the colorful bouquet on the ground before the time-worn gravestone. He reached his hand out and laid it on the cold stone; Cassandra saw it shake. Too overwhelmed for words, he remained silent for several minutes, his eyes closed. Eventually he opened his eyes again and took a deep, ragged breath.
Cassandra stuffed her hands deep into her coat pockets against the cold. She watched as his broad shoulders first slumped, and then began to shake slightly. She heard the sound of his voice speaking low and quietly, but she was too far away to hear the words except for one: 'Forgive'.
After what she thought was at least an hour, she saw Jenkins pull his handkerchief from his trousers pocket and cover his eyes with it, his head bent low. She could tell he was crying, and she could no longer leave him alone. The young woman walked over to comfort her husband, placing her arm around his shoulder as he continued to kneel on the ground.
A stiff, frigid breeze sudden kicked up and buffeted them sharply in the open field. Cassandra noticed a small piece of paper as it fluttered and skittered along the ground, then pressed itself against the grieving knight's leg. The breeze died off as suddenly as it came up, and the piece of paper fell to the ground. The Librarian absentmindedly stooped to pick up the piece of litter as she gently rubbed the man's shoulder and back.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," she said simply, not knowing what she words to say that could ease his pain. He nodded acknowledgement without looking up, and laid his bare, icy hand on top of hers. As they stayed in place there—Jenkins on his knees and Cassandra standing next to him—she idly looked down at the piece of paper in her hand, and her brow furrowed in puzzlement.
It was part of a weathered, tissue-thin page torn from a small book. Most of the words printed on it were illegible, either because they were too faded or missing altogether. But there were several words that looked strangely crisp and clear and clean, as though it had been printed just an hour ago: '…where are they that accused thee? Hath no man condemned thee?...Neither will I condemn thee…'
A shudder unrelated to the cold passed through Cassandra as a feeling of urgency swept over the young woman. As she stared down at the piece of paper, a feeling came to her that this was something Jenkins needed to see, now. She patted the grieving man's shoulder insistently.
"Jenkins, look at this," she said, holding out the scrap of paper. He distractedly took it from her and glanced at it, then looked more closely. The immortal sucked in a sharp breath and cried out, then dropped back onto his heels. One hand flew up to cover his mouth, his breath coming in heaving gasps, the vapor seeping through his fingers. Cassandra, frightened, dropped onto the hard ground next to him.
"Jenkins! What's wrong?" He held out the scrap, his wide chocolate eyes brimming with new tears. Cassandra looked at the paper, but she had no idea why he found it so upsetting.
"I don't understand," she said apologetically. "What does it mean?" It took him a couple of minutes before he could speak.
"It's a page from a Bible," he said hoarsely. "From the New Testament, from the Gospel of St. John. I've been asking Branwyn to forgive me, to give me a sign that she forgives me for what I did." His voice caught in his throat and he paused for a moment before continuing, the words spilling out in a half-choked sob. He looked up at her, the tears now slipping from his dark eyes.
"It's from Branwyn—a message!" he choked out. "She forgives me!" He broke down completely then, leaning against Cassandra as he wept with great, heaving sobs. Tears filled her eyes as Cassandra put her arms around him and held him, running her hands over his back soothingly.
His outburst was intense but brief; after a few minutes he straightened up, dabbing the tears from his eyes with his damp handkerchief. He clambered slowly to his feet, working to get his emotions under control.
His wife waited patiently until he was ready to speak again. She wasn't convinced that the scrap of paper was actually a message from beyond the grave, but if it brought relief and comfort to Jenkins's tortured soul after all these centuries, she certainly wasn't going to take it away from him by expressing those doubts. Instead, she replaced her arms around him and hugged him tightly. He hugged her back, sighing deeply.
"Come on, sweetheart," she said after a few minutes. "It's starting to get dark; let's go back to the hotel." Her husband nodded in agreement, and carefully placed the scrap of paper into his coat pocket with one hand as he took her hand with the other. They walked slowly back to the car and drove to their hotel in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.
