“Then you know I go disguised for the sake of my life. You know also I count John Soane as my friend.”
She nodded, feeling less afraid. “Yes,” she said. “He says he has helped you.”
“Good. Then you will not mind to come with me? I need your help as well. You have nothing to fear from me, only you must fear Noah Fallam if you are caught with me. The decision is yours. If you say no, I shall disappear and trouble you no more.”
Lydde felt a thrill of excitement. “I’m not afraid,” she said. “I’ll come with you.”
“Good.” He mounted his horse, then leaned down and held out a gloved hand. “Put your foot to the stirrup and climb up behind me.”
She did as she was told and he hauled her easily onto the horse’s back. He turned his head and said, “Hold on,” then pulled her arms so tightly around his chest that she was pressed close against his back and forced to rest her cheek against his shoulder. Then they were away, soon leaving the road and plunging into the blackness of the forest. By the time they emerged, Lydde saw they were headed toward the coast southeast of Norchester. Beneath a wedge of moon they crossed a dark heath and followed a windswept headland until they reached their destination. It was the ruined abbey of Joseph of Arimathea that overlooked the Channel, which Lydde had not seen since she left Norchester in the twenty-first century.
They pulled up beneath the shelter of a wall. The Raven handed Lydde down with a flourish, then dismounted. In the back of her mind a warning sounded. He was treating her too chivalrously, not at all the way a boy should be treated. She needed to reassert herself, to be masculine. When he nodded toward his companion and said, “This is the Crow,” she strode over and shook the man’s hand as vigorously as she could.
“The Crow shall serve as lookout while we talk,” the Raven continued. “I trust him with my life, and you should trust him as well. Now come this way.”
They passed beneath a Gothic arch, once a large doorway within a wall, now freestanding. It was dark and they carried no lantern, but there was just enough moonlight to show they were walking upon grass that had taken over from occasional patches of paving stones. Then they entered a roofless cloister, carefully picked their way down a ragged staircase, and entered a small underground room. It had been made comfortable with straw pallets, a table, and a bench. The Raven found a candle hidden beneath the table and lit it. Their shadows flickered over the walls.
“We find this place useful,” he said. “From the watch tower where the Crow waits, a great stretch of heath is visible, so we cannot be taken unawares. Behind us is the sea, and the ships we meet often come to us on the shingle below.”
“Still,” Lydde said, “aren’t you afraid of being seen?”
“Always, of course. But few people come here. The place is haunted, they say, and bewitched by fairies who will steal the soul of anyone found here at night.” Behind the mask his mouth curved in a smile. “So they say.”
“You don’t believe in fairies?”
“Not of that sort,” he replied. “I imagine fairies appear in more workaday forms. Like yours.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. She was growing alarmed again. What had possessed her to come away so easily with a masked man to this remote place where no one could possibly find her?
“I have been watching you,” he said.
She waited.
“I saw you arrive in Norchester. You were oddly attired. I have noted you since on your errands.”
“How do you manage that?” she said, trying to sound nonchalant.
“I live in town. I see you in the market and now and then I glimpse you on your delivery rounds.”
She wracked her brain, trying to recall who she saw on market days, who might catch sight of her as she walked around Norchester. A constable, perhaps? A merchant at the market? Jacob Woodcock the smith?
“I think,” the Raven continued, “you are a bold and spirited boy. And yet”—he stepped closer—“I think you are no boy.”
Lydde’s throat went dry. “You mock me,” she managed to say, “because my voice has not yet broken.”
He slipped a hand so suddenly inside her coat she had no time to dodge, and beneath the fabric of her waistcoat he cupped her breast.
“As I thought,” he said.
She struck out at him, but he was too quick and grasped her arm to fend her off.
“Peace!” he said, and through his mask she saw him grinning. “I mean you no harm.”
She pulled away and ran for the door. He followed and caught her again.
“Where shall you run?”
She began to beat her fists against his chest and he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly against him so she could not move.
“I say, peace,” he repeated. “Your secret is safe with me and I swear before God I shall not touch you again. Do you hear me?”
His words at last penetrated and she began to understand that she was being held firmly yet without further rude treatment.
“Come sit upon the ground,” he said in her ear, “and I shall sit across from you. And you may tell me as much of your story as you wish to tell. Will you do so, calmly?”
After a moment she nodded and allowed him to lead her to a pallet, then watched warily as he seated himself opposite her.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Lydde.”
“A pretty name. Why do you pretend to be a boy, Lydde?”
“So I can be free,” she said.
“Free?” He seemed surprised.
“To move about as I like, to do as I like. As I am used to.”
“Who are you? Where do you come from?”
She hesitated. He was sitting quite calmly across from her, and now that he had satisfied his curiosity as to her sex, he made no move toward her. But could she trust him?
“You would not believe me,” she finally said.
He said in his guttural voice, “I have told you fairy stories do not fright me.”
“This is stranger still.”
