Chapter Three

 

Marian awoke to the jingle of horses being saddled and packed. One glance at the fire ring’s cold ashes told her a cup of coffee was not in her immediate future. She yawned and hugged the cloak tighter. She plucked her damp clothing off the nearby bush and hiked into the forest to relieve herself and dress. When she returned to the clearing, she gave herself over to the yoga asanas that were her day-greeting ritual. It was weird to stretch and bend in a full-length medieval gown and undertunic, but her workout was as much a part of her morning routine as her double-espresso wake-up. Oh, god, how she needed caffeine.

“Just don’t think about it,” she muttered and focused on her breathing.

When she was finished she turned to find Thomas staring at her.

“What?” she prodded. “Never taken a yoga class, milord? Lots of men are getting into it, so don’t knock it.”

She walked over to where he stood near his stallion and unwound the bandage from his head. The bleeding had stopped and his wound looked much better today. She gently touched the abrasion and he winced. The yarrow and comfrey salve she’d put on it the day before had done the trick. He probably wouldn’t even have a scar. His black eye looked like it was healing nicely as well, although the green and yellow hues made him look like a reject from a KISS concert. Her fingers tingled as they gently probed his temple.

“I saw similar movements in Bagdhad when the Caliph’s slaves danced for us at the palace, but they were wearing fewer clothes,” he said in reply to her question.

She glanced into blazing teal eyes and felt a white-hot bolt of heat erupt inside her. Her skin flushed and her heart began to beat like a runaway horse. She couldn’t look away. His gaze hypnotized her. She saw a consuming hunger that should have terrified her. Instead she was transfixed. The darker rim of navy and tiny gold flecks made his sapphire irises shimmer. She could almost feel the summer breeze emanating from their depths. Only when she found herself leaning towards him, inches away from touching his full, sensual mouth with her own, did her brain’s warning klaxons finally penetrate her fog and snap her back to reality. Her hands recoiled from his hair and she took a shaky step back.

“Yoga has been around for more than 5,000 years,” she said, the tremble in her voice giving lie to her attempt at nonchalance. “You should try it sometime.”

Thomas chuckled as he turned away to cinch his destrier’s saddle into place. Chrétien sat behind Abu on Ulama.

“It’s great for harmonizing your mind and body,” she said in an attempt to lighten the mood and distance herself from her rampant emotions.

“Whenever my mind and body are in agreement, I usually get into trouble,” he said with a grin and a wink.

“I find it helps me survive the strange things life throws in my path,” she countered.

“Like the strange things in your leather pouch?”

Marian wondered what he would consider weird. Her cell phone was at least two years old, her PDA even older. Her key ring was a replica of ‘The One Ring’ from the Lord of the Rings videogame she’d worked on, complete with a red LED light that illuminated the Elvish script. The rest of the stuff was so common as to be laughable.

He motioned towards the ground where her pouch lay, her cell phone spilling out of the opening. He picked up the device and held it between his thumb and forefinger as if afraid it might taint him.

“It may not be tiny, but it works,” she replied in a haughty tone. She knew she had a chip on her shoulder about never having the latest tech. Most programmers did. It wasn’t that she couldn’t afford it. She was just too busy to keep up. “I don’t need video recorders or polyphonic ring tones to connect with my friends,” she bragged.

A frown marred his handsome visage.

“Your words are confusing. Is this a witching wand? And if so, what is its purpose?”

She rubbed the ache building in her temples from his absolute refusal to step out of character. It was bad enough living with total immersion in Latin, but to have to explain modern technology to a supposed twelfth century knight was absurd.

“You know, why don’t we just say it’s a witching wand and leave it at that.” She brightened. “All the other stuff is witch-ware too. Magic potions and, uh, tools. Just don’t touch anything and it won’t hurt you.”

He dropped the cell phone like it had grown fangs.

“Hey, watch it,” she yelled, rescuing the Nokia and dusting it off.

With a smirk he led her over to the small brown mare and lifted her into the saddle. She felt like a wisp of fluff in his strong grip.

“You will ride Wiglaf today whilst I am on Beowulf,” Thomas said, patting the horse on its flank.

“Who’s the packhorse?” she asked. “Grendel?”

Thomas stood gawking at her.

“You have read the tales of Beowulf?” he sputtered.

