Kiss Across Kingdoms
Author: Tracy Cooper-Posey
Date: 2016-04-04 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Menage; Time Travel; Romance; Vampires; M M F
Description: They must go back in time because history says they already have.Six years have passed since Alex, Rafe and Sydney met and fell in love. Steeped in the stories of time travel by Brody, Veris and Taylor, they have avoided time-jumping, too afraid their every action will change the past and bring disaster upon everyone. Taylor brings home a book from tenth century Anglo-Saxon England. Within is a hidden cypher that insists Rafe and Sydney must travel back to Powys, the most powerful kingdom of ancient Wales. But the pair don’t arrive together. Rafe finds himself in the kingdom of Powys, scribe t

Table of Contents

Title Page

About Kiss Across Kingdoms

Praise for the Kiss Across Time Series

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Epilogue

The Next Book in the Kiss Across Time series

About the Author

Other books by Tracy Cooper-Posey

Copyright Information

About Kiss Across Kingdoms

They must go back in time because history says they already have.

Six years have passed since Alex, Rafe and Sydney met and fell in love. Steeped in the stories of time travel by Brody, Veris and Taylor, they have avoided time-jumping, too afraid their every action will change the past and bring disaster upon everyone.

Taylor brings home a book from tenth century Anglo-Saxon England. Within is a hidden cypher that insists Rafe and Sydney must travel back to Powys, the most powerful kingdom of ancient Wales.

But the pair don’t arrive together. Rafe finds himself in the kingdom of Powys, scribe to the king, Llewelyn, as he was when he first lived through that time. Sydney, however, is in the land of the Lady of Mercia. She is a woman alone in a land and time she doesn’t know.

The two must find a way back to each other across the two warring kingdoms, while Alex tries desperately to help them, from eleven centuries into the future….

Warning: This time travel ménage romance features two super-hot alpha vampire heroes, multiple sex scenes, including anal sex, MM sexual play, and MMF sex. Do not read this book if frank sexual language and sex scenes offend you.
The time-space continuum was restored to order at the end of this book. Promise.

This is the fifth book in the Kiss Across Time paranormal series:
Kiss Across Time 1.0:  Kiss Across Time
Kiss Across Time 2.0:  Kiss Across Swords
Kiss Across Time 2.5:  Time Kissed Moments I
Kiss Across Time 3.0:  Kiss Across Chains
Kiss Across Time 4.0:  Kiss Across Deserts
Kiss Across Time 5.0: Kiss Across Kingdoms

[Time Kissed Moments are short stories and novellas featuring the characters and situations featured in the Kiss Across Time series.]

A Time Travel Vampire Romance Novel

Praise for the Kiss Across Time Series

[She] has created characters that are engaging, unpredictable, outrageously funny and down-right appealing to readers who will steal their hearts.  Shannon for The Romance Studio

I think you’ll be as entertained and affected by the chemistry between the characters as I was. A fast-moving romance that spanned several lifetimes and included a paranormal aspect that was a fun and totally unexpected surprise.  Honeysuckle for Whipped Cream Erotic Romance Reviews

This was a great story with wonderful and surprising plot twists. The chemistry between the three is tangible.  Stacey Krug for Siren Book Reviews

Paranormal erotic romance doesn’t get any more creative than [this].  Chris for Romance Junkies

This is a story, and these are characters, that stay with the reader long after the story is finished. Clare for Happily Ever After Reviews

Not only immensely imaginative, but incredibly ingenious – it’s an unforgettable journey.  Chris for Romance Junkies Reviews

Her ability to create a story that captures readers and characters with depth will keep me coming back for more. Claudia for A Romance Review

She shows the reader how beautiful and seductive two men can be when they unleash their desires for each other. It’s a romance that has a number of elements, all combined to make a very captivating story. I’m looking forward to reading more in this imaginative series. Leslie for Leslie’s Psyche

A thrilling exploration of battle, self-loathing, trust, and a soul-shaking love that time cannot erase. Rhonda for Vampire Romance Books

Chapter One

Sydney would always remember the day it began, because that was the day Gronoya and New Denmark dropped two nuclear warheads upon Syria and Iraq and the whole world tottered on the very edge of the end. It was also the day Taylor brought home from England a copy of Nennius’ The History of the Britons, which had been smuggled out of Gronoya by Welsh clerics under the noses of the Herskers. It was the manuscript that started it.

Taylor, Veris and Brody loved their books and their history. Taylor was always digging up relics of the past and studying them as part of her work for the Library of Congress’ Archives. However, Alex and Rafe had lived a long time, too, so even they liked to pour over old manuscripts, often reading the forgotten languages aloud to prove they could and to tickle old memories.

So Taylor brought the scanned copy of the manuscript over to dinner that night and while Marit and Sydney ate, everyone sat about the big dining table studying the loose pages, as happy as pigs in clover.

Normally, Sydney preferred to eat in the kitchen. She often ate standing up at the counter as she was the only human in the house anymore. When there was company, though, they used the big, wood-paneled dining room. The table would seat twelve people comfortably, the upholstered dining chairs with their carved backs pulled up around it with a comfortable amount of elbow room. It was far too elegant a room for Sydney, although it was nice to have the company.

“These are very good scans,” Alex said, lifting one of the scans up closer for inspection. “You can still see the ghosts under the letters.”

“The whats?” Sydney asked, putting her knife and fork down.

Marit rolled her eyes. “The monks would sometimes erase errors by sanding the ink off the parchment. It left very faint marks behind.” She ate another mouthful of the shepherd’s pie.

Sydney smiled at her. “I suppose it’s unavoidable, learning that sort of thing at your age, when you’re living with history freaks.”

“You’re a history freak, too,” Marit pointed out.

“A human, hungry one.”

“This shepherd’s pie is wonderful,” Marit added.

“It seemed appropriate,” Sydney said, “under the circumstances.”

“Shepherds’ pie is Welsh?” Marit asked.

“Some say it is,” Sydney said.

“And some say the Welsh adopted it because it is not Millionbøf,” Taylor added from her place on the other side of the table.

A shadow touched Marit’s face. “Will Iraq really bomb Gronoya?” she asked. “They’re saying they will. They say they have to and if they do, then England has to side with Gronoya because they’ve got a treaty with them and they’re right next door to England, anyway, so the fallout will affect England as much as it does Gronoya. That will pull in Europe and that will bring America into it, too.”

Sydney looked at Veris and Brody, at the other end of the table, expecting them to answer. She could tell Marit the truth, but she didn’t know if they wanted Marit to hear the truth. She was only twelve years old, even though sometimes she seemed much older.

Finally, it was Rafe who answered Marit. “How much of Gronoya’s history do you know, Marit?”

Marit pressed her lips together. “Not much,” she admitted. “It’s as if they’re allergic to teaching kids about Gronoya. Like we’ll be infected or something if they do.”

“Were you there, Rafe?” Alex asked softly.

Rafe let out a breath and nodded. “In Powys itself when the Vikings of Ireland came marching across the land.”

“Poe-us?” Merit repeated, trying the word out.

“It was the most powerful kingdom in ancient Gronoya,” Rafe said. “Of course, it got wiped out along with all the other kingdoms when the Danes claimed the land for themselves. Then everyone there became a Welshman and a Briton, overnight.” He grimaced. “Everyone except the Danes.”

“They’re the Herskers now, right?” Marit said.

“Do you know what “hersker” means?” Taylor asked.

Marit wrinkled her nose. “Something ancient, I suppose.”

Veris shook his head. “Names are all ancient if you trace them back properly. It’s a corruption of the Danish word for leaders. Rulers. The ruling class.”

“Do I detect disapproval in your voice, Northman?” Alex asked.

“It’s the way it went, so how can I disapprove?” Veris asked reasonably.

“Very broad-minded of you,” Rafe said.

“He’s not broad-minded at all,” Brody said. “He’s got an opinion that he’s going to stick to no matter what. From the look on his face, he’s about to gift us with it in Technicolor.”

Veris sat back, his arm over the back of his chair. “It’s a closed room and I trust everyone in it, so why shouldn’t I speak?”

“Then you don’t like the Herskers, Far?” Marit asked. “Gronoya is an advanced nation and keeps Western Europe stable because its economy is so strong.”

“Did your teacher tell you that?” Brody asked curiously.

“That’s about all they say about Gronoya.”

“The only reason they have a stable economy is because they’re pulling natural gas and oil out of the mountains and the North Atlantic and holding the rest of the world to ransom with it,” Veris said.

“And there he goes,” Brody said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Veris,” Taylor said sharply, “Marit doesn’t need to hear this now. She already gets in enough trouble at school because you and Brody keep feeding her subversive ideas.”

“I won’t tell,” Marit said, her face alight with interest. “Sub rosa, right, Far?”

Taylor sighed.

Veris’ tension evaporated as he gave his daughter a fond smile. “Right,” he agreed. “So I’ll say this, then leave it alone for now.” He glared at everyone else. “What the history books tend to gloss over is that more than eighty percent of the people living in Gronoya are native Welsh, descendants of the Britons who were living there when the Vikings invaded. The Herskers, who are the Viking descendants, are a tiny minority of the population in Gronoya, yet they are the power holders and they’ve held that power by subjugating the Welsh. A Welshman can’t hold political office, so they can’t change anything from inside the country.”

“That’s why they fight all the time, then?” Marit asked.

“That’s why they fight and keep fighting,” Veris replied.

Marit nodded thoughtfully. “So will Iraq drop bombs on them, then?”

Sydney was glad she didn’t have to answer that. No one else did, either. Even Veris’ gaze skittered away from his daughter.

“That would be yes, then?” Marit asked, her voice clear in the silent room.

“Gronoya and the Middle East have been rivals for generations,” Alex said, at last. “They both have energy resources that the world relies on.”

“That’s why Gronoya bombed Iraq, to destroy the oil?”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that….” Alex prevaricated.

“No, it’s not,” Veris said shortly. “The Herskers are descendants of a race that believed battle was the way to heaven. It was inevitable they would use force to get the Middle East to back off from Europe.”

Taylor looked at the tabletop, not meeting anyone’s eyes. Brody was watching his mate with brooding eyes.

“Aren’t you a Viking, Far?” Marit asked.

“No, honey. I never sailed with the warriors. That was four hundred years after I left Norway and I was already a doctor by then.”

“Good,” Marit said firmly and went back to her shepherds’ pie, her curiosity satisfied.

Yet the mood in the room had altered. Marit’s on-point questions about the coming war had reminded everyone about the global tensions, which Sydney had hoped this evening’s distractions might push aside at least for a few hours.

Then Alex gave a soft, wordless exclamation and raised the sheet in his hands. “This page is talking about King Arthur!”

Taylor smiled as she leaned closer to look at the sheet he was holding. “That’s the chapter that caused Oxford to bring me in as a consultant.” She glanced at Brody. “It talks about Arthur’s poet.”

“It says Domhnall?” Brody asked. He got to his feet and moved around to where Alex sat, to look over his shoulder.

“Not by name,” Taylor said. “Sorry, Brody.”

He shook his head. “I’ve got used to the idea that my father is never going to be heard of again. Although even a mention of a poet connected with Arthur is new, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” Taylor agreed. “The whole chapter—”

“Chapter?” Rafe repeated. “It’s two pages long.”

“Section, then,” Taylor amended. “The whole story about Arthur and his people has never been seen before in any of the known copies of the History. That’s why everyone is so excited about this edition.”

“Doesn’t everyone think that Nennius was making most of it up, anyway?” Sydney asked her.

“He made it up from stories he’d already heard and that’s what the scholars use his book for—tracking down his sources. This story doesn’t exist in any of the copies made by the English monks and up until last week, it was believed that all the Welsh copies had been destroyed by the Herskers.”

“Why would they destroy them?” Marit asked, dropping her knife and fork onto her empty plate and burping softly.

“Because the book makes British people sound wonderful,” Sydney told her. She picked up the two plates. “Ice cream?”

“Yes, please!”

Sydney took the plates out to the kitchen, pulled out the ice cream from the freezer and scooped out a bowlful for Marit. She took the bowl to the dining room.

Everyone, including Marit, was on their feet and crowding around Alex, staring down at the two sheets sitting side by side on the table.

Sydney touched Marit’s shoulder and handed her the ice cream. Marit sat at the end of the table just around the corner from Alex to eat it.

“The writing looks the same to me,” Brody said.

“It’s almost the same,” Rafe said. “I saw enough of this script when I was living in England that it’s like modern handwriting to me—the difference between one hand and the next is night and day. This was written to look as though the monk—“

“Eifion,” Taylor supplied.

“Eifion,” Rafe repeated.

Sydney was startled, because he pronounced the name exactly the way Taylor had, accent and all. Yet the way he said it sounded natural, unlike Taylor.

“This chapter was made to look like Eifion was the writer, but I’m telling you, someone else wrote this,” Rafe added.

Alex, Brody and Veris were studying the pages and didn’t respond.

“Iveyon was Welsh, then?” Sydney asked.

“Eifion,” Taylor said softly, to avoid disturbing the cluster of men at the end of the table next to Marit. She spelled the name out.

“That doesn’t sound anything like the way you said it,” Sydney said. “Welsh is odd that way, isn’t it?”

“Actually, Welsh is very straight forward,” Taylor said. “Once you’ve learned how everything is supposed to be pronounced, there are no exceptions. Every letter gets pronounced, so there’s no silent letters that you’re supposed to just know aren’t spoken. English, I’m told, is so hard to learn because there are so many exceptions and silent letters and assumptions that are common knowledge and not explained anywhere.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Sydney told her with a grimace. “I’m just barely holding onto Arabic from that one jump back, as it is.”

Taylor smiled. “The more you use it, the easier it is to retain. You and Alex don’t use it between you?”

“Sometimes. Did you learn Welsh from going back there, too?”

Taylor glanced at Veris, Brody and Rafe, where they were gathered around Alex. “Neither Veris nor Brody have ever been to Wales, so I picked it up the hard way, using a dictionary and a pronunciation guide. The problem is, Welsh isn’t spoken the same way English is. So Sydney in Welsh would be written Sudni.” Taylor spelled it out. “That is, if you wanted everyone to say it the same way.”

Sydney lowered her voice. “So you still haven’t tried to jump anywhere since you were made?”

Taylor’s eyes shadowed. “There’s been no need to try,” she said.

“Veris is still dead set against it, then?”

“At least until the twins are adults.” Taylor gave her a small smile. “I don’t even know if I can time jump anymore. It could be a human-only thing.”

That was an aspect of time jumping that Sydney had not considered. “It’s been, wow, six years since I met Rafe and Alex,” she said slowly. “We haven’t had the courage to try, either. Death and disaster seems to be the norm if you do jump back.” She shivered, remembering the fallout from the last time they had jumped. Taylor had lost her life and Veris and Brody had been forced to make her a vampire like them.

“We barely talk about it anymore,” Taylor said, her voice just above a whisper. She nodded toward Veris. “I don’t think he’s opened his notebooks on time travel for years.”

“It’s always something you could get back to, isn’t it?” Sydney said with a smile. “You have all of time ahead of you for whatever you want to try.”

“I don’t look that far ahead,” Taylor said honestly. “I think I would go crazy if I did. I just keep my gaze on the next few years that include raising the children.”

Sydney let out a small sigh.

“I’m sorry,” Taylor said softly. “I try not to rub it in.”

Sydney shook her head. “It’s okay. I don’t think about it anymore. Life is busy enough without adding children into the mix.” She ran her own private security company, now, that she had built from the ground up. The company specialized in industrial and high technology corporate security and this would be her fifth year in business. It was a demanding and absorbing occupation and what little spare time she had was more than adequately filled by the two men in her life.

Alex and Sydney had moved into Rafe’s big house not long after Taylor had been made. It had been a temporary way of staying together, that had turned into a permanent home. Even Bruce, Sydney’s aging St. Bernard, had settled down and been comfortable in his house under the stairs, up until his death a year ago.

Sydney’s attention was caught as Rafe walked around the backs bowed over Alex’s shoulders. “Here,” he said firmly and pulled one of the sheets out from under Alex’s hand. He pointed to the top of the page. “That doesn’t make sense in old English or Welsh, or even Latin.” He pushed his fingers through his hair, brushing over the silvered locks at his temples. Careful applications of bleach left him looking older with each passing year, yet his face remained unlined. Sydney wasn’t sure how long Rafe would be able to continue in this human life without stirring speculation.

“The seal?” Alex asked, lifting the page up.

“The writing around the edge of the seal,” Rafe said. “See the letters?”

“They’re Latin script,” Alex pointed out.

“This isn’t Latin.”

“No, it’s not,” Veris said. He was the Latin expert in the room, although Sydney knew that both Brody and Taylor spoke regionalized versions of Latin, too.

Alex looked up at Rafe. “My laptop is in the office. Would you mind?”

Rafe shrugged. “Why not?” He left the room.

“Something has tripped your thoughts, Alex,” Veris said.

Alex nodded. “I think it might be a cypher.”

Veris stood up. “A cypher….” He sounded intrigued.

Taylor got up and moved over to a chair closer to the group. “Cyphers weren’t common in western Europe in the tenth century.”

“They were in the East,” Alex assured her, “and much earlier than that.”

Rafe came back with the laptop, already open and booted up. He put it in front of Alex.

Alex pulled it closer, then bent over the seal and began to tap out the letters on the file he had open.

“Here, let me read them out,” Rafe said. He picked up the sheet and called out the letters one at a time, as Alex typed them.

Then everyone stood back and looked at the screen. Sydney got to her feet and moved around to where she could see it, too. Rafe gave her a smile and pulled her in front of him so her view was unobstructed. His hand settled around her waist.

The letters glowed in the middle of the screen.

IZUVHBWMVBXLNVZGLMXVZOVCNFHGIVNARM

“Marit,” Veris said. “Do you recognize this as a language of any sort?”

Marit, who was a natural polyglot and could soak up a new language almost overnight, stepped between Veris and Brody and looked down at the screen. “It’s gobbledygook,” she said.

Alex was counting silently, his lips moving, as he stared at the screen.

“What are you doing?” Sydney asked softly.

“The most common letter is V,” he said. He typed quickly, beneath the meaningless words.

IZUVHBWMVBXLNVZGLMXVZOVCNFHGIVNARM

E E E E E E

They stared at the two lines of text.

“That doesn’t get us anywhere,” Brody said.

“You know cyphers, Alex?” Veris asked.

“I came across my first cypher when I still human,” Alex said. “It was one the Jews used….” His mouth opened and his eyes widened as his gaze returned to the screen. “Surely not.” He lifted up his left hand and lowered each finger as if he was counting, but said, “A…b…c…d…e. Five.” Then he lifted his right hand. “Z…y…x…w…v. V,” he repeated, staring at the screen.

“A substitution cypher?” Veris asked.

“A simple one,” Alex said. He wiped out the second line of Es and typed quickly:

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M,

Z, Y, X, W, V, U, T, S, R, Q, P, O, N

N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z

M, L, K, J, I, H, G, F, E, D, C, B, A

“It’s called the Atbash Cypher. The Jews of Jordan used it for decades,” Alex said. “You switch out the letters in the top line for the letters in the second line.”

“E is V,” Rafe said. “So the first letter would be…R.”

“Call them out for me,” Alex said.

Slowly, Rafe called out each letter on the seal and Brody provided the uncoded pair, as Alex wrote them down.

RAFESYDNEYCOMEATONCEALEXMUSTREMAIN

Alex inserted spaces and the room became very still and silent as they all stared at the screen.

RAFE SYDNEY COME AT ONCE ALEX MUST REMAIN

“This isn’t possible,” Taylor breathed. “Someone put the seal into the copy, just to pull my leg.”

Veris moved over to the door and shut it firmly and softly. He turned to face them. “The message implies time travel,” he said. “The only people who know Sydney and Rafe and Alex can travel through time as we can are standing in this room.” He looked at Rafe sharply. “Unless the council has been informed?”

Rafe shook his head. “I meet with Thorsby every year and fail to mention it every time.”

“Thorsby is your contact?” Veris said.

“He’s the chair,” Rafe said.

“I didn’t realize you were that high up in the hierarchy,” Veris murmured.

“I’m a flunky to the chairman. It’s not high at all,” Rafe pointed out dryly.

“Screw the politics,” Brody said loudly. He pointed at the laptop. “One of us put that message in the seal specifically for us to find it now.”

“Yes,” Veris agreed. “It was either Sydney or Rafe who did.”

Sydney stepped backward and rammed into Rafe’s shoulder. “I didn’t do it,” she said, her heart squeezing.

Veris’ gaze was steady and his eyes very blue in the glow from the laptop screen. “No. But you will.”

Chapter Two

“It has to be from us,” Brody said, his voice strident. “It mentions three specific names, one of them common only to this century. ‘Come back’ clearly means they must go back to when the manuscript was copied. It uses a cypher that just happens to be the first one Alex ever learned. That puts the odds far too high for simple coincidence.” He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, as far away from the table and the laptop as the room would allow.

Sydney wondered what it was that Brody felt threatened by.

“When was the manuscript dated to, Taylor?” Veris asked. He was standing at the head of the table, right behind where Marit was seated. His arms were crossed, too.

“Radiocarbon dating says the ninth or tenth century. The Anglo-Saxon experts at Oxford suggested early tenth.” Taylor got to her feet. “This is a discussion that could go on a while, so I’m going to take Marit home to bed.”

“But, Mom!” Marit cried in protest. “I could help!”

Veris rested his hand on her head. She lifted her chin and rolled her eyes up to look at him.

“You may very well be of help,” he said, “However, this is vampire business now. Remember the distinction?”

“I have to stay human as much as possible,” Marit said in monotone.

“As you are human,” Taylor said, holding out her hand. “And you need your sleep.” She pulled Marit to her feet and headed for the door.

“It’s not fair,” Marit grumbled.

“No, it’s not,” Brody agreed, coming over to them and giving Marit a kiss on the cheek. “Life isn’t fair, most of the time. It’s just life. Goodnight, darling daughter.”

“Night, Athair. Night, Far.”

She held her arms up and Veris picked her up off her feet and hugged her tightly, then kissed her cheek and put her back down.

Taylor gave both men a quick smile. “I’ll come back, after.”

Veris shut the door behind them and moved back to the head of the table and frowned down at the two offending pages. “Rafe, you said you were in Powys when the Vikings invaded. When was that? I don’t know Gronoyan history at all.”

“Nine hundred and seventeen,” Rafe said.

“Early tenth century,” Alex added. “Right when Taylor’s buddies at Oxford think this was written.” He was still sitting in front of the laptop, only now he was transcribing the old English narrative into a Word file.

“You’re not really thinking that we should jump back there, are you?” Sydney asked Veris.

Veris looked at her, his gaze sharp. “Someone went back there and planted this seal for us to find tonight. The seal says that you and Rafe must go there at once.”

“This is a joke or something! No one leaves messages in ancient manuscripts for people of the future to trip over. That’s just in the movies,” Sydney protested.

“It speaks your names, all three of you,” Brody said. He was back in his corner. “The original page was carbon dated and this copy is certified. The seal is as old as the rest of the manuscript. It’s not a joke.”

“I don’t care if it’s a joke or not,” Rafe said, his voice low. “I’m not saying I agree to this at all, but even if I were to consider doing what this seal says and jump back to Powys, there’s no way I’m leaving Alex behind.”

“You have to,” Alex said.

Rafe looked hurt. “You’re not buying into this, are you?”

Alex shrugged. “Nothing else fits the facts. If you accept that this is a viable, urgent message—”

“No, I don’t accept it at all!” Sydney interjected.

Alex reached out and grasped her hand, his cool fingers firmly around hers. “If we accept that this is a real message sent by one of us, then we must accept what the message says. One of you two went to a lot of trouble to find the monk and give him the lettering for the seal. Whatever those reasons, they drove you to this and you are insisting I stay here. I trust both of you, so I will stay.”

“There is a reason why you told him to remain behind,” Veris added. “We just don’t know what it is, yet.”

“You’re speaking as if this is locked in, that we’re really going to jump back!” Sydney cried. She jumped to her feet. There was no way she could remain sitting.

“Because you already have gone back,” Brody said. He didn’t speak very loudly, although he didn’t need to. “You can’t get around it, Sydney. The seal is on that page because you did go back. So you must go back.”

“Maybe we go back there somewhere in our future. We don’t have to go this very instant,” she pointed out.

“The seal says at once,” Veris pointed out. “There’s not a lot of space around the seal, just room for eight words and you used two of them to emphasize urgency. You can’t ignore that.”

Alex got to his feet and pulled her into his arms and she let him comfort her. His arms around her were strong, as always. “I know you’re afraid,” he said and she could hear his voice rumbling in his chest, against her ear. “I am, too. Yet this must be done.”

“That makes three of us who are afraid,” Rafe said. He was sitting on one of the dining chairs, pulled out from the table. He was leaning his elbows on his knees and his hands were gripped together tightly. “There’s a reason I’ve never talked about Gronoya before.”

Veris cocked his head. “It was very bad?”

Rafe nodded. “Powys had the strongest army in all the British kingdoms and they had rebuffed three separate Viking attacks, working with the other kingdoms. Brycheiniog, Deheubarth and Gwynedd were all strong allies, although they didn’t match Powys for military strength. Then Powys marched on Mercia in retaliation for the Lady Aethelfreda taking the wife of the king of Brycheiniog. Llewelyn sent every able-bodied man, because Mercia was so strong. He even took me and I was just a scribe. That’s when the Vikings attacked, when there was no one left behind to defend Mathrafel.”

The bitterness in his voice was deep.

Sydney stared at him. The emotion in his face and the way he was speaking, the old names from times in history…it was startling to consider that Rafe really had been there and seen it all.

“Did someone tip them off?” Brody asked from his corner.

Rafe jerked, as if he had been touched by a live wire. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “The timing was remarkable.”

“Invasions are always brutal and bloody,” Veris said. He glanced at Brody, who grimaced.

It reminded Sydney that both Brody and Veris had lived through an invasion of their own and that Veris had been the invader.

“We’ll protect your bodies here while you’re back there,” Veris added. “You are going to have to go back.”

Alex’s arms tightened around her even more and Sydney turned her face into his shoulder and closed her eyes.

* * * * *

“I don’t know how I can do this,” Sydney whispered into the dark.

Alex settled himself more firmly against her back and Rafe stroked her temple. They were all resting on Sydney’s big bed. None of them had been able to do more than that. For once, sex had not ended her evening and she barely noticed the absence.

