Coming down the lane was one of the little English buses, as usual doing about fifty miles an hour on the narrow street.
Suddenly, Dougless stood up straight. The bus was coming, the man was walking very fast, and, somehow, she instinctively knew he was going to walk in front of the bus. Without another thought, Dougless started to run. Just as she took flight, the vicar walked from behind the church in time to see the man and the fast-moving vehicle. He too started running.
Dougless reached the man first. She made her best flying tackle, the one she’d learned from playing football with her Colorado cousins, and landed on top of him. The two of them skidded across the graveled path on his armor as though it were a little rowboat as the bus flew past them. If Dougless had been only one second later, the man would have been hit by the bus.
“Are you all right?” the vicar asked, offering his hand to help Dougless up.
“I . . . I think so,” she said as she stood up and dusted herself off. “You okay?” she asked the man on the ground.
“What manner of chariot was that?” he asked, sitting up, but not attempting to stand. He looked dazed. “I did not hear it coming.” His voice lowered. “And there were no horses.”
Dougless exchanged looks with the vicar.
“I’ll get him a glass of water,” the vicar said, giving a little smile to Dougless as though to say, You saved him, so he’s yours.
“Wait!” the man said. “What year is this?”
“Nineteen eighty-eight,” the vicar answered, and when the man lay back on the ground as if exhausted, the vicar looked at Dougless. “I’ll get the water,” he said, then went hurrying off, leaving them alone.
Dougless offered her hand to the man on the ground, but he refused it and stood up on his own.
“I think you ought to sit down,” she said kindly as she motioned to an iron bench inside the low stone wall. He wouldn’t go first but followed her through the open gate, then wouldn’t sit until she had. But Dougless pushed him to sit down. He looked too pale and too bewildered to pay attention to courtesy.
“You’re dangerous, you know that? Listen, you sit right here and
I’m going to call a doctor. You are not well.”
She turned away, but his words halted her. “I think perhaps I am dead,” he said softly. She looked back at him in speculation. If he was suicidal, then she couldn’t leave him alone. “Why don’t you come with me?” she said quietly. “We’ll go together to find you some help.”
He didn’t move from the bench. “What manner of conveyance was it that nearly struck me down?”
Dougless moved to sit beside him. If he was suicidal, maybe what he needed most was someone to talk to. “Where are you from? You sound English, but you have an accent I’ve never heard before.”
“I am English. What was the chariot?”
“All right,” she said with a sigh. She could play along with him. “That was what the English call a coach. In America, it’s called a minibus. It was going entirely too fast, but it’s my opinion that the only thing of the twentieth century the English have really accepted is the speed of the motor vehicle.” She grimaced. “So what else don’t you know about? Airplanes? Trains?”
It was one thing to offer help, but she had important things of her own to take care of. “Look, I really need to go. Let’s go to the rectory and have the vicar call a doctor.” She paused. “Or maybe we should call your mother.” Surely the people of this village knew of this crazy man who ran about in armor and pretended he’d never seen a wristwatch or a bus.
“My mother,” the man said, his lips forming a little smile. “I would imagine my mother is dead now.”
Maybe grief had made him lose his memory. Dougless softened. “I’m sorry. Did she die recently?”
He looked up at the sky for a moment before answering. “About four hundred years ago.”
At that Dougless started to rise. “I’m calling someone.”
But he caught her hand and wouldn’t let her leave. “I was sitting . . . in a room writing my mother a letter when I heard a woman weeping. The room darkened, my head swam; then I was standing over a woman—you.” He looked up at her with pleading eyes.
Dougless thought that leaving this man alone would be so much easier if he weren’t so utterly divine looking. “Maybe you blacked out and don’t remember dressing up and going to the church. Why don’t you tell me where you live so I can walk you home?”
“When I was in the room, it was the year of our Lord 1564.”
Delusional, Dougless thought. Beautiful but crazy. My luck.
