Dreams of Stardust

by Lynn Kurland

  Then there was the English he'd heard spoken amongst the guards and in the village to consider. He'd lived in England for more than half his life and he'd grown quite accustomed to, if not proficient at, a variety of accents. What he'd been listening to for the past twenty-four hours belonged in some Anglo-Saxon tutorial at Cambridge, not in the environs of Artane.

  Artane.

  And medieval Artane, at that.

  He shook his head. Who would have thought it? It was no wonder the place had given him the willies, when this was what it had had in store for him.

  He paused. And what had it had in store for him? Besides a trip back into the past?

  Amanda.

  If he hadn't recognized her as the woman that group of medieval ghosts had waxed rhapsodic over, he might have just thought she was a beautiful woman and called it good.

  Then again, maybe not.

  She was, in all honesty, far beyond anything he'd ever expected.

  He stopped and stared into the distance, past trees that looked just like trees in his day, and wondered. Was it possible? Was he hallucinating? Was it a reenactment society gone mad, reenacting far beyond what their club charter allowed? Were they Artane fanatics who had permission from Artane's earl to take over his castle and turn it into a slice of the past?

  Not likely.

  But the thought that he actually had traveled to a different time was just as unlikely. Things like that didn't happen. He lived in a modern, rational time with modern, rational occurrences. That paranormal stuff was just mumbo-jumbo made up by people with too much time on their hands and a driving need to measure things on little instruments of their own making. His world was cold, hard reality; rocks, minerals, things that could be touched, cut, dug out, and put in pockets. He didn't believe in Fate, time travel, or… er… ghosts.

  He shifted uncomfortably.

  All right, so he'd seen ghosts. There was probably a logical explanation for that as well. In a way, that was reassuring, to think that existence didn't end at death.

  But time travel?

  No way.

  No way at all, which was why he was going to start looking for familiar landmarks such as roads, phone boxes, or tracks left by Range Rovers on their way to the local market for snacks. The very last thing he was going to look for was something that screamed "Get in me, I'm a time-travel machine."

  He scowled. His '67 was probably just such a machine. Unfortunately, after its last flight, he suspected it wouldn't be good for driving, much less allowing him to warp time to his will and pleasure. And that assumed, of course, that it had any sort of time-traveling capabilities—which he most certainly doubted it did.

  So, having no other alternative, he kept on walking.

  He came to a point where he wondered why he hadn't asked for a doggie bag back at the castle. He saw trees to his right and paused to look at them. Was there at least water there? It was worth a look.

  He wandered over, found a little trickle, and didn't bother to check the source before taking a long drink. The water was clear and so sharp it almost burned his mouth. It wasn't particularly cold, but he hadn't seen any glaciers around either, so maybe that wasn't a surprise. He drank until he was satisfied, then sat back on his heels and looked around him. It was a pristine little glade, with no sounds of traffic, no sounds of civilization, no sounds of modern man to disturb the peace.

  But there was, quite suddenly, the sound of loud conversation in a language he didn't speak.

  He looked up and saw men come to a stop across the little stream from him. They were dressed, and he used that term loosely, in ratty tights and tunics. It made him realize just how nice the clothing he was wearing was.

  Jake jumped to his feet, only to have the ruffians stop still. He stared at them. They stared back at him.

  Then they pointed to his shoes and burst into laughter.

  He did what any red-blooded male would have done in that situation.

  He flipped them the bird.

  Apparently that translated well, whatever the century.

  The men snarled in unison and lake looked around him quickly to judge the terrain. Too rocky. He turned and made tracks for a nice flat surface where he might stand a chance, one against eight.

  Without warning, he tripped over something in the grass and went down. Damned shoes. When he managed to scramble back up to his feet, he found himself surrounded by half a dozen or so men who looked as if they hadn't seen a bathtub in thirty years.

  Jake held out his hands, palm up, to show them he had no weapon. He would have turned out his pockets, but again, he had no pockets to turn out.

