One Magic Moment

by Lynn Kurland

  She supposed she could justify it in any number of ways if she tried hard enough. She had felt a tingle run down her spine the night before when she’d been talking to Terry, as if Fate had been breathing down her neck just to make sure she didn’t miss the special significance of the moment. It had occurred to her as she was talking to him that maybe she could do that sort of thing at Sedgwick. In addition to parties, she could do seminars for those who truly wanted to step back in time and gain a feel for the Middle Ages. It might be a nice change from events. She supposed, with a fair bit of chagrin, that she was just as proud as the next academic, what with not wanting to look less than her degrees said she was.

  But to attract the sorts of people who might want to attend those sorts of seminars, she needed to make a different sort of contact than the sort she had already. That was why she’d been so determined to get north, even if it had meant taking the 5:05 train that morning.

  She might not have been so hell-bent on taking a different tack in her life if it hadn’t been for the finish to her Regency adventure. Being belittled by women who wouldn’t have known a trencher from a trowel had been very unpleasant. Needing a rescue had been galling, but having John try to thwart her subsequent march into the academic side of living history fray, no matter how well meaning it had been, had been the final straw.

  Now, though, that her temper had cooled, she was unnerved, and she was half considering going back to the little guardroom where she’d left her stuff with the rest of the presenters and digging out her cell phone so she could call and ask for John to come herd her for a bit.

  She had only four more people to talk to when a blond knight stepped up to her side and handed her a note. She glanced at it and felt her heart leap a little at the hastily scrawled words.

  Meet me in the woods behind the keep. I have news.

  It wasn’t signed with John’s name but it must have been from him. Tess looked up to ask the knight who had given him the message, but he’d disappeared. She frowned. It would have been just like John to follow her, then watch over her without letting her know he was watching over her. It would be even more like him to send a messenger who didn’t want to be noticed.

  She supposed an apology would be in order.

  She finished her business, then briefly considered changing clothes before deciding to just go as she was. She had a cloak around her shoulders to ward off the chill, and her shoes would last for a quick trip outside and back. She looked for Terry to thank him, but didn’t see him. He wasn’t going anywhere before dinner, so she would just track him down later.

  It was cold and rainy outside, which didn’t surprise her at all. It only added to the supernatural atmosphere that seemed to slather itself over Chevington and its environs. No one followed her—she knew that from a quick look over her shoulder—and no one was waiting for her in the woods—she knew that from many other careful looks around herself. There was no reason to be spooked. She told herself that until she reached the end of the path that she suddenly suspected had been laid out just for her and saw what was waiting for her.

  A sword, driven into the ground.

  She stopped short of it, only because she hadn’t expected to see it simply stuck there in the ground. Of course, that wasn’t the only thing that gave her creeps.

  It was that the sword was near a time gate.

  She didn’t want to examine how she knew that. She sure as hell wasn’t going to do any investigating—

  She stumbled forward thanks to someone’s hands on her back, tripped, and felt herself falling toward the sword. If she managed to do something besides shatter her nose against the steel, she would consider Karma more of a friend than she ever had before.

  She landed on her hands and knees but with her nose intact. She looked up and blinked.

  The sword was gone.

  She heaved herself to her feet and spun around. There was no one there, but that didn’t make her feel any better. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Whereas it had been cold and rainy before, now it was absolutely bitter. She had the feeling that wasn’t because she’d been overcome by a sudden bout of terror.

  She took a deep breath, then began to run. The forest seemed thinner than it had before and the castle more easily reached. She looked up and felt her mouth fall open. It wasn’t an eight-hundred-year-old castle covered in history standing in front of her; it was a squeaky-clean, recently built structure.

  She turned and bolted back into the woods. She wondered, as she ran, what she intended to accomplish by that, but she conceded that she wasn’t at her best at present. She needed a few minutes of peace and quiet to think. If she had indeed come through a time gate to another century, she could use that time gate to get back to her proper place. All she had to do was catch her breath, make sure she was safe, then retrace her steps. She would find her way home because she wouldn’t give herself any other choice.

  The forest ended sooner than she expected. She found herself facing not some useful B-road but a trio of poorly fed, poorly dressed reenactment wackos.

  She looked over her shoulder and saw there another pair of men who looked to be about the same vintage as the three in front of her. They were scruffy, unwashed, and sporting several blackened teeth. That didn’t seem to bother them any, though, because they were leering at her without embarrassment.

  Tess decided that if she ever had the chance, she would tell John de Piaget that he was right. About it all. Well, mostly about the part where he’d told her to stay within arm’s reach.

  She kept her mouth shut, but it didn’t do anything for the sudden bout of teeth chattering she was suffering. If those were living history types, they had achieved an entirely new level of authenticity. She wondered how in the world they’d managed to acquire that collection of blades without somebody kicking up an insurance fuss.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” she said, taking a quick gander to both her right and her left to see what way might be more accessible, “I think I’ll be going.”

  One of them leaped forward. She didn’t think; she merely shoved the heel of her hand into his nose. The crunch might have been satisfying if she hadn’t been so flat-out terrified.

