Chapter 22

Phillip walked through the kitchens of Ravensthorpe, trying to maintain some semblance of looking as though he weren’t three breaths from falling to the floor in a dead faint.

He supposed he had moved past the point of being utterly shocked by what he was hearing to perhaps simply being numb to any more surprise. The only thing he could say for certain was that his entire world had been turned upside-down and he wasn’t sure if he would ever look at anything the same way again.

Knocking on his uncle’s solar was a good example of how odd his life had become. He’d done the same thing hundreds of times over the course of his life, yet at the moment it felt utterly foreign simply because he now knew that he wasn’t knocking on the door of a man of his father’s time, he was knocking on the door of a man from the Future.

The door opened. Phillip wouldn’t have been surprised at what he found there, anything from a faery to a monster. Instead, it was simply Jake, the man he had squired for briefly, the man he had parried with endlessly, the man who had sired two of his favorite relatives. The man who had concealed his past for reasons that Phillip thought he might actually be able to forgive with enough time.

He sighed to himself. Damnation, he’d forgiven the man already and was actually feeling more respect for him than he perhaps deserved. After all, Jake had walked onto the stage of the current day, wrested a title and a bride from extremely powerful men, and set himself up as a lord to be reckoned with.

Phillip admired him. There was nothing more to be said.

“You look chilled,” Jake said to Imogen. “And your friend there looks less likely to chop off my head than he did a couple of hours ago. Why don’t you both come inside? I’ll leave you in peace for a bit.”

Jake stood aside and allowed Imogen to come inside his solar. Phillip followed her, then paused next to his uncle. He held out his hand and waited until Jake had taken it.

“Forgive me,” he said simply.

Jake clapped him on the shoulder with his free hand. “Nothing to forgive, Phillip.”

“If you kiss me, I’ll slay you.”

Jake laughed, kissed him loudly on both cheeks just the same, then left his solar, pulling the door shut behind him. Phillip rolled his eyes, cursed a bit to make himself feel more himself, then went to stand with his backside to the fire. He’d done that more times than he could count as well, though he had to admit he’d never been entertaining the sort of mind-blowing thoughts he was examining at present.

He looked at Imogen. She was sitting in the chair she’d been sitting in before, the one next to the fire. She looked exhausted, which he could understand. Exhausted and a bit frightened. He cast about for something benign to discuss but feared he was not at his best at the moment. He would have asked her more about her family, but talking about them obviously wearied her.

He could understand that to some extent. He had endured his own moments of wishing his parents had stopped having children after his birth, but those moments had been fairly rare. He was remarkably fond of his brothers and younger sister and he couldn’t think of a cousin he didn’t love almost as much as his own siblings. Even those damned twin demons, Theopholis and Samuel of Wyckham, who he was fairly sure had somehow recently managed to stuff themselves in ale kegs for more successful eavesdropping below, weren’t intolerable. He didn’t think Imogen wanted pity for her lot in life, but he couldn’t help but wish for something different for her. Perhaps for as long as she remained in his time.

He forced himself not to find that as odd a thought as he likely should have. The truth was, she would need to return to her own world, assuming she could return.

“The countryside around Haemesburgh is lovely,” she said without warning. “And someone did restore the castle quite nicely.”

“Perhaps Heather hired souls to see to it. Or pressed them into service without pay,” he added, half under his breath.

She smiled. “She is very pretty, but a little frightening.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve only ever had her fling untoward things at me. And I’m suspecting that wasn’t even her engaging in that dastardly work. You would think someone from her keep would have found me to be an acceptable mate. After all, I have all my teeth and I have enough gold to purchase my future bride the odd bolt of material now and then.”

“And let’s not forget all that chivalry.”

“For all the good it does me,” he agreed, “but aye, there is that.” He chewed on other words he desperately wanted to voice for several minutes before he dared spew them out. “I don’t suppose you know what happens to Haemesburgh,” he said gingerly. “Throughout the years, that is.”