“Sure. I studied it in medieval lit class at the University of San Francisco.”

He doubled over with laughter.

“A witch attending university. ‘Tis a grand jest.” He was howling now, tears forming in his eyes. “There is only one university in the known world—in Paris! Surely you do not hail from there.”

She was fast becoming miffed.

“So, what…you think my coven had a copy of Beowulf back at the hut?”

His face paled.

“Thou art a witch then,” he said, turning a bit green around the gills.

This could be fun. “Maybe. Maybe not. Just don’t get on my bad side, Thomas. Especially when there’s no coffee around for a thousand miles.”

At the mention of the word coffee, Abu jerked his head towards her, nearly unseating Chrétien in the process.

“Coffee?” Thomas asked. “Is that a magic elixir?”

“Oh yeah,” she said with conviction. “Most definitely.”

Abu stared at her in awe.

“You believe in the power of coffee, don’t you Abu? You must have sampled some on your travels?”

But unlike her verbal sparring partner on the destrier, Abu ducked his eyes away whenever she tried to make contact and had yet to speak directly to her.

Her smile widened. Yes, she was going to have fun making up stories to confuse these weirdoes. By the time they parted company, they wouldn’t know which end was up.

***

It took them hours to pick their way through the forest and exit on the other side. All the while, rain dripped on them through the leafy canopy overhead. Thomas had taken pity on her and let her keep his spare cloak. It was fur lined and warm as well as waterproof.

In disjointed Latin she started off with the tale of Hansel and Gretel, then progressed to Snow White, The Wizard of Oz and ended with an episode of Bewitched where Samantha saves Darren from life as a horse. Marian portrayed herself as the witch in each of these stories. Needless to say, Thomas was spellbound. Chrétien and Abu had also dropped back to listen to her yarns.

“In that last story you achieved redemption through your selfless act of transforming Sir Darren from stallion to human once again,” Thomas said after some quiet moments of reflection. They had halted to assess the safety of entering the roadway. He swung down from Beowulf and lifted her off Wiglaf’s back. “I would propose that your evil nature has diminished over time.”

“Oh, I’m still plenty evil,” she laughed. “I’m just more selective with my curses now.”

“If I remember rightly, the hamlet of Finchale should be no more than a brief ride north. We must be careful when entering the village, as they are loyal to Durham. But I believe we can find answers to questions there and supplies for our continued journey,” Thomas said.

“Whatever,” Marian said with a shrug. She knew that the next town north was Petaluma, and she could easily catch a cab south again from anywhere downtown. She was almost sad to be leaving these whackos. They had saved her life and she did owe them a huge debt of gratitude. But she had to get back to the RenFaire and salvage her business. Maybe she’d invite them over for dinner the next time they were in San Francisco. It would be nice to see what Thomas looked like in jeans.

A short time later Thomas called from his position at the head of their entourage, “I see smoke from a cottage. We approach Finchale.”

As they came over a rise her mouth dropped open in shock.

“This can’t be real,” she whispered, shaking her head in disbelief. She rubbed her eyes and when she opened them again, fully expecting her hallucination to have vanished, it was still there. She was staring at a medieval village straight out of a history book.

They descended through pastures dotted with grazing cattle and sheep, half picked fields of beans and cabbage, and meadows filled with hay waiting to be harvested. Male and female peasants dressed in russet tunics tucked into loose-fitting breeches worked the field side by side. She heard birds chirping and the soft lowing of cattle in the distance. The noise of children playing nearby also penetrated her bewildered brain.

Now that she was hyper-aware of her surroundings instead of herself, she couldn’t believe she had missed the clues that something was amiss. There were no airplanes overhead, no power lines, no cell phone towers. No paved roads or condo developments for that matter. No signs of modern technology anywhere.

Straddling the river and connected by a low bridge was a village filled with small wattle and daub huts, smoke rising from holes in their thatched roofs. She couldn’t stop staring at the mill next to the river surrounded on three sides by healthy vineyards bursting with dark red grapes. The water-powered mill ascended for two stories on the banks of the river, its wheel turning feverishly. It was harvest time and everyone was busy. She could see the specks of wheat chaff suspended in the air.

This was definitely not Petaluma.

