Believe me, what lies ahead for you is so very worthy of any effort you must make to preserve it.
Brodie Gallchobhair Domhnall
_______________
Alex handed the tablet back to Taylor. “Considering the tumultuous events of those four days when you were ‘sleeping’, I think confusion would be the very least emotion you would feel, if you woke to read this.”
Brody met Alex’s gaze. “It was a confusing time for me. I guess I haven’t shrugged it off as well as I thought.”
“I’m not surprised. There’s not AA for recovering time travelers. I’m surprised you handled it as well as you did.”
“I had help.” Brody’s gaze flickered toward Veris.
Veris smiled. It was a small expression. “We were both trying to figure things out. I at least got to live through the four days, so I didn’t need convincing about the odd changes that had taken place.”
Brody pushed his hands through his hair and rubbed the back of his head. “We both wanted the future. Veris knew part of it and I got enough hints to be able to dimly see the shape of it, so I wanted it, too. It was easy, after that, to do whatever was needed to ensure it happened. Mostly, that was to pretend to be as human as much as possible and let time take its course.”
Taylor studied the letter. “Even though you wrote this in medieval French, Brody, it still sounds far too contemporary. Far too much like you do now. There’s none of the stilted phrasing they used. No redundancies. The directness of speech must have been a shock to you when you read it.”
Brody nodded. “It was. I think that, more than anything else, convinced me of the truths in the letter. I had never read anything so strange and yet it was so compelling. So immediate. Like speaking with a very close friend with the door shut and servants gone. There was just me and this man who said he was me and knew things only I knew.” He hesitated. “There was one other thing that sold me.”
“Veris?” Alex asked with a smile.
“I didn’t persuade him,” Veris said flatly. “Brody wasn’t going to just accept it, no matter what the letter said. I still don’t know what finally convinced him.”
“Taylor’s scent,” Brody said. “I did what the letter said. I went through her things. There was a tunic of mine, torn through the middle, that she had apparently been wearing and when I put my nose to it, the scent made me dizzy. It felt like I would be able to remember her, if only I could reach far enough into my mind.” He had been looking at his hands as he spoke, then he glanced at everyone quickly, like he was embarrassed. “And I grew aroused,” he added, his voice low. “It was overwhelming.”
Veris drew in a deep breath and let it out.
Brody gave a soft laugh and lifted his head. “I just remembered.”
Everyone looked at him.
“I’m not the only one who suffered re-entry wounds after Jerusalem.”
Taylor looked at Veris, who shook his head and pointed at Alex. “He’s talking about the good doctor.”
Alex brushed at the knee of his trousers. “You both already know that story.”
“I don’t!” Taylor protested. “I want to hear it. Besides, you’ve been grilling Veris and Brody since you got here—”
“As usual,” Brody growled.
“—so it’s your turn,” Taylor finished. “Fair’s fair.”
“You’re quite right of course,” Alex told her with a grave nod of his head.
“Like he’d ever argue with you, anyway,” Veris added.
Alex almost rolled his eyes in Veris’ direction. He re-settled himself in the chair, then hesitated. “I begin to understand why getting these two to talk about the past is such a frustrating exercise. I feel quite reluctant to reveal my foolishness now, when I thought I had put it behind me such a long time ago that it would never be revealed.”
“Gotcha, doc,” Brody said softly.
“Alex, if you’d rather not—” Taylor began.
“Like hell,” Veris said quickly. “Do not offer him a get-out-of-jail-free card, Taylor. He gets to squirm just like the rest of us.”
“I haven’t noticed you doing a lot of squirming tonight,” Taylor pointed out.
“I’m living with the world’s most curious human and have an incurably nosy doctor for a friend. I’ll end up wriggling like bait sooner or later,” Veris said. “Alex, time’s up. Spill it.”