“You’re the most courageous person I’ve ever met,” Alex said softly.

“I don’t mean I’m scared I’ll get hurt. I mean, I don’t know how I can do this to you, Rafe.”

Rafe’s hand stopped touching her. He lifted himself up and in the low light creeping in from the partially closed door, she could see that he was propping his head on his hand, studying her. “Are you worried that I won’t be able to take care of myself?” he asked. He sounded amused.

“If you put it like that,” she said, “then it sounds condescending and that’s not what I meant at all. I saw your face, earlier, Rafe. You have bad memories of that time.”

“You’ve been listening to Veris and Brody too closely,” Alex said gently. “They both jumped back to times in their past that were hard for them to deal with because they hadn’t dealt with the personal issues those times had thrown up. That’s why they went back there—they were pulled there by their unresolved feelings. So the jump back was stress-filled and difficult for them. That doesn’t apply here.”

“Really.” She didn’t make it a question. “How much do you know about Rafe’s life in that time? How much has he told you?”

Alex hesitated. “I suppose he just hasn’t got around to telling us about Gronoya.”

“Because he doesn’t want to,” Sydney said gently.

“Hello? Right here, remember?” Rafe said. He sat up. “I don’t talk about Gronoya because I don’t talk about any of my previous lives. Neither does Alex. It’s the way of it.”

“Bullshit.” Sydney sat up, too. That made Alex also lift himself into his favorite cross-legged sitting position. At the same time he turned on the lamp, so the room was filled with the soft orange glow and now she could see them.

Alex was looking troubled, although it was Rafe she was watching more closely. There was a pinched look around his eyes that she recognized. He was stressed and hiding it.

“You don’t deliberately sit down and tell stories about your past lives, yet you talk about them all the time,” she assured them. “Alex always talks about patients he’s tended and how different modern medicine is from what he first learned and when he does that he doesn’t talk about Jordan. He talks about countries and cities that don’t exist anymore. Or he’s talking about events that I only know as history. The siege of Acre. The rebuilding of the library in Toledo when he spent fifteen years translating texts. Every time he makes one of those comments, it tells me a little bit more about him. And you, Rafe, you like to laugh about things that happened so long ago I can’t even find those places on a map anymore. Such as that man who used you to run a crooked dice game, for instance, and how Veris came along and cheated him out of his slave.”

“Baradaeus,” Alex murmured.

“Exactly,” Sydney said. “Alex remembers him, because you’ve spoken of him before. I know that you were a slave in the Byzantine Empire, then you travelled to Britain. You’ve never said so directly, but I’m pretty sure you travelled there with Brody, because he’s mentioned before that he returned to England when he left Constantinople. And I know you went back to Iberia for a while, too. Only, that was later, because you spoke about the Caliphate, so that was when the Muslims were controlling the peninsula.”

“It was,” Rafe said quietly.

“You’ve told me about the wars you’ve been in and taverns and inns across Europe. How you were asked to come to America by more senior vampires and you didn’t say so, yet I know the vampires who asked you to do that were on the Council.”

Rafe’s gaze flicked away from her.

“I’m not prying. I’ve never pried,” Sydney said quickly. “I don’t have to. You tell me about your lives all the time. Both of you.”

Rafe and Alex exchanged glances.

“She was an expert interrogator,” Alex said, the corner of his mouth lifting.

Rafe looked at her, his black eyes steady. “I don’t mind you knowing this about me. Not you.”

Sydney rested her hand on his knee and looked at Alex. “Did you know that Rafe was in Gronoya in the tenth century?”

“I didn’t. Although, to be reasonable, I also don’t know where he was in many other centuries, either.”

Sydney sighed. “You’re both as slippery as fish on a dock. This is why I don’t ask you direct questions about your history. You’re right, Alex. None of us knows each of our personal pasts in great detail. We haven’t been together for a thousand years the way Veris and Brody have been—”

“We will be, eventually,” Alex said softly.

Sydney caught her breath as her middle seemed to drop away inside her.

Alex stroked her cheek. “Don’t look so terrified. A thousand years passes in no time at all. I know it doesn’t seem that way to you now. Your grasp of time will adjust eventually.”

“You’re assuming that I will be turned,” she said flatly.

Alex’s gaze was steady. “It’s not an assumption. It’s simply the only alternative I can bear to consider.” He shifted his gaze to Rafe. “Sydney is right. In all our talk of the past, when we relax enough to think of it, you have never spoken of Powys, or Mercia. Not once.”

Rafe plucked at the sheet by his thigh, concentrating on it. “It wasn’t deliberate,” he said at last.

“Will you not at least warn me of what to expect?” Sydney asked softly. “I’m going back there, too.”

Rafe looked up at them both, startled.

“He can’t give you specifics,” Alex said quietly. “If he did, it would change your behavior when you get there.”

“If I do not know the history, how will I know what I cannot change?” she asked. “Gods, this is impossible!”

Rafe picked up her fist, eased open her fingers and stroked her palm. “We’ll be together,” he told her quietly. “And I remember what happened. Far too well.”

Alex caught their joined hands between both of his and held them still. “Rafe will protect you,” he said quietly. “Because you are going back into time with him is the only reason I can let you do it. He will know what to do.”

Sydney bit her lip. “And who protects Rafe?” she asked.

Alex sighed and let their hands go.

Rafe reached up and held Alex’s face in his hands. “I’ll be fine,” he said, his voice low. “I survived it once already. I’ll be braced, this time.”

“No, I don’t think you will,” Alex replied. “I listen to Brody and Veris, too. It isn’t easier, the second time around. It’s harder, because this time, you know what is going to happen.”

“And knowing that, you will still stay behind?” Rafe said.

“I have to. Because I did.” Alex gave him a weak smile. “Time is the only force in nature you can’t argue with.”

“Not the only one,” Sydney said softly.

Rafe nodded. “There’s love, too,” he said. “If you doubt me, trust that I love Sydney and will keep her safe no matter what happens and that I love you and I will return.”

Chapter Three

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just lie down now and save you the trouble of having to pick us up afterward?” Sydney asked the room in general. They were still in her bedroom, only now there were five more people bustling around the room and Veris had a stethoscope slung around his neck, too. There were IV stands on either side of her bed and a cart of medical equipment that rattled metallically as Alex sorted through it.

It made the coming jump more of a reality than it had been until this moment. They really were going to do this…and without Alex.

“Don’t worry about falling down. We’ll catch you,” Taylor assured her, resting her hand on Sydney’s shoulder.

“It’s not the fall I’m worrying about,” Sydney told her. “I just thought it would save you the trouble, that’s all.”

“We’re not entirely certain if the position you jump in affects the way you land,” Brody said. “If you arrive lying down in the middle of a battle, that might be a bit awkward.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Rafe said impatiently. “I’m not going to jump us back into the middle of a battle.” He had been irascible all morning and everyone had been understanding about his flare ups, which had just made it worse.

“Do you have a moment picked out?” Veris asked. “Something you remember well, with lots of emotion?”

Rafe sighed. “A nice quiet moment when I was teaching Llewelyn’s son his letters.”

“You were a teacher?” Taylor asked curiously.

“I was Llewelyn’s scribe and he was determined his sons would be literate and educated.” Rafe shrugged. “It’s the most harmless moment I can remember of that time.”

Veris looked at him sharply. Then he moved his head in a tiny shake and turned away. Sydney wondered what it was he had not said and the knot in her stomach twisted a bit tighter. She swallowed.

Alex came over to her and took her in his arms. “Everything will work out,” he said, his voice low.

“Then why are you shaking?” she asked him, speaking by his ear and hoping that in this room full of vampires with super-hearing that no one else heard her over the activity all around them.

He let her go and held her at arm’s length. He didn’t try to smile or reassure her. She saw fear in his eyes.

“I think you have the hardest role, having to sit here and wait,” she told him.

“I always thought that when we did time jump, that I would be with you,” Alex said.

“The only thing you can count on,” Veris said, “is that you’ll be changing history just by both of you being there. You have to minimize your impact as much as you can. No whispering in the ears of kings and statesmen.” He was speaking loudly enough that Sydney knew he was speaking to both her and Rafe, who was on the other side of the room.

“Stop lecturing,” Brody told him. “They know this.”

“They know,” Veris agreed. “But they don’t really know. Not until they’ve done it.”

“Like you’ve never put a foot wrong on any jump you’ve made,” Taylor chided him.

Veris opened his mouth to protest.

“Marit was the result of a mistake,” Taylor added.

Veris blew out his breath. He didn’t say anything else, either.

Rafe crossed his arms, scowling. “If you don’t all shut up, right this instant, I’m going to kick every single one of you out of the room and lock the door. You’re driving me fucking insane. Can we please get this over with?”

Sydney wanted to cheer, for she felt exactly the same way, if not worse. She thought she might throw up if they didn’t get this done in the next few minutes.

Deliberately, she moved over to where Rafe was standing and glowering. She gripped his wrist and tugged his arms undone. “Let’s go,” she said. “Let’s get this done, then we can come back and tell Alex all about it.”

Rafe gripped her hand in his. “Yes,” he breathed.

Alex came up beside them and put his hands on their shoulders. He looked as though he was casting about for something to say.

“Don’t,” Rafe said, his voice a low growl. “I can barely stand this as it is.”

Alex kissed him. Then he pressed his lips against Sydney’s and she tried to take comfort in his touch, only she was shaking too badly.

Then, very deliberately, Alex stepped back, out of their reach.

Everyone else was watching them, now. Even Veris resisted offering one last piece of advice. However, that might have been because Brody had a grip on his shoulder and was squeezing.

Taylor’s eyes were big and her mouth was pressed closed, thinning her full lips.

Even Marit, who had been sitting on Sydney’s dressing table bench holding Mia’s hand, was not smiling.

They were all as afraid as she was.

So Sydney drew in a deep breath and let it out. She wrapped her arms around Rafe’s neck. “Kiss me.”

He focused on her and drew his arms around her waist. “I love you,” he whispered and kissed her.

They jumped.

* * * * *

The sun was bright and warm. That was her first impression. It was high overhead, a beating disk in the sky. The air was similar to a mid-winter L.A. afternoon, with the touch of coolness that told her that even though she wasn’t wearing a sweater, in a couple of hours’ time she would have to put it back on.

The smell was simply awful.

Sydney almost gagged at the wretched stench, as it caught at the back of her throat. Her eyes began to water and she wiped at them. The movement made her aware of the heavy and long sleeve over her arm and the edges of a veil around her face.

She looked around quickly. She had been gazing at the sky overhead, standing in the middle of a rutted street of hard earth. There were rows of small cottages on either side of her that were almost identical, with thatched straw roofs and walls of roughhewn wood. The window openings had no glass. There were shutters for each one, instead. Between the two buildings closest to her was a heap of refuse. She could see and smell rotting food and more. There was a watery run-off that meandered out into the street and was flowing along the ruts in the road.

The street looked the same as the paintings she had studied this morning before the jump, except that the paintings had not captured the stench…or the sound. There were people walking along the street and some sitting outside their houses on stools, their faces turned up to the sun just as she had been standing. There was a horse and cart heading in her direction, the wheels creaking and the horse snorting as it tackled the minor slope of the road.

Sydney stepped out of the way of the cart to the other side of the road from the midden heap and grew aware of the heavy layers around her legs. There were at least two and whatever she wore for shoes had soles so light she could feel the grit on the road beneath her feet. She was carrying a heavy basket over her left elbow and she hitched it into a more comfortable place as she moved.

While she waited for the cart to pass, she glanced up and down the street.

Where was Rafe?

There were many men moving along the street and most of them seemed to be heading downhill, which was the direction Sydney had been facing. They all wore short tunics and the bindings over their lower legs that she recognized from the images she had pulled up on Google. What the illustrations had failed to capture was the unexpected range of colors in the fabrics and the decorative edges that many of the tunics had.

Everyone seemed to have pouches hanging from their belts.

She looked down at her own waist. The top layer of her dress hung from her breasts, with big openings in the sides. It was a well-worn and faded brown color, while the layer underneath was a faded pale pink. There was a belt around her waist over that second layer and she reached underneath the top layer through the opening on the side and felt a soft leather pouch hanging from the belt. It felt light, as if there was very little in it.

There was another item dangling on the other side. She swapped the basket over to her other arm and felt beneath the top layer of her dress, exploring the shape.

It was a knife. A long one.

She remembered from the idle chatter of Veris and Rafe and Brody and Alex, and even Taylor, that a belt knife had been common throughout most of history. It was an eating implement, a defensive weapon for the common man, and a tool for everything from cleaning nails to shaving kindling from trees.

This knife seemed to be excessively long.

The top layer of her dress hid the long knife. The layer ended above her ankles, while the bottom layer was full and brushed the ground. The hem was stained and dusty, too.

Experimentally, she lifted the layers and peeped at her shoes. They were pointed, with leather lacings over the top, holding them to her feet.

The cart had passed by. It was heavily laden with chests and baskets of vegetables.

Was it going to a market? That would make sense. If it was a market day, that would explain the richness of colors and decorations in the clothing of everyone she could see who was walking down the street around the cart.

As Sydney had been facing in the direction the cart was moving, she decided to follow it. She could not stand here in the middle of the street forever. Perhaps Rafe was somewhere down in this direction.

Sydney took her time, stepping over ruts and puddles carefully, lifting her hems to stop them sliding through the muck, too. The basket over her arm was heavy and she shifted it from one arm to another. There was a cloth covering the top of the basket and she lifted it up to look beneath.

There were small cakes resting on the cloth beneath, perhaps two dozen of them. Had she been going to sell them at the market? Had she slipped into someone else’s life? No, that wasn’t possible. Even Taylor, when she had jumped to Constantinople, had not taken over the body of the woman she had looked like. That woman had drowned. Taylor had stepped into her life, not her body.

Where was Rafe? Why had he not arrived here with her? Was she even in Powys?

* * * * *

“Get your guard up, you young fool!”

The command was a full volume roar and Rafe threw up his sword arm instinctively.

The clash of steel upon steel came at the same moment as the impact jarred along his arm.

Rafe looked up at the heavy sword he was holding back only an inch from his head with a narrow-bladed sword of his own. There was a round shield on his other arm.

The man standing over him with both hands on the hilt of the great sword wore a mail hauberk. It wasn’t chain mail. The metal rings were sewn onto the leather jerkin, which made it almost as affective as chainmail.

No helmet, no gloves. A thick full beard on his opponent and yellow teeth. Glaring, blood shot eyes. Taller than Rafe by half a head and nearly twice his weight, most of it muscle.

Tegid, Llewelyn’s master-at-arms.

They’d made it.

“Slow, Rhys! Too slow! Again!” Tegid shouted. He lifted the big sword and swung it over his head to bring it down with most of his bodyweight behind the blow.

Rafe realized something he had never understood about Tegid in the all the days he had known him. The man was slow. Far slower than he was accusing Rafe of being.

Rafe merely stepped aside. As Tegid’s blade whistled through the air to strike the earth with a thud, he brought the flat of his sword down on Tegid’s back hard enough so that even through the leather and chain hauberk, it would sting.

Tegid hissed and spun, the blade moving with him. “You young pup!”

Rafe jumped out of the way of the blade tip, then deflected it with the edge of his shield. It was all coming back to him in a rush—all the sword-fighting skills he had learned in the many battles in which he’d had no choice but to fight, not if he wanted to live among the victors.

When he had first moved through this time, he had been still young, still green. Now he wasn’t.

He used the shield to knock Tegid off balance, then brought his knee up to ram into his descending chest, which always winded a man, no matter how fit he was.

Tegid fell onto the earth and weeds with a heavy grunt, his sword under him, and lay there trying to breathe.

Rafe propped himself on the sword and lowered the shield to the ground to rest against his thigh. “Are we done?”

Tegid tried to speak. He rolled over onto his back and nodded, instead.

Rafe picked up the shield and carried it over to the bench where the rest of the shields and swords were stacked and dropped them on the pile.

Siorus stood with his arms crossed, his mantle lifting in the slight breeze of the early morning. He had been watching the training, which was unusual. Siorus was Llewelyn’s chief advisor and preferred to measure the strength of the real army, not the mandatory daily training of the household.

“You’ve learned a thing or two,” Siorus said as Rafe resettled his belt and straightened his tunic.

Siorus was a tall man, like Tegid, although he had no excess fat on his frame. He also had far-seeing eyes, with wrinkles at the corners. They were a proper Welsh black, yet Rafe had often wondered if Siorus was as Welsh as his name implied.

“I’ve been listening to the soldiers,” Rafe told him. “I thought I would try some of the things I heard.”

“Things that usually take a man with greater strength than yours to pull off.”

Rafe gave him a stiff smile. “I am stronger than I look.”

“Indeed. Stronger than a scribe warrants, too.” Siorus rested his hand on Rafe’s shoulder. “Preserve your strength, scribe. Aethelfreda will descend upon us for this trouble with the abbot. You’ll find yourself in a place where you can try all you’ve learned in the space of one battle.”

“So I heard,” Rafe said, as the right memories clicked into place. Aethelfreda was the uncrowned queen of Mercia. “The Lady of Mercia” was what the Anglo-Saxons called her. Some idiots from Brycheiniog had stolen across the dyke into Mercia and murdered Godric, the abbot of the monastery of St. Credan, because he had refused a British woman refuge for the night. No harm had come to the woman, who had found shelter at a nearby farmhouse, yet the insult to Britons had been taken personally.

Now Aethelfreda would be obliged to invade Brycheiniog in retaliation and Powys would have to help the little kingdom to the south defend itself from the Lady’s army. So Llewelyn was preparing for a march and a battle. That was why there were so few of the household training this morning. They were all busy with preparations.

Siorus did not bother Rafe anymore. He hurried away, around the corner of the big building, which was built in an L shape. The square nestled in the angle was where the daily training of the household took place, while the army trained and lived upon the field outside the walls of the fortress. Siorus was most likely going to see about their fitness to march. If this was the day Rafe thought it was, then the army would leave Mathrafel at first light tomorrow.

Rafe looked around the square, trying to make it seem as if he was simply taking in the beautiful day.

Where was Sydney? She should be somewhere nearby. Every tale Veris, Brody and Taylor had ever related and his own two short hops back in time told him that she should have been standing right next to him. She had not previously lived in this time, so she did not have a body to jump into, located in some far distant land. Not even Alex had lived in this time, so if he had jumped with them, he should by rights be standing here, too.

There was no one in sight except for the shepherd boy herding a pair of sheep into the butcher’s cot. Meat for the march.

From the field outside the town walls, Rafe could hear shouting, the clash of steel, hammers on wooden stakes, the bellow of men and beasts, all carried on the slight breeze.

From inside the house, he could hear women chattering as they went about their weaving and sewing. The clack of looms was an underlying rhythm.

Of course. A woman’s place was in the home, seeing to the clothing and feeding of their men. Sydney would be found there, not out here in the yard. No one here would suspect that she was more capable of tripping and felling a giant like Tegid than was Rafe.

Feeling happier, he moved inside. He would have to present himself to Llewelyn first, to see what his orders for the day were, then he would find an excuse to speak to Blodwen, the Lady Catrin’s head woman. While he was conferring with Blodwen, he could check the rest of the women where they usually gathered around the big tables during the day.

Once he had found Sydney, he could begin his search for the monk who was copying Nennius’ history, so they could help him write the new story he needed to insert into the book.

Then he and Sydney could jump home again.

It was a simple, straightforward plan and did nothing to interfere with the facts of history. Why had he been so worried about this?

* * * * *

She was being followed.

There were many people on the road, now. They were all travelling in the same direction, which confirmed that this was a market day, or a town gathering of some sort. If she followed the crowd, she would be guided to the event. Once there, she would circle around and look for Rafe.

Except that now she was being followed.

Yes, there were a lot of people behind her moving in the same direction that she was. However, instinct told her that someone was watching her.

The edges of the head cloth she was wearing did not allow her much lateral vision, so the next time a cart rumbled by her she stepped aside as others did, to watch it go by. Casually, she looked farther up the road, behind her.

There were three men walking together and one of them wore a metal over jacket that made her think of medieval knights and their chain mail. That probably meant this man was a soldier of some sort. He was unshaven and his forehead jutted over his eyes. He was watching her, while the other two were looking elsewhere. All of them were carrying flat leather sacks that bulged at the bottom. Wine or mead, or some sort of alcohol, she guessed. After all, this was market day.

She shivered and started down the road at a faster pace, moving past others with a murmured apology. Her hair, which was tied at the back of her head in a braid, bounced against her hips as she walked, which was a novelty that was quickly becoming irritating.

Her shoes slipped in the earth, for they had no tread to grip with. What she would give for a good pair of sneakers! She strode as fast as she could, then glanced over her shoulder openly.

The three men were keeping pace with her. That confirmed that they were following her.

Her heart thudded and she increased her pace until she was almost at the point of breaking into a run.

Ahead, the street ended and the straw-latched buildings gave way. She hurried forward. It was likely a town square and there would be many people there for her to hide amongst.

The three men apparently thought the same, because she heard one of them say sharply, “We will lose sight of her if she gets to the market.”

Her throat closed up. What did they want with her? And where was Rafe? He would be armed with at least a knife and would make them hesitate. She just had to find him.

Sydney could see the stalls ahead, between the heads of those in front of her. And she could hear the murmur of commerce.

“Quick. Stop her!”

Running steps.

Sydney began to run, too. Her feet in the sole-less shoes gave her no grip. She slipped and almost fell. Her basket banged against her hip and her braid fell forward over her shoulder, beneath the edge of the head cloth, to brush over the dirt. She recovered her balance and surged forward between the shoulders in front of her, but it was too late.

A hand snaked around her face and slapped over her mouth. A strong arm circled her waist. She was lifted off the ground and her basket tumbled.

Sydney kicked backward, struggling, as she was carried between two houses. There was the sound of heavy breathing behind her and echoing footsteps. She was being taken away from the square. Away from people.

She struggled harder, fear giving her strength. An isolated place was a dangerous place and there were three of them. She didn’t know what they wanted, although she could guess.

“Help me hold her. She’s strong, this one.”

Her legs were picked up and bound by another arm, reducing her struggles to helpless writhing.

They turned another corner and now Sydney could hear how lonely this place was. There were no more houses. Instead, there were terraces of earth, secured by walls of timbers. Three terraces, topped by a palisade. Far above the houses and farther away, she could see the tops of two wooden towers with tiny windows. There would be a gatehouse of some sort there. Between the terraces and the houses was twenty yards of open ground, dotted with weeds and neglect.

There was no one in sight.

“Here. This will do,” the man with the deep voice said. “Put her down. Hurry.”

She was being lowered to the ground. They were going to rape her right here among the weeds.

They dumped her on her back, confirming her guess. The hand that had been over her mouth was removed.

Instantly, she filled her lungs and screamed. “Help! Somebody help me!”

“Christ above,” one of the three muttered. “Shut her up!”

The heavy man, the one with the armor, leaned over her and backhanded her across the face.

Instantly, the side of her face went numb and her lips, too. She lay dazed.

The soldier settled over the top of her, his hands scrabbling at her dress. That reminded her of the knife on her belt.

She got her foot up underneath him, planted it against his chest and shoved as hard as she could.

He had already been on his knees, so all she managed to do was tumble him backward, which gave her room to roll over and get to her hands and knees. She screamed again. “Help! Help me!”

She saw movement at the tiny windows of the nearest tower.

One of the three men cursed and grabbed her braid and pulled. Hard.

Tears stung her eyes in reaction. Sydney blinked hard to clear her vision and reached beneath her dress for the handle of the knife. She pulled it out and kept the knife swinging up and around. The swing of her arm pulled her shoulder around. She leaned into it, the blade of the knife whistling through the air around and behind her.

The blade sliced open the arm of the man pulling on her braid.

He let go with a yell and grabbed at his arm.

Sydney scrambled to her feet and turned to face her attackers, the knife held out in front of her.

The soldier just grinned, showing yellow teeth. His eyes narrowed speculatively. “I like the ones wot wriggle,” he told her.

“What about the ones that spill your gizzards?” she said.

One of the other two lunged for her and she swiped at him and leapt backward.

The lunge had been a feint. The soldier came after her, using her distraction to get close enough. She corrected quickly, bringing the knife around toward him. He was already inside the radius of the knife. He gripped her wrist and squeezed, laughing at her. His bad breath washed over her face, making her moan.

Sydney rammed the heel of her spare hand up hard under his chin, putting her full bodyweight into it and driving her arm up with every ounce of muscle she could muster.

The soldier’s head snapped back as he lifted off his feet and she heard his teeth clack together with a sharp click. He fell heavily onto his back.

She didn’t wait to see if that would be enough. She landed on his chest with her knee and pushed the knife up against his throat. He was conscious enough to roll his chin up and away from the threat of the knife. He was breathing heavily.

“Halt!” came the command in a voice that rolled over them, rich with the tones of command.

The soldier beneath her stiffened.

The other two were still and silent.

Sydney dared to look away from the soldier for quick glance only. She didn’t trust him to lie still, not even with a knife at his throat.

There were more than a dozen people crowded around the end of the alley through which the three men had first carried her. Townsfolk, by the look of them. They had been drawn by her cries. They were watching with large eyes, many of them with hands to their mouths in surprise.

In front of them stood armed soldiers. She knew they were soldiers, because they wore more of the mail the one beneath her wore, plus helmets. They were carrying spears.

And standing in front of the soldiers was a man that by his dress and stance alone she knew was a superior officer or leader. His tunic came down nearly to his ankles and was a rich dark red, with braid or embroidery all around the hem. His boots were clean. His beard was neatly trimmed and shot with grey, while his thin face was unlined. He had dark eyes and he was standing with his hands on his hips, taking in the scene before him, with a scowl on his face. “Get up,” he told her.

Sydney rocked back on her feet and stood up. She put the knife away, so that the guards behind the lord would relax.

“Cover yourself,” the lord said shortly, lifting a finger toward her head.

Sydney felt her hair. The head cloth had fallen down behind her head. She felt around for the edges and drew it back up over her hair once more.

“You dare attack and fell one of the Lady’s own men?” the lord asked. There was absolutely no inflection in his voice. She couldn’t tell if he was pissed about it or not.

“There were three of them,” Sydney pointed out. “They were going to rape me.”

There was a gasp from the people behind the soldiers. This, she realized, was entertainment for them. There were even more of them now, as people silently slipped through the alley and gathered behind to watch.

Then she focused on what the lord had said. Lady. The Lady. Was she in Mercia, then?

