She was utterly lost. She knew it. She was helpless. She knew that, too. The knowledge of her helplessness became only slightly more frustrating than the sudden realization that she needed to urinate. Panic had fed the urge. She scanned her surroundings for any cover, but there was none, save for the old tree, which did not give much protection of modesty. Still, she pragmatically reasoned that she appeared to be alone. More pragmatic, she needed to do this now. Being focused on her physical need banished her panic, and she felt emotionally stronger in rueful amusement of the realization. Standing behind the old tree shamefacedly, she lifted her tunic, gathered the garment up at her waist, and emptied her bladder.
The Roman guard ascending the hill behind her stopped abruptly at the unexpected picture of Eleanor’s very white buttocks. He grinned at the unsuspecting female with the slight awkward crouch and her legs spread. The constant lulling rain, and the comfort of relieving herself distracted Eleanor and made his approach on the soft wet grass imperceptible to her. By the time she was finished, he stood behind her, then spun her roughly by the shoulder. He plastered his cold wet hand hard against her mouth, and with his short sword at the ready in his other hand, he slapped the flat of the blade against her pelvis and began to stroke it against her. She jerked, but he deterred her with a single sharp spank of the blade from thoughts of either lowering her dress or struggling.
Stark panic left her helpless. The emotional instinct to struggle fought her incoherent mind. She knew what would happen, and yet she could not imagine. She looked into his face with horror and yet curiosity, as if she had left her body and were watching herself from a distance, the way she observed Moore and Yorke battling in their exhibition.
At last she recalled the patch with the retrieval signal under her breast. She needed only to reach in with her fingers and pull away the outer layer. It could be done in an instant. She could be back in the lab in seconds, but he would join her because he was touching her.
That would not necessarily be unfortunate. No, not at all. Bringing him back would be proof of the success of her mission; she did not need John Moore for that now. Moore would still be lost, of course, but the consequences for the department, and for herself, would not be as dire. Especially since she would be regarded as a hero for attempting to rescue Moore, and as a perceptive scientist for salvaging the mission with what value she could glean instead. This Roman soldier had value.
He was valuable if Dr. L’Esperance told the truth, and really meant to retrieve Eleanor. There was still that probability she only wanted Eleanor out of the way, and had easily achieved her aim. Eleanor gingerly touched herself where Dr. L’Esperance had pressed the patch onto her skin. She would know soon enough if she had been tricked.
The soldier pulled her away from the tree, and forced her down into the tall, damp grass. When he uncovered his hand from her mouth, she became docile.
CHAPTER 22
Colonel John Moore’s narrative:
I looked at her stupidly, as if not really seeing her. There was something changed about her face. She looked curiously, though with more than her customary reserve, at me.
“Do you know me?” I whispered, aware that I was shaking, not because of the horrors of the day or because of the cold, but because of her, because she was here with me now.
“A chara.”
Her eyes would not leave mine, were riveted to my face, yet there was a vagueness, a lack of intensity to her gaze. She wore a stoic, empty expression.
Her face was dirty, but she appeared to be unharmed, outwardly. Inside, she seemed destroyed.
It took me another moment to realize Bouchal was not with her.
I whispered an obscenity with what was left of my voice.
I looked away, and so did she, so difficult to bear each other’s gaze thinking the same thing.
The rain clouded our eyes, and separated us. She looked over my shoulder at the red cloaked back of the Roman soldier. She looked at him with loathing, the kind of which I did not know she was even capable.
I tried to put my hand on her arm, but she pulled away. With a chain binding our legs, there wasn’t anywhere she could go. Not without taking me with her.
She was exhausted, I could see that. I did not have the strength to hold her up, even if she let me. I did not have a voice to speak to her. She would not speak to me, locked inside herself, incapable of finding, or even asking, for help. She looked away again, after briefly meeting my glance for a painful second. Her arms were heavy and evidently too tired to brush the limp, wet hair that hung in front of her lifeless eyes.
The torturous drizzle transformed gradually to soft mist. I sat down in the mud and reached for her hands, pulling her down to me. I stretched out on the ground, on my back, and maneuvering beyond her awkwardness, pulled her body on top of me.
“Sleep.” I whispered, nearly hoarse. We were both ready to collapse anyway, at least she would not lie unconscious in the mud. It gave me a feeling of control, that I could do something, even if it was only lifting her a few inches above the filth.
She did not sleep. She lay like cordwood on top of me, rigid and with an eerie hyper-alertness for perhaps twenty or thirty minutes. Minutes. Listen to me.
I raked her long wet hair from where it was pasted to her back, and gathered it into a rope, and squeezed the rain from it. I began to rub her back, not soothingly or caressing, but hard, to warm her. She jerked a couple times, uncomfortably, as if lamely trying to discourage a sadistic masseur, but I worked her, unrelenting, from her shoulders to her butt.
Eventually, with enough body heat between us to keep us from freezing, she slowly relaxed against me as exhaustion won, and she actually slept for a while.
If this is to be my destiny, Eleanor, I’ll take it now.