  They made motions for him to take off his clothes.

  "Shove it," he suggested.

  They discussed that for a moment or two, then growled and attacked. Jake was outnumbered, but not outmaneuvered. He dodged, he spun, he made himself as impossible-to-catch a target as possible. And when it came down to a choice between him and the men attacking him, he got down to business.

  He left two unconscious on the ground with what he half hoped weren't broken necks and was well on the way to taking out a pair more when out of the corner of his eye he saw something coming toward him at great speed. He elbowed another thug in the throat absently as he watched the rider approaching.

  It was Amanda.

  He took a fist to the belly during the time he took to gape at her, flying toward him on two thousand pounds of Belgian as easily as if she were riding a bike. He noticed a knife coming toward him, but was too distracted to avoid the full impact of it. Amanda ran through the group of thugs, scattering them like leaves. Jake clutched his arm to stop the bleeding and watched as she wheeled around and came back. The horse reared, an impressive sight in itself, and when he came down, Amanda slid off his back and landed on the ground in a crouch, a wicked-looking dagger in her hand.

  Jake wondered if it would be unmanly to fan himself.

  Apparently the remaining ruffians didn't think so. They paused to make noises of appreciation. Amanda said something to them that made one of them snort.

  Jake slapped that one on the back side of the head.

  Amanda pulled a knife out other boot at the same time the thug turned to deal with Jake. Jake found two knives coming at him at the same time. He avoided the stabbing one and fumbled with the sheathed one. He avoided another stab and looked at the dagger he was holding. Amanda shouted something at him. He frowned at her. It was obvious she had just given him a weapon, but he wasn't sure he could use it. His hands? Yes. But a knife, no, he wasn't at all sure about that. After all, one didn't just go about stabbing people met casually on the road.

  Then again, these guys weren't exactly elderly Brits with picnic hampers looking for a likely spot for a snack. They had weapons and looked to have every intention of using them. In fact, one of them was taking on Amanda, mercilessly. Jake would have jumped to her rescue, but he found himself suddenly too busy trying to avoid becoming a pincushion for the remaining men.

  And then, just as suddenly, shouts went up from nearby. Jake watched in surprise as Amanda's brothers leaped off their horses and dove into the fray. They had swords and seemed to know how to use them. They were taking on the largest of the group, seeming to take great pride in irritating him as much as possible.

  That left four for him. Jake took out one immediately, leaving him in an unconscious heap on the ground. The remaining three were a bit more difficult. He was good with his hands, and he was used to facing thugs with knives in dark alleyways in countries where a little murder for the sake of moneymaking wasn't that big a deal, but these guys were desperate. He received a nick or two more than he would have liked, and he had certainly done more damage to them than he was comfortable with in return, but in the end, three more were down. That left the big one and Amanda's guy.

  The boys seemed to have no trouble letting Jake take over. The only problem was, the biggest thug had a sword and Jake had only his bare hands.

  He dodge
d a vicious thrust and looked at the lads. "Help her!" he exclaimed, jabbing a finger Amanda's way.

  "Why?"

  Both brothers asked that, in unison, and he had no trouble understanding.

  "Because she is a woman!" he exclaimed in his best schoolboy French.

  Apparently that translated fairly well because the boys looked at him as if he had just voluntarily plunged his foot into the biggest pile of sexism ever deposited on English soil.

  One of the lads made a dismissive motion with his hand. Jake would have followed that up with a stern lecture on protecting the weaker sex, but he suddenly found himself with his own problem coming at him in a fury.

  He rolled, he spun, he dodged. He finally kicked the sword out of the man's hands and from there the fight was quite brief. An underfed peasant was no match for a modern man who'd eaten well his whole life. When the other man was down, Jake paused for a moment. Amanda's brothers were standing there gaping at him. He smiled briefly, then looked to see how Amanda was doing.

  And it was, he had to admit, a spectacular performance.

