Knights (24 page)

Moved by the woman’s kindness, Gloriana felt fresh tears spring to her eyes, while her throat constricted painfully. Still unwilling to speak and reveal just how different she really was, she shifted her gaze back to the “telly.”

The incessant words and images and strains of music were confusing, but in an odd way they made a bridge between the modern world and the one she had left only that morning. If she but watched and listened, she concluded, she would soon learn how to communicate with those around her.

Marge set a plate on the table before her, and Gloriana recognized the offering as a sandwich, a layer of yellow cheese melted between two slices of cooked bread. She ate ravenously, her gaze never straying from the television set, listening, absorbing, remembering.

The images on the television screen brought the outside world into focus for Gloriana, at least partially. The words were harder to grasp, since many terms were unfamiliar and all were uttered so swiftly as to be nearly abbreviated.

Everyone, it seemed to her, was in a hurry.

“Seeing how you put that first bit of food away,” Marge said, sliding a second sandwich onto Gloriana’s empty plate, “I thought you might be wanting more.”

“Thank you,” Gloriana ventured to say, forming the words carefully and pushing them slowly past her lips.

Marge beamed, bright as the room itself, with all its light and shimmering surface. “You’re most welcome,” she said.

Soon after that, weariness overcame Gloriana again, and she returned to the little room off the hallway, there to tumble into a fitful sleep. Her dreams were vivid, and in them she saw Dane walking the passages of Kenbrook Hall like a specter, calling her name.

Mist shivered down from the leaves of the oaks as the small, weary band rode past Hadleigh Castle and the abbey, progressing slowly but steadily through the twilight toward Kenbrook Hall. Their swords were nicked and bloody, their clothes stained crimson and stiff with sweat and dirt. They were seasoned soldiers to a man, but the battle with Merrymont’s forces had raged for more than two hours, with only brief respites. Each had been taxed to the limits of his skills and endurance.

Dane kept his gaze fixed on the looming bulk of his ancestral home, where his heart rested in the hands of a beautiful woman with witchery in her eyes. The invisible chord stretching between them was all that drew him forward, for he had lost his taste for war,
and the formidable personal strength that had sustained him for so long was all but spent. He wanted only to kneel at Gloriana’s feet, to lay his head in her lap and feel her fingers soothing his temples, threading lightly through his hair.

Maxen, wounded and filthy, his tunic soaked through with blood and rainwater, drew up beside Dane. He was leading a second horse behind his own, with a dead man sprawled across its back. “He’s the devil’s own spawn, is Merrymont,” the Welshman said. “Did you see him up there on that hilltop, watching his men set that crop ablaze with their torches? Kept a safe distance between himself and us, didn’t he?”

Dane nodded mutely, remembering. He and Maxen and the others had joined Gareth and his men an hour after the sun’s rising, beside the lake. They had not had to search out Merrymont, for the smoke of a burning field had filled the western sky, black and acrid.

Reaching a little huddle of crofters’ huts, they found acres of wheat reduced to smoldering rubble. Swine and fowl had been slaughtered, and the thatched roofs of the cottages set afire as well. The villagers had fled to the woods in terror, and some had been pursued and run down for the sport of it.

Dane closed his eyes briefly at the memory. They had fought, his men and Gareth’s and Merrymont’s, on that smoking field, retreated in their turns, regrouped, and skirmished again. He could still hear the ringing clash of steel against steel, see the showers of blue sparks thrown by the blades.

He had wanted to go after Merrymont, safe on his perch, but that would have meant leaving his own men—leaving Edward, who this day had truly been initiated as a soldier and been baptized in the blood
of friends and enemies alike. So Dane had stayed, wielding his sword until he could no longer feel his right arm, then using his left. Always, he had done his best to keep his young brother at the edge of his vision, but there had been times, of course, when that was impossible, because of the dust and the rigors of the fray itself. Finally, at some signal, Merrymont’s men had given up the battle and raced into the hills after their leader, abandoning their fallen comrades to their fate.

Both the quick and the dead were gathered and taken from the field on litters and in carts, some to Hadleigh Castle, some to Kenbrook Hall.

