Believe

by Victoria Alexander

“I have found when you are ill at ease you chatter at a ceaseless pace.”

  Or a liar. “Thanks.”

  “But your speechlessness has an air of worry about it. ’Tis most disconcerting.”

  “If you think this is disconcerting…” She sighed. “I don’t know where to begin.”

  His voice was mild. “’Tis said among the tellers of tales at the king’s court that ’tis only one place to start a story.”

  “Oh?”

  “At the beginning.”

  “The beginning?” Where exactly was the beginning? Merlin popping up in her class? Her mother’s package of books? The university library? “Remember when we first met? In the chapel?”

  “Indeed. I thought you were an impertinent boy.”

  “Right. Remember what I was wearing?”

  He nodded. “Peculiar garments. I’d not seen their like before.”

  “Exactly,” she said with a note of triumph.

  “Nay.” He shook his head. “In truth, they were suited more for a man than a women. ’Tis why I was confused. The clothing concealed your true nature until you deigned to correct my incorrect impression with a display of,” the corners of his lips curled up in a wicked smile, “boobs.”

  She groaned. “You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”

  “Never, fair Tessa.”

  “All that aside, didn’t you ever wonder where I came from?”

  “Merlin said you were from a distant land.”

  “But didn’t you want to know more?”

  “I am not a curious man, Tessa, yet I will concede I had hoped to learn more about your home.” He chuckled. “Where the people have no sorcerers and believe we live on a ball spinning in the heavens. ’Tis a story to rival that of the greatest bard.”

  “It’s true, Galahad.”

  He snorted with disbelief. “No one in all of Britain believes such a thing.”

  “Not today.” She braced herself for whatever reaction would come. “But someday they will.”

  “You make no sense.” He slanted her a teasing smile. “’Tis no longer a surprise to me.”

  “I’m serious, Big Guy. Someday, everyone in Britain, everyone in the entire world, will understand the earth is a planet spinning through space.”

  “I do not—”

  “Centuries from now, men will circumnavigate the globe and prove the earth is not flat. But that’s just the beginning.” She leaned toward him. “There are lands beyond England that man hasn’t even found yet. Whole continents to be discovered. And there will be inventions. Amazing things to do anything you can imagine. There’s the industrial revolution and then steam engines and trains and cars and all kinds of things. And man will fly someday, Galahad. Not just to the sky but to the moon.”

  He reined in his horse and stared. “Tessa, are you certain you are recovered?”

  “I’m fine, really. You have to believe me.”

  “Such things cannot happen. If you are not mad—”

  “I swear I’m not crazy.”

  “Nay. ’Twould be too easy an answer to believe you daft.” Suspicion narrowed his eyes. “Are you a prophetess then, Tessa. A seer?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’m just an ordinary person.” Just a plain old ordinary time traveler.

  “Then how do you know these things?”

  She swallowed hard and caught his gaze with hers, willing him to accept her words. “I’m from the future.”

  “The future,” he said carefully, as if trying the concept out in his mind. “The future has yet to happen.”

  “Actually, I think it has. Kind of. In a parallel sort of way.”

  He stared and shook his head. “You tell a remarkable tale. But ’tis impossible to believe.”

  “You believed me when I said the dragon wasn’t real.”

  “’Twas proof.”

  “Not much.”

  “Enough.”

  “Damn it, Galahad, I don’t have any proof.” She reached out and grabbed his arm. “Believe me. I’m from the future.”

  “Nay, Tessa, that cannot be,” he said sharply and shook off her hand. “’Tis no future yet to be from. Indeed, there are the days that have passed. We remember them, sometimes clearly, sometimes not. They are gone. Still, there is no question of their existence. And there is today as we live it and breathe it. But the days beyond this have yet to happen. What you claim is impossible.”

  “I don’t understand it myself. All I know is one minute I was minding my own business in good old two thousand…” Maybe an exact date would be too much for him. “Never mind. Let’s just say centuries from now, and your buddy Merlin picks me up and drops me in the chapel.”

