Wings of the Storm Page 2

  He put his hands on his narrow hips and said, "I see Arnulf was wrong."

  Jane's smile turned into a grin, not at the man's words, but because she had no trouble understanding them. He spoke langue d'oil. Staying put on the stairs, she questioned, "Arnulf?"

  The young knight's smile widened. "My swineherd," he explained. "He came running to the reeve, and the reeve came running to me. It seems the lad claimed he saw a giantess, or a man dressed as a fine lady." His eyes sparkled as he surveyed her critically,

  his smile never wavering. "I see no giant, though I may not be a fair judge, being so long-shanked myself. Nor do I see a man garbed as a woman. I've seen such oddness at Christmas revels; I don't think your soft curves are padding."

  Jane felt herself blush, and for the first time in her life she found the warm sensation rather pleasant. "No, my lord," she answered. "I'm quite all me. I'm afraid I can't help being tall, or my deep voice."

  "A pleasant voice," he assured her easily. "But I do wonder why a beautiful lady is hiding in this old ruin."

  "I'm not hiding," Jane declared, trying to think of an explanation of why she was here. "I'm lost."

  "Lost? A lady as lovely as you should be lost in a bower of roses."

  "And you're a flatterer," Jane told him with a chuckle. And she was glad of it. Far better that her first encounter in this world be with this charming young man than with some hulk with a sword in his hand. His sword and spurs and the horse outside told her he was a warrior, but she also felt instantly at ease with him. Maybe it was the smile.

  "I should hope so," he responded to her. "I've been well trained in the flattering of ladies. Though of late I've had little practice. "He stepped forward, gesturing toward the stairs."Perhaps we could sit awhile and talk of the world beyond this lonely tower."

  He seated himself next to her feet, gazing up at her expectantly, rather like a friendly, black-eyed hunting hound. Jane hesitated for only a moment before easing down next to him. "I am Sir Stephan DuVrai," he introduced himself. "Lord of Passfair Castle. And of this crumbling ruin as well," he added, waving his hand as though apologizing for the building's deficiencies. "Though this wood is more often used as a pig pasture than for housing guests."

  Jane looked at her toes, encased in stiffening damp leather. Tucking her hands into her sleeves, she confessed, "My lord, I have no idea where I am. My name . . ." She hadn't thought about what she would say when confronted by the natives; Wolfe certainly hadn't thought about it.

  She couldn't very well explain that she'd been minding her own business monitoring a Time Search screen on a rainy night in 2002 when she'd accidentally gotten a glimpse of the future. Or that her crazy boss had used the accident as an excuse to toss her into his experimental time machine.

  But she did have an explanation ready, she realized suddenly. She'd spent years playacting a role in the Medievalist Society. She had a persona she slipped into when the club did living history demos.

  "I am Jehane FitzRose," she told DuVrai. She bowed her head sadly, just the way she did when explaining to curious high school kids. "A widow. My husband and father died in the Holy Land. That's where I'm from," she added. "I was born in the kingdom of Jerusalem." She could only hope she'd landed in the right period for her story to sound authentic.

  "Jerusalem." The young knight sounded impressed. "That would explain your accent. I confess, some of your words are a bit hard to understand."

  It's my midwestern twang, she thought. Looking up at Stephan demurely, she went on, "My father was a native of this land. He left his father's lands to go on

  Crusade, a younger son seeking his fortune," she explained.

  Stephan nodded his understanding.

  Jane warmed to the subject. "He did well and settled in Palestine. I was his only child, so he married me to a knight he thought of as a son. I was very happy with Geoffrey." She sighed and gave a fatalistic shrug. "But the Saracens ..."

  "They killed your family? Overran your land?"

  "Something like that," Jane agreed. "I was alone in the world." Outside she could hear the horse pawing the ground restlessly.

  Stephan cocked his head to listen to the animal for a moment, then said, "Go on. Lady Jehane."

  "I couldn't stay in Palestine."