She covered her face with her hands for a moment and thought of Uncle John. What would he advise her to do? Then she recalled that he had shared in his own hour of need with John Soane, who had believed him. And the longing she had felt, barely noticed yet now prevailing, to find a friend here, someone to confide in, overwhelmed her. The man across from her was fearsome, with his black mask and vivid dark eyes, but he had fondled her in a manner that brought a blush to her cheeks as she recalled it. Her breast still seemed to burn from his touch and then she wished for that hand to be pressing against her once again, and that decided her.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, “I wish you had not touched me, for now I cannot forget it.”
He stirred at this and she thought he might rise, but instead he leaned forward and said, “Tell me everything.”
So she did. She told him that she had come from the future through the cistern in the crypt of St. Pancras Church, and that she had come unprepared. She described what she knew of the paintings. She told him Uncle John’s story, and what had happened to John Soane, and why her uncle now affected a manner of speaking as though he’d suffered a stroke. She told him of her life, of losing her family to the fire, of her father’s quest, of how she had gone as a child to search through charred ruins with a stick. How she had been an actor in England and ended in Norchester. How the mountains back home were being blown apart and the burned foundation of her family’s home had been covered and her Uncle John had gone searching for the children down the wormhole. About Mary.
Now and then he shifted his position. But he never took his eyes from her face. In the candlelight she could see him watching her, almost unblinking. He asked no questions. Sometimes she would stop and explain something he might not understand—Oh, a telephone, that’s a thing that lets you talk to someone far away—and still he didn’t stir. Yet he watched her. She had never been listened to so intently in her life.
When she wa
s done, she burst into tears. She did not sense his approach, but then he was wrapping her in his arms and held her against his chest, sobbing as she had never allowed herself before, while he stroked her hair and said nothing.
When she was finally able to speak, she said, “Do you believe me?”
She felt the rise and fall of his chest against her cheek.
“Much of what you say,” he replied, “is fantastical, not to be believed. And some of what you say is, I think, as sad as anything I have ever heard.”
He held her face to the candlelight as though studying it, rubbed her tear-stained cheek with a fingertip. She tried to see his eyes, but they were hidden in shadow. Then he was kissing her, gently at first, then more insistently. He slipped his hand beneath her waistcoat and once again caressed her breast, then stopped and wrapped her in his arms.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
He leaned back, staring at the ceiling.
“I am a man caught in his own trap,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I have brought you here to satisfy my curiosity. I wanted to know that I was correct in my judgment that you were a woman. I wanted to know about your circumstances. And so I tricked you into coming here by telling you I needed your help. Yet your story is more than I expected.”
She sat up straight and pulled away from him. “So you don’t believe me after all.”
“I didn’t say that. I can scarce imagine that anyone could make up such a tale. Besides, I have seen enough to know there is something extraordinary about you. But it is a lot to take in on top of the doubts I already had. I shall be as honest with you as I can. I did not want to bring you here, because of the danger you will be in by associating with me.”
“But you did bring me here and you have kissed me and caressed me so that now I want you badly.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “My God, you speak plainly,” he whispered.
“It is how you have made me feel by the way you have treated me. How dare you say now it was a mistake?”
“Lydde, I have admired your courage. And since I guessed you to be a woman, I must confess, I have lain awake at night with longing for you. At last my desire for you overcame my judgment.”
“You are not the only one who feels such desire, or such doubt,” she said.
He drew her close again, took her hand, and traced a pattern in her palm with the tip of his finger.
“To understand my reluctance you must know the precariousness of my situation,” he said. “If I am caught, I shall be killed. And most likely I shall be caught.”
She remembered the words of Mother Bunch—The Raven is a dead man and must know it—and shivered. “Is there no hope?”
He shook his head. “Very little. Perhaps I shall have enough warning to take ship away from England. That will be my only chance.”
She sat up suddenly. “But it’s 1657. That means in just—” Then she stopped. Should she tell him what the future would hold? Would it cause more harm than good?
“What?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t tell you. But in a year, Cromwell will die and his son will take over. But people will be sick of the Puritans by then.”
“You know this!” he marveled.
“Yes, and don’t look at me as though I were some sort of fortune-teller. Where I come from it’s all in the past, and I studied history in school. In 1660 the King will return. Charles the Second. So Noah Fallam and the major-generals will be out of power.”
He shook his head. “That won’t help me. The King will be as set against me as Cromwell. I have made men of property my enemy. And men of property do not forgive. No, my future is limited to two possibilities. By the time you speak of, either I shall be in America or I shall be dead.”
“If it is so hopeless, why are you doing this?”
“Because I must be true to myself. I fought for the revolution. The revolution has been betrayed, but I will not desert it.”
“There will be a number of revolutions through the centuries after yours,” Lydde said. “Most revolutions are betrayed, sooner or later.”
“That is not what I need to hear just now,” he said with a sigh.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No, no, I am not so naive as to be surprised by what you say. And yet I have a propensity for lost causes, and find myself drawn to stand with those who are suffering and are bound to lose. It will be the death of me, I know. But if I tried to live any other way, I would truly be dead. Do you understand?”
