She started to button up his doublet for him. He said, “I can do that.”
“I’ll help you. . . .”
“I said, I can do it.”
She pulled away, held her palms up. “Okay. Okay.”
“I have to get these arms moving, anyway,” he said, wincing with each button. He did them all up by himself. But afterward, he sat back against the wall, eyes closed, sweating from the exertion and the pain.
“Chris. . . .”
He opened his eyes. “I’m fine. Really, don’t worry about me. I’m perfectly fine.”
And he meant it.
She almost felt as if she were sitting next to a stranger.
:
When Chris had seen his shoulder and chest — it was the purple color of dead meat — his own reaction had surprised him. The injury was severe. He expected to feel horrified, or frightened. But instead, he felt suddenly light, almost carefree. The pain might be making him gasp for breath, but the pain didn’t matter. He just felt glad to be alive, and facing another day. His familiar complaints, his cavils and his uncertainties seemed suddenly irrelevant. In their place, he discovered that he had some source of boundless energy — an almost aggressive vitality that he could not recall ever experiencing before. He felt it flowing through his body, a kind of heat. The world around him seemed more vivid, more sensuous than he could remember before.
To Chris, the gray dawn took on a pristine beauty. The cool, damp air bore a fragrance of wet grass and damp earth. The stones against his back supported him. Even his pain was useful because it burned away all unnecessary feeling. He felt stripped down, alert and ready for anything. This was a different world, with different rules.
And for the first time, he was in it.
Totally in it.
:
When the troops had gone, Marek returned. “Did you understand all that?” he said.
“What?”
“The soldiers are searching for three people from Castelgard: two men and a woman.”
“Why?”
“Arnaut wants to talk to them.”
“Isn’t it nice to be popular,” Chris said with a wry smile. “Everyone’s after us.”
Marek gave them each a handful of wet grass and leaves. “Field greens. That’s breakfast. Eat up.”
Chris chewed the plants noisily. “Delicious,” he said. He meant it.
“The plant with the jagged leaves is feverfew. It’ll help with the pain. The white stalk is willow. Reduce your swelling.”
“Thanks,” Chris said. “It’s very good.”
Marek was staring at him in disbelief. He said to Kate, “Is he okay?”
“Actually, I think he’s fine.”
“Good. Eat up, and then we’ll go to the monastery. If we can get past the guards.”
Kate pulled off her wig. “That won’t be a problem,” she said. “They’re looking for two men and a woman. So: who’s got the sharpest knife?”
:
Fortunately, her hair was already short; it took only a few minutes for Marek to cut away the longer strands and finish the job. While he worked, Chris said, “I’ve been thinking about last night.”
“Obviously, somebody’s got an earpiece,” Marek said.
“Right,” Chris said. “And I think I know where they got it.”
“Gomez,” Marek said.
Chris nodded. “That’s my guess. You didn’t take it from her?”
“No. I didn’t think to.”
“I’m sure another person could push it far enough into his own ear to hear it, even if it doesn’t really fit him.”
“Yes,” Marek said. “But the question is, who? This is the fourteenth century. A pink lump that talks in little voices is witchcraft. It’d be terrifying to anyone who found it. Whoever picked it up would drop it like a hot potato — and then crush it immediately. Or run like mad.”
“I know,” Chris said. “That’s why every time I think about it, I can see only one possible answer.”
Marek nodded. “Those bastards didn’t tell us.”
“Tell us what?” Kate said.
“That there’s somebody else back here. Somebody from the twentieth century.”
“It’s the only possible answer,” Chris said.
“But who?” Kate said.
Chris had been thinking about that all morning. “De Kere,” he said. “It’s got to be de Kere.”
Marek was shaking his head.
“Consider,” Chris said. “He’s only been here a year, right? Nobody knows where he came from, right? He’s wormed his way in with Oliver, and he hates all of us, because he knows we might do it, too, right? He leads his soldiers away from the tannery, goes all the way up the street, until we speak — and then he’s right back on us. I’m telling you, it has to be de Kere.”
