He sat up, still gasping for breath.
“Geoffrey! Are you all right? She was trying to drown you!” yelled Henry, pounding his younger brother vigorously on the back.
“I had noticed,” said Geoffrey, raising an arm to fend him off. “But you saved my life.”
“I do not know why,” Henry muttered. “I suppose I did not want that witch to deprive me of doing something I have been longing to do for years.”
“Thank you anyway, both of you,” said Geoffrey, scanning the water for Enide. It was brown and flat, and there was no sign of her.
“She is dead,” said Joan softly. “She was swept past me when I was reaching for you. Her eyes were open, but she was dead.”
“Are you sure?” asked Geoffrey doubtfully.
“Of course!” said Henry. “No one could survive that. You would not have lasted much longer yourself. Look at that current! I wager you it will only get stronger as you go downstream.”
“So, I leave Goodrich as I arrived,” said Geoffrey, wiping the water from his eyes. “Soaking wet after a dip in the river.”
“You are leaving, then?” asked Joan.
“Yes,” said Geoffrey. “Today or tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, then,” said Henry decisively. “Or even the next day. Give yourself time to dry out.”
“And will you visit us in another twenty years?” asked Joan, looking away down the river.
“Perhaps before,” said Geoffrey. “And I will write regularly.”
Joan smiled at him suddenly, and he smiled back. Henry looked from one to the other mystified, and then helped haul both of them to their feet.
“She has gone,” he said in satisfaction, making his way back up the bank. “Things will be different from now on. Goodrich is mine, as it should be, and there will be no brothers and no Enide and Hedwise to poison our lives. Bertrada will leave soon, but Joan and Olivier can stay on and help look after my estates. It is just that it has worked out this way, and the only good that will disappear with the evil is that wonderful fish soup.”
Joan and Geoffrey exchanged a knowing glance and stood side by side a moment longer, looking down the river where Enide had disappeared. Just as he was about to follow Henry, Geoffrey caught the faintest glimpse of white some way down the opposite bank. He peered at it, but there was nothing to see. He decided that he must have been mistaken, and that his imagination had run away with him. Then he glanced at Joan, and saw her staring at the same spot.
“Did you? …” he began.
“I cannot be sure,” she replied hesitantly. She shook her head. “No. There was nothing there. I must have imagined it.”
They exchanged a look in which the uncertainty of both was reflected, before following Henry up the slippery bank to head back to Goodrich Castle.