Chapter 21

Imogen stood in the damp cellar of Ravensthorpe and thought she might like to be somewhere else.

At least it was where the wine and ale were apparently kept, not where prisoners were kept. She hadn’t asked if Phillip’s uncle Jake had a dungeon because she just didn’t want to know. She couldn’t imagine being a miscreant in medieval times and honestly didn’t want to try, though she supposed she really should at least make mental notes about her surroundings for use when she got back to the future and actually had to do her job.

Assuming she could get back to the future.

She was starting to feel like she was in a movie complete with Juilliard-trained actors who would have sooner burned SAG cards than break character. She knew where she was and she knew when she was, but there was still a part of her that wanted to cling to the thought that she was in a sibling-created reality show or a drug-induced hallucination. She could have, with hardly any effort, believed that everyone around her at least thought they were living in the Middle Ages.

The upside to their commitment to craft was that she was living the dream of getting to see history firsthand, which she had to admit she had secretly wished for several times over the course of her life. She supposed it was a little on the ungrateful side to wish that experience had come with slightly more comfortable shoes and better food. She had the feeling Jake and Lady Amanda were pretty progressive when it came to dinnertime, so it could have been much worse.

She watched Phillip take the torch he’d been using to investigate corners and jam it into a sconce as if he’d been doing the same thing his entire life. Which she supposed he had.

Talk about surreal.

Apparently they weren’t the first ones to choose the cellar as a place for a private chat. There was a handy semicircle of half casks set there for just that sort of thing. She took a seat and waited for Phillip to do the same. He rubbed his hands together and looked at her.

“Well,” he said.

She paused to appreciate the strangeness of her current situation—talking to a man eight hundred years older than she was about things that would probably blow his mind—then attempted a smile.

“Well,” she agreed.

He took a deep breath, then pushed himself to his feet. Imogen watched him fuss with a couple of mugs, filling them with what she hoped was drinkable stuff, then come and sit back down.

“I don’t want to pry,” he said slowly, “but I am curious about a few things, if you can stomach the thought of enlightening me.”

She bought herself some time by tasting what was in the heavy silver mug Phillip gave her. It wasn’t awful, but then again, she downed wheatgrass on a regular basis, so the bar was set pretty low. She had another sip, then looked at him.

“What do you want to know?”

“How it all began,” he said. “Or perhaps even further back than that. How old are you? What were you doing when you... ah... when you...?”

“I’m twenty-six,” she said, because she thought if he wound himself any tighter, he just might come unraveled. “Pretty old for these days, isn’t it?”

“My grandmère was well into her eightieth year when she died, so nothing seems very old to me.” He looked at her steadily. “It seems a bit unimportant compared to everything else.”

“When you look at it that way, it does,” she agreed. She had another swig of wine that at second blush wasn’t at all nasty, then mentally girded her loins. “Are you sure you want to talk about any of this? Knowing too much about the future can be a dangerous thing.” She paused and had to have another drink just to remind herself that she was really sitting in the basement of a medieval castle not on a movie set where the script called for lots of time traveling. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

He looked about as green as she felt. “I understand, believe me. And there is wisdom in what you say.” He had a strengthening sip of his own drink. “Perhaps if you simply tell me about yourself and leave off with anything else.”

“I’m not very interesting,” she protested.

“I disagree,” he said, looking at her seriously, “but we can argue that point later perhaps.” He made himself more comfortable on his cask. “Tell me what you will. I’ll believe it all, I guarantee it.”

He had an amazing tolerance for crazy, she would say that much for him. She nodded. “As far as how I got here, that’s pretty straightforward. I had flown over to the UK—”

“The... UK?”

“United Kingdom,” she said. She realized immediately that she was really going to have to watch herself about even simple details. All she needed was to say the wrong thing and change the course of history. At least she wasn’t going to have to keep up that watching of her words for as long as Jake had. “It’s what they call England, Scotland, and Wales. Oh, and Ireland. Well, the north part at least.”

“Scotland,” he repeated, sounding stunned. “Wales as well? When did this unifying happen?”

“I’m not sure. Quite a while before the Revolutionary War in America, but I can’t give you exact dates.” Actually, she could give him exact dates but it seemed like an extraordinarily bad idea. He was trying to secure a keep right on England’s border with Scotland. The last thing he needed was to have any idea what was coming down the pike toward him. She could have made a mint as a medieval fortune teller, that much was certain.

“America?” he asked.

She started to answer, then shook her head. “I’m probably telling you things you don’t need to know. Let’s talk about something else.”

He took a substantial swig of his wine. “Very well, What were you doing in the... United Kingdom?” he asked faintly. “Were you born here or is that also something we shouldn’t talk about?”