  She scored several hits on her opponent, eliciting an equal number of curses. Jake would have kept track of both, but he was an old-fashioned kind of guy and he couldn't just stand there and let Amanda fight when he could do something to defend her.

  But when he started forward, one of the brothers, he certainly couldn't have said which, grabbed him by his good arm and stopped him. The teenager shook his head with wide eyes.

  "She needs help," Jake said firmly. "Either you do it," and here he pointed to them so they wouldn't misunderstand, "or I will."

  They shook their heads vigorously. They pointed to Amanda and made motions that he had no trouble interpreting to mean their deaths at Amanda's hands if they interfered.

  Well, they might be afraid of her, but Jake wasn't. He tapped the thug on the back, leaped aside as he spun around with a knife in his hands. He waited until the man had exhausted his repertoire of moves, then grabbed his wrist and plunged the man into unconsciousness by means of a fist under the chin.

  Jake looked at the fallen bodies, alive or dead as was the case, and realized that there would certainly be an inquest—

  If they'd been in modern-day England, that was.

  He wasn't sure what the procedure was in the current day. What he did know was that they didn't want to linger where they were, just in case the little party at their feet had friends.

  "Go," said one of the twins.

  "Excellent idea," he muttered. He was on the verge of wishing the three of them a nice trip back to the castle, when he chanced to look to his right.

  Amanda.

  All right, so he had spent his life being mesmerized by color, by things that sparkled, by the rare and exquisite. He'd been known in the past to become quite overwhelmed by the sight of a perfectly cut gem, to drool over unusual formations of quartz, to gaze motionlessly at finished pieces under bright lights.

  But never in his long and illustrious career spent chasing things that dazzled him had he ever seen anything like the woman before him.

  She was, as he had noted before, quite beautiful. Her face was perfectly proportioned, her skin flawless, her figure pleasing. But as ideal as all those things were, what he couldn't look away from was the fire in her eyes. No wonder men had been singing her praises for centuries. He wondered what man had been lucky enough to capture her heart.

  He found, quite suddenly, that he wished it could have been him.

  She took a step closer to him, a wildness still in her eyes, her knife bared in her hand. He held up his hands in surrender.

  "Whatever it is, I didn't do it."

  She leaned down suddenly, cut a long strip from one of the filthy tunics of the vanquished at his feet, then stuck her knife back into her belt and approached with cloth in hand. He realized immediately what she intended, and he didn't have the heart to tell her that the very last thing he wanted was that filthy, bug-infested rag anywhere near the flesh wound he sported down his arm.

  Not that she would have understood him if he'd tried.

  So he ignored the sting and the potential for infection as she quite expertly tied a tourniquet around his arm. She didn't bother to try to speak to him.

  He supposed he couldn't blame her. If she thought him anything but a complete idiot, he would have been surprised. She did make the effort to point at her horse.

  Jake sighed. There was more to face than the impossibility of getting on a horse. What was he going to do with his future?

  He rubbed his chin and took a step away to give it some thought, only to step quite firmly on the body of a fallen ruffian. Well, that was something to think about. He looked back at Amanda and thought some more.

  Stay or go?

  All right, so he could stay at least for a while—only because it was foolhardy to try to traverse unfamiliar country without any preparation, maps, or other directional devices. He needed to know where he was, and he needed to know the language, he needed to know enough to get him across the country with some ease.

  But the real reason, he had to admit, was that even though he knew she could never be his, walking away from Amanda of Artane without looking a bit more would be like finding a vein of something really spectacular and not sticking around to see where it ended.

  "Let's go home," he said, in his clearest French.

  She studied him for a moment or two, then nodded and walked over to her horse.

  Jake was then faced with his next problem: how to get back to the castle. He was in good shape, but Amanda's horse was high-jumper huge. He turned to judge the boys' horses and supposed one of them might be manageable. Before he could fully decide if he could actually heave himself up into the saddle, one of the boys had shoved reins into his hands and hopped up without effort behind Amanda.