“Come with me,” she said softly, as though speaking to a child about to step over a cliff. “We’ll find someone to help you.”
The man came off the bench quickly, his blue eyes blazing. The size of him, the anger of him, not to mention that he was steel-covered and carried a sword that looked to be razor sharp, made Dougless step back.
“I am not yet ready for Bedlam, mistress. I know not why I am here or how I came to be here, but I know who I am and from whence I came.”
Suddenly, laughter began to rumble deep inside Dougless. “And you came from the sixteenth century. Queen Elizabeth’s time, right? The first Elizabeth, of course. Oh, boy! This is going to be the best Dougless-story ever. I’m jilted in the morning and an hour later a ghost holds a sword to my throat.” She stood up. “Thanks a lot, mister. You’ve cheered me up immensely. I am now going to call my sister and ask her to wire me ten pounds—no more, no less—then I’m catching a train to the hotel where Robert and I are staying. I’ll get my plane ticket, then I’m going home. I’m sure that after today the rest of my life is going to be uneventful.”
She turned away from him, but he blocked her path. From inside his balloon shorts he withdrew a leather pouch, looked in it, took out a few coins, and pressed them into Dougless’s hand, closing her fingers over them.
“Take the ten pounds, woman, and be gone. It is worth that and more to be rid of your spiteful tongue. I will beseech God to reverse your wickedness.”
She was tempted to throw the money at him, but her alternative was to call her sister again. “That’s me, Wicked Witch Dougless. I don’t know why I want a train when I have a perfectly good broomstick. I’ll send your money back in care of the vicar. So long, and I hope we never meet again.”
She turned and left the churchyard just as the vicar returned with the man’s water. Let someone else deal with his fantasies, she thought. The man probably had a whole trunk full of costumes. Today he’s an Elizabethan knight, tomorrow he’s Abraham Lincoln—or Horatio Nelson, since he’s English.
It was easy to find the train station in the little village, and she went to the window to purchase her ticket.
“That’ll be three pounds six,” the man behind the window said.
Dougless had never been able to figure out the English money. There seemed to be so many coins that had the same value, so she shoved the coins the man had given her under the cage window. “Is this enough?”
The man looked at the three coins one by one, slowly turning them over, examining them carefully. After a moment, he looked back at Dougless, then excused himself.
I’ll probably be arrested for passing counterfeit money, Dougless thought as she waited for the man to return. Being arrested would be a fitting end to a perfect day.
After a few minutes a man with an official-looking hat came to the window. “We can’t take these, miss. I think you ought to take them to Oliver Samuelson. He’s just around the corner to your right.”
“Will he give me train fare for the coins?”
“I ’spect he will that,” the man said, seeming to be amused at some private joke.
“Thank you,” Dougless murmured as she took the coins. Maybe she should call her sister and forget about the coins. She looked at them, but they looked as foreign as all foreign coins did. With a sigh, she turned right and came to a shop. “Oliver Samuelson, Coin Dealer” the painted window sai
d.
Inside the shop, a bald-headed little man was sitting behind a desk, a jeweler’s loupe about his shiny forehead. “Yes?” he asked when Dougless entered.
“The man in the train station sent me to you. He said you might give me train fare for these.”
The man took the coins and looked at them under the jeweler’s loupe. After a moment he began to softly chuckle. “Train fare, indeed.”
He looked up. “All right, miss,” he said. “I will give you five hundred pounds each for these, and this one is worth about, say, five thousand pounds. But I don’t have that much money here. I’ll have to call some people in London. Can you wait a few days for the money?”
Dougless couldn’t speak for a moment. “Five thousand pounds?”
“All right, six thousand, but not a shilling more.”
“I . . . I . . .”
“Do you want to sell them or not? They’re not ill-gotten are they?”
“No, at least I don’t think so,” Dougless whispered. “But I have to talk to someone before I sell them. You’re sure they’re genuine?”