Alex crossed his ankles. “Very well. Taylor, you know from these two reprobates that after you left Jerusalem, it was…well, chaotic would be a generous term. The siege was broken, the Christian forces took over the city and the slaughter….” He let out his breath. “Well, that is a matter of record and I’m sure you’ve done your research since you got back. What wasn’t in any of the history books—”
“Including yours?” Taylor asked.
“Including mine,” Alex said. “Lady Tyra ‘died’ from a wound she took from a spear when she travelled into the desert with her lord husband, looking for water. At least, that was what we were all told. No one ever saw her after the night before the siege ended, which was of particular interest to me, because both Brenden and Will knew of my doctoring skills. I couldn’t understand why they hadn’t called for me, if you had ailed once more. That started me thinking.”
“You were born thinking, Alex,” Brody said. “That just shot you off in a new direction.”
Alex inclined his head. “Indeed,” he said gravely. “That and many other little signs and signals. Brenden and Will were abruptly distant with me, which at the time wasn’t a puzzle at all to me. Only later…well, I will get to that point. But at the time, their distance seemed quite natural. On the small handful of occasions I had a chance to speak to them, Brenden’s conversation was vague. I thought he was merely bereft by the loss of his wife, but Will was protective and ended our meetings abruptly. Again, I simply thought that Will was shielding Brenden while he mourned his wife.
“Then I started hearing rumors about Selkirk. His death hadn’t been at the hands of the Fatimids. His body had been found in the camp. And Davina, his wife, was missing.” Alex raised his brow. “Another missing wife, another mystery.” He shrugged. It was an elegant lift of his shoulders under the jacket.
“A month after the King of Jerusalem was crowned and the city fortified anew, Brenden was given permission to return home and Will went with him as his new Knight Commander. That was the end of any chance I might have to find answers, but by then I had already formulated questions that I knew neither of them would ever answer directly.
“I began to travel, wherever my research took me, to wherever I thought I might find the key to another part of the puzzle that was growing in my mind. Eventually, slowly, I worked my way down to the Iberian Peninsula. I reached Aragon twelve years later and it was there I heard of a witch in the mountains, who might have the answers I looked for….”
Time and the Woman
Siege of Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1191 A.D.
It was because of the lull in fighting that Alexander saw him at all. If the Saracens had not offered their surrender, the Christian forces would still be battering the walls of the city and Saladin would still be trying to route the allies from his skirmish lines behind the siege camps.
The fighting had grown more frantic since King Richard and King Phillip had sailed into Acre three weeks before, almost as if Saladin sensed that now the real leaders had arrived, he must double his efforts. But with the city’s sudden offer of surrender, yesterday, all fighting had abruptly ceased.
Instead, the sounds of the wounded and the sick filled the air, along with the caw of seagulls that hovered overhead and the soft wash of the sea upon the beaches.
With the cessation of fighting, Alex had been able to turn to his preferred trade as a physician and had been working in the tents for hours at a time, his forearms bare and covered in blood more often than not. It was gruesome work, the heat was almost intolerable, even to him, but contrariwise, he was happy. Never, not even in his mi
nd, would he admit that his happiness rose in large part because he was away from Anna.
On the third day of silence, Alex emerged from the tent toward dawn and moved through the mostly sleeping encampments, heading for the sea. He could wash in the water and have a few more moments to himself before heading for his own camp. He had been forced to return there. He’d spent far too long on his feet, tending the sick. To not retire for sleep and rest would raise suspicions.
He wasn’t wearing his sword, but the dagger in his belt was long enough that he could use it for defense, although this close to the city walls, there was more danger from flying arrows or crossbow bolts. But the Saracens in the city were too desperate for peace to shatter it with an unlooked-for attack. The sickness that was ravaging the Christian forces was also weakening the Saracen numbers, even though their physicians would be better trained than Alexander.
The route to the sea took Alex past the outskirts of the English army camp, perched on the north side of the city next to Lusignan’s men. It had been a busy beehive of activity for weeks, but at this hour of the day even the most determined carousers were bedded down and snoring.
