by Glenn Cooper
John finally stood and balanced himself against the mast.
“How much longer?”
He hadn’t noticed that Wisdom had been napping. He snapped awake and looked around, saying, “That settlement on the hill over there, that is Richmond. Do you see the smoke? There is a forge there. We are almost arrived at Kingston.”
Around a bend in the river, just beyond another wooden bridge, John saw a disturbing sight on the south bank. A gallows had been erected on a grassy verge, five poles in a row, each with a man hanging by the neck. But the men, whose hands were tied behind their backs, weren’t swaying in the wind; they were moving their legs in a macabre dance. The crew noticed too and began pointing and laughing.
“Jesus,” John said softly. “We’ve got to help them.”
Wisdom looked at the spectacle and said, “Them? They are beyond help. I saw these self-same men the last time I made this journey a fortnight ago.”
“They’re still moving.”
“You still have not come to grips with our realities,” Wisdom said. “They are hung but they are not dead.”
John sighed. “What did they do to deserve this?”
“I have no knowledge of their transgressions but it was enough to incur the ire of the king or one of his lords. Look there, instead. Hampton Palace.”
John had made the obligatory trip to Hampton Court Palace once, with Emily as it happened. It was on a Saturday in the summertime and the lines were long and the grounds were packed with tourists. The palace had been originally built by Cardinal Wolsey, chief minister to Henry VIII, but the king seized it when Wolsey fell out of favor and expanded it to accommodate his full court of one thousand. Of all of Henry’s sixty houses and palaces it was said he had most liked Hampton. Successive monarchs made further, massive additions and renovations and the modern tourist attraction was a hodge-podge of Tudor and Stuart architectural whims. Now John recalled his visit to Hampton in much the way one remembers touring an art museum—grand halls, endless galleries of paintings, tapestries and sculptures, and sore feet.
The palace he saw here was a far cry from the one in his mind’s eye. Though substantial and larger than almost any building he had seen from the river, it paled in comparison to the Hampton Court Palace on Earth. The construction materials were predominately brick but the fascia facing the river had a typical Tudor-style wooden exoskeleton of large, angled beams. There were multiple turrets and chimneys, many belching smoke. Also, he could see no formal gardens. The palace seemed to rise from a wild meadow.
The pilot landed the boat at a dock just downstream from a large three-masted ship, a fine looking craft with several small deck-mounted cannon. A few bored-looking sailors eyed them suspiciously until an older man, their superior officer, spotted Wisdom and called down to him.
“You were recently at Kingston. What brings you back so soon?”
“I need to see the king.”
“What for?”
“Urgent business. A new arrival he will surely want to meet.”
The officer fixed his eyes on John as he asked, “Why’s that?”
“Because he is not dead, that is why.”
The officer’s jaw slackened and as he scampered down the gangplank he shouted at Wisdom to wait at the palace gate.
Before they were allowed to enter John was compelled to relinquish his sword and his pistol. Inside, a squad of po-faced soldiers took them to a rather small room which lacked even one stick of furniture. There they stood for a good while, offered neither food or drink, until a small man with a drawn face and sallow complexion, a flowing black robe, and a flat black cap entered. He greeted Wisdom cordially and pulled him to a corner of the room. As the two men whispered the small man kept glancing at John through his round, ferret-like eyes.
When they were finished talking Wisdom said to John, “The king has requested that I speak to him first. You will be summoned when he pleases.”
John waited, pacing the room like a prison cell. The small-paned, leaded-glass windows offered a view toward the river. A blue heron perched on the bank and took to wing when a man approached with a fishing pole. Here he was, about to meet one of the most famous men in history but all he could think about was Emily. Was she scared? Was she hurt? Had she given up hope of ever making it back home?
I will find you, he thought.
I will find you.
It took an hour for Wisdom to return and when he did he flashed his crooked smile.
“The king is indeed most eager to meet you,” he said.