The lord examined her. “That would explain why your dress is in a state of disrepair,” he said dryly.

She glanced down. The top layer was torn from the hem almost to her hip, and the pink underlayer was showing through the gap.

“This was my best dress,” she said, then wondered where that had come from. Clear in her mind was the knowledge that her other dress was not nearly as grand as this one, for it was her everyday dress and needed replacing, although cloth for garments was expensive….

She lifted her chin and looked the lord in the eye. “They should pay recompense,” she said as firmly as she could.

“Get him up,” the lord said, indicating the soldier at her feet.

Two of the soldiers behind the lord put up their spears, handing them to those beside them. They hurried forward and pulled the soldier up onto his feet. He hung between them, breathing hard.

“Does the widow speak truly?” the lord demanded.

Widow. Sydney recalled Taylor telling her that sometimes when she jumped back, she jumped into a life that was fully formed, with others of that time knowing who she was, while she had to sort out for herself the facts of that life while not giving herself away.

If Sydney was a widow, that would cover her advanced age and lack of male escort.

Where was Rafe?

The soldier coughed and spat on the ground. “She enticed us with her wares and her wiles.”

Another murmur of shock went up from her audience.

Sydney grew wary. Women suspected to be of loose morals did not fare well throughout most of history. She had to cut off this line of speculation immediately.

“I am a virtuous woman,” she said firmly. “Ask anyone who knows me. I was bringing cakes to the market to sell. These men waylaid me.”

“Where are your cakes?” the lord demanded.

She looked around. “I dropped the basket. It will be in the town square somewhere if no one has stolen it already.”

“Look for the basket,” the lord said, speaking over his shoulder. Two more of the soldiers pushed back through the crowd and disappeared down the alley.

He considered her once again. “The man you bested is one of the strongest in the Lady’s army.”

Sydney glanced at him. “He might be strong, but he is slow and dull-witted.”

“Indeed,” the lord replied.

She thought he might be suppressing a smile. Hope made her heart beat faster.

The lord shifted on his feet, turning so that he could address everyone standing in the narrow area between the houses and the terrace. “Osgar will be flogged and left in stocks for inspection until sunset. He has trifled with a woman against her will.”

“My lord!” Osgar protested.

The lord glanced at him. “Be thankful the lady was able to withstand your attentions, or we would be speaking of beheadings, not floggings.”

There was movement from the back of the crowd. A soldier pushed through and stepped up to the lord. He held up Sydney’s basket for inspection. “There’s a few cakes left in it. Most of them have been taken.”

“Bring the basket,” the lord told him. “And bring the widow. Everyone else, return to your business.”

He moved through the crowd in a direct line, as if he expected everyone to step out of his way and Sydney watched in surprise as everyone moved aside, clearing a path for him.

The soldiers followed.

One of the pair that had been holding Osgar up gripped Sydney’s elbow. The second soldier was pushing Osgar into a slow walk. “Come, widow,” the first growled.

“To where?” she asked.

“You’re to see the Lady herself. Mind your manners and your tone. You’ll not fare as well with her if you’re as cheeky as you were with Wulfstan.”

They moved through the same cleared tunnel that the Lord Wulfstan had used and Sydney scanned the faces as they passed by.

None of them was Rafe’s.

Chapter Four

On the other side of the busy town square was a large house built in the same manner as every other house Sydney had seen so far, except that this house was taller. There were four chimney holes along the length of the steep roof, all of them bellowing smoke. There were also several doors, each with an armed guard standing beside it.

There were few windows, although they were all open.

The Lord Wulfstan had already moved inside, using one of the doors at the far end of the building. The guard, though, was leading her to a different door. He pushed her through the narrow door and followed her in.

The door was shut behind them, cutting off most of the natural light.

The room she was in seemed to take up the entire bottom floor of the house. There were windows on either side and they were letting in a little light. Most of the light was coming from two fires that burned in the middle of the room. The floor where she was standing was made of wood planks, while the floor beneath the fires looked like dun-colored bricks. Mud bricks, Sydney guessed.

The air in the room was thick and warm. The smoke was all escaping through the holes in the roof above each fire so the air wasn’t unbreathable. There was a lingering aroma that might be unpleasant and over the top of it was sweeter smelling scents that made her think of flowers and herbs.

The guard pushed her forward again, this time leading her past the fires.

Many people stood about the room watching her. All of them were wearing clothing of much better quality than her ripped and stained dress. At this end of the room the watchers were all men, their tunics all ankle length and embroidered in rich colors. Most of them wore leather belts that were knotted in the middle, so that the leftover length hung down the front.

At the front of the room, women gathered in twos and threes. Sydney brushed at the poor fabric over her hip because these women were dressed far more elaborately. They looked…clean. Their veils looked nothing like the simple headdress Sydney wore. They had metal circlets around their heads, holding down very fine veils. Their overdresses were almost as long as their underdresses and made of fabric that didn’t have the bumps and rough weave that hers did. They wore necklaces and earrings that dangled beneath their veils. Some of their sleeves were so wide they nearly touched the ground.

Their belts were complex affairs, with metal studs or embroidery, sometimes wrapped around their waists twice, then knotted so the second loop hung lower than the first. From each belt hung at least one pouch, well-filled.

The women were all watching her with avid curiosity. Some of them looked disgusted or amused.

Sydney kept her chin up.

Wulfstan was standing ahead of her, speaking to someone she couldn’t see. “This is the widow Sunngifu, of whom I spoke, my Lady.” He stepped aside.

The woman he revealed was sitting on an elaborately formed iron chair, with the heads and long bodies of fantastic creatures making up the four legs. There were scrolled cross beams forming an X between the legs and filigree panels on the sides.

The woman who sat upon the chair seemed small and delicate. She was old. How old, Sydney could not begin to guess. Her brows were pale and her face lined. Her skin looked soft, not from care but from age. Jowls were beginning to form on either side of her chin.

Her hair was hidden beneath a white veil that wrapped underneath the mass at the back of her head, then lifted up to fold over the sides of the heavy metal circlet around her head. The veil then dropped down either side.

The woman looked at her expectantly. Unlike the rest of her face, the woman’s blue eyes were sharp with intelligence and very young looking. This, then, must be Aethelfreda, the Lady of Mercia.

That meant Sydney wasn’t in Powys, where Rafe would be. She was on her own.

Sydney didn’t know if she was expected to curtsey or bow. So she lowered her head. “My Lady.”

“Sunngifu,” Aethelfreda said, pronouncing it sung-eva. “Is that a British name?”

“No, my Lady,” Sydney said. “It is quite Saxon.” She didn’t know where that knowledge came from, yet she knew it was true.

“Your coloring is pure Saxon. Perhaps that is just as well,” the Lady said, “as we are to march upon the Britons tomorrow. My Reeve tells me that you have deprived me of one of my strongest soldiers.”

“He is only temporarily unfit for fighting,” Sydney said. “I could have cut his throat, yet I did not.”

Aethelfreda’s brows lifted and she glanced at Wulfstan, who nodded. She turned her attention back to Sydney. “Your husband was a soldier? This is how you learned to fight?”

“He was, my Lady. He taught me much of what he learned from the wars he fought.” Which was perfectly true. Rafe had been a dedicated teacher and Alexander had added self-defense to her repertoire, too. Also, at the top of her mind was the knowledge that her husband in this time had served the Lady’s army until dying in battle two years ago.

“I pay my soldiers well,” Aethelfreda said. “You appear to have fallen upon hard times since his death.”

Sydney didn’t answer. The truth was there for everyone to see, in her plain and stained dress and her simple head cloth.

“You have no children to care for?” the Lady asked.

Sydney swallowed. “We were not blessed with children, my Lady.”

“That may be a blessing in disguise,” Aethelfreda said, her tone dry.

“My Lady?”

“Let me see your knife,” she demanded.

Sydney glanced at Wulfstan, startled. He nodded.

Slowly, she withdrew the long knife and held it out for the Lady to inspect.

“It is almost a sword,” the Lady declared. “Do you know swords at all?” Her keen blue eyes held steady upon her.

“I…er…yes, I do,” Sydney said, feeling that it was also the truth. She remembered the feel of a sword hilt in her hand, even though she knew she had never held one before.

“I’m told that the wives of the Northmen that ravage our lands are all keen fighters,” the Lady said. “They perhaps understand the truth that those without swords can still die upon them.”

“I do not know much about the Northmen,” Sydney told her. “Although I met one, once. He was a physician, not a warrior.”

“Proving that Northmen can be wounded just as any other man and require stitching,” the Lady said. “We march upon the king of Brycheiniog tomorrow.”

“I have heard this.”

“I, of course, will lead my men into battle.”

“You, my Lady?” Sydney asked curiously. “You are skilled with a sword?”

“Skilled enough. However, I fully expect Brycheiniog will call to Powys for support and I do not have skill enough against the might of Powys to defend myself and lead at the same time. You will come with me and stay at my side. When I am attacked, as I fully expect to be, you will defend me.”

Sydney’s heart squeezed. “I have never fought in a battle, my Lady,” she said quickly.

“You fought and won your first battle, this morning,” the Lady told her. “None of my women are also warriors like you. You will be among them, guarding my flank, so that no man suspects I am not as vulnerable as I appear.”

Sydney glanced at the silent women, who were all measuring her with their gazes.

“You want the Powys fighters to attack you?” she asked Aethelfreda.

She smiled. “When they do, as they will, I will be able to measure their true strength for myself.”

“Then you march upon Brycheiniog merely to gauge the strength of Powys?”

Aethelfreda smiled. “The killing of my abbot gives me a reason to cross the dyke without invitation. When Powys joins the fight, I can ride into Powys and see for myself the strength of Mathrafel and the length of their defenses.”

“You consider Powys to be your real enemy?” Sydney asked.

“Very good. You grasp military matters as well as you hold your knife. You may put that away now, until I have need of it once more.”

Sydney put the knife back in the loop on her belt. “Why is Powys the enemy, my Lady?” she asked. “Forgive me, but I would have thought the Northmen, who raid endlessly, would be more of a threat.”

Aethelfreda dismissed the idea with a wave of her hand. “They pillage and burn, yet they do not seek to steal our lands permanently. They are a nuisance, nothing more.”

“While Powys does seek new lands?”

Aethelfreda glanced around the room, at the men standing silently at the other end of it and the women gathered around her. “Everyone, leave me. Wulfstan, stay. Alfwynn…?”

There was a stir and murmur as the room emptied of all except one woman and Wulfstan. The woman, who was young and pretty with a sharp jawline and blue eyes identical to Aethelfreda’s, drew closer to the Lady’s chair. Her circlet was thick although not as heavy as Aethelfreda’s. Her golden hair hung in two braids in front of her shoulders, reaching down past her waist. She stared at Sydney.

“This is my daughter, Alfwynn,” Aethelfreda said, confirming Sydney’s guess. “She and you are of an age in appearance, so you will become her companion, which will create no further gossip. As Alfwynn insists on riding with me tomorrow, she will also benefit from your skills.”

Aethelfreda looked up at her daughter. “Find Sunnefu something more suitable to wear. I don’t want her to be an oddity among the retinue.”

“Yes, mother,” Alfwynn murmured.

“And Wulfstan, find her a sword. A good one.”

“My Lady.” Wulfstan bowed from the waist and backed up two steps, then turned and strode away.

“You may go now,” Aethelfreda told Sydney. “Alfwynn, see if Mave can do something about her cheek. It looks as though it will bruise.”

Alfwynn turned and headed for the nearest door. That would have been the door that Wulfstan had used to come in. Rank had its privileges. Sydney hesitated, wondering if it was expected of her to use the far end door she had come in through.

However, Alfwynn turned at the door and looked at her over her shoulder, one blue eye visible beyond the edge of the veil. “Come along,” she said quietly.

Sydney followed her, only now starting to feel the throb and beat of the bruise on her cheekbone, where Osgar had back-handed her. Aspirin didn’t exist in this century, so she would have to suffer through the ache of it.

She should have cut his throat for him. A nick, at the very least.

* * * * *

Taylor leaned over the two still forms on the bed, until she was close enough to Sydney’s face to see details. She frowned. She was still getting used to the night vision that came with being a vampire. It wasn’t the same as normal vision. She could see large prey in the dark as if they were haloed with neon lights, while minute detail was difficult to focus upon.

Finally, she turned on the bedside lamp and turned it to shed light on Sydney’s still face and closed eyes.

Veris looked up from the book he was reading. For once, he had unbent enough to read an e-copy. The tablet he was reading on looked small in his big hands. Taylor grimaced, then glanced at Alexander where he was studying the Nennius script in the winged chair in the corner of the room.

Veris’ gaze flickered in his direction, too. Then he got silently to his feet and moved over to her side.

Taylor turned Sydney’s head to display the left cheek better. Just under her eye was swollen and there was a bruise forming around the corner of the eye. Across the middle of the swelling was a red scrape.

“Let me see,” Alex said quietly.

Veris glanced at Taylor. She knew what he was thinking—that it would have been better if Alex didn’t get to see this. Now it was too late.

Veris stepped aside.

Alex bent over Sydney and examined the bruise. Then he glanced at Rafe sharply. “Rafe is fine,” he said.

“Yes, he is,” Veris agreed, his voice low.

“Then how did they get through his guard and reach her?” Alex asked. He sat on the side of the bed and brushed Sydney’s hair back. “What has happened?” he breathed and there was pain in his voice.

Veris rested his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Taylor, an ice pack for the swelling, please. Alex, Ibruprofen will help with the pain and won’t make her sleepy.”

“Yes, of course.” Alex got to his feet again and went over to the multi-drawer medical chest sitting on the bureau and started pulling out drawers, looking for syringes and the medication.

“It’s minor,” Veris said. “It just looks dramatic.”

“That’s your medical opinion, doctor?” Alex asked dryly, as he came back with the syringe. He injected it into the tube of the IV in Sydney’s arm. “If we don’t get the swelling down, it could interfere with her sight. Perhaps she is in dire need of unobstructed vision right now. That’s not minor.”

“All we can do is watch over her,” Taylor told him quietly. “She and Rafe must figure out the rest for themselves.”

Veris looked at her once more. “It’s hard, isn’t it? Sitting here and watching, and wondering what on earth is happening. I remember you lying on the floor bleeding, once.”

Alex glanced at him, and let out a gusty sigh. “And I have watched over both of you. I never thought I would have to do it again.”

Veris gripped his shoulder once more. “The Ibuprofen will help.”

“And I’ll get the ice packs,” Taylor said. She passed the winged chair where Alex had been sitting and glanced down at the sheets of manuscript lying on the floor where he had dropped them.

For a moment she wished she had never brought the book home with her.

Chapter Five

Because Llewelyn couldn’t read or write, he always took a scribe with him wherever he went, to deal with messages from captains and to compose his own. He had two official scribes and Siorus, who was also a lettered man, could write or read for the king when needed. However, Siorus was one of Llewelyn’s trusted lieutenants with heavy duties of his own, so Llewelyn ordered Rafe to take the journey to Brecenan Mere Llangorse Lake in the Brycheiniog kingdom.

Rafe couldn’t protest about the assignment, even though he badly wanted to stay in Mathrafel where Sydney would look for him first. However, there were people left behind who could tell her where the King of Powys had gone. She would infer the rest. With that, he tried to be content, even while he seethed with every mile his horse trod that took him farther away from the fortress.

Why hadn’t she arrived in Mathrafel with him?

The question had vexed him all through the night as he lay pretending to sleep on the narrow pallet in the dormitory where a dozen single men in the household were quartered.

If Sydney had not arrived with him, where was she? He couldn’t begin to guess. Although finding Sydney was now his first priority. The monk with the manuscript would have to wait.

Because he was part of the king’s household retinue, Rafe got to ride only a few lengths behind the King himself, surrounded by the royal guard, while the rest of the army were strung out behind, spread over half a mile. The captains spent most of their time encouraging the soldiers with curses and threats to keep closer together. If they became too strung out, they were vulnerable to attack. The hills and valleys they were travelling through could easily hide another army in waiting and all manner of thieves and desperate bandits, including lone Northmen or even shiploads of them.

Scouts were sent ahead and to either side of the travelling army, to ensure the way ahead was clear and to monitor their flanks, but lone scouts could be killed before raising the alarm.

Even though Powys and Brycheiniog were technically at peace, the open road was still chancy. Rafe was rapidly remembering to keep checking his flanks and his rear and to keep listening for anything unusual. It had been this way when he had been living through it the first time around. After centuries of nearly civilized living, staying constantly alert to the perils of these times was draining.

Siorus rode up beside him, his big war horse prancing and snorting with impatience at the slow pace it was forced to keep. “I see you brought a sword with you, scribe. Spoiling to try out your new skills?”

Rafe kept his gaze on the nose of his horse. The people of Powys thought him to be a quiet, non-violent man who liked his books and stories of far-off lands. Getting into it with Siorus would break with that impression. He glanced at Siorus and away. The man was taller and sitting higher than him, although Rafe could still have him rolling in the dirt before he knew what had happened, if he wanted to, and he did want to. Violence would be a handy vent for the roiling frustration he was feeling.

Yet he couldn’t change history. As far as anyone here knew, he had died with his reputation as a simple scribe intact, during the Viking raid that had destroyed Powys and moved on to kill the high king of England. He had to let that history unravel the same way now.

So he clenched his teeth and reigned in his temper.

Siorus laughed and kicked his horse into a trot, moving to the head of the column where the King was riding.

Rafe let out his breath and peered ahead through the shoulders of the men in front of him. The king had brought no women with him. This was to be a fast campaign. It was only three easy days’ ride to Brycheiniog, so they would arrive fresh and ready to fight. The king was fully expecting the Mercians to be there already and Tewdwr, the king of Brycheiniog, to be ensconced upon his island fortress, holding Aethelfreda’s army off with stones and insults. Such was Llewelyn’s opinion of Brycheiniog’s fighting abilities.

Rafe just had to stay low and return to Mathrafel as soon as possible. Sydney might be there waiting for him already. Then they could end this time jump and go home.

* * * * *

Sydney presented herself to Aethelfreda after the evening meal of rye cakes and mutton slices, and a sloe wine that was sour enough to make her grimace. The water that was available to drink was cloudy, so Sydney persevered with the wine, trying to avoid dripping it on her new dress, despite the jogging of her elbows from the women beside her.

The dress was very plain and so was her veil. Alfwynn had taken her to a small house next to the big one and opened up trunks of clothing and sorted through the colorful garments, while eyeing Sydney’s figure for size and shape.

“Please…nothing elaborate, my lady,” Sydney told her.

Alfwynn paused to look at her fully. “You are to look the same as the others,” she pointed out.

“They already resent me,” Sydney told her. “A more simple dress would help deflect their irritation that I am to be counted among them.”

“So would a good whipping,” Alfwynn said, her tone flat. “They are all completely useless and none of them will come with us to Brycheiniog. That is not your fault.”

“I am someone they can vent their feelings upon.”

Alfwynn put her hands on her hips, the long sleeves fluttering around her. “They would not dare!”

“Not while you or your lady mother are looking, no, they would not,” Sydney said carefully. “I have had experience with the resentment of others and what they can do when their supervi…when their king is not looking.”

Alfwynn considered her for another minute. “Very well,” she said at last. “A plain dress, if I have such an item. And a simple filet.”

“Thank you.”

“Your very plainness will make you stand out,” Alfwynn warned. “My mother will not appreciate that. You are supposed to be hidden among the women.”

“No one will notice me,” Sydney assured her.

Alfwynn had provided her with a complete set of garments and had unwittingly provided a lesson in tenth century dress at the same time. A soft underdress of very fine linen was worn next to the body and the more decorative kirtle came next. The kirtle Alfwynn chose for her was a cream color, with close fitting sleeves and a simple, round neck. It clung to her shoulders and breasts and her hips and was full at the hem, which was embroidered with simple cream colored thread.

The overdress, the gunna, was heavier. Made of wool, it was a silvery grey color, soft and warm. The sleeves were full, but not excessively so. They bore even more embroidery that was subdued, in keeping with the grey tones. The neck of the gunna was shaped into a V and the kirtle showed above it. It was tight around her breasts and hips.

Then Alfwynn showed her how to tie the plain belt around her waist, to let it hang in the front. It pulled the gunna in around her waist and lifted the hem so the edge of the kirtle was revealed.

The finishing touch was the veil and a simple fillet that sat over the top of it and kept it in place. Sydney left her hair braided down her back and the veil covered most of it.

The shoes she had been wearing were tossed aside as useless. “How have you managed with such simple coverings?” Alfwynn asked with disdain. “Your feet and mine are about the same. You will wear my shoes tonight. Tomorrow, we will arrange boots for you.”

“Will they have better soles?”

“Soles?” Alfwynn repeated.

“The undersides. Will they be tough?”

“Of course. You cannot go to war with inadequate boots.” Alfwynn smiled. “They will be of the same standard as the sword you will wear. Now hurry, put on the hose. The evening meal will be served by now.”

Sydney had squeezed her feet into the shoes Alfwynn had provided, thankful that she would have better-fitting boots tomorrow. She hung the long knife from her new belt, plus the leather pouch with a single small coin in it and followed Alfwynn back to the big house.

Long tables and benches had been placed down one side of the room and men and women sat at separate tables. Alfwynn waved Sydney toward one of the ladies-only tables, then joined her mother at the top table.

The women sitting at the table all watched her in silence as Sydney settled on the very end of the bench. A plate already lay upon the table in front of her. A young boy placed slices of meat upon it while another dropped rye cakes beside the meat.

Sydney gave the seven women at the table a small smile and ate her meal in silence. There was no need to pretend she was their equal. Both they and she knew she was not.

Whispering started up among some of them, not loud enough for Sydney to hear what they were saying and she knew they were talking about her. She didn’t let it bother her. Food was the priority. That, and a good night’s sleep.

Wulfstan found her as she was finishing eating. “The Lady wishes to speak to you.”

Sydney saw from the corner of her eye how the women at the table all bristled at the royal command. Silently, she followed Wulfstan to the head table and stood before Aethelfreda, who looked her up and down.

“Adequate, I suppose. Tomorrow when we move among the soldiers, your appearance will be more important. I had not suspected you to be such a handsome woman underneath the dirt and rags. That will be its own distraction.”

“I…um…thank you, my Lady,” Sydney replied.

“That eye is healing well. Good. I expect you to present yourself among my retinue tomorrow. Wulfstan will see to it. You may go.”

Sydney had seen others give a short bob of their heads when they moved away from Aethelfreda and she copied the moment now and went back to the table she had been sitting at.

Her plate had disappeared and she mentally shrugged. She had eaten her fill already.

Once Aethelfreda and her daughter left the room, the women got to their feet. One of them, an older woman, looked at Sydney with a haughty lift of her chin. “You are to come with us.”

“She is to sleep with us?” one of the others cried softly.

“I am quite sure she is used to sleeping on the floor,” the first replied.

Sydney drew in a breath and let it out. She just had to survive this night, that was all. Tomorrow, she would be on the road and away from them.

The cottage that had been vacated to house the women’s dormitory for the single women of Aethelfreda’s household was nearby. Narrow beds that were simple wooden platforms with straw-stuffed mattresses upon them fill most of the low-roofed room.

Another thin mattress lay in the corner by the door, next to the window aperture. There were no blankets or covers.

The women were all undressing and carefully hanging their clothes on pegs on the wall, or laying them across the foot of their beds. Sydney watched one of them wrap a sheet around her naked body, then ease herself beneath the covers and skins on her bed.

With no blankets of her own, Sydney had no intention of removing a single layer of clothing. She curled up on the mattress, feeling the straw shift inside. Her hip felt as though it was resting on the floor beneath. Carefully, she wrapped the hem of her dress around her feet, and hugged herself for extra warmth. She kept a grip on the hilt of the long knife, tucked under her arm. They could steal her purse and its single coin, if they wanted, but the knife was too valuable to lose.

As the room grew quiet and the oil lamps were extinguished, Sydney considered her position. Clearly, she was in Mercia. Rafe would have jumped back to where he was first located during this time, somewhere in Powys. By sheer chance, Sydney was now part of the Lady of Mercia’s retinue and would travel to Brycheiniog tomorrow and if Aethelfreda was right, then so would the army of Powys. Would Rafe travel with them? Or would she somehow have to detach herself from Mercia and follow the other army back to Powys?

There were too many questions she could not answer right now. Her first priority must be to find Rafe and let him know where she was. If that meant deserting the army she had been recruited into and walking through the countryside until she found him, then she might have to do that. How far away was Powys? Well, it was the kingdom directly to the west of Mercia. She had learned that much from Google and from listening to Rafe the night before they had jumped. Although, how far inside the Mercia borders was this fortified town she had found herself in? What was the town called? And what town would Rafe be in? How far inside Powys was that place? Where was it?

She kept herself in a tight ball, hugging herself, as she worried over the huge number of things that could go wrong. It seemed that sleep would never reach her, yet she did grow sleepy after a long while of listening to the soft wind outside the window and the sound of guards moving about in the night. Far off, she heard dogs bark, the lowing of cattle and sheep bleating. There was no background hum from overhead powerlines, or the far distant growl of traffic on a highway somewhere. The night was peaceful.

It was a broken sleep, for the cold ate into her bones. From the discussions at the dinner table, she had learned that this was the middle of summer. English summers were cool in comparison to Los Angeles, then, and the lack of sealed windows and doors made the cold more apparent.

At the first sign of dawn, she rose stiffly and stretched out kinks and aches. She was not the only one awake. The women were all talking softly among themselves as they dressed, brushed each other’s hair and braided and coiled and pinned. Sydney copied them as far as she could. She had no comb, so instead she loosened the leather tie about the end of her braid and freed her hair. It was difficult to manage, being so long, but it felt wonderful to have it loose. She bent over and ran her fingers over her scalp, massaging it. Then, reluctantly, she pulled her hair back and braided it once more.

There was no mirror to check her appearance in. She straightened her clothing as much as she could and brushed off dirt. No water was brought for bathing or washing, either.

The women were all wrapping what looked like shawls about their shoulders and pinning them in place with a variety of brooches and pins.

Sydney had no other garments, so she looked out the open window, instead, taking in the early morning. A fine mist was wreathing its fingers in and out of the buildings she could see from the window. There were people moving through the mist, making it swirl. Most of them seemed to be heading in the same general direction.

“Are you a heathen, too?” someone said behind her.

Sydney turned. The same woman who had told her to come here with them last night was standing behind her. “Why would you ask that?”

“Are you not attending devotions?” the woman demanded.

