by Zack Mason
Abbie smiled at her gratefully. Mark hoped she wasn't having second thoughts. He'd known it would be difficult for her, but the reality of just how difficult, even he hadn't really understood.
Hardy piped up, "I'd have figured the way people dressed would have bothered you."
She nodded. "A little. It's quite odd to see women wearing pants. I mean, I always wore leggings in the woods, but it is unusual to see so many women dressed that way."
"Don't you think the young ladies show too much skin?" Hardy, the cheerful antagonist, asked.
"That didn't shock me as much as pants. I went to London once with father. There were ladies there who dressed like that, though they were usually looking...for clients of a certain sort."
Hardy guffawed and slapped his knee. Mark couldn't tell if he was egging Abbie on to poke fun at her, or if he sincerely thought it was funny. Savannah blushed a deeper shade of red.
Abbie quickly curtseyed again, "Present company excluded of course, Savannah," she corrected, realizing the inadvertent offense. "You are not dressed like that at all." Now, it was Abbie's turn to blush.
"Don't worry about it," Savannah replied.
This clash of cultures would be full of unperceived mines which could go off at any moment. They would have to navigate carefully for a while.
"So, what's the plan, boss?" Ty asked.
Mark leaned forward. "I thought we'd give Abbie a couple of weeks with Savannah to get used to things and settle in. In the meantime, we'll go about our normal business, doing saves as usual wherever we feel led, though I think you should lay off Vietnam for a time, Ty."
Ty nodded.
"Then," Mark continued, "we'll take Abbie back with us to medieval England to rescue that boy. She's an excellent shot with a bow and might be of help culturally too."
They all agreed, and Savannah led Abbie out of the common room into the hall. Ty headed off to the bathroom, but Hardy remained behind.
"Mark, do you really think that's a good idea bringing her with us on a shift?"
"Why not?"
"She doesn't have a watch. We'll always have to be looking out for her. She'll be completely dependent on us if something goes wrong."
"Isn't that what we do anyway — look out for people? She'll be extra help."
"I don't see the sense in it."
"I've got a feeling about it, okay?"
"All right, whatever you say."
***
There was visible fear in Abbie's eyes as she boarded the corporate jet for London. Mark admired her strength, for in spite of the horror she felt at being forced to trust a mechanical bird to transport her safely across the Atlantic Ocean, she bolstered herself and mustered up the courage to get on anyway.
It was hard for her to relax, but after an hour into the flight, her desperate grip on the hand rests lightened. Still, a twinge of anxiety lingered as Mark went over their Middle English study notes.
Remembering how unintelligible most of the speech had been during their last visit to medieval England, Mark had asked Savannah for help. She'd hooked him up with a professor at Harvard who was an expert on Middle English.
Mark wanted the whole team to take lessons from the professor. Ty and Hardy came for the first couple of classes, but then stopped. In their military days, they'd gotten used to deploying and performing tasks in countries where they did not speak the language. This would be not any different in their eyes, and they didn't want to invest a significant amount of time in gaining a skill they might need for only a few moments. The fact that they came at all was out of respect for Mark and he didn't hound them when they stopped showing up.
Abbie came to a lot more of the classes, but she'd had to start late. Initially, most of her time was taken up with modern history and science lessons from Savannah. So, Mark became the most proficient in this forgotten language, at least enough so he felt he could competently interpret simple conversations. Somewhere in his gut, he sensed there might be a lot more to this mission than just saving the boy.
The Harvard professor had been a little surprised by their small group's mysterious interest in understanding spoken Middle English rather than the written form. However, the check Mark wrote him was big enough to quell his curiosity.
The soothing hum of the airplane was usually calming to all but the most claustrophobic of souls, and Abbie's eyes soon began to droop. She was growing sleepy in spite of her uneasiness. Frankly, Mark was tired too.
"Let's take a break," he said, closing the notebook. Leaning his head back against the head rest, he closed his eyes, mentally planning their attack as he drifted off.
August 3rd 1100, Essex, England
As usual, Mark felt a morbid aversion to the idea of seeing a past version of himself. Just the thought of running into a past self gave him the creeps. So, he insisted they all wait inside the medieval barn until the small posse showed up with their young prisoner. Mark would avoid approaching the rear of the barn until he was sure his previous self had shifted out.
The wagon rumbled up the dirt path, surrounded by the same horsemen they'd seen before.
Hardy scrambled up a rustic ladder and hid himself in the loft. He would take out any rider who escaped the initial fusillade. Mark, Ty, and Abbie concealed themselves under the hay piled in the back of the barn. They were each armed with a longbow and quiver, which were styled for the times. Stashed in the hay and in other strategic locations outside the barn were duffle bags filled with modern weapons and explosives. If arrows proved to be insufficient to finish the job, or if the situation escalated out of control, they would have more potent tools at their disposal.
Barring such a case, they wished to leave as minimal a footprint on the past as possible and would choose to use the weapons of that time when feasible. However, if their lives were threatened, anything was game.
The driver's heavy cloak shrouded him in vague folds of dark cloth which made him look like the incarnation of death itself. He halted the wagon directly in front of the barn doors. Circling around, the three horsemen forced the hooded boy in the back out onto the ground.