John noticed a bulge under Wisdom’s jacket that hadn’t been there before.
“You look pleased. Did he pay you well?”
The smile fell from his face, Wisdom said, “I am pleased to help the king and I am pleased to help you.”
“Did you help this Guise guy too?”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
“Then how did you know Emily was in France?”
“The kingdom is thick with spies.”
“Whatever you say, Solomon. Let’s go meet Henry. I’m itching to see which one of the movies got his looks right.”
The great hall at this Hampton Court vaguely resembled the one John remembered on Earth. Both were lofty, with vaulted and buttressed chambers, but this one lacked stained glass windows and tapestries. Lining the walls, three to four deep, were men dressed in clothes of different eras, including a few in fairly modern garb. The hall was still. Every eye tracked John as he walked down the long axis of the room to meet the man seated on a carved throne. Beside him stood the small man in black. As they got closer, Wisdom peeled off, leaving John to make the final approach alone.
The king bore no resemblance to the classic Holbein portraits of Henry or any modern actor’s portrayal. This man was heavy-set but not excessively fat. He seemed a tall, well-muscled fellow in his late middle-age with a deeply lined, shaved face with no trace of the famously red beard he was known for in life, or for that matter, the jowls. He was not handsome, nor was he ugly. If anything, there was an ordinariness about him. His hair was completely gray and longish, parted in the middle, and he absently combed back unruly forelocks with his fingers. Only his outfit matched John’s conception of the sixteenth-century monarch: a belted burgundy tunic, hose, slippers and an over-sized, padded, fur-trimmed cloak. Otherwise, the man seated on the throne would have been laughed out of some modern pub’s Henry VIII look-alike contest.
The small man in black told John to halt when he got within ten feet of the king.
Henry inspected him closely and sniffed a few times.
“It is customary to bow to the king,” the small man said.
Before John could decide whether and how to comply, Henry said, “We can dispense with that, Cromwell. He is not from our time, nor is he from our realm. You do not even belong here, as I understand it, John Camp.”
“That’s correct, sir, or Your Majesty. I don’t want to offend but I’m not sure how I’m supposed to address you.”
Henry waved his hand dismissively. “Your Majesty will do. Master Wisdom has informed me of your peculiar circumstances. I do not profess to understand them.”
“That makes two of us,” John said. Then he added, “Your Majesty.”
Henry smiled. “You do not have to say that every time you address me. It will slow down our communication. Tell me, John Camp …”
John interrupted him. “You can just call me John. So we don’t slow down our communication.”
Henry laughed heartily. “Very good, John. Tell me, are you hungry?”
“I could eat.”
“Then we shall lay on a feast where we might talk at length. Cromwell, give our guest accommodations where he might refresh himself for a spell.”
A silent Cromwell led John from the hall down a long, empty corridor. John had to slow his gait to match Cromwell’s mincing steps.
“Are you Thomas Cromwell?” John asked.
Cromwell stopped and looked at John, his
dour expression turning to one of evident pleasure.
“You know of me?”
“In my day you’re almost as famous as King Henry.”
“You flatter me, sir.”
“Mind if I ask you something?”
“Please do.”
“Henry had you executed. Now you’re at his side.”
Cromwell sighed. “He regretted his actions and when we were reunited in this realm a very long time ago, he asked for my forgiveness and I granted it. Hell is a hard, hard place and to have a king’s grace is no small thing. I trust the bond we have will endure for the eternity of our time here.”
They started walking again.
“You’re the king’s advisor?” John asked.
“He has many but I am his principal advisor, his chancellor.”
“Then I hope you’ll advise him to help me.”
“I will listen to what you desire and we shall see if an accommodation can be reached.”
John’s room was small with a window overlooking a horse meadow. Once alone, he washed his hands and face from a basin then lay on the lumpy mattress. While he waited for someone to come and fetch him, he allowed his eyes to flutter closed.
The MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter was flying low over the Sangin district of Helmand Province. It was a pitch-black night but John didn’t need to see the land to know its features. Countless missions had taught him that the terrain was a vast plain of rocky nothingness, baked brown and tan by the hot, relentless sun. On his first tour, he had reckoned that the rural Afghan landscape had a certain spare beauty, but his admiration for it had drained away like sand through an hourglass. He had come to feel it was as alien and lonely as the moon, a place where he and his men didn’t belong. But in five days they’d be out; if this wasn’t their last mission it was, at worst, their penultimate.
The Black Hawk co-pilot radioed that they were approaching the LZ.
“Five clicks,” he told his men.
The eleven Green Berets under his command were a scrappy-looking bunch, most of them heavily bearded with non-regulation haircuts. He knew more about them than his own brother and he cared more about them too. God willing, they’d be back at Elgin in a week, getting drunk together in a Fort Walton Beach dive-bar and hauling each other’s asses back to base. Maybe he’d do another tour with them, maybe not. He was getting pretty damned tired of the mission of training up the Afghans and worrying about one of them turning his M-16 on them. Tonight they were on their own which was the way he liked it. All he had to deal with was the Taliban.
He was shoulder-to-shoulder with his warrant officer, Mike Entwistle, another West Pointer who was poised to pick up his own special forces team when he got his promotion to CO.
“Mike, your guys are going to take a couple of minutes longer to get to the rear of the house. Give me three clicks on the radio when you’re in position.”
“Roger that. What’s the HVT’s name again?”
Andy Tannenbaum, the team’s intelligence sergeant was sitting opposite. He pulled a grainy photo from a breast pocket. “Fuckhead’s name is Fazal Toofan. He likes to kill people with explosives.”
SFO Stankiewicz piped up, “So do I.”
The medic, Ben Knebel, snorted, “Christ, T-Baum, most people carry pictures of their girlfriends. You’ve got a fucking Tali in your wallet.”
“Zip it, guys,” John said. “Focus and don’t fuck up, okay? I want all of us to make it out in one piece. We’re supposed to bring this mother back alive but if we have to smoke him then we’ll smoke him. Follow my lead.”
The men checked the safeties on their MP-5s and the batteries on the lights and lasers hanging off the gun rails, a study in the art of being loose and tense at the same time. This wasn’t their first rodeo.
John got the countdown to the LZ from the cockpit and said his usual silent prayer as the chopper thudded against the cold desert floor.
John awoke to someone thudding against his door with the heel of a hand. He rubbed his eyes and swung his feet to the floor.
A lethargic young man informed John that he had come to bring him to the king’s table. He quickly shook off the effects of the nap. He was used to it; he’d had the dream before. Passing along the long corridor he asked the young man questions such as how many people were at the palace, what eras were they from, but after a series of “dunnos” and “can’t say” he gave up. The great hall was empty now but walking across its expanse, John heard a multitude of voices in the distance and when he crossed the threshold into the banqueting hall he saw at least a hundred people seated at long, double-sided tables. At first, John wasn’t noticed but when his presence was recognized, the room quieted as men lowered their tankards and their voices, watching him approach the king.
As he passed among them, John’s stomach soured at the pungency of the assembled masses, an unpleasant mixture of body odor and the peculiar aroma of decay they emitted, as if they were alive and dead at the same time. Some wore loose robes, others, Elizabethan doublets; some had military uniforms that spanned the centuries. Their clothes suggested they clung to the time they had lived, patching and re-patching the cloth and nursing the fabric through the eons. There was a smattering of women too, perhaps one for every twenty men. The women stared hardest at him, through grim, hollow eyes. As he passed within a few feet of one of them, a young woman who might have been pretty once, she suddenly reached out with a hand and almost touched his leg then pulled it back with a faraway, almost longing look on her face. The man sitting next to her, a stocky brute in a medieval robe with a food-littered beard slapped her hard with the back of his hand.
John stopped in his tracks and glowered at the man.
“You do that again and I’ll rip your arm off.”
