“But what about your work?”
“Wales will just have to become my HQ for the time being.”
Janet took her time thinking about all the consequences and sacrifices they had made over the past years, making sure to keep Jade hidden and away from traveling, paranoid someone would find her. But if having Jade was the result then nothing else mattered.
“Okay, I’ll call Bowen and let him know we’re coming.” Her smile was still sad, the ends of her mouth only just lifting.
“Good, I’ll book the flights.” He left her to make the call and went back to his office.
Seventeen hours later, Dave and Janet Morrison were in Lampeter. Bowen had agreed on their coming and insisted they stay in his home for the duration. Dave was thrilled; getting to live and work in a historically artistic building. Janet, less so. She knew that Bowen would be on hand for anything they needed, but what she needed was assurances that her daughter would make it home in one piece—and that, Bowen would never be able to give her.
XVIII.
Before I realized, a month had passed. My magical studies advanced quickly, faster than I ever would have thought possible—though I think it was more to do with the daisy-infused water they considered camomile tea Master Lewis had me drink twice-daily than anything else—yet when it came to potions… even tea wasn’t going to save me.
“If you take a pinch of rue, turmeric, belladonna, and anise; tie them together, and set the leaves on fire, they create a gas so pungent they will bring tears to your enemies’ eyes and cause their lungs to set alight.”
“Master, you’ve already taught me this potion.” I wanted to hit my head against the desk. How could he have forgotten? Not only did I forget the belladonna, but somehow managed to smoke out the whole west wing.
“Good God. Have I?” He went to his textbook, flipped through the bookmarked pages, and finally found the one we had ticked off weeks ago. “You are quite right.” He flicked more through the book. “Ah, here we are. Why not try this one?”
It wasn’t just the pain of studying potion after potion, Master Lewis had been adamant about my learning Latin. He usually put those skills to the test, making me decipher the language when reading spells.
“Vita est Terra. The Life of Earth. Step one: create a rejuvenating potion as seen on page two hundred and forty-seven. Step two: sprinkle potion on the ground. Step three: recite incantation:
Vita est Terra, sic jubeo: Ver.
The Life of Earth, thus I command: spring.
Caution: potion may also be used in excess to control the roots of trees, insect life, and the malleable state of dirt.”
Master Lewis brought over a pot of soil while I gathered the ingredients to make the rejuvenating potion.
“Butterbur, scorpion venom, cowbane, and ground ivy root. Boil the liquid, seep the remaining herb fragments out and discard correctly. Store in cork-stopped bottle. Label correctly.” After mixing up a sleeping potion with a laxative one, Master Lewis had reprimanded me on my labeling skills and made sure that I was drilled constantly to mark them properly. “Okay. Ready?”
Master Lewis took a couple of steps back. So far, most of my spells had gone wrong, the first one singed the tip of my eyebrow, but I was determined to make this one work. I dashed the liquid onto the soil and waited to let it absorb.
“Vita est Terra, sic jubeo: Ver.”
Nothing happened. I let out a frustrated breath and repeated the spell again. Sweat pooled onto my neck as I expended my energy, the spell taking all my concentration. Still nothing.
“I don’t get why–” Before my eyes a little leaf popped out from the surface of the soil. It was small, its top rough and veiny, but it was there. “I did it!”
My achievement was short-lived. The pot cracked, the clay spraying in every direction. More tiny leaves built onto the vines that slithered their way out and latched onto every surface in the room, including me. It was as if the plant had taken on the mind of an octopus, its legs reaching this way and that. Their tendrils attached onto my ankle, silently constricting its blood flow. Trying to get my hand between the two, I pulled hard, its strength unmatched. It wasn’t until they were making their way to Master Lewis’s books did he intervene.
“Quiescite!”
All of a sudden the plants stopped where they were, frozen. Master Lewis picked up the spell book to see what went wrong while passing me a sharp knife to free myself. It was a painful execution as the blood that had evaded the space came rushing back. He talked over my grunts of agony.
“Caution: Potion may also be used in excess to control the roots of trees, insect life, and the malleable state of the dirt.”
“I read that part,” I huffed and flung the vine to the other side of the room.
He continued on. “If spell is said twice, it will all intensify magic and cause it to overreact.” I could see the vein in his head throb at my misdemeanor. “I guess you missed that part?” he said sarcastically.
“No one’s perfect.”
“But you must be!” He banged the book closed onto the table. “We only have two more months before you meet with the High Elders and at this rate, they are not going to take your claim seriously!” It was the first time I had seen Master Lewis seriously snap. Before he had prodded, goaded me to keep going, now it seemed he was at the end of his wits.
“Okay, I’ll try again.” I went to the potted plant and cut off the roots that had twinned themselves through his desk. He took his place behind it, brought out a quill and ink pot, and started to make notes on the concoction in front of him.
Wait, what does he mean two more months?
“Won’t I be home by then?” I tentatively asked. In all our lectures, he had never mentioned this before! “I mean… I won’t be here for that long will I?”
“Oh you most certainly will. These things take time, but I believe once you meet the High Elders they will be able to find a way to send you back if you still wish to go.”
