by Rachel Ford
Alfred nodded briskly. “Okay. So, that’s our plan then.”
Nancy shook her head, smiling at him. “You’re way more optimistic about this than warranted, based on what we know, babe.”
He brushed this aside. “I have full faith in you, Nancy Abbot.”
Justin scoffed, but she said, “Thanks. But it wasn’t me I was questioning. It was where, and when, this thing deposited us.”
Chapter Seven
Nancy put the device back together, and they slipped it into Alfred’s knapsack. Then, picking a direction, they began to walk. Freddo grumbled the entire way, and the taxman found himself growing more aggravated with his counterpart by the moment. Good God. Maybe it’s Justin I should feel sorry for, not the other way around. He shivered, and for half a moment entertained the thought, I wonder if I’m that annoying.
Dismissing it with a scoff, he decided, Nah. Of course not.
Still, he did check himself every time he felt the compunction to complain about his tired feet, or the infernal mosquitos, or his hunger pangs. He even eased up on the alternate reality duo. Freddo was doing enough complaining for the Faveros across both timelines, and maybe a few more into the bargain.
He didn’t need to add to it. They’d figure this out, and sooner, without his complaints.
After a space, Nancy touched his arm, speaking in low tones, “Hey, Alfred?”
“What’s up?”
“What if we don’t find anyone else here?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what are we going to do if there are no people here? Or if we’re in the wilderness somewhere, hundreds of miles from civilization?”
He frowned. “We’re going to find someone, babe.”
“And if we don’t?”
He pondered this for a moment, then wrapped an arm around her. “Well, if that happens, we’ll figure something out.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. That’s your department,” he grinned. “You’re the smart one, remember?”
She laughed, nudging him playfully. “Fixing the generator is bad enough. But taking care of you? That is way too big of a job.”
“Job? I think you mean, privilege.”
She rolled her eyes and mimed gagging at the same time. “Well, when it comes time to figure out who ends up getting cannibalized first, I know who I’m giving the short straw to.”
He squeezed her closer and kissed the top of her head. “That’s the spirit.”
She whacked him gently, and laughed again. “You’re insane.”
He shrugged. “Quite possibly.”
“But, seriously, darling…if we don’t find anyone, we’re in a lot of trouble.”
He sobered at her tone. “Maybe. But Nance?”
“Yeah?”
“We’ll be alright. We’re together. And when we’re together, we can figure out anything. Right?”
She smiled up at him and leaned into his embrace. “If you say so, Mr. Favero.”
They walked in silence for awhile after that, and despite his optimistic words, Alfred felt the weight of her concerns settle on him. He thought about the contents of his backpack. Other than the busted generator, he had bug spray and a few cans of sunscreen – one for each of them, and a set of spares in case they ran out. He’d gotten the aerosol type because, though it wasn’t as effective, it was easier to convince Nance to apply something she could spray on in a few seconds rather than something she had to apply one spot at a time.
Right now, they were under the shaded canopy of forest. But once they were out, they’d need to start using it. It wouldn’t take very long, he knew, before their supplies dwindled. So far, he had assumed they’d find civilization at the end of this trek. And where civilization was, sunscreen would also be.
But Nancy’s words rang in his ears, and he considered the possibility that there might be no civilization after all – and, consequently, no more sunscreen. Their supply would only last so long. What then?
“Hey,” Nancy’s voice pulled him from his thoughts, “can you pass me a granola bar? I’m starving.”
He glanced up. “What?”
“A granola bar. From your backpack.”
“Oh.” He flushed. “I don’t have any food in it, Nance.”
She glanced askew at him. “Yes you do. I saw you had nothing useful in there, so I filled the outer compartment. In case we got hungry when we were hiking.”
“Oh.” He was glad of her presence of mind, but he took umbrage with the suggestion that his supplies were anything less than critical. “Sunscreen’s much more important than food. Neither of us want to die of skin cancer, I think.”
“Neither of us want to starve to death, either,” she reminded him.
“Alright,” he conceded, “in the short term, I suppose that seems like a more pressing concern. But if we’re only sustaining ourselves for an eventual death of skin cancer-”
“Alfred,” she said, exasperation seeping into her tone. “A granola bar, please.”
“Oh. Right.”
The sight of food brought the vultures. Before he knew it, Freddo and Justin descended, demanding something to eat. He objected that their supplies shouldn’t be split among those who had neglected to bring anything on their own – and was promptly, and with a shocking array of four-letter words, reminded that the two men had not chosen this jaunt through space and time. “Fine, fine, fine,” he acquiesced when Nancy took their side. “Have a granola bar. But just one. You’re going to have the same rations we do.” To himself, he added, And I’ll be damned if I’m mentioning the sunscreen around you thieves.
He was rifling through the pouch in search of rations when a noise caught his attention. It was near at hand and sounded like branches snapping underfoot. He glanced up, scanning the forest around them warily.
But it was as empty as a moment before. There were no bears advancing on their position, no prowling pumas readying to pounce.
“Come on,” Freddo demanded. “Stop stalling. I’m starving.”
