Knights

by Linda Lael Miller

  Reaching a little huddle of crofters’ huts, they found acres of wheat reduced to smoldering rubble. Swine and fowl had been slaughtered, and the thatched roofs of the cottages set afire as well. The villagers had fled to the woods in terror, and some had been pursued and run down for the sport of it.

  Dane closed his eyes briefly at the memory. They had fought, his men and Gareth’s and Merrymont’s, on that smoking field, retreated in their turns, regrouped, and skirmished again. He could still hear the ringing clash of steel against steel, see the showers of blue sparks thrown by the blades.

  He had wanted to go after Merrymont, safe on his perch, but that would have meant leaving his own men—leaving Edward, who this day had truly been initiated as a soldier and been baptized in the blood of friends and enemies alike. So Dane had stayed, wielding his sword until he could no longer feel his right arm, then using his left. Always, he had done his best to keep his young brother at the edge of his vision, but there had been times, of course, when that was impossible, because of the dust and the rigors of the fray itself. Finally, at some signal, Merrymont’s men had given up the battle and raced into the hills after their leader, abandoning their fallen comrades to their fate.

  Both the quick and the dead were gathered and taken from the field on litters and in carts, some to Hadleigh Castle, some to Kenbrook Hall.

  Hooves clattered on the ancient stones of the courtyard as Dane and Maxen led the way beneath the great arched gateway.

  Dane had envisioned Gloriana rushing to greet him, hair flying, eyes alert for any indication that he’d been injured, but there was no sign of her. The disappointment—it had been her image that sustained him through the awful day—was like a blow, but he did not bow to it. He did not have that luxury.

  The dead men, four of them, were laid out on the chapel floor, to be prayed over and buried in the morning. The wounded, seven of whom were Kenbrook men, had been taken to the abbey to be looked after by Sister Margaret and her flock of gentle minions.

  Only when Dane had groomed, fed, and watered his horse did he permit himself to enter the keep, in search of his wife.

  Her handmaiden, Judith, awaited him in the hall, looking like a small, garish ghost in the flickering light from the fire pits. She was wringing her hands and trembling a little.

  “Where is your mistress?” Dane asked quietly. He knew, of course, that something was wrong, had known it when Gloriana did not come out into the courtyard to greet him.

  The girl was thin and small, and looked so fragile that a harsh word might break her. A tear slipped down her cheek and her lips trembled. “She was taken from us, milord.”

  Dane stood rigid, resisting the urge to grasp the chit and shake a more sensible answer out of her. “What the devil do you mean?” he rasped, but he knew. God help him, he knew.

  “She was in the churchyard, milord,” the servant babbled, bobbing once or twice, as though a curtsy would make what she had to say more credible. “It was raining a little, and I was worried she’d catch a chill, so I found a cloak to take to her—” Judith paused again, and a violent shudder moved through her. “I saw her slip to her knees, as if she was in terrible pain, and I started to run. Before I got to her, milord, she—she vanished.” The girl’s eyes were enormous, and there was no color to her flesh. “Some of the others, they say—they say the devil came and took her to”—her voice fell to a hushed whisper—“to hell—”

  Dane quelled the impatient rage rising within him and thrust a bloody hand through his hair. “Tell them,” he said calmly, “that anyone heard passing on such nonsense will be turned out.”

  Judith nodded, her eyes brimming again, her hands so tightly clasped that the knuckles stood out, white, from their sockets. “You’ll find her, won’t you, milord? You’ll bring her back?”

  Kenbrook was possessed of a despair so deep, so inconsolable, that it caused him to sway slightly on his feet. The force that had taken Gloriana from him was one he could not begin to comprehend, let alone combat. And yet he must not only grasp the mystery, but find a way to prevail over it.

  Gloriana was his soul; without her, he was not a man, but a living husk.

  “There’s been some sort of mistake,” he said, at long last, disbelieving the words even as he uttered them, taking no comfort from the lie and, by her face, giving none to the girl. “Such things cannot happen. People do not disappear like ghosts.”

