Italian Time Travel 01 - The Other Side of Heaven

by Morgan O'Neill

  “Brother, are you befuddled?” he asked. “There is no dwelling nearby or folk who might hear if you called out. Forgive me, but your speech is nonsensical. Pray, take a moment to clear your thoughts.”

  His Latin was so perfect, so fluid, that she gaped. Puzzled, she switched back to Latin. “No, I am not befuddled! Why is everyone refusing to speak Italian?”

  He frowned, then turned and barked orders to his men. It sounded familiar but off, like Igor’s speech in Santa Lucia. A local dialect? The accent, the turns of phrase were odd, unlike anything she’d come across.

  “You’ve nothing to fear from me, Brother. Did the brigands harm you? Was anything stolen? Your hands need tending.”

  Gwen gazed at them, startled by what she saw. Her left hand was only scratched, but the right one was a mess, with several gashes on her knuckles, bruising, and plenty of blood. She realized just how badly they hurt.

  The man stepped to his horse and pulled something from a saddlebag.

  Gwen, not stopping to consider why, fumbled with her wristwatch, then yanked it off and shoved it into her sack.

  Within seconds he was back, motioning for her to sit on the ground.

  From within the safety of her cowl, Gwen watched as he prepared to dress her injuries. He was tall and trim with broad shoulders – very broad. His lower face, as much as she dared to examine, was blanketed by a thick growth of dark stubble mingled with a hint of gray, his jaw square, his mouth tight-lipped, serious.

  He knelt beside her and lifted her right sleeve. Gwen let her gaze fall away. She wasn’t ready to look him in the eyes yet, feeling sure she would give away her secret if she did.

  He worked swiftly, cleaning the wounds with a cloth saturated with something that stung and smelled worse than it felt.

  “Hold this close against the cuts while I prepare the bandage,” he ordered.

  Beyond him, Gwen watched as his troop heaped the bodies in a pile, realizing the sight of gore bothered her far more than the fact men had been killed. She had to admit she felt satisfaction at seeing the butchered bodies of her would-be rapists.

  “Have you a name?”

  Name? “Uh… er, Brother Godwyn.”

  “It is an unfortunate truth of our times, Brother Godwyn, that brigands so freely roam our countryside, waylaying even the lowliest and holiest. My apologies.”

  “You speak Latin perfectly,” Gwen ventured. But why? He didn’t look anything like a scholar.

  He paused in his work, and she peeked out from under her hood. He was staring at her hands. What exactly was he looking at? She pulled back reflexively.

  He cleared his throat. “Of course I speak it, Brother, as would anyone in my position.”

  Gwen nodded, deciding to keep quiet for a while. This place made no sense. Why was everything turned on its head? She thought about Alice in Wonderland and felt a kinship.

  “Whence came you, Brother?”

  She hesitated. Her instincts told her to lie about being an American. “Britannia,” she finally said, giving the old Latin name.

  “That is a great distance,” he said, surprised. “I see from your cowl that you are a Benedictine. How old are you? By your hands, your voice, you seem… quite, uh, young. When did you take your vows?”

  Vows! When did the religious orders take their vows? All she could think of was Maria in The Sound of Music. “Last year,” she cautiously offered. “I took my vows last year. I… I’m on pilgrimage, and, and there was somebody else with me, but we got separated. His name is Stefano. He’s blond, tall, maybe injured. Have you seen him?”

  “No, we’ve seen no one on the road since the village of Emilia.” He reached out and took her hand to finish dressing her wounds. “You need not fear me, Brother Godwyn. I am Alberto Uzzo, lord of Canossa. I have been to seek council with the Holy Father and now return to my lands. We have extra horses, and you may join my party, if you wish. It would not be safe to journey alone in the open, as you have witnessed. Moreover, dusk is upon us, and the devil will soon be abroad.”

  Gwen frowned. The swords, Latin, chain mail, and now the devil abroad.

  She looked away, terrified of what it all meant.