He was mid-retort when he heard it again. And this time, there was no mistaking the sound. Something, or someone, was nearby. Nancy heard it too, because she froze midbite, glancing around her.
His eyes darted this way and that, looking for something – anything. “Who is there?” he called. “Hello?”
Justin seemed to pick up his unease, because he too started to look around. Only Freddo was still focused on the granola bars.
He was, anyway, until a dozen men stepped into view, seeming to materialize out of thin air. They were an eclectic band, like stragglers from one of the renaissance fairs Nancy would occasionally threaten to drag him to. They were dressed in oddly cut, dull colored tunics and leggings, and wore curious, wedge-shaped hats. More to the point, though, they all carried weapons of one kind or another – bows and arrows, swords, and even in the case of one burly, bearded fellow, a heavy staff.
Alfred yelped at the sight of this troupe of misfits and their myriad weapons. He started, dropping the fistful of bars he had been so jealously guarding. Freddo yelped too, raising his fists in a clumsy, turn-of-the-century pugilist stance. Justin and Nancy took a more measured approach, the former asking, “Who are you?”
And the latter, “Can you understand us? Do you speak English?”
The men exchanged glances. A tall, light-haired fellow stepped forward, speaking something that altogether escaped Alfred’s comprehension. There were trace elements that sparked recognition – a phrase or intonation here and there – but in context of the whole, they were lost. It was like listening to someone who was speaking through a mouthful of bolts. “What?”
“I said,” the other man started, in pinched and barely comprehensible tones – and promptly ran into gibberish.
“That was English,” Nancy said excitedly.
“Was it?” Alfred wondered. “It sounded like gibberish to me.”
“It’s English,” she insisted. “I’m sure of it. H
e said, ‘I said, who are you people…’” She frowned. “And then something about trespassing in Freemen’s Forest. I couldn’t quite make that out.”
“Where are we?” Justin called. “What is this place?”
“And what year?” Nancy added.
“You’ve entered Freemen’s Forest,” the speaker said, and Alfred’s eyes widened as he comprehended the words.
Whoever this costumed stranger was, he did speak English – but a form of it that was so accented, so oddly pronounced, that the taxman’s brain struggled to keep up. It was, he thought, like speaking to a Welshman. “Who are you?” he asked.
A few of the armed men exchanged glances, and their inquisitor drew up tall, as if the question offended him on some level. “I am Robert Whod. What manner of fools are you, who enter a wood without knowing whose land they step onto?”
“Forgive us,” Nancy said quickly, “but we’re lost. We didn’t mean to trespass.”
“That’s right,” Justin added. “We’re just trying to get home.”
Robert Whod surveyed them curiously, from under great, bushy blond brows. “And where is ‘home’?”
Now, it was their turn to exchange glances. “Umm…a place far from here,” Nancy said.
The stranger scoffed. “That, I could ascertain. You are either traveling bards, or fools: you have not the look of farmers or soldiers, and no goods to sell like merchants. But you must hail from a far place indeed, to judge by your raiment. It is very strange.”
“That’s right,” she nodded. “We are.”
“Bards,” Alfred put in quickly. “Not fools.”
“Right.”
Robert nodded. “Well, bards, you have entered the forest of the free. If you swear no fealty to kings and princes, if you would have no masters, you are welcome to join us.”
Chapter Eight
“So, what is the name of your realm?” Robert asked.
“The United States,” Justin said.
He considered. “I have never heard of this land. It must be very far away.”
“You could say that,” Alfred evaded. He was only just beginning to comprehend how far away, in time and space, they were. They’d landed in some manner of alternative universe that resembled old Earth history during the medieval period. But where and when they actually were, he couldn’t begin to guess.
“Is it a powerful realm?”
“Very.”
“It can’t be too powerful,” another of their hosts declared, “if we’ve never heard of it.” This was John Naylor, a giant of a man who carried a staff and wore a seemingly perpetual scowl.
Robert smiled. “You’ll have to excuse John,” he said. “He believes Cumberland is God’s land.”
Nancy glanced up sharply. “Cumberland?”
He nodded but seemed oblivious to the recognition in her tone. “He’s probably not much of an impartial judge, though. He’s never been elsewhere.”
Here, John Naylor snorted. “No need to. You wouldn’t leave Heaven to check into Hell, would you? When you’ve found perfection, you embrace it.”
Robert laughed, and Nancy whispered, “I think we’re in England, Alfred. Or some alternate version of it.”
He considered this. “So…we’re still on Earth, at least?”
“Yes. One of the Earths in the multiverse, anyway.”
Alfred groaned. Time travel was confusing enough. Introducing the multiverse into the mix only made it that much worse.
“What’s the matter, bard?” John asked. “You prefer your Unified States to Cumberland?”
The taxman blinked. “Well…yes, actually.”
“Then why’d you leave it?”
“We wanted to see the world,” Nancy put in.
John nodded sagely. “And so you came here.”
“Where is ‘here,’ exactly?” Freddo wondered.
“You’re in the Yngil-wode, bard,” Robert declared cheerily. “The greatest forest in the greatest county on God’s green earth.”