Hooves clattered on the ancient stones of the courtyard as Dane and Maxen led the way beneath the great arched gateway.

Dane had envisioned Gloriana rushing to greet him, hair flying, eyes alert for any indication that he’d been injured, but there was no sign of her. The disappointment—it had been her image that sustained him through the awful day—was like a blow, but he did not bow to it. He did not have that luxury.

The dead men, four of them, were laid out on the chapel floor, to be prayed over and buried in the morning. The wounded, seven of whom were Kenbrook men, had been taken to the abbey to be looked after by Sister Margaret and her flock of gentle minions.

Only when Dane had groomed, fed, and watered his horse did he permit himself to enter the keep, in search of his wife.

Her handmaiden, Judith, awaited him in the hall, looking like a small, garish ghost in the flickering light from the fire pits. She was wringing her hands and trembling a little.

“Where is your mistress?” Dane asked quietly. He knew, of course, that something was wrong, had known it when Gloriana did not come out into the courtyard to greet him.

The girl was thin and small, and looked so fragile that a harsh word might break her. A tear slipped down her cheek and her lips trembled. “She was taken from us, milord.”

Dane stood rigid, resisting the urge to grasp the chit and shake a more sensible answer out of her. “What the devil do you mean?” he rasped, but he knew. God help him, he knew.

“She was in the churchyard, milord,” the servant babbled, bobbing once or twice, as though a curtsy would make what she had to say more credible. “It was raining a little, and I was worried she’d catch a chill, so I found a cloak to take to her—” Judith paused again, and a violent shudder moved through her. “I saw her slip to her knees, as if she was in terrible pain, and I started to run. Before I got to her, milord, she—she vanished.” The girl’s eyes were enormous, and there was no color to her flesh. “Some of the others, they say—they say the devil came and took her to”—her voice fell to a hushed whisper—“to hell—”

Dane quelled the impatient rage rising within him and thrust a bloody hand through his hair. “Tell them,” he said calmly, “that anyone heard passing on such nonsense will be turned out.”

Judith nodded, her eyes brimming again, her hands so tightly clasped that the knuckles stood out, white, from their sockets. “You’ll find her, won’t you, milord? You’ll bring her back?”

Kenbrook was possessed of a despair so deep, so inconsolable, that it caused him to sway slightly on his
feet. The force that had taken Gloriana from him was one he could not begin to comprehend, let alone combat. And yet he must not only grasp the mystery, but find a way to prevail over it.

Gloriana was his soul; without her, he was not a man, but a living husk.

“There’s been some sort of mistake,” he said, at long last, disbelieving the words even as he uttered them, taking no comfort from the lie and, by her face, giving none to the girl. “Such things cannot happen. People do not disappear like ghosts.”

Judith started to speak—surely to protest—then stopped herself, visibly swallowing whatever she’d meant to say and nodding her head. Her sorrow at the loss of Gloriana was palpable, and Dane wondered if his own feelings were so plain.

In the end, he did not care.

“My men are hungry and tired,” he said. “See that food is brought to the hall, and more wood for the fires.”

Judith nodded again and hurried away. Dane stood for a moment, stricken to stillness, then took himself to the tower room, where a single oil lamp burned, keeping its flickering vigil.

He lit the other lamps, driving the greedy shadows into temporary retreat, searching, as he moved about the chamber, for some sign, some promise, some trace of Gloriana. Her clothes were there, and the chess pieces were neatly aligned on the board, in anticipation of a new game. He sensed a vague charge in the air, as though she might burst through the doorway at any moment, full of questions.

“Gloriana,” he whispered.

Then he shed his sword belt and stripped off his bloody clothes. He washed at a basin and then dressed
himself again, in simple woolen leggings, a tunic, and soft boots. Taking up an oil lamp, heedless of the aching exhaustion numbing his body, Dane searched the whole of Kenbrook Hall, from the uppermost chamber of the tower to the Roman baths, calling to Gloriana, willing her to come back.

Gloriana awakened to a sunny morning and the knowledge that she was still in the latter part of the twentieth century. Her first impulse was to wail with despair, but because she knew it would do no good, she bit her lower lip and waited until the worst of the urge had passed.

