Kiss Across Kingdoms

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “We will be, eventually,” Alex said softly.

  Sydney caught her breath as her middle seemed to drop away inside her.

  Alex stroked her cheek. “Don’t look so terrified. A thousand years passes in no time at all. I know it doesn’t seem that way to you now. Your grasp of time will adjust eventually.”

  “You’re assuming that I will be turned,” she said flatly.

  Alex’s gaze was steady. “It’s not an assumption. It’s simply the only alternative I can bear to consider.” He shifted his gaze to Rafe. “Sydney is right. In all our talk of the past, when we relax enough to think of it, you have never spoken of Powys, or Mercia. Not once.”

  Rafe plucked at the sheet by his thigh, concentrating on it. “It wasn’t deliberate,” he said at last.

  “Will you not at least warn me of what to expect?” Sydney asked softly. “I’m going back there, too.”

  Rafe looked up at them both, startled.

  “He can’t give you specifics,” Alex said quietly. “If he did, it would change your behavior when you get there.”

  “If I do not know the history, how will I know what I cannot change?” she asked. “Gods, this is impossible!”

  Rafe picked up her fist, eased open her fingers and stroked her palm. “We’ll be together,” he told her quietly. “And I remember what happened. Far too well.”

  Alex caught their joined hands between both of his and held them still. “Rafe will protect you,” he said quietly. “Because you are going back into time with him is the only reason I can let you do it. He will know what to do.”

  Sydney bit her lip. “And who protects Rafe?” she asked.

  Alex sighed and let their hands go.

  Rafe reached up and held Alex’s face in his hands. “I’ll be fine,” he said, his voice low. “I survived it once already. I’ll be braced, this time.”

  “No, I don’t think you will,” Alex replied. “I listen to Brody and Veris, too. It isn’t easier, the second time around. It’s harder, because this time, you know what is going to happen.”

  “And knowing that, you will still stay behind?” Rafe said.

  “I have to. Because I did.” Alex gave him a weak smile. “Time is the only force in nature you can’t argue with.”

  “Not the only one,” Sydney said softly.

  Rafe nodded. “There’s love, too,” he said. “If you doubt me, trust that I love Sydney and will keep her safe no matter what happens and that I love you and I will return.”

  Chapter Three

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to just lie down now and save you the trouble of having to pick us up afterward?” Sydney asked the room in general. They were still in her bedroom, only now there were five more people bustling around the room and Veris had a stethoscope slung around his neck, too. There were IV stands on either side of her bed and a cart of medical equipment that rattled metallically as Alex sorted through it.

  It made the coming jump more of a reality than it had been until this moment. They really were going to do this…and without Alex.

  “Don’t worry about falling down. We’ll catch you,” Taylor assured her, resting her hand on Sydney’s shoulder.

  “It’s not the fall I’m worrying about,” Sydney told her. “I just thought it would save you the trouble, that’s all.”

  “We’re not entirely certain if the position you jump in affects the way you land,” Brody said. “If you arrive lying down in the middle of a battle, that might be a bit awkward.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Rafe said impatiently. “I’m not going to jump us back into the middle of a battle.” He had been irascible all morning and everyone had been understanding about his flare ups, which had just made it worse.

  “Do you have a moment picked out?” Veris asked. “Something you remember well, with lots of emotion?”

  Rafe sighed. “A nice quiet moment when I was teaching Llewelyn’s son his letters.”

  “You were a teacher?” Taylor asked curiously.

  “I was Llewelyn’s scribe and he was determined his sons would be literate and educated.” Rafe shrugged. “It’s the most harmless moment I can remember of that time.”

  Veris looked at him sharply. Then he moved his head in a tiny shake and turned away. Sydney wondered what it was he had not said and the knot in her stomach twisted a bit tighter. She swallowed.

  Alex came over to her and took her in his arms. “Everything will work out,” he said, his voice low.

