Eleanor was too busy being relieved that the man spoke words she understood to pay attention for a moment. She studied him, a thin brown man in a blue wool habit. It did not look like the simple garments she mentally expected, for the sleeves were deep with embroidery. He looked about forty. Then she focused on his last question and felt herself stiffen.
"Good evening, Father.. You appear to know me, but... I don’t know you.” Her father always said to tell the truth whenever possible.
"Are you bewitched?” He asked the question frankly and without emotion, as if it were a commonplace.
"I don’t know. I am cold and tired and hungry. I don’t feel bewitched, just confused. And, if I am, then you can fix it, can’t you, Father?”
"Come in, child. My, what a start you gave me. What a wonder. A daughter of the Darkness would hardly seek sanctuary here. Still, it is very odd. I am Brother Ambrosius. Do you not recall? I mended the cups you broke in happier days.”
"I have never seen you before in my life.”
"Oh, I see. No, I do not see at all. Here. Let me take that. Who are you?” He took her bundle and led her inside. The wolf followed her and flopped down on the stone floor beside the door. The priest closed the door behind them and barred it with a long piece of wood.
Eleanor thought furiously. What possible answer could she offer that would not sound mad or worse?
Saying she was Eleanor Melissa Hope of 23 the Dells, Lorinton, Wiltshire, simply would not do.
"I... I am myself. I woke up some hours ago in a small room. I dressed and walked across the snow. In the woods, I met him, and he brought me here. That is all I know.” It was part evasion, almost a lie, and she hated it, but she felt trapped.
"Come along. We have soup in the refectory.” They went down a long hall together. It was dark, and yet she could see. Like the wolf, Brother Ambrosius had a glow about him, but there was no moonlight here. Still, she got the impression of dust along the edges of the corridor and a slightly musty smell, like in an empty house.
They came to a long room with a huge fireplace on one wall and a bare wooden table before it. Eleanor looked around at the smoke-darkened beams and the smooth stone floor. The room smelled of ashes and burning logs with a faint tang of onions. Some herbs hung in bundles from the rafters. The brother seated her on a bench beside the table, and she stretched her legs toward the fire, watching the flames leap on the big logs. He bustled away and returned with a steaming bowl and a large chunk of bread.
"Thank you.” She swung her body around to face the table and dipped the spoon into the soup, then stopped. He was looking at her very closely. "Thank you, Lord, for the food on this board,” she muttered, crossing herself. He relaxed visibly, and she began to eat.
The soup was thin and greasy, but Eleanor thought it was the best stuff she had ever eaten. The bread was coarse and dry, so she dunked it in the soup and munched on it quite contentedly.
"Would you like more?”
"No, thank you.” Some instinct told her that the poor quality of the food was due to neither religious scruples nor inhospitality but simply to poverty. Eleanor could easily have eaten another bowl with a small horse on the side, but the man across from her looked so thin, she was afraid she was taking food from his mouth. "Now, would you please tell me who I am—or who you think I am?”
"Why, you are the Damoiselle Alianora Gretry, or
her twin. On this night, twenty-one years ago, you vanished from your bed. You were as you are now. I was a young man then, and you caused me some trouble with my newly taken vows. My confessor, rest his soul, no doubt found me as tiresome as I now find my brothers. But you would kilt your skirts up in your girdle and run across the fields with that wolf of yours.” He spoke simply and without embarrassment.
"Forgive me, Brother Ambrosius.” Eleanor had never been aware of stirring even the mildest interest in a member of the opposite sex, and yet she felt guilty. She was vaguely aware of her own body drives, more now since her father’s death, but they were private demons not to be used to make others unhappy or uncomfortable. Her father’s occasional flings with his graduate students had hurt and infuriated her and how they had injured her mother she did not care to remember.
"No, no. You were the very soul of innocence, a boy-girl yet unawakened. You are. Besides, God made pretty girls to test one’s faith. And, in any case, you were promised to your cousin Randolph, your father having no other children. Your wedding was to be tomorrow, February the third. They searched everywhere for you, but you were gone. It was the talk of the shire until the Darkness came. Your father died fighting it, and your cousin—”
"What?”
