by Lynn Kurland
She hadn’t, if the look on her face told the tale true. She looked almost sheepish.
“I didn’t realize, no.”
“Surely your father’s hall was secured at night,” he said, watching her closely to see what her reaction would be.
She shook her head. “Things are different where I come from.”
Perhaps her sire was an outlaw, too. Richard was beginning to give more credence to the thought by the moment. Well, that could be sorted out later. For now all he wanted was to return to what precious bit of sleep remained him before dawn.
“Come,” he said, holding out his hand for her.
She shook her head.
Richard paused, then frowned. “I said, come.”
“And I said, no.”
He frowned again. “The cold has numbed your thinking, lady. ’Tis your duty to obey me.”
“I’m not your trained dog to come when you call.”
“You forget your place.”
“My place, buster, is not at your feet, licking your boots!”
“There are many who would beg for the chance to do just that!” he snapped. He doubted it very much, but there was no use in telling her that. The scar on his face kept most of them away; the foulness of his temper took care of the rest.
“Then call one of them to heel,” she said, folding her arms over her chest and sticking her chin out. “I’ve got better things to do with my time.”
“Then do so.”
“I would, if you’d open the damned gate.”
“Robert,” Richard shouted, “open the bloody gate.” He glared down at Jessica. “Walk to where you’re going, wench. I wouldn’t spare my poorest nag to carry you.”
“Somehow, that just doesn’t surprise me,” she said, just as sharply. “Have a nice life, Richard.”
The well-oiled gate slid up with hardly any noise. Jessica turned to walk away. Richard found himself starting after her—prodded no doubt by that annoying chivalry he couldn’t seem to control. But, by the saints, what else was he to do? He couldn’t let her go in the middle of the night!
His sudden attack of conscience lasted only until she turned and shot him the coolest look he’d ever received. He sincerely doubted he’d ever managed such a cutting glance. Anger flared right along with stung pride and he reached out and jerked the cloak off her shoulders. Jessica carefully unwrapped the blanket she’d worn under his cloak and dropped it in the dust at his feet. Then she turned and walked away, her head held high, her shoulders back. Richard gave the blanket a hearty kick.
“The outer gate doesn’t open till dawn,” he shouted after her.
“Fine,” came the curt reply. Jessica didn’t stop to deliver her words.
Richard watched until she had reached the outer gate and blended in with the shadows. Let her freeze. It would likely be the only thing that would still her rancid tongue.
He stooped, hauled up his cloak and blanket, and barked for Horse to follow him. He stabled his mount, then retreated to his chamber, intent on finally seeking his comfortable bed.
His pillow carried her scent. He flung it across the chamber with a curse and toyed with the idea of stripping off the rest of his bedding, too.
Nay, that would mean she had won the victory over him and that he couldn’t bear. He was still master of his own life. Jessica had been a mild disturbance but now the disturbance was over. He could resume concentrating on rebuilding his hall. In a year or so he would begin looking for a bride. Perhaps he would seek a convent-trained lass, a child who could be molded into the kind of wife he could tolerate. No cheek, no disrespect, and above all, no unruly curls and flashing eyes.
He had the feeling, as he lay awake till dawn, that those would be the precise things that would haunt him for the rest of his days.
7
Jessica stood in the middle of the field, wrapped her arms around herself, and examined the hopelessness of her situation. She was in medieval England with no transportation, no food, and absolutely no idea where she was or how to get to Henry’s land so she could get back home.
That was the good news.
The bad news was that the only place she had to turn to for help was the castle an hour’s walk behind her. Given Richard’s fond adieu, she had the feeling he wouldn’t exactly be overjoyed to see her again if she returned and knocked on his gates.
Not that she had any intention of doing that. She would manage just fine on her own. All she had to do was ask for some directions, keep herself alive for a couple of days until she got back to Henry’s, then hope like hell that she could transport herself forward to the twentieth century.
She didn’t allow herself to think about the alternative, but she had the feeling it would contain a lot of starvation, some rapine, and likely a very cold, lonely, uncomfortable death.
Then again, maybe she didn’t need to be on Henry’s land. Maybe she could just stay where she was, wish very hard, and pop herself forward in time anyway. Even though she hadn’t quite made it out of eyesight of the castle, maybe it was far enough.
She closed her eyes and focused all her thoughts on a single desire: I want to go home. I want to go home to Archie.
She frowned. Somehow, the last just didn’t ring quite true. Richard de Galtres might have been one of the biggest jerks in the thirteenth century, but she suspected Archie was well in the running for the twentieth. Perhaps she needed to take another tack.
I want to go home to my nice warm bed, good food, and a hot bath.
She imagined the warmth licking at her toes, her favorite heavy cotton robe around her, a pair of warm long johns insulating her against whatever the robe and the fire didn’t take care of. And best of all, she had no trouble conjuring up an image of a Mini Mart, because she was having a craving for peanut-butter cups that would have gnawed a hole through Richard’s thickest wall in no time at all.