As before, they herded him into the barn, where one of the men forced him to stand on a stool in the center of the hay-strewn floor. This same man threw a rope up over one of the rafters and tied it off on a post. He then proceeded to knot the other end into a rough noose.
One of lynchers seemed more reluctant than the others. He was the one who asked:
"Thes ær bith the cild?"
At first, the sounds of their odd tongue sounded just as foreign to him as they had before, in spite of the lessons the professor had given him. Yet, after a moment of processing, his brain translated it to: "This here is the child?"
Fascinated, he understood the rest of their conversation.
"Yes, this is the villain," the second watcher replied. He was the leader apparent. The man working the rope into a noose said nothing.
"The murderer of Rufus, a small child?"
"Hang him by the neck," the second said to the rope man, ignoring the question of the reluctant one. Having finished his work, the hangman moved to put the rope around the boy's neck, and the leader reached for the sack that covered his head.
Mark kicked his foot out under the hay, which was the go signal for Ty and Abbie. The three lynch men reacted to the unexpected noise, but it was too little, too late.
In unison, Mark, Ty, and Abbie burst up from the hay, straw cascading down their forms and bows in hand preloaded with deadly missiles that were sailing toward the chests of their targets before the movement was even finished. The twangs of three bowstrings echoed through the rustic barn. Three solid thuds and the victimizers fell to the dirt, one by one. The trembling boy screamed, unsure of what was happening. He stumbled off the stool and landed on his knees.
Mark's arrow had missed his target's heart, for that man began a mad and bloody crawl toward the door, gurgling and yelling to the driver of the wagon. Mark swiftly loaded another bolt and f
inished him off. He'd been the rope man. Mark felt no sympathy for the would-be executioner of a mere boy.
The deathly driver raised himself up from his seat and swept the hood from his pale, white pockmarked head so he could see what was happening inside the barn. Completely devoid of hair, he looked like a fragile skeleton with a thin layer of skin stretched over his skull.
Hardy stood in the loft, bow in hand, ready in case the man moved to join the fight. Instead, the bony figure sat back down in his seat hard and whipped the horses into a frenzy as he made a mad rush to escape. The wagon was well down the trail, lost in a cloud of dust before Hardy descended the ladder to join his friends.
"Why didn't you take out the driver?" Mark asked testily.
"Why didn't you?" Hardy replied, sarcasm dripping.
"That was your job."
"He took off, man. He wasn't a threat."
"He'll tell others now and this boy will be in danger again."
Hardy glared at the ground, knowing Mark was probably right, but another part of him resisted. Sometimes, you just grew weary of killing, even when justified.
"If that happens, I can always shift back and take him out further down the road," he answered.
A>Tis a great virtue, mercy," Abbie affirmed, looking at no one in particular. She had regained some of her old confidence, especially now that she was back in a world without electricity.
The boy was still hooded as the lynchmen hadn't had the chance to take it off before their demise. Ty slipped the sack from the youngster's head and sliced his rope bonds in two with a quick swipe of his Bowie knife. He tossed the noose disgustedly into a corner. "I hate nooses," he muttered.
The boy shivered, rubbing his wrists, eyes darting furtively between them. He seemed to understand they were helping him. He relaxed more visibly when he saw Abbie. Surely, the presence of a woman was a sign of mercy.
Gently, Ty lifted him to his feet by the elbows and set him lightly on the ground.
Let's see how good that prof is, Mark thought.
"What is your name?" he tried. That was a simple phrase in any language.
"Robyn," the boy replied. His fear was dissipating. "You killed them," he stammered, looking at the bodies of the three men who'd come very close to taking his life.
"Dead as a doornail," Ty snickered. His modern English words were senseless sounds to the young man. He looked at Ty quizzically.
"Why were these men trying to kill you?" Mark asked in the best Middle English he could muster.
"Because of my father."
Thankfully, Mark ears continued to decipher the strange syllables of this medieval tongue. There were so many similarities with modern English, it wasn't that difficult once you got used to picking out the sounds.
"Who is your father?"
"Robert Smith. He's a blacksmith. Our family lives nearby."
"Why did they want to kill you because of your father?"
"Because he's a freedman. Lord Geoff wants our lands for his own. He says we're his serfs, but it's a lie! Father paid his freedom several years ago."
"Who is Rufus?"
"William Rufus. The king! Are you daft?"
"Sorry, we're strangers to these parts."
"You must be from very far because Rufus is the king of England. Was, I mean. Someone killed him. Good riddance, I say."
"They said you killed him."
"All lies! We'd no use for him, ’tis true. Nobody did. How could I kill him? I'm just a boy."
"Why did they say that then?"
"They want our land. I already told you that." He motioned to the body of the man who'd ordered the hanging. "That was Edgar. He worked for Lord Geoff. The other two were knights visiting from Lord Roger de Clare. Edgar had to tell them I'd killed the king or they wouldn't have been willing to hang me, but I heard Lord Geoff tell Edgar to kill me to punish my father. Father won't pledge fealty to Geoff and he won't submit our lands to him, so Edgar was to hang me as a lesson. Said he would hang my brothers and sisters one by one until father gives in."