Nancy nudged Alfred, and he nodded. They were on Earth, then.
“And,” one of the woodsmen declared, “in company of the greatest outlaw in the North.”
“Outlaw?” The taxman frowned. “You mean, you’re criminals?”
Robert laughed. “So the lord of these parts tells us, bard. But the people tell a different story.”
His frown deepened. “But…what does the law say?” It seemed to him this wasn’t a question with much room for gray area. It was as binary as it got: either they were or were not lawbreakers.
“The law is just a construct,” a younger man declared airily.
Alfred frowned, trying to remember the fool’s name. Allan-something, he thought. “In the same way that gravity is a construct,” he sneered.
The other surveyed him with questioning eyes. “What?”
“I think you’re a few hundred years too early, babe,” Nancy whispered. “Newton hasn’t been born yet.”
It was Freddo who came to his aid, though. “What he’s saying, Squire Clare, is that the law is the framework of any civilized society.”
The younger man rolled his light eyes, but Robert shrugged, saying, “Perhaps in a civilized society. But in the hands of an oppressor, the law becomes nothing more than a tool of oppression.”
Here, Alfred found he had to cede the point. History – his own Earth’s history – was littered with examples that bore out the other man’s position. “That is true. Are you, then, ruled by an oppressor?”
“We are ruled by none,” John Naylor reminded him. “Yngil-wode is the Freemen’s Forest.”
“In here,” Robert agreed, spreading his hands to gesture at the trees all around them, “it is true: we are free. The forest is our mother, and her bounty sustains us, shields us; delivers us from the tyrant. But…in the cities and villages?” He shook his head. “Those are the domain of Lord Rickman. And a viler tyrant than Basil Rickman never blackened this fair land.”
“He calls himself magistrate here,” a dark-haired youth called William Gamwell declared. “And he commands a mighty force from Fletcher-in-the-Forest.”
“From what?”
“His ancestral home,” Robert explained. “His family lived here for generations. The old lords let us live in peace. They kept to the Tower and left us to manage our own affairs. But this young lord? He’ll grind us until there’s not a freeman left in the whole of Cumberland.”
They walked for another hour or so, and Alfred spent much of the time in quiet contemplation. All of his earlier optimism faded, and he found himself facing down an ever-bleaker set of prospects.
They were in the company of lawbreakers and rebels, in a world in which the law had been perverted and used as a weapon against the people. It was a world gone mad, with good turned to evil and evil to good.
That would have been bad enough. But the fact was, they were stuck here. These people didn’t even know about gravity yet. They carried medieval weapons, smelled like they hadn’t showered since birth, and wore tights. The chance of them having the kind of tech Nancy needed was approximately zero.
And as soon as he’d come to that realization, Alfred’s mind began to explore the implications of it. The people here wouldn’t have any understanding of modern medicine. This would be the era of leeches and bloodletting. They wouldn’t have books or television or decent food. There’d be no lasagna, no opera, no wildlife documentaries in his future.
And no Star Trek, his mind kicked in. He considered this for a moment, but then dismissed it. He couldn’t allow himself to focus on silver linings. The situation was too dire to be satisfied by trifles.
Nancy was meditative too. Unfortunately, no such compunction to think seized Freddo or Justin, though. They prattled away the entire last leg of the journey.
“I don’t suppose you have any food you could spare?”
“Does anyone have a canteen? I’m parched.”
“My feet are killing me.”
“God, I ca
n’t wait until we reach camp.”
The complaints were endless. So, too, were their clumsy attempts at extracting information from their hosts.
“Are there any towns around here?”
“That Lord What’s-his-face…where did you say he lived?”
“So, on a scale of firm reprimands to a one-on-one with an iron maiden, what happens if this guy catches us hanging out with you all?”
“You live in the forest, then? Like, all the time? You must have lived in one of the towns at some point, though? Before Rickman took over?”
Even their small talk made him want to scream.
“So, you’re an archer? I was a pretty good shot myself, back in high school.”
“Must be pretty good game around here, though. I haven’t been hunting in years, but I’ll bet this place is crawling with deer.”
Alfred was ready to commit a murder or two by time they reached the outlaws’ encampment. The dismal sight that met him temporarily distracted him from these dark thoughts, though – but only to replace them with different but equally grim thoughts.
The camp was like something out of a nightmare, a cross between a trailer park and a campsite. Sloppy tents and shabby buildings were spread here and there, and harried women and dirty children paused their activities to glance up at them as they marched into view. In the center of camp, a great fire blazed. A set of carcasses hung over the fire on spits, turned by red-faced matrons whose countenances were soiled with soot and sweat. They glanced up long enough to take in the newcomers and wipe away perspiration. Then, they returned to their work.
“You see,” Robert said, “what we’re reduced to now. We live in squalor, our women and children forced to scrape by on the scraps we manage to put together.”
He shook his head darkly, and the taxman nodded. He did see, and he rather wondered how they’d endured this long. “It’s terrible. Rickman must be a monster.”
“He is. The worst of tyrants.” Now, the outlaw shrugged. “But, what little we have, we freely share with you, bards.”