A man stepped out between the tents ahead of Alexander, moving with ghostly silence toward the water, too. Alex took in the breadth of his shoulders, the color of his hair, his height….
Alex’s heart stirred and began to beat. It couldn’t possibly be…? He watched the man walk, his hand on the hilt of his sword, the long length of his stride. The cocked angle of his wrist, which spoke of a long-time sword fighter. The tunic was all-white instead of the blue and white Alex remembered, but it fit the same over the burnished chainmail and there would undoubtedly be a red crucifix on the front of it just like Alex’s.
Alex walked faster, closing the distance between them, shuffling through the fine white sand, deliberately not trying to move silently. If it was who he thought it was, he had already been heard.
When he was close enough, he reached out his bloody hand and gripped the man’s elbow.
The man spun sharply, his right hand gripping the sword and drawing it a mere inch or two.
Alex stepped backward and raised both hands. “I am unarmed,” he said calmly, a fact that the man could see for himself, for Alex had stripped off his mail and wore only the undershirt beneath his tunic and simple braies. His bloody bare arms, though, might be mistaken for someone with murderous intentions and he did not want this man to make any mistakes at all.
The man’s eyes widened and his lips parted, before pressing firmly together again. He glanced around them, taking his time, checking for observers. But there were none. The humans they passed among were deeply asleep.
“Alex?” Brenden breathed, just loud enough for Alex to hear it.
Alex nodded.
Brenden stepped closer and his nostrils flared. He was sampling scents. “You’re…”
Alex touched the tip of his finger to his top lip, just over the small rise where his incisor rested when it was withdrawn. “Yes.”
Brenden blew out his breath. He stepped back again, putting normal distance between them and thrust out his hand. “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said more loudly, but still at a soft volume that anyone would use when sleeping men laid all around them. “There is no one here to do the honors and it’s all silly ceremony anyway. Benedict Gilbert, Silchester.”
“Alejandro of Zaragoza.” He hesitated to take Brenden’s hand, for the blood on his was still damp.
“A little blood doesn’t bother me,” Brenden said with a smile and Alex took his hand. There was strength there, held back. But Alex was holding back on his own grip, too.
“Zaragoza, Aragon,” Brenden said thoughtfully. “Are you the one they call The Spaniard?”
“There are many from Iberia here. We travelled with the Duke.”
Brenden nodded. “But there’s only one of you who becomes a physician when he lays down his sword. You saved the arm of one of my men. He thinks you are a miracle worker.”
Alex held up his hands again. “I was going to wash the blood away.”
“I’ll come with you. We can talk without waking anyone, down among the waves.”
Brenden moved beside Alex along the cleared path that led almost directly to the beach. While they were among the tents, they did not speak. At the edge of the water, Brenden sat in the soft sand and Alex walked into the water and bent to scrub the blood and gore from his flesh. He scooped wet sand from the bottom and used it to scour the flesh clean. Then he shook off the water, waded back onto the sand and sat beside Brody. He rested his hands on his knees, letting them dry in the gentle pre-dawn breeze that had sprung up.
“Silchester,” he said softly. “That is new to me. I have been studying the peerage since the Duke ordered me to the Holy Lands with him and that is not one I have come across.”
Brenden grimaced. “Richard created the earldom for me. I saved his life once and that was how he thanked me. I came to England twenty years ago, a penniless mercenary from Tuscany called Benedetto Garafalo. For taking a stray arrow in the shoulder, I became Benedict Gilbert, an earl and English, all at once.” Brenden laughed softly. “Richard insisted. And so it came to be.”
“Tuscany?”
Brenden scrubbed at his hair. “The men of the north there are taller and have pale skin and dark hair.”
Alex grinned. “The men of the duchy of Aragon are all generally dark skinned, with dark hair.”
Brenden glanced at Alex’s dark curly hair. “You’ve learned how to go unnoticed.”
