by Joseph Malik
“I doubt it.”
“Help me up. Wow, it’s cold.”
Carter handed Jarrod a folded black shirt from the end of the bed, and helped him to his feet.
It was then that Jarrod noticed Carter’s outfit, which consisted of a gray cable-knit sweater with laces at the neck; a black cape trimmed with dense silver fur he couldn’t immediately identify; molasses-colored trousers that appeared to be suede, hand-stitched and stiff; and fine knee boots that laced up the front, the tops turned out to show a fur lining that matched his cape. Atop the sweater peeped the stiff, silver-embroidered collar of a black undertunic that looked to be either velvet or heavy silk, quite expensive, he guessed.
He hadn’t given the getup much thought at first, because nearly every time he’d seen Carter had been at a Renaissance fair, Guild event, or movie set. He was acclimated to seeing Carter dressed like he’d just stepped out of formation with Hengist and Horsa.
Perhaps most intriguingly, over the sweater Carter wore a sword and matching dagger on an authentic baldric, the sword’s scabbard in a silver-embossed frog that matched the piping on his collar.
The frog, essentially a sheath for a sheath, was one of the telling signs that an actor, re-enactor, or consultant knew what the hell he or she was doing.
A scabbard tucked under a belt holds a sword handle at an awkward angle and renders it nearly impossible to draw. A proper frog is adjustable and angles the weapon’s handle forward exactly at hand height. It was a small detail, and Jarrod was a details guy.
Jarrod was the details guy.
He stood with some effort—he was disoriented and hungry but he felt strong, all things considered—and pulled on the long shirt over the undertunic. The long shirt was black and either rough silk or soft hemp, and several sizes too large. It sported the same embroidered-silver collar as Carter’s undershirt. He began rolling up the sleeves from below his fingertips. “Nice sword.”
The sword was wide and he could tell it was heavy even in the scabbard, maybe thirty inches of blade with just enough leather-wrapped handle for two hands. “Where’d you get that?”
Carter grinned an unstable grin. “You wouldn’t believe it, man. We are through the looking glass.”
“How so?”
Carter leaned against the wall. Jarrod rubbed his muscles all over, partially to limber up, partially to warm himself. The more he moved, the less he hurt.
The giant sipped at his beer. “Welcome to Gateskeep.”
“What the hell is Gateskeep?” Jarrod asked, not kindly. A bunch of Burning Man rejects have built a feudal-era commune in northern Maine. They’ll probably make me king.
“As far as I can tell, it’s the northwestern country of a small continent. They call this their world, but the map I’ve seen looks like a continent. We’re in the castle of Regoth Ur, a short ride from the northern sea and a half-day’s ride from the palace, to hear them tell it.” Jarrod stared at Carter from hands on knees, and caught a pair of woolen trousers, coarse and gray, as they were tossed to him. “Pump your brakes. Start again.”
Carter’s voice was inattentive. “I dunno. It’s another world. I don’t know how. Maybe you’ll get it.”
“Another world, huh? Wow, these are scratchy,” Jarrod commented, turning the trousers over. “And long. Jesus. Are there any breeches or hose over there?”
Carter tossed him a set of silk breeches. “Candy-ass.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I need a belt.”
Carter rifled through the pile of clothes and tossed him a padded leather belt. The tooling was intricate, the clasp silver, the lining velvet, and the best Jarrod could figure, it looked expensive. It all did.
Jarrod cast a sidelong, wary glance out the window as he cinched the pants tight. There were no belt loops, but a braided rawhide drawstring. He tied the strings and secured the belt around his waist, then rolled up the cuffs. “So, I have to ask,” he started.
“Go ahead,” said Carter.
Jarrod slowed in his motions as he tucked and buckled the belt over the tunic. “Is this a reality show?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“Yeah, bullshit.”
“No bullshit.”
“Bull,” he repeated, “shit.” The words sounded strange off his tongue.
“Hey, look, I’m sorry. But what I’m told is that there’s another—ah, Earthling—here. I don’t know . . .”