A group of villagers stopped to chat when they entered the town. They spoke in an odd mixture of old French and English—a language that Marian had never heard before. That’s when it hit her like a Mike Tyson punch. She was no longer in Northern California. Not only that. She wasn’t even in the twenty-first century. She looked around for the son of Rod Serling. Or the Punk’d guys behind the hidden cameras. They were nowhere to be found.

What really convinced her was the casual way the crowd conversed with her traveling companions. There was the automatic respect they showed Sir Thomas. Though they didn’t know who he was, they knew what he was, and acted accordingly. They were curious about Abu too, yet other than occasional surreptitious attempts to sneak a peak at the face hidden deep inside the cowl, they concentrated on Thomas. Chrétien chattered like a magpie with the other children. It was the first time she had seen him smile or heard him laugh.

No one seemed to pay any attention to her. She could have been invisible for all they cared. That fit too. Medieval women were chattel. This was definitely not working for her. Her mind could not accept what her eyes saw and ears heard. Yet her heart knew it to be true.

Her breathing and heart rate began to accelerate. Her body was approaching a state of panic even while her brain tried to analyze this puzzle. She ran through all the points supporting the impossible. The way they spoke. The men in the woods. The clothing. The food. The lack of technology. She was proud of her logical nature. But her emotional state was fast approaching a nervous breakdown.

When her party moved on towards the tiny market, she remained silent and withdrawn. She was in shock. Thomas had told her it was the year 1100, but she hadn’t believed him. Somehow she was lost in the twelfth century and she had no idea how it had happened or what to do about it.

Thomas dismounted next to a stall selling meat pies. The aroma of roasted mutton, garlic and spices made Marian’s stomach rumble. She hadn’t eaten since noon yesterday. While Chrétien bargained with the merchant, Thomas took Marian’s arm and steered her away from the crowd to a large spreading oak. He pulled her down to the ground next to him.

“What’s the matter, little witch?” he said softly. “I don’t recognize you without a sneer on your lips or the issue of a cutting remark.”

Marian didn’t know what to say. How could she tell this twelfth century knight that she had suddenly realized it was nine hundred years before she was born? He already thought she was a witch. Now he would think she was insane as well. He’d probably dump her in Finchale and ride north without her.

“I guess I must have hit my head harder than I thought in the village yesterday and this is a delayed reaction. I’m bewildered all of a sudden. I don’t believe what my eyes see.”

He took a hot pie from Abu and leaned back against the wide tree trunk. He let the meal cool in his lap as he stared off with an unfocused gaze.

“Puzzlement seems an appropriate sentiment. When I returned from the Holy Lands, I found my parents murdered, our castle and lands in the control of the bishop, and my younger sister missing. Since my older brother had died in a hunting accident while I was away, it was up to me to right this terrible wrong. Yet, when I approached Ranulf Flambard for justice, he branded me a heretic and sentenced me to death.”

“It did not help that you told him you no longer believed in God,” Abu said, joining them under the tree.

“Well there is that,” Thomas replied with a tired half-smile for his friend. He turned back to Marian.

“I cannot believe that the God I worshipped would have ordered a mass slaughter of innocents in His name. Beowulf had to trudge knee deep through human gore in Jerusalem when we took the city. More than 20,000 people died at our hands. Then my fellow knights sacked the city’s holiest shrines and stole the relics. My faith was shattered that day and all my dreams of glory have disappeared.” He turned away from her horrified gaze.

“Thomas saved my life,” Abu said in a hushed voice, after swallowing a crust of bread. They were the first words he had spoken to her, and even so he looked at Thomas when he said them. “His commander gave him the choice of enslaving or killing me. He chose to let me live.”

“Yes, but when I gave him his freedom outside the city walls, he refused to leave my service,” Thomas said around a mouthful of pie. “It seems I cannot succeed at anything I put my hand to.”

“Saving a life requires equal payment,” Abu replied ignoring Thomas’ self-deprecating remark. He lowered his head and sliced off a hunk of cheese with his knife. This was a well-worn conversation, Marian could tell.

“Only if the life is worth something, my friend,” Thomas said with a laugh. “The bishop decided I should die so he could keep my lands, and I was on my way to the gallows when you dropped out of the sky and saved me, mistress.” His mouth smiled, but his eyes did not. “If anyone owes payment, ‘tis I.”