  “Merlin had a hand in this?”

  “Duh. This whole little adventure, and I use the term loosely, was his idea. Think about it. This scheme has Merlin written all over it.”

  Galahad brows drew together thoughtfully.

  “Whose idea was it for me to come along on this quest?” She pressed her point. “Your quest?”

  “Aye,” he said softly.

  “And with Merlin involved the sky’s the limit, right?”

  “He is a wizard of extraordinary power.”

  “I’ll give you that.” She nodded. “Now, listen carefully, this is the big one for the all-expense-paid dream vacation to the Virgin Islands—”

  His eyes widened. “Now I know you jest. ’Tis no islands for virgins.”

  She ignored him. “Aren’t I completely different from anybody else you’ve ever known?”

  “You are a woman of unusual character,” he said slowly.

  “And have you ever heard one single, solitary person talk the way I do? Or dress the way I did? Or do anything the way I do?”

  “Nay.”

  “So, in a strictly logical sense, doesn’t that leave traveling through time as the only thing left?”

  “Perhaps…Nay!” Anger snapped his words. “I cannot accept this fable of yours.”

  “But—”

  “Quiet!” His tone softened. “Forgive me.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “What you’ve said is inconceivable to me. To the way I understand the nature of the world.” He shook his head. “I would have some time alone with my thoughts.” He nodded and spurred his horse to pass hers, then settled on the road in front of her. Her mount followed his in an easy walk.

  “Take your time.” She forced a casual note to her voice but her heart sank. She’d had no idea how he’d take her story and no idea what to expect. This actually wasn’t as bad as she’d feared but it wasn’t very good either.

  They rode on in silence. She stared at his broad back in front of her. What was he thinking? How was he dealing with this? Was he upset? Confused? She shook her head in disgust. No kidding. She’d just done her level best to shatter his beliefs about the very world he lived in. Confusion was probably his mildest reaction.

  Without warning he wheeled his horse and rode back to her side.

  “Why did you tell me this now?” His gaze simmered with a dark intensity.

  She stared at him for a minute. What could she say? Because I love you and I want you to know just how precious the time is that we have together. No. She might be able to handle love being one-sided in this relationship but she’d rather he didn’t know of her feelings. If she couldn’t have his love, she definitely didn’t want his pity. “We’re in this together, remember. I didn’t want there to be any secrets between us.” She shrugged. “I thought you should know the truth, that’s all.”

  His gaze searched her face as if looking for the answers to a thousand years of questions. He nodded abruptly, then spurred his horse and returned to ride ahead of her.

  Now what? Galahad struck her as the strong, silent type. He obviously needed time to digest all this. But how much? An hour? A day? A hundred years?

  She’d give him a while but eventually he’d have to talk to her again. Until then she could wait.

  For an hour, a day
, a hundred years. One way or another, she had all the time in the world.

  God save them all. It was absurd. Ridiculous. Utter nonsense. It could not be true.

  Could it?

  Indeed, Tessa believed it. Was there not a ring of truth in her words? Merlin’s power was undisputed. If such a far-fetched prospect were possible, would it not take a wizard of remarkable strength? Galahad’s mind whirled with conflicting thoughts.

  She was unlike anyone, male or female, he’d ever known. Her speech was similar to his own yet oddly flavored. Not like a language unknown to him but more an unfamiliar dialect of his own tongue. He’d already noted how she’d not discussed her home and had wondered at her silence. It was apparent from the look in her eye that she missed her land and her people. Now that he considered it, there was much about Tessa he did not know. Their talks had consisted mostly of her questions about him and his life, his family and friends.

  Was he as arrogant as she’d claimed? Is that why he’d paid so little heed to her plight? Hot shame flushed up his face. All he’d concerned himself with was her involvement with his quest. He’d watched her outbursts born of terror when he’d first shown her the castle and after their defeat of the dragon. Each time she’d railed against the reality of the world around her. Of Camelot. Of Arthur. Of him. How had he been so selfish to disregard her fears? And so foolish? To attribute her ravings to the instability of a feminine nature and fail to even wonder why ’twas the very nature of life around them that scared her most.