“There’s only one problem,” Marek said. “De Kere speaks flawless Occitan.”
“Well, so do you.”
“No. I speak like a clumsy foreigner. You two listen to the translations in the earpiece. I listen to what they actually say. De Kere speaks like a native. He’s completely fluent, and his accent exactly matches everybody else’s. And Occitan is a dead language in the twentieth century. There’s no way he could be from our century and speak like that. He’s got to be a native.”
“Maybe he’s a linguist.”
Marek was shaking his head. “It’s not de Kere,” he said. “It’s Guy Malegant.”
“Sir Guy?”
“No question,” Marek said. “I’ve had my doubts about him ever since that time we were caught in the passage. Remember? We were almost perfectly silent in there — but he opens the door and catches us. He didn’t even try to act surprised. He didn’t draw his sword. Quite straightforward, shouting the alarm. Because he already knew we were there.”
“But that’s not how it happened. Sir Daniel came in,” Chris said.
“Did he?” Marek said. “I don’t remember him ever coming in.”
“Actually,” Kate said, “I think Chris might be right. It might be de Kere. Because I was in the alley between the chapel and the castle, pretty far up the chapel wall, and de Kere was telling the soldiers to kill you, and I remember I was too far away to hear them clearly, but I did.”
Marek stared at her. “And then what happened?”
“Then de Kere whispered to a soldier. . . . And I couldn’t hear what he said.”
“Right. Because he didn’t have an earpiece. If he had an earpiece, you would have heard everything, including whispers. But he didn’t. It’s Sir Guy. Who cut Gomez’s head off? Sir Guy and his men. Who was most likely to go back to the body and retrieve the earpiece? Sir Guy. The other men were terrified of the flashing machine. Only Sir Guy was not afraid. Because he knew what it was. He’s from our century.”
“I don’t think Guy was there,” Chris said, “when the machine was flashing.”
“But the clincher that it is Sir Guy,” Marek said, “is that his Occitan is terrible. He sounds like a New Yorker, speaking through his nose.”
“Well, isn’t he from Middlesex? And I don’t think he’s well-born. I get the impression he was knighted for bravery, not family.”
“He wasn’t a good-enough jouster to take you out with the first lance,” Marek said. “He wasn’t a good-enough swordsman to kill me hand-to-hand. I’m telling you. It’s Guy de Malegant.”
“Well,” Chris said, “whoever it is, now they know we’re going to the monastery.”
“That’s right,” Marek said, stepping away from Kate and looking at her hair appraisingly. “So let’s go.”
Kate touched her hair cautiously. She said, “Should I be glad I don’t have a mirror?”
Marek nodded. “Probably.”
“Do I look like a guy?”
Chris and Marek exchanged glances. Chris said, “Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
“Yes. You do. You look like a guy.”
“Close enough, anyway,” Marek said.
They got to their feet.
* * *
15:12:09
The heavy wooden door opened a crack. From the darkness inside, a shadowed face in a white cowl peered out at them. “God grant you growth and increase,” the monk said solemnly.
“God grant you health and wisdom,” Marek replied in Occitan.
“What is your business?”
“We come to see Brother Marcel.”
The monk nodded, almost as if he had been expecting them. “Certes, you may enter,” the monk said. “You are in good time, for he is still here.” He opened the door a little wider, so they were able to pass through, one at a time.
They found themselves in a small stone anteroom, very dark. They smelled a fragrant odor of roses and oranges. From within the monastery itself, they heard the soft sound of chanting.
“You may leave your weapons there,” the monk said, pointing to the corner of the room.
“Good brother, I fear we cannot,” Marek said.
“You have nothing to fear here,” he said. “Disarm, or depart.”
Marek started to protest, then unbuckled his sword.
:
The monk glided ahead of them down a quiet hallway. The walls were bare stone. They turned a corner and went down another hallway. The monastery was very large, and mazelike.