"He went over to the Darkness. Randolph laid waste the fields, and the minions of the Dead marched back and forth over a track until it was a dark slot in the earth where nothing grows. The hall, Gretry Hall, was burnt one May Night, all but your chamber.” He shook his head. "Every year more folk come under his aegis. If it were not for the Marshall, the Darkness would have long since covered the land. And now you have returned, not one day older than when I saw you last.” Eleanor looked at him in the flickering firelight. "Who is this Marshall?”
"Guillaume the Strong? Why, he is the Savior of Albion.”
The words Marshall and William niggled her memory, for one man in English history bore that name, a , real man who was almost a legend in his own time. She
had waded through parts of his own telling of his life, partly for her father and partly in her amazement that he was lettered. The Plantagenets had had many liege men but none so loyal or good as William Marshall. "Is there a king?”
Brother Ambrosius snorted and rubbed his hands. "There is a whelp of Darkness who sits on his father’s high seat and worships death, yes. Some say he usurped the throne by killing his cousin, the rightful heir, and some say the boy lives yet.”
"What is the year?”
"The year of our Lord, twelve and twenty, milady.” Eleanor blushed at the title and then frowned. She knew her history of that period moderately well, though her study had been more of troubadours and gleemen than of kings and wars, but it must be different here. The person she knew as William Marshall died in 1219, but he seemed to be alive here. Or else word of his death had not yet reached Ambrosius.
"This king...” Henry? "How long?”
"Twenty-two years in May.”
"John?” Her John had died in 1215, but in this here-and-now, who knew?
"Yes. Then you do remember.”
"Brother Ambrosius, I feel I must try to tell you my tale. It will sound quite mad, so be patient with me. To the best of my knowledge, I am not your Alianora, though I am twenty-one. I... come from a time in the far future, and I come from an island called England, which is also your Albion.” She was not about to try to explain Brown University and the United States to him. "But in my world, King John was dead in 1215 or 1216. His son Henry was king under the regency of William Marshall, but William died in the year 1219. I know nothing of the Darkness of which you speak, but there is a trench in my world called Dolph’s Ditch. I was born and reared in a land over the sea and only settled in England a few months ago. The house we bought seems to— No, I can’t explain that.”
"Try.”
"As you will. My mother and I live in a house made of bricks, one of a number of such structures, all in a row. The house was built on the site of an older house that burned down, a timber-and-p]aster house. The older house was also built on the site of a still older house, which belonged to a Randolph Gretry. My room— Well, I thought it was part of the Tudor... uh, the timber-and-plaster... house. Is any of this making sense?” "You seem to find the idea of parallel times difficult to discuss.”
"Yes.”
"But the Darkness is from another Earth. At least, the Pope says it is. The concept of the multiworlds has been accepted as part of the teachings of the Church. Adrian IV first declared it in 1179. His successors uphold it. The Darkness is not unique to Albion. The f
irst occurrence was in Iberia, in 1169.”
Eleanor strained to understand. "You mean the Moors?”
"Who?”
"The Moslems, the followers of Mohammed. They overran Spain in about 900 and stayed until... 1490 or so.”
"This I do not know of.”
"The Crusades?”
"Crusades?”
"To free Jerusalem from the infidel?”
He shook his head. "No. The city of Jerusalem belongs to the Jews. They charge pilgrims a stiff tariff to visit the holy places, for they ever worship money, but it is open to all the faithful. Who is this Mohammed?” "It doesn’t matter. He obviously missed the boat in your history. You missed a lot of wars.” She thought of the Children’s Crusade and shuddered. "Tell me, in this world, did four knights of Henry the Second murder Thomas a Becket, who was Archbishop of Canterbury, and did Henry lock his wife Eleanor up for years and years?”
"Hardly. What a violent world you have traveled from. Thomas refused the see and kept the purse strings instead. He died of old age and rich food. As for good Queen Eleanor, she spent her declining years dashing about the kingdom meddling in the lives of her children and grandchildren.”