  He stumbled away, howling in a language she didn’t recognize. His companions also began to babble in that tongue, angrily, as if they discussed things she wouldn’t want to know about. And then she realized she had judged too hastily because she did understand them.

  They were speaking Old English.

  It was nothing short of astonishing to hear it spoken by guys who certainly didn’t look as if they’d spent years at University learning the same thing. She watched numbly as the leader of the group—the one sporting the bloody nose—moved to stand in front of her. He wasn’t smiling; he was glaring at her. She watched in abject terror as he lifted his sword high over his head. She gaped at it, openmouthed, watching a stray strand of sunlight attempt to reflect itself upon the blade that was most definitely not new and apparently not very well forged. She closed her eyes in self-defense, wondering if that sword would hurt when it cleaved her own stupid head in two.

  The sound of metal on metal startled her into opening her eyes.

  John de Piaget stood four paces from her, the end of his sword blocking her attacker’s sword and keeping her face intact.

  And then things took an even more medieval turn.

  She found herself taken by the arm and invited to step backward—well, jerked really—with a directness she was just sure John wouldn’t bother to apologize for later. She landed on her backside, then sat there for a moment trying to decide if her tailbone was broken or not as John went to work.

  He exchanged a few words with her attackers in what she could easily hear was his own perfect Old English—his accent sounded a helluva a lot more authentic than her tutors’ ever had—before he apparently decided unconsciousness could be dispatched without delay.

  Too bad their new friends didn’t seem inclined to agree.

&nbs
p; Tess scrambled backward only because she was afraid she might be grabbed and used as a bargaining chip if she didn’t. John killed the two men who rushed toward her, then turned back to the remaining three.

  She wasn’t one to throw up, but she was tempted. She clapped her hand over her mouth to keep not only her catered snack but her screams down where they belonged, then watched John take care of the rest of the crew. One was rendered blissfully unconscious thanks to a fist under his chin, a second courtesy of a roundhouse kick to his jaw, but the leader wasn’t dispatched so easily.

  He met his end finally on John’s sword.

  Tess watched John clean his sword on the man’s tunic—and she had to wonder how it had been sharp enough to do damage, but perhaps that was a question better saved for later given that that was a sword she’d never seen before—then gaped at him as he turned and reached for her. There were drops of blood splattered on his hands.

  She thought she just might lose it then.

  “Save it for later,” he said briskly.

  She gulped and nodded, because that was the only thing that made sense in a sea of things that tossed her unmercifully about. He pulled her up to her feet, then towed her—well, dragged again, if she was going to be completely accurate—back with him into the forest. He seemed hell-bent on getting to a particular spot, which led her to speculate on all kinds of things she didn’t want to.

  Shouts echoed in the distance.

  Those weren’t the shouts of college professors looking for a missing colleague; those were the shouts of angry men cursing in the language du jour, which, again, was neither modern English nor twenty-first-century French.

  “Damn it to hell,” John said, searching the ground frantically. He muttered a few more things under his breath that she couldn’t quite catch. She wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t cursing in Norman French.

  She was beginning to have a very bad feeling about things.

  He stopped, listened, then cursed more viciously. The sound of things crashing through the underbrush was unsettling in the extreme. He grabbed her hand.

  “Can you run?” he demanded.

  “As if my life depended on it,” she said, grasping desperately for something light to say.

  “It will,” he said shortly. “Let’s go.”

  She didn’t dare ask him where they were going, though she could tell it wasn’t back toward the castle. She would have asked him why that didn’t seem to be on his list of desirable destinations, but she soon didn’t have the wind for it. The sun was setting, she was going into shock, and there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about either.

  So she just ran, as if her life depended on it.

  She woke to the feel of a tree root in her back. It was hideously uncomfortable, but that wasn’t what bothered her the most. What bothered her was not remembering when she’d lain down on top of it.

  She sat up, shivering. She wasn’t sure what sort of hellish place she’d reached, but she suddenly realized that she was there alone.

  Or maybe not. John was standing ten feet away from her, leaning back against a tree with his arms folded over his chest, watching her. She noted the sword at his side and vaguely remembered his having poached a sheath and leather belt from one of the slain men as they’d fled out of the forest past them. That brought back a rush of memory she could have certainly done without but couldn’t avoid. She smoothed her hair back from her face with hands that trembled so badly, she curled them into fists and hid them in her skirts.

  “How long have you been up?” she managed.

  He looked at her gravely. “I didn’t sleep.”

  She started to crawl to her feet but had help. He walked to her, pulled her up, then drew her into his arms.

  “I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you,” she managed, gritting her teeth to keep them from chattering.

  “You didn’t fall asleep;” he said solemnly. “You fainted. Conveniently near a bower of soft leaves so I didn’t have to look far for a place to put you.”

  She put her arms around him and held on tightly. She didn’t suppose there was any reason to mask her trembling. “What are you doing here?”

  “I followed you.”

  She had to wait a few more minutes before she could speak without shrieking. “I should have listened to you.”