Church. England was Christian now. “Of course I am. I was…offering up a silent prayer to God for this wonderful day.” She waved toward the window.

Surprise skittered over the woman’s face. “Then come along,” she said, her gaze flickering over Sydney’s length.

Sydney followed the women as they left the small building. Two armed men stepped up alongside them and they wove through the buildings much like the mist was doing. There did not seem to be any formal roads and the buildings were placed at angles to each other. Everyone moved between or around whatever building was in their way. The road that Sydney had used yesterday seemed to be a rarity here.

The church was the grandest building Sydney had yet seen and it was built of stone, too. Every other building was made of rough-hewn wood with straw thatch for roofs. The stone the church was built with was pale white and looked fresh and new. Inside, the impression of newness held. The ceilings soared into arches that met in the middle in groups of four.

There were simple benches to sit upon and kneel before and the women took two of the benches toward the back. Up at the front where the monk stood waiting for the congregation to gather, the Lady and her daughter and Wulfstan were all standing and waiting.

The service was in Latin and Sydney stared down at her feet, listening. She could understand the monk and even knew that what he was speaking was Latin, which was distinct from what she and everyone else had been speaking, which she now realized was old English.

This was what Taylor had meant when she spoke of the gift of languages that time travel imparted. Sydney had given no thought to what she was speaking. She heard it in her head as plain modern English, without modern slang and references, and with a certain oddness of phrasing.

The Latin the monk was using sounded just as clear and simple, only it was distinctly different. He was speaking very slowly and his pronunciation sucked. She realized the monk didn’t know Latin as well as she did. He was reciting stock phrases that he didn’t understand.

Did that mean she would understand the Celtic the Britons would speak when they met them? That would make things considerably easier, if she did.

Once the morning prayers were over, everyone walked back to the big building on the town square. Sydney noticed that there were four roads leading into the square. So was this the absolute center of the town and there were only two roads intersecting in the middle? One of these roads would lead to the gates that guarded the town, most likely where the two towers sat overlooking the town.

The square in the middle was full of men, most of them wearing mail. There were a large number of horses snorting and stamping in the chill of the morning. There were carts filled with chests, bundles wrapped in cloth and baskets everywhere. Everyone walking from the church skirted the edges of the square, moving around the frantic activity, the women picking up their hems and cringing if any of the soldiers came too close.

Sydney rolled her eyes. Alfwynn had called them all useless. She was beginning to understand why.

Breakfast was being served from large cooking pots hanging over the fires in the big room. She was handed a wooden bowl and spoon. A thick porridge was ladled into the bowl. A hunk of bread was handed to her. Sydney took the same place she had used the previous evening and tasted the porridge. It was sweet with honey and there was dried fruit mixed in with it. There were no other flavorings, although the milk used was thick and creamy. It was surprisingly good and Sydney ate with relish.

The bread was also thick and rich and heavy. She had never tasted bread like it. The small hunk she had been handed was very filling. She copied the others and wiped up the last of the porridge with her bread.

Once the meal was finished, everyone waited upon Aethelfreda to leave. The Lady stood, glanced at Sydney and beckoned.

Sydney skirted the two fires and presented herself with another bob of her head.

“We march as soon as the horses are ready. Make your preparations. I expect you to be by my side as we pass through the gates.”

“My Lady,” Sydney acknowledged. How was she to make preparations? Even the clothes she stood in were borrowed.

Wulfstan crooked his finger and she followed him out into the square once more. “Come,” he said shortly.

On the far side of the square from the big house, there was a blacksmith working a forge. An anvil sat upon a wooden block in front of the fire. Soldiers stood watching, as if they were waiting for him to finish. Then the blacksmith turned and pounded at the point of a sword with his hammer on the anvil. The sword glowed orange and Sydney could feel the heat from a few paces away.

“Macsen,” Wulfstan said.

The blacksmith wiped his face with his sleeve and jerked his head to one side.

Wulfstan moved around the anvil and picked up another sword that had been lying on top of a barrel, close by the forge. He handed it to Sydney.

The hilt of the sword was covered in leather that was still new. Wire had been twisted around and over it to secure it, and the wire would also provide extra grip. When Sydney curled her fingers over the hilt, the wire did not bite into her flesh. She held up the sword in her hand.

The blade was about a foot longer than the long knife on her belt, which made it short compared to other swords she had seen here. However, the shortness made it lighter. It was perfectly balanced. She thrust it out in front of her and the tip did not try to drop down at all. The weight was all near her hand, which would give her extra thrust. She did not question how she knew this. It was just there, the same way she knew she could walk, run and jump.

“Macsen is the son of the son of the son of a blacksmith,” Wulfstan said in a loud voice. She knew he was speaking to the soldiers standing and watching them as much as he was speaking to her. “He can reckon his forebears back to the days of Arthur, when his ancestor forged the sword Excalibur for the king himself. He has made you a great sword, using every skill a craftsman of his stature knows. Do not fail this sword, Sunngifu of Chirbury. The Lady you are to protect will have need of your blade.”

The men around him muttered, stirred by Wulfstan’s words. Sydney realized what he was doing. He was acknowledging her place by Aethelfreda’s side as a warrior, so that the rest of the army would accept it, too. If a great blacksmith had made her the best sword he could, then her role was not an honorary one.

Sydney bowed her head toward Macsen. “Thank you for this. I will use it well.”

Macsen nodded back and picked up the glowing sword and thrust it into the barrel of water. It hissed and crackled.

Wulfstan pulled her away. This time they walked through the center of the square instead of around the edges. Sydney carefully threaded the sword into her belt as she walked and heads turned to watch them as they passed.

“I hope you are as good on a horse as you are with a sword,” Wulfstan said.

“I know how to not fall off,” Sydney told him, which was perfectly true. Taylor had warned her to learn how to ride a horse bareback and how to deal with horses in general as they had been the primary means of transport throughout most of history. If she couldn’t get herself up onto the back of one, it would raise questions. “These garments are not made for riding.”

“Then get yourself more suitable clothes,” Wulfstan said with a shrug.

“How?” Sydney asked bluntly.

He pointed to one of the carts standing by the big house. It was being loaded with chests. “Speak to Mave.”

There was a woman with a simple head cloth standing at the back of the cart, counting chests as they were loaded. That would be Mave.

Sydney went over to her, dodging soldiers and horses. The woman looked at her sharply as she drew closer.

“You’d be the one they call Sunngifu, then?” Mave asked. Her eyes were a merry, light brown, and alive with interest. She was an older woman, for her face was lined.

“I am,” Sydney confirmed. “Wulfstan says I should speak to you about clothes suitable for marching and fighting. However, the Lady Aethelfreda still wants me to look like one of her ladies and worthy of being by her side.”

“Aye, a tall order. I believe there’s a way to be both lady and warrior.” She looked Sydney up and down. “You have no issue with wearing a man’s garments?”

“None,” Sydney replied.

“That makes things simpler.” Mave clicked her fingers and the boy standing at the top of the cart pushing the chests around straightened and looked at her. “The top chest there, lad. Be quick about it! Haul it over, now.”

Mave ordered the boy about, as various chests were opened and shut with a bang. Pieces of clothing emerged to land at the back end of the cart in a growing pile, including a pair of leather boots with good sturdy soles and several belts, and a heavy jerkin of mail. “Come, come,” Mave said breathlessly, scooping up the pile of clothing. “They’ll march right soon and you can’t be left behind.” She hurried toward the big house.

Mave’s solution was an ingenious one. She pulled Sydney into a tiny room with a door and shelves filled with aromatic food and ordered her to strip. Then Mave split the silver gunna up the middle on the front and back. In a few short minutes Mave had whipped the raw edges with a needle and thread, the needle flying in her fingers.

While Mave sewed, Sydney removed the last of her garments and with Mave directing, donned the new ones. To begin, she stepped into soft linen drawers that were similar to drawstring shorts. On to each leg she pulled even softer leather leggings that ended at mid-thigh and hugged her legs. Leather thonging wrapped around her calves over the top of the leggings, holding them tight to her leg and also holding the leggings up. The boots were ankle-height and fit surprisingly well.

“No kirtle,” Mave said dismissively as she sewed. “You’ll be astride a horse for days. You can’t hitch it up over your knees. So, undershirt first.”

The male undershirt was also linen and skimmed her breasts and hips. Over the top of that went the mail jerkin. Sydney was surprised at how heavy it was and also how flexible it was. The leather was soft and suede-like and once she had it on, it didn’t seem nearly as heavy as it had felt in her hand.

Mave dropped the silver-colored gunna over the top. The gunna now flapped open from her hips to the hem. “If you stand still, it looks as it should,” Mave explained as she wound Sydney’s plain belt around her waist and knotted it. “You can sit a horse without hitching it higher. The undershirt reveals your wrists, but if you’re to use your sword, you don’t want fabric getting in the way, so the impropriety will have to pass. God will understand. Now, your sword. Here’s another belt.”

Mave tied the belt in a way that left a loop down by Sydney’s hip. “Slide the sword in. There. Now the hilt won’t get in the way of the reins and you can still reach it well enough.”

Sydney pushed her long knife into the first belt and slid the blade back out of the way.

“You need a scabbard for your seax,” Mave observed. “Although I’ve never seen one quite so long. I doubt any scabbard would fit but the one that was made for it.”

“It was my husband’s,” Sydney said, although she didn’t know if that was true or not. It just felt right to explain the extra length this way. “He was a tall man. I had to sell the scabbard. I kept the knife.”

“Aye, you don’t want people thinking you’re a slave, do you?” Mave gave her a small smile. “There’s no time to arrange a better way to carry it and you’re used to doing it that way, so it will have to serve. Now….”

The last layer was a heavy wool cloak with a hood. “It’ll shed the rain well enough to keep you dry, especially in those sodden Powys hills,” Mave said. “Tuck your hair down the back.”

“It would be easier to do without the veil,” Sydney said, as Mave picked up the veil and filet.

“You would have the entire army thinking you are a woman of loose morals, then?” Mave asked.

Sydney bit her lip. “It will get in the way if I have to fight.”

“It will loosen and fall quick enough when you do. You must be properly attired to ride with the Lady,” Mave said firmly.

Sydney took the lesson to heart. The veil was important.

She emerged into the square twenty minutes later, feeling much more comfortable and appropriately dressed. Even the sword banging against her thigh felt right.

“The Lady will be over there waiting, I’m sure,” Mave said, pointing to the other end of the big house. “Go and God be with you!”

Sydney hurried to the end of the house, getting used to the feel of the boots, the leggings and the mail shirt. She was wearing more layers, yet didn’t feel nearly as confined as she had before. She could move easily and she could lengthen her stride and be confident that her boots would protect her feet.

Alfwynn was already sitting astride a horse. She was wearing normal female clothing and had arranged her layers to hide her ankles. The cape flowed over the back of the horse. She looked very regal. She was holding the reins of another horse and waved to Sydney.

All around them, men were heaving themselves onto the backs of horses, lifting themselves up and throwing their legs over. Ahead, Sydney saw Aethelfreda lift the hems of her dress and step onto a man’s interlaced fingers. He hoisted her up and she mounted the horse that three other men were holding steady.

A man came over to Sydney as she reached the side of the horse that Alfwynn was holding for her.

“No, that’s not necessary,” Sydney told him as he bent and put his hands together. He stepped away.

The horse was not as large as the ones she had trained upon and it was docile. A leather pad was tied around its middle, forming a crude saddle. It would be better than bare back, but not by much.

She gripped the horse’s mane, planted her hand on its rump and jumped. She pushed herself the rest of the way up with her arms, then threw her leg over and hauled herself upright.

Alfwynn was smiling. “That was very well done,” she said quietly as she handed Sydney the reins.

Wulfstan was sitting upon a tall, broad-chested stallion only a few feet away. He had been watching Sydney and as she looked at him, he nodded, then wheeled the horse around and moved up beside the Lady Aethelfreda, who was arranging her dress and settling her cloak. Wulfstan look back at Sydney, clearly expecting her to join them.

Sydney touched her heels to the mare’s side. The mare moved forward willingly and halted next to Aethelfreda on the other side from Wulfstan. It was the right side, which would give Sydney’s sword arm room to work.

Alfwynn settled behind them with two other guards and the line of horses started to walk forward. Sydney’s mare followed without her encouragement. There were three horsemen in front of Aethelfreda, forming a front shield.

Behind them, the horses and carts followed.

Just ahead, two big gates opened up between the two towers, revealing the green, open countryside beyond.

They were on their way to Brycheiniog and war.

Rafe, please be there, Sydney begged silently.

Chapter Six

The battle of Brecenan Mere Llangorse took place two days later.

“We will surprise them at sunrise,” Aethelfreda had explained to Sydney as her army moved almost silently over the open valleys and rolling countryside. “By marching through the night, we will be ready to move as soon as the light shows, which they will not expect. Tewdwr ab Elise is a weak ruler and he is not a fighter. His captains take advantage of this and do not maintain discipline.”

“You know the king well, then?”

“I have met him once,” Aethelfreda said, “when I first ordered the building of the burh at Chirbury. It is prudent to meet and measure the rulers of the lands next to mine. He dotes on his wife and his children and his drink. If Powys is not yet there, it will be an easy fight.”

“That is another reason for marching through the night?” Sydney asked. “To beat Powys?”

“An excellent reason, to be sure,” Aethelfreda agreed. “It will be a hard ride back to Chirbury if we do not, for my scouts tell me Powys has left Mathrafel and they will be snapping at our heels all the way back.”

They slept in the open, using their saddles as mattresses, while their horses munched the wild grasses next to them and guards patrolled the edges of the camp. On the second day, they made camp in the early afternoon.

“We sleep,” Alfwynn explained, “so that tonight, we can ride.”

An hour after the sun had set, they were on the move once more. The carts had been left behind with armed guards, for they were too slow and too noisy. Sydney learned to let her mare pick her way in the dark, for she seemed to see better than Sydney could. She kept her cloak wrapped tight around her against the chilly night air, and concentrated on staying on the mare’s back. This was her third day in the saddle and her hips and ass and thighs were numb with the jolting and rubbing. No one else seemed to be having similar troubles, although Aethelfreda took longer to get on and off her horse with each passing day.

The sky was growing lighter in the east when the whispered order to halt was sent back down the line.

“Where are the scouts?” Aethelfreda demanded in a murmur.

“Here, my Lady,” came a voice out of the dark, in just as soft a tone. The shadow of a man loomed up from behind an outcropping of rocks and Sydney gripped her sword instinctively.

He held up his hands as he came forward. “I would speak to the Lady,” he told Sydney, clearly expecting her to move out of his way.

“Then you will speak to her over the top of my horse,” Sydney replied.

“Speak, man,” Aethelfreda said impatiently.

“The whole island is asleep, my Lady.”

“Powys?”

“Nowhere to be seen, although runners say they will be here by noon.”

“Then we have timed it well,” Aethelfreda said with satisfaction. “Lead the way, scout.”

“It is downhill from here, my Lady. Be cautious,” the scout told her and moved to the head of the column. He kept walking. It was light enough to see him picking his way down the slope.

Below, nestled into a big valley, was a lake that was starting to glitter with the light of dawn. Close to the shore on this side there was a small island with buildings on it. There were no lights in the windows and no movement they could see.

“Such a small island,” Sydney murmured.

“For an island made by man, it is quite big, though,” Alfwynn whispered back.

“They made it?” Sydney asked, startled. She looked again. The island was very round and even, which seemed to imply it was made by man. It was also very close to the shore. “How do we cross the channel?” she asked.

“It is shallow enough for the horses to ford. When they made the island, they built a land bridge to make it and they failed to remove most of the bridge afterward.”

“Even so, only a few at a time will be able to cross over,” Sydney pointed out.

“Which is why we attack at dawn, when they are still abed,” Aethelfreda said. She kicked her horse into a trot. “Faster!” she hissed. “Hurry!”

By the time they reached the ford to the island, they were galloping. It took all Sydney’s strength and balance to stay upon her horse.

The battle was over shortly after it had begun. The horses streamed across the ford, knocked down sentries and galloped onto the island, filling it with Aethelfreda’s people. Sydney stayed by the Lady’s side, her sword out, as soldiers flung themselves off their horses and shouldered their way into the cottages and buildings, screaming battle cries and swinging their axes and swords in the first rays of sunlight.

The sleepy sentries had been the full extent of any resistance.

A group of soldiers brought a woman to Aethelfreda, who stood sobbing and shivering with a cloak drawn around her. She was bare legged beneath the cloak and Sydney suspected she was naked and had pulled the cloak around her as she had been hauled out of bed.

“Queen Ceridwen,” Aethelfreda acknowledged. “Where is your husband, the King?”

“He isn’t here. Oh, spare me, Lady! My children will have need of me!”

“They will have to do without you for a while,” Aethelfreda told her coldly. “You are my prisoner. Someone find her some clothes and put her on the back of a horse. Keep her wrists bound.”

The queen sobbed again, as she was hauled back into the house to be dressed.

“They were not expecting us at all. Not this soon,” Wulfstan murmured, looking around the island.

“It will send a suitable message to Llewelyn, in that case,” Aethelfreda said. She glanced over her shoulder to the north, the direction Powys would come from. “Round up some hostages to take back with us. No children, though. And no slaves. Only those who can sit upon a horse and stay on it. We ride back immediately.”

Sydney put her sword back in her belt.

The day was a marathon of hard riding. Aethelfreda measured passing time by the travelling sun and pushed them ever onward. When they reached the carts, they were permitted to halt and dismount only long enough to cram handfuls of rye cakes into their mouths. Wineskins of watered mead were passed along from horse to horse as they rode on and the carts were left behind to follow as they could.

“Will we make the dyke by sunset?” Aethelfreda called out as the sun lowered in the sky.

The dyke was a massive trench that Offa, a Saxon king, had dug out of the land two hundred years before, following the borders of Mercia from north to south, as a defensive shield against the Welsh kingdoms. The earth mounded behind the trench was twenty-five feet high. On the journey to Brycheiniog, they had traversed the dyke single file, climbing through a break in the earthworks and walking the nervous horses across a narrow plank bridge over the trench itself. It was a massive bottleneck and if Powys caught them on this side of the dyke, then they would be vulnerable.

“There’s time yet!” Wulfstan shouted back to the Lady.

Shortly after that, Sydney heard a rumbling sound from behind them.

“Powys!” Alfwynn cried, looking over her shoulder.

Sydney glanced backward. There was nothing to be seen, yet the sound of beating hooves was unmistakable.

“Ride! Ride!” Wulfstan cried. He kicked his horse into a gallop, urging the tired beast with curses and slaps and kicks.

Sydney coaxed her mare into a canter, the best the poor creature could manage. Her heart was in her throat, making it ache.. If she fell behind, she would be exposed.

Just ahead, the land evened out into flat pasture and on the horizon was the mounded line of the dyke, rising and falling as it followed the lay of the land.

Behind came cries and shouts. They had been spotted. Powys were in sight.

At the first clash of steel, Aethelfreda lifted herself up from her horse. “Wheel and defend!” she cried, pointing to her left.

The line turned to the left, snaking back on itself to fight because the end of the line was under attack.

There was no time to think. No time to be afraid. Sydney urged her mare to keep up with Aethelfreda’s horse. She pulled out her sword and her long knife and dropped the reins. The mare was following the other horses.

Then, suddenly, Sydney was among the fighting. Swords were thudding against shields, swords were striking swords. Men were shouting and some were screaming.

There were as many Powys fighters as there were Mercians. They were dressed in a similar style to the Mercians, except none of them wore helmets. They were shouting and yelling insults, promising death and destruction.

She concentrated on staying by Aethelfreda and protecting her flank, as Wulfstan was doing on the other side.

A man on foot came running up toward her, his sword held over his head. He was screaming.

Her blood turned cold. Sydney dropped her sword and blocked the man’s blow. The impact jarred up to her elbow and her balance was lost. She slid off the horse. The man was raising his sword again. She kept her own sword up high and at the same time thrust her long knife forward. The man ran onto it, staking himself with a grunt of surprise.

She pushed him down with her boot and whirled as another came at her. She was fighting, with no time to think. Instinct and training and pure fear drove her defense and attack. She was no longer protecting Aethelfreda, only defending herself. Surviving. She lost track of Aethelfreda’s horse in the melee. She lost track of time.

Until she turned to face a new attacker, threw up her sword and came face to face with Rafe.

His eyes widened. “Sydney!”

She dropped her sword. “Oh my god, Rafe!”

“No, don’t drop your sword!” he hissed.

She lifted it again. He brought his sword up against hers. “We’re fighting. Keep swinging.”

She brought her sword around for a side blow and he countered it. There was no strength in either of their blows but it would look good from a distance. Between each blow, they spoke quickly.

“You’re with the Mercians?”

“I am Lady Aethelfreda’s personal guard.”

“Can you get away?”

“Can you? I don’t know these lands.”

“I’ll figure something out. Now I know where you are.”

A horn sounded, short and sharp.

“Damn, that’s the retreat,” Rafe muttered.

“Get out of the way, Rhys!” came a bellow from just behind Sydney.

Rafe’s eyes widened and he looked behind her. “Quick, kill me and run like hell,” he hissed and this time, he spoke English. Modern English.

It jolted her, as he had intended. She stepped forward and thrust her long knife into his stomach and he gasped and folded over her hand.

“Sorry,” she whispered. She glanced over her shoulder. A huge man was lumbering toward her, his sword up and his eyes almost glowing with fierceness. His face was covered in blood. His sword swung in a whizzing arc and she jumped out of the way with a shriek of shock. Something hot sliced across her left arm, making her cry out again.

She swung her own sword and felt it connect, then turned and ran, just as Rafe had said. The man was slow and she knew she could outpace him. She didn’t stop until she crossed the dyke and reached safety, just as the last of the sunlight faded and was gone.

* * * * *

“Jesus! Alex! Quickly!” Brody cried out, as the sheet beneath Sydney turned crimson with blood. He gripped the wound that had appeared in her arm, keeping it closed and slowing the flow of blood.

Alex leapt to his side. “Let me see,” he said flatly.

Brody lifted his hand away for a moment, showing Alex the wound, then slapped his hand back over it and squeezed. He filled his lungs and shouted. “Veris! Get in here!”

From the floor below, he heard Veris leave the kitchen. He was running.

Alex was fumbling in the big medicine chest, grabbing equipment and dropping most of it.

“Slow down, doc,” Brody told him. “I’m stemming it for now.”

“It’s flowing too fast for a comatose patient,” Alex muttered. “Her adrenaline is up and I can hear her heart rate from here. She’s afraid.”

“You don’t know that,” Veris said firmly, from the doorway. “Speculating on what might be happening won’t help anyone, least of all Rafe and Sydney. Give me that, Alex, you’re shaking yourself.” He held out his hand.

“I’ve got this,” Alex said firmly.

“I know you want to, but you’re not going to help her right now. Sit down and breathe,” Veris said. His tone was kind.

“One of you do something, huh?” Brody suggested. “And the other one should check Rafe.”

Alex dropped the gauze and wadding into Veris’ hand and whirled away to stand by the window and look out.

Veris grabbed more supplies from the chest and hurried over to Brody’s side. “Let me see,” he said, his voice low.

Brody lifted his hand again.

“Not too deep,” Veris remarked. “I’ll stitch anyway.”

“Antibiotics, too,” Alex said from the window. “It’s a knife or sword wound. God knows what crap was on the blade that cut her and sterile anything didn’t exist back then.”

Veris glanced at Brody again. His brow lifted and he jerked his head toward the door.

Brody nodded. “Can I let go?”

“I’ve got it. Yes,” Veris murmured.

Brody let go of Sydney’s arm and Veris placed an absorbent pad over the open wound. Brody stepped around him and went over to the wing chair where Alex had spent the last three days, pouring over the old manuscript pages. He picked them up from the floor where Alex had dropped them and shuffled them into a neat pile.

“Alex,” he said shortly.

Alex looked around from the window. His gaze was steady, although there was a lost look in his eyes. Veris had been right. He needed to get him out of this room. “Come on,” he told Alex gently. “Come and talk to Marit. She’s been asking about you.”

“No, I…” Alex looked over at the bed where Veris was working fast and steadily.

“Get out, or I’ll kick you out,” Veris said shortly. “You’re not a doctor right now, Alex.”

Alex pressed his lips together for a moment. Then he nodded and Brody let out a breath. He didn’t want to wrestle the man downstairs.

He waited for Alex to move past him to the door, then followed him down to the dining room, which had become base camp over the last few days. Taylor and Mia were shuttling between this house and theirs, keeping everyone’s life on the rails. Marit and the twins would sit at the big table and do homework or eat.

The room was empty at the moment. Marit’s school books were scattered over one end of the table. Alex slid onto a chair and put his face in his hands. His fingers slid up until he was gripping his head, his knuckles white.

Brody put the manuscript pages down and sat next to him. He patted his shoulder. “I’ve never been left out of a jump before. I just about throttled Veris and Taylor when they suggested I stay home, that one time.”

“I remember,” Alex said, his voice hoarse.

“How did you do it?” Brody asked him. “How did you stand there and watch them jump?”

Alex dropped his hands and let them rest on the table. “I didn’t know it would be this bad, staying back and watching.” He stared down at his hands. “Yet I can’t argue with the cypher. It was critical I stay here.”

Brody sighed and tapped the sheets in front of him. “You’ve been studying this for three days. Did you think there might be a reason why you get to sit this out buried in there in another code?”

Alex sat up and looked at him. “There is another code. Was that just a guess, Brody?”

“It wasn’t even a guess. I was teasing,” Brody said frankly. “There’s another code? Where?”

“In the body of the story.” Alex pulled the sheets toward him, frowning down at them. “The little Latin I know is all medically oriented. Nomenclature, mostly. So I’ve been trying to translate this. The phrasing is all screwed up.”

“It’s Latin.” Brody shrugged. “The sentences get fucked up every which way to Sunday when you try to bring it back to English.”

“I mean, beyond the usual sentence arrangements. There is a rhythm to Latin, a general form that makes it flow if you’re reading and comprehending in Latin. These phrasings are odd. That’s what makes me think there’s a code in here. Something to do with how the letters are placed.”

“What, every third letter or something?”

“Or something,” Alex agreed. “They twisted the sentences up to make sure the letters they needed were exactly where they should be. Only, I’ve tried every second letter, every third, all the way up to every twenty-second. Nothing is pulling together so far.”

Brody wondered if there was a code in there at all. However, it was keeping Alex distracted, so he said nothing.

