by Hall, Ian
That’s my Jane.
Chapter 24
October 2nd 1553… again
Edinburgh’s Delights
“But when you didn’t return right away, I thought you’d left me,” Jane said as we walked the dirty cobbled royal mile, heading for a breezy Edinburgh Castle. “And of course, I had so much to learn about my new body, and its requirements.”
I felt so goddam guilty. “I don’t know what I would have done, deserted for fifty years! It seems the art of time travel is not an exact science. Steve and I tried to duplicate exactly the same spin and speed that Fallon and I had done originally, but it seems we just plain got it wrong. Then when I tried it on my own, I ended up inside my own timeline; it’s obviously very dicey. Or I need more practice.”
“Yes,” her heels clipped loudly on the dirty cobbles. “It’s very difficult to believe there’s another Sir Richard down in London, oblivious to you up here.” She giggled.
“But there’s one thing I know for a fact; you have to stay up here until we sort Fallon out.”
“I understand.” She gave a wrinkle of her nose that I took as a grimace of sorts. “Besides, Edinburgh isn’t as bad as I first thought. I attend small gatherings where playwrights showcase their newest plays and satires. The High Kirk, which they call their Cathedral here, whilst nowhere near the size and magnificence of Saint Paul’s, allows access at any time of day.”
“You go to church?”
“I have embraced Protestantism.” She stopped in her walk. “Do you think I am wrong to do so?”
I frowned. “I just think it strange after being forced to become a vampire, a member of a whole new species, you should continue to believe in God.”
“Richard!” She stomped her foot. “Everything under the stars was made by God! Do you seek to tell me vampires were not? Because if you do, then you become a heretic, for if vampires do not fall under God’s dominion, then surely they are the contrivance of the Devil himself, and I cannot sanction such a thought.”
Wow, I’d opened a box of vipers here right enough. But I placated her, said the right words, and continued on our walk to the top of the Royal Mile, where we looked south and west to a city sprawling in splendor, west to a magnificent castle perched high on a rock, and north to a smelly, stinking lake where most of Edinburgh’s trash ended up.
But as we walked hand in hand back down the hill to her apartment, I realized the Lady Jane I’d left behind had changed. She still looked the same, and occasionally still had that silly girl smile, but she’d undoubtedly done some growing up in the last fifty years.
Consulting the list, and seeing a week long time when the other Sir Richard DeVere flitted around in London, I spent a week in Edinburgh, out of his way, sampling the delights of my long, lost Lady Jane, not once feeling bad about two-timing myself. At night we sat in her room, compiling brand new versions of my list of times and dates, rewritten by Jane’s expert hand, and thus far easier for me to read than my pathetic scribbles. We even stared to call it the Agenda, which I announced with appropriately dark somber theatrical music which Jane thought hysterically funny. When we’d finished it, being rewritten a dozen times as I remembered and added new points, it proved more than just a list; we’d written a blueprint for my life for the next six months and more.
Having obtained an assurance that Lady Jane would not, under any circumstances, return prematurely to London, I left Edinburgh on the 11th of October, the same day Steve and I whisked Elizabeth to our hideout in Walterston House.
I had four months until the start of the rebellion, in which time I had to locate Abigail, negotiate the other Sir Richard with some timely note delivery, and ready the plan for Fallon’s death.
So first I made for Abigail’s village, but of course, time had advanced fifty years since I’d last seen her there, so I hardly thought I’d hit the jackpot first time.
The villagers couldn’t remember her, and they had no village wisewoman who supplied them with herbs and such.
I tried at the abbey on the hill, where she’d dried herbs for the monks there, only to find a similar result.
So I imagined a circle in my head about fifty miles wide, and set off, asking at every village for the wisewoman, pretending I had some ailment or another. I met many old crones who promised me relief from my symptoms, and I actually bought some of their wares, just to be nice and to stimulate the local economy, but none of them were Abigail.
I persevered, and gradually my circle became an enlarging spiral, but still found no wisewoman vampire gypsy.