The man rose, his hand on the pommel of his sword. John was taller by a foot and a half but the man had rage in his eyes and didn’t seem intimidated by size. John readied himself for conflict and the room fell into complete silence.
The man spoke his English with a heavy French accent, “This is my woman and I will do with her as I please.”
John fixed him with a hard-man stare. “Not while I’m around.”
The man began to pull his sword when a voice rang out, “Blouet, you Norman hound, sit down or my dogs will feast on your brains!” The king was standing at his table, bellowing with full lung-power. “John Camp, do not bother yourself with a sorry soul such as our Blouet. He comes from a time where men used their swords rather than their heads. Join me now.”
Blouet let his sword drop to its hilt and cursed under his breath as he slunk back to his chair. John winked at the astonished young woman and strode toward the king.
Henry’s table seated about twenty, three of them female. Wisdom was off to one end, his hands greasy with meat. Henry sat between two women. To his right, a stately, silver-haired woman in a brocaded gown of green silk, to his left, an attractive, petite blonde in a yellow dress like something a twentieth-century flapper might wear. There was an empty chair opposite the king and that was where John was intended, flanked by Cromwell on one side and a brooding, raven-haired young woman on the other.
“Sit yourself down,” the king ordered. “Have food. Have drink.”
As soon as he sat a servant appeared and filled his tankard with ale. The table was narrow enough for John to smell Henry’s beery breath. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the moment, sitting across the table from the most illustrious of all kings, surrounded by all these dead souls. He grabbed the tankard and drank half of it down.
“Ha!” Henry said. “A man of appetites! Do you see that, Cromwell? I told you I liked this man.”
Cromwell offered a thin smile.
Henry placed a hand on the older woman’s shoulder. She had an austere, regal bearing and sad eyes. “John, I would like to introduce this woman to you. She is dear to me, dearer than any. She is my wife, my mother, my sister, my queen. I give you the Empress Matilda.”
John stood and exten
ded a hand but Matilda only nodded, keeping her hands to herself. He awkwardly sat down, searching his mind for Matildas in history but coming up blank.
As if reading his mind, Henry expanded on the introduction. “Matilda, daughter of King Henry the First, good wife to Henry the Fifth, Holy Roman Emperor, mother to King Henry the Second. She herself battled her brother Stephen for the crown and came within a whisker of being queen of England in her own right. Well, all that is far, far away now. She passed in the year … what year was it again, my dear?”
“1167,” she said.
“Such a long, long time ago,” the king said. “She is a saint of a woman who, but for the sake of some utterly meaningless transgression or another would be in Heaven, not here. Still, I am pleased to have her by my side.”
“Happy to meet you,” John said.
She looked him over and sighed with the weariness of a woman who had endured a thousand years in Hell.
“Eat, John, eat!” the king said.
The table was groaning under cooked game, fish, the eggs of large fowl and small, and meat pies. He saw no utensils; people were using their hands and their belt knives.
“Norfolk!” the King said to a handsome, scowling man with a tidy, black beard, seated beside Matilda. “Give our guest a knife.”
The Duke of Norfolk stood, withdrew a dagger from his belt and reaching over the table, aggressively plunged it into the table only inches from one of John’s hands. John didn’t flinch. He loosened it back and forth and used it to spear a capon’s breast from a platter under Norfolk’s dark gaze.
Henry laughed and bade Norfolk to be seated.
“Our Norfolk, John de Mowbray here, is full-blooded,” Henry said. “He warms to new men slowly, if at all. Yet he is an excellent soldier and commander of men at arms. He served my predecessor, Henry the Fifth, as his Norfolk. Because, alas, he expired at a young age, he has proven to be a most vigorous presence in my court.”
“Thanks for the knife,” John said, pointing it provocatively at Norfolk. “Seems to work, just fine.” From the corner of his eye he saw the raven-haired woman beside him hiding a satisfied look behind the cover of her hand.