"Grandchildren.” She wrinkled her brow. "Arthur and Eleanor of Brittany... were there others?”
"I see your world is very different. The young king,
Henry, the first son of Eleanor and Henry, wed Alais of France. Their son—if he is—now sits on the throne. The second son, Richard, was king for a time because his nephew was not only very young, but also because his legitimacy is very much in question. He was born ten months after his father’s death. Richard willed the Throne to his nephew Arthur, the son of his younger brother Geoffrey, who was already dead, because Richard never married, despite his mother’s meddling. John removed his cousin and claimed the throne, there being no other claimants strong enough to nay-say him.” "Did not Henry and Eleanor have a son called John?” "Yes, but he died very young. Why?”
"Curiosity. In my world, that John lived and was such a bad king that no other ever used the name. And the oldest son, Henry, never sat at the throne. He got killed fighting his father, which is why Eleanor, in my world, was locked up. She sided with her son.”
"Oh. Here, the old king lost and died, and the young Henry took the throne, reigned for ten years, fathering a girl, then died. To you, this is history. To me, it happened in my lifetime, or my father’s. I met Queen Eleanor when I was a boy. A splendid woman.”
"I have always thought so. I am glad Matthew Paris had no opportunity to blacken her name.”
"Matthew de Paree? He was an early convert to the Darkness. They tore him to pieces in Oxenford before I took my final vows.”
"Oh, my. And I thought it was just small differences. This Guillaume the Strong, is he the same man who was the teacher of your... no, of my Richard the Lion-Hearted? He must be old.”
"No, he is the son of the old marshall.”
"Really? As I remember, in my world, none of his sons outlived him, and his daughter’s descendants became hereditary Earls Marshall. My, I am tired. I am not used to long walks in the snow. I was beginning to think that the wolf and I were the only things alive in the world. Are there other brothers here?” There were too many ideas and too much information for her to sort out. The food and the warmth of the fire made her eyes heavy.
"There are four, and a novice. The rest have died or gone over.”
"I’m sorry about that. Is there somewhere I can sleep? Otherwise I’ll curl up in front of the fire.”
"Yes. We lack the facilities of a great abbey, but we do have travelers’ rooms. It has been so long since it was used, I fear you will find it a bit dusty. We five cannot do the work of twenty, certainly not when we can barely keep our stomachs full. Come along.”
They went back the way they had come. The wolf stood up and wagged its tail. Eleanor patted its head, reassured by its presence, no longer afraid, and feeling the animal a true friend in a strange world. Then she paused. A wolf, perhaps this wolf, had been companion to Lady Alianora. But that had been years before. How long did wolves live? There were so many things she did not know.
Eleanor followed Ambrosius through a door off the hall, the wolf behind her, its toenails clicking on the floor. Ambrosius carried the bundle but no light. The strange nimbus glowed around him and the wolf, and she was puzzled. She suddenly remembered that there had been no candles in the hall or the refectory.
Then the lingering smell of incense told her they were in the chapel. Beyond the circle of Ambrosius’s radiance were soft shadows, but Eleanor could not distinguish anything.
"Would you like to speak to the Lady before you sleep?” He did not whisper but spoke in a normal, quiet voice, which reverberated off the stones of the chamber.
Eleanor stopped behind him and looked where his hand pointed. Faintly, in the darkness, she could see the figure of a woman, a large statue. She moved closer to it, and it appeared to emanate its own light.
It was twice man-high, garbed in a white gown with a golden girdle tied around the waist. An enormous blue cloak billowed out behind the figure, with stars painted on the blue in glittery silver, so they almost appeared to twinkle like real stars. In one hand the statue carried an enormous sword, edged with flames and painted red and gold.
Eleanor took all this in at a glance, for her eyes were drawn to the face. It was a stern face with wide blue eyes and golden red hair unbound except by a silver circlet above the noble brow. There was a crescent moon in the center of the circlet, which seemed to shine more brightly than the moon outside had done. The lips of the woman were full and generous but unsmiling.
