Kingdom Come (5 page)

“If that’s true,” she said, “then why am I here? I don’t have a mission to complete.  This is your deal, not mine.”

He smiled at her. “For a brilliant woman, there are times when you are most dense.  This crown is as much yours as it is mine; this is something we were meant to do together, Lib. I had the crown; you went searching for it and found me instead.  Then we recovered it together. It belongs to us as surely as we belong to each other. And perhaps… perhaps the reason you have returned with me is to ensure my success.  The first time, I nearly perished in my quest.  With my second attempt, the difference shall be you.”

She smiled timidly at him, eyeing the village in the distance. “Are you sure about all of this?”

He followed her gaze, the gem-clear brown eyes lingering on the smoking bonfires and thatched huts. “There is one way to find out.”

“But how do we know that your old friend Simon isn’t out there, waiting to stab you again? How do we know when, exactly, this is? Is it the day before you were wounded? A week before?”

“I think I will be able to deduce that in little time.”

“How?”

“By returning to Hut’s hostel. In theory, if it is somewhat close to the time I was wounded, all of my possessions will be there, including my armor and weapons.”

“I have to tell you that I’m really scared.”

“Just as I was when I awoke in your time.”

“But you’re braver than I am.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her, letting her know just how ridiculous he thought her statement was.  He picked up the box that contained the crown.

“Not hardly.”

CHAPTER TWO

The first thing Rory noticed was the smell.  It was as if a hundred portable outhouses had been dumped in the street along with animal carcasses, trash, and just about anything else imaginable.  As a Biblical Archaeologist with an emphasis in the First through Third Crusades, she was well aware of medieval societal conditions.  She’d studied it, wrote about it, inspected it, but nothing had prepared her for the reality of it.  It was beyond belief.  She held Kieran’s hand tightly as they entered the outskirts of the village, heading into the bowels of the berg.

The shacks that comprised people’s homes or businesses weren’t anything like she was used to.  They were made of mud and straw, seated on foundations that were nothing like modern building foundations. And they were small; very tiny, like doll houses. Walls leaned, roofs pitched at odd angles, and she could hear voices or other noises as they walked along the dirty street. But it wasn’t English they spoke; it was something else, something harsh and crude.  It was, literally, like being in another world.  She was in ancient times and still struggling to grasp it.  It was terrifying, disorienting and thrilling at the same time.

So she was in Nahariya in 1192 A.D., at least if what Kieran believed was true. Other than the fact that she was walking in animal dung on urine-slicked roads, there was another concern on her mind.  She was still dressed in her khaki jeans and tee shirt, looking as out of place as one could possibly get in a twelfth century village.  She need more appropriate attire in order to blend in, especially with her fair skin, but she was horrified at the thought of wearing clothing of this time.  Vermin and lice were commonplace and she wanted no part of bug-crawling clothing.  Still, she had little choice.

“Kieran,” she whispered as they tread quickly and quietly down a darkened avenue. “I need some appropriate clothing. People are going to have a heart attack when they see me in these clothes.”

He was in a mode that Rory had never seen before; his eyes were darting about, surveying all, missing nothing.  It was the look of a hunter or the hunted.  Still, he managed to understand what she was telling him, even passing a glance at her attire.

He grunted. “I have become so accustomed to seeing you dressed as such that it did not occur to me.” He paused, pulling her back into the shadows with him. “Hut has a wife. Perhaps she can give you something to wear until I can purchase clothing for you.”

She wrinkled her nose. “God, I hope it’s clean, whatever it is.”

“Beggars cannot be choosers. You will take it and be thankful for it until I can purchase something better.”

“I’m not a beggar,” she insisted, somewhat angrily. “And I won’t wear it if it’s crawling with bugs or any other little creatures.”

“You will wear it.”

“No bugs, Kieran.”

“Wear it or you will not like my response.”

She stuck her tongue out at him in the darkness.  He caught it out of the corner of his eye.

“Do that again and I shall take it as an invitation.”

She leaned forward into his line of sight and stuck her tongue out at him blatantly, adding a sassy sound along with it.  He looked at her sternly before breaking down into soft snorts.

“I accept your invitation. But later.”

She giggled as he pulled her out of the shadows and they continued down the avenue.   Somewhere in the mud and filth, she managed to step in a huge pile of human feces and she groaned, trying to wipe her boot off as they continued to move down the street.  Just as she managed to wipe most of it off in the dirt, Kieran suddenly veered into a larger structure.

It was bigger than the small, leaning houses they had just passed.   From what she could see, the building was two stories with a row of narrow gaping windows on the second floor.  The door wasn’t properly fitted and both light and sounds poured through the gaps. When Kieran finally yanked the door open, she was hit in the face by the warmth and the smell.