Marit came in, carrying a mug of hot chocolate. “Uncle Alex! You’re here!” She put the cup down and hugged him.

Alex kissed her temple. “I’m here,” he agreed. “For now.”

“Then you’re going back to save the queen?” Marit asked.

Brody rolled his eyes. Ever since she had met Sydney, Marit had insisted on calling her the Queen, or Morrigan, her middle name.

Alex brushed tendrils of hair away from Marit’s face. “Is that what you think I should do?” he asked seriously.

Brody frowned. It was an oddly adult question, put to his twelve-year-old daughter. “Hey…” he said softly, only faintly alarmed. “I think there’s enough people around here dispensing advice right now.”

Marit ignored him. “You should do what you’re told to do,” she said seriously.

Brody let out a breath. “Wisdom everyone should listen to.”

“Indeed,” Alex said gravely. He gave Marit a smile. “Need any help with your homework?”

Marit grinned. “It’s language arts. How to use nouns and verbs.” She rolled her eyes.

“Maybe you should write your answers in Riau Indonesian,” Alex suggested.

“Don’t give her any ideas,” Brody said with a scowl. “Why Indonesian?”

“That particular version of Indonesian does haven’t any verbs or nouns,” Alex said. He was smiling at Marit, who was grinning back, a co-conspirator.

“Do you know that one, Marit?” Brody asked curiously. He’d stopped being surprised at the languages she did know.

“No, but I’m going to learn it,” Marit said, settling in front of her homework.

Alex drew the sheets of the manuscript back in front of him. “And I’ll learn Latin,” he said.

“I’ll beat you,” Marit warned him.

“I have no doubt about that at all,” Alex assured her.

Brody left them talking and went back upstairs to check on Veris and his two patients. Alex didn’t notice him leave and that pleased him. He had no idea how the man was still coherent and upright. If it had been him sitting there watching Taylor bleed out in front of him, he would have been tearing down walls by now, completely out of his gourd with helplessness.

Chapter Seven

Brody watched Taylor lower Rafe back to the mattress. He still forgot, sometimes, that her strength was so much more than human.

Taylor shook her head. “No bruising, of course. Nothing. It’s just Sydney who is being put through the wringer.”

Veris finished injecting antibiotic into Sydney’s IV and capped the syringe. Her arm was wrapped in a neat white bandage. Taylor and Brody had changed the sheets beneath them and cleaned up the blood, and bathed Sydney and changed her clothes. “She could have scraped her arm walking through a door,” Veris said firmly.

“And hit her head on the same door frame?” Brody asked.

Veris glared at him. Brody wasn’t moved by the scowl. Veris was worried. They all were. Veris always vented his worry by being impatient with everyone who couldn’t keep up with his mental speed.

“Well, she didn’t do this with her embroidery needle,” Taylor pointed out. “She’s fighting, Veris.”

“You think I don’t recognize a sword wound by now?” Veris shot back. “Just don’t let Alex hear you speculating. He doesn’t need any more fuel for his imagination.”

“Where is Alex?” Brody asked, looking around. “I expected him to be back here before long, inspecting your embroidery.”

“He and Marit were heads together over something in the dining room when I came through,” Taylor said. “It sounded like Marit was giving him a Latin lesson.”

Veris snorted.

“Her Latin is better than yours, big guy,” Brody told him.

Taylor frowned. “Brody’s right, though. We’ve been up here for ages. Latin isn’t that absorbing.”

Brody caught his breath. “The manuscript itself might be,” he said slowly. He turned and headed for the door.

“Why?” Veris demanded behind him.

“He thought he’d found another cypher in the story itself,” Brody called back over his shoulder as he headed down the stairs. “Only he didn’t know Latin well enough to figure it out.”

“Marit does,” Taylor breathed. Her quick steps followed right behind him.

The dining room was empty. Marit’s books were still sitting open at the end of the table and her hot chocolate was untouched. The manuscript pages were gone.

Veris came into the room behind the two of them, frowning. Brody turned to him. “Was Alex still screwing around with the serum, Veris?”

“The sedative antidote?” Veris sighed. “We both were.”

Taylor glared at him.

“It’s interesting,” Veris said flatly. “A sedative that works on vampires is ground-breaking.”

“So there is more of the stuff in the house,” Brody said. “Except Alex doesn’t have a surgery here.”

“His office,” Taylor said. She spun and ran out of the room. Brody and Veris followed her into the wood-paneled front room that Alex used as his office.

Marit was sitting on the big desk, her legs kicking, as she watched Alex. Alex was sprawled in the armchair in front of the desk, his head back and his eyes closed. His shirt sleeve was rolled up and a bottle and syringe sat next to Marit’s hip.

She held up the manuscript as they entered. “He said he was going back to look, and that I should give you this.”

Veris picked up the bottle as Brody took the sheets from her. “Marit, could you go upstairs and watch Aunt Sydney and Uncle Rafe for us, please?” Veris said.

She rolled her eyes.

“He’s not shoving you out of the room, honey,” Taylor said quietly. “They really do need someone to keep an eye on them and we’re going to have to help Alex now. If anything happens, especially to Aunt Sydney, you yell, okay?”

“Okay,” Marit said quietly.

Once she was gone, Veris swore. “This is the juiced up stuff,” he said, putting the bottle on the shelf behind the desk. Then he cleared off the desktop with a sweep of his arm. “Brody, put him on here. We’ll have to hold him down if he starts convulsing.”

Brody looked up from the sheets in his hand. “He found the cypher,” he said.

Veris shook his head. “I don’t care right now.” He bent over Alex, pulled him up, lifted him and laid him on the desk. He pressed his fingers against Alex’s neck. “Rapid heartbeat. He’s deep into it.”

“I mean it,” Brody said. “This explains why he took the stuff.”

Taylor looked at him. “He isn’t just desperate?” she asked.

Brody shook his head.

Veris raised his head. “Read it to me,” he said.

Brody studied the sheet. He had spoken and thought in Latin all through the long years he had been a slave in New Rome, the city that had been known throughout the world by its nickname, Constantinople. He knew the language organically. Most recently, he had used it when they had jumped back there, so he had reacquired it via time jumping, too.

Someone had underlined each fifth word with orange pencil crayon, probably Marit’s. Now the words seemed to leap off the page as they would if they were English. “It was every fifth word,” he said. “Not letters at all.” He started reading them aloud.

“English, Brody,” Taylor told him.

“Sorry.” He looked at the words, building the whole sentence in his mind and then translating it. “Physician, you must go, too. The queen’s favorite will take you. Edward must live and peace be found. Hurry.” He lowered the sheets and looked at Alex lying on the desk. “He did what he was told to do.”

Taylor looked ill. “He’s trying to go back there using the serum?” she whispered. She looked at Veris. “That’s not possible, is it?”

Veris folded his arms. He was staring down at Alex’s still form, frowning.

“Veris?” Brody prompted.

Veris sighed and looked up at them. “We’ve established that the serum lets you see across the timescape, into any time, any place. It removes the linear blinders we all must have to live. Until now, I would have said that was all it lets you do.”

“Until now?”

“The Queen’s favorite,” Taylor said slowly.

“Marit is upstairs!” Brody shouted, as fear grabbed his throat.

“That Marit is upstairs,” Veris said softly. “That isn’t the Marit that Alex found in the timescape, before.”

“A Marit from a different time?” Brody asked.

“Another woman who can jump through time as she pleases,” Veris added. “One who knows her way around the timescape, too.”

Veris looked down at Alex again. “We will have no way of knowing if he makes it there or not until he comes back to tell us. If he comes back.”

* * * * *

It had been such a long time since Alex had found himself floating freely through time in this way, yet it felt as if no time had passed at all. Life marched on beneath him and the beautiful silence surrounded him.

Ahead was the familiar place, the Alice in Wonderland hall with its books and black and white tiles and emptiness. Except it wasn’t empty.

Marit was there waiting. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and tilted her head to study him, looking more like Brody than Veris. “I was pulled here. Was that you, Uncle Alex?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It has been a long time since I was here, although it might not seem that way to you. I may have forgotten how it works here.”

“No, you haven’t forgotten,” she said, “because you never learned in the first place. It’s instinct, Alexander. You know what you need to know.”

“Except I need to move to a place that I don’t know at all. Rafael and Sydney are there now, or will be there, or have been there.”

“Just as you have been there,” Marit said. “Time is not linear here.”

Of course. The knowledge settled in his mind. He knew the place he needed to go to because he had been there/would go there. He lifted himself up and groped around with his mind, looking for the tug, the beckoning that came from familiar places.

Over there.

He began to move in that direction, as time and people and places flowed beneath him at faster and faster rates. “Marit!” he called.

“I’m here,” she said calmly, although he could not see her.

The timescape below him was becoming a rushing stream. Then he saw where he was going. “The stream is divided!” he cried. There were two streams—a major one, wide and well-trodden. A smaller stream branched off from it. The place he was looking for was at the junction of the two streams. He could see it ahead, calling to him.

The two streams were parallel to each other, until they joined. He reached for that place and details became clear. Hills, green growing things. Mist.

He could only see it. It was too far away.

“Marit! I must go there!”

“You really must, Alex?”

Yes! The shout echoed in his mind and before the echo died, a giant, invisible hand grabbed him and threw him like a pebble. He rolled and twisted and rolled some more, even as he began to fall….

Chapter Eight

Aethelfreda’s personal physician was a monk wise in herbs and healing. Even so, Sydney refused his aid, until Aethelfreda ordered her to let Hrodgar look at the wound. Hrodgar took her behind a cart and she stripped off her gunna and rolled up the sleeve of the undershirt, which was stiff with dried blood. “It’s just a scratch,” she assured him. In truth, she barely felt the wound at all, now. During the night it had throbbed although it had not started bleeding again.

Hrodgar peered at the wound. “It does appear to be a simple scratch, which is remarkable, given how much blood you have spilled.”

Sydney turned her arm and peered down at the wound. The edges were pushed together and were a pasty white color, as if the wound was several days old. There was no redness or inflammation, which had been her greatest fear.

“They are saying you are the one who gutted the Powys giant,” Hrodgar said as he turned her arm this way and that, so the light would fall on the wound better.

“I barely nicked him, I’m sure,” she said. “I was too busy running away to take notice.”

“You must be a fierce fighter if the champion of Mathrafel could only reach through your guard enough to deliver a simple slice.” He dropped her arm. “You are right, the wound is minor and already healing well. I would not disturb it any further.”

He gave her a nod and left her to dress again. She fingered the neat tear in the sleeve of the gunna. The sword had been sharp and by rights should have cut a much deeper wound that it had. There was something strange about the way it was healing so well in the septic conditions of tenth century England.

And now Aethelfreda was convinced she was a lucky charm and would not move without Sydney by her side. How could she desert the army and escape back into Powys if the Lady wanted her always in sight?

With a sigh, she dressed again, wincing as she moved. Another day on horseback. That was what was really going to kill her.

* * * * *

Rafe let himself “wake” in slow stages, approximating the stages of sleeping and waking that a wounded human would go through. He would have to find a way to cut open his flesh just before a physician inspected it, so that a suitably gory wound would be seen.

“This one is just coming round, sir!” came a young, piping voice just above him.

“Let him be. He’ll wake on his own and then I will deal with him,” was the answer.

Rafe caught his breath. The voice had been Alex’s. He fought not to open his eyes and look around immediately, because he had to maintain the illusion of a weakened and groggy human.

Then a hand picked up his wrist and held it, the fingers over where his pulse should be.

“What’s this one’s name?” the voice that was Alex’s asked.

“Rhys, sir. He’s the King’s scribe.”

“Rhys. Wake up,” Alex said.

Rafe let his eyes open.

Alex was watching him.

Rafe battled to hide his shock. He scrambled to put it together. Nothing made sense. He was still in Powys. The smell and the sounds told him that much. Alex was crouched beside him, which meant Rafe was lying on a floor. There was a roof overhead that looked familiar. Were they back in Powys already? Had he been unconscious that long? The blow Sydney had given him had been deep and effective. Had it been bad enough to keep him out of it for the day or more it would have taken to get back here?

And Alex…. Alex.

“What are you doing here?” he whispered, so quietly it was almost sub-vocalized.

“Shhh….” Alex also whispered. Then he got to his feet. He was wearing the robes of a lord or a prince. They were rich garments, speaking of a man who was well compensated for his work. A boy was standing beside him with a small wooden chest in his arms. Those would be the tools of Alex’s trade.

“This man is not ill enough to be kept with the others,” he told the boy. “Have him put in a proper bed to sleep and recover.”

The boy frowned. “A bed, my lord?”

“Not in one of the dormitories, either. He needs peace.” He glanced at Rafe and the corner of his mouth lifted. “I hear tell that he tackled the Lady of Mercia’s personal champion before she tried to run him through.”

“Aye, he did and all,” the boy said, excitement threading his voice, lifting it higher. “They say she is taller than Tegid himself and she gutted him and all, too.”

“I had the pleasure of stitching Tegid up. She didn’t gut him, but she did slice rather close to parts without which a man wouldn’t be a man.”

Rafe held back his laughter.

“So find the scribe a bed and some peace and quiet to recover in, there’s a lad,” Alex said. “He’s a hero.”

“My lord, there’s no bed to be had that is quiet, like you say.”

“Then give him mine,” Alex said shortly. “God knows I will not be using it for days yet, with all these war wounds to see to.”

Rafe closed his eyes and pretended to be sleeping, so when the porters came and carried him to the peaceful bed Alex had prescribed, he looked in need of it.

He had a thousand questions. And a thousand more after that. Yet there was a deep relief in knowing that Alex was here with him in this time.

Now they only needed to find the monk copying Nennius, have the pages inserted, then grab Sydney and go home.

Everything was going to be just fine.

Chapter Nine

Alex worked steadily for five more hours, for there were many wounded. Most of the wounds were minor, requiring only cleaning and stitching. The Powys-born physician, Gandar, looked at him askance when he washed the wounds before closing them, using the boiled water he had ordered. It could be explained away as one more mysterious skill he had learned from the physicians of the East.

The worst of the injuries was the gut wound that the Mercian woman had given Tegid. It had come dangerously close to perforating the man’s colon and would require close monitoring. In the meantime, Alex kept him unconscious using the fumes from burning poppies, which were as effective as any modern day anesthetic.

He was checking the big man’s wound once more when Llewelyn’s man Siorus found him. “The King is in pain again,” Siorus said.

“I’ll come at once,” Alex said. He waved to the boy, Cai, who hurried up with his box.

Siorus led Alex through the interconnected rooms to the big apartment where the King worked and slept. “Will the King live?” Siorus asked as they walked.

“Oh yes, he will live,” Alex assured him. “Riding all night and all day to get home after the battle made the wound worse, but not mortal. He may have to stay on his back for longer than you would like, however.”

“He can still give orders on his back,” Siorus growled. “That will be enough, if he lives.”

Alex was wary of Siorus. He didn’t know why. He was still trying to figure the man out. He was a favorite of the King’s, yet he seemed to move according to a different agenda from most of the King’s captains.

However, it seemed that the King’s entire household were in awe of Alex’s magical abilities to heal and that gave Alex room and time to orient himself. He had arrived here with an identity already established as the King’s healer, just as Taylor had arrived in Jerusalem as the wife of the earl of Norwich. Alex had “woken” when the boy Cai shook his shoulder and told him in a whisper that the army had returned and the King himself was injured.

Alex had rolled to his feet, spotted the medical chest on the table, told Cai to bring it with him and managed to pretend to be sleepy enough that Cai led him to the King’s apartment.

That had been early this morning. He had found Rafe amongst the wounded who had been put in the main hall for tending, long after he had dealt with the King and the King’s champion.

Rafe had been genuinely unconscious, a rare thing for vampires. When Alex checked him over, he found the lingering traces of a great wound in his gut, which explained his unconscious state. It had been a serious wound. The magical vampire ability to heal could steal the energy from all other systems while it worked, when the wound was a bad one, shutting down a vampire’s consciousness.

He had left Rafe to sleep, checking over the next few hours as the wound disappeared as it should. Now he had managed to have him put on his own in the tiny room where Alex had woken. They would be able to talk there.

Siorus showed Alex into the King’s apartment. It was a crowded room, with worried captains hovering anxiously.

“Dismiss everyone,” Alex told Siorus. “This attentiveness won’t help the King heal.”

Siorus looked startled. Then he lifted his voice. “Everyone leave at once. The physician needs room to work.”

The captains all looked startled. After a moment, they shuffled out of the room obediently. Alex took note. Siorus had power over all other captains. He could not be underestimated.

Alex walked around the screen to the big chair where the king sat with his injured leg propped up on a stool. The bandages were still clean, Alex was pleased to see. Llewelyn, though, had his head rolled back against the high back of the chair, his eyes closed and his hand fisted tightly.

There was an empty cup beside him. Alex pointed to the wine skin hanging over the back of the empty queen’s chair and Siorus uncorked the skin and poured the thin wine into the cup. Alex dug into the medical chest and pulled out the pot of herbs that could deaden pain and dropped a pinch of them into the wine. He picked up the cup. “My lord,” he said quietly.

The king opened his eyes and took the cup. “You are a blessing on my household, Alexander of Cordoba.”

Alex bowed his head. “It is pleasing to be of service to so many, my lord.”

Llewelyn gulped the wine and grimaced. “What is that?”

“It will lessen the pain and help you sleep.”

“It tastes foul.”

“It does,” Alex agreed, “although it is very effective.”

“I can’t sleep forever,” the King muttered, draining the cup and putting it back on the table by his side.

“Only until you can think clearly above the pain,” Alex told him. “Then you can be yourself once more.”

“My men—”

“Will understand,” Alex said. “Especially if Siorus lets them know that you very nearly lost your whole leg. The cut was down to the great bone, my lord. Your recovery from such a serious wound will take time.”

“What about fevers of the blood?” Siorus asked. “Such a wound….”

“I know much about avoiding such fevers,” Alex assured him. “My education in the East with the great doctors there was a very thorough one. As you know.”

Siorus looked mildly unhappy. The king closed his eyes again. He was a big man, possibly as tall as Alex if he was on his feet. He had the black hair and eyes and pale skin that was typical of Celts. Rafe could pass as one of them only because his own olive skin was very pale.

“How long until I can sit upon my horse?” the king demanded.

Alex picked his words with care. “It might be many days, my lord.”

Siorus hissed with impatience. “We must face the bloody English upon their own soil and soon, to repay this insult the Mercian woman has delivered. The King cannot lie abed while the insult goes unanswered.”

“You intend to march upon Chirbury?” Alex asked. “If you cross the dyke, that will be considered an act of war.”

“Aye,” Siorus agreed heavily. “Then war it is.”

Real alarm touched him. “The Chirbury burh is new and strong. Your army will break upon its palisades like water,” Alex said.

Llewelyn opened his eyes and studied Alex. Siorus was looking at him with amusement.

“You’ll find yourself sitting in front of the gates there well into winter,” Alex added. “They won’t be able to leave and you won’t be able to enter.”

“Then we’ll starve them out,” Siorus replied. He seemed to be just as happy at that prospect as he had been with the idea of war.

“And while you see to the starving, the Northmen of Dublin will overrun this country and claim it for their own,” Alex shot back.

Siorus scowled. “Are you working for the Mercians?” he demanded. “Because your speech is close to treasonous, physician.”

“I have not once set foot outside Powys since I arrived here,” Alex said truthfully. “I merely state the obvious. The Mercians are strong. If you wage war upon them, you will need all the strength of Powys to defeat them and it will leave this country weak. It is well known that the Vikings have spies everywhere. They will know that you have emptied the land and they will act.”

“It is not your place to speak of such things,” Siorus said, his voice rising.

“Leave us, Siorus,” Llewelyn said softly. “I will explain the matter to him.”

“But, sir!” Siorus cried.

Alex wondered if Siorus was aware that he was gripping the hilt of his sword convulsively, as if he was fighting the need to draw it. Perhaps that was why Llewelyn wanted him gone.

“Leave,” Llewelyn said flatly.

Siorus swallowed back any more protest. “My lord,” he said stiffly and strode from the room.

“Pour me more wine,” Llewelyn told Alex. His voice was low and even.

Alex’s heart was loose and beating on its own. He had pushed the limits of the king’s tolerance. Now he was to be dealt with.

He poured the wine and reslung the skin.

Llewelyn sipped. “Siorus and the other captains only understand bravery, courage, loyalty to their land and to me, the king who embodies the land. It distresses them when they hear talk that makes them question any of those qualities. I, on the other hand, must look farther than they do. To determine if a war can be won, I must consider the idea of failure, while they can blindly ignore the possibility. These things you speak of, the empty lands and the Vikings who may take advantage of that…they are ideas that I would rather my captains not have to think about, do you understand?”

Alex swallowed. “You would risk your kingdom to repay a minor insult, my lord?”

“It is what my people want.”

“They do not want peace?” Alex asked.

“No more than the Mercians do,” Llewelyn said. He sounded tired. “Besides, the Vikings have been busy plowing their fields and raising their brats since before my great grandfather’s time. It is unlikely they will stir themselves even if they do learn of my quest against the Mercians.”

“They have had two years of plague and famine,” Alex pointed out. “After three generations of fighting to hold the land they took in Eire, they may be looking for new homes.”

“And how would you know of such things, physician?” Llewelyn asked.

“Death and disease are my province, my lord. I speak to any travelers who pass through Powys. The famine is well known.”

“Aye, I have had reports of it, too,” Llewelyn said.

“Would you not be better to find peace with the Lady of Mercia, my lord?” Alex asked. “There must be a way to find peace that answers the insults and blood that have been spilled on both sides.”

Llewelyn rubbed his temple. “If you hear of such a way, do inform me, physician. I only know that I must juggle the loyalty of my men with their fierce passion for their country and their honor. It is a beast inside the breast of every man, angry and hungry for satisfaction. I must ride that beast into the ground lest it turn and devour me.”

* * * * *

Rafe was pacing the length of the room when Alex returned to his quarters. He turned and threw a hand out as Alex shut the door behind him, dropped the latch on it, and put the heavy chest on the high table.

“Where have you been?”

“I have a role here. I can’t be seen deserting my duty,” Alex said calmly. “Besides, the sick and wounded need more help than Gandar is capable of providing.”

“We should be looking for the monk! We should go and get Sydney and get the hell out of here!”

“Where is Sydney?”

“Where do you think?” Rafe said, his tone bitter. “She is the Lady of Mercia’s champion, the one who gutted Tegid.”

Alex sank down onto the three legged high stool in front of the table. “That was Sydney?” He recalled everything he had heard about the woman warrior. “She isn’t anywhere near Tegid’s height,” he added.

Rafe snorted. “She didn’t gut him, either,” he pointed out.

It was the dry irony in his voice that sounded so much like the notorious judge who Alex had fallen in love with that made him reach for Rafe and drag him close enough to kiss him.

Rafe let go of his anger and fear. Alex could feel it in the way he relaxed and leaned into the kiss, his lips hard and demanding.

Alex rose to his feet and pressed against him, suddenly hungry for much more. In the back of his mind, barely acknowledged, he knew that he was reaching for comfort, for reassurance. The last three days, watching Sydney bleed and bruise, and Rafe’s still body, had been agonizing. Now Rafe was here and now he knew what had happened to them both and that they were still alive, the relief was bubbling up inside him like fermented wine.

Yet that was a distant notion that was fading rapidly under the onslaught of the powerful need building in his body, making his limbs heavy and his thoughts syrupy.

“God, I missed you,” Rafe breathed against his lips. “I don’t know how you managed it, but I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Later,” Alex muttered. “I’ll explain everything later.” He unbuckled Rafe’s belt and tossed it aside, then lifted the blood-stained and ripped tunic off and dropped it on top of the belt.

Rafe’s cock was straining beneath the undershirt, tenting it. Alex lifted the hem, exposing his cock. He gripped it, feeling the heat and pulse of blood under his fingers. He stroked the length, enjoying the way Rafe jerked and moaned in reaction.

“Harder,” Rafe breathed, his jaw tight.

Alex shook his head. “I have a better idea. Take off your clothes. All of them.”

“Anyone might come by…”

“The door is latched. I am a peculiar physician who demands times of solitude in order to think.” Alex began stripping his own layers and leggings and accessories, removing them all.

He grabbed the stoppered bottle of oil from his medicine chest and drew Rafe over to the bed shelf. The mattress was thick and clean. “On your knees,” Alex told him.

Rafe sat on his haunches, his ass rounded and his shoulders gleaming in the lamp light. His dark eyes were watching Alex, his mouth lifted at one corner. “Now you look like the real you,” he said. “The clothes make you look so different. So does the beard. Did you always have a beard, the whole time?”

“Nearly always,” Alex admitted. He settled behind Rafe, turned his chin and kissed him briefly. “You’re hot. Your heart is working too hard to compensate for the healing you’re going through.”

“It’s not just the healing stirring my heart,” Rafe said, his voice low.

Because he was sitting on his calves, Rafe’s ass was exposed. Alex reached between his legs and stroked the base of his cock, making him hiss. He kept up the stroking, as he unstopped the oil bottle with his other hand. Then he paused for a moment to pour a little of the oil onto his palm. He returned to stroking and teasing, from his balls across his perineum, to his ass, spreading the oil and working it deeper.

Rafe raised up off his heels, his hand pressed flat against the side of the bed shelf. His head was lowered and he was breathing heavily.

This was what Alex remembered best. This was Rafe, raw and exposed. This was the man he loved.

He gripped his cock with his oily hand, preparing himself. Then he lifted himself up, his cock pressing up against Rafe’s rear. Rafe held still as Alex pushed inside. Alex could feel him trembling, the way he did when he was particularly aroused. That increased Alex’s own need. He gripped his hips and buried himself as deeply as he could.

Rafe moaned.

Alex pressed his lips against Rafe’s shoulder, then began to thrust his cock, in hard strokes. They moved together, riding the fine edge of pleasure, extending it. They were so familiar with each other’s bodies and the tiny shifts that spoke of degrees of pleasure that no words were needed. They could play this music for as long as they wanted or needed to.

Alex’s body heated as his heart slammed, driving blood, bringing him to the most human he could be. That was something else he loved about Rafe and Sydney, how they alone had the power to make him feel human once more.

He poured himself into each thrust, letting his body speak for him.

The heat generated between them grew explosive. Rafe was gripping his shaft, squeezing and groaning with each thrust and the erotic sound was goading Alex into more, harder, faster movements.