As Carter’s voice roved on, something tugged at the edges of Jarrod’s perception, the shimmer of reality that signals the ruin of the dream of a lifetime.
“I don’t understand a lot of it, but he’s on their side. The other side. There’s a war. Or there’s going to be. They’re asking for our enlistment.”
“In a reality show.”
“No.”
“Seriously. Because I’ve got lawyers. Good ones.”
“Jarrod,” warned Carter.
“Okay, fine. Enlistment. What’d you say?”
“I said hell, yes.”
Jarrod rubbed the bedpost with his thumb. “If you accepted, then there’s got to be more.” Carter wasn’t stupid.
And there was the nagging ache, again. The more Carter spoke, the more things seemed to shimmer.
“There’s a lot more. They’ll explain. But look, would I miss this for anything? I’m forty-three years old and I still have roommates. They’re paying us for this.”
“How much?”
“A lot. They’re paying in gold.”
Jarrod drummed his fingers. “Ooh.”
“Yeah. I mean, shit,” Carter said. “Amy’s long gone—”
“I didn’t know that,” Jarrod interrupted. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” said Carter. “But I have nothing going on. Me, you, Iceland. Why not here?”
Jarrod looked around, again. “Where the fuck is here, exactly?”
“Gateskeep,” said Carter again.
“Yeah, you said that. So, chamber pot? Garderobe? What do we piss in in ‘Gateskeep?’”
“Ah, no. There’s a trapdoor beside that barrel. There’s an aqueduct that feeds the tower.”
The trapdoor opened with an ornate iron handle, and from beneath came the sound of the stream he’d been hearing.
Jarrod didn’t know anybody in Hollywood smart enough to think of an aqueduct system, much less build it into a castle floor by floor. He turned his back to Carter and relieved himself as he formulated his next question.
“I’m only going to ask this once, and I want your best answer:
“Is this for real?” they chorused.
The giant nodded his head sternly. “As real as it has to be.”
Jarrod sighed. “That doesn’t help.”
“I’m not being flippant. The last few days it’s been clear.” Carter pointed at the ceiling. “They have three moons. One big one, pink and purple, with a ring. It’s like a dinner plate up there. You can see it in the daytime.”
“Aliens?”
“Technically, I guess, but not that you’d know it. Humans, horses—they have pegasi cavalry, and I’ve heard that they have dragons, ogres, goblins, elves, the whole . . . you know.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“No.”
“Come on. You’re bullshitting me. This is a reality show. It’s got to be.” He craned his neck around the room. “Goddamn pinhole cameras around here somewhere. Come on. I’ll play along. Just tell me what we’re getting paid for this. Where’s my agent? Saul!” he yelled. “Hey, Saul!”
“It’s not.”
“You’re smiling,” said Jarrod.
“Of course I’m smiling,” Carter grinned. “You will, too.”
“I swear to God,” said Jarrod, “I will kick your ass. Somehow.”
“I’ve been here three days, and I’ve had a pretty good look around. This is a working castle. It houses probably a hundred people. And everything works. I mean, the way it shoul
d. The nobles don’t do the dishes. There is not a cigarette butt, or a beer can, anywhere.” He ticked off on his fingers, “No canned food. No sugar. No plastic. No stainless steel. Everything in this castle is built by hand.”
Jarrod looked out at the rooftops stretching into the mist. “What’s with the city out there?”
“I don’t know if I’d call it a city,” said Carter. “But there’s a good-sized village right outside the castle walls. These guys have a working feudal system. A whole country—a couple of ‘em.”
A thin layer of ice caked the surface of the water in a barrel next to the trapdoor. Jarrod broke it with the heel of his fist and washed his hands, then leaned close and drenched his face and hair and scrubbed vigorously, shivering and groaning at the cold. He pulled the shirt from his trousers and wiped his face with the tails.
“Countries,” he grumbled, tucking the shirt in again. “Feudal constitutionalism, or are we still grinding along under privatized rule?”
