by Nina Merrill
Jennie longed to ask what Bergère meant by prayers. How had she arrived here? By what mechanism? Or was she dreaming? Surreptitiously she pinched her skin between two fingernails. The pain was real, as was the stench in her nostrils and the chill of the room, despite the fire in the hearth. She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, as much to conceal her body beneath the thin silk of her robe and knee-length gown as to warm herself. She'd never felt so exposed or uncomfortable. Or frightened. Doctoral candidates aren’t meant for this sort of thing. I want my books.
Whatever had happened, it wasn’t normal, and it wasn’t safe. If she wasn’t dreaming, then these men were real, and she was their captive. Her stomach flipped and she swallowed hard, trying to keep panic at bay.
“She's a demon.” Napier stepped forward again and addressed his commander. “See how she draws our warden’s eye…see how she's dressed, as no decent woman would. I say she is a demon. We should learn what she knows and then send her back to her true master in hell.”
“What? No! Are you insane?” Jennie blurted in English. She cast about for the door, prepared to sprint for her life, and found it closed and secured with a heavy wooden bar, gouged by the blades of adzes and dark with the smoky patina of the kitchen.
“She speaks the tongue of hell!” Napier’s finger pointed right at her, as rigid, accusative and menacing as any sword blade could have been.
Bergère put up his hand and pushed Napier’s hand down. “She's no demon. She wears the color of purity, the blue of the Madonna. Surely she's simply confused. We've diverted her from her celestial duties—”
“Napier, calm yourself. Warden de Bergère, your brother is right—you're distracted. Demon or not, I think we can control her if we must. She makes no attempt to escape.” That tone of command was back.
In relief, Jennie saw the two men do as they were bid.
“Give me your name again, slowly this time.”
“Jennie.”
“Whence do you hail, Jeanne?”
Jennie didn't bother to correct his pronunciation of her name. She was more concerned with how to explain the reality of a place so prosaic as Minneapolis. Indeed, how to explain the USA? Or even a land far to the west, yet to be discovered by the Europeans? She lowered her eyes and whispered the first thing that came to mind. “St. Paul.” It wasn’t entirely a lie.
Bergère gave Napier a disparaging look. Napier’s face darkened and his hand clenched at his side. Jennie feared the man’s hot temper and the jealousy she could read on his face. Bergère had something Napier wanted—perhaps it was the ear or the good opinion of Payraud, or a position of favor in the commandery, but whatever it was, she didn’t want to be a pawn in Napier’s bitter game.
“There’s a mystery here.” Payraud shook his head. “A great mystery. You appeared among us just as we were calling upon the saints for guidance. Women are not permitted to attend our meetings or know our mysteries. Your appearance is either a great boon from God or a trick of the devil.” He thought for a moment, then motioned over his shoulder. “Napier, your crucifix.”
“It is ever at your service, Commander.” The knight leapt past Bergère, who straightened sharply but held his position. Napier dangled a rosary with a heavy silver cross too close to Jennie’s face for comfort, and she flinched yet again.
“Jeanne, you will kiss the holy cross to prove your nature.”
Jennie looked askance at the cross Napier held before her. Its arms were dark with age, or perhaps tarnish and grime.
“Surely you jest,” she stammered.
“She is a demon!” Napier pushed the cross closer to her face and bared his teeth as she drew back. “See how she pulls away. The symbol of our faith is anathema.”
“I can’t kiss that. I’ll catch my death of some foul disease!”
From the corner of her eye, she saw Bergère fold his arms across his chest and tighten his mouth as though he were holding back a smirk. Her eyes flicked to him. Would he intervene?
Payraud’s hands went to his waist, where a leather pouch dangled from his sword belt. To her surprise and horror, he pulled out her journal and opened it to the page with the drawing of Baphomet. His hand shook as he showed the drawing around the room, and even Bergère blanched. “Convince me you are no demon, woman. For this grimoire tells me differently.”