“As a rule medieval coins aren’t so valuable, but these are rare and in mint condition. You don’t by chance have more, do you?”
“Actually, I believe there are a few more.” Maybe a whole bag full of them, she thought.
The man smiled at her as though she were the light of his life. “If you have a fifteen-shilling piece with a queen in a ship on it, let me see it. I can’t afford it, but I’m sure I can find a buyer.”
Dougless started backing toward the door.
“Or a double,” he said. “I’d like to have an Edward the Sixth double.”
Nodding at him, Dougless left his shop. In a daze, she walked back to the church. The man wasn’t in the churchyard, so she hoped he hadn’t left. She went into the church, and there he was, on his knees before the white tomb of the earl, his hands clasped, his head bowed in prayer.
The vicar stepped from the shadows to stand beside her. “He’s been there since you left. I tried, but I couldn’t get him to stand up. Something is deeply troubling that poor man.” He turned to her. “He’s your friend?”
“No, actually, I just met him this morning. I thought he was from here.”
The vicar smiled. “My parishioners seldom wear armor.” He looked at his watch. “I must go, but you’ll stay with him? For some reason, I hate to see him left alone.”
Dougless said that she would stay by him, then the vicar left the church, and she was alone with the praying man. Quietly, she walked to stand behind him. “Who are you?” she whispered.
He didn’t open his eyes, unclasp his hands, or even lift his head. “I am Nicholas Stafford, earl of Thornwyck.”
It took Dougless a moment to remember where she’d heard that name before, then she looked at the marble tomb. Carved deeply in Gothic letters was the name, Nicholas Stafford, Earl of Thornwyck. And the full-length sculpture of the man on top of the tomb was wearing exactly what this man was wearing. And the face carved in the marble was this man’s face.
The idea that this man really was from the past, really was a living, breathing ghost, was more than Dougless could comprehend. She took a deep breath. “You don’t have any identification, do you?” she asked, trying to lighten the moment.
Lifting his head, the man opened his eyes and glared at her. “Do you doubt my word?” he asked angrily. “You, the witch who has done this to me, can doubt me? If I did not fear being accused of sorcery myself, I would denounce you and stay to watch you burn.”
Standing there, silent, her thoughts in turmoil, Dougless watched as the man turned away and began to pray again.
TWO
When at last Nicholas Stafford stood up, he stared at the young woman before him. Her manner, her dress, and her speech were so strange to him that he could hardly keep his thoughts together. She looked to be the witch he knew her to be: she was as beautiful as any woman he’d ever seen, her uncased hair flowing to her shoulders, her eyes as green as emeralds, and her skin was white, flawless. But she was wearing an indecently short skirt, as though she were daring the contempt of man and God alike.
In spite of the fact that he felt dizzy and weak, he did not allow himself to waver from his firm stance. He returned her straightforward glare with one of his own.
He still could not believe what had happened to him. At the lowest point in his life, when there seemed to be no hope in his life, his mother had written him that at last she had discovered something that would give them the hope they had nearly abandoned. He had been writing her, questioning her, and revealing some information when he’d heard a woman weeping. The sound of tears in a place of confinement was not so unusual, but something about this woman’s weeping had made him put down his pen.
When the woman’s sobs had grown until they’d filled the little room, echoing off the stone walls and ceiling, Nicholas had put his hands over his ears to shut out the sound. But he had still heard her. Her weeping had grown louder, until he could no longer hear his own thoughts. Overwhelmed, he’d put his head down on the table and given himself over to the pull of the woman.
Then, it had been as though he were dreaming. He knew he was still sitting, his head still on the table, but at the same time, he was trying to stand up. When he was at last on his feet, the floor seemed to fall away from under him. He felt light, as though he were floating. Then he held out his hand and saw, to his horror, that his hand seemed to have lost substance. He could see through his hand. Staggering toward the door, he tried to call out, but no sound came from his mouth. As he watched, the door seemed to fall away, and with it went the room. For a moment Nicholas appeared to be standing on nothing. There was a void around him, his body naught but a shadow through which he could see the darkness of nothing.