“They’re a lot more civilized about it than we were,” Carter admitted. “Administration, standing armies, but there’s a lot of friction between the crown and the estates, mostly a communication issue, the way I see it. Castles, petty lords. There’s a king and a bloodline hierarchy, but the big decisions are made by guys appointed by the local lords to various councils that advise the royals. They have a War Council, a Trade Council, a Farms Council. You get the idea.”
“Okay. Does it work?”
“Hell if I know. What I see is a pair of rudimentary nation-states, vastly overextended from their seats of power and with no hard borders. They’re on the ragged edge of administrative collapse, and the outlying lands are in chaos.”
“Big fun. Is there a church in all this?”
“I don’t think so. Probably not, which would explain why it’s so factious. Keep in mind,” Carter said, sipping at his beer, “I’ve only been here a few days. The beer’s good, though.”
“That’ll help,” muttered Jarrod. “Though I doubt I’m up to date on all my shots.”
“These guys are pretty clean,” Carter assured him. “Not fastidious, but they bathe. Most of them, daily. They clip their nails, cut their hair, brush their teeth. The dogs are housebroken.”
“That’s handy.”
“They seem to live pretty long, too. There are some seriously old dudes around here. Some of them have got to be pushing eighty. Maybe a hundred and eighty. Who knows?”
“We should be so lucky,” Jarrod sighed. “I assume, from your trappings—” he motioned, “—they gave you some sort of honorary rank? A social standing?”
“Yeah. Chancellor.”
“Which is?”
“As best I can gather, it’s equivalent to a knight, more or less. It’s not a martial rank, though. Non-landholding nobility. They call it a ‘palace lord.’ Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, yet.”
Jarrod grunted, and fought his way into a thick gray sweater-tunic like Carter’s that was woven tightly and scratched his neck. He pulled the collar of the undertunic through it. “Nobility,” he echoed. “So there’s a class system? Caste system?”
“They have a robust working class,” Carter said. “There’s no mass production, so it’s all artisans. The merchant class is better off than they are. There’s a trade society, too, and some of them are rich enough to buy their own nobility. A couple of the merchant families have as much power as the royalty. Think of the Medicis, the Welsers. Patricians.”
“Interesting.”
“Very. You, they may knight,” Carter supposed. “All you’d have to do is show ‘em what you got. I bet they’d knight you in a minute.”
Jarrod grinned inwardly at the praise, but tried to remain as stern and businesslike as he could manage. “And this is not a reality show?”
Carter wiped his forehead. “Jarrod.”
“Okay, fine. Did they bring my rapier?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure it’s safe. We’ll get it.”
“Let me see that,” Jarrod motioned to the sword at Carter’s side.
Carter cleared the blade from its scabbard and handed it to Jarrod. “Everyone carries these in the castle. It’s a standard design, but they’re still not mass-produced.”
Jarrod could see the weld lines in the firelight, the spine made from twisted iron bands hammered into a herringbone pattern with steel edges. Gorgeous.
Heavy damned sword, though.
“Armor?”
Carter spent the next few minutes running down the weaponry and armors he’d seen about. Jarrod winced at Carter’s estimation of the technology as comparable to the Late Dark Ages in Europe: axes, spears, and mail armor augmented with iron and leather seemed the outfit of the typical soldier. The officers were better-equipped and the knights, better still. Distinct from medieval chevaliers in grandeur and function, and observedly distant from the concept of chivalry as Carter knew it, the knights of the royal orders were an elite contingent proficient in weapons and field tactics, trained-from-birth killers who pledged their lives to the king. Carter had mixed it up with one on his first day, wooden weapons and leather helmets, and was quite impressed.
“You didn’t try him with your greatsword,” Jarrod assumed.
“Ah, no.”
Jarrod tried a few cuts through the air with the sword and flipped it around in his hand a few times. The piece, while functional and well-balanced, was heavy for its size and not entirely historically accurate. The wide blade shouldered out at the crossguard, with a deep fuller for half its length that lent it considerable forward momentum. It was a hack-and-smasher, built to break armor, or break a man inside his armor.
“Yeah, that’s a beast, all right. What about shields?”
