Rowan saw Ella frown and realized that, for a change, she didn’t know everything that was going on around here. She sat down next to him.
Greta waited patiently for the novices to clear the table and then she turned to them and smiled.
“I must ask you both to do something for me.”
“Of course,” Ella said. “Name it.”
“I have difficulty speaking of these things. I hope you will forgive me.”
“Oh, crap,” Ella said. “We’re too loud in bed. Is that it?”
“I am so sorry, Ella,” Greta said. “I hope you will understand. We are a religious house.”
“Of course, of course. I’m the one who’s sorry. I didn’t even think. We’ll tone it down in future.”
“It is more than that, I’m afraid,” Greta said. Rowan could see that the usually cool and collected Greta was very uncomfortable having to discuss this topic with them. “A couple that is together in this way…”
“Greta, no problem. Really,” Ella said. “You want us to stay in separate rooms?”
“Not if it means you will not stay in separate rooms,” Greta said, looking embarrassed. “I hate to ask you to do this for me after you have already done so much.”
“It’s fine, Greta,” Rowan said. “If you’re asking what I think you’re asking. It’s fine.”
Ella looked from Greta to Rowan. “Did I miss something?”
Rowan turned to Ella and ran his hand down her arm. “This is not how I envisioned this moment—not that I ever envisioned this moment, you understand—but if we want to be together in this century, and I, for one, am not going to be able to keep my hands off you now that the genie’s outta the bottle, I reckon we need to make it legal. Heck, they probably cut your hands off for lesser offenses, huh, Greta?”
Relieved, Greta smiled, her eyes twinkling. “Or other extremities,” she said.
“Why, Mother Superior,” Rowan said, grinning at her. “You have a wicked sense of humor.”
Ella was dumbfounded. “You want us to get married,” she said. She looked at Greta and then Rowan.
“I am sorry, Ella,” Greta said. “It is not romantic, I know, but it is necessary if you and Herr Pierce will lie together while you are with us.”
Ella looked at Rowan and he merely smiled at her.
“Okay,” Ella said. “I guess we can do that.”
“You’re not already married, are you?” Rowan asked.
“Very funny,” Ella said. She turned to Greta. “Will it be legal when we go back to our own time?”
Rowan, who was in the process of getting up to fetch the priest, stopped. “Do you want it to be?” he asked.
“I cannot imagine that it would be legal in 2012,” Greta said. “It will have been performed four hundreds years earlier.” She called to the priest and spoke to him in German when he reentered the room.
I’m getting married, Ella thought, as the priest recited the ceremony. She took Rowan’s arm and he winked at her.
Later that night, as they snuggled in a new larger bed together, Ella was deliriously happy. A part of her tried to remind herself that it wasn’t real. The other part of her tried to assure herself that it was. She was Mrs. Rowan Pierce and even if they returned home and, God forbid, decided to go their separate ways, he would always know that his history included Ella Stevens as his wife. As his lawful 1620 wife.
“Thinking, wife?”
She looked at him and he was grinning.
“You’re enjoying this,” she said.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Most men, I’m told, are leery of commitment.”
“So you’re convinced this is legal?”
If he was teasing her, she wasn’t enjoying it. And if he was saying it wasn’t legal, she didn’t want to hear it.
“Oh, come on, baby,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “For better or worse we are married in this world. You are my wife. Here and now.”
“You’re right,” she said. “I am.”
Before responding, he kissed her on the mouth for a long moment. “We got a little business to take care of before we can consummate this here arrangement,” he said.
“What kind of business?”
“While the juices are flowing and all is right with our world, we need to have a quick think about how to handle this Krüger dipshit. Let’s just put our heads together and come up with some kind of direction before we call it a day.”
“I’ve tried, Rowan,” she said. “All I can see is us marching up to the front gates fully armed with our modern day arsenal and demanding the release of the novices and that Krüger cease and desist forthwith.”
“Yeah, okay, I don’t think the direct approach is where we want to go with this one, babe.” He yawned and Ella found herself hoping he wasn’t going to be too tired to make the marriage binding.
“Well, I’m totally blocked in that case,” she said.
“Okay, now, let’s look at it like a job. With police work, there’s usually a crime already committed and I’m looking for information specific to the murder, drug deal, or whatever. So normally I have an idea of what I’m looking for in advance. In this case, anything we find could be helpful.”
“You’re saying we should gather info first and come up with a plan when we see what we find?”
“Well, I guess I’m saying that we can create the crime or, in our case, the plan of attack based on whatever we find out. We can afford to be flexible.”
“That’s good, right? We’ll have more options depending on what we uncover.”
“Yeah, and since we’re on the side of good but not necessarily on the side of the law, we’re not limited by rules either.”
“I like how you think,” Ella said, snuggling up to him and feeling his warmth through her thin cotton nightgown. “Beats the heck out of storming the castle with a Taser and a pack of matches. Rowan, thank you.”
“Crap, Ella. What else am I gonna do? An asshole in 1620 ain’t that much different from one in 2012, trust me. These are nuns for Chrissake. I’m not gonna just stand by.”
“I really kind of love that about you.”