  "Far too dangerous for a woman alone," he agreed. "Far too dangerous for any but the bravest Christians since the late king's Crusade failed. I've heard many horror stories about that war from my father."

  Jane's fingers began to itch for her pocket word processor. She'd thought picking up random data from the time monitor had been fun. Now, here she was talking to a living history book—a book with a very nice cover—and she didn't dare ask him specific questions. In fact, she was the one being questioned, and she had to be very cautious in her answers.

  "The late king," she went on tentatively. "Richard?" Stephan nodded. Late? Like in d-e-a-d? Richard the Lion Heart was dead. Her head spun with confusion. That was wrong. No, she was wrong. In the wrong time. She was supposed to show up at Fontrevault in 1168, long before the Lion Heart was king. Where had Wolfe plunked her down? What was she going to do? Where would she go?

  "Where am I?" she heard herself say, her voice a frightened rasp. Sir Stephan put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

  She tried to take up the thread of Jehane's story before she broke into sobs, trying to shape her club persona to fit conjectured circumstance. "I . . . and my maid and two men-at-arms left the Holy Land. We brought all we had with us. I was widowed, but not impoverished. We made the journey in slow stages. There was illness; my maid died, then one of the soldiers. I was ill on the Channel crossing. I don't know what port—"

  "Dover?" Stephan suggested. "Reculver? It's the nearest to Passfair."

  Jane gave a confused shake of her head. "I know nothing of England, and I was feverish. I don't remember much of the journey. My last retainer— he'd been with my father all his life—he was bringing me to my grandfather's estate. Apparently it was destroyed, or had changed hands. Perhaps he didn't even remember where it was. He was quite old. We grew lost. I don't know how I got here or where he went. When I woke up this morning I felt better." She looked gratefully at Sir Stephan. "Then you came."

  She didn't recognize the other town he'd mentioned, but she knew Dover was in the south of England. It had been the main Channel port before the tunnel opened a few years ago. She was also realizing how dangerous it was for her to be running around loose in this time. She knew too little. And too much. Knowing the period as she did would certainly help her survive, or at least cope. But she was a danger to

  the future, or could be if she said even a few wrong words to the wrong person. She knew the politics and the power struggles of the Normans better than they did. It was as dangerous for her to be able to reveal what was going to happen five years from this date as it was for her to reveal what was going to happen five years ahead in her own time. In all her studies she'd never come across any mention of a Sir Stephan DuVrai. Perhaps an encounter with him wouldn't matter. But what if she met someone famous? Wolfe had been right in one thing: she was going to have to hide herself away. She needed to be somewhere she could live in silence and obscurity. Somewhere the world would be safe from Dr. Jane Florian.

  "A convent," she said sharply.

  Stephan almost jumped at her tone. "What?"

  "A convent, an abbey, a priory, a—" She caught herself and took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down, to remember she was now Jehane FitzRose. She took her hands out of her sleeves and folded them on her lap, trying for an imitation of serenity. "I should like to take holy vows," she told the young knight. "I wish only to escape this world."

  "Oh." He looked a bit unhappy at the thought. "If you must. I've no great love for the Church myself, but ..." His wide mouth flattened in a sudden frown, the heavy brows lowering. "No, you can't. Foolish of me of all people to forget."

  Jane stared. "No? Why not?" she asked suspiciously.

&nb
sp; "The damned king's being excommunicated again. By the archbishop of Canterbury this time. You've chosen a holy calling at an unholy time," he explained.

  Jane threw her hands in the air, annoyed with Wolfe's bad timing. "Don't tell me—John's king of England and the country's under interdict. No masses, no burials in consecrated ground, no marriages, no sacraments at all."

  "That is the usual procedure," he agreed dryly. "And our king's turning the clergy out of their holdings as well, at least all the ones near Canterbury. There's nowhere for you to be a nun just now, at least not nearby. I hope you don't want it too badly," he added with a boyishly charming smile.

  "It would be best for me." She sighed and got up to pace across the cold stone floor of the tower. "What am I supposed to do now?"