Someone had left a stack of clothing on the cushioned seat beneath the window, modern things borrowed from some neighbor or relation, no doubt.

It was not courage that finally drove Gloriana out of bed, but a desperate need to use the privy. As she passed along the hallway she caught a glimpse of Kirkwood, seated at the kitchen table. He must have known she was there, but he did not look up or speak, perhaps sensing that she didn’t want to be noticed, wearing only his shirt.

Upon returning to her room, she went straight for the stack of clothes—blue denim pants, comfortably worn, modern undergarments, still in their packages, a green short-sleeved shirt with the word “Oxford” printed on the front in large white letters.

After donning the skimpy, legless breeches—she remembered them from her childhood—Gloriana pondered the other item, a very odd bandeau, plainly meant to support her breasts. She could not recall ever seeing one before, and some time had passed before she figured out how to put it on. She was a little breathless with frustration, in fact, when she came out
of the bedchamber, wearing the Oxford shirt and the leggings—“jeans,” her memory called them.

Kirkwood acknowledged her this time, smiling and rising from his chair. “Good morning,” he said.

Gloriana hesitated in the doorway, feeling self-conscious again She glanced behind him, hoping to see the friendly Marge, or even Mrs. Bond, but there was no one else in the room.

“Good morning,” she replied, almost inaudibly and with great care.

He looked pleased and gestured toward the chair opposite his own. “Come in and sit down. There are some sausages and eggs if you want them. Not a very healthy breakfast, I admit, but we all have our little deceits.”

She frowned, taking the offered place at the table, confused. The food looked uncommonly good to her. Surely there could be no fault in eating it.

Kirkwood chuckled at her consternation. “My God,” he breathed, “I am getting caught up in this little fantasy of ours. If Mrs. Bond and Marge and all those gawkers at the ruins of Kenbrook hadn’t seen you, I’d think I made you up. Tell me—are you truly a damsel in distress?”

Gloriana filled her plate with painstaking care. Where she came from, people used their fingers at the table and occasionally a knife for cutting or spearing, but here there were all manner of utensils to contend with. She sorted Kirkwood’s words one by one, extracting every nuance of meaning before attempting a reply.

“I want to go home,” she said firmly. “To Kenbrook Hall.”

Kirkwood sighed. “Yes,” he replied, taking the spoon from Gloriana’s fingers, when she would have
eaten her sausage, and replacing it with a pronged instrument. “That may be a problem—going home, I mean. Kenbrook is a ruin, you see. Except for the tower, of course. The government’s made a museum out of that.”

Gloriana ached, and her sorrow came out in her voice, even though she was trying hard to be brave. “You don’t know how to send me back?”

He flinched, as though he’d felt her pain. “My dear, I can’t explain how you got here, let alone get you back. In fact, I’m still trying to figure out why I believe this is anything but a hoax or a grand delusion on your part.”

She laid down the utensil and pushed away her plate, all appetite gone. Her face must have showed the depth of her anguish, for Kirkwood reached across the table and took her hand, his grasp warm and strong.

“If there is a way to help you, Gloriana,” he said gravely, “I shall find it. But you must be patient.”

Gloriana nodded. A silent, frantic sob caught in her throat, and she swallowed it. She could not,
would not
spend the rest of her life in this gleaming, clamorous place, separated from Dane. She must find a way to return, and she would begin her quest by returning to Kenbrook.

She got out of her chair and started for the door. It could not be far. Perhaps if she simply stood where she’d been standing before in the churchyard …

Kirkwood reached her while she was still considering the knob and took her arm in a gentle hold. His next words made it clear that he had guessed her intention.

“I’ll take you there in the car,” he said. “Can’t have
you out wandering about on your own—the world is a dangerous place.”

Five mintues later, they were driving along a lane that edged the lake. They passed the abbey, reduced by time to a few low walls, and when Gloriana looked for Hadleigh Castle, she saw no visible trace of it. Kenbrook, as she had seen for herself the day before, was naught but a tower now, surrounded by piles of dark gray stone.

Kirkwood paid a toll, as though they were crossing a stranger’s bridge, and they were admitted to the grounds. Except for the attendant, there was no one else about.