“Just take it easy,” he said. “We’ll be all right. They can’t do more than keep us awake with that infernal racket.”
She was still atremble, so he kissed her. She responded with an uncertain, inexperienced clumsiness. He grinned out at the hosts of the Middle World. If they were going to sit and watch him neck, he hoped they’d learn something.
10
BEFORE DAWN THE ENEMY departed. Hugi said they must get back to their lairs in plenty of time. Holger wondered what they couldn’t stand about sunlight. Actinic radiation? If so, he wished he had an ultraviolet lamp.
Hoy, wait! That explained Alfric’s magnesium dagger. The thing was only incidentally a stabbing weapon. If hard pressed by his Middle World rivals, the Duke could ignite the metal. The hilt would shade his hand from the intense ultraviolet emission; no doubt he’d pull a cloak over his face with the other hand. His opponents would have to flee. Well, such an emergency aid was nice for a mortal man too.
Having slept fitfully, Holger, Hugi, and Alianora caught a two or three hours’ nap before breakfast. When the Dane awoke, he found himself naked. His Faerie garments had vanished. That was rather petty of Alfric, he thought. Luckily, Alianora was still asleep: not that he supposed she would have been embarrassed, but he would. He scrambled into his old traveling clothes, including hauberk and helmet.
More refreshed than he had expected, they prepared to ride on. Alianora still had the unicorn; he wondered what her influence over the shy beast was. “Now where should we go?” he asked.
“I dinna know for certain,” she replied, “save that we’d best seek dwellings o’ men. ’Tis clear that Faerie is out after ye, Holger”—she used the intimate pronoun now, and smiled adoringly at him—“but the soulless ones canna go nigh a kirk, so we can at least gain a respite. Afterward, though, we must seek a shielding o’ powerful magic, white magic.”
“Where?”
“I ken one warlock, in Tarnberg village, with a good heart and some skill. Thither should we wend, methinks.”
“Okay. But what if this local marvel finds he can’t bat against the big-league pitchers?” Holger saw bewilderment begin to mar her worshipful gaze and hastily explained, “I mean, supposing a country practitioner like that can’t match himself with such experts as Alfric and Morgan le Fay?”
“Then belike ye should seek the Empire. ’Tis far to the west, a hard perilous journey, but they’d welcome a strong knicht. “She sighed, misty-eyed. “And no since Carl’s day has there been one like ye.”
“Who was this Carl?” he asked. “I’ve heard the name before.”
“Why, the founder o’ the Holy Empire. The king who made Christendie strong and rolled the Saracens back into Spain. Carl the Great, Carolus Magnus, surely ye’ve heard o’ him.”
“Mmmm… maybe I have.” Holger searched his mind. It was hard to tell what part of his knowledge came from his education and what from those inexplicable memories that were rising even more often within him. “Do you mean Charlemagne?”
“So some call him. I see his fame has reached even to your South Carolina. ’Tis said he had many bold knights to serve him, though I’ve only heard tales o’ that Roland who fell at Roncesvalles.”
Holger’s brain went into a spin. Was he really in the past? No, impossible. And yet Charlemagne was certainly a historical figure.
Ah, he had it. The Carolingian cycle, the Chansons de Geste, the later medieval prose romances and folk ballads. Yes, that fitted. Fairyland and Saracens, swan-mays and unicorns, witchcraft and Elf Hill, Roland and Oliver—Holy jumping Judas! Had he somehow fallen into a… a book?
No, that didn’t make sense. It was much the most reasonable to keep on supposing this was another universe, a complete space-time continuum with its own laws of nature. Given a large enough number of such universes, one of them was bound to fit any arbitrary pattern, such as that of pre-Renaissance European legendry.
Though matters couldn’t be quite that simple. His irruption had not been into any random cosmos, for no reason whatsoever; too many elements of his experiences were too appropriate to something or other. So: between his home world and this, some connection existed. Not only the astronomy and geography showed parallels, the very details of history did. The Carl of this world could not be identical with the Charlemagne of his, but somehow they had fulfilled corresponding roles. The mystics, dreamers, poets, and hack writers of home had in some unconscious way been in tune with whatever force linked the two universes; the corpus of stories which they gradually evolved had been a better job of reporting than they knew.