“Whoa, sister. Don’t be slinging the L word around. I can get skittish, you know.”
“You look pretty stable to me. But after we do this—if we can do this—I’ve got a little bit of a situation back in 2012 to deal with.”
“And I’ll be first in line to help you do that,” he said, looking into her eyes, “But let’s focus on surviving sixteen twenty first.”
“Bet you never imagined those words coming out of your mouth.”
“You have no idea. And now what was that other matter we needed to deal with? Oh, yeah…” She held out her arms to him and he reached hungrily for his very willing bride.
The next day, Ella, Greta and Rowan cleared off the worktable in the kitchen so they could hammer out the details of their plan. A novice toasted bread and made weak dandelion tea for them as they worked through the morning.
“Okay, Greta,” Rowan said. “What’s the main thing about this Krüger guy?”
“The main thing?” Greta looked at Ella for clarification.
“The thing that makes him tick,” Ella explained. “The most important thing about him.”
Greta thought for a moment. “Well, he wants to be better known, or feared, than his father was,” she said.
“Okay,” Rowan said. He looked at her and tapped the table with a metal fork.
Ella could not get used to him without his cowboy hat. Dressed in peasant clothes, he just didn’t look like himself. He looked raw and basic. She realized she was blushing.
“Want to join the group, Ella?” Rowan said.
“Okay. Sorry. Well, for example, Mother, does he own anything that he prizes above all else?”
“It is known that he loves his eldest son, Axel,” Greta said. “He disdains his other son, Christof.”
“What would happen if we were to discredit Axel?” Rowan said. He
rubbed his hands together as if warming to the idea.
“If Axel lost his favor? That is unimaginable,” Greta said.
“If he didn’t have Axel,” Rowan said, “would he make Christof his heir?”
“Christof’s the good guy,” Ella said to Rowan.
“I know,” he said. “Well, Mother Superior?”
“Krüger believes strongly in the lines of primogenitor,” she said slowly. “If Axel were killed or disgraced, he would hand over the castle and all its power to his next-born son. But it is impossible to damage Axel. With one who is so disgraceful already how do you diminish him in the eyes of a fellow monster?”
“Leave that to me, Mother,” Rowan said, patting her hand.
Ella was excited. Thank God for Rowan. They had a plan! She watched him pull their weapons out of the mailbag and lay them on the table. There was his Glock, a switchblade, a lighter, and one ammo clip. Next to these, he set out the block of C4, a handful of blasting caps, the Taser, the two shotgun shells and both cellphones.
“Okay,” he said to Greta. “Now, tell me what’s going on these days church-wise.”
“Church-wise?”
“He means who’s beheading whom as a zealot or blasphemer. Has Luther shown up yet?”
“Yes, there are many Lutherans in Germany at this time.”
“But say, for example,” Rowan said, picking up the Taser and examining it, “if someone were accused of being a witch or warlock, what would happen to them?”
“They would be burned at the stake,” Greta said.
“That’s what I call discrediting,” Rowan said, putting the gun back on the table.
“You are going to make it appear that Axel is dabbling in the black arts?”
“That’s right.”
“Sounds good to me,” Ella said. “Sounds effin’ brilliant, in fact.”
“Thank you, darlin’,” Rowan said. “I appreciate that.”
“But how will you do such a thing?” Greta said. “Axel is well known in Heidelberg. The evidence would be instantly dismissed. His father would ensure that he never came to trial.”
“He might,” Rowan drawled, “if he got to thinking that maybe Axel wasn’t really his son.”
“What do you mean? Of course Axel is his son.”
“Really? You know that for a fact?”
Greta gave Ella a puzzled look.
Ella laughed. “Don’t look at me, Greta, I think it’s a great idea.”
“But how?” Greta said. “How can you possibly introduce or prove such an idea?”
“We can,” Rowan said, picking up his cellphone, “through the wonder of modern technology.”
Later, during a dinner of mostly bread, wine and a few vegetables from the garden, Greta seemed to be very pleased. She held both Rowan and Ella’s hands and said grace before they ate. Her smile beamed as she conversed with the nuns and novices seated at the table with them.
“How well did you know Heidelberg when you lived there?” she asked Ella after the other nuns had left.
“Mostly the clubs. A few restaurants, I guess.”
“You know the Church of the Holy Spirit, of course?”
“Sure, it’s the one at the end of the Altstadt. Very popular place for weddings and stuff.”
“The Church of the Holy Spirit is the most famous church in all of Heidelberg,” Greta said, her eyes bright with pride.
“You know it’s totally Protestant in 2012, right?”
“It was already Protestant when I lived in Heidelberg in the forties,” Greta said. “Even now we pass it back and forth. Before last year, we actually shared it. Are you familiar with the Catholic Church of the Jesuits? Imagine. I have lived in Heidelberg all my life and attended Mass there many times. Yet I was able to witness the beginning of its construction in 1612. Of course, I must keep to myself the fact that in 1872 it will get a beautiful new bell tower.”
“Must be a lonely feeling living here, knowing what you do about the future,” Ella said. “No one else can truly understand you.”