  Damn him anyway.

  Jake looked at the horse and wondered how it was you went about introducing yourself to a beast you wanted to befriend so you didn't make a fool out of yourself in front of the most beautiful woman you'd ever met.

  Brother Useful, as Jake promptly termed him, appeared and held his cupped hands out. Jake got the picture. He put one foot in the boy's hands, then swung up onto the horse's back with as much grace as he could muster.

  Which wasn't much, but at least he didn't enjoy an immediate return to terra firma.

  He thanked Amanda's brother in Gaelic. The boy smiled and nodded, then pointed to himself.

  "Montgomery," he said.

  "Montgomery," Jake agreed. "Thank you."

  Montgomery shrugged with another smile, glared at something nasty-sounding spewed by his brother, then trotted off to his own horse, which he mounted with ease born of years of practice. It was then that Jake realized that a horse was quite a bit more shifty than even his beloved '67. But before he had a chance to give that too much thought, they were off.

  Well, Amanda and her brothers were off.

  He was left behind, wondering where first gear was.

  Montgomery looked over his shoulder and whistled. Jake grabbed at the horse's hair and decided that it would be in his best interest to just let the horse do its thing until it stopped. He applied all his energies to just hanging on.

  He hung on until they had bounced their way back inside the castle walls. Fortunately for him, the horse seemed to know when to stop. Amanda and her brothers dismounted expertly. Jake managed to get to the ground somehow, and given that he landed there on his feet and not his head, he thought it might be good enough.

  The older man from the night before appeared suddenly, scowling fiercely. Jake guessed that this was not her father. One, they looked nothing alike. Two, Amanda was polite, but not deferential. In fact, the deference went the other way. But Amanda did eventually nod and walk away toward the castle. Jake watched her go until she disappeared inside.

  Then he turned to the animated conversation going on between the older man and the brothers. Jake had the feeling, based on the w
ay all three would periodically gesture at him, that they were discussing his fate. He decided that he wouldn't be spending any more time in the cellar and was digging through his inadequate stores of Gaelic for words to that effect, when the older man folded his arms over his chest and looked at Jake sternly. He pointed to the boys.

  "Hear them," he said, nodding to the lads. "Learn you."

  Or words to that effect. Jake decided that first on the list, after ditching his fairy shoes, would come a crash course in medieval lingo.

  He nodded to the older man, then looked at his tutors. They listened to a long list of instructions from the older man, then watched him walk away. They consulted with each other, then turned and looked at Jake with grins and twinkles in their eyes.

  Wonderful.

  His induction into the Middle Ages was about to begin and he had two fifteen-year-olds as his guides.

  He could hardly wait.

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  Amanda put her thumb into her mouth and sucked on it, cursing as best she could around it. What had she been thinking, to see to the enormous pile of mending in that basket? She was quite certain Sir Walter had obtained every piece of cloth that might have had even the most minor of rents in it to foist off on her. She looked at her basket of finished bits and decided, based upon the meagerness of its contents, that the se'nnight had been completely wasted, though it had certainly kept her occupied, out of the great hall, and far away from Jake.

  Which she was quite certain had been the purpose.

  And she had no one to blame for that but herself, given that she had agreed to Sir Walter's demand that she stay upstairs until he had ascertained Jake's true intentions—which she could do just as well as he could. Aye, and given that she was likely more capable than Sir Walter of judging Jake's character, there was no reason not to be about the task immediately.

  So she tossed the poorly mended tunic into the finished pile and hurried to her chamber, where she changed into her training clothes. She braided her hair, put on her boots, and took a moment or two to make her plans before she went out into the passageway. If anyone were capable of finding out all there was to know about Jackson Alexander Kilchurn IV, it was she. She had spent years honing her skill not only of subterfuge, but investigation. How else was a girl to learn what she needed to about a suitor if she couldn't observe him, unobserved herself?