Mark peered into the boy's eyes, measuring every word of what he said. He hoped they hadn't just killed three knights in an effort to rescue some juvenile delinquent who'd killed the king.
"Who did kill the king, then?"
"How should I know?"
"How did he die?"
"Somebody shot him with an arrow while he was hunting."
Mark didn't sense deception in the young lad. He seemed sincere, scared, and just angry enough to be believable.
"What's he saying?" Hardy asked.
Mark explained the whole story.
"What do we do now, Mark?" Everyone looked at him expectantly, even the boy.
Mark grinned, feeling good again for the first time in a while. "I guess we pay this boy's parents a visit."
One Day Prior — August 2nd 1100, New Forest, England
William Rufus, King of England, held his hand up to his brow to block the bright afternoon sun which was directly in front of them. His brother, Henry, had suggested this hunting party, and he'd jumped at the idea. The worries of the crown were too much sometimes. If it wasn't the people complaining and whining, it was the church. And if it wasn't the church, it was his noblemen.
Nobody wanted to pay their due taxes. How did they expect him to pay for things? He had expenses. Many expenses. It cost a lot of money to plan for the future defense of a country, defense against land-thirsty kings and imposters like his older brother, Robert Curthose. And, he had certain tastes...tastes which were also quite expensive.
Not that they needed to understand those things. He was their king. They existed for his service as he saw fit. That was all he needed to understand.
He intentionally broke this all too familiar thought pattern of his and let his temper cool off. It had become too easy to work himself into a maddened frenzy over these frustrations. He'd been engaged in one of his famous, murderous rages yesterday when Henry had suggested this trip. The idea had calmed him instantly. He loved hunting. His rages were becoming all too frequent. He would work on that. It just bred further distrust among his subjects.
He felt an affection for Henry, though that didn't mean he trusted his younger brother any further than he could spit. He'd sent Henry, together with the Clare brothers, off to another section of the forest for that very reason. Henry, hunting, and the natural ambition to make a grasp for the crown which could easily strike any younger brother of an heirless, older sibling, were not a wise mixture. And the Clare brothers — there was something treacherous about the pack of them too.
Tyrell had gone off with them, leaving his servant, Raoul, behind. Rufus was happy for that. Raoul was an excellent shot and this part of the woods had a high concentration of deer. Anything Raoul downed, the king would be able to take credit for. That was another reason he'd sent Henry and the Clares off.
He loved this forest. His father, William the Conqueror, had created it years ago by forcing entire towns off their property in order to return the expansive acreage to a state of virginity. Only the king, and noblemen who had his permission, could hunt in the king's forest. This appropriation of resources did not bother William Rufus, the son, in the least. A king needed his diversion.
As sunlight danced through the late summer leaves, its rays were like constantly changing shafts shining from heaven, illuminating a hundred shades of green, from the strong leaves of the oaks on all sides, to the dark mosses and the vibrant grass which carpeted the forest floor. It was a beautiful afternoon. God seemed to approve of the hunt.
A rustling sounded from the bushes to his right. He slowed his horse and stayed it. Raoul stopped too, a number of yards behind him. He, the king, would have the best shot between the two of them, and he intended to take it. The rustling of the unsuspecting animal grew louder and Rufus drew his bow, notching an arrow with the natural movement of a practiced woodsman.
The stag suddenly showed itself and Rufus' arrow sailed toward its heart. It struck
deep, but the aim had not been quite true. The arrow had not hit the heart. The deer stumbled, fell, and leapt up again. It disappeared into the brush on the other side of the path, trailing blood as it went. The wound was mortal, but it would not die quickly. They would have to track it.
Unexpectedly, another stag burst forth from the brush and crossed the king's path directly in front of him. He didn't have time to react, to draw another arrow. This one would get away, he realized regretfully.
A sudden pressure in his chest, a choking pressure, invaded his consciousness, piercing his reverie. He looked down. The shaft of an arrow protruded rudely from his breast. Numbness gave way to a strong, sharp pain surrounding it.
The faces of the many men he'd ordered killed in this very forest in this very way came to mind. One trusting face in particular flashed before him, a man he'd dispatched personally and with relish.
His trembling fingers grasped the arrow's head, while his other hand held the shaft firmly at the point it exited. He snapped the front of the arrow off, and it fell to the ground.
Then, he was falling. Agony spiked as the impact with the ground thrust the arrow further through him. Blackness enshrouded him in its cold grip.
The riders cantered their horses over to his body.
Rufus was definitely dead.
In silence, the noblemen viewed their fallen king. Nervously, they glanced at one another. The king was dead and with him, the law of the land.
One by one, each rider spurred his horse sharply, racing back to his castle in order to secure their lands against potential anarchy or unbridled avarice in the face of the sudden lack of leadership. Prince Henry sped directly to the Treasury to secure funds to support his claim to the throne.
The body of King William Rufus lay where it fell, in the dust, until later that day when a poor charcoal-burner by the name of Purkis finally hoisted the stiffening form onto his cart to take to Winchester Cathedral for a proper burial.