  Stephan rose, leaning casually against the wall as he watched her marching worriedly back and forth. "You needn't agitate yourself," he said after a while.

  She turned on him. As she opened her mouth to yell, she managed to remember that medieval ladies were supposed to be demure and gentle. A tantrum would not do, even though she might enjoy it. So she stood there gaping at the young

  man instead.

  Stephan strode forward. Tucking a forefinger under her chin, he closed her mouth for her. "You'll stay at Passfair for now," he informed her.

  She eyed him suspiciously. His tone was that of a man used to having his way. She was alone and lost and too aware she really couldn't survive on her own. He had offered her nothing but kindness so far, and she was trespassing on his land. He also had a sword. She didn't relish the thought of a confrontation with an armed man. She didn't like being meek and mild, but there wasn't much choice at the moment.

  "I—" she began.

  "There are wolves in the forest," he added before she could fumble on. His dark eyes were sparkling with mischief as he informed her, "And brigands, of course. And I've an annoying neighbor who's been terrorizing travelers of late. It's best you come home with me." Stephan placed his right hand over his heart. "Your virtue's safe. Lady Jehane," he said as he ran his eyes appreciatively over her once more. "For now, at least."

  Jane dropped her gaze demurely—before she did something stupid like respond to his flirting. No one had flirted with her for a while. He was just a boy, and he probably had fleas or something worse, she reminded herself. The last thing she needed was to get involved with someone in the twelfth or thirteenth or whatever century this was. "I'm grateful, Sir Stephan," she said after some hesitation.

  "Good." He looked past her, out the doorway. The horse was snuffling and pawing the ground. "He thinks he runs my life, you know."

  Sounds like my car, Jane thought. I will never again buy one that talks at me. No, she realized, I won't.

  She had a sudden sensation that was rather like having her brain hit with a brick wall. The tower and Sir Stephan spun briefly out of focus.

  She heard him ask, "Are you all right? The fever?" She grasped his arm to remain upright as the dizziness passed. She blinked owlishly. "Fever? Oh, yes, the fever."

  "We best go."

  "Right," she agreed. She went to the bags and hefted the two smaller ones with a grunt. Their contents made her a rich woman in this time, and she wasn't about to forget them. They weighed about twenty pounds each. When she turned around, Stephan was holding the larger canvas bag and looking at her in surprise.

  "I could have sent a servant back for these," he said, half-chiding. He added, "You're strong for a

  woman."

  For a lady, he meant. Jane blushed. "Without servants, one learns," she pointed out rather primly. He nodded. She followed him outside.

  Within a few minutes he had the bags lashed to the skittish animal's high saddle peak. He mounted, then helped her up, settling her behind him.

  Jane wrapped her arms tightly around the young knight's very narrow waist, her wide skirts spread out around her and her short linen veil stirred by the breeze. It probably looked terribly romantic, she thought, even if it wasn't all that comfortable. Things could be much worse, she supposed. She had been invited to a castle, with a handsome knight as her champion. Maybe the Middle Ages wouldn't be so bad after all.

  3

  "What a dump," fane said under her breath as she viewed the great hall of Passfair Castle.

  Sir Stephan had led her into the hall through a door cut in a movable wooden screen placed several feet back from the outer door. She paused, squinting in the murky light. She made out a large room with a low, soot-covered ceiling. Very little light seeped in from the two narrow windows in the wall above the high table at the other end of the room. A smoky fire in a round central hearth was responsible for the soot, if for very little illumination or warmth. The floor was covered in a thick layer of withered and stinking rushes. The rushes were covered in a layer of rough-coated dogs. Well, dotted was perhaps a better word, Jane thought, but there were at least a dozen of them. She sniffed distastefully. Not exactly housebroken, either.

  Stephan noticed her staring at the dogs. "Deer-hounds," he said. "The estate borders on the royal forest of Blean. I'm not allowed to hunt the king's deer, but I have the privilege of housing and providing for a pack of our lord John's hounds. Not," he added with a sarcastic twitch of his lips, "that those curs would recognize a deer if it wandered into the hall and offered to slit its own throat."