  Judith started to speak—surely to protest—then stopped herself, visibly swallowing whatever she’d meant to say and nodding her head. Her sorrow at the loss of Gloriana was palpable, and Dane wondered if his own feelings were so plain.

  In the end, he did not care.

  “My men are hungry and tired,” he said. “See that food is brought to the hall, and more wood for the fires.”

  Judith nodded again and hurried away. Dane stood for a moment, stricken to stillness, then took himself to the tower room, where a single oil lamp burned, keeping its flickering vigil.

  He lit the other lamps, driving the greedy shadows into temporary retreat, searching, as he moved about the chamber, for some sign, some promise, some trace of Gloriana. Her clothes were there, and the chess pieces were neatly aligned on the board, in anticipation of a new game. He sensed a vague charge in the air, as though she might burst through the doorway at any moment, full of questions.

  “Gloriana,” he whispered.

  Then he shed his sword belt and stripped off his bloody clothes. He washed at a basin and then dressed himself again, in simple woolen leggings, a tunic, and soft boots. Taking up an oil lamp, heedless of the aching exhaustion numbing his body, Dane searched the whole of Kenbrook Hall, from the uppermost chamber of the tower to the Roman baths, calling to Gloriana, willing her to come back.

  Gloriana awakened to a sunny morning and the knowledge that she was still in the latter part of the twentieth century. Her first impulse was to wail with despair, but because she knew it would do no good, she bit her lower lip and waited until the worst of the urge had passed.

  Someone had left a stack of clothing on the cushioned seat beneath the window, modern things borrowed from some neighbor or relation, no doubt.

  It was not courage that finally drove Gloriana out of bed, but a desperate need to use the privy. As she passed along the hallway she caught a glimpse of Kirkwood, seated at the kitchen table. He must have known she was there, but he did not look up or speak, perhaps sensing that she didn’t want to be noticed, wearing only his shirt.

  Upon returning to her room, she went straight for the stack of clothes—blue denim pants, comfortably worn, modern undergarments, still in their packages, a green short-sleeved shirt with the word “Oxford” printed on the front in large white letters.

  After donning the skimpy, legless breeches—she remembered them from her childhood—Gloriana pondered the other item, a very odd bandeau, plainly meant to support her breasts. She could not recall ever seeing one before, and some time had passed before she figured out how to put it on. She was a little breathless with frustration, in fact, when she came out of the bedchamber, wearing the Oxford shirt and the leggings—“jeans,” her memory called them.

  Kirkwood acknowledged her this time, smiling and rising from his chair. “Good morning,” he said.

  Gloriana hesitated in the doorway, feeling self-conscious again She glanced behind him, hoping to see the friendly Marge, or even Mrs. Bond, but there was no one else in the room.

  “Good morning,” she replied, almost inaudibly and with great care.

  He looked pleased and gestured toward the chair opposite his own. “Come in and sit down. There are some sausages and eggs if you want them. Not a very healthy breakfast, I admit, but we all have our little deceits.”

  She frowned, taking the offered place at the table, confused. The food looked uncommonly good to her. Surely there could be no fault in eating it.

  Kirkwood chuckled at her consternation. “My God,” he breathed, “I am getting caught up in th
is little fantasy of ours. If Mrs. Bond and Marge and all those gawkers at the ruins of Kenbrook hadn’t seen you, I’d think I made you up. Tell me—are you truly a damsel in distress?”

  Gloriana filled her plate with painstaking care. Where she came from, people used their fingers at the table and occasionally a knife for cutting or spearing, but here there were all manner of utensils to contend with. She sorted Kirkwood’s words one by one, extracting every nuance of meaning before attempting a reply.

  “I want to go home,” she said firmly. “To Kenbrook Hall.”

  Kirkwood sighed. “Yes,” he replied, taking the spoon from Gloriana’s fingers, when she would have eaten her sausage, and replacing it with a pronged instrument. “That may be a problem—going home, I mean. Kenbrook is a ruin, you see. Except for the tower, of course. The government’s made a museum out of that.”

  Gloriana ached, and her sorrow came out in her voice, even though she was trying hard to be brave. “You don’t know how to send me back?”