  How had he dared question her courage? The thought struck him like a splash of icy water. He pulled his horse to a stop. Aye, she had succumbed twice to hysteria; yet was that not minor given her predicament?

  In her place, would he do better? Could he face a world unknown with the same determination and fortitude? A world in which he was completely alone save for the influence of a wizard and the company of one lone man?

  “Are you okay?” Her horse pulled up beside him. Her troubled gaze met his. “Galahad?”

  “Aye, Tessa, I am…okay.” He stared down at her and his heart twisted. She was so fragile and tiny, yet her spirit burned as brightly as any man—as any knight—he’d ever known. And he’d called her a mere woman. There was naught mere about the Lady Tessa. “And you?”

  “Swell.”

  He urged his horse on but made no effort to leave her side. “’Tis time to talk.”

  She heaved a sigh of relief. “Great. So…do you believe me?”

  It was his turn to sigh. “’Tis an odd idea, this traveling from a future that does not yet exist. ’Tis difficult to comprehend or accept.”

  Her expression fell.

  “Yet, I find the notion grows more and more likely with continued thought.”

  “Really?”

  “Indeed. It explains much. About Merlin’s insistence on your company here as well as your nature. I should have pressed you for answers about yourself long ago. Yet I was too concerned with my own plans to pay you any heed.” He cast her an apologetic smile. “My pardon, Tessa. ’Twas unforgivable.”

  A soft smile played about her lips. “You had a lot on your mind and time travel probably isn’t something that comes up very often.”

  “’Tis the first I have heard of such a thing and no doubt ’twill be the last.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet there’s not a steady flow of visitors to the Middle Ages. It’s not even one of those nice-place-to-visit kinds of things.”

  He rolled his gaze toward the sky. Even now, suspecting the truth of her charges, his lack of understanding at all she said would surely drive him mad. But already he had learned to ignore most of her ramblings. “I cannot say I fully understand nor can I believe without question, yet I have come to know you in our days together. You have held my life in your hands as I have held yours. There is trust between us.”

  “This is a lot to ask for in terms of trust.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps it is no more than the sure and certain knowledge than we can depend on one another in times of great trial.” He chuckled. “Of course, I would not depend on your prowess with a bow—”

  “Wise move.”

  “—but you have earned my confidence and my loyalty. Now…” He reached over and took her hand. “I should like to hear more. Tell me, fair Tessa, of the future from which you come.”

  “There’s a lot to tell.” She shook her head. “I don’t know…”

  “Begin with the ball spinning through the heavens.”

  “Okay.” She hesitated as if gathering her thoughts then launched into a saga too fantastic to be believed. Yet every word she uttered rang with the conviction of truth. She spun a tale of seafaring adventurers defying the wisdom of their day to travel ever onward in the same direction and at last reach the point where they’d begun. She spoke of carts and wagons moving without need of horses or oxen. She talked of fantastic devices to allow men to fly like birds through the sky and higher yet, beyond the clouds to the moon.

  Minutes flowed to hours and they traveled on, hands clasped between their mounts, her voice bringing visions to his mind he didn’t dare accept. Yet, how could he not? He’d venture a query now and then but mostly he absorbed all she said like a parched man drinking at a spring. The wonders of her world enchanted him and cluttered his head with all he’d never dared to dream of. He marveled at her knowledge. Knowledge he grew more and more confident was indeed the truth. Knowledge of what was her past and would be his future.

  And what of his fate?

  The question hovered at the edge of his mind. She had not said a word about his destiny. Or his king’s. Or his country’s. She had not commented on their quest. Would they decipher the riddle and meet its challenges? Would they find the Grail? Why, in all her discourse, had she said naught about that which concerned him most?

