Chapter 23

Imogen tiptoed through a darkened great hall, grateful for the pair of torches that were still burning, giving her enough light that she didn’t trip over anyone who happened to be sleeping in front of the fires. Cinderella types or guardsmen, she couldn’t say. She just knew they were all snoring to put lumberjacks to shame.

She managed to get to the front door before she turned around and looked back over the great hall. It was full of half-visible shapes on the floor and fires that burned low in their hearths. It was absolutely medieval in a lush, simple way that left her catching her breath. She would miss it. But she had a task to accomplish, and the sooner she got to it, the better.

She was going to find Phillip’s sword.

She’d decided that about halfway through a night where she hadn’t slept any at all. She’d been alone in Rose’s room, which had led her to believe that maybe Amanda and Jake had requested a bit of privacy for her. It had also come in handy for rummaging through Rose’s trunk for her backpack. It was gone as were her clothes. She supposed she should have been alarmed by that, but she wasn’t. The most likely scenario was that Jake or Amanda had tossed everything in the kitchen fire the night before. It didn’t really matter. She had her phone and her mission. Everything else was incidental.

Of course, figuring out where to go had been a bit of a question. Going all the way to Edinburgh, getting there in one piece was going to be something of a trick, but she’d already worked that out as well. She was going to borrow a horse and ride like hell. Well, in her case, she would be limping along like a tortoise, but she would get there eventually. She had deep suspicions that that shop on the Royal Mile hadn’t been just full of things that looked as if they belonged in the bookcase of a coven of witches. That place was beyond spooky. Not only that, it was where she’d encountered Heather that fateful afternoon. There had to be some sort of gate there.

And while the exact route was in doubt, the end goal certainly wasn’t. She was going to find Phillip’s sword in the future and shove it back into the past. He would have what belonged to him and she would have indoor plumbing and Lemon Chicken. Everyone would be happy.

She opened the door, slipped outside, then pulled the door shut behind her. She hadn’t managed to get down half the stairs before the bark of a very awake guardsman almost sent her stumbling down the rest.

“And where’re you off to—oh, Lady Imogen.”

“Ah—” Imogen looked frantically for something say, but came up with absolutely nothing.

“She’s here to meet me.”

A wizened old woman stepped out of the shadows and into the guard’s torchlight. She smiled a gentle smile at him.

“A late night for you, Sir Robert.”

The guardsman put his shoulders back. “A privilege it is, Mistress Berengaria, to guard my lord and his family. And see to his guests, of course.”

Mistress Berengaria—she of the witchly fame, Imogen hoped—put her hand on his arm, patted him, then smiled again. “You are a good lad and valued by your master. I think, though, that the lady Imogen and I might better wear ourselves out if we could indulge shamelessly in the talk of women. If you know what I’m alluding to.”

Apparently Sir Robert did and the thought terrified him. He made them both a quick bow, then trotted off. He paused several feet away, then turned toward them.

“I’ll keep watch over you from a distance,” he called.

“Very wise,” Berengaria agreed. She looked at Imogen and smiled. “Now, my dear, let us take a turn about the courtyard ourselves.”

Imogen found herself doing just that, trying to make out the features of a woman who had white hair but didn’t move like a granny. If their turn seemed to lead them closer to the front gates, so much the better. She wasn’t going to argue.

The woman, who again was reputedly less a witch than something tamer, stopped and turned to look at her. “I am Berengaria,” she said with a smile, “and you’re Imogen.”

“Yes,” Imogen said, because she wasn’t sure exactly where the encounter was going.

“I think if you head to Edinburgh, you will find what you seek,” Berengaria said. “Begin at the beginning.”

Imogen frowned. “That’s it?”

“’Tis all you need, my dear. The rest will follow.”

And with that, she turned and melted into the shadows. Imogen would have been slightly flipped out by that, but she decided that her quota of weirdness had been already filled that month. She was impervious to any more.

She didn’t say that out loud, of course. No sense in alerting Karma to any potential needers of cosmic lessons.