Her mind was spinning. She had just realized she was stuck in medieval history and needed the protection of this band of outlaws or she’d surely die. But would they continue to help her? That was the million-dollar question. He said he owed her, but hadn’t he saved her life once already? She decided to turn on the charm.

“As payment for your debt then, Sir Thomas, I would request your protection while I accompany you on your journey.”

She watched him lick a stray bit of crust and gravy from the corner of his mouth and, as if it had developed a mind of its own, her tongue licked her lips in a mirrored response. It was criminal how sexy the man looked while he was eating. When her gaze rose from his lips to his eyes she saw a hunger that had nothing to do with food. She quickly glanced down at her hands. It was a while before he answered.

“From here we travel north to Tynemouth,” he said at last. “Once there we can arrange transport across the sea, then journey over land to Normandy. Since the Bishop of Durham has put a price on my head, it seems prudent to leave the country.” He was silent for so long, she was afraid he was going to part ways with her after all. Her eyes rose to meet his cool blue gaze. But instead of mockery or desire, she found compassion. “While I consider you an annoyance and a hindrance, Mistress Marian, if you wish to accompany us I have no objection.”

To avoid his obvious taunt, she devoured her pie in record time and sucked every last bit of juice from her fingers. She was still starving. Without saying a word, Thomas handed her the remainder of his lunch.

“Why don’t you petition the King, or gather an army and take your land back by force?” she mumbled, her words distorted by the food that filled her mouth.

“It takes coin to hire an army, and I have no way of earning any since my lands are forfeit,” Thomas replied. “King Rufus refuses his Exchequer nothing. Flambard may well be the most hated man in all of England, but he is the King’s favorite.”

Marian had vague recollections of a medieval history class where they had learned about Ranulf Flambard’s unparalleled corruption as the Exchequer for William the Conqueror’s son, King William II, nicknamed Rufus for his red hair and ruddy complexion. Flambard skimmed so much money off the top of the tax rolls, he was able to hand the king a fortune and still have enough left to purchase lands throughout England for himself. He even bought the Bishopric of Durham, she now remembered. When King Rufus died in a hunting accident, his brother, King Henry I, gave Flambard the singular honor of being the first prisoner in the Tower of London. But when did this happen exactly? Important information like that her tired brain could not quite retrieve.

In her mind she could hear her professor’s nasal intonation, “Some day you’ll thank me for making you learn all these dates.” She wished she had paid more attention.

Why did this happen to me? she wondered. Was there a cosmic reason behind her time-traveling adventure? It must have something to do with that mysterious Ren Faire guy. Why had he chosen to talk to her? What did it all mean?

She was consumed with questions. If she left the area, would she ruin her chances to return to her own time? Did she need to go back to Durham right now to make it all reverse?

Thomas brushed the crumbs from his breeches and stood up. Marian allowed him to pull her up by the hand. As they walked back to the horses she wondered what the hell she was going to do in medieval Normandy for the rest of her life.

***

“You and the woman keep well hidden. And quiet,” Thomas said, sending his last words Marian’s way. “Chrétien and I will scout around in town and attempt to find a seaworthy vessel and an honest captain. Be ready to ride upon our return.”

They’d made good time and stopped at the outskirts of the small village of Tynemouth, making a temporary camp in a small clearing. Thomas pulled Chrétien up behind him then sped off towards the town.

“I can’t help it if I’ve got a lot of questions,” she said with a sulk. For the past three hours she’d peppered them with inquiries about medieval history, literature, food, even the weather. At first they were amused by her curiosity. Then one by one they grew weary of her incessant queries and began to speed up or slow down so they wouldn’t have to ride next to her. She saw the look of resignation in Abu’s eyes as he watched his friends abandon him.

Marian rubbed her behind and stretched her back. Abu was not much of a talker, but he was polite to a fault. And he did smile at her a lot; she’d give him that. He pulled an apple from his woven saddlebag, bowed his head and offered it to her with both hands. She took a bite and wiped the tart juice from her chin.

“Abu…why is it so difficult for you to talk to me?” she asked, after she had eaten her apple down to the core. He still had more than half of his left, she noticed. She would have to quit wolfing down her food or she’d look like a barbarian. She giggled at the absurd notion of worrying about manners in a time where forks hadn’t even been invented yet and belching was considered a compliment.