A twig snapped behind her. Jessica heaved a huge sigh of relief. That was definitely the sound of a modern twig cracking. It was probably some do-gooder in a pair of Doc Martens, just ready to drive her back to Lord Henry’s in his toasty-warm Range Rover. Jessica smiled, turned, and paused for a heartbeat to savor her return to modern life, then opened her eyes expectantly.
And she shrieked.
The man facing her was possibly the filthiest person she’d ever seen. He was holding a sickle in both hands as if he expected her to jump him at any moment. A woman and several children huddled behind him, stealing looks at her from around his body. Jessica immediately held up her hands in surrender.
The man lowered his weapon and looked at her closely. He pointed at her, then back up at the castle. Then he made motions for her to go. She shook her head.
“I can’t.”
The man pointed up at the castle, then at her, making motions as if to indicate that someone would be coming for her. Jessica shook her head again.
“I don’t think so.”
“Ah.” Then he was off and babbling in something Jessica could only assume was either Old English or Anglo-Saxon. Either way, he was speaking so quickly, she couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
“Slower,” she said, hoping that would help.
The man spoke more slowly but she only caught a few words like wife and house, or words approximating those terms. The woman said something to the man and he snapped back at her angrily. Jessica didn’t want to be the cause of a marital dispute and started to walk away. The man protested and gestured back across the fields, then at his wife.
And at that moment it started to rain.
Now, had it been a dry kind of rain, Jessica would have continued to firmly but politely decline the offer of shelter, but as it was, she thought she might be better off not attempting her return trip to the future with pneumonia. Besides, it wasn’t quite midmorning and she could always leave once the inclement weather had abated.
She followed the woman and the younger children. The older ones remained with their father. Jessica wondered what they would possibly find to
do in the fields. She looked back over her shoulder only to find them trying to clear the ground of rocks by hand. Judging by the condition of the field, that would take them all winter. The ground was already hard and hands were certainly no substitute for tools.
She was stunned. How could Richard let this go on?
Home for them was a dismal place indeed. It was nothing more than four walls of dried grasses and a thatched roof. Jessica’s eyes burned the moment she walked in. A cooking fire had been built in the middle of the dirt floor and there was no place for the smoke to exit. She might have agreed with the lack of chimney had the house possessed any warmth. It didn’t. She sat down next to the fire and tried to get warm by its pitiful blaze.
It was the most eye-opening day of her life. She tried to leave several times, but each time the wife begged her to stay. Jessica feared spousal abuse, so she stayed to keep peace in the family. She watched the woman make onion soup out of a gallon of muddy water and a piece of onion. The bread was black and full of sand. No one snacked during the day. Children played quietly with rocks in the corner of the hut. Their mother hung wash from twigs in the walls to dry.
A grandmother and grandfather lay on the only mattress in the room, an inadequate thing made of rotting hay. Jessica spent a good deal of her time sneezing and wanting to cry. Abject poverty took on a whole new meaning for her.
She forced herself to concentrate on the language, finding that the mother was willing to talk once she got started. Jessica sat across the fire from the woman and watched her mend a ratty shirt with a wooden needle.
“Lord Richard is fair,” she said, plying her needle with calloused fingers. “Hard but fair.”
“But you could have so much more,” Jessica protested.
The woman looked at her blankly. “Nay, we could not.”
“Why don’t you leave this place? Find a new place to live?”
“We belong here, to Lord Richard. Why would we leave?”
And that seemed to be the extent of the woman’s vision. Jessica realized quickly enough that the family’s entire world was only as large as the land they tilled. Even going to the forest wasn’t something they had the courage to do. The forest was full of beasties and ghosties that would sooner eat a man alive than look at him. As for trying to make a better life somewhere else, well, apparently that thought was so far out of their scope of experience that they couldn’t grasp it.
Jessica had never been so grateful for her century and her country in her life. And she thought she had problems with just finding a nice nine-to-fiver to marry or wondering about the fat in her diet or finding socks that matched. This family didn’t own socks!
Dinner was consumed carefully, as if actually saving onion-flavored water could be a guarantee against starvation. For all Jessica knew, it was. She ate a few spoonfuls then gave back her bowl, pretending to be full. It wasn’t so much that it tasted awful, which it did; it was that she couldn’t take food from starving souls that stole her appetite.
The family bedded down for the night shortly after the sun went down. Jessica found herself sleeping on the straw pallet with children curled up next to her like puppies. She sincerely hoped that the pitiful excuse for an ox that had been brought inside for the night wouldn’t step on her. The smell inside the hut was blinding.
It had all the earmarks of a doozy of a miserable night. Fleas bit her from head to toe, an animal defecated not five feet from her, and the children kicked her in their sleep. Somehow, those things just weren’t the worst of it. The worst was wondering if she’d spend the rest of her life like this, taken in by farmers and sleeping in a place where birth, death, and bedding were entertainment for the rest of the group.
Just when she thought she might really lose it, the door to the hut flew open and a torch was thrust inside.
Everyone inside the hut hollered in terror. Jessica hollered just as loudly.
“Enough!” a voice bellowed.