She made it to the front gate before she realized she had a problem. The portcullis was down and the drawbridge was up. She’d already had a ride on the end of the latter at Haemesburgh—twice—and decided that was probably enough for one lifetime. Raising the portcullis looked to be even more impossible. She put her hand on the heavy wood and supposed there was no point in even thinking about trying to heave that up. She imagined not even a couple of burly extras could have managed it, even if the whole thing had been made of painted Styrofoam.

She realized, when the hair on the back of her neck stood up, that not only did she have problems in front of her, she had some behind her, because she was most definitely not alone. Well, of course she wasn’t alone, but this was a more substantial feeling than just the average there-are-frowning-guardsmen-behind-you-preparing-to-tell-you-to-go-back-to-your-room feeling. She steeled herself for the worst, then turned slowly to see what that worst might be.

To her surprise, she found herself face-to-face with Rose Kilchurn, dressed for success.

Imogen had a hard time latching on to just the right thing to say, never mind trying to decide in which language to say it. Rose seemed unfazed.

“Off to do foul deeds?” she asked.

Imogen stared at her for a moment or two, trying to figure out what was wrong with that, then she realized what it was.

Rose was speaking in English. Modern English.

Imogen knew she shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was. She waved a finger at her. “I knew you spoke English,” she said. “You’re bad.”

“I’m discreet. Now, what are you doing?”

Imogen looked around to make sure they were as alone as possible. She supposed the likelihood of too many people speaking modern English wasn’t all that great, so she forged ahead, quietly.

“I need to go home.”

“Let my father help you.”

“I have to get Phillip his sword back and straighten things out with Heather,” she said. “I don’t think your father can help me with either.”

Rose nodded. “I thought as much, actually. I’ll come along and help.”

“You can’t,” Imogen said, not sure if she should be grateful or horrified. “What if something happened to you?”

Rose shrugged. “I have guardsmen.”

“But—”

Rose pointed back over her shoulder. Five of the most terrifying men Imogen had ever seen stepped out of the shadows, though Imogen was fairly sure there hadn’t been any shadows there before and there definitely wasn’t a huge amount of torchlight to step into. If she’d been sitting in a theater, she would have been mentally handing props to the cinematographer for a job very well done. She felt a shiver go down her spine. The two who shadowed Phillip seemed tough. These guys were another level of that entirely.

“We like adventures,” Rose said mildly.

Imogen just bet they did. “They weren’t with you at Haemesburgh.”

“Weren’t they?”

Imogen started to say they definitely weren’t, but realized that she honestly couldn’t say that with any certainty. She laughed and after the fact hoped she hadn’t sounded completely unhinged. “I see.”

“Loyal,” Rose said with a faint smile. “To a fault.”

“That’s an interesting word to choose.”

“I like to be able to count on things being the way I want them to be.”

“And so does your father, I imagine.”

“Which is why these lads are mine,” Rose agreed, “though they might guard his back in a pinch if I asked nicely.”

“I’m sure he appreciates that.”

“I suspect he does.” She held out a bundle. “I think you should change clothes.”

Imogen realized that Rose wasn’t wearing skirts. She looked at what she held in her hands. “Boys’ clothes?”

“It seems prudent.”

“I’m not in shape to be scaling any castle walls,” she warned.

Rose smiled. “We’ll take care of that part. I’ll clear out the guard’s chamber briefly and you can change, then we’ll be on our way.”

“How are we going to get the gate up without anyone knowing?”

“We’ll take care of that as well.”

Imogen walked with her toward the guardroom, following after one of Rose’s men who didn’t seem like the sort who found himself argued with very often. She paused. “Why does Phillip only have two?”

Rose smiled. “He only needs two.”

“He’s that tough?”

“Much tougher.”

“He seems so clean and tidy.”

“He’s a first-rate bastard when you cross him,” Rose said dryly.

“Have you ever crossed him?”

“I should have put that differently,” Rose said. “He’s terrifying when you, as a lad, cross him, but the epitome of chivalry when you are a woman, no matter how you comport yourself. I’ve pushed him repeatedly far past where even my father would have tolerated my cheek and he’s never done anything but return kindness for vexation.”