I tried to contain the panic that consumed my body. “What if they can’t? What if I’m stuck here?”
“Well, not to worry.” His eyes never left his task. “You will be well taken care of.”
I flopped into one of the chairs in the corner of the room. Everything was happening too fast and too slow, the hands of time ticking in mockery at my predicament. I couldn’t move as my brain went into overdrive trying to factor all the pros and cons of what the master had revealed.
In my stupor, Master Lewis sent for Elian and when she arrived, placed a cup of tea in front of me. She glanced at me in pity, but pity was not what I needed right then, it was strength to get through this ordeal. Once my frazzled nerves were calm enough (which took another hour) we continued the discussion.
It now made sense. We had plunged into my magic studies so quickly, now I knew it was in preparation for meeting the High Elders. They hadn’t even given me time to think about anything else. “Why do they want to meet me?” Master Lewis looked at me with surprise. “I could be a crazy person just rambling. Why am I so important to them?”
His eyes softened, a smile spreading across his face. I had never seen him like that before, he looked like he was a loving grandparent, ready to tell their grandchild a bedtime story. “When I was much younger, I had heard stories that a person from a distant land would come to save us. At the time, the High Elders did not know such a calamity as the Brotherhood could have plagued our world, our sight does not see all, but for decades they told of one who would come to us. A powerful being that would rid the world of evil.” He looked back to me. “So as you can see, you being our savior sounds just as deranged as the prophecy itself.”
Still unsure what to make about the whole situation, one thing was plainly evident: I needed the help of the High Elders to get back to my time and to do that I would have to convince them that I was the one they had been w
aiting for.
Walking out of Master Lewis’s office was a godsend as my stomach rumbled, a headache already on its way. Since arriving in the fourteenth century I had Haf or Elian guiding me through the castle. Today they were both busy with the banquet for tonight in celebration of the dawn of Solstice and my birthday which fell in line with it, so I was allowed to roam about freely. My first adventure was finding the kitchen. It took twenty minutes and a handful of confused conversations with a couple of guards and a scared housemaid, but I finally found it.
It was exactly what I would have thought a medieval kitchen would look like. It was grand, more so in structure than in detail. The white mortar walls were double the height of my quarters. Pots, pans, and ladles hung in the middle of the room above a wooden work bench that was strewn with floury dough and bright vegetables. The women who worked there were burly, their aprons smeared with flour and other ingredients. By them was a sink-like bowl where lone rags and green moss vigorously scrubbed at plates and cups. Servants whizzed about the room, collecting plates and goblets, going who knows where.
On the largest wall a man-sized fireplace held a spit roast, kettles and pots with hot food that filled the air with their savory aroma of sage, rosemary, and thyme made my mouth water. The sound of sizzling meat and the clanging of pans and shouts melded together with the sounds of rushing feet and the chopping of vegetables, all of it filling the air like one gigantic chorus.
I stood there in the doorway taking in the hectic scene when I spotted two little girls in the corner next to me.
Both stared.
“Hey there.” The girls quickly stood and curtsied. I was so caught off guard that when I tried to reciprocate the action I almost hit a servant going past with a goblet of wine. My face flushed pink as the girls giggled at my expense, while the servant almost shouted at me—that was, until he saw that I was a noble woman and rushed out the door instead.
I tore my attention back to the girls.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where I could get some bread and cheese would you?” I had read enough books about the Middle Ages to know that food was scarce and to ask for something directly from the kitchen was a complete no-no.
“Of course, Milady!” One of the girls said in her high-pitched voice. Looking over her shoulder she shouted to one of the woman at the bench. “Gran! Lady Jade wants some bread and cheese! Can I get her some?”
The woman who was beating the life out of a roll of dough looked over in shock.
“Heaven’s no! Where does she think she is?” I flushed with embarrassment. “She’ll-not be eating something as pitiful as just bread and cheese.” The woman left her work station and came to stand right next to me. She was shorter than I was, her hair capped under a white headdress where short locks of white strands fell outside the rim. It created a disheveled and wild look about her, but her smile made her plump cherry cheeks give her that stereotypical grandmotherly feel.
“I’ll fix ya up a plate with the dressings. Beatrice. Gwyneth. Go fetch me some veg from the storeroom.”
The girl who shouted for her gran, Beatrice, grabbed her sister’s hand and ran to the other side of the kitchen and through a wide-framed door.
“I don’t want to put you out–”
“Nonsense. Everyone has ta eat, and in my kitchen, they’ll eat well.” Her chubby cheeks puffed up again with her smile, her eyes gentle.
“Thank you.”
The girls were back, their arms filled with an array of vegetables. Their grandmother fussed over the amount and, in the end, grabbed a head of lettuce and some carrots, shooing the girls to put the rest back. The woman went back to her position at the table and started on my food, which left me to be entertained by her granddaughters.
“So your grandmother runs the whole kitchen?”
“Yes. Gran has done so since she was about our age.” I took in their small stature but the lines that creased their faces made it hard to accurately pinpoint their age. They must have had some stressful times in their lives.
“Which is?”