“Not yet,” she said.
“England now,” he said, “is as it was when I was a boy. It is a place where a poor man is hanged for killing a rich man’s deer to feed his family. It is a place where a child is hanged for stealing food to put in his belly. I had hoped that would end when the monarchy ended. But it was a false hope. And I hoped England might become a place where each man and each woman could believe what they will and say what they will and worship as they see fit. And that too was a false hope. But if I accept the way things are and do nothing, I will be less of a man. You are a strong woman. Would you have me be a weak man? If so, then nothing more must pass between us.”
“I wouldn’t have you be less than you are,” she said. “But I’m afraid I am not so strong as you think. I have never done anything particularly brave.”
“You came here tonight. You offered to help me. When you feared me, you did not scream and faint, you fought me.”
“Where I come from, many women would do the same. And would do so here if given a chance. Only the men here will not listen to women, or allow them to be educated, or encourage them to stand up for themselves. Like that Noah Fallam. He is a bully and fool.”
The Raven laughed then. “Do you think so? I have found him so myself.”
“Well,” Lydde confided, “he is the one who shall have to run for America someday. At least, that’s where he’ll end up.”
“Indeed?” This seemed to give him pause.
“Yes. I know because he and his brother will be among the first Englishmen to see my mountains. The mountain I grew up on, the one that has been blown up, was named for them. Fallam Mountain.”
The Raven was quiet for a time. “Well,” he said. “That is something to think about.”
He stood then, and helped her to her feet.
“Forgive me,” he said, “for drawing you into such danger.”
“I have no reason to forgive you,” she answered, “unless you turn away from me, for with every word you speak I am falling in love with you.”
“Lydde, I have every reason to take you back to Soane’s Croft and try to put you out of my mind. For both our sakes. And yet, God help me, I cannot do it. If you are a witch of some sort, you have already cast your spell on me, for I do love you as well.”
“Kiss me again.”
He took her in his arms and kissed her mouth as he unbuttoned her shirt and pulled it off her left shoulder. Then his lips followed the curve of her neck and ended on her bare breast. She pressed against him, felt the proof of his desire.
“As I thought,” she said.
“And God help us both,” he replied, breathing hard. He let her go and stepped back. “I must talk to your uncle.”
“Uncle John! Why? I don’t need his permission to make love to you.”
“No?”
“Certainly not! In the future women make such decisions for themselves.”
“But still I must speak to him. Because I will not love you while wearing a mask. I will not make love to you while you cannot see my face or hear my true voice. Yet I am not ready to show myself, not until I have spoken with John. You may not think I need his permission to take you into my bed, but once you see my face, your peril will be great, and mine will be greater, for no one knows who I am except the Crow. It is how I have kept my head on my shoulders. Yet it is a risk I shall accept if there is no other course.”
He doused the lantern and led her back outside, where
the Crow joined them with the horses. “All clear,” the Crow said.
The Raven nodded, and mounted his horse. He handed Lydde up again, but this time to sit sidesaddle in front of him so he might hold her in his arms. The Crow cocked his head to one side.
“Crow,” said the Raven, “meet Lydde.”
The Crow bowed in his saddle.
THE Crow rode several lengths ahead, both to scout the ground before them and to allow the couple privacy, for they seemed unable to keep their hands off one another. The Raven had unbuttoned Lydde’s shirt again so he might rest one hand against her warm skin. They spoke little, though now and then they whispered together.
“How did you guess I was a woman?” Lydde asked. “I have so prided myself on my acting and that no one could tell.”
“Oh,” he said, “do not fault your acting. It was the smell of you that told me.”
“The smell of me!” She put her hands to his chest and leaned back, trying to see his eyes. “When have you been close enough to smell me?”
He smiled and at first didn’t answer, then said, “I have jostled you in a crowd.”
“And by that you could tell?”
“I have a keen nose for women. It is because I love them.”
“You’re teasing me.”
“No,” he said, “I am simply proud of my nose.”
And she could get no more out of him on the subject save for a playful sniff and nibble at her earlobe, which ended in another kiss.
THEY arrived too soon for Lydde at the outskirts of Norchester and there parted. The Raven handed her down from the horse, then said, “You must go on foot from here. But don’t be afraid. The Crow shall follow you from a distance and make sure you arrive safe at Soane’s Croft.”
“Will I see you again?”
“Yes,” he said. “I can’t say when. Not for a few days. But you have my word, I shall see you again, if you want.”
Then he vanished into the forest. She walked on toward East Gate, now and then hearing the distant sound of the Crow’s horse. She could not tell that the Crow had removed his mask so as not to call attention to himself if seen by a constable. For a constable who saw him masked would be alarmed, but without his garb he would be recognized and accepted. He watched Lydde to the gate of Soane’s Croft, where lanterns still burned despite the late hour, then went on to a last meeting with his friend, now unmasked as well and removing the saddle from his weary horse.
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