  “Father Warinus rides with us,” Lord Alberto went on, nodding over his shoulder. “If I had my choice, I would burn the corpses of such filth, but he has prevailed upon me to allow for their burial. So, we must tarry here while my men dig a pit large enough to hold them. It will be a late night. Nevertheless, we will break camp early tomorrow. Father Warinus journeys to Pavia. Mayhap he will take you there.”

  “How far is Pavia?” She was almost afraid to hear his answer.

  He released her hand, sat back on his haunches, and calculated out loud. “We left Modena at daybreak. We must spend some time tracking down those who escaped into the woods, and we’ll ride late because of it. We plan to make camp this night by the river down yonder.” He glanced toward the boulders and the valley beyond. “It will be another three days, at least, until the priest and I part company. As for Pavia, a week more.”

  Gwen nodded. “Pavia, yes, I see.” She could barely utter the words, her emotions bubbling near the surface. A week? It couldn’t be more than a hundred miles from this location.

  Everything she’d experienced since the quake came crashing down on her. She recalled the landscape on her drive north from Rome to Santa Lucia. The countryside was never barren, never unpopulated. Towns and villages popped up everywhere you looked, while vineyards, orchards, or farmland covered everything else. But civilization had simply fallen away after she’d left Santa Lucia. The world had gone out of kilter. Why? Her head hurt. She wanted to be away from this place, where normal wasn’t anything like normal.

  Lord Alberto gathered his things and left Gwen’s side when the horsemen pursuing the escapees returned empty-handed. The men spoke quietly with their leader for several minutes, then broke away to help with the digging. Once the dead were buried, one of Alberto’s men brought Gwen a horse, and soon they were on their way.

  Gwen kept well back in the troop, avoiding conversation with anyone around her. She forced herself to ask hard questions, to assess her surroundings and all she had seen. She needed to analyze everything with clear, level-headed thought, but her mind refused, firmly discarding the only obvious explanation.

  Refusing, because traveling through time, being thrust backward through the centuries to pre-Renaissance Italy, was simply too absurd to contemplate.

  *

  The western sky held but a trace of light, dusk’s deep violet-blue. The moon hung low among twinkling stars as Alberto rode out ahead of his men, wanting to be alone with his thoughts. There was something about the monk, something disquieting, but he could not guess what. Brother Godwyn. He was a tall youth with no beard, a stripling mayhap, yet he seemed older. On pilgrimage? Bah! he thought in disbelief. These days everyone, even pilgrims, had to travel in groups for safety.

  Why was he on his own, wandering the countryside? Alberto rubbed his face, pondering. Godwyn almost certainly had something to hide, because of the way he kept himself hidden at the back of his hood. Was he truly a monk? Alberto shrugged. They would find out soon enough. Better to set his mind on the worries they would encounter upon reaching Canossa.

  “You are deep in thought, my lord.” Father Warinus moved his horse alongside. “What weighs so heavily?”

  “Our monk weighs heavily,” Alberto replied, sourly. “There is something odd about him. He appears very young, mayhap too young for one who claims to have taken his vows last year, yet something tells me he is not as young as he would have us believe. Although I do not sense evil or misdeed, neither do I think he is altogether who he says.”

  Father Warinus sighed. “Are any of us, at a tender age? And I think you are mistaken in that. He does indeed seem young, for there is a vulnerability in his countenance, something years would erase, something which cannot be feigned. Those of us who choose to enter into the service of God do so for many
reasons, and time hones us into the men we are meant to be. When I was the same age as Brother Godwyn, my ‘calling’ resembled something closer to terror. Mayhap this young Benedictine is still finding his way toward reconciliation between the path he has chosen, and the one he has left behind.” The priest crossed himself and then asked, “Have you any news of Queen Adelaide?”

  “Rumors, but nothing directly from her, not since she sent me to Rome.” Alberto scratched his beard. “I’ll admit, the lack of communication is disquieting, but her husband’s men – God rest his soul – are true and stand firmly behind her. They will hold off Berengar’s advances for now, but time presses. After we part company, I intend to ride hard for home, gather my full force, and strengthen the queen’s garrison. I have decided it would be unwise to wait and hope for the best. As I said before, I have no doubt Berengar will try to wrest the kingdom from her before the end of summer.”