I got as far as Cirencester without even getting the merest snippets of a clue, then in conversation, one old man admitted to remembering her. “Buxom and beautiful.” He described her, and I knew I had struck gold.
“What happened to her?” I asked, trying to curb my excitement.
“She went to live in a monastery,” he said. “In Wales.”
“And when was that?”
He stopped for a moment, supposedly frozen in time, then nodded. “When I were a lad.” I sighed and hiding my disappointment, gave him a small coin. “No, it were a nunnery. She went to live in a nunnery.”
Now, the single fact alone had strengthened the odds of me finding her, so I slipped him another, larger, coin.
As I left the town, heading northwest, I also remembered some details from my last trip back in time. Sir Gruffydd Rhys, a good friend of both Prince Arthur and myself, had taken Eleanor, who carried Arthur’s baby, to a welsh nunnery.
As I made good time, racing through the woodlands, I began to hold out hope it would be one and the same. “How many nunneries can there be?”
In South Wales, after thirty years of King Henry’s actions against them, thankfully as it turned out, only one.
After a week looking for Abigail, it took me only a single day and three questions to find Llanllyr, a Cistercian nunnery, stuck in the middle of nowhere.
As I approached at a slow walk, I heard a quiet bell sound inside the tall outside wall. Inside sat a small chapel, at the side of which stood a house, comparable in size to Walterston.
The tall double gate looked old and the wood had been weathered badly.
I knocked, and waited.
Almost immediately the door opened, and a small pretty face poked through the gap, her face framed by a white oval of stiff cloth. “Yes?” Even just in one word, her voice sounded strong singsong Welsh.
“I seek the Mother Superior, I seek information,” I said, trying not to be threatening in any way.
“The Mother will see no one,” the girl said. “We are a closed order.”
I gave her a friendly grin, and nodded. “I mean no harm; I only seek information of a young girl called Eleanor, who was brought here a long time ago.”
Despite her attempt at composure, her face betrayed her, paling instantly. “I’ll be right back.” She closed the door, and I could hear her footfalls on the grounds beyond.
I waited no more than five minutes when the girl returned, this time opening the door wide. “The Mother will see you,” she said. “Come inside and I will take you to her.”
The girl, or nun, rather, wore a white robe, with a kind of rectangular black poncho kind of thing, tied at the waist with a black cord.
I walked behind her, aware that beneath her swinging robe lay the body of a woman. I’d been on the road for over a week. I shook my head at the thoughts whirling inside my mind; I approached a nunnery and couldn’t help getting horny.
With her little ass swaying delightfully, she led me to a small room, very spartanly decorated. A single desk sat in the middle, with one bare wooden chair on each side.
“You can wait here.”
I sat in the chair and looked around. The walls were bare except for two large wooden crosses, part of which had signs of burning.
Then I heard whispering, and my attention caught by a grill on the facing wall. At first it just looked like complex grooves carved onto the plaster, but by the whispe
rings I heard, I could tell someone stood behind, observing me.
Then the door opened behind me, and I got to my feet, only to turn and stare, openmouthed.
Two nuns stood looking at me, the chit who’d shown me inside, and an old woman, her habit old and stained. The Mother Superior looked at me, her face passive and stoic. She held her hands in front of her, gripping her rosary tightly.
Her face lay wrinkled before me, but her eyes shone a sparkling blue, showing me the intelligence and character of the woman inside.
As I waited for her to speak, I had no need to calculate her age at around seventy. Before me stood Eleanor, the maid I had bedded many times, the maid I had used to train Prince Arthur in the ways of love, the woman who had been exiled to Wales, bearing Arthur’s child. “Be gone, dear.” She dismissed the nun at her side. “Be gone, ladies!” she commanded past my shoulder to the grill. I heard the shuffling of feet.
Eleanor waited until the noise had died. “You look familiar to me, young man,” she said, approaching me nervously, then slipped past me to sit at her desk.