The room was full of bodies, of people that Rory had only seen at medieval fairs or in movies. They were dirty, scruffy, dressed in clothing that made her mouth hang open at the sight of it. Kieran pulled her across the hard-packed dirt floor towards the far end of the room, but it didn’t prevent her from staring at the collection of rabble.  

Men who looked as if they had never bathed in their lives sat hunched over earthenware cups.  There were a few women about, though it was a general term regarding the sex of the individual and not a compliment.  They were by far the most dirty, disgusting creatures Rory had ever seen.  They wore little more than layers of rags on their bodies, dark swarthy women who turned their attention to her as she crossed the room in her indecent clothing. 

In the corner, one of the women was up on the table top, her skirts thrown up and a man going to work between her legs.  The woman laughed, the main thrust into her, and his friends crowed uproariously.  They were all making great sport out of it while one of their friends near the window peed against the wall.

Mouth still agape, Rory smashed into the back of Kieran when he suddenly came to a halt. Peering around him, she noticed he had engaged in conversation a large, flabby man who wore little more than a burlap tunic and ratty leggings. She stared at the clothing, the uneven weave and rough material.  It was both fascinating and shocking, like wearing steel wool. She listened to the conversation although she still hadn’t gotten over her shock of the state of the tavern room.   She was slipping back into disorientation again; this was real, dirty and as guttural as it got. She was beginning to feel nauseous.

“Are my possessions still in the room I rented from you?” Kieran demanded quietly.

The fat innkeeper nodded nervously, speaking a dialect of English that was barely understandable; it was obvious that it was not his native language. “I’ve not touched your possessions, my lord. They are just where you left them this morning.”

A strange gleam came to Kieran’s eye. “How long have I been here?”

The fat man looked confused. “How long…?”

“How long?” Kieran snapped, more loudly.

“You came only this morning, my lord,” the man stammered fearfully. “I’ve not touched your possessions.…”

It was all Kieran needed to hear. He pulled Rory up the rickety stairs to the left, heading down a short, uneven hallway until he reached the last door on the left.  He threw open the door, checked to make sure no one was in the room, quickly ushered Rory inside and closed the door behind them.

Rory stood near the closed door, feeling increasingly ill and disoriented as Kieran went straight for the small bed and began to pull things out from underneath it.  He knew exactly where to go and what to do. An enormous satchel, saddlebags, and the magnificent sword that they had unearthed along with him were tossed upon the mattress.   She continued to stand there in bewildered silence as he rummaged through everything as if checking to make sure nothing was missing.

“You realize that you’re in odd clothing too, right?” she asked quietly.

He nodded, pulling wads of material out of his satchel. “Something I intend to remedy immediately.” He looked over and studied her closely for the first time since they had entered the town; she looked inordinately pale and he realized he had been rushing through all of this, focused on resuming a sense of normalcy.  But his normalcy and Rory’s normalcy were not the same.  He hadn’t been sensitive to her needs or feelings in the least. Setting his clothing down, he went over to her. 

“Are you feeling well?” he asked gently. “Perhaps you would like something to eat.”

She waved him off. “Good lord, no. I don’t want to touch anything.”

“You are going to have to eat sooner or later.”

“Make it later.”

He didn’t push her. “Very well,” he kissed her forehead. “You will tell me if you change your mind.”

She nodded unsteadily and he touched her cheek, wishing he could comfort her more. But he knew from experience that this kind of disorientation would take time to heal.  When he had awoken in a London morgue after eight hundred years of inactivity, his disorientation had been a miserable experience. She would not overcome this in a mere few moments although he wished he could spare her the time. But time, at the moment, was of the essence. He returned to his unpacking.

“If what Hut says is correct, then tonight the assassins will come for me,” he said. “We must be well out of this place in a hurry.”

“Was that fat guy Hut?”

“Aye.”

“The same one who buried you in the old Roman temple?”

“The same.”

Rory fell silent, digesting the information, taking the time to look around the room and trying to be very clinical about everything.  It seemed to help her disorientation not to become swept up in the emotion of the moment. This time period was her specialty, her area of focus, and she should have been very detached and scholarly about the whole adventure.  But she found that she could not be completely unemotional about it.  Spying a stool near the sooty hearth that was really more like a hole in the wall than an actual fireplace, she went to it and sat wearily.

Kieran was digging through a massive leather bag, removing clothing that she couldn’t readily identify.  But the longer she stared at the bag, the more she recognized it. It was enough to get her off the stool and over to the bed.

“Your satchel,” she fingered the thick leather. “I remember when we found this on you. It was so brittle that we were afraid to touch it but looking at it now, it’s new and supple. Amazing.”