“I’m seeing center-held roundshields and some teardrops, great big ones. Not a lot of finesse, either. They’re real crash and bashers. The swords are secondary. They mainly use spears and axes. The knights use swords, but they’ve had a lot more training than the grunts.”
Jarrod stood five feet seven inches tall, and in fighting trim weighed in at just under a hundred and fifty pounds. “Yeah, how big are these guys?”
“Big,” Carter admitted. “The knights, especially. I’d guess that the nobility has more meat in their diets. I’m seeing knights six feet, six-two. Big, wide guys. Lots of power. Some of the women in the lists are about your size, but, ah . . . I mean . . .”
“Women?”
Carter nodded slowly, quietly.
Jarrod looked up from the sword at the sudden silence. “Women fighters?”
The giant only smiled. A slow, broad smile.
It was infectious. “Oh, man, sign me up,” Jarrod begged.
“Sign yourself up. Here,” Carter handed Jarrod his boots.
Jarrod was thankful that someone had taken the care to bring not only his blade, but his boots, which were sturdy, leather-and Gore-Tex hikers. There was a practicality to the choice, a horse-sense that, to Jarrod, resonated with a medieval mind-set and further cemented the reality he was finding around him. “C’mon,” said Carter. “I’m starving.”
“Yeah, me, too.” He rolled the words off his tongue. Me, too. Me, too . . .
It jarred Jarrod like few things ever had. A revelation that slammed him on the head nearly hard enough to knock his fillings out. The room spun.
Carter steadied him. “You okay?”
Jarrod stammered with a few awkward phrases, quietly, at first. What he was hearing in his skull were clicks and pops and nasal, alien vowels. His tongue was doing backflips in his head.
“Jarrod?” Carter asked again, looking into his eyes with considerable concern. “You okay?”
Jarrod shook his head, tangled hair falling from his hands in incomprehension. “Carter—”
“Yes?”
Only it wasn’t ‘yes’. Not quite. A terse word, an acknowledgment. Bu
t what Jarrod heard was sure as hell not, ‘Yes.’
“We’re not speaking English.”
The Lords’ Hall was nearly empty. It was between mealtimes, and Carter assumed the time by his best guess to be about two in the afternoon.
Quick math brought Jarrod an answer of fourteen stone tables, each capable of seating probably a dozen people if they refrained from wild gesticulation. An old man in fine purple and black clothes sat at the end of a table alone, reading a letter and slurping soup from a wooden bowl and spoon. A boy in dirty clothes and two girls in simple dresses and aprons cleaned tables, and a pair of even dirtier boys stacked logs with some commotion by a wall-length fire pit. Coals glowed like a forge, blasting welcome warmth halfway across the room.
Carter led him back to the kitchens.
“Is it cool to just go back there?” Jarrod asked. The word he’d unwittingly substituted for cool didn’t quite have the connotation he’d wanted, becoming instead more of an allowed, but his usage had less of a stern inflection, and a bit more spark to it. A raw language, brimming with barked profanities and innuendo.
The cook was a round woman of indeterminate age, in an unremarkable dress with a long blonde braid and a kerchief to hold her hair back. She had a cheerful smile, and greeted Carter with a curtsey. He bowed, as did Jarrod.
“Back again, eh?” she giggled. “I’ll have some dandy ready in a moment. You know where the food is,” she assumed, and went about grinding what Jarrod swore were coffee beans. They certainly smelled like coffee beans.
“Where did she get coffee beans?” he asked under his breath. Carter sliced and gutted a large yellow potato thing and ladled it full of gloriously thick stew. He handed it to Jarrod, along with an ornate wooden spoon, licking his fingers.
“Mmm, damn, that’s good.”
“You’re not afraid of that?” Jarrod asked.
“I once ate a sandwich I found in a drawer.”
Jarrod stuck his finger in the stew, wondering how long it had been sitting out, whether the meat was tainted, and what else was in there. There wasn’t a refrigerator in sight, and he’d come down with strange things around the world by accepting food on the advice of his stomach instead of his brain.