  Silence fell between them, and Alberto let his mind wander over his worries once again. Abruptly, he twisted in his saddle and looked to the back of his troop. By torchlight, he could plainly make out the boy-monk, who rode with his head down, his hood in its usual cloaked position. Alberto couldn’t even see the lad’s nose. What does he hide? What?

  Alberto’s gaze flickered, unbidden, to the young man’s graceful hold on the reins. He noted the way the monk sat tall on his borrowed horse. Why does his appearance plague me with doubt? he wondered, as he straightened and stared forward. Godwyn’s hands were soft, his way with horses easy, confident. He came from privilege, that much was certain. Surely he was a second son, unhappily forced to wear the cowl.

  But why had he not developed the inevitable calluses of a novice? They were usually worked near to death. Could Godwyn be of the nobility? Is that why he appears to have been coddled?

  And why should it plague me so?

  Suddenly, Alberto recalled the warmth of the youth’s skin as he’d dressed his wounds, the soft, unblemished curves of his forearm with its sparse, golden hair.

  Jesus God, I am no sodomite! He whacked his crop hard against his leather boot, startling his charger and causing the priest’s horse to shy.

  God strike me down if I have such thoughts again!

  *

  The moon and stars had been out for some time when Gwen heard Lord Alberto call a halt by the river. The horses were tethered, bedrolls and blankets spread out in the open air, and a fire blazing by the time she’d returned from relieving herself behind a mound of brambles.

  Although she had some food left in her sack, she gladly accepted a hunk of cold wheat cake from one of the soldiers. Gwen bowed her head before eating, just in case anyone watched, then tore into it, famished. Soon, another man kindly offered her a bowl of boiled fava beans and a mug of hot wine.

  Trying to relax, Gwen leaned against a tree trunk. The warmth of the wine helped somewhat, yet she still fought uneasiness. Images of the butchery came rushing back, and she couldn’t reconcile that behavior with how the men had acted since.

  She hazarded a look around the camp. Some of the soldiers stood sentry, others tended to the horses and gear, while several sat together, eating and drinking. Father Warinus and Lord Alberto, however, kept to themselves in close conversation. She studied the pair, lit by the glow of the fire, trying to understand what sort of men they were.

  Father Warinus was middle-aged, his hair thin and graying at the temples. Short and slim, he wore a cowl with a russet tunic over it. Neither of his garments had a hood; instead, he’d sported a rather shapeless, felt hat, which was put aside, for now.

  He seemed wise, calm. A good man. Maybe he could be trusted.

  Her gaze shifted to Alberto. A tall man, his long legs seemed to stretch on forever toward the campfire. His black hair was pushed away from his face and fell in lazy curls to his shoulders. In the firelight, Gwen could see silver strands scattered evenly throughout. Odd for a man probably no older than she, but the effect was perfection. She let her gaze roam on, to his jaw, his lips, recalling her sight of them as he’d dressed her wounds. Serious expression, bordering on moody, yet a sensual mouth…

  Suddenly, she could feel his touch on her skin again, feel the heat his fingers had caused, and she longed to study him more closely. But she was still unwilling to look him in the eye. Now, more than ever, she felt as if every thought she possessed, every secret, would be uncovered as soon as they exchanged that first glance. It was illogical, because he hardly seemed to take notice of her and treated her like a nuisance when he did.

  Don’t be an ass! He’s not paying attention to you, not like that.

  Gwen forced herself to look higher, to find his eyes, and was instantly aware of the long, slow departure of breath from her lungs. Beneath the dark slash of brows, his eyes were black pools, mysterious, endless. She felt drawn to them, as though she could dive in and never hit bottom.

  Captivated, Gwen wondered what he was like in an unguarded moment. Did he like to smile, or was he always serious? Did he ever laugh?

  She doubted it. Still, she felt unable to look away. He seemed wiser than his years, more careworn, as though he’d lived a thousand lives to her one. The strength and control on his face stood in stark contrast to the softness of his hair. She sensed Lord Alberto was a man of deep passions.

  She continued to watch as he leaned back on one elbow, still deep in conversation with the priest. But, when Alberto’s penetrating gaze leapt across the fire toward her, she looked away, terrified.