Jennie opened her mouth to explain, then realized she couldn’t, unless she wanted to be imprisoned or worse. She found her gaze moving to Bergère’s face. Whether she sought sympathy or aid there she wasn’t sure, but he met her gaze before inclining his head the barest amount to indicate she should do as Payraud and Napier demanded.
At least he doesn’t seem afraid of me. Fear makes men violent. I’m frightened enough for all of us. Still meeting his gaze, as if drawing strength from that steady, even-tempered look, she leaned forward the short distance to press her lips against the cross’s center. He gave another slight nod. She sat back and fought the urge to drag her hand across her lips.
“I am unconvinced,” Napier stated, but when Bergère’s hand moved the cross away from Jennie, Napier stepped back a pace.
“She has proved herself no demon.” Bergère crossed his arms over his chest once more, brooking no more discussion, but Napier would not be silenced on this point.
“She’s proved she’s no demon, perhaps, but she may well be a witch. They use the crucifix for their own wicked purposes.” Napier jerked his head toward the journal Payraud paged slowly through. “Look you how our commander shudders at her spells.” His voice dropped into a sneer. “And look you how she has enchanted you, Tibald. Look well.”
Tibald? Is that his given name? Jennie could not stop her scholar’s brain from following a foolish track to Shakespeare and the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, and Tybalt the King of Cats. She wondered if Tibald de Bergère would be as light on his feet and good with a sword as Shakespeare’s cocky character. Certainly Tibald didn't seem as hot-headed as Tybalt.
Then she mentally stumbled. If this was 1307, Shakespeare hadn’t written his plays yet.
He wouldn’t even be born for another two hundred years.
She couldn’t stifle the sob that wrenched her throat.
“Ah! We have discovered her secret!” Napier crowed. “She is a witch. Master de Payraud, let me dispatch her for you—”
“I'm not a witch!” Jennie surged to her feet, fearing the dark-haired knight’s eagerness to prove her evil. “I swear on my mother’s gr—I swear by all that’s holy—” Thinking desperately, she began to recite a middle French paternoster, the only prayer she knew, in the hopes it would convince them of her innocence. “Sire Pere, qui es enceaus, sanctifiez soit li tuens uons, avigne li tuens regnes…”
When the men crossed themselves and murmured the rest of the prayer along with her, despite her stumbling accent, she trembled in relief. She hastened to follow suit, touching brow, breast, and shoulders. Stunt praying, she thought. Wonder what God thinks of that. Thank you, Professor Milbeck.
When she had finished, Payraud held up the journal once again. “Despite the proof you have offered, much here disturbs me. This book contains many secret images of our order. How came a woman to possess them?”
Her mind raced to fabricate a plausible explanation and found none. Looking from Payraud to Napier’s sharp, hungry face, she locked her fingers together in front of her. Tell the truth, just not all of it.
“Where I come from, such facts are not secret.” She found her gaze drifting again to Tibald de Bergère, whose calm gray eyes were fixed on her face. But Tibald was not the key here. She must convince Payraud, first and foremost, which would then take the wind out of Napier’s malicious sails. “They are venerated, respected. They form the basis of organizations—I mean guilds—everywhere. They—”
Napier interrupted her. “Guilds do not admit women.”
“Where I come from, they do.”
“Yes—do tell us where you come from. For I believe it's not Paris.�
�� The spite in Napier’s voice was clear.
Jennie shivered. Not only was the room chilly, despite the fire on the hearth, but she was clearly unwelcome and rash speech would endanger her further.
“I don't come from Paris, no. I'm from the west.”
“A Spaniard?” Payraud queried.
“No, sir. From farther west. But please, let me explain my book.” She held out her hand for it. “If I could just show you—”
Payraud snapped the journal closed. “There is only one thing I wish explained. How came you into our meeting? Did we summon you, or did you magick yourself among us?”
Jennie recalled the strange whirling of her dining room as she murmured the Greek words decrypted by her cipher. Had she sent herself back into the past? Was there such a thing as magic, and did the Templars somehow have the knowledge to harness it? She couldn’t answer their questions without making herself seem more threatening than she was.