His climax burst upon him and he stiffed, his back arching, as he drove himself deep inside and grew still, while the pleasure pulsed.

Rafe stiffened, his cock pumping his seed as his orgasm bloomed. Alex could feel the waves of his pleasure as his muscles gripped and clenched around him.

They stayed locked together in that tight grip, as their hearts slowed. Alex held Rafe against him, feeling his heart under his hand, as Rafe’s body relaxed and he finally sighed and let his head roll back against his shoulder. Rafe looked up at him, a small grin forming. “That is the secret to your miracles, physician?”

Alex smiled. “Only for a select two.”

Rafe patted his cheek. “Good answer.”

Chapter Ten

Alex would have been happy to stay lying against Rafe except that the world they had just left outside the door would soon come knocking. As a physician, he was in demand, especially now.

“I should go and check on the wounded,” he told Rafe, stirring himself. He got to his feet and started dressing. “You can stay here as long as you want. I will tell anyone who asks that you are still recovering.”

Rafe rolled over onto his side and watched Alex dress. “That won’t hold for long.”

“Could I take you as a lover?” Alex asked. “I don’t know these times or this place. Would they accept that?”

“Not if it’s out in the open,” Rafe said. “Powys is highly Christian. Although some of the old ways still linger in the darker corners of the kingdom.”

“Discretion as always, then,” Alex concluded. “Very well.” He leaned down and kissed Rafe soundly. “I will kick you to your own bed tomorrow morning. In the meantime, patients first—especially the king.” He sorted through the medicine chest, and topped up his supplies, moving quickly.

“I heard them say you were tending the king. He will live, of course.”

Alex glanced at him. “Why do you say that with such conviction?”

“I could tell you that I have that much faith in your medical skills,” Rafe replied.

“My skills are not what they could be without modern medicine and sterile environments,” Alex told him. “So why are you so certain that the king will survive? It is a very deep cut.”

“Because he did,” Rafe said simply.

Alex looked up at him again. His heart squeezed. “That is what you remember of these times? That Llewelyn lived?”

“To lay siege to Chirbury, yes.” Rafe sat up. “He dies when the Northmen sweep right across Mercia and through to Essex and kill Edward, the high king.”

Edward must live.

Alex pressed his lips together.

“What have you done?” Rafe said softly. “I know that look of yours. You’re feeling guilty about something.”

Alex shook his head. He dropped the last pot of salve into the chest and closed it. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Alex knew he would not be able to hide this from Rafe. He hated lying to him or Sydney in any degree and this was more important than a secret birthday present. “Llewelyn and I spoke about finding a way to sue for peace between Powys and Mercia.”

Rafe’s mouth opened. Then he shut it, frowning heavily. “That’s not what happened…” he said slowly.

Alex nodded. “I know.”

“You can’t talk to the king about peace!” Rafe said. “You can’t give him ideas. How many times have Veris and Brody said that? No whispering in the ears of kings and statesmen. You run a real risk of fucking up the future!”

“Well, I did talk to him,” Alex said. He made himself say the rest. “I will continue to talk to him about peace. Emptying out Powys to continue this stupid argument with Mercia will leave the whole country wide open. The Vikings will march into Mercia unopposed.”

Rafe jumped to his feet. “They’re supposed sweep through, Alex! For heaven’s sake!” He lifted his hands in a gesture of anger and futility. “You’re not even meant to be here and now you’re trying to change established history? Did you learn nothing from what Veris and Brody and Taylor have been saying all these years?”

Alex rested his hand on the medicine chest. It hid the trembling. “I heard,” he said flatly. “And I was there in Jerusalem. I saw the outcomes.”

“Then what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Rafe cried.

“Finding peace, any way I can.”

“No! Powys lays siege to Chirbury, the Vikings raid while our backs are turned. I die. The king dies. So does Aethelfreda and her army. And so does the King of England! That’s what happened. That’s how Gronoya was established. That’s why the Herskers get to lob ballistic missiles at Iraq in the twenty-first century! You have to take it back, Alex. You have to encourage Llewelyn to go pick his fight with Aethelfreda. You have to stop this before it’s too late.”

Alex picked up the medicine chest, feeling the heavy weight of it against his belly, the corners digging into his arms. Right now, this was real. The ‘history’ that they knew was a future concept. This was the only moment that counted. Except he knew what the future moments would be. “What if this isn’t the way things were supposed to go?” he asked Rafe.

Alex could see the fear in Rafe’s eyes. This was something even the Council itself was afraid of—that vampires with their long lives could arrange history to suit themselves and by their self-centeredness, destroy the future for everyone because no one knew all the consequences of change.

“You don’t know how it’s supposed to go!” Rafe’s voice was hoarse. “We only know what did happen. You can’t, you must not change that!”

“What if we’re supposed to change it?”

Rafe swiped his hand to one side in a sharp cutting-off motion. “No. I will not go down this path of reasoning. Reasoning!” He laughed hollowly. “You’re playing with forces you don’t understand, Alex. I beg you, drop this. Let history take its course.”

Alex shook his head. “I can’t.”

Rafe crossed his arms. Even though he was naked, he had drawn the invisible aura of power around him that he habitually wore as a judge and as one of the official representatives of the Council. “Don’t make me make it an order,” he said softly.

Alex unlatched the door. “You can make it an order if you want.”

“Will it stop you?”

Alex looked at him. “No.” The word tasted like ash in his mouth.

* * * * *

Two days later, despite Alex’s best efforts, the entire fighting force of Powys was mustered at Mathrafel, to march upon Mercia. Every man capable of holding a sword or a knife was ordered to the fortress to take arms, including the king’s newly recovered scribe.

Alex was also ordered to pack his things and attend the marching army…and the king, for he had arranged to lie upon a straw bed in a cart. “I will ride like a woman if that is what it takes!” he had bellowed at Alex and the room full of captains. “Mercia will not go unpunished for the abduction of our ally’s queen!”

That had earned the approval of the entire army, who had cheered as Llewelyn was carried out to the cart that stood waiting for him.

Alex’s horse was brought for him, a snowy white stallion that reminded him sharply of the horse his father had given him as a gift on his sixteenth birthday. Among the piebald mares and stocky hill horses Powys rode, Atiya stood out like glowing neon.

Even though no one told him directly, the knowledge was there that he had brought Atiya with him on his travels from the Caliphate of Cordoba, on the Iberian Peninsula. He had been travelling for years, selling his services as a superior physician, and writing his journals and books about the lands and people he saw.

Alex patted Atiya’s nose as the stallion pushed it against his shoulder with affection. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,” he murmured. Atiya nickered quietly in agreement. Alex remembered the rest of the Shakespearean quote with irony.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility;

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger. . . .

“I must become a tiger, it seems,” he told Atiya and lifted himself up onto the broad back.

The main body of the army passed through the gates of the hill fortress of Mathrafel as the sun passed behind thick banks of clouds and shadow fell over the land.

Alex was too busy looking along the sinuous line of cavalry and only peripherally noticed the pall that had fallen. He was trying to see where Rafe might be. Rafe had not spoken to him since their argument. He wondered what he might say if he were here right now. Rafe was not one to crow about victory yet in this instance, he would be justified.

Turning history in its tracks was harder than Alex had suspected it would be. It seemed as though the whole world was hell bent on rushing to its doom.

Chapter Eleven

When Sydney demonstrated a complete inability to spin, weave or sew, the conviction of the women of Aethelfreda’s household that she was a waste of air and food was locked in for good. Their condemnation was unspoken but eloquent.

Sydney didn’t care for a second, except that she was forced to share their quarters and the mattress seemed to grow thinner every night. The comb she had begged from Mave disappeared, as did other small items Sydney had acquired and that Aethelfreda and Alfwynn had given her.

It would have been relatively simple to pack some food and walk through the gates and across country to Mathrafel. She had studied maps in Aethelfreda’s chamber and already knew the way to the dyke. The guards would not stop her from leaving. Everyone knew who she was, now. Although she didn’t remember doing it, they said she had sliced open the giant who had tried to protect Rafe and that had earned her a type of respect that made both women and men step aside as she passed. If she wanted to leave, the guards on the gates would not argue with her.

However, Aethelfreda’s scout had returned with news that Powys intended to march upon Chirbury, which made it unnecessary to steal away from the town and Aethelfreda. If she stayed where she was, Rafe would come to her.

She wore her sword and long knife openly, every day, making sure they remembered who she was, for it helped smooth her days. As she had none of the requisite skills that a woman needed simply to get by, she was forced to trade on her combat skills. She had learned more about combat in the few minutes she had been forced to fight Powys than months of training and instruction had imparted. She felt comfortable using the small amount of expertise she had acquired as leverage in any way she could.

She also adopted the split gunna and undershirt that Mave had designed for her, asking for and receiving a second set of the military style clothing. She wore them every day, leaving off only the heavy mail jerkin. It further differentiated her in the eyes of the town.

Aethelfreda and Alfwynn included her in their war sessions with their senior advisors, which included Wulfstan and the army captains, so she was privy to any intelligence that Aethelfreda received about the approaching Powys fighters.

“Llewelyn marches even though he cannot yet walk,” Alfwynn told her. “He is reaping the anger of his army while it is fresh. We will need to brace ourselves.”

The town was preparing for battle. Men hunted daily and the meat was dressed and salted down for long term storage. The summer crops growing outside the walls were harvested early and most of it put to drying for storage. The palisade fence that surrounded Chirbury was checked for soundness and the brush cleared a full bow-shot from the walls.

The smith forges were kept bellowing all day and night as they worked to produce more arrows, more swords, more spears and more knives and helmets. Carpenters hewed wood and produced shields. Women made bandages and sewed iron rings to leather hauberks.

Hundreds of barrels of water were carted from the river and stored, too.

“You’re preparing for siege,” Sydney pointed out, shivering at the idea of it.

“Siege?” Alfwynn repeated, sounding puzzled.

“It’s a French word,” Wulfstan said, surprising Sydney, for he had shown no great education before now. “Sege,” he repeated. “To be locked in, surrounded for a long time.”

“It is a good word to describe such a condition. However, I have no intention of being held behind my own walls,” Aethelfreda said firmly. “When Powys arrives outside our gates we will be in a position of strength behind these walls and we will use that strength to strike back.”

“And the hostages?” Sydney asked, for the queen of Brycheiniog had been sitting at Aethelfreda’s supper table, too. She was a wan, silent woman.

“They are Brycheiniog,” Wulfstan said. “Powys does not march here because we stole another king’s kin.”

“It is the reason Llewelyn will give,” Sydney said.

“A reason that serves a purpose, that is all,” Aethelfreda replied. “We could release them this very night. It would not halt Llewelyn.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked Sydney up and down. “Your appearance is not that of a woman of my household, Sunngifu.”

“That is because the women of your household have gone to great lengths to ensure she cannot maintain a suitable appearance, Lady Mother,” Alfwynn said.

Sydney looked at her, startled. She had not spoken about the petty thievery to anyone.

Alfwynn rolled her eyes. “I withstood their company for not much longer than you have. I am wise to their secret and spiteful ways.”

Aethelfreda sighed. “Arrange something, Alfwynn. I do not want to be troubled by domestic squabbles. Not now.”

Alfwynn’s arrangement was to move Sydney into the small house Alfwynn was residing in while her mother stayed in Chirbury. A more properly filled straw mattress was installed upon a sleeping shelf in the front room and furs and covers added, along with a plump pillow.

“You will be my personal guard,” Alfwynn told Sydney, “except for when my mother has need of you.”

The first night Sydney slept upon the flat, hard shelf was utter luxury. She passed into sleep inside a single breath and didn’t move the entire night.

After that, Sydney dedicated herself to practicing her sword craft with the soldiers in the square each morning, attending Aethelfreda and Alfwynn as needed…and waiting for Powys and for Rafe to arrive.

* * * * *

The second day of travel passed without incident and camp was struck only six miles away from the dyke and the Mercian border. The pace was slow because there were so many of them and some were on foot.

Alex attended Llewelyn as the campfires were lit and good cooking smells wafted over the campsite, as the last of the weak sunlight faded. “It looks like bad weather coming up,” he said, looking up at the clouds.

“You are a prophet as well as a physician,” Llewelyn growled. He had to be in pain, for the bumping of the cart over every little rut and stone was putting stress on the stitches holding his leg together.

“I am prophetic enough to know that if you do not halt for a day and rest, you will lose this leg,” Alex told him firmly. “Look at the redness there and there.” He pointed at the inflammation raising the flesh around the stitches. “The stitches have been strained and those are just the ones I can see.”

Llewelyn hissed as Alex applied a warm poultice and re-wrapped the wound. “The heat will help draw out any toxins,” Alex told him. “If you would only give it a day of rest to do so.”

“Enough, Arab,” Llewelyn growled. “You seek only to slow my arrival in Mercia. My decision is made.”

“What is this?” Siorus said sharply, for he was standing by, watching Alex’s ministrations. “Why would he want to slow us down?”

Alex shook his head. “I would have preferred we not leave Mathrafel at all. Yet now we have, so the matter is closed.”

“Not leave at all?” Siorus repeated. “You mean, not fight?” Outrage tinged his voice.

“That is my meaning,” Alex said carefully.

“The learned physician is of the opinion that the Northmen of Dublin will rush to conquer us the minute I turn my back,” Llewelyn said. His voice was strained. He was tired and in pain and trying hard not to show any weaknesses to his men. “He would have me make peace with Aethelfreda and look to the west for invaders, instead.”

Siorus snorted. “They’re too busy fishing and praying to their endless parade of gods.”

“Not according to the good healer,” Llewelyn said dryly.

Siorus glared at him.

Alex sighed. “Not that it makes any difference now, but I believe two years of famine and disease will make them desperate enough to cross the straits once they know Llewelyn and his entire army are in Mercia.”

“Deheubarth stands between Powys and the coast,” Siorus pointed out. “They are strong allies.”

“Not strong enough,” Alex said. He didn’t expand on it. His attempt to change Llewelyn’s mind had failed, so he had nothing to lose now by speaking the truth. He also didn’t need to try and convince anyone, either.

He packed up his chest once more and made his way across the camp to where he had staked out his own small sleeping space. Atiya was cropping grass close by and the cart that carried his supplies had been left beside the fire for him. This would be a quiet night for him, a lull before the frantic work of dealing with war wounded.

Because he had spent years wandering the deserts with nomadic tribes, he knew how to take care of himself while travelling. In these green and lush valleys, he knew how to stay dry and comfortable while others suffered from cold and hunger. He was looking forward to some hours of solitude, to be alone with his thoughts.

Rafe was waiting by his camp fire, his arms folded, his head down as he kicked at the stones surrounding the firewood.

Alex’s heart gave a quick jump. “Rhys, your wound troubles you?” he asked when he drew closer. There were too many men sitting and lying within earshot to be able to speak freely.

“I was hoping you would come with me. There’s someone in need of your services.”

Alex put the chest back on the cart. “They cannot come to me?”

“No,” Rafe said flatly. “It’s…they’re not with the army.”

Alex looked at him. As the army physician, he should settle by his fire and dismiss Rafe. Yet this was an opportunity to talk to him, one that Rafe had not offered in three long days.

“What are the injuries?” Alex asked, opening the chest. “So I know what to pack,” he added.

“He…lost a hand.”

Alex hesitated. The most common reason someone lost a hand was thievery.

“Please, Alex,” Rafe said softly.

Alex nodded. He tossed supplies into the chest on top of the tools that stayed in there permanently and picked it up again. “Show me the way,” he said.

Rafe moved away from the camp, into the night and the sounds of an army at rest dwindled behind them. The night was cool yet not uncomfortably so. There was a breeze higher up, moving the trees to soft whispers and that would keep the mist away until later.

They walked in silence until the camp was far behind.

“Is there anyone at all that needs my attention?” Alex asked at last. It would be like Rafe to use an excuse to speak to him. His pride often stopped him from more direct action.

“There is,” Rafe said briefly.

“You were wandering far from the camp to find them way out here.”

“I was hunting,” Rafe said. “His blood drew me.”

Alex nodded. That made sense except for one thing. “You shouldn’t need to hunt at all,” he said. “Veris and Taylor are feeding you blood, keeping the fever at bay.”

“I needed the distraction,” Rafe said flatly.

Alex didn’t know what to say to that. They kept moving along the side of the valley they were in, as it curved to the north. He looked up at the stars wheeling overhead and found the familiar patterns and arrangements. These were the same stars he had studied in his youth, two hundred years in the future from this moment. They were the same stars he could find if he looked up at the night sky in Los Angeles, too. Their familiarity was comforting, in this strange world he found himself in.

“It is very quiet here,” he remarked. “No animals moving through the trees, no night birds.”

“The army has scared everything away,” Rafe said. “It will return to normal once we move on.” He pointed. “There it is.”

There was a pin prick of light ahead, that spoke of humans. The light grew brighter as they drew closer. It was jumping and flickering. A fire, then, not a lamp.

The cot that Rafe led him to was a round one, half buried in the earth, with growing grass for a roof and a hole in the center for smoke to escape. There were no horses or farm animals nearby and no storage for grain. It was the sort of hut that the poorest of the poor considered a luxury.

There was no door. A strip of heavy leather hung over the doorway. Rafe pushed it aside and they stepped down into the interior of the cot.

The aromas of animals and human sweat were masked by the smoke. The fire burning in the middle of the room was the only light. It sat on the earth floor, with nothing surrounding it. There was a flat stone pushed up among the embers and a small cooking pot sitting on the stone. This family was so poor they did not have a tripod or stand to hang the pot over the fire with.

As they entered, two children standing at the back of the cot turned to look at them, their eyes wide with fear. The older was a child of perhaps ten years of age. Alex could not guess the child’s gender. The younger was perhaps five years old, and dressed in the same sort of rough, stained tunic as the elder. They were both thin and dirty.

“Efa,” Rafe said. “How is he?”

The older child’s eyes seemed to grow even large. “He keeps talking. I don’t understand what he’s saying.”

The girl Efa was standing next to a sleeping shelf made of piled stones and dirt, lifting it a foot above the ground. There was someone lying on it, moving restlessly.

Alex stepped around the fire and over to the shelf. He looked at the two children staring up at him. Neither of them had moved out of the way. They were protecting the person lying on the shelf. “I am a physician,” he told them. “Let me see. I can help.”

“It’s all right, Efa,” Rafe said quietly. “Alexander can help. Let him see Bran.”

The younger child put their hand in Efa’s. Their eyes were the complete black of the pure Celt and they stared unblinkingly at Alex. Finally, Efa moved aside, pulling her sibling with her. Alex lowered himself to the ground, and looked at the patient.

It was another child. The lad was perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, spindly and long in the leg. He was writhing on the thin cloth he laid upon, his eyes closed. Sweat dotted his face and had soaked through his rough tunic.

He was cradling his left arm to his chest and where the hand should have been was a roughly bandaged stump. The rags of the bandage were dark with blood.

Alex steeled himself against the pity and horror rising in him. That would not help Bran right now.

Rafe came up beside him. “Bran and his brother and sister lost their parents over a year ago. Bran has been taking care of them since then. Five days ago, he heard there had been battle close by the dyke and he went to the battlefield to scavenge what he could find, to sell it for food. He was caught.”

“And they cut off his hand for it,” Alex muttered. He looked up at Rafe. “I will need water, boiled for as long as you can. Twenty minutes at least. I will do my best, From the smell and his temperature, I suspect an infection has set in.”

“Your best is far superior to every other man I know,” Rafe said, his voice low. He whirled and went to get the water.

It was the start of a long night. Alex had brought cleansing salves and the herbs that would help with infection. When he questioned Efa, he established that Bran’s fever had held for two days. “By morning, the fever should break,” Alex said quietly to Rafe as they worked together to clean the great wound and stretch and stitch flesh over the stump.

“And if it doesn’t?” Rafe murmured back.

Alex just looked at him.

Rafe sighed.

A short while later, he took the rough bow and three arrows sitting at the door and went hunting for meat. Efa had confessed that Bran’s last catch had been eaten early yesterday morning. Bran had managed to snare a rabbit, even in his weakened and injured state. Alex suspected that was why the infection had set in.

While he waited for the fever to subside, Alex helped Efa and Cefin clean out the cot, then made them curl up together on the other bed shelf. He dropped his cloak over the top of them and when he next turned to check on them, they were both sleeping soundly.

He went outside and explored. There was a blunt ax and some logs that had been poorly stored. He dug out the driest of them from the pile, sharpened the ax on a stone and split more wood and took it inside. Then he built up the fire so that good hot coals would be ready for whatever catch Rafe came back with.

Rafe returned not long before dawn. He carried a deer over his shoulders. “The marching army has driven everything away. I had to go a long way.” He dropped the carcass to the ground and used his belt to string it up from a tree. “Bran?” he asked as he stripped off his tunic and rolled up the sleeves of his undershirt. He started to skin the carcass.

“I’ll know very soon,” Alex said and went inside.

Bran’s fever had broken. He was cool to touch and was sleeping quietly. Alex inspected the new bandages once more. They were still clean and dry. So he woke Efa and explained to her how she should care for the wound until they could return. “It may be many days,” he added as she examined the pot of salve he was leaving behind. “I will come back to check on Bran and make sure the healing is progressing.”

“Will he be able to work?” she asked. Her face was grave.

Alex sighed. A ten year old in modern times would be more concerned about the latest designer jeans and Justin Beiber’s haircut. This child was completely focused on the survival equation. Would they be able to live if the eldest of them only had one hand?

“There are ways to get along with only one hand,” he told her. “He will work slower than he used to, but with your help and with Cefin’s help, he will be able to work.”

When Rafe brought in the meat, Efa turned to cooking it with a competent air.

“Salt as much of it as you can for later, too,” Rafe told her.

“There isn’t a lot of salt left,” she said.

“We’ll bring back more,” Rafe told her.

Alex left his cloak with them and he and Rafe walked back to the army camp, moving swiftly through the early dawn air.

“I know them,” Rafe said, breaking the silence.

“Clearly.”

“I mean, I knew them before.” He frowned. “Time jumping screws up language completely. I mean, I remember them from when I lived through this time. I met them shortly before the Viking raid and we all escaped into England together.”

“I see.” That explained the distress Rafe had been hiding when he had brought him here.

“They were my first family,” Rafe added quietly.

Alex stopped and looked at him.

Rafe shrugged, trying to make light of it.

“That is how you learned to like having a human family around you,” Alex said slowly. “You didn’t think it up for yourself. It happened accidentally.”

Rafe nodded. His gaze was steady. “Only, Bran never lost a hand, Alex.”

Alex started. “It’s happening differently this time…” he said slowly.

“You thought you hadn’t changed anything,” Rafe said. “So did I. Yet things are happening that I don’t remember.”

“We’re still marching to wage war on Chirbury,” Alex said. “If things are changing, it is only the smallest of changes and those changes are probably only because I am here and Sydney is here.”

Rafe sighed. “Do you want to explain to me why you think changing anything at all is a good idea?”

“Then you’re not angry, anymore?”

“I wasn’t angry to start with!” Rafe cried. “I was scared! I still am! You’re fucking with something you have no idea how to control. At least give me some reason, some excuse for interfering in this way.”

“Because I think I’m supposed to,” Alex told him.

Rafe stared at him, his eyes wide. “What?”

“I came through time with Marit’s help,” Alex said. “She pushed me across the timescape. I saw something while I was there. I saw…” He drew in a breath. “There were two time streams, Rafe. A big main artery and a little stream that branched off right here at this point in time. I don’t know how a stream just breaks off like that. When it does it creates…I think it creates an alternate history. I don’t understand the physics properly. Veris could probably give you chapter and verse on time and alternate universes and all the equations to go with it. I only know what I saw.”

“This…right now…we’re in an alternate history?” Rafe asked flatly. He sounded completely unconvinced.

“No, we’re at the point where the alternate history starts,” Alex said.

“Because you’re starting it!” Rafe shouted. “Gods, Alex, don’t you get it? You’re changing things. Deliberately. Of course time is going to shoot off in another direction. You’re driving it that way. You!”

Alex shook his head. “It was already there. I saw it.”

“Because time isn’t linear,” Rafe shot back. “Damn it, you know this better than I do. You’ve spent hours floating over the timescape with the linear restrictions gone. You’ve seen time in its raw state. If history branches off into an alternate stream it’s because you’re going to make it do it. That’s why it was there. You were seeing your own future.” He swore again. “There’s just not enough words to say it properly. You saw it because you created it and now you’re getting to do it, because you did do it.”

“No.” Alex shook his head. “It didn’t feel like that.”

“Fuck!” Rafe clenched his fists. “You’re going to kill us all because of some stupid belief!”

Alex stared at him. “Yes. That’s exactly what it is,” he said slowly. “I know what I know, Rafe. I believe it utterly. The branch, the alternate history, it was where we were before we jumped. Even before you and Sydney jumped. It wasn’t supposed to exist and it disappears, not too far ahead of the point where we are in normal time. I think that timeline ends because I’m supposed to change things. We change things. All three of us.”

Rafe stared at him. His chest was rising and falling rapidly. Anger and fear, a breathless mix of it. “You’re asking me to just…trust you?”

Alex sighed. “It’s called having faith.”

“I don’t believe in gods. Or your god, either.”

“Then believe in me.”

Rafe just looked at him. Alex heard the wind overhead, the only thing making any noise anywhere in the night.

After a long moment, Rafe turned and started walking again. “We’ll be late,” he muttered.

“They’ll wait. Llewelyn won’t travel without his army physician,” Alex said, as calmly as he could.

“This whole jump is turning into a free-for-all,” Rafe muttered. “A three ring circus on steroids. What the hell do I do now that things are changing on us?”

Alex grabbed his arm. “A circus!” he said.

Rafe glanced at his grip, then at him. “What of it?”

“A circus arena. Gladiators.” Alex shook his arm. “That’s it!”

Rafe rolled his eyes. “Gladiators died out a thousand years ago,” he pointed out.

“Then it’s time we reinstituted them,” Alex said firmly, picking up speed. “If we’re supposed to change history, then let’s really change it!”

Chapter Twelve

“So, instead of fighting outside the walls of the burh, we fight inside?” Llewelyn asked. He still sounded deeply puzzled. Then he winced as the cart bumped and rattled.

Alex coaxed Atiya into moving just a little bit closer to the cart as it progressed across the grassy plain. Offa’s Dyke was visible on the horizon. “You don’t fight at all, my lord. No one fights. Instead, the best fighters you have take part in arranged battles with the best fighters Aethelfreda can put forward, and everyone watches.”