The voice cut through the shrieks. Jessica saw Richard’s face appear in the torchlight. He didn’t look any happier than he normally did and she wondered absently if he ever loosened up enough to smile.
Without further ado, he stooped inside, reached out, and hauled her up by the hand she’d flung up to shield her eyes from the torchlight. He pulled her outside, bid the family a curt good night, and closed the little flap that served for a door.
He stared down at her, his face cast in harsh shadows from the torchlight. He looked as if he was trying to come up with something to say, but apparently his efforts weren’t bearing any fruit.
Jessica had never been so glad to see anyone in her entire life—even if he looked like he’d gone and stepped again in something he’d just recently managed to scrape off his shoe. It wasn’t exactly a welcoming expression he was wearing, but it was somehow one she’d become accustomed to, and that was good enough for her. He started to scowl and even that seemed rather endearing, especially when she found herself standing outside a medieval hovel and not in it.
“I’ve been remiss in my duty to you,” Richard announced suddenly, sounding as if the words had been dragged from his mouth by some kind of hospitality drug. “Though perhaps I can be forgiven, as you were trying to steal my horse.”
“Borrow,” she corrected. “I was borrowing.”
“And for the second time, no less,” he went on, as if he hadn’t heard her. “Another man would surely have been just as suspicious of your motives.”
“I meant to leave you a letter and tell you where I was going,” she said, “but I couldn’t find anything to write with.”
“Therefore,” he continued, as if he hadn’t heard her, “I extend again the comfort of my hall and pray you will return with me and take your ease. I wouldn’t wish for my liege Henry to think I had offered you any less.”
He wasn’t sincere, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She also decided that perhaps the present moment was not the proper one in which to inform Richard that she didn’t know his king from Adam. She nodded as regally as if she really had been related to the king, then accepted his help up onto a horse and didn’t argue when he turned his little group back toward the castle. He didn’t say any more and she didn’t fight it. She had just been through one of the worst days of her life and she had too much to think about for small talk.
It was dawn when she walked back into Richard’s tower bedroom. He invited her to make use of the tub of water by the fire.
“I hope you’ll be comfortable,” he said through gritted teeth. “The king will no doubt be concerned that you were treated well.”
Two things Jessica realized immediately: Richard didn’t really care what the king thought; and, two, she had to get the heck out of Dodge before Henry breezed through. She watched Richard leave, realizing that she was going to have to be much more diligent about her horse borrowing if she were going to make it back home. She was going to have to get to Merceham and it was a sure thing she wouldn’t make it there on foot.
Fortunately she knew just where to get a horse. This time, though, she wasn’t about to get tripped up by a little thing like a locked gate. Unfortunately the only time the gate seemed to be unlocked was during the day.
She put her shoulders back and looked around for an appropriate disguise. Probably the sooner she left, the better. Richard wouldn’t be looking for someone dressed up like a boy, would he?
There was only one way to find out.
8
Richard suppressed the urge to walk away from the training field and go back to bed. Jessica was to blame for that. He hadn’t had any sleep the first night she was gone, nor had he had any the night before courtesy of his search for her whereabouts. And if that wasn’t enough to truly sour him for good, what he faced now certainly was. He looked at Gilbert de Claire and wondered how by all the blessed saints the boy’s father expected him to make a man out of this sniveling babe.
Gilbert’s tasks for the morn had included nothing more stren
uous than a small bit of swordplay and saddling Richard’s mount, yet already the boy looked as irritated as if he’d worked a fortnight without pause while the rest of the keep looked on from their positions upon their backsides, wine and sweet figs at their elbows.
And if Gilbert’s sullenness wasn’t trial enough, there was the immediate and intense dislike that had sprung up between Gilbert and Warren. Richard had thought it might work in his favor for the two to be in competition, but apparently such a thing was not having the desired effect. Warren fumbled under the scrutiny and Gilbert, unsurprisingly, had merely looked about sullenly.
Richard wished heartily he had never left Italy.
He looked around for someone upon whom he might vent his displeasure. John stood nearby with his arms folded over his chest and a small smile on his face. Richard glared at him.
“What are you smirking about?”
John’s smile deepened. “I was just watching the events of the day unfold, my lord. Nothing more.”
Richard growled. It seemed the most appropriate noise to express his complete disgust with his life and the goings-on in it.
“I’m surprised you didn’t notice the lad walking toward the gate, hitching up his hose every other step,” John said conversationally.
“Some fool mason, no doubt,” Richard said
“Actually, I believe ’twas your hose the lad was hitching up.”
“What?” Richard whirled around and looked at the outer bailey gate.
“And I believe,” John continued, in much the same amused tone, “that ’tis your horse the lad is now taking out for a bit of exercise.”
Richard gritted his teeth so hard, he came close to cracking a handful of them. “Damn that woman!”
“Clever disguise,” John offered.
Richard threw his captain a glare and stalked off toward the gate. The only thing he could find to be grateful for was that he hadn’t yet donned any mail. His leather jerkin did not hamper him in the least as he began to run. He snagged the first horse he came to and swung up onto it without bothering to find out whose mount it was.