  The sun drifted low in the western sky. They approached a small stream set in a clearing.

  “Here, Tessa, we shall stay the night.” He slid off his horse and turned to help her dismount.

  “What, no cave tonight?” she said lightly, reaching down to him. “Where’s a Hilton when you need one?” He set her on her feet and released her quickly.

  “Wait a minute.” She studied his face. “What’s wrong?”

  “I do not know what you mean.” His manner was curt. Why had she not told him what he most wanted—nay—needed to know? He pivoted on his heel and busied himself with preparations for the night. He pulled their bedding and bags from the horses, removed their saddles and hobbled them close to the stream, a short distance from where he would build a fire.

  She stared at him silently for a long moment then turned to the bags with their provisions. Within minutes, he had a fire laid and sat before it, staring at the flicker of flame growing brighter. She settled beside him and handed him pieces of the bread and cheese they’d brought along.

  “We didn’t bring much of this.” She eyed the meager meal with a skeptical smile. “But I’m actually starting to acquire a taste for it. Have I told you about pizza yet?”

  He nodded absently but kept to himself. Did she not know the answers to the questions raging in his mind? Would she keep such knowledge from him if he was to ask? A direct, forthright question? His mouth could not form the words. Why not?

  Fear? God’s blood, what nonsense. He was a knight. He had naught to fear from the truth.

  Or was it truth itself that brought the rush of fear to his belly?

  “I am not hungry.” He tossed the bread and cheese aside, pulled himself to his feet and strode to the stream. His mind was muddled with questions and accusations and confusion. Galahad leaned his shoulder against a gnarled oak and stared at the brook bubbling past until the sun slipped below the horizon and the moon shone bright as day on the waters.

  Tessa came and stood silently by his side. “Time’s up. Spill it, Galahad, what’s the matter? What’s bothering you?”

  “’Tis naught—”

  “’Tis too! You’ve been here sulk
ing or thinking or debating for a good hour now. What’s going on?”

  “Very well.” He turned to face her. “Tell me the rest of your fable, Tessa.”

  “What do you mean?” Caution edged her words.

  “You have told me much about what will happen in the centuries to come. Yet you have not uttered a single word about tomorrow or next day or the day to follow.”

  “I haven’t?”

  “You know full well, on this alone you have remained silent.” He struggled to keep the anger out of his voice. Was he upset with her or himself?

  She stepped back and raised her chin in the stubborn manner he knew all too well. “I didn’t think it was a good idea.”

  “Not a good idea? By the fires of Satan, Tessa, why not?”

  “It might…” She shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. Change things I guess.”

  “I do not understand.”

  Her words came slowly as if carefully chosen. “If I told you that you find the Grail, wouldn’t that affect how you acted from this point on? Wouldn’t you be more likely to take risks knowing everything will work out in the end?”

  “Is that my destiny? Do I find the Grail?” He held his breath.

  “Wait, I’m not done yet. What if I said you didn’t? Would you want to keep going or give up? What would be the point?”

  He clenched his teeth. “Do I find the Grail?”

  She stared him straight in the eye. “I can’t say.”

  “You will say!” The words exploded from him. “By all that is holy, Tessa, tell me! Now!”

  “No!” Her voice trembled. “Not now! Not ever! Besides, Merlin told me what happened once may not necessarily happen again. The major pieces of history, turning points, I suppose, can’t be changed. But smaller events, like your quest for the Grail, can.”

  The truth of what she refused to say surged though him and settled in the pit of his stomach. “I did not succeed then.”

  “I didn’t say that.” Denial rang in her words. “And whether you did or didn’t in some other version of this timeline doesn’t mean anything. Zip. Nada. All that matters is here and now.” She reached up with both hands and grabbed his tunic. “Don’t you understand? We’re reliving these days, you and I. Together. Whatever might have happened before has been erased, the slate wiped clean. This is the opportunity you’ve waited for all your life. Don’t blow it because you think that, one way or another, it’s already determined. It’s not!”