“Watch the fighting?”

“Your fighters will be representing you and the strength of Powys. They fight for the honor of Powys and its King. Whoever wins the matches, the final victor, will decide how the matter is settled between you and Aethelfreda.”

Llewelyn considered it.

Siorus was walking his horse along the other side of the cart. “Do you know of the Roman arenas, then?” he asked sharply.

Llewelyn looked at him, startled. “Like the arena at Caerleon?”

“Yes, that is what made me think of this,” Alex said. “Except the Romans watched slaves fight each other for entertainment. You, though, want to measure the fighting strength of the Mercians and the army wants honor restored. A fight or a series of fights between the strongest warrior you can field and hers will let you have both. You can watch how Aethelfreda’s best fight.”

“It is an interesting notion,” Llewelyn said slowly. “I do not know how it will be received among the men, however. They’re ready to fight. We are marching already.”

“I could ride ahead,” Alex said. “I could reach Chirbury by sunset. I am an unarmed physician. They would let me speak to Aethelfreda and then I could propose settling the dispute this way.”

“You?” Llewelyn laughed. “I know the temper of my men, Alexander of Cordoba. They would rather slit their own throats than have someone beg for mercy on their account.” He was speaking loudly, for everyone around him to hear.

“It would not be begging,” Alex pointed out. He already knew he had lost the argument. Llewelyn on his own might have been persuaded, but he held power only via the good will of his army. He had to keep them placated and they wanted war.

As soon as the king dismissed him, Alex dropped back along the line until he drew level with Rafe and the household retinue who had been drafted to fight.

“The king did not agree,” Rafe guessed, looking at his face.

Alex shook his head.

“Perhaps it’s better that he did not,” Rafe said quietly.

“Physician!” The call came from ahead. Siorus, astride his big war stallion, was cantering toward them. As the line reached his position, Siorus turned the horse and settled alongside them. He let the reins drop. The horse kept pace without his direction.

“I would have words with you, Alexander,” Siorus said. He pointed to Rafe. “The scribe, too. He is working with you. Let’s move out.” He directed the stallion with his knees and it moved out of the line and took a path parallel with the marching army.

Alex glanced at Rafe, then nudged Atiya into following Siorus’ horse. Rafe came behind with his borrowed mare. Atiya snorted as he pulled up beside Siorus.

Siorus waited until Rafe was level with them. He turned to look at them, letting his stallion find its own way. “What exactly are you trying to do, the pair of you?”

“I don’t understand what you are asking,” Alex said truthfully.

“This campaign of yours for war games to decide a war. Your insistence upon defending Powys against an imaginary Viking invasion…. You are interfering with matters that are outside your realm of interest.”

“Peace is not one of my interests?” Alex asked politely.

“Don’t be a fool,” Siorus raged, his face suddenly red with anger. “You know exactly what it is I speak of.” He brought the tip of his heavy leather glove up to his mouth and touched the top of his lip, then slid it along to the other side. “You and I have no role in human affairs anymore.”

Rafe let out a heavy exhalation. “That is your secret. I knew you were hiding something. I’ve just never been close enough to you to see it for myself.”

“You gave yourself away with that miraculous recovery of yours,” Siorus said dryly. “You should have died decently and moved on.”

“It’s not the way I remembered it happening,” Rafe said.

“Rafe, shut up,” Alex said quickly. Siorus might be a vampire, but he was not a time traveler and didn’t know his own future.

Rafe shrugged. “According to you, it doesn’t matter what I say.”

Siorus was studying them both carefully. “My name is Cyrus,” he said slowly. “I was born in Greece in the third century before the Christian king was martyred. I was an apprentice to Plato.”

That made Cyrus one of the oldest vampires Alex had ever met. Even in this tenth century, he was as old as Veris and Brody were in their current lives. If he survived to the twenty-first century he would be venerable, indeed. “I’ve never heard of you,” Alex told him flatly.

“Just as I have never heard of Alexander of Cordoba, or a Muslim physician wandering the lands, healing as he goes…and now I suspect I know why,” Siorus replied. “Plato had some strange ideas about time. When he was very drunk, I could sometimes get him to speak of the things he only suspected might be true about the world. He said that time was all around us, like air, without body or thought. If humans could put aside their corporeal reality, then they could dip into time at will.” Siorus gave them a dry smile, while Alex worked to keep his expression neutral and not react in any way.

“Through the years I have heard rumors of a special sort of traveler. Only those of our kind speak of them, for these travelers come only from among our ranks. Travelers that go back into their pasts.”

Rafe didn’t react, either, although Alex could feel his tension. He was almost vibrating with it.

Siorus picked up the reins and directed his horse for a few steps. “You do not have to speak. Whether I have guessed right or not does not matter. What matters is that you both remember your place in this time. That place does not encompass influencing the affairs of men.” He took a firmer grip on his reins. “This will be my only warning.”

Alex glanced at Rafe as Siorus galloped back to the king’s side.

Rafe was frowning.

“Do you know Cyrus?” Alex asked softly.

Slowly, Rafe nodded. “He is on the Council. I have never met him, of course. He is one the most powerful of them.”

Then Cyrus did survive to the twenty-first century. “He speaks as if he is already on the Council,” Alex said, watching Siorus lean over and speak to the King. “So much for not influencing human affairs. He’s only the King’s right hand man.”

“Maybe he is already on the Council,” Rafe replied. “No one knows when it was formed. I certainly don’t.”

That was a startling idea.

“This must be the end of your scheming, of course,” Rafe added.

Alex thought of the still darkness at the end of the small time stream that he had seen on his way here. “Perhaps,” he said. Then, because it was Rafe and he could not lie to him, he added, “I’m not sure I can let it go that easily.”

Rafe sighed. “You’ll get us both killed,” he muttered, turning his horse to bring it back in line with the rest of the caravan.

“That might change things, too,” Alex replied. “I just don’t know if it would change things enough.”

Rafe swore under his breath. In English.

* * * * *

They camped that night four miles inside the Mercian border. It had taken most of the day for the army to file through the chink in the dyke and for the carts to negotiate the narrow plank bridge across the trench. The long minutes while the King’s cart was eased across were filled with tension, with guards on both sides of the dyke keeping an eagle eye out for approaching travelers.

No one had the energy to travel much farther after that. Chirbury was a good day’s march away.

Now they were in Mercia, guards were posted around the perimeter of the camp, which was kept tight and small. There was not the same degree of drinking and merriment there had been the previous night.

Because they had been picked out by Siorus and seen travelling together with him, Alex and Rafe were able to stay closer together than they had before. Yet Alex was still the camp physician and there were injuries from the crossing of the dyke, including a broken arm.

After everyone else had eaten their small evening meal of venison sliced straight off the haunch roasting over the fire, Alex set the broken arm. The man writhed in pain and setting it was complicated, made worse by the man’s screams. It took three others to hold him down firmly enough and by the time Alex was done, everyone around him was on edge and muttering. The sun had set while he worked. He got to his feet and pulled out his belt knife. “Keep him down and still,” he told the three. “I’ll need stout branches for a splint.”

He moved over to the nearest tree, only a few feet away. The land on this side of the dyke was the same rolling, verdant pastureland as was on the other, with only occasional clumps of trees and bushes. The camp had been struck next to a small glen of trees that could be used for wood for the fires. Alex worked by firelight, stripping branches to make his splints.

The man came out of the trees at a full run, his sword over his head and a battle cry on his lips. He wore an English helmet. Every single soldier in the camp jerked his head up to see where the threat was coming from, just as Alex did.

The man was coming for him. He was the closest. He was had no arms other than the little knife in his hands.

Alex was suddenly tired of it all. The fear, the worry, second-guessing himself, and the doubt of those around him, including Rafe. Siorus, this morning, had been the last straw. Now this. If he was to stay in the role of a meek physician, he should cringe and run away from the attacker.

Screw that.

The man launched himself at Alex with a berserker scream. Alex dropped his knife and the branch, stepped inside the man’s guard and grabbed the thick wrist. He wrenched it backward. The arm broke with a wet crunching sound and the scream turned into a howl of pain. The man let go of his sword, which dropped into Alex’s waiting hand. He gripped the hilt, stepped back and swung the sword flat and hard. It took the falling man’s head off with the ease of a knife going through soft butter.

The body fell forward onto its knees, then toppled and was still.

Alex straightened up and rested the sword point in the ground, looking at the headless body. The whole thing had taken perhaps three seconds.

Silence.

He looked up. The entire camp, every single man, was watching him. Most of them had their mouths open and their eyes were very large.

Someone started to laugh. It was a low sound to begin, a deep subterranean chuckle. Then it grew into a belly-shaking roar. Alex spotted who it was. The king was laughing. He was holding his belly, his head back, as he gave vent to his mirth.

Nervous smiles appeared here and there. Siorus scowled heavily, as he looked from Alex to the king.

Rafe hurried over to where Alex stood next to the body. “Are you crazy?” he demanded in a harsh whisper. “Doctors don’t fight!”

“This one does, apparently,” Alex said. “Besides, it’s done now.”

Rafe looked down at the head. The helmet had rolled off. Rafe stiffened. “That’s Gwil,” he said, his voice harsh.

“Gwil?” Alex said, barely curious about the man’s identity.

“He’s one of Siorus’ men!” Rafe whispered furiously. “He’s not English at all!”

They both looked over to where Siorus stood beside the king, who was finally getting control of his amusement. Siorus was watching them, the scowl still in place. As they looked, he lifted his forefinger and wiggled it.

Then he crouched down by the king and murmured in his ear.

“A first and last warning, and then action,” Alex murmured.

“He can’t kill you, not with a sword. He has to know that,” Rafe said.

“He wasn’t trying to kill me,” Alex said. “If everyone was to see me take a sword to the gullet, then I would have to ‘die’ and take myself off his chessboard. That’s all he needs.”

Rafe watched Siorus murmuring to the king. “If that’s not influencing human affairs, I don’t know what is,” he said, sounding pissed.

“It doesn’t look as though he’s getting very far,” Alex observed, for the king had lost all his humor and was scowling as hard as Siorus. As he looked, Llewelyn shook his head, his jaw set. “Whatever he’s saying, the king doesn’t like it.” He bent over and picked up the branch he had discarded.

“What are you doing?” Rafe asked curiously.

“I still have a broken arm to splint,” Alex said.

This time, when he crouched next to the man to splint his arm, the man stayed silent. So did the three men holding him down. They watched Alex with the wariness of prey.

Not long after that, Siorus came to him and said curtly that the king wanted his attendance.

Chapter Thirteen

Shortly after breakfast, the big gates were dragged closed with much shouting and effort by dozens of men. Only the man-sized door in the left-hand gate was left open for the last of the families who lived in the area to squeeze through. The Powys army had been spotted.

“They will be here by sunset,” Wulfstan said, reading the message strip the courier had brought from the spies watching Llewelyn’s progress.

Sentries and lookouts began to patrol the palisades, keeping a watch to the west as the sun climbed in the sky. When it was at its highest, a shout went up.

“Lone rider!”

“English?” Aethelfreda asked.

“No!”

Aethelfreda gave no reaction, except that her eyes narrowed, as if her thoughts were hurrying along. She had taken up a position at the top of the town square. There was a short section of flat road that ran past the church, straight to the gates. From the western edge of the square, Aethelfreda had a clear view to the gates and the guards standing in the towers.

Aethelfreda had adopted Sydney’s style of military dress. She’d asked her women to construct a gunna that was split at the front and the back just as Sydney’s was. She wore a mail shirt beneath and male leggings and long boots. There was a sword in her belt.

Alfwynn also wore a sword but had not had the courage to give up her kirtle. She had, though, looped a section of both the kirtle and the gunna and tucked them into her belt, so that her man-style boots were visible beneath and to give her freedom of movement.

The three of them stood together at the top of the square and waited while reports came from the gatehouse. As the day lengthened, slaves bought wine and cakes.

And now this, a lone man who was not English.

“A messenger from Llewelyn, perhaps,” Wulfstan muttered. “Offering terms.” His mouth turned down.

“Is he armed?” Aethelfreda asked.

Wulfstan shouted to the guards at the gate and the answer came back. “No weapons, no shield, no helmet.”

There was more calling from the guards, although this time they were facing to the outside of the fence. They were talking to the messenger and Sydney could hear the man shouting back. The words were indistinguishable.

A soldier came running down the road to the square. He stopped in front of Aethelfreda, breathing hard. “The man is from Llewelyn. He wishes to speak to you on behalf of the king of Powys. He says he is here to negotiate a peace.”

“That is a delicate way of offering terms,” Wulfstan said dryly.

“Perhaps,” Aethelfreda said. “Search him for weapons, then let him in.”

The soldier ran back again, his sword clinking softly.

The man-sized gate was opened and a dozen armed soldiers slipped through. Then, after a few minutes, three of them moved back inside. Among them was a tall man with dark hair and a trimmed beard, wearing a long green tunic and no cloak.

He looked along the length of the road toward them.

It was Alex.

Sydney’s heart fluttered and she pressed her fingers to her chest, trying to stop herself from gasping or otherwise reacting. Her mind buzzed with incoherent thoughts, the strongest of them a bewildered puzzlement. How was Alex here? It simply wasn’t possible…

Marit. The thought came to her almost as if someone else had spoken Marit’s name aloud. Along with it came certainty. Marit had done this somehow. Marit and Alex’s serum that let him see time itself.

He had seen her now and his gaze fixed on her as he walked toward the Lady and her assembled household.

Sydney began to tremble. Relief circled through her. If Alex had been with Llewelyn, then he would have seen Rafe. The two of them would have been able to work together and this was the result.

Then her relief faded. How could he be here to negotiate peace? Peace had never been achieved. Both Powys and the Mercians had been trampled under by the Vikings as they swept across the land, their differences unresolved.

What was Alex doing here, then?

At the last minute, he pulled his gaze away from her. He stopped in front of Aethelfreda. He stood nearly a foot higher than the Lady. He bowed low. “Lady Aethelfreda of Mercia, I am Alexander of Cordoba, a physician to the King of Powys. I am here by command of the King. He has a request to make of you.”

“Terms of surrender, I suppose?” Aethelfreda replied.

“Not at all,” Alex replied, with a small smile. “Our two armies have had the measure of each other in the last few days. The king feels it would be interesting to see your greatest strength arrayed against his, in a match of combat, to determine who is the strongest—Mercia or Powys.”

“A match?” Wulfstan repeated, puzzled.

“A contest, between your champion and ours,” Alex explained. “Witnessed by everyone to ensure the proceedings are fair. The winning champion will determine who has the stronger army and therefore wins the day.”

“What a remarkable idea,” Aethelfreda murmured. “A battle between two people instead of two armies.”

“The winner dictates terms?” Wulfstan asked curiously.

“Indeed. Terms are to be settled before the outcome is decided,” Alex said.

There was a distant shout, that jerked Sydney’s attention away from Alex and the lady. There had been a note of alarm in the shout.

There was a man standing on the roof of one of the houses that sat at the very edge of the town, up against the levies and the palisades. He lifted his arms up to his chest as Sydney looked and fright tore through her. “Crossbow!” she screamed.

Alex was closer to Aethelfreda than Sydney was. He didn’t hesitate. He threw himself forward, bringing the Lady down with him.

Sydney flung herself at Alfwynn, who wore a puzzled frown as she searched for the source of the alarm. Sydney caught her across the waist as a high pitched whizzing sounded in her ear.

Alfwynn grunted as Sydney brought her down to the ground. Sydney landed heavily, Alfwynn even more so, for she landed on her back. More whispers of air sounded and Sydney looked up as a thick crossbow bolt shot past her face. The bolt buried itself deeply inside a water barrel, that gushed liquid around it.

Sydney looked down at Alfwynn. She was clutching at a bolt that was buried in her shoulder, as blood seeped into her cloak and dress.

“Oh God,” Sydney whispered.

People were shouting all around them, Wulfstan the loudest of them. “Get him off her. Guards, put him in irons! Move it!”

Sydney rolled over. Alex was getting to his knees, his hand under Aethelfreda’s head. He had managed to stop her from landing as heavily as Alfwynn had. “Are you hurt, Lady?” he asked Aethelfreda.

Then the guards grabbed him by the arms and hauled him to his feet and wrenched his arms behind him.

“No, Wulfstan. He was helping!” Sydney cried.

“He brought men with him to attack while we had our guard down,” Wulfstan said, as he helped Aethelfreda back onto her feet.

“I did not,” Alex said calmly. He was not struggling in the grip of the soldiers. “Your daughter is hurt, Lady Aethelfreda. I have medical supplies on my horse, outside the gates. Let me help her.”

Aethelfreda had dropped to her knees again, next to Alfwynn. Her chin was trembling.

“My Lady,” Sydney said softly, to catch her attention. “The man is a physician. He can help Alfwynn.”

“We have our own physicians,” Wulfstan said, his voice hoarse.

One of Wulfstan’s captains came running up, his sword out and tinged with red. “We got him, my lord. There was just the one.”

“I guarantee the man is a lieutenant acting on orders that Llewelyn has no idea have been given, my lady,” Alex said, his tone urgent. “There is opposition in the King’s camp. Many would prefer to slaughter you all and be done with it, while Llewelyn is holding out a peaceful solution because he is a reasonable man, who would rather see honor restored without bloodshed. Take the offer, my Lady. Let me help your daughter.”

“Help her first,” Aethelfreda told him. She wiped absently at her eyes, which were damp with tears. “If she dies, so do you and all who stand with your king. If she lives, I will accept the offer.”

Alex nodded and the guards let him go. He bent forward and scooped up Alfwynn in his arms. “Where is a table I can work upon?” he demanded.

“This way,” Wulfstan said.

“Someone get his tools,” Aethelfreda called.

Sydney turned toward the gate. Aethelfreda caught her arm. “Go with them,” she said, nodding toward Alex as he hurried after Wulfstan, Alfwynn in his arms. “If my daughter dies, I order you to kill him.”

Chapter Fourteen

Taylor climbed the stairs and pushed open the door to the big bedroom. The lamps on either side of the bed were on, shedding soft light over the three still bodies on the bed.

Veris looked up from the tablet he was reading and put it aside.

“How is Alex doing?” Taylor asked.

“After that first rough patch, he’s now as comatose as the other two. I have no way to confirm it, but I believe he’s gone back and joined them.”

Taylor raised her brows. “That’s going to require some thinking about. He’s jumped back to a time he doesn’t know, that isn’t part of his personal history, without a jumper like me to take him there.”

“Oh, I think he had a jumper to take him there,” Veris said, his tone very dry.

“Marit, again?” She sighed. “I tried to ask her about it when I put her to bed. She has your stubbornness. She closed up on me.”

“Marit thinks she is protecting Alex by not telling us what she knows. She may be right.” Veris pushed a hand through his hair and scratched at the back of his head. “There is too much about this that I can’t put together. There’s too much I don’t know.”

“So we must wait for them to come back and tell us,” Taylor said reasonably.

Veris caught her waist and pulled her to him. She settled on his knee willingly, and arched as his hand slid up her thigh under the skirt and cupped her ass. His fingers stroked lightly, stirring her senses.

“Here?” she asked, glancing at the three on the bed.

“Can you think of a better idea to pass the time?” he asked, as he lifted her and spread her legs over his.

Taylor couldn’t really think at all, especially when he flipped her top up and drew her nipple into his mouth. She fumbled with his trousers and drew the zipper down. His cock sprang upward, thick and ready. He lifted her and impaled her on it, with a deep groan.

All her questions about the three on the bed and what they were doing in the past were forgotten…for a while, anyway.

* * * * *

Sydney followed the small trail of people into the big house, where one of the long tables was used as a surgical bed. Alfwynn was placed on the table and Alex immediately bent over her to look at the thick, short crossbow bolt that was protruding from her shoulder. There was a lot of blood spreading across her dress and she moaned and shifted on the table, her pain clearly increasing.

Sydney pulled out her sword and took up her post by the door. She rested the sword point down. She had no intention of killing Alex as ordered, although she had to make it look as though she would if he failed. There were too many people in the room. If she didn’t keep up the pretense, it would be noticed.

Only, she could not remember if Alfwynn was supposed to die right now, or not. Nothing of her quick reading had mentioned Aethelfreda’s daughter. What if Alex was supposed to let her die?

A thousand questions were batting at her mind once more. There was too little she knew for certain.

Alex looked around the room, taking everything in with a single sweep of his gaze. He looked directly at her. “You. Give me your mantle. I need cloth.”

Sydney hesitated. She’d had to work hard to earn the garments she was wearing. It was only a momentary hesitation. She rested the hilt of the sword against her stomach and wound the long ends of the mantle from about her shoulders and took it over to Alex and held it out.

“Why are you carrying your sword like that?” he asked her curiously.

“I’m here to see you do your job,” she told him. She glanced at Alfwynn on the table. “If she dies, so do you.”

Wulfstan smiled. “Sunngifu is the Lady’s personal guard. You’d best be warned.”

Alex wadded the mantle in his hands, studying her. Then, unexpectedly, he smiled. “I believe I would find the promise of a kiss a better inducement.”

Wulfstan’s smile broadened and one of the soldiers standing by the door guffawed quietly.

Sydney cast about for a response, surprise stealing every sharp retort she could think of. Was Alex playing a role, still? Or was this Alex as she knew him? What was he doing?

He had already turned back to bend over Alfwynn. He pressed the folded mantle against her shoulder, right next to the bolt. With his other hand he gripped the shaft of the bolt.

“Hold her still,” he ordered to no one in particular. Wulfstan pushed the bench on the other side of the table out of the way and pressed down on Alfwynn’s other shoulder.

Alex looked at Sydney. “You hold her feet. I don’t want her kicking out and shifting the bolt as I pull it.”

Sydney swallowed. No, she didn’t want that either. Alfwynn had become a friend over the last few days. Only what was supposed to happen? Her lack of knowledge about how this moment in history was supposed to go was building her fear. What if they got it wrong? Alex wouldn’t know this time and place any better than Sydney did.

She put her sword back in her belt, then took hold of Alfwynn’s ankles and held her steady and nodded.

Alex glanced at Alfwynn. “This will hurt,” he warned her. He began to pull on the shaft, with steady pressure that made his fingers whiten and his jaw clench. Nothing seemed to happen, except that Alfwynn began to writhe—or try to. Between the three of them, they kept her rocking to a minimum, yet they could do nothing about her groans and soft cries.

Then the flesh around the bolt gave out a peculiar sucking sound and the bolt moved. Alex took a fresh grip on it and pulled again. This time, the bolt slowly withdrew, the sharp and smooth head emerging wet and dark with blood.

Immediately, Alex pressed the padded mantle over the wound and held it down. It looked like he was putting a lot of weight on his hands, too. “Where is my chest?” he demanded, again speaking to no one in particular.

“On its way,” Wulfstan said quietly.

Alex looked down at Alfwynn. “She has passed out. Good. That will make this easier. By chance, is there any boiled water to be had?”

“Boiled water? There is fresh spring water,” Wulfstan said.

“That will have to do. A bowl of it and more clean cloth.”

Wulfstan jerked his chin at the soldier standing guard at the door and he hurried away.

The door was pushed open once more and a soldier came in carrying a small chest that looked heavy.

“Put it here,” Alex said shortly, pointing to the table next to Alfwynn’s hip.

Sydney moved around the table to stand by Alfwynn’s head. “Can I help?” she asked softly. “I’ve had a little experience with wounds.”

Which was not exactly true. She had only watched Veris and Alex patching wounds and stitching deeper ones. She did understand modern medicine, though, including the importance of sterility, which were concepts far beyond Wulfstan’s comprehension.

“Yes, press down here,” Alex told her, taking her hand and placing it under his. “It will help stop the bleeding.”

She glanced around the room. There were still two soldiers, sitting at the other end of the room beyond the second fire pit. Their swords were laying on the tabletop, as if they intended to pick them up at any second. It was not safe to speak freely yet.

Alex delved into the chest, removing little clay pots with rag stoppers and placing them on the table. He withdrew a roll of cloth and unwound it. Woven into the threads of the cloth were a number of needles, each with a length of thread wound around them.

They weren’t surgical sutures, although they did the same thing.

“Will she live?” Sydney asked quietly.

“Of course,” he said, keeping his voice down. He tore Alfwynn’s dress open, and folded the flap down over her breast to maintain her modesty. The rest of the dress he pulled away from her shoulder to expose the wound. “If one must be shot with a bolt, the shoulder is the best place to take it, especially just under the collarbone like this. No major organs and lots of meat to absorb the injury.”

He wiped at the big hole in Alfwynn’s shoulder, that seeped blood as he touched it.

Sydney shuddered.

Alex smiled. His eyes danced with amusement. “I believe you might have to forego your vow to kill me once this is over.” Then he bent to his work once more, the needle in his hand.

Sydney looked away. Wounds and injuries were something she had come across often in her work as a policewoman, although she had never been comfortable with watching the repair of them.

If Alfwynn lived, then these games that Alex had proposed would go ahead. Sydney had no doubt that Aethelfreda would keep her word. She had been intrigued by the idea.

That meant that soon, the Powys army would be camped outside the gates. She would get to see Rafe once more. Things were coming together. Soon, they might be able to jump back home.

It was a happy thought that she kept in the forefront of her mind as Alex worked.

Soon.

* * * * *

Once Alfwynn was carried to Aethelfreda’s own bed and made comfortable by the women, Alex wrote a message on a strip of parchment and a messenger was sent for. Alex gave him the sealed roll. “This must be given into the hands of the King’s scribe, Rhys,” he told him, “and only the scribe.”

The messenger nodded and took the scroll and hurried away, as Wulfstan poured a cup of wine and held it out to Alex.

“No, thank you,” Alex said. “I must clear my things from the table before the evening meal.” He began to pack the tools and medicines away.

“If you are concerned about whose hands your message falls into, then what you say about division among Llewelyn’s captains must be true,” Wulfstan observed. He drank the wine himself.

“I have no reason to lie,” Alex pointed out.

“Powys fighters are a passionate breed,” Wulfstan said. “Do you really believe that a simple contest will be enough to assuage their wounded feelings?”

“I have seen such contests work to vent the ill feelings of an entire city,” Alex said.

“You are a man of peace. Where would you have seen such things?”

“In the east, which is where I also learned their advanced medicine.”

“Aethelfreda will be grateful for that knowledge,” Wulfstan replied. “A room will be found for you and your tools, where you can wait until the messenger returns. Although I warn you that the townspeople will have heard by now of your medical skills. You will have a steady stream of customers while you wait.”