She walked closer. Eleanor did not need to be told that this was Bridget, for whom the priory was named. The face bore a striking resemblance to the Botticelli painting of Aphrodite, and Eleanor could not help wondering who had been the model. The beautiful Simo-netta Vespucci was not due to be born for a couple of hundred years yet.
Then the head of the statue appeared to turn, looking down at Eleanor. The mouth appeared to soften into a grave smile. Eleanor stopped in her steps. A faint hint of laughter seemed to echo in the shadows.
"Why are you afraid, daughter?” It was a wonderful voice, like honey and sunlight and music all at once.
"I... don’t know.”
"Come closer.”
Eleanor, numb with awe, did as she was told, her feet dragging across the stones. She brushed her skirts under her knees and knelt because it felt correct.
"There is nothing to fear, daughter.”
"Yes... Mother.”
"I know that you are tired and that your mind is weary. But there is little time. You are here for a purpose, my purpose. You must bring Albion, my Albion, back to the Light.”
"Me?” squeaked Eleanor.
"Not alone, of course. You will meet helpers along the way. But you must drive the Shadow back into the Void, and you must restore the rightful king to his throne.”
Eleanor barely suppressed a sarcastic reply. Tired as she was, she could not break a lifetime habit of courtesy and respect to persons of authority. Part of her rebelled at the orders, and another dwelt on being the good little girl and satisfactory daughter whom her parents had often boasted never gave them any trouble. Her Celtic fatalism told her it was all preordained, and the hardheaded Yorkshire shrewdness she had gotten from her mother railed that nothing was that deterministic.
She reflected for a moment on her walk across the snow, her meeting with the wolf, her memory of the ruined priory. Eleanor was not so exhausted that she could convince herself that she had been dragged from her comfortable bed in the twentieth century to this strange place for no good reason. Everything had a reason—she felt that in her bones—but one could not always know what the reason was. She had tried, during the last months of her father’s terrible, agonizing death, to find some reason, but she never had. Still, her mother had brought her up to undertake any task gladly, and after a second,
she decided that her choice was doing what she was told or asking for a ticket home. Somehow, looking at Bridget’s stern face, she didn’t have the courage.
"How will I know the helpers?”
"By the moon.”
The ambiguity of this response frustrated her, but she repressed the feeling. "I don’t know what to do, Mother.” She had a sudden, sharp sympathy for all the heroes in stories who, when consulting goddesses and sybils, had failed to ask the correct questions. She found she couldn’t do any better than they had.
"First you must find the sheath of the Sword of Fire. Also, you must sheath the sword in yourself. Then you must free the sacred well from Darkness. These tasks must be accomplished by Midsummer’s Eve. Then you will journey to the North Wind and recover the Harp, the Pipes, and the Heir. When this has been done, I will come to you again. My cloak shall cover you and my light will always shine for you, however dark it may be. You may call me by my ten thousand names and I will be with you.”
"Yes, Mother.” She wanted to protest or ask the hundred questions whirling in her mind, but her throat closed up and she could not. The statue seemed to shiver. The cloak fell to the floor, and the sword slipped from the carven hand and lay at Eleanor’s feet. The face resumed its grave expression, and the chapel was silent except for the breathing of the priest and the wolf.
Eleanor folded the cloak over her arm and took the t;rip of the sword in her hand, noting that it had shrunk to human size. Her knees and hands shook slightly as she gripped the thing awkwardly. She felt a surge of something go from the grip to her hand, up her arm, and into her skull. It was like a blinding white light. It, dimmed a little, and she looked up at the statue. Then the world began to swirl and darken before her eyes, and she felt a pair of strong arms catch her before she knew nothing.
III
Eleanor snuggled into the pillow, fighting off wakefulness. But the rough texture under her cheek disturbed her. She yawned and stretched, then finally opened one eye and sat up. She took one look at the bare stone walls surrounding her and lay down again quickly, pulling the blanket over her head.
Adrienne Martine-Barnes - [Sword 01] Page 2