“I don’t know.” She swallowed hard as she stood before them. “One moment I was in my home, and the next I was in the center of your circle.”
Tibald spoke. “Commander, we were seeking a solution to our present difficulties. Could it not be that we summoned her ourselves? Should we not pursue that possibility? If the good Lord sent her to us, she must have information we need. Allow me to question her further, in more congenial surroundings—”
Napier threw back his head and laughed. “Allow you. Allow you. You're so blinded by this woman’s charms, her indecent clothing, her loosened hair—look! She doesn't even cover her head. And yet we should allow you to be bespelled further? What have you in mind? The congenial privacy of your chamber?”
Jennie heard her own voice registering a complaint, but the flurry of motion that was Tibald, grasping the fabric of Napier’s mantle and twisting it in his fist, silenced her. His forefinger rapped on Napier’s breastbone. “You impugn my honor, brother. Have a care. My oaths have meaning.”
“Silence!” Payraud thundered. “None but I shall question this woman, but it won't be tonight. We should return to our brethren. We’ve been long away. Napier, cease your insolent needling. Bergère, I asked you before to calm yourself.” He turned to Jennie. “You will remain under guard this night, a guest in one of our rooms. In the morning, we'll speak again. I will see through your deceptions, so beware.”
“I will guard her,” Napier said.
“You both will,” said Payraud. “But let there be no words spoken to her, nor ill will between you. Guard your temper, Alain, and you, Tibald—guard your emotions. Let not a woman’s charms sway either of you from your oaths as Templars.”
“Be assured, Commander,” said Tibald. “I am true.”
Payraud’s face and voice softened. “I know. But always do you permit your brother to prick your pride. Come, you're my warden and must be present as we close our meeting. Alain, take Jeanne to the north tower and guard her, but first cover her with your mantle. She's indecently clothed, and I would not have more of the men see her thus.”
Tibald stepped between Payraud and Jennie, swinging his white woolen mantle from his shoulders and draping it about her. She was grateful for the cloak, warm from Tibald’s body, and welcomed the chance to conceal herself from Napier’s petty, crawling eyes. There was a wicked eagerness in them that made her feel dirty and frightened at the same time. Please let him be one of those who sticks to his oath of chastity. The north tower sounds like a place where no one would hear me scream.
“Take mine,” Tibald said. “I won't need it to close our meeting this night. I'll bring blankets when I come to the tower soon.”
Jennie felt something sharp inside her easing at Tibald’s words. He was clearly warning Napier that he’d follow as soon as he could. Though she had no concrete reason to trust Tibald, he made her feel safer than did Napier.
Payraud turned to leave and Jennie rose. Her burning need to ask a single question drove her to speak. “Sir? Might I know the date?”
“The date?” The older man turned back to her. “Why, it is the seventeenth of September.”
The year…what is the year? In her present state, she couldn’t remember if the Gregorian calendar had settled by 1307 or not. Jennie knotted her fingers before her and dared one last question. “Does Catherine de Valois yet live?”
Payraud’s eyes narrowed. “I have heard the count’s wife languishes of a wasting sickness. We must go, Bergère.” The commander ushered Tibald through the kitchen’s doorway and left Jennie alone with Napier.
Chapter 4
Jennie snugged the cloak around herself and waited. Napier watched until the commander and Tibald were out of sight before motioning to her to precede him through the door. He took Payraud’s admonition of silence seriously, for his only communication was to direct her left or right.
She tried to memorize the halls and turns and doorways as they moved through the commandery building, unsure why it was important to know the way back to the kitchen, but feeling she must get control of something, no matter how small. She caught glimpses of tiny rooms with beds off to each side and surmised they were passing through the barracks area where the Templars lodged. The floor was harsh under her feet. Why didn’t I wear my slippers? At least then I wouldn’t be barefoot in Paris. With it not even spring to take the curse off.
“Pull up your hood. Cover your hair as a decent woman should.” Napier halted before a heavy wooden door reinforced with iron straps. His hand was on the bulky latch.
“Are we going outside?”
