Esme filled her pale blue eyes with the glittering scene before her. Askelon Castle, its towers and turrets find by the golden rays of the setting sun, sparkled like a jewel. The great walls stood strong, impenetrable, glowing red in the fading light.

She shivered, remembering another time when she sat astride a horse exactly this spot and gazed upon the castle standing just so in another sunset long ago. Nothing has changed, she thought. Oh, what folly! Everything has changed; me most of all.

“I may have been wrong to leave,” she said finally, speaking softly to herself. “But I have returned. Perhaps I can make a new beginning.”

Without another word Esme gathered the reins and started down the hill into the valley. Sensing food and water and a warm stall at hand, her horse began to trot and then to gallop along the road. The others behind her joined in the race and soon they were all flying toward Askelon, their jubilant voices ringing through the dells.

They reached the village below the walls and clattered through the streets, hardly slowing at all. Then they were over the drawbridge, through the drawbridge jogging to a halt in the ward yard, where squires scampered to take the horses and lead them to the stables.

“Esme! You are here!” There was a shout behind her, and she turned to see Bria emerging from a doorway across the yard. Two little noses poked out from either side of their mother’s skirts, their eyes glittering.

Esme knelt down and held out her arms. “Come here, my darlings!” she called, and was instantly smothered in giggles and kisses. “And how big you have grown!” she said in amazement “Oh, I have missed you so!” She kissed both girls and hugged them tight Then she stood and embraced their mother. “Bria, it is wonderful to see you.”

The two women clung for a long moment and then stepped back to view each other at arm’s length. “Esme, you are more beautiful than ever. You are! It is…” A tear formed in Bria’s eye. “I have missed you so much!”