I waited until she’d settled herself.
“My name is Sir Richard DeVere.” I heard her gasp, and her lip trembled. I had to put her fears to bed quickly. “My grandfather tutored Prince Arthur…”
“Oh, thank God!” Eleanor crossed herself rapidly, many times, kissing her beads as she did so. “Young man, you are the absolute portrait of your grandfather. I thought his ghost had returned. Is he still alive?”
I shook my head. “Papa passed away some years back, I’m sorry.”
“God bless his memory, because he will be forever in my thoughts.”
It seemed a nice polite statement, but somehow I caught a glint in her eye of the old Eleanor.
“You are Eleanor?” I grinned internally.
“I am. I knew your grandfather well.” I’ll say you did. Only a few months ago in my own personal timeline we’d fucked ourselves silly.
“I seek news of the baby?” I knew the child as Arthur’s, but I recall Sir Gruffydd had decided to keep that from her, blaming me as the father.
“A boy,” she said, a warm smile diffused her face.
“Did he survive?” I asked?
She nodded. “Sir Gruffydd took him as his own, but alas the line did not survive Henry’s ravages. Sir Gruffydd died early, back in 1521 if my memory serves. The boy, Rhys ap Gruffydd did not take it well.”
She stood.
“But this is not the talk for bare tables. Come eat with us and we will reminisce more.”
Chapter 25
October 20th, 1553… again
Of Rhys and Abigail
Our ‘reminiscences’ were tainted by my watching the ravages of time on the once lithe Eleanor, buoyed by the good hearty stew the nuns served to our small private table, and lifted by a very nice brandy that Eleanor said she kept for special occasions. I watched her closely as we spoke; Eleanor suddenly had fifty years slapped onto her; like looking into a science fiction episode on television.
But it proved both interesting and educational at the same time; it sure brought me down to earth.
“Good King Henry burnt the abbey, twice,” she said, her eyes full of long forgotten tears. “Once in 1526 and again in 1531, but both times we rebuilt.”
Pride and strength filled her words.
It seems Eleanor’s dogged perseverance had also kicked her up the nun-ranks, until eventually she’d been elected Mother Superior.
“Overall,” she declared. “I’m quite happy with my life here. When your grandfather didn’t return, and Sir Gruffydd took the baby, I settled into a nun’s life with some ease.”
“Tell me of the boy?” I asked, hoping to sound conversational, not ‘interested’.
Eleanor grinned widely. “Rhys was a beautiful boy, your family would have been proud of him. But he had a stubborn streak, one which he never lost; it proved his undoing.”
“Sir Gruffydd never married?”
She gave a faraway look that seemed to speak volumes. I mean, Sir Gruffydd had been a good looking man, and Eleanor had been a lusty teenager. “He married once, but I saw little love in it. He lingered here for years, off and on, his castle’s only forty miles away. He brought Rhys with him, but he never let him into our secret.”
“And he died early?”
“In 1521. I remember it well. A sickness took him at the somewhat early age of 43.”
I had my own pang of sadness, just a year ago in my time, Gruffydd and I had lost our prince. “A sickness, you say?”
Eleanor nodded. “He was buried in Worcester Cathedral, next to his beloved Prince Arthur. A Catholic to the end; he never had to face the declaration of Catherine of Aragon’s consummation. Perhaps he’d been lucky, dying then; he would have denied King Henry’s attempt to divorce her, and would have been executed for it.”
I had read exhaustively on Henry, and needed her to advance. “Rhys, the son?” I asked.
Again a very serene, peaceful smile spread across her face. “Rhys was a good boy, but denied his father’s guardianship, he proved feisty. But he was also a very pretty man. He married Catherine Howard, daughter of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk; a good match for Gruffydd’s son.”
Not bad at all for Arthur’s royal bastard, I thought to myself.
“But Sir Gruffydd’s own father died a year later, leaving just Rhys to collect the titles. Again, King Henry ravaged us; he stripped the lands and split them between the families of Rhys and Ferrers, causing a huge feud. For some reason, King Henry gave the main title to Walter Devereux, Lord Ferrers. Rhys would never forgive him.”