  Jane breathed a sigh of relief. "Then the King doesn't come here to hunt?"

  "Not in living memory. He prefers other sport."

  She followed Stephan to the central fire. She stepped carefully, the rushes not so much rustling as squashing underfoot. She heard the skittering and squeaking of mice in the foul matting.

  As they reached the glowing hearth and held their hands out to warm, one of the hounds rose on long, slender legs. It stretched, then trotted up to Stephan, butting its head insistently against his hand. He reached down automatically to pet the long white head.

  "This," he said, scratching the dog's short, floppy ears, "is Melisande, the true chatelaine of Passfair." As he spoke a pair of puppies caught up to Melisande and began happily weaving in and out between her legs. "She's something of a wanton," he added.

  "You haven't been home much lately, have you?" Jane guessed as she and Stephan made their way through the dog pack to the long wooden table on the dais. Melisande followed at Stephan's heel, her puppies clamoring after. The little ones had some trouble with the dais step, so Stephan absentmindedly helped them up with the toe of his boot.

  Jane hid a smile as she seated herself at a hard but beautifully carved chair behind the table. Stephan's gallantry was unconscious and quite boyishly charming. In fact, he was looking more boyish

  to her with each passing moment, especially as his mobile mouth took on an almost petulant pout. She resisted an urge to pat him affectionately on the head.

  "Well?" she questioned instead.

  He pulled another unwieldy chair up beside hers. When he sat down, Melisande took the opportunity to rest her elegant head in his lap. He played with her ears while he answered.

  "It's a long tale." His lips lifted in a mocking half smile. "A long winter, actually. I was away for most of it, in my liege's service. A fever struck Passfair and my village of Hwit between here and the river. The priest died first, I'm told. No loss since he wouldn't shrive the dying anyway."

  Stephan threw off his cape, letting it drape across the back of his chair. He wore a black tunic, embroidered at the neck in a gray-and-white geometric pattern. Jane followed his example, shedding her own cape.

  "Over the course of the winter," he continued, "my steward died, and his wife, and the bailiff. By the time I got home only the Saxon reeve was left in the village. There's been no one but the cook and a crippled old guard sergeant to keep the place running at all." He gestured around the hall with one elegantly long-fingered hand. "My late lady mother would kill me if she knew I'd let her hall come to this."

  He smiled warmly at Jane. "The problem is," he went on
earnestly, "Passfair needs a lady. Running a household's no job for a man. I've been trying, but I hardly know the buttery from the brew house. The reeve's keeping the demesne farm running all right. Peasants don't need a nobleman trying to teach them farming. But the hall . . ." He trailed off, mobile mouth downcast, but Jane thought she detected a gleam of speculation in his dark eyes.

  She ignored it, recalling the ride across the estate from the tower. There'd been men and oxen working in two of the three fields she'd seen, a little girl minding a gaggle of geese, and a few other people going slowly about their business while studiously ignoring their passing lord, but she'd gotten the feeling the place was almost deserted. There seemed to be a lack of purpose or interest about the inhabitants. From the look of the castle interior. Sir Stephan's home was falling rapidly into decay.

  It was a small keep, square in shape and only two stories high. The main building's walls were thick gray stone with a flat, crenellated roof, surrounded by a ditch and a double wall. The outer wall was of heavy wooden staves, wickedly pointed at the top. Inside the walls the bailey held the keep and quite a few thatched-roofed wattle-and-daub buildings. She'd identified a sturdily built stable and noticed servants lingering around a wooden kitchen structure connected to the castle by a covered walkway.

  Stephan grimaced at her lack of response to his silent plea and yelled for some ale. Almost instantly the old servant who had brought her bags in came shuffling over with a pair of wooden tankards, making his way to the dais through a traffic jam of suddenly awake and restive dogs. Those mutts had to go, Jane thought as she watched his weaving progress.