  “Then why are you shaking?” she asked him, speaking by his ear and hoping that in this room full of vampires with super-hearing that no one else heard her over the activity all around them.

  He let her go and held her at arm’s length. He didn’t try to smile or reassure her. She saw fear in his eyes.

  “I think you have the hardest role, having to sit here and wait,” she told him.

  “I always thought that when we did time jump, that I would be with you,” Alex said.

  “The only thing you can count on,” Veris said, “is that you’ll be changing history just by both of you being there. You have to minimize your impact as much as you can. No whispering in the ears of kings and statesmen.” He was speaking loudly enough that Sydney knew he was speaking to both her and Rafe, who was on the other side of the room.

  “Stop lecturing,” Brody told him. “They know this.”

  “They know,” Veris agreed. “But they don’t really know. Not until they’ve done it.”

  “Like you’ve never put a foot wrong on any jump you’ve made,” Taylor chided him.

  Veris opened his mouth to protest.

  “Marit was the result of a mistake,” Taylor added.

  Veris blew out his breath. He didn’t say anything else, either.

  Rafe crossed his arms, scowling. “If you don’t all shut up, right this instant, I’m going to kick every single one of you out of the room and lock the door. You’re driving me fucking insane. Can we please get this over with?”

  Sydney wanted to cheer, for she felt exactly the same way, if not worse. She thought she might throw up if they didn’t get this done in the next few minutes.

  Deliberately, she moved over to where Rafe was standing and glowering. She gripped his wrist and tugged his arms undone. “Let’s go,” she said. “Let’s get this done, then we can come back and tell Alex all about it.”

  Rafe gripped her hand in his. “Yes,” he breathed.

  Alex came up beside them and put his hands on their shoulders. He looked as though he was casting about for something to say.

  “Don’t,” Rafe said, his voice a low growl. “I can barely stand this as it is.”

  Alex kissed him. Then he pressed his lips against Sydney’s and she tried to take comfort in his touch, only she was shaking too badly.

  Then, very deliberately, Alex stepped back, out of their reach.

  Everyone else was watching them, now. Even Veris resisted offering one last piece of advice. However, that might have been because Brody had a grip on his shoulder and was squeezing.

  Taylor’s eyes were big and her mouth was pressed closed, thinning her full lips.

  Even Marit, who had been sitting on Sydney’s dressing table bench holding Mia’s hand, was not smiling.

  They were all as afraid as she was.

  So Sydney drew in a deep breath and let it out. She wrapped her arms around Rafe’s neck. “Kiss me.”

  He focused on her and drew his arms around her waist. “I love you,” he whispered and kissed her.

  They jumped.

  * * * * *

  The sun was bright and warm. That was her first impression. It was high overhead, a beating disk in the sky. The air was similar to a mid-winter L.A. afternoon, with the touch of coolness that told her that even though she wasn’t wearing a sweater, in a couple of hours’ time she would have to put it back on.

  The smell was simply awful.

  Sydney almost gagged at the wretched stench, as it caught at the back of her throat. Her
eyes began to water and she wiped at them. The movement made her aware of the heavy and long sleeve over her arm and the edges of a veil around her face.

  She looked around quickly. She had been gazing at the sky overhead, standing in the middle of a rutted street of hard earth. There were rows of small cottages on either side of her that were almost identical, with thatched straw roofs and walls of roughhewn wood. The window openings had no glass. There were shutters for each one, instead. Between the two buildings closest to her was a heap of refuse. She could see and smell rotting food and more. There was a watery run-off that meandered out into the street and was flowing along the ruts in the road.

  The street looked the same as the paintings she had studied this morning before the jump, except that the paintings had not captured the stench…or the sound. There were people walking along the street and some sitting outside their houses on stools, their faces turned up to the sun just as she had been standing. There was a horse and cart heading in her direction, the wheels creaking and the horse snorting as it tackled the minor slope of the road.