“I’m not surprised; the grandfather fought in the War of the Roses with King Henry the seventh.”
“And Sir Gruffydd fought with King Henry in France in 1520.”
“How could Henry have been so unfair?”
Eleanor’s smile left her face as gracefully as it had settled there. “Rhys either found out his ancestry, or just boiled over. He added Fitz-Urien to his name, the name of the ancient Welsh prince added to the term for ‘bastard’. Some say Rhys conspired with King James of Scotland, but he did chase his own demons. He thought himself King Urien Rheged, the ancient Welsh King, and built up his forces to deal a final blow to the Ferrers family. But Henry, who at the time chased Anne Boleyn around his castles, caught him illegally recruiting men for the feud, and inciting the locals to rise up against Ferrers. With Ferrers’ testimony, Henry declared Rhys a rebel. He was executed in 1531. Of all of God’s creatures, I never thought I’d be thankful for one’s death. I feel that for Henry; God may rest his black heart.” She crossed herself many times.
Boy, I sat for a moment, digesting it all; a whole life history in minutes. “Did Rhys have any offspring?”
To my delight, she nodded. “Born just a year before his father died, and named after his grandfather, although Catherine changed his name to Griffith Rice.”
“Maybe trying to distance them from the feud?” I did my mental calculation; so he’d be twenty five now. “And where is he?”
“With his mother, in Dinefyr Castle; it’s the only property Henry left them with.”
So, I had gotten to the end of one quest, but now determined to ask on another. “I have one more enquiry, Mother Superior; I seek the location of a woman called Abigail.”
To my surprise, Eleanor clapped her hands in front of her face, obviously joyed to be discussing a happier subject. “If you mean the herbal woman, she is well. She’s getting old, but she’s perfectly well. She lives in a small hamlet called Llandovery.”
I tried to suppress my diverse thought, it couldn’t be ‘my’ Abigail, because she couldn’t get old; vampires don’t age. But I took her directions, took her instructions, and left the nunnery. Eleanor offered me a bed for the night, but to be honest, I’m not certain if I could have held myself back; a randy vampire in a building full of hapless virgins? Come on.
I left a pouch of coins on the table and left.
Llandovery lay about twenty-five miles southwest of the nunnery at Llanllyr. A small village, I soon found Abigail’s cottage; layered turf walls and low sloping thatched roof. Its small windows were high on the walls, obviously distrusting peeping toms.
I knocked on the door, the sun disappearing over the far, hilly horizon. A young cute-looking chit opened the door; suddenly I had a small segment of hope, Abigail liked her meat on the young side. “I seek Abigail.”
“She’s no’ here.”
I moved forward quickly, breathing over her face. “Ask me in.”
I saw the hesitation, the conflict behind the eyes, then she caved. “Come in.”
“What’s your name?” I asked as I pushed past her, through the doorway.
“Cora,” she replied, obviously a big conversationalist.
“And where is Abigail, Cora?”
I looked around the cottage as she answered. The same Spartan décor, but yet the same essence of Abigail. I had found my ally.
“She’s up at the castle; she goes there every week.”
“And when will she be back?”
Cora shook her head. “She always stays the night.”
Once a week, huh, and staying the night? I felt quite certain Abigail had found another regular feeding source at the castle.
I walked across the room and stood above her. “You will do as I say, and answer truthfully. Do you understand?”
Cora nodded.
“Do you have something alcoholic to drink around here?”
“Abigail keeps wine.”
“That will do, open a bottle.”
I watched her as she moved around the one-roomed cottage, her figure lithe and yet curved under her simple smock. Abigail liked this type. I hadn’t even been introduced to the first one properly, we’d just romped together until both Abigail and I had fed from her neck. Cassie had been her name, and cut from the same mold as this new one, Cora, captured and taken for an evening’s entertainment.