  When she ventured to peek again, she saw a watchful man, a grave man, always on guard, his eyes constantly roving around the campsite, assessing, but no longer turning her way.

  The men’s voices grew stronger, and both rose to their feet.

  “I do not doubt Berengar poisoned King Lothaire,” Alberto said. “You will never convince me otherwise.”

  “I understand, my lord,” Father Warinus said, “but since I come as an official emissary from Pope Agapetus, to advise and mediate between the factions, I cannot in the absence of proof do anything but accept Berengar’s protestations of innocence. I must hasten to Pavia, to Queen Adelaide, and from there call for a parley. We must pray Berengar may yet see reason.”

  The two men spent a moment more together, and then parted, each to his bedroll.

  Gwen could only stare. Had she heard right? Lothaire? Adelaide? Pope Agapetus?

  “No,” she whispered, stunned. “No! They… Agapetus… he was pope… in the Middle Ages!”

  *

  What little sleep Gwen got that night was fitful. Mostly, she watched the constellations walk a slow course across the night sky, remembering astronomy nights at Griffith Observatory in LA. She used to have issues with her life, but now she realized how good she had it – heaven compared to this. Was that life gone? Was it her imagination, or did the stars look different here, as if an age had vanished, as if she were now on the other side of heaven?

  Gwen closed her eyes. Everything would make sense; everything would fall into place if she accepted the impossible. Was she feeling the past now? Yes. Undoubtedly. Inescapably. She felt it. She was in it. The Latin. Even the so-called common language everyone spoke. She hadn’t fully recognized it at first, because it was a dead language. The accent was so different from what she’d heard in her head when reading old texts. Yes, she was here. The proof was all around her.

  And that means I’m gone. They must think I’m dead. Vaporized in the ruins of the church.

  Gwen pictured her family, her friends, horrified, grieving, as tears ran out of her eyes and soaked into her bedroll. Had they heard yet? Oh, this would kill her mother. She thought of her family’s home in Santa Monica and her own apartment, just blocks from the pier. Everything, everyone Gwen cared about was gone, forever gone, as good as dead.

  Gwen wadded up her blanket and forced it against her mouth, her eyes. She couldn’t stop crying. Hopefully, the blanket would block the sound of it from carrying across the campsite.

  Home, sh
e wanted to go home, but how could she? She didn’t even know how she’d gotten here.

  In the midst of her grief, how odd to suddenly have one of her beloved poems enter her thoughts. She wiped her tears, gazing at the starry mantle of night, remembering evocative lines from her favorite poet, Tasso, which spoke of mourning and loss.

  What weeping, or what dewfall,

  Whose then were those tears,

  Flung from night’s cloak, I saw,

  And the white face of the stars?

  Why was the white moon sowing

  A pure cloud’s crystal mass

  In the lap of fresh new grass?

  Why were the winds heard, blowing,

  Through the dark air, round and round,

  Till dawn, with mournful sound?

  Were they perhaps the strife

  Of your going, life of my life?

  Gwen finally fell into a fitful sleep, awakening before dawn. More tears threatened, her emotions raw. The strife of your going, life of my life. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She had to get it together. No more self-pity.

  They broke camp and started traveling just after daybreak. The weather was misty and gray, the horses fidgety. Exhausted, Gwen rode closer to Father Warinus and Lord Alberto, wanting to listen to their conversation, to learn where she was, and when.

  She realized Stefano must have time traveled, too. She vowed to continue her search for him, hoping he was safe, hoping he was coping better than she.

  Maybe somehow, some day, after she found him, they would return to Santa Lucia and figure out how they got here and then find a way to get back home.

  Steeling herself, Gwen sat taller on her horse. She’d spent the night thinking of all she had lost. Now it was time to find a way to survive.

  *

  The morning’s ride was well begun. Alberto now felt intimately familiar with his surroundings. Every rock, every tree and rolling hill spoke of his homeland, his life’s blood, his cherished burden. He glanced at Father Warinus. Soon, they would part ways, for the roads they each needed to follow diverged at the Enza River.