Abu smiled at her shyly, but continued to chew without comment.

“No seriously. Is it a cultural thing where Muslim men don’t believe women are worthy conversationalists?”

He swallowed and shook his head emphatically.

“Oh, no, Most Holy One. As a trader, I have had many conversations with women that I found quite enlightening. It is merely that I do not know how to converse with an angel.”

Marian raised one eyebrow, stupefied.

“You think I’m an angel?”

“Of course, Holy One. I saw you emerge from the glowing path to heaven with my own two eyes.” He smiled, bowing his head slightly and turning both palms upward. “Also, you saved the life of my good friend, Thomas, when all hope was lost. You are truly a messenger from Allah.”

The last thing she needed was to be worshipped. She would have to nip this misconception in the bud.

“What you saw in Durham was not what it seemed,” she began. “That tunnel did not originate in heaven, but on earth.”

Abu became pensive, considering her words. Then his face lit up again and he revealed perfect white teeth.

“Of course. You must have been saving another human soul before coming here,” he said, drawing a conclusion that made perfect sense…to him.

Yet she had been engaged in just that activity before blasting onto this scene to create medieval mayhem. She thought about the guy she had tried to save from being trampled by the Queen’s horses back in Marin. “Yeah, well, that’s not the point. You’ve just got to believe me. I am not an angel.”

Ulama snorted just then, not to comment on her divine stature, but to remind them that the horses were still saddled and anxious to graze. She and Abu moved to unburden the animals.

“I understand if you wish to keep your true nature hidden from the others, Holy One. I shall keep this knowledge to myself.”

He began singing in Arabic as he worked and Marian let the conversation drop. Let him think what he wanted. By applying logic to her situation she might be able to solve this puzzle. Then her time here would be brief.

After the horses were turned loose, Marian said, “So tell me about yourself, Abu. How did an Arab trader hook up with an English knight?”

“More questions, divinity?” he asked in a weary voice. “I would have thought by now you knew everything about this time and place.”

“I might know a lot more than I did yesterday about the year 1100 and the region of Northumbria, but I know next to nothing about the people I ride with. C’mon Abu. Tell me your story.”

With a shrug of inevitability, he motioned her towards a flat-topped boulder and crouched down beside her. The sky was overcast, but did not threaten for the moment. She removed her fur-lined cape and enjoyed the respite from riding, refugeeism and rain.

“As I said, I am a trader. As was my father, and grandfather, and great grandfather before me. Back as many generations as any can remember, the Zayd family has bought and sold goods. And traveled. I’ve been all over the civilized world. Selling spices in Venice and Cairo. Citrus in Vienna. Parchment in Rome. We went wherever a bargain could be sold for a profit. And learned much of the world along the way.

“We were in Jerusalem delivering a wagonload of religious relics when the siege began and we were trapped. When the Crusaders entered the walled city, they were like a tidal wave of death, sweeping everyone aside in their terrible glory. Muslims, Jews, women, children—it mattered not to the Christians. All had to die. My father and two younger brothers were hacked apart in front of my eyes.”

He stopped his tale and turned his head away, taking a deep breath to still the quiver of his lips. When he continued, his voice barely rose above a whisper.

“The only reason my life was spared was to clear the city of human carnage in the aftermath. For days we stacked carcasses outside the city gates—piles as high as the tallest palm trees. Then the bodies were set alight. The stench was beyond anything I have ever smelled before or since.”

He shook his head as if to clear his nostrils and the memories. For a long while he did not go on. Marian put her hand on his arm, offering what little comfort she could. He gave her a quiet smile and continued.

“The knights were given the option of keeping those of us who remained alive as slaves or killing us where we stood. Thomas did not hesitate. He lifted me onto Beowulf’s back and rode out of the city. He did not speak. He did not look back. Once we had ridden far enough into the desert that no one would follow, he let me down and told me I was free.”

He looked her straight in the eyes, his determination mingled with sadness.

“I refused to go. I was taught that a life saved is a life earned. Until I save his life in return, I will not leave his side.”

Marian stared with grim fascination, listening with rapt attention to his tale. This was a side of the Crusades she had not learned about in school. She had always considered the Holy Wars one of the most honorable events of the Middle Ages. Along with the concept of chivalry. To learn that knights had committed atrocities of this magnitude made her sick to her stomach.