  Sydney stepped out of the way of the cart to the other side of the road from the midden heap and grew aware of the heavy layers around her legs. There were at least two and whatever she wore for shoes had soles so light she could feel the grit on the road beneath her feet. She was carrying a heavy basket over her left elbow and she hitched it into a more comfortable place as she moved.

  While she waited for the cart to pass, she glanced up and down the street.

  Where was Rafe?

  There were many men moving along the street and most of them seemed to be heading downhill, which was the direction Sydney had been facing. They all wore short tunics and the bindings over their lower legs that she recognized from the images she had pulled up on Google. What the illustrations had failed to capture was the unexpected range of colors in the fabrics and the decorative edges that many of the tunics had.

  Everyone seemed to have pouches hanging from their belts.

  She looked down at her own waist. The top layer of her dress hung from her breasts, with big openings in the sides. It was a well-worn and faded brown color, while the layer underneath was a faded pale pink. There was a belt around her waist over that second layer and she reached underneath the top layer through the opening on the side and felt a soft leather pouch hanging from the belt. It felt light, as if there was very little in it.

  There was another item dangling on the other side. She swapped the basket over to her other arm and felt beneath the top layer of her dress, exploring the shape.

  It was a knife. A long one.

  She remembered from the idle chatter of Veris and Rafe and Brody and Alex, and even Taylor, that a belt knife had been common throughout most of history. It was an eating implement, a defensive weapon for the common man, and a tool for everything from cleaning nails to shaving kindling from trees.

  This knife seemed to be excessively long.

  The top layer of her dress hid the long knife. The layer ended above her ankles, while the bottom layer was full and brushed the ground. The hem was stained and dusty, too.

  Experimentally, she lifted the layers and peeped at her shoes. They were pointed, with leather lacings over the top, holding them to her feet.

  The cart had passed by. It was heavily laden with chests and baskets of vegetables.

  Was it going to a market? That would make sense. If it was a market day, that would explain the richness of colors and decorations in the clothing of everyone she could see who was walking down the street around the cart.

  As Sydney had been facing in the direction the cart was moving, she decided to follow it. She could not stand here in the middle of the street forever. Perhaps Rafe was somewhere down in this direction.

  Sydney took her time, stepping over ruts and puddles carefully, lifting her hems to stop them sliding through the muck, too. The basket over her arm was heavy and she shifted it from one arm to another. There was a cloth covering the top of the basket and she lifted it up to look beneath.

  There were small cakes resting on the cloth beneath, perhaps two dozen of them. Had she been going to sell them at the market? Had she slipped into someone else’s life? No, that wasn’t possible. Even Taylor, when she had jumped to Constantinople, had not taken over the body of the woman she had looked like. That woman had drowned. Taylor had stepped into her life, not her body.

  Where was Rafe? Why had he not arrived here with her? Was she even in Powys?

  * * * * *

  “Get your guard up, you young fool!”

  The command was a full volume roar and Rafe threw up his sword arm instinctively.

  The clash of steel upon steel came at the same moment as the impact jarred along his arm.

  Rafe looked up at the heavy sword he was holding back only an inch from his head with a narrow-bladed sword of his own. There was a round shield on his other arm.

  The man standing over him with both hands on the hilt of the great sword wore a mail hauberk. It wasn’t chain mail. The metal rings were sewn onto the leather jerkin, which made it almost as affective as chainmail.

  No helmet, no gloves. A thick full beard on his opponent and yellow teeth. Glaring, blood shot eyes. Taller than Rafe by half a head and nearly twice his weight, most of it muscle.

  Tegid, Llewelyn’s master-at-arms.

  They’d made it.

  “Slow, Rhys! Too slow! Again!” Tegid shouted. He lifted the big sword and swung it over his head to bring it down with most of his bodyweight behind the blow.

  Rafe realized something he had never understood about Tegid in the all the days he had known him. The man was slow. Far slower than he was accusing Rafe of being.