“Thirteen.”
Thirteen? I don’t think I was ever in charge of anything in my life, let alone running a kitchen that had to feed more than one hundred people a day at that age.
“Betrys cadarn Morgan is renowned for her cooking and Lord Gruffydd wanted the best. Gran has stayed here ever since.” She recited the piece as easily as a grade-schooler telling their teacher what it was their parent did.
“There ya go, dear.” What Betrys put before me was simple, a cut of thickly sliced pink beef with some side toast and a cooked vegetable salad. Taking a fork-like tool I devoured the contents of the plate and washed the meal down with a small cup of mead. I had gotten used to the honey taste, though if I could choose water or mead in this time, I would take mead in a heartbeat.
“You come any time you are hungry. Iwan?”
“Okay, Betrys, I will. Thank you.”
“Ack, child, call me Gran—almost everyone does.”
“Thanks again… Gran.” I couldn’t quite get the word out. I had never had a grandmother. Dave and Janet’s parents were already dead by the time I was born. “Then you must call me Jade. The three of you,” I added.
“As you wish.”
The rest of the day was spent wandering about the castle, finding the Old Hall where His Lordship had his meetings, the armory, and the servants’ quarters. Grabbing a cloak from my room—another shocking reminder that I was no longer playing dress up but sincerely adapting to the world around me—I gradually made my way to the outside gardens. The weather had been kind to us the past week, only a light dusting of snow still topped the muddy grass.
Rows of vegetables and herbs filled the space on the western side of the castle, and to the right of it, a section was fenced off. A skull and crossbones post warned against any taste testers, which could be none other than Master Lewis’s garden for growing plants to make our potions.
In a pocketed section near the stables on the south side was the blacksmith’s. The warmth of the fires was a nice contrast to the aggressively chilled sea air. Sword blades and horseshoes hung in variation along its walls. A small boy took orders from his master to hurry with the hot iron and moved swiftly with his strokes against the metal he worked on, the clang echoing through the air.
I thought of how different this place was compared to when I had first visited not months ago in the twenty-first century. At that time, those ruins held a forgotten life the history books would never be able to capture.
I doubled back and made my way past the front entrance, people with wagons, cattle, and sheep were being checked by the guards at the gate and allowed through. I crossed the busyness to find myself on the other side. There was less movement out here, the section cordoned off by rope adorned with green and red flags that whipped back and forth in the wind. In the middle was Bowen sparring with another knight, their dance leaving footprints in the snow-topped field. The crash of the waves just a jump away almost drowned out their clashing swords. The smell of salt hung in the crisp Welsh air melding with the sweet stench of sweat wafting from the other fighters that stood at the perimeter of the ropes.
My heart stopped as I spotted him and stayed at the edge of the ring to watch their match. I hadn’t seen him since… since I had first met him and even then, we had never uttered a coherent word to each other. My mind reeled as I felt the phantom brush of his fingers on my neck. His rock-hard fist smashing into my body. The cold metal that split my skin.
But now… Knowing that there was a cause behind his anger, behind his ruthless behavior that day somehow made me see him in a different way.
Even in the cold weather their movements were heavy-handed and swift, like they were serious in trying to kill one another. Bowen took a stance farther back, his sword raised in both hands, holding it up by his cheek. The other man took the same sta
nce, though the sword looked wrong in his hands, clumsy compared to his opponent’s.
Bowen attacked and smacked the weapon to the ground. “You need to hold it tighter. Get more muscle in those arms, then you can think about challenging me to a real match.” He smiled. It was odd to see the action on his face since the last memory I had was of him looking angry and rushing out of my room. “Rest and we will try again tomorrow.”
He turned and saw me, the light from his face fading as quickly as it came. I could see his whole body go rigid and his eyes widened while his stature seemed to grow bigger, whether out of disgust or shock, I wasn’t really sure. I stood there expressionless. I didn’t want him to know what I was thinking and after a few seconds, he finally looked away.
“Bowen!” Tristan bellowed behind me. My hand flew to my chest to make sure my heart was still intact. He acknowledged me as well. “Lady Jade.”
“Jesus, Tristan, you almost gave me a heart attack. And as I’ve already asked, please call me Jade. I can’t get used to people calling me ‘lady.’ I’m far from what a lady should be.”
“Though I do not agree with your statement, I will accept your wishes. Jade.”
Bowen came over to see what the captain wanted and we both quickly averted our eyes, the tension in the air so thick you would have needed a chainsaw to cut through it. Tristan somehow pulled it off.
“Just say you are sorry, man. The poor woman has recovered nicely, do you not think?” As always he got straight to the point of things. Master Lewis had been able to fix my ribs and bruised face, though profusely apologized that the cut on my clavicle would leave a scar, which made no difference to me.
Tristan and I waited for Bowen’s response, finally his gaze fell upon mine. “Yes, Lady Jade. I am sorry for my actions against you upon your arrival–”
Tristan clapped him on the back, the action doing little to produce any movement from him. “There, everyone is happy again.”
To Those Who Never Knew (A Monksblood Bible Novel Book 1) Page 13