He had no idea how long he drifted in the nothingness, feeling neither hot nor cold, hearing nothing but the woman’s deep weeping.
One moment he was nowhere, was but a shadow, and the next moment he was standing in the sunlight in a church. He had on different clothes. Now he was wearing demi-armor, the armor he wore only for the most auspicious occasions, and he had on his emerald satin slops.
Before him, weeping next to a tomb was a girl or woman, he could not tell which, for her hair was hanging slovenly over her face. She was weeping so hard, so intent on her own misery, that she did not see him.
Nicholas’s eyes moved from her to look up at the tomb she was clutching—and it was the sight of the tomb that made him step backward. On top of it was a white marble sculpture of . . . himself. Carved beneath was his name and today’s date. They have buried me before I am dead? he wondered in horror.
Feeling sick from his experience and at seeing his own tomb, he looked about the church. There were burial plaques set in the walls. The dates read, 1734,1812,1902.
No, he thought, it could not be. But as he looked at the church he could see that everything was different. The church was so very plain. The beams were bare wood; the stone corbels were unpainted. The altar cloth looked as though it had been embroidered by a clumsy child.
He looked back down at the sobbing woman. A witch! he thought. She was the witch who had called him forth to another time and place. When she had at last stopped her sobbing long enough to become aware of his presence, he had immediately demanded that she return him—he had to return, he thought, for his honor and the future of his family depended upon his returning. But at his words, she had once again collapsed into helpless sobbing.
It did not take him long to discover that she was as vile-tempered and sharp-tongued as she was evil. She had even been bold enough to say she had no knowledge of how he came to be in this place, and that she knew nothing of why he was there.
At last she had left the church, and Nicholas had been relieved when she’d gone. He was feeling more steady, and he was beginning to believe that he had dreamed that flight through the void. Perhaps all that he was experiencing was merely a dream of remar
kable reality.
By the time he left the church, he was feeling much stronger, and he was glad to see that the churchyard looked the same as all churchyards—but he did not pause to examine the gravestones’ dates. One of those in the church had been 1982—a date he could not fathom.
He left through the church gate and walked into the silent road. Where were the people? he wondered. And the horses? Where were the carts carrying goods?
What happened next had happened too quickly for him to remember clearly. There was a sound to his left, a loud, fast sound such as he’d never heard before; then, to his right, came the witch, running faster than a woman should. Nicholas was unprepared when the woman leaped on him. He was weaker than he realized because the frail weight of the woman knocked him to the ground.
Seconds after they fell to the earth together, close by them roared an obscenly fast horseless chariot. Afterward, Nicholas had asked the woman and the vicar—who was properly dressed in an unadorned, long robe as befitted his station—questions, but they had seemed to believe that Nicholas was without sanity. He allowed the witch to lead him back inside the churchyard. Was this his fate? he wondered. Was he destined to die alone in a strange place . . . in a strange time?
He had tried to explain to the witch that she must return him to his own time. He told her of his need, but she persisted in pretending that she knew nothing of how or why he was in this place. He’d had difficulty understanding her speech, and that, combined with the ordinariness of her dress—no jewels, no gold, no silver—told him she was of peasant stock. Because of the strangeness of her speech, it had taken him a while to understand that she was begging money from him. She was demanding of him the outrageous sum of ten pounds! But he did not dare refuse her demand for fear of what other spells she might perform.
The instant she had the money, she left, and Nicholas went back inside the church. Slowly, he walked to the tomb, his tomb, and ran his fingers over the carving of the death date. Had he died when he’d traveled through the void? When the witch had conjured him forth to this time—the churchman had said it was now 1988, four hundred and twenty-four years later—did that mean she had killed him in 1564?
Jude Deveraux - A knight in Shining Armour Page 4