  Rafe merely stepped aside. As Tegid’s blade whistled through the air to strike the earth with a thud, he brought the flat of his sword down on Tegid’s back hard enough so that even through the leather and chain hauberk, it would sting.

  Tegid hissed and spun, the blade moving with him. “You young pup!”

  Rafe jumped out of the way of the blade tip, then deflected it with the edge of his shield. It was all coming back to him in a rush—all the sword-fighting skills he had learned in the many battles in which he’d had no choice but to fight, not if he wanted to live among the victors.

  When he had first moved through this time, he had been still young, still green. Now he wasn’t.

  He used the shield to knock Tegid off balance, then brought his knee up to ram into his descending chest, which always winded a man, no matter how fit he was.

  Tegid fell onto the earth and weeds with a heavy grunt, his sword under him, and lay there trying to breathe.

  Rafe propped himself on the sword and lowered the shield to the ground to rest against his thigh. “Are we done?”

  Tegid tried to speak. He rolled over onto his back and nodded, instead.

  Rafe picked up the shield and carried it over to the bench where the rest of the shields and swords were stacked and dropped them on the pile.

  Siorus stood with his arms crossed, his mantle lifting in the slight breeze of the early morning. He had been watching the training, which was unusual. Siorus was Llewelyn’s chief advisor and preferred to measure the strength of the real army, not the mandatory daily training of the household.

  “You’ve learned a thing or two,” Siorus said as Rafe resettled his belt and straightened his tunic.

  Siorus was a tall man, like Tegid, although he had no excess fat on his frame. He also had far-seeing eyes, with wrinkles at the corners. They were a proper Welsh black, yet Rafe had often wondered if Siorus was as Welsh as his name implied.

  “I’ve been listening to the soldiers,” Rafe told him. “I thought I would try some of the things I heard.”

  “Things that usually take a man with greater strength than yours to pull off.”

  Rafe gave him a stiff smile. “I am stronger than I look.”

  “Indeed. Stronger than a scribe warrants, too.” Siorus rested
his hand on Rafe’s shoulder. “Preserve your strength, scribe. Aethelfreda will descend upon us for this trouble with the abbot. You’ll find yourself in a place where you can try all you’ve learned in the space of one battle.”

  “So I heard,” Rafe said, as the right memories clicked into place. Aethelfreda was the uncrowned queen of Mercia. “The Lady of Mercia” was what the Anglo-Saxons called her. Some idiots from Brycheiniog had stolen across the dyke into Mercia and murdered Godric, the abbot of the monastery of St. Credan, because he had refused a British woman refuge for the night. No harm had come to the woman, who had found shelter at a nearby farmhouse, yet the insult to Britons had been taken personally.

  Now Aethelfreda would be obliged to invade Brycheiniog in retaliation and Powys would have to help the little kingdom to the south defend itself from the Lady’s army. So Llewelyn was preparing for a march and a battle. That was why there were so few of the household training this morning. They were all busy with preparations.

  Siorus did not bother Rafe anymore. He hurried away, around the corner of the big building, which was built in an L shape. The square nestled in the angle was where the daily training of the household took place, while the army trained and lived upon the field outside the walls of the fortress. Siorus was most likely going to see about their fitness to march. If this was the day Rafe thought it was, then the army would leave Mathrafel at first light tomorrow.

  Rafe looked around the square, trying to make it seem as if he was simply taking in the beautiful day.

  Where was Sydney? She should be somewhere nearby. Every tale Veris, Brody and Taylor had ever related and his own two short hops back in time told him that she should have been standing right next to him. She had not previously lived in this time, so she did not have a body to jump into, located in some far distant land. Not even Alex had lived in this time, so if he had jumped with them, he should by rights be standing here, too.

  There was no one in sight except for the shepherd boy herding a pair of sheep into the butcher’s cot. Meat for the march.