Silence descended upon the small clearing. Neither Abu nor Marian spoke further. Neither moved. Finally, she raised her hand and wiped a tear from her eye. He started, his mind obviously still back in Jerusalem 1099.

“My humble apologies, most holy. I try not to think of those days.”

“I apologize for making you relive such horror,” she replied. “I’m glad you survived.”

He rose from his haunches and began to pace around the clearing.

“After Thomas realized he could not get rid of me, he allowed me to barter for Ulama with a Turkish soldier we met. I got the horse for a pittance because he was unusually large for an Arabian stallion, and Turkish fighters prefer a smaller, faster horse for desert warfare. When Thomas realized I could speak Latin, we kept ourselves sane by talking of other times and other places. My trading activities had taken me to many foreign shores and Thomas loved hearing my tales. I, in turn, enjoyed stories of his religious studies with the monks, and his days as a squire and knight.”

Marian interrupted. “But why is he so down on himself?” she asked. “He saved the Holy Land. He saved your life. He fulfilled his duties to God. Seems pretty honorable to me.”

Abu’s smile vanished like the sun going behind a cloud.

“Do you not understand?” he asked softly, shaking his head. “Thomas sees himself as the flawed second son to a near-perfect older brother. His mind developed a passion for classic literature, not sheep and milk cows, and his prosperous cheese-making father was sorely disappointed in his choice. So Thomas was sent off to be educated by religious men—taught that God sees all, knows all, directs all. And he lived his entire life by their code of chivalry—live pure, speak true, right wrong. To see all these values thrown away, in a war ordained by the Pope himself, shocked Thomas to his very core. He cannot reconcile such divine slaughter with his former notion of God other than to say that either God is evil or He does not exist. He chooses the latter. Those words have branded him a heretic.”

She rubbed some warmth back into her arms and sat down again on the boulder. It was hell to depend on someone with no hope. Especially when your life was at stake.

“Do you believe in God?” she asked the Arab.

His head snapped around to spear her with his gaze.

“Of course,” he said. “La ilaha illa’Llah. There is no God but God. But I also respect what Thomas is going through. No one can understand the mind of God. It is the path of madness to try. One day Thomas will come to know this. I only hope it will not be too late.”

Marian was not a religious person. She had stopped going to church when her parents were killed soon after her thirteenth birthday by a trucker working double shifts who’d fallen asleep at the wheel. God for her had been relegated to a word she used to express her astonishment or displeasure.

Without words Abu gathered his prayer mat from Ulama’s saddle and unrolled it on the ground. Kneeling towards the southeast he began chanting and bowing towards Mecca. Once again it began to rain.

***

Several hours passed with no sign of Thomas and Chrétien. All this time Marian’s mind wrestled with questions and theories. If this really was the twelfth century, and it was looking that way, how could she manage a return to the twenty-first? If she was stuck here, what could she do to survive?

She’d already experienced the physical danger that stalked an unprotected woman and she had no wish to repeat it. She didn’t have a lot of options, which really chafed at her independent feminist sensibilities. She could join a convent or become a witch/healer for real. She could pretend to be a boy, or get married and let her husband take care of everything. Out of all those choices, only the healing life held the slightest appeal. She knew enough about the medicinal and culinary application of herbs to become sought out for her abilities. If they didn’t hang her for being a witch first, she just might be able to make a life for herself here.

The image of the crowd in the village and those men who tried to rape her in the forest popped into her mind’s eye. She shuddered. Healing powers might not be enough to keep her safe.

If she was stuck here, it was probably a good idea to learn how to protect herself. Without the technology infrastructure she'd come to depend on in her life, she was basically defenseless.

“Abu?” she said sweetly, interrupting him from where he was shooting arrows into the trunk of a stout oak tree.

“Yes?”

“Will you teach me how to use a bow and arrow?”

He looked her over from head to toe as he pondered her request.

“This is a skill that requires much practice, strength and stamina, Savior. Are you certain you wish to embark upon such rigorous training.”

Marian closed the distance between them so she wouldn’t have to shout.

“I am. You are astounding with the bow. Please teach me enough so I can defend myself.”

He frowned.

“But Holy One. Do you not already possess some means to defend yourself?”