“Probably the latter,” she said. “I wasn’t born in the UK. I was born in, ah, Jake’s country, actually. I had gotten a job here and flown over—”

“Job? Flown?”

He was looking for wings. She knew he was trying to be discreet and it wasn’t at all funny, but she almost laughed. She took a deep breath. “There are these, well they’re sort of these long wine-cask things that have wings.” She shrugged helplessly. “They go up in the sky and carry you long distances.”

“What powers them?”

She smiled in spite of herself. “I’ve just told you that man will eventually fly like birds and you’re more curious about how fast he goes than whether or not he actually gets off the ground?”

“I like fast horses.” He smiled. “Familial failing, I’m afraid. I’m always interested in power.”

She could have sworn she heard a snort, but it was just the two of them. She looked over her shoulder and also could have sworn that she saw the hint of blond hair, but maybe that was just her imagination. She opened her mouth to relate that interesting story about how she was just sure she’d seen someone who had to have been either Sam and Theo’s older relative in the future, but thought better of it. She wasn’t entirely sure they weren’t being eavesdropped on by those two, so it was probably better not to give them any ideas.

Phillip obviously shared her suspicions given that he was looking into the shadows with a frown. He considered, then leaned closer. “We’ll have to whisper. Tell me more about these wings and how they’re powered.”

Well, if there was one thing she could definitely talk about with the authority granted by experience, it was how many varieties of airplanes one evil sister could book for her younger, trusting sibling. She told Phillip everything she knew about every plane she had flown on during that endless fifty-three-hour trip to London. He set his wine aside about the time she flew into Chicago and the cup was all but forgotten by the time she’d reached Heathrow.

She was actually very sorry he would never get to at least drive a car. The man was, as he had admitted, obsessed with horsepower.

He finally sat back, fumbled for his cup, and drained it. He took a deep breath, then shook his head. “Almost beyond belief, but I suppose in the Future, the fantastical is common. So you had... flown... here from Chicago, then what?”

He was speaking in French, his version of French, which made the modern terms he attempted to sprinkle in here and there almost more charming than she could stand. She only wished she had a better grasp of the rest of what he was saying. It wasn’t exactly eighteenth century poetic French, but he was trying and she thought it was possible that with enough time she would have gotten the hang of it. She almost wished she could be there long enough for that to happen.

Almost.

“So, I had landed in London,” she said, “and then taken the train—no, never mind about that. Not nearly as interesting as flying. Let’s just say that I was in Edinburgh for my job.”

“A task to do,” he said slowly. He smiled. “I’ve heard Jake use that word a time or two.”

“He’s going to land himself in hot water if he’s not careful,” she said easily. “But yes, a task to do. It happens that in my time, we have these plays.” She stopped, then looked at him. “I suppose you do, too.”

“We do,” he agreed, “and isn’t that an odd thing to have in common?”

“People need the occasional escape from too much reality,” she said with a smile, “so maybe not as strange as we think. Anyway, my job was to find things for the actors to use in our plays.”

“Here in England?”

“And Scotland, too, though I was starting in Edinburgh. I was looking in this shop on the Royal Mile and this woman just sort of showed up behind me and asked me if I wanted to see a castle—and she wasn’t talking about the one up the road.”

“Which hall, then?” he asked. “Artane?”

She shook her head. “No, Haemesburgh.”

He went very still. “And why did she have any right to show it to you?”

“Because she said it was her castle.” She paused. “She said her name was Heather.”

“Damn her.” He started to say something else, then just shook his head. “I’m somehow not surprised. I’m guessing it is our missing Heather, but I imagine we’ll have to determine later how she escaped my time. Very well, what happened then?”

“I traveled to Haemesburgh the next morning and Heather showed me around the place.”

“It still stands in your day?” he asked in surprise.

“If you can believe it, and looking actually quite a bit better than it does at the moment.” She smiled. “Maybe you clean it up in the future.”

“The saints preserve me,” he said uneasily, “what a terrible thought.” He poured himself more wine. “The more I think about it, the more I’m not sure I want to know anything about the future.”

Imogen wasn’t sure he would want to, either. The Black Death, Henry’s razing of the monasteries, good grief, Led Zeppelin. She took a deep breath and looked at him.

“If it makes you feel any better, the Magna Carta turns out to be a very good thing,” she said. “You’ll be glad you have that. It changes history.”

He stared at her so long, she was almost afraid she’d said too much. Then he blinked rapidly once or twice. If she hadn’t known better, she would have suspected he was growing misty-eyed. For all she knew, he was.

“My head pains me.”

“Your mind is being blown. Don’t worry. It’ll pass.”