  He flinched, as though he’d felt her pain. “My dear, I can’t explain how you got here, let alone get you back. In fact, I’m still trying to figure out why I believe this is anything but a hoax or a grand delusion on your part.”

  She laid down the utensil and pushed away her plate, all appetite gone. Her face must have showed the depth of her anguish, for Kirkwood reached across the table and took her hand, his grasp warm and strong.

  “If there is a way to help you, Gloriana,” he said gravely, “I shall find it. But you must be patient.”

  Gloriana nodded. A silent, frantic sob caught in her throat, and she swallowed it. She could not, would not spend the rest of her life in this gleaming, clamorous place, separated from Dane. She must find a way to return, and she would begin her quest by returning to Kenbrook.

  She got out of her chair and started for the door. It could not be far. Perhaps if she simply stood where she’d been standing before in the churchyard …

  Kirkwood reached her while she was still considering the knob and took her arm in a gentle hold. His next words made it clear that he had guessed her intention.

  “I’ll take you there in the car,” he said. “Can’t have you out wandering about on your own—the world is a dangerous place.”

  Five mintues later, they were driving along a lane that edged the lake. They passed the abbey, reduced by time to a few low walls, and when Gloriana looked for Hadleigh Castle, she saw no visible trace of it. Kenbrook, as she had seen for herself the day before, was naught but a tower now, surrounded by piles of dark gray stone.

  Kirkwood paid a toll, as though they were crossing a stranger’s bridge, and they were admitted to the grounds. Except for the attendant, there was no one else about.

  Gloriana scrambled over the shallow wall surrounding the graveyard and hurried to the place where Aurelia St. Gregory had been buried. The sentinel angels had fallen to dust long ago, but the crypt itself was there yet.

  Standing very still, closing her eyes and holding her breath, Gloriana willed herself back to the century she knew, back to Dane.

  Nothing happened. When she looked again, after an interval of very hard wishing, Kirkwood was standing before her, hands in the pockets of his trousers, head tipped to one side, expression sympathetic.

  “Why?” she whispered. “Why did this happen?” “I don’t know,” Kirkwood replied gently.

  Gloriana started resolutely toward the tower; it was that or dissolve into tears of defeat and sorrow. Once, while she and Dane were prisoners there, she had been flung from that world into this one, though the effect had lasted only a few moments. Perhaps she could find a passage into the past after all.

  Kirkwood, to his credit, did not try to stop Gloriana, but simply followed her into the tower and up the inner staircase. The place had changed greatly, of course, but she knew her way to the high chamber and climbed steadily toward it. All the while, she was going over the first transition in her mind.

  There was a gate.

  Gloriana had wandered through it as five-year-old Megan when summoned by the lady Elaina, who had soon brought her to Edwenna. But where, exactly, had this gate been? The memory stayed just out of reach, like a mischievous child playing a hiding game.

  The upper room was lined with tapestries, none of which had existed in Gloriana’s time, and there were glass cases all around, filled with relics of Kenbrook Hall’s glorious past. Bits of tile from the Roman baths. A jade chess piece, once held in the warm curve of Dane’s fingers while he pondered his next move. A dagger with a jeweled hilt, originally a gift to Edward, to commemorate his knighthood.

  Gloriana stood with her hands resting on the glass, her heart pounding, and said her husband’s name, once, softly, like a prayer.

  Kirkwood put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around to face him. “Tell me what’s happening inside you, Gloriana,” he said.

  She was trembling. How could she say what it felt like to see such things displayed as artifacts of another time in history? There were no words to explain.

  “Please help me,” she said.

  Kirkwood drew her into a brotherly embrace, and she clung to him and let her head rest against his shoulder.

  “I shall try,” he promised, but he sounded uncertain, and little wonder. What Gloriana was asking might very well prove impossible, and they both knew it.

  Chapter 12

  In his heart, Dane had known all along that he would not find Gloriana, but the knowledge did nothing to relieve him of the desperate need to search for her. When at last he fell into the bed in the tower room, half blind with fatigue and sorrow, he sought her still in the dark, misty twists and turns of his dreams.