“Never?”

“His jaw might have clenched once. I also might have clouted him on it when he refused me my way.”

Imogen smiled. “You are very fond of him.”

“Terribly,” Rose admitted, “so I’ll admit it is with mixed feelings that I aid you. I think he wouldn’t argue if you wanted to stay. But I understand needing to go.”

Imogen couldn’t imagine that Phillip was interested in anything more than getting rid of her so he could get back to getting hold of his castle, but what did she know of medieval men?

She changed quickly, was faintly surprised that everything fit, wished futilely for underclothes, then went back outside to look for her escort. Rose was there with two of her men. Imogen didn’t bother to ask where the others had gone. She simply walked without haste under the portcullis after it had risen silently, crossed the drawbridge with Rose when it came down silently, then turned to watch as it returned to its guardian position. All very normal and very medieval. There were horses waiting. She didn’t ask how that was possible. She simply looked at her new friend.

“What will your father say?”

“Oh, what he always says,” Rose said with a smile. “Many things he thinks I won’t understand.”

“You’re his heir.”

“Jackson is his heir,” she said. “I’m the apple of his eye. And I have a keep of my own, actually, that belonged to my mother’s grandmother, Joanna.”

“Why aren’t you there?”

“What man is going to take orders from a woman?”

“They did from Grandmère Joanna,” a voice said from behind them.

Rose looked surprised for the first time so far that evening. She whirled around. “Thad,” she whispered fiercely, “what by all the bloody saints do you think you’re doing?”

“Coming along.”

“Absolutely not,” Rose said firmly. “I forbid it.”

“Give me a good reason why not.”

Imogen watched Rose list half a dozen reasons that seemed to make absolutely no difference to a boy who was as tall as she was, though obviously quite a bit younger. He was probably no more than sixteen, but there was something about him that left her thinking that he’d seen more than his share of things that had aged him. He stood there, his arms folded over his chest, listening with polite interest to what his sister was telling him. He also obviously wasn’t buying a word of it.

Rose finally threw up her hands in frustration, then looked at Imogen. “Meet my younger brother, Thaddeus. I have been informed he’s coming along.”

“I was the one to arrange the horses,” Thaddeus said mildly.

Rose stared at him for a moment or two in silence, then pursed her lips. “Very well. But we won’t wait for you if you fall behind.”

The look he shot her was priceless. Imogen would have laughed, but she had the distinct feeling that in the Kilchurn family, bravado ruled the day. She suspected they had the goods to back it up, which she appreciated greatly.

Rose rolled her eyes and looked at Imogen. “We’ll ride hard. When Phillip discovers you’re gone, he’ll follow. If you don’t want him to stop you and babble all manner of silliness at you, ’tis best we make haste.”

“I’ve already thrown him off the scent,” Thaddeus offered. “I pulled his squire aside and filled his ears full of all sorts of things.”

“Little Bartholomew?” Rose said in disbelief.

“Who else was I going to talk to?” Thad asked. “Sir Myles? Sir Cederic? Of course I took Bartholomew aside. He’s gullible enough to believe me and I promised him a year’s supply of new quills if he didn’t say anything to his master. Of course you know that’s the first thing he’ll do, then try to pry those implements of his trade from me after the fact.”

“You have a point there,” Rose said. “Where did you tell him we were going?”

“Back to Haemesburgh.” Thaddeus shrugged. “I knew your destination, of course, but that seemed harmless enough.”

“One could hope.” Rose started to turn away, then looked at her brother. “Do you know where we’re going?”

He tapped his forehead. “I guessed. I’m confident I guessed aright.”

Rose flicked her brother companionably on the ear, nodded to her men, then looked at Imogen. “We’ll still need to ride hard.”

“I’m not good at it.”

“Learn quickly.”

Imogen supposed she could deal with the inability to walk later, when she was back in the future and had a hot tub at her disposal. Until then, she would ride with the collection of dark knights and their fearless leader, and hope she survived the journey.

She thought she could safely say her odds had just improved greatly.