Napier grunted, a sound neither positive nor negative, gesturing at her hair again. Jennie bit her lip and lifted the hood of the mantle over her head, tucking her braid down the hood’s collar. It galled her to think she must conform to the rigidly sexist society, but until she understood more about what had happened to her, it seemed the wisest course.
When he opened the door, she was glad of the mantle’s concealing folds. Beyond was a large room with a central fire pit and many benches and tables scattered throughout. Men of all ages sat eating, or stood talking. Some wore Templar garb, and others looked as if they’d just come from field or stable, muddy boots on their feet and straw in their hair. All turned to look at the open door. An arrow of fear shot through her. She balked, and Napier caught her by the elbow and hustled her into the room.
The place smelled of burned meat, yeasty ale and the ubiquitous odor of unwashed fourteenth-century male. Another cherished myth dies…the famous great hall filled with mighty warriors is nothing more than a college dining room full of sloppy students.
“Quickly. Keep your head down.”
Jennie did as Napier suggested, if only to keep from tripping over the uneven flagstones and litter. He hurried her along the wall where there were no benches, heading for a door at the opposite end. Midway, a series of chuckles began in the room, and Napier shook his head in aggravation, yanking her with him faster.
“Who’s the new duck, Napier?” This from a tall Templar with a flagon in his hand. “Why not introduce us?”
“I'm on Payraud’s business,” Napier hissed through his teeth.
Jennie scraped her toes on the rough flooring as he pulled her along, but she, too, wished to hurry. So many eyes made her anxious, too much like a pigeon in a room full of cats.
“Commander de Payraud has business with wenches? Not likely, thinks I.” The Templar pushed back his bench and got to his feet. “You, though…”
Napier halted and turned toward the Templar. “Mock me not, Maillet. And why are you not with the commandery?”
The other man grinned and lifted his hands to show he meant no harm, but his gaze flicked over Jennie once again. She crowded closer to Napier—better the devil she’d met than one she hadn’t.
Napier pulled her out the door and across a dark lawn. She could hardly spare a glance around her with every grain of concentration required to keep her feet. They headed toward the stone hulk of a tower—short to her skyscraper-accustomed mind, but ta
ll for its era. A door at the bottom led into an anteroom, lit by a single torch that guttered in the breeze from their entrance. Napier seized it and gestured to the flight of stairs at the corner.
Jennie would have preferred to follow, instead of climbing unfamiliar stone steps shadowed by her own body and lit by erratic firelight. She didn’t like having Napier at her back, but there seemed no choice, so she climbed, clutching the stone wall as best she could. They passed multiple windows in the spiral staircase before Napier bade her exit at a landing. He pushed open a door and gestured her inside, following for no more than a moment before leaving and closing the door behind him.
All was darkness and silence.
Jennie was glad to see him go, but wished mightily for any sort of light. She’d had no time to look around the room before he departed with the torch, and now she put her hands out and groped across the floor to where she thought she’d glimpsed a shuttered window. Her feet were chilly and sore, and she tried very hard not to think of all the things she had stepped on or in. It took a hard bite to the inside of her cheek to stifle a wail of despair.
Fourteenth-century Paris was nothing like she’d imagined it would be from her books. It stank. It was black and frightening. The knights Templar weren’t the chivalrous men of legend dressed in bright satins and ermine and chain mail, but muscled, egotistical soldiers dressed in grubby wool.
Her fingers connected with the stone wall and she groped to the left. After feeling two or three feet and finding no shutter, she shifted right and found it. Her fingers skimmed over it, at last finding a wooden toggle that secured the shutters. She turned it and felt the right-hand panel swing toward her.
Outside a bright half-moon lifted above the silhouettes of trees to her right. Its familiar bright, blotched face made her want to weep. At least something was recognizable about this world.
Where the moon rose must be east. She fumbled with the left hand shutter and opened it as well, leaning out on the embrasure. The shadowy ground seemed far below. She leaned further, trying to see the wall beneath the window—was it scalable? If it were, did she dare try it in a bathrobe and bare feet?