“Nothing I can use here,” she said, thinking of the pepper spray and mini-taser she had back in her apartment.

“Then while you remain with us, we shall protect you,” he replied, signaling an end to this discussion.

“Don’t you think I can learn how to use a weapon,” she asked, meeting his eyes for the first time.

She thought he was not going to answer her. Then again, he could be thinking anything behind that stoic façade. Finally he spoke.

“I have seen Bedouin women use scimitars with the skill of a Saracen,” he said holding her gaze. “I have witnessed the courtesans of Venice wield a power unmatched by the men of the King’s court. I have observed mothers use nothing but their fingernails to shield their children from harm. I do not doubt your ability to learn the weapons of war. I merely thought that angels would already have more powerful tools of vengeance.”

“Well, this supreme being needs training in earthly weapons,” she replied with a pout.

He sighed and measured her expectant expression. She silently implored him to say yes.

“I can deny Allah nothing. If you wish to learn, I will teach you what little I know,” he said humbly. He grabbed his quiver and antelope horn bow and stood behind her.

“First you must adopt the proper stance. Turn your body sideways to your target.” He positioned her body in the correct posture then turned her head to face the target. “Now you must brace the bow with a straight arm and pull back on the string until it is next to your ear.”

Marian’s arms shook violently from the strain of holding the taut string.

“It gets easier with practice,” he said. “Trust me.”

He took the bow from her hands to demonstrate the proper technique for nocking an arrow and then had her try. Her first shot went so far afield it nearly hit Grendel. The horse nickered, and Marian could swear the beast scowled at her before it returned to its grazing.

“Perhaps we should aim at the rowan opposite the horses,” Abu said, suppressing a smile.

An hour later, Marian impaled a black circle drawn on a young maple’s trunk with an arrow from thirty paces. It was her first score.

She jumped up and down, shouting, “I did it, Abu. I did it,” and he laughed with her. At the sound of approaching horses, they whirled to find Thomas and Chrétien entering the clearing. While they stared open mouthed at her display of skill, she took in their disheveled appearance and noticed that Thomas had blood all over his tunic.

“What happened?” she and Abu said at the same time.

“The bishop’s men have secured the harbor. We barely escaped with our lives. Hurry. We must ride west with all due haste.”

Within minutes the camp was struck and the horses readied.

“Marian, you ride with me,” Thomas said as he leapt onto Beowulf’s saddle. “Speed is our only hope for escape now.”

She did not hesitate as he pulled her up in front of him and snugged her bottom tight against his groin, holding her waist with one strong arm. With a shout to the horses, the four riders barreled down the road towards the Tyne River, mud flying up behind them. They would travel west along Hadrian’s Wall.

Marian’s heart sank. She knew that staying alive was imperative to getting back to her own time. But after much contemplation, she had finally reached the conclusion that the nerdy lordling’s ornate silver chalice—the one she had grabbed by accident at the Ren Faire—had a lot more going for it than the ability to hold liquid. She wasn’t sure how it had transported her to twelfth century Northumbria, but it was the only logical explanation for her presence here. The chalice was the one non-conforming factor she could identify. And when you eliminate the impossible, whatever’s left, no matter how improbable, is the correct answer. She was certain the chalice was the key to her return. And it was back in Durham, a place they were now riding away from as fast as their horses could run. By hook or by crook she would have to return to her journey’s point of origination. With or without her unintended comrades.

***

Back in Tynemouth, de Guerre slammed his gauntlet-covered fist into the face of the guard who had brought him the news. Percivale had once again escaped his trap. He had reasoned correctly that the coward would attempt to flee to his kin in Normandy. How did this twice-bedamned dog slip through his fingers time after time? He noticed the blood running from the guard’s sliced cheek and regretted his rash action. He needed all the loyal eyes and ears he could muster to track his nemesis once again. He could not afford to vent his frustration on his own men.

“I want each of you on the roads leading out of Tynemouth,” he growled. “Query the townsfolk and learn of his direction. This heretic has few options for escape. Whoever finds his trail first, send word to me and you shall be rewarded. Make haste. God is on our side.”

As the twenty haggard soldiers filed out of the tavern, he turned to the patrons cowering by the hearth.

“Let us start with you,” he said to the quaking tavern keeper. “What doest thou know of Thomas de Percivale?”