“Mind-blowing,” he murmured, in English, no less. “My uncle Nicholas is wont to mutter that from time to time, damn him to hell.” He set his wine on the floor and rubbed his hands over his face. “All the things that have been right in front of me that I couldn’t bring myself to look at.”

“If it makes you feel better, I think we all do it.”

He sighed. “You have that aright, I’m sure. And I continue to interrupt you. So, you had gone to Haemesburgh and Heather, damn her, had welcomed you inside. I almost hesitate to ask you what happened then.”

“She showed me around for a bit, then we ended up in the great hall. There was a sword stuck in the floor behind the lord’s table. It looked medieval but in surprisingly good condition, which at the time I thought was a bit strange. I admit I was surprised she let me anywhere near it, but that didn’t seem to bother her. She invited me to put my hand on the hilt. I did, fainted, then when I woke up I was looking up not at her, but at the guys who were at the castle. In your day.”

“A sword,” he said slowly.

“Your sword.”

He caught his breath. “That much is almost unbelievable.”

“It is,” she agreed. “I think there might be something magical about that sword.” She paused, then looked at him with a smile. “I can’t believe I’m saying that.”

“I understand, believe me,” he said fervently. He shook his head. “’Tis obvious Heather has found a way to your time. One wonders how she managed it.”

Imogen started to agree that it was indeed something to wonder about and then it occurred to her that maybe she didn’t need to spend all that much energy at it. If she herself had used the sword to come to the past, who was to say that Heather hadn’t used it to get to the future?

She looked at Phillip. “How long ago did she swipe it from you?”

“Five years ago,” he said. “I suppose I could bring the exact date to mind, if necessary.”

“How did it happen?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Whilst I was cursing over the condition of my clothing that had just become saturated with cesspit leavings, some whoreson came up behind me and clouted me over the head. When I woke, my sword was gone. ’Tis nothing more than I deserve, I daresay, for concentrating on the wrong things.”

“And you didn’t have any of your men with you?”

“Well, of course—” He stopped and frowned. “Just Cederic, my captain. I hadn’t wanted to frighten either Heather or her father by bringing along a small army.”

“When did you get the rest of your motley crew?” she asked. Good grief, not even M?tley Crüe was around. Really, she was in primitive times.

“Immediately after,” he said. “My father insisted, though I didn’t argue.” He lifted his eyebrows briefly. “I was a fool to go with only one man, but there you have it. The hubris of youth.”

She wanted to ask him a dozen things, beginning and ending with how bizarre it must be to know you were in line for that gigantic castle on the edge of the sea and that your life was worth as much for that lineage as it was for just your own self. She could see where being a medieval guy might have had its downsides.

“Well, you seem to have a loyal group around you now,” she said, realizing she was complimenting him on having a security detail who would kill first and ask questions later, then shook her head and tried to latch onto what they’d been discussing. “Well, however your sword got to her, I’m guessing that’s how she traveled to the future. I’m not sure how she would have known to stick your sword in the floor, though.”

“I think it was nothing but a happy coincidence,” he said grimly. “Her brother had mocked me by telling me they had driven my blade into the floor and were using it to hang cloaks on. I would suspect that Heather had tossed her brother’s gear on the floor, put hers there instead, then found herself where she hadn’t intended to go.”

“That must have been something.”

He smiled faintly. “You would know.”

“I would,” she agreed.

She wondered very briefly what Heather had thought when she’d wound up in the future, if she had had any idea beforehand what was going to happen to her, how in the world she had managed to land herself in the position of lady of Haemesburgh. She wondered what Heather had thought the first time she’d used a phone, or watched TV, or ridden in a car. The entire world must have seemed either magical or like something from a very bad dream.

“Perhaps we should go make use of that fire in my uncle’s solar,” Phillip suggested. “You looked chilled.”

She suspected the he was shivering more than she was, but she’d already had her freak-out. It was his turn. She agreed, then climbed with him back up to the kitchens, happy to leave the basement with its dank chill behind. She could have sworn she heard a muffled sneeze, but she supposed that catching a cold was the least that should happen to potential eavesdroppers.

She considered Phillip’s sword as they walked. There was the sentimental value, true, but she hated to admit that she was slightly more interested in it for its reputedly magical properties. She could hardly believe she was taking that seriously, but experience was hard to deny.

She wasn’t sure where that left her, but she was starting to suspect that his sword was the key to getting back to where she needed to go. The only problem was, she had no idea how to even begin to look for it. If it had come with her when she’d come to the past, it was probably hiding under Hamish’s bed. If Heather still had it, it was probably hiding under her bed in modern-day Haemesburgh.

She wasn’t sure how she was going to do it, but she had to get her hands on that sword.