She looked at him steadily. “I know more than I should,” she said, “but I’m not sure you should know that much. And to be perfectly honest, I’m not as up on my British history as I should be.”

“British?”

“That’s what we call you. You know.” She shrugged. “Then.”

“And you’re not British? Or Scots?”

“Maybe back in the past somewhere,” she said, then she frowned. “Which might be the now, if I look at it the right way.” She shrugged helplessly that time. “I’m lost without the Internet.”

“Why-fie?” he asked gravely.

She smiled. “Yes, that.” She paused. “Want to see?”

He wondered if a hefty tankard of ale might be in order first, but he was a knight of the realm and heir to his father’s vast estates. Surely he should be equal to some bit of magic from the future. “Very well.”

“It’s not the rack, Phillip.”

He smiled. It was the height of foolishness and Kendrick would have laughed himself sick over it, but the sound of his name from her lips was... enchanting.

There was the word again. The saints pity him, he was in trouble.

She pulled something out of some pocket or other. It was that little box fashioned of that appalling color of whitish red. He’d already encountered it once against his jaw and wasn’t exactly sure he wanted another go, but she didn’t look intimidated. If she could bear up under the strain, so could he.

He pulled up a stool and sat down in front of her, leaning in so he might have a better look at what she wanted to show him. It was a tiny thing, about the size of her hand, but rectangular. He would have called it a bit of carved stone, but it was metal, with some sort of magically clear surface. She pushed on it and the damned thing sprang to life with colors that he had never before imagined.

Or that might have been the stars swirling around his head and the attendant agony of having clunked his head against something sharp. The edge of a chair perhaps.

He looked up to find Imogen peering down at him. Actually, if he were to be completely accurate, it was Imogen, Jake, and Amanda all peering down at him. When had his aunt and uncle entered the chamber? And why when he wiped his cheek did his hand come away damp? It wasn’t blood. He decided it had to be drool, damn it anyway.

“I am well,” he croaked. “Never better.”

Jake hauled him back up first to his arse, then all the way to his feet. He felt his way down into his chair as if he’d been every day of four score. He put his hand over his eyes until his head stopped pounding as if the rubbish between his ears was determined to exit through his eyes. He pried his eyes open in time to see his uncle Jake sitting down next to Imogen, looking with great interest at her little box.

“How much battery do you have left?” he was asking.

“Enough for a game or two, if you want.”

Apparently that was repayment enough for his hospitality. Phillip watched his uncle frown thoughtfully and poke at Imogen’s box—whatever the hell an android was—and then periodically laugh.

The man was nothing short of daft.

“Let me see,” Phillip said, “lest Jake lose his soul in some untoward fashion.”

Jake handed him the beast. “Don’t drop it.”

“I’ve already dropped myself.”

“You have and see where that got you. Those are zombies. They’re not real.”

“What’s a zombie?” Phillip asked, peering at the creatures limping across the face of the box.

“The undead,” Jake said, “and I changed my mind. Hand that back over, my lad. I’m losing plants right and left. Imogen, this is a great game. I don’t think I had this on my phone.”

“It’s addicting,” Imogen admitted.

Phillip listened to them babble for a few minutes in their almost incomprehensible modern English and realized that if he listened closely enough, he could make out most of the words. It gave him a rather decent appreciation of just how difficult the first few days in the past must have been for Imogen. And what pains in the head she must have suffered, though he supposed his own could have come from falling out of his own chair.

“So,” Jake said finally, returning Imogen’s box to her, “what do you want to do?”

“Well, I can’t stay, obviously,” she said, shifting uncomfortably. “I just am not sure how to get back. It’s not like I have any experience with this whole thing, but I’m afraid I don’t have very many options.” She looked at him. “Any suggestions?”

Jake sighed deeply. “Time traveling is never a safe or reliable thing.” He paused, then looked at her and laughed. “If you can believe those words even came out of my mouth to start with.”

“At this point, I think I can believe almost anything.”