  “Aye, we should discuss that, I think,” he said thoughtfully, “but perhaps when we’re in front of a hot fire where I can shout at you more comfortably.”

  She pulled back far enough to meet his eyes. “You wouldn’t shout at me.”

  “I most certain would—and will,” he promised. “But not today. Today . . .” He took a deep breath. “Today I think we should make sure we don’t meet any other unfriendly types.”

  “Who were those guys back there?” she managed.

  “Unfriendly types.”

  She didn’t bother to ask him if those were the ones he’d been looking out for back in twenty-first-century England, because she had the distinct feeling they weren’t. The guys who John had taken care of the afternoon before were not—and she could hardly believe she was even going there—of a more current vintage.

  She took a deep breath, stepped back, and wrapped her arms around herself. “I was told you wanted to meet me in the forest.”

  He closed his eyes briefly. “I’m not surprised.”

  “I was,” she said frankly. “I was still a little dazed from academic success and not thinking clearly. I hadn’t realized you’d come north with me, though I hoped you might have.”

  “I couldn’t let you go alone.”

  She nodded, not a smooth motion by any stretch of the imagination. “Thank you. And I’m sorry. I should have listened to you.”

  “Hmmm,” was all he said. He reached out and tugged her cloak up to her chin. “I take it you went to the forest.”

  “Yes, but only as far as the spot where the sword was stuck in the ground.” She paused. “That sword you have there.”

  He rubbed his hands over his face. “I found it in the forest as well,” he said, sounding impossibly tired.

  “And you brought it with you? To . . . wherever we are?”

  “It seemed prudent.” He started to speak, then paused. It was several moments before he seemed to find his tongue. “It’s mine.”

  “That sword?” she asked in surprise. “Then why was it in the forest?”

  He chewed on his words for a bit. Tess could see the wheels turning but decided it was best not to either aid or impede him. He finally took a careful breath.

  “There’s a reason for it, but I don’t think this is the place to discuss it.” He paused. “Can you trust me?”

  Though she really didn’t have any choice at the moment, she could safely say that she would have trusted him anyway. She didn’t want to think about what he’d already done to save her life in the past twenty-four hours.

  “Absolutely,” she said honestly.

  He looked up at the sky, considered, then looked at her. “We’ll have to go on foot.”

  “Where?”

  “Not where we came from, that’s for certain,” he said grimly. He took another deep breath. “My brother lives north of here.”

  “A brother,” she echoed, praying he wasn’t talking about Montgomery. Then again, she might get to see Pippa—if they weren’t in the wrong point in time, in which case Montgomery would meet her before he met Pippa, and who knew what sort of havoc that would wreak. “How lovely.”

  “I have four of them, actually,” John said, “and two sisters.” He paused. “ ’Tis another four days, perhaps, to his home.”

  She nodded, because saying anything would mean saying too much. She shivered again, because she couldn’t keep herself from it. “Are we going to meet any more of those . . . well, those sorts of guys we saw yesterday?”

  He looked like a man who had a terrible burden that he knew he had to bear alone. “I hope not,” he said with feeling. He chewed on his words for a moment or two, the
n looked at her grimly. “I did what I had to.”

  “I wasn’t condemning you for it,” she said quickly. “I was just wondering what I should look out for.”

  “You should look out for where my back is,” he said, “and stay behind it.”

  She nodded, because it was a very sensible piece of advice, given the current day. “If it will help keep us from any more of those encounters, I’m all for it.”

  “I was just trying to keep you—”

  “Safe,” she finished for him. “I know.”

  “And what else should I have done, Tess?” he asked wearily. “Pulled you in front of me and used you as a shield?”

  “Of course not,” she managed. “I wasn’t criticizing you. You did what you had to.”

  He blew his hair out of his eyes. “Forgive me. I’m afraid I’m not at my best presently. And I can be a bit of an—”

  “Arse,” she supplied. “I know.”

  “As long as we’re clear on that.”

  She stepped forward and put her arms around his waist and held on to him tightly. “You do what you have to, and I’ll stay behind you if trouble pops up.”

  He held her tightly for several moments in silence, then released her and reached for her hand. “Let’s go.”

  Tess wondered, after a bit, why he wasn’t curious that she wasn’t curious about their surroundings. Maybe he thought she was too flipped out to reason. Maybe he was so flipped out himself that he couldn’t manage coherent thought. Maybe facing what he’d left in the past, for whatever reason, was weighing so heavily on his mind that he couldn’t get past it.

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to know which it was.

  Chapter 18

  Day Two in the past wasn’t going very well.

  John fought currently with a pair of hungry, wild-eyed men who obviously thought he had something they wanted. He wanted to point out to them that they couldn’t eat Tess so she was of no use to them, unless they intended other things, in which case he would skewer them on the end of his sword without hesitation. He wouldn’t do them any good because he didn’t have any gold. He supposed his sword was a bit of an inducement to keep at their labors, but he wasn’t entirely sure they would manage to heft it even if they could kill him for it.