The mist faded, and the wind blew dark, quick clouds over us, and revealed small sections of stars, and the Hunter’s Moon.
Who are you? What did you think as a child, and what did you wish for? Were you ever safe and happy? Can you ever be now?
She lifted her cheek from the warm, damp spot it left on my chest, and looked at me, this time with recognition. And pain.
“He was slain,” she choked, shocked into awakening by the memory of it.
“His pain is over,” I whispered, my voice returning.
The depth of horror in her expression as she remembered scared me and made me sick, and I said more firmly, stupidly, to convince myself,
“His pain is over.”
She pulled her cramped arms from her sides, extracting them from my hug, and dropped them over my shoulders. The blue smudge I had drawn on her bicep had smeared with dirt and Bouchal’s blood. If I hadn’t put it there, I wouldn’t have known it was there at all. She began to cry now, very hard and so violently I thought she would be sick. Her chest shuddered and her body convulsed with each intense wave of her sobbing. I held her firmly and whispered,
“I will never leave you,” but I don’t know if she heard me.
After a while, I could see more than the outline of her head and shoulders, and over the curve of her arm I could see a dim red dawn grow more brilliant as the sun flashed a warning signal through the purple fingers of two cloud masses on the horizon. The day ahead would be clear and cold, and there would be a bright sky for a few hours, and we would forget in complacency this fearfully awesome beginning to the day. The red sky at dawn, a portent of more bad weather and trouble to come, and as always, trouble would catch us foolishly by surprise.
As suddenly as she had begun crying, she stopped. She reined it in again, all the depth of her emotion, as if remembering herself, or else in resignation of the futility of expressing any emotion at all.
She grew quiet and still, and I could be more gentle now. It was a relief, I think, to both of us, but I wanted her to hang on. It would be so easy for her to give up. It felt like her soul was slipping away from me. I did not want her to go back to the automaton I had met in Cailte’s hut. I began to sing the old son
g again, the old song of Billy’s, that had not left my head since I sang it to Boudicca.
Tailtu listened, her hands grasping my shoulders, clutching to me for balance.
“Youth will in time decay, Eileen Aroon,
Beauty must fade away, Eileen Aroon,
Castles are sacked in war, chieftains are scattered far,
Truth is a fixed star, Eileen Aroon….”
“What is that?” she asked.
“A love song.”
“Did you learn it from Cailte? I never heard him sing that song.”
“No, not from Cailte. From another bard I once knew.”
“Is that the Roman language?”
“No. It is a language called English.”
“English? Did you live among these people?”
I smiled. Do I tell her that we are lying on ground that is future England? Too complicated. Too many wars, too many conquerors. Too much time to cover, much too much muddy ground.
“Yes, for a time.”
She thought about this.
“Cailte had many songs. Love songs. War songs.”
“He is dead,” I said, remembering.
“I thought this.” She looked right through me. “It was too much for a man to live through, even a man such as Cailte. All the warriors, and the Roman soldiers. Everywhere. We did not know what was happening, until one shouted from his master’s cart, ‘Romans!’ Carts and people were tumbled over like leaves in the wind. Running. Screaming. Screaming. I did not know where to run. I reached for…him.” She stared right through me, horror in her tearless eyes.
“Tailtu….”
“As the sword…came.”
I could not hear the other captives now, nor the soldiers’ calling orders or their footsteps in the mud. I could hear only her thick voice and her hopeless horror.
“Then they took you captive.” I said at last, because she had said nothing for what seemed so long.
“Yes.” She stared at me still, but now she saw me. “You warned me to leave Cailte.”
“Do not blame yourself.”
“You warned me.”
“Do not blame yourself, Tailtu. This is a tragedy beyond your, or my control.”
“Tragedy always is.”
It sounded like something Boudicca would say. I shivered.
“Or beyond Cailte’s control.”
“Cailte’s control. Yes, even beyond Cailte’s control.”
“How was your life with him?”
She said nothing. I thought of that very old saying about prostitution being the world’s oldest profession. I suppose the world’s oldest crime then must be rape, except that for so many centuries it was not considered a crime. Even in my time, there were places where only the victim was punished.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I know the answer is too large and difficult, but I would give you voice to such things, to everything.”
“I would try to learn, in time, if this is what you would wish.”
“What do you wish?”
“I do not take the trouble to wish.”
She swallowed, and lifted her chin to look into my face. The crease in her forehead returned, permanently. Nothing I could do would ever make it go away again. Still, I kissed it anyway, hoping.
CHAPTER 23
Dr. Ford clicked the lab door behind him discreetly, but cleared his throat audibly to make sure his presence was known. Dr. L’Esperance threw a casual glance over her shoulder and greeted him with a warm smile. He returned it, but continued to look around.
“Where is Dr. Roberts?” he asked, approaching her from behind, seizing the moment to enjoy the sight from behind of a voluptuous figure that was blatantly obvious even in a shapeless lab coat.
