This endless search, I thought as I watched the fields go by. How could I ask Hugh and Martyn and the earl himself to keep at it while I stayed behind and did nothing to help? Perhaps by uniting the books and unleashing their power, I could find Michael Gough myself.

Consequences, I heard Brighida say and gritted my teeth.

Somehow, I had to learn what would come of bringing them together. Such enormous books, I thought. How I would even accomplish such a feat if I chose to do so?

“Aren’t you going in?” Hugh asked.

I was startled to realize that we were at the cottage. “Brighida will have a meal for us. Come inside, Hugh.”

He shook his head. “It’s late.”

“Then I’ll say good night now. Thank you, Hugh.” I picked up my surcoat and climbed down from the cart slowly so as not to damage it or the parchment Earl Edmund had bestowed upon me.

Brighida sat at the table with The Book of Time open before her. Eyes closed, she murmured, then opened them and looked at the page as if to confirm that she had truly committed the incantation—or the lesson, or the constellation—to memory.

“Brighida.” I spoke quietly to bring her back to the waking world without frightening her. As she looked up and closed her book, I handed her the parchment, then carefully returned my glorious surcoat to its crate. “Earl Edmund gave me dominion over Bury Down.”

She nodded without looking up from the deed. “Dominion means—” She spoke as if teaching a pupil her lessons.

“I know what it means, Brighida. It means rule. It means that we decide what we shall do with our manor. He called Bury Down a manor, Brighida.”

“I would have said authority—that we have authority over our land—but rule is also correct.”

“Already I have authority over our books.” I took a deep breath. “And if we are to find Michael Gough, I believe it’s time to unite them so we might use their power to bring him to justice.”

With her lips still working as she studied the Latin words on the deed, she stroked her cheek with her forefinger. Then, as if just realizing what I had asked, she looked up. “Unite the books?”

I touched the cover of The Book of Time and looked up at the shelf holding The Book of Seasons. “How can two such enormous books be joined?” I mused aloud. “Surely the bindings would break . . .”

“The books themselves are not to be joined into one great tome.” Brighida laughed as if it had never occurred to her that I might think such a thing. “It is what they hold—their knowledge and wisdom—that must one day be united. Murga’s great incantation, ‘Scientia nupta sapientia potestas est,’ means ‘Knowledge wedded to wisdom is power.’ And with power comes duty.

“Power such as Murga wove into her writings, and which will be unleashed when their knowledge and wisdom come together, will no doubt come with a duty far greater than any woman of Bury Down has ever borne. A duty, perhaps, which you will choose not to shoulder.”

“As I chose not to shoulder the duty to heal? Is that what you are saying? Or as I chose, out of cowardice, not to shoulder the duty to save my own people when I, as Murga, was their seer?” Gripped by remorse, I shook my head. “Why did I not take the life of that horrid Colluen when he began to turn the settlement against me? Surely I had the power to do so. Instead, I allowed him to let everyone starve, and then allowed him to execute me.”

Brighida closed her book. “It was not for cowardice that Murga—not you, Megge, but Murga—did not kill Colluen. It was for a reason.” She paused until I had stopped shaking my head and then spoke slowly. “How many times must you learn this lesson? The women of Bury Down do not kill. Not an animal, not a child in the womb, not even a man who would kill us himself. It is not—and never has been—for us to take a life.”

“No, Brighida, we allow others to do that work for us. Anwen killed Colluen.” I was breathing hard. “Tell me, did I call her from the cliffs to protect Bryluen and my writings or to do for me what I could not do for myself?”

“Enough.” Brighida slapped the table and got up. “Enough. Anwen acted of her own accord.”

I spotted the long knife Brighida had sharpened and had put into Martyn’s hand. I picked it up.

“As Martyn would have done had he taken this knife you gave him?”