“I had a good teacher.” Alex hesitated. “I have so many questions,” he breathed.
Brenden nodded. “There’s time. There’s always time. And now is not the place.” He shifted on the sand so he was facing Alex more directly and held out his hand. “Brody. Four sixty-one.”
Shock slithered through Alex. Brenden was actually giving his real name and the year of his making?
Hurriedly, he took Brenden’s—Brody’s—hand. “Alexander. Eleven ninety-seven.”
“Twelve years after the siege,” Brody said. “Did we give ourselves away somehow?”
“Only the most infinitesimal clues,” Alex assured him. “Some of the mysteries I still have not resolved but this one, yes, it took twelve years to reach the solution.”
“Alejandro!” The call came softly from farther down the beach.
Alexander looked over his shoulder. Anna stood at the end of the worn path, where the looser beach sand began, her robe caught up in one hand to keep the hem out of the sand. Her veil lifted and fluttered in the soft breeze. It was growing lighter and the white veil seemed to glow.
“She’s lovely,” Brody said quietly, as Anna beckoned him to her. “Your lady wife?”
Alexander drew in a deep breath. “And my maker.” He got to his feet and brushed sand from his hands and the back of the tunic.
Brody looked up at him. “You are still with your maker?”
Alex held his lips together as the words seemed to press against them from inside, a hot torrent of them. “I am,” he said, when he thought he could speak without betraying himself. All the questions were goading him, all of them pressing hard to be spoken, to have them answered all at once, in the scant few moments left. But, there was always more time. Brody was right, there. There would be other times.
“Perhaps we can talk, later.”
“Of course,” Brody said.
Alex made himself turn away and walk across the sand to where Anna stood waiting. She was a tall woman and her black eyes had no trouble meeting his in a bold way that she would not dream of doing if anyone could see them. In public, she was a most proper wife.
“I don’t know that lord,” she said.
“The Earl of Silchester.” Alex hesitated. Should he tell her the truth? His heart stirred, roused by his dilemma. “He couldn’t sleep. I was prescribing a tincture.”
It was Brody’s secret to reveal, Alex reasoned to himself.
Anna
held out her hand. “Come.”
Alex hesitated once more. A human would not have noticed the tiny pause. Then he reached out and took her hand. Cool flesh, long fingers and a dammed-back strength. Anna looked like a delicate woman, but she was much older in vampire terms. How old, she would never say.
Alex recalled Brody’s easy revelation of his name and age. It was a startling difference.
They walked silently back to the tent that was theirs. There were very few women in the camp, most of them whores and followers hoping for a boon from the soldiers. But being one of only a handful of wives in the camp had not bothered Anna in the slightest. She did not mix with the others. Her attention, as always, was on politics. Power and prestige were her coin.
She had one other interest. As soon as they were inside, the flap closed and the guard posted, Anna turned to him and stripped him of his clothes with quick efficiency. She removed her own with the same speed and pressed herself against him. “You have been neglecting your husbandly duties.” Her lips trailed down his throat. They might have hovered over the great blood vessel if his heart had been beating, but it had grown still once they had left the beach.
Not even the sight of her shapely flesh was enough to stir it to life. There were too many thoughts circling his mind. Too many questions. Alex caught her arms and pulled them away from him and pushed her back a step. “Not now.”
She studied him. “Don’t be foolish. You’re not tired.”
“There is a man I’m tending,” Alex lied. “His injuries are complicated. I want to think about his treatment.”
Anna pulled his hands from her arms. First one, then the other, using her natural strength now they were away from prying observers. “Think later,” she said and reached for his shaft.
“Anna….”
“You will obey me.” She was knowledgeable after all this time and her hand was rousing him.
Alex pressed his lips together. “You are my maker,” he acknowledged. “Nothing gainsays that fact. But if you think ordering me to enjoy your body will make me desire it, then there are still facts about men that you need to learn.”
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