  She was elusive, his Gloriana, and yet somehow near enough that he could almost catch the special, spicy scent of her skin, almost hear her voice. He awakened when the first light of dawn touched his face, as weary as if he had never slept at all.

  For a time, Dane sat on the edge of the marriage bed, staring at the table where Gloriana had been sitting on that curious occasion when she had vanished before his very eyes. He sighed and shoved a hand through his hair, baffled. He did not wonder, as other men might have done, if he’d been hallucinating on that occasion, or fallen victim to some clever artifice. During his career as a soldier, Dane had learned to trust his own senses and perceptions implicitly, and he did not doubt them now.

  He stood and crossed the room to brush his fingertips lightly over the back of the chair where Gloriana had sat to eat, to play chess, to work her special and singular magic. She’d gone back, he was certain, to that other world that had spawned her in the first place.

  For a moment, Dane’s grief was so profound, so soul-shattering, that he could not even breathe. His vision blurred, and his throat closed as painfully as if a strangler’s fingers had shut tight around his windpipe.

  A rap at the door startled him into a semblance of composure. The hinges creaked.

  “Dane?” It was Gareth’s voice, gruff with worry and impatience, and he carried a lamp, for light spilled into the shadow-ridden chamber, creeping slowly across the floor. “Where is your wife? God’s blood, man, you would not believe the rumors—”

  Dane turned slowly to face his brother, regarding him in silence. Here was a peril he had not considered in his anguish and confusion. Of course the handmaiden, Judith, would have given her account of Gloriana’s abrupt disappearance—it had happened among the gravestones of Kenbrook Hall, to make matters worse—to everyone who paused to listen. Any hint of sorcery was deadly among these people, who ascribed all out-of-the-ordinary events to the provenance of Satan.

  “Damn you,” Gareth rasped, “will you speak?”

  Dane sighed. “If you’ve heard that Gloriana vanished, I suppose it’s true.”

  “You suppose it’s true?” Gareth echoed, rousing exasperation in Dane, where only misery had been before. “God’s breath, Kenbrook, human beings do not simply dissolve into the air!”

&nb
sp; Dane found wine and, despite the early hour, poured himself a portion. Gareth, who would have to serve himself if he wanted refreshment, must have risen before cock’s crow in order to reach Kenbrook Hall so quickly. Or, perhaps, he had not gone to bed in the first place.

  “No,” Dane agreed, at his leisure, after a sip or two, which did nothing to brace him up. He set the goblet aside, with a murmur of disgust. “They do not. But Gloriana is no ordinary mortal.”

  Gareth glanced nervously toward the great doors of the tower room, which stood slightly ajar. “What is she, then, if not a flesh and blood woman?” he asked, in a troubled whisper.

  Dane might have laughed at his brother’s tragic expression had the situation not been so grave. “Gloriana is a woman, Gareth. You may rest assured of that.” He could not help lifting his gaze to the bed he had shared with his wife and recalling, with bittersweet longing, the brief, tempestuous pleasures they had known there. “She is no witch, no sorceress, no minion of the devil, if that’s what your precious vassals and peasants are saying.”

  “They are simple people,” Gareth pointed out, sounding mildly defensive and still taking care to keep his voice low. “And what should they think, when one of their own is witness to something like that?”

  “Gloriana is not evil,” Dane said. He paced as he spoke, because he was too restless to sit. “And I cannot explain what occurred, because I do not understand it myself. I will tell you—and may the Holy Virgin preserve you if I find you’ve uttered a word of this to another living soul—that I once saw Gloriana fade like so much smoke. It happened in this room where we now stand—she was here, and then, in the next instant, she was gone.” Dane paused to sigh again, tilting his head back to flex the aching muscles in his neck, and when he met his brother’s gaze, he knew he was revealing a great deal. “The difference being, of course, that she reappeared almost immediately.”

  Gareth at last succumbed and raised Dane’s discarded wine goblet to drain its contents in a single swallow. Then he went to the threshold, checked the passageway for eavesdroppers—a belated effort, it seemed to Dane—and closed the heavy doors. While he pondered his younger brother’s words, Gareth refilled the goblet from the ewer on a table at the edge of the room.