“She is not here,” Dr. L’Esperance replied, and after satisfying herself that her trajectories were appropriate, she felt comfortable giving him her attention. He was one of the few truly attentive people she had met on this mission, and it pleased her when he eagerly placed his hands on her waist underneath her lab coat. She brought her lips to his and tenderly touched soft kisses on his mouth and on his neck, delighted when he held her against him, caressing her bottom.
“How long do we have until she gets back?” he asked, aroused by her obvious pleasure in him.
“Two minutes at the latest.”
He groaned. “Is there somewhere else we can go? Look, why don’t we just go to your unit in the residential wing?”
“I am not able to leave the lab,” she said beginning to copy his groping.
“This is insane. I have to be with you, Cheyenne. Now. Never mind Eleanor, I can smooth over any trouble with her, she won’t mind your leaving the lab. I’ll tell her the Committee called you back unexpectedly. She’d have no way of checking, she doesn’t have clearance. Please.”
“I’m so sorry, but would be irresponsible of me.”
He moaned again, hoping to sway her, and glanced helplessly at the module.
“You’re sure she’s going to be right back?” he asked, “Hell, if I thought we’d have more time, we could lie down on that miserable module and do it right here.”
“That wouldn’t be appropriate,” she replied, sensing his discomfort and thinking of how best to comfort him. She wanted to comfort him. She wanted to comfort everyone. It was one of the few things that gave her true pleasure.
“Two minutes! Damn! Where did she go anyway? Maybe we can get Milly to find her and delay her.”
“No, Eleanor is not in the building. She is in Britannia.”
Dr. Ford stopped groping.
“Britannia?”
“Yes, an urgent mission to return Colonel Moore. She should return in under two minutes. Any more, and I will have to conclude her effort has been a failure.”
Dr. Ford released her and took an awkward step back.
“What do you…what are you saying? You sent Eleanor back there? How did you do that? Did you work out a mission plan? A protocol? This has to be approved by the Committee. How could you even synchronize the pickup? This is crazy. This isn’t possible. Cheyenne, this is crazy, what are you talking about?” Dr. Ford stepped further away from her, and looked urgently about the room, as if he expected to find Dr. Roberts anywhere in it.
“It was a desperate, final attempt at saving the mission. Quite heroic of her, considering she was truly much distressed. My heart melted at her tears. Poor little one. Still, it was the only solution. We made the decision ourselves.”
“I can’t believe this. I can’t believe Eleanor did this. This isn’t like her. Not at all. She’s not…this is not something she would do…Not something she can do. She’s not trained. Her whole attitude is one of analysis and study, not adventure seeking. Knowing her, I can’t believe she would willingly do this.”
Dr. L’Esperance searched his troubled eyes. She observed his wonderfully expressive affection dwindle to his usual vacillating façade, and she was sorry to see it go.
Dr. Ford looked at her, dumbfounded, then when the staggering thought occurred to him that Dr. L’Esperance had done this “mission” on her own authority, and that her authority might be more awesome than he had imagined, he looked away, embarrassed, chastised, and with growing panic.
Dr. L’Esperance turned from him and begin to monitor her data again, which had evidently reached some critical point and she would not be distracted from it. He watched her from behind. She looked focused, determined, and in control. He immediately considered his own position. If she had more power than he, higher clearance, higher connections, and seemingly greater abilities, what could he possibly offer her to keep in her good graces? An alliance was suddenly, drastically out of the question. His daydream up until this time had been about her needing him. She had seemed so willing to please him. A common trait among women, in Dr. Ford’s happy experience. It was one of the perks of living in an era where women outnumbered men, and Dr. C.C. Ford enjoyed his perks.
His illusion about Dr. L’Esperance, and the departme
nt, and himself, was shattered.
“You’re, you’re very busy,” he said anxiously, hoping to display repentance, “I am so sorry I didn’t consider the importance of your work. Please forgive me.”
“I forgive you, Dr. Ford.”
She called him by his surname. He had wondered now if she had ever not done so. He had not noticed. He cursed himself.
“Thank you, Dr. L’Esperance. I won’t disturb you any further. But, if there is anything I can do for you, please let me know. I would be very happy to assist you in any way. Any way I can.”
She turned briefly and bestowed on him a gracious smile.
“Thank you, Dr. Ford.”
“You’re welcome, Dr. L’Esperance.” He hoped his contrition was adequate.
“I think it would be helpful to the project if you were to stay.”
“Really?” he asked, waiting for an order.
He spoke cordially, yet she thought she detected a sense of sadness in his new distance, and she wanted to make him happy again. If only there were time.
CHAPTER 24
Colonel John Moore’s narrative:
“Are you in great pain?” Tailtu asked. I must have looked like hell.
“No, but I will not ask you to shave me today.”
She did not smile.
“Let me stand,” she said, pulling her glance away and throwing it into the dirt.
“Are you sure?”
“I could remain thus forever, but it will not be. Better to stand and face this day.”
“Do you have the strength?”
“Yes,” she pulled herself off me.
“I mean to go on with life,” I said, missing the weight of her.
Myths of the Modern Man Page 21