Phillip had to admit, he understood. He was sitting in his uncle’s solar, looking at two souls who had been born hundreds of years of out of his time, and he could scarce believe the words he was listening to. He listened to Imogen relate to Jake the same tale she’d told him, that of encountering Heather of Haemesburgh in Edinburgh, traveling to visit her the next day at the keep, then encountering his own sword in the Future. It sounded less fantastical the second time than it had the first, which left room in what was left of his poor head to consider things he hadn’t before.

Heather had obviously taken his sword to the Future, but how had she gotten to the future in the first place and why had she taken his sword with her? So he couldn’t follow her and retrieve it? But if she had no intention of ever coming back to the past, why hadn’t she simply shoved the damned thing through some sort of gate or portal or whatever those travelers through time used and been done with it? Had she not had any idea where any of that sort of thing lay?

He paused, then allowed himself to think on other things. What of those trunks his uncle Montgomery had brought in occasionally for his wife? Those had come from somewhere, hadn’t they? Perhaps there was a portal there at Sedgwick. And obviously Jake had managed to come to the past through some sort of doorway, hadn’t he? He himself had always considered his grandfather’s sword to be a spectacular piece of business, but he had never once considered that it might possess magical properties past what, as his sire would have said, his own swordplay embued it with. Perhaps the magic of the sword needed to connect with the proper location inside Haemesburgh at the perfect time—

Or perhaps he simply needed to excuse himself, go back to bed, and sleep until good sense returned.

“Well, you could consult with our local witch,” Jake was saying with a smile. “She and her helpers have already gotten themselves settled for the night in the finest guest room, but I can introduce you to them in the morning. Phillip knows Berengaria quite well.”

He nodded to himself over that. First magical swords, then witches. What next?

“She arrived this morning,” Jake continued. “She visits now and again to take the sea air.”

Considering that Berengaria could just as easily take the same sea air at Artane, Phillip imagined that wasn’t her reason for visiting. But he wasn’t going to argue. He looked at Imogen. “Mistress Berengaria is not a witch, nor are her helpers.” He shot his uncle a look. “No witch could possibly brew things as vile as do Nemain and Magda both. They would be shamed out of their profession by their fellows.”

Jake smiled. “You have a point there. All I know is that over the years, I’ve learned to trust that Mistress Berengaria has seen her share of very odd things. Wouldn’t you agree, Phillip?”

Phillip sighed. “I will admit that she recently told me my sword was enspelled. I, of course, snorted heartily enough to put out their cooking fire.”

“And there you have it,” Jake said to Imogen pleasantly. “Karma, coming around to bite him in the arse.”

“Karma?” Phillip asked.

“I’ll explain it to you later,” Jake promised. “For now, why don’t you see your lady to her chamber and we’ll discuss our plans in the morning. I have a gaming headache that is going to require something slightly stronger than watered-down wine.”

Phillip didn’t think he dared find out anything more about what sort of pains his uncle might be suffering. It was enough that the man would pay a price for the silence he’d indulged in over the years.

He collected Imogen and walked her to the chamber she was sharing with Rose. He stopped in front of the door and looked at her.

“Interesting day,” he offered.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I think this had to have been a bit of a shock.”

“The shock is what an idiot I’ve been not to see what was going on under my nose,” he said with a sigh, “which is hardly your doing.” He paused. “Will you show me how to slay zombies in the morning?”

She smiled. “Of course. Better rest up. It can get pretty ugly.”

He watched her go inside, then turned and looked down the passageway. There was no one there, but he had the feeling he wasn’t alone. It wasn’t the same feeling of being stalked he’d had on the way to the coast—that was something he was going to have to think about on the morrow as well—this was more a feeling of being heartily eavesdropped upon by cousins who should have known better.

Perhaps seeking his own rest could wait for a few more minutes until he had located and contained the problems, which he had the feeling were named Theo and Sam.

The saints only knew what sort of mischief those two would combine if they weren’t limited to making their mischief in the Middle Ages.