“It is the exact opposite of that, Ella. From the minute I landed in this time, I have never felt more at home or more understood in my life.”
Axel rolled off the sobbing wench and pushed her from the filthy pallet. His men, who were lounging around the room waiting their turn, laughed at their leader’s expression of surprise as the girl attempted to escape.
“Catch her, boys!” Axel said, laughing. “Better’n a greased cat.”
One of the men reached out to capture the wretch—a poor village girl who had been taken two mornings ago on her way to school. She instantly sagged in his arms, compliant and hopeless as the man began to undo the laces on the front of his trousers.
Axel stretched and walked over to where the other three men stood, watching. He held out his hand for a flask.
“She had already been had,” he said to his first lieutenant.
“Not surprising. She likely has brothers and a father.”
“Disgusting,” Axel said. He drank from his flask and idly watched the girl’s rape. As passive as she was, the man assaulting her still felt a need to slap her.
“Hey!” Axel’s lieutenant complained. “Leave something for the rest of us! I like my women to be breathing when I fuck them!”
“I am sick of these sluts,” Axel said. As he watched the girl, he remembered the strange, dark-haired novice from the convent, the one who had looked him straight in the eyes. His pulse quickened at the thought of her naked and unwilling beneath him.
He finished the flask and tossed it into a corner of the room where it broke into shards. “Why have we not returned to the convent?” he said.
“You must only give the order,” his man replied. He was untying the laces on his trousers as he anticipated that his turn was near.
“And why must I do that?” Axel said, grabbing the man by the arm, preventing him from going to the girl who was now no longer crying but stretched out silent and motionless on the dirt floor. He indicated to another watching man that he could take his turn.
“Perhaps, lord,” the lieutenant said, “you would prefer to be made a surprise gift of these young virgins?”
Axel grinned and gave the man a punishing grip on the arm with his fingers. “I want the head hag alive at least at the start,” he said. “But there is one who must be taken alive and untouched.”
His lieutenant nodded. “We all know the one,” he said. “The one who stood and stared at you in the market.”
“Yes,” Axel said, licking his lips. “I have never seen a woman look at a man in such a way. If I don’t end up carving those eyes out of her face, I will keep her chained in the dungeon as a pet.” He laughed and his gang of men joined in. Soon the hall rang with their howls.
Rowan kept a sharp eye out in all directions as Ella straightened the tablecloth on the little patch of lawn on the bank of the Nekker. Instead of eating their lunch with the others in the convent today, they had decided to escape into the fresh air and the countryside just outside the city. He sat on the ground feeling the exhaustion that came from a morning’s hard physical work.
“You look tired,” she said, handing him a sandwich and sitting down next to him.
He smiled at her and for a moment thought of skipping lunch in favor of a different indulgence. He noticed that Ella looked more vibrant than he had ever seen her in Atlanta. He wondered if that was the effect of living in Germany—or of 1620.
“I am, a little, I guess,” he said. “But it’s a good tired.”
“I know,” she said, pouring beer into two cups for them. “That’s how I feel. I never had this in my other life.”
“Thinking about staying, are you?”
“No.”
“I was thinking how alive you seem now. During this time.”
“It’s probably just fear for my life. Back in Atlanta, I hardly ever felt like I was going to die as many times during a single day.”
“Unless you went to
Starbucks,” he said.
Ella looked at him with what appeared to be an uncomfortable, almost guilty expression.
“I hate how we fizzled out,” she said.
“Me, too.”
“If I’d stayed, do you think we’d…you know?”
“Who knows? We’re doing pretty good right now.”
“And when we get back to 2012?”
Rowan put his beer on the grass next to him and didn’t answer. What did she want him to say? That they’d stay married? That they’d date? They had started down that road once before. It hadn’t gone so well.
“Guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” he said.
Ella put the remnants of their lunch in a large wicker basket. Whenever they weren’t talking about their relationship, they seemed to get along wonderfully. He teased her and praised her and took possession of her like they’d been together for years. He acted like he loved her company, respected her opinions, desired her in all ways that mattered. In fact, being with him this last week at the convent had been nothing short of exquisite.
She didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before. The fact was, she loved him. She had probably loved him from the moment he’d kicked open the doors to Starbucks and rescued her.
Forget Starbucks, she thought. He had come to rescue her from across centuries. And maybe, just maybe, that meant he loved her too. At least a little.
The rest of the day was a long one filled with more hard work and conversation as Rowan, Ella and Greta fine-tuned their plan to discredit Axel to his father. After dinner, they met in the kitchen before heading for their separate chambers for the night.
“Well, one thing’s certain, we can’t do anything from here,” Ella said. “So, first thing, I’ve got to get inside the castle.”
“That ain’t happening,” Rowan said.
“I can’t gather intel from the convent, Rowan. I need to be in the castle.”
“I said no.”
“Okay, Rowan, you do know we’re not really a product of these times, right? You can’t tell me what to do.”
“Guess again, Ella.”
“Greta, do you have any ideas? Serving girl? Cook? Laundress?”
“You don’t know how to do any of those things, Ella, in a way that would not get you either burned at the stake or thrown into an insane asylum,” Greta said.
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