“I am accustomed to that,” Alex said and picked up his chest.

Wulfstan beckoned the soldiers at the far end of the room with his hand and gave them instructions to take Alex to a house somewhere in the burh. The soldiers were all well-armed and Alex knew they would stay outside the house while he was in it. The Lady of Mercia might be grateful for his services, but she was also cautious.

The house was one of the smaller ones sited near the big house on the town square. It was empty of all furnishings, except for a pad upon the sleeping shelf and a stool in the corner.

He put his chest on the stool and looked out the open window. The guards were outside, as he expected.

* * * * *

Sydney paid her single coin to one of the soldiers idly around the entrance to the big house and he told her which house the physician had been taken to.

She was not the first to arrive there, even though she had only delayed long enough to remove her mail jerkin and other additional layers before looking for him. As she arrived at the house, a woman with a lined face and simple dress stepped out of the house with one of Alex’s little pots in her hand.

The three men guarding the door to the house straightened up as she approached.

“I believe the physician is here?” she asked. She touched her arm, where the giant from Powys had sliced it. “I would have him look at this.”

One of them nodded and stood aside.

She tapped on the door then pushed it open and stepped inside.

The single-room house was empty of almost everything except a stool in one corner, upon which sat Alex’s medical chest. The doors of the sleeping shelf were open, and the straw mattress had been pulled aside. A handful of the pots of salve were sitting on the edge of the shelf at one end.

Alex looked up as she shut the door. His face shifted, as a dozen different expressions seemed to cross it. Then he crossed the room swiftly. Too swiftly.

“My arm—” she began. His lips halted the rest of her sentence. Alex pulled her around and pressed her up against the wall, kissing her. His weight was against her, holding her still, as his mouth ravaged hers. His hands roamed everywhere, almost as if he was exploring every inch of her to ensure she really was there.

“Alex,” she breathed when his mouth lifted briefly from hers.

“Shh…” he warned, his voice bodiless. He kissed her again then breathed into her ear. “These walls are far too thin.” He trailed his lips down her throat and paused over her pulse. He licked her flesh and she shuddered.

She had missed him. Both of them. Not just because she had spent the last six years living with them and loved them both, but because she had also missed their near-constant attention. When she was at home, an hour rarely went by when either Rafe or Alex did not pull her up against them and kiss her thoroughly. Sometimes it was a simple caress as she passed by.

Any one of those caresses or kisses could turn into a heated moment where they would ease her clothing aside and their mouths and hands would stroke her flesh until she was shuddering just as she was now. Sometimes they would bring her to orgasm right there, wherever they happened to have come upon her.

On other occasions and depending on where they were in the house, she would be bent over or laid down or even pressed up against a wall as she was now, and fucked until she came. Often, what one of them started, the other would help end. The sounds and scents of her arousal would draw the other like a fly to honey. And sometimes the two of them would seek her out together and would seduce her into a quivering mess.

She had missed those daily attentions. She had missed the unbelievably good sex she had grown used to. Now Alex was kissing her again, with the same heated intention driving his mouth and his hands.

Her body leapt to readiness in the space of a few heartbeats. Her channel grew slick and her nipples taut. She could barely breathe around the aching need that was squeezing her chest.

Alex didn’t linger. Nor did he spare her. The only item of clothing he removed was her gunna, with the excess folds and length and no openings. It would be too dangerous to remove more. There were guards just outside the door who might step inside at any moment and anyone might come for medical assistance.

He paused as he dropped the wool garment to the floor at his feet and swayed back to look at her length. She wore the leather leggings and the undershirt, which was thin enough to outline her breasts and hard nipples as thoroughly as a wet tee shirt. All the other layers she had removed.

That left her pussy bare to his gaze.

He gave her a heated look. He didn’t speak.

Outside, one of the guards coughed. Another stirred and murmured something. The sounds were clear, as if the guards were standing right next to them. It was a warning that any sounds they made would be just as clear and loud.

Alex stroked her breast through the fabric of the shirt. The linen was so fine that she could feel almost every stroke and the fibers transmitted the stroking to her nipple, making it tingle.

Then he bent and sucked her nipple into his mouth, right through the linen. He teased and nipped at it and Sydney let her head roll back against the wall as the delightful sensations he was creating speared straight down to her clit, making it bloom and throb.

She grabbed his other hand and pushed it between her thighs. He cupped her pussy, stroking her lightly. Teasing.

Sydney began to shake with the intensity of her need. She desperately wanted to be fucked as hard as possible, as quickly as possible and as thoroughly as possible. She knew how well Alex could do that and it had been too long since he had.

He gripped her waist and lifted her and she sighed. He was going to take her right here.

Instead, he moved across the floor, carrying her. She clung to him, her puzzlement distant and faded under the onslaught of excitement. He had something planned. He always had plans for how he would bring her to the most powerful orgasms she had ever experienced. It was his personal delight to leave her mindless and weak.

He rested her ass upon the edge of the sleeping shelf, which almost at the perfect height for what he must have in mind. He shoved the linen shirt up, baring her breasts, and took the other one in his mouth.

Sydney leaned back, her arms barely holding her up, as Alex’s hair brushed across her chest as he worked at teasing the tip of her breast. Then his lips moved down, across her stomach, making the muscles quiver and her belly clamp with anticipation.

He pushed her legs aside almost impatiently. His mouth closed over her mound and his tongue pushed inside the folds, finding her clit and probing with strokes that were both soft and firm.

Sydney swallowed the moan that formed, gritting her teeth against any more sounds. She started to shake as her climax built. Watching his head move between her thighs, and his lips against her was an erotic goad that enhanced what his tongue was doing.

Then his fingers pushed inside her, deep and hard and Sydney’s climax leapt and took her, with a storm of hot, rushing waves of pleasure. She shuddered through it, barely holding in any sound. She could feel her muscles gripping around his fingers and squeezing.

As the last of the waves of the orgasm passed, Alex straightened, lifted the hem of his tunic and pushed up against her. His cock slid into her with no resistance at all and she drew in a trembling lungful of air, breathing through the shock and pleasure of having him inside her.

Alex thrust into her again. Because she was anchored on the edge of the platform instead of a soft, forgiving mattress, he could reach deeper inside her and thrust faster and harder.

He watched her as he moved, the tendons in his neck straining with the effort of his strokes. Sydney tried to keep her gaze locked on his, while the haziness of her rebuilding climax made her vision swim. She closed her eyes and let the sensations enfold her. His cock was heated, thick and hard, separating her pussy walls and stroking them. His pelvis was pressing against her mound, kissing her clit with each thrust.

He lifted her knees and held them up, changing the angle of his cock inside her, deepening his reach. She moaned again, letting it out as a soft exhalation.

The rate of his thrusting increased and the strokes shortened. The tiny crease between his brows formed, that always told her when Alex was losing the fine control he usually exercised, that his climax was taking him.

He slammed into her one last time and grew still. She could feel his cock jerking as he came. His jaw was iron hard, as he fought not to groan.

Then he relaxed and let her knees go and leaned against her, his head touching hers. He cupped her face and kissed her softly. He was breathing hard.

Sydney held him against her and heard and felt the sound of his heart beating. This was the moment when she really understood his love for her and Rafe. This moment, when he felt the most human and the most vulnerable. That was why he sought to repeat it so often.

Then, gently, he untangled himself from her legs and her body. He picked up the gunna where he had dropped it and held it out to her.

“Let me see your arm before you put it back on,” he said softly.

Surprised, she pushed the sleeve of the undershirt up her arm and turned her shoulder so that he could see the neat bandage about her arm. He untied it and turned her arm this way and that, looking at the wound. It was barely a wound anymore. The raw edges had scabbed over and the scab itself looked thin and flaky.

“Veris’ stitches are usually far less neat that this. I must have intimidated him,” Alex murmured, still almost whispering.

“There are stitches?”

“You can’t see them now, but they are holding the edges together. You’re also being pumped full of antibiotics. You’re healing well.”

She looked down at the wound curiously. It was the first time she had closely examined it. “You’re right. It hasn’t bothered me since the first night it happened. I don’t even feel it anymore.”

He touched the gunna. “Put this back on. Someone might come in at any moment.”

He helped her stand back on the floor and put the woolen garment back on. It dropped down around her calves, hiding the lack of layers beneath. He pushed his hand between the split front and she felt his fingers rest against the bare flesh of her upper thigh. He smiled. “I will remember this.”

“And now?” she asked, trying to speak as quietly as him.

“Now we go about the lives we have inherited here and await the outcome of the games.” he said. “Edward must live.”

Startled, she let him lead her to the door and open it for her with a courtly bow. He spoke more loudly about leaving off the bandage and letting her wound heal with natural air around it, as the guards looked over their shoulders. There were five people standing waiting before the guards and they all looked around hopefully as the door opened.

The first patient moved toward the door before Sydney could get clear of it, forcing her to step around him. She gave Alex a stiff smile as he welcomed the man inside. The lives they had inherited were demanding their attention once more.

All the way back to the big house, Sydney puzzled over Alex’s statement.

Edward must live.

Edward was the high king of England, she recalled from the hasty reading she had done before the jump. That was one fact the history books had been clear about. They had also been very clear about the fact that the Vikings slaughtered him and his army down to the very last man, before pulling back behind Offa’s Dyke and declaring all lands to the west of the dyke to the sea as their own and naming it Gronoya. The Green Isle.

Edward was to die, not too many days from now. So why had Alex said he must live? He knew far better than she that messing with time had consequences no one could anticipate. Horrible, life changing consequences.

She must have misunderstood him.

Chapter Fifteen

Brody pushed the iPad away from him with a frustrated sigh. There was nothing in the history sources he could find online that shed any light at all on why Alex had forced himself back in time.

Edward must live and peace must be found. The direction buried in the manuscript was clear enough. Except that every historical source surrounding the events in the tenth century said that Edward had died at the hands of the Vikings. They had butchered Edward’s sister, Aethelfreda, then come after the king himself because he was the last and strongest opposition to Viking invasion and settlement, which was what they had really wanted. Land to live upon.

Once Edward was dead, they had claimed the western half of England for themselves. Gronoya was an indisputable fact. He only had to look at the news for confirmation.

Edward must live.

Fleetingly, he wondered if Alex had gone back there to…would he dare? Change history? No, the outcome of a change like that could be deadly. Alex wouldn’t be that stupid, not after years of listening to him and Veris and Taylor talk about the near disasters they had caused simply by jumping back in the first place. To deliberately change things would create ripples—no, waves of change. Tsunamis of destruction.

Brody wrinkled his nose. Was he imagining that acrid smell?

He looked around. There was no sound, nothing moving. Still, the hairs on the back of his neck raised almost painfully.

He got to his feet. It was nearly three in the morning. Veris was upstairs, monitoring the sleeping three. Taylor had taken Marit and the twins back home to sleep hours ago. The wood paneled rooms of the house were silent and still.

And yet….

Cautiously, he moved out into the big hallway and looked up the stairs toward the bedroom door. It was closed. Nothing moved up there, either.

Then a soft whoomp sounded, accompanied by the tinkle of breaking glass. The sounds were muffled by the bedroom door.

Brody moved up the stairs at maximum speed, his heart jumping all by itself. He thrust open the bedroom door and staggered back as the heat and flames leapt out at him.

“Shut the door!” Veris shouted. “You’re feeding the fire!”

Brody spotted him in the far corner of the room, beating at flames that licked along the edge of the bed, perilously close to Sydney’s still form. The flames were all around Veris, climbing up the wall with ferocious and fear-inducing speed.

There was another smash of glass behind Brody and he heard the same flat woofing sound. An orange glow leapt up from the dining room doorway and flames ran out into the hallway, zooming across the carpet as if they were sprinting.

His retreat was cut off.

Calmly, he stepped into the bedroom and shut the door. The flames in here were crackling upward toward the ceiling. Even the paneling in the ceiling was engulfed in blue tongues of fire.

Veris was working like a machine, the blanket in his hands smacking down on the flames as they tried to claw at him.

“It’s too late!” Brody shouted.

Veris glanced at him. He shook his head and kept beating.

“It’s all around you!”

The fire was roaring, a hungry beast. Fire was one of the few things that could kill a vampire, if it was intense enough. Whoever had done this had known that. The accelerant was making the fire burn with almost white flames.

Brody clamped down on the fear rising in his chest. If he crossed the bed itself, it would be the shorter path. There was no direct route to reach Veris that didn’t take him through a wall of flames.

Veris was relentlessly working to subdue the fire around the sleeping forms. He wasn’t giving up. Of course he wouldn’t give up. The thought made Brody’s fear leap as high as the flames.

Overhead, the blue-burning flames flickered. Timbers groaned.

Time was running out.

That pushed him into action. He moved at full speed, giving it everything he had to push himself through the flames. He jumped over the bed in two large strides.

Veris looked up. His eyes were glazed with concentration. He was focused on saving the three on the bed. Either he had not recognized the danger he was in himself, or he refused to acknowledge it.

Brody slammed into him. At that speed, even his slightly lighter weight was enough to jolt Veris off his feet. Brody wrapped his arms around the bigger man and kept moving, driving them both forward.

Veris’ back hit the big window first, breaking the glass. They kept going, falling forward and down to the ground twenty-four feet below.

* * * * *

Brody came to with the scent of grass in his nose and the roar of a massive fire nearby. As he blinked, pulling his wits together, strong hands caught his shoulder and his knee and he was rolled onto his back.

He groaned. His back stung.

“You’re still burning,” Veris said. He slapped at Brody’s legs.

Amid the crackling of the flames above them, something heavy collapsed. The rest of the house shuddered and groaned at the stress. Far off, sirens sounded. There were shouts from closer by. The nearest neighbors were three hundred yards away and safe from the flames soaring dozens of feet into the night.

The heat of the fire was terrific, drying Brody’s skin. He sat up slowly and Veris helped him.

“Are you all right?” Brody asked him, running his gaze over him.

Veris settled heavily on the grass next to him and looked up at the house. “No, I’m not all right,” he said softly.

Brody dug in his back pocket and pulled out his phone. The screen was starred and cracked. He couldn’t get it to boot up at all. “Dead,” he said flatly and tossed it. “Phone Taylor, Veris. They could go after her next.”

“This wasn’t meant for us,” Veris said. “Not directly.” He pulled his phone out of the pocket of his shirt anyway and thumbed the speed dial.

Brody stared up at the two big windows where the bedroom had been. He felt ill. Nothing could survive that.

“Are you safe?” Veris said flatly into the phone, cutting right to the chase.

Brody heard Taylor’s voice, high with alarm, as she questioned him.

“Someone just firebombed the house,” Veris replied.

Another question. Brody knew what it was without hearing it.

“I’m fine,” he said, leaning toward the phone and speaking into it.

Taylor spoke again and Veris’ shoulders fell. “No, they’re not okay at all,” he said softly. “Don’t come near here, Taylor. Until we know what happened, I want you as far away from this as possible. Guard the kids until we get there. I love you.”

He dropped the phone to the grass between them and watched the flames leaping and pirouetting in fat troupes. The whole house was ablaze now. The fire department would be too late to do anything other than pick through the remains.

Brody closed his eyes.

Veris rested his hand on the back of his neck. “Are you recovered?” he asked gently.

Brody sighed. “Physically, sure,” he said dryly.

“I want to look around quickly before the police and fire department get here,” Veris said. “You and I will be able to spot anything that tells us who did this, while the police may not recognize it…and probably shouldn’t see it, either.”

Brody nodded and got to his feet. They split up, each circling around the burning house. Brody found it first, sitting in the mailbox at the front of the sweeping driveway. He tucked it into his jeans pocket and caught up with Veris at the back of the house.

He showed him the stiff cream-colored card. It was blank and there was a symbol embossed into the stock itself.

Veris ran his finger over the outlines.

“I don’t recognize it,” Brody said. The sirens were very close now. “We should get out of here.” It would be better to avoid any bureaucratic entanglements. There would be enough hysteria over the three bodies they would find, along with evidence of medical equipment and IV poles…. His gut tightened. “This is a mess,” he breathed as he realized how the media and the authorities would react.

“It’s a fucking disaster,” Veris said flatly. He lifted the card. “I know this symbol. It’s what the Council use as a calling card when they act directly to ‘correct’ a situation they don’t like.”

“The Council? They just tried to take us out? Why?”

“I can guess.” Veris glanced around. They were standing on the long lawn at the back of the house. From the sides the flashing lights of the fire engines were showing, lighting up the shrubbery and bushes. “Let’s get out of here and go somewhere we can think.”

They ran for Brody’s car, which was parked on the hardstand at the back of the house. There was a private lane from there onto the street on the other side of the block. Brody got the car onto Santa Monica Boulevard before he spoke.

“Alex and Rafe and Sydney…they’re still in the past. What happens if they try to jump back now?”

“They’ll jump back to their deaths,” Veris said. He was staring out the window, watching the headlights of other cars pass them. His voice was remote. “That’s why the Council did this. Somehow, they’ve learned that the three of them were time jumping and for a reason I can’t figure, this time they felt threatened by it.”

Brody almost jumped. “I was looking at the manuscript just before the fire broke out and wondering if Alex really had gone back to do what the manuscript said he should do. If he has, then he will be changing the past. I don’t imagine the Council would like that very much.”

“No one would.” Veris shifted in the seat to look at him directly. “Something scared them into trying to root out the problem at the source.”

Brody sighed. “So now what? We have to let the three of them die for the sake of preserving history?”

Veris shook his head. “The Council has moved openly against us. Gloves are off, Brody. It’s time we indulged in a little creative history changing of our own.”

Chapter Sixteen

Sydney came to wakefulness at the first creak of the door. It was wedged shut as locks had yet to be invented, yet someone was pushing it steadily and slowly open. That took strength few men had.

She pulled the knife out from under her pillow, slid to the floor and padded over to where the door was easing open. Moonlight and deep nighttime chill swept through the door.

Silently, she kicked the wedge out and opened the door.

Alex straightened up and looked around and over his shoulders, checking for observers. Then he beckoned with his finger. In the moonlight, with his white tunic, he seemed to glow.

Sydney held up her finger, then moved back to the sleeping shelf and slipped on her boots. She was wearing the kirtle that Alfwynn had given her. It made a suitable bed gown when she was sleeping in a room without a lock and without a guard. She wound her belt over the top of it and thrust her knife into it. She took the heavy cloak off the peg and wrapped it around her. The gunna was too heavy and cumbersome for sneaking through the night.

She left her hair unbound and didn’t bother with a veil that would flutter and draw the eye.

Alex shut the door behind her as she stepped out, then took her hand. He moved through the houses silently, hugging the shadows provided by the moon. He had quickly learned the layout of Chirbury, for he led her almost directly through to the terraced palisades.

The night was cool, but not uncomfortable. As Alex helped her climb the terraces to reach the wall, she could hear the wind in the trees beyond the wall. An owl hooted, sounding lonely and forlorn. Nothing else seemed to be moving.

She looked over her shoulder as they climbed the last terrace. The gatehouse was far away, over to the west. This was the north side of the burgh. In front of the gatehouse, on the open ground, were the dark shadows and glowing coals of Llewelyn’s army camp. They had arrived at sunset, sending a collective shiver through the town. Yet they had made no attempt to storm the gates or start a battle. They had made camp, instead.

Alex gave a soft whistle that sounded just like a bird’s and looked up. After a moment, a bundle of rope sailed over the top of the fence. It snagged on the pointed timbers of the palisade and the end of it tumbled to the ground.

Alex spread the rope apart and Sydney understood. A much longer length had been knotted to form a crude ladder. The middle of the ladder was caught on the points of the fence. She was pleased. She might have been strong enough to jump for the top and haul herself over, but the sharp staves at the top made it perilous. This took most of the danger away.

She pulled her kirtle up and out of the way, balling it into a knot on her hip, then climbed slowly to the top. The rope kept trying to twist and spin her around. As soon as she reached the top, she felt Alex pulling on the ladder beneath. He was climbing up right behind her.

The ground on the other side of the fence was cleared of trees for a bowshot distance and standing at the foot of the fence was Rafe. He had hold of the other end of the rope ladder and was looking up. When he saw her, he smiled.

Sydney carefully straddled over the fence and climbed down the other side. Rafe plucked her from the rope when she still had five feet to go, put her on her feet and turned her to face him. She caught her breath as he pulled her into his arms and held her tightly.

His heart was thundering.

Then he lifted her chin and kissed her. Sydney wound her arms around his neck and happily kissed him back.

“I’m so sorry,” she said when she could breathe again. “Did I hurt you? You said to kill you and I was moving so fast, I think it went deep—”

Rafe caught her face in his hands. “I’m fine. I’m standing here, aren’t I?”

“Yes, but—”

“No buts. You did what you had to do. Sound carries on a still night like this, so wait until we’re in among the trees.” He let her go and picked up her hand, just as Alex had done.

Alex jumped down from the top of the fence, landing lightly on his feet, as if he had only jumped a few inches. He brought the rope ladder down with him, after hauling it up behind him. “In the trees?” he asked Rafe softly.

Rafe nodded. “Half a mile. There is a fire and food for Sydney.” He tugged on her hand, drawing her with him. He helped her down the terraces on this side, then across the open space and into the darkly shadowed trees. Beneath the trees, their footsteps crackled and popped as they stepped on dried out leaves and undergrowth. Rafe and Alex didn’t seem to make nearly the same amount of noise she did. It had to be their vampire natures and their super-vision that let them sneak through the forest so silently.

After a few minutes, her vision adjusted and she could see enough to pick her way through the undergrowth. Rafe didn’t let go of her hand. Alex trod along beside them.

Ahead, she could see the tiny flicker of light that she guessed was the fire that Rafe had spoken of. It grew larger as they got closer, until the low flames were unmistakable.

It was in the center of a tiny clearing and there were leather saddle blankets spread beside it. A horse stood head down and slack-hipped, by the trees.

Rafe let out a deep breath. “We can talk here,” he said. “There’s nothing for miles in all directions except Chirbury and everyone is asleep, anyway.”

“We can talk later,” Alex said flatly. “First…” He pulled Rafe to him and kissed him, his fist tangled in Rafe’s cloak, holding him steady.

Rafe smoothed his hand around the back of Alex’s head, giving as good as he got. Sydney caught her breath all over again. She never tired of watching the two of them together. It was a very private pleasure and one she treasured.

There was no one nearby to watch them. They were free of their roles for a few heavenly minutes. She slipped the cloak off, leaving her in the thin kirtle, and went over to the pair of them. When Alex let Rafe go, she cupped his face and drew him toward her. Rafe came willingly, sweeping her into his arms. His kiss was as thorough as the first and this time, she could feel Alex pressing up against her back. He pulled her hair aside and kissed the nape of her neck, making her shiver.

When Rafe let her go, Alex turned her and kissed her, while Rafe slid his hands over her from behind, stirring her body and prodding her nerve ends awake. She could feel him behind her, a solid wall of strength and dependability.

She loved standing between them this way. Once, she would never have thought such an erotic thing could be so layered with feelings. While her body was fizzing and filling with growing arousal because of the men standing before and behind her, her heart spilled over with pure love, overwhelming her.

Soon, the arousal surpassed the depth of her feelings. Her body tingled with the touch of their hands and her pussy felt empty, while her clit throbbed and her breasts, too.

Alex stepped away and stripped off his tunic, leaving his chest bare to gleam in the moonlight filtering through the trees. The front of the drawstring trousers he wore was tented. “I want nothing between us this time,” he said, his voice low and hoarse.

“Let me,” Sydney said. She pulled at the knot at the waist of his trousers. The drawstring unraveled and the trousers sagged.

Rafe stepped around her. “Mmm…” He pushed his hands inside Alex’s pants, making him groan and his eyes to drift almost closed. Alex’s hips gave a little involuntary thrust.

Sydney pushed the trousers down his legs, unraveled the thonging around his calves and stripped the rest of his clothing and his boots away, while Rafe stroked Alex’s heavy cock.

Then she moved around behind Rafe and removed his clothing a piece at a time as he teased Alex, until Rafe stood naked. His flesh in the moonlight was smooth and tanned. His ass was high and rounded, his shoulders flaring.

His cock was thrusting up into the air, rigid and quivering. Alex smoothed his fingers down the tender flesh just above the base of his cock, making Rafe hiss with frustration. Then he caught Sydney’s wrist and pulled her to them. “Your turn.”

As she only wore the kirtle and her boots, she stepped out of the boots and tossed them aside and waited. She loved being undressed by the pair of them. She loved being naked and open to whatever they wanted to do to her. She could direct neither of them. They did what they wanted, when they wanted to. It was an odd sort of dependence that should drive her crazy, yet all it did was make her crave more of it. She always felt completely safe and protected in their arms.

“Your hair is amazing,” Rafe murmured, pulling it to one side again.

“It makes me want to dig my fingers into it, hold you still and do many, many things to you,” Alex added.

Sydney shivered.

Rafe bent and circled his fingers around her ankles. Then he drew them up the length of her legs, slowly and with many detours to stroke every sensitive location on the way up, including the inside of her knees. As he worked, the hem of the kirtle rose with him.

Alex took hold of the bunching folds and drew the kirtle over her head. She shivered again as the cool air touched her breasts. The nipples tightened even more and she grew aware of the warmth of the fire on her calves.

Alex and Rafe drew her over to the leather blankets and laid her down. They settled on either side of her. It was when they worked together this way that she sometimes wondered if they could mind read. They seemed to understand each other so thoroughly.

Then her thoughts scattered as they bent their heads and took the tip of a breast each into their mouths. Tongues and teeth and lips played a melody upon her and she quickly began to pant and writhe, her hips lifting compulsively in time with the aching throb in her clit. She needed release.

Their hands were gliding over her body. They knew how to maximize their touch so that she quivered beneath their hands and they spared her nothing now. Her legs fell open at their touch. All her reserve, her independence, drained away. She became a creature drunk on pleasure and in need of more.

Rafe pulled her over on top of him, guiding her until his cock pressed up against her pussy. Sydney shuddered as he entered her.

Alex watched with intense concentration. His own cock was almost purple at the head, the veins along the shaft bulging. Then he pulled the leather pouch from his belt close and delved inside. One of the little pots emerged and he removed the rag stopper. With sinuous movements he dipped his fingers into the pot, then spread the contents over his cock.

Sydney watched his fingers play along the length of his shaft and her heart thudded.

When Alex settled behind her, Rafe pulled her against him, so that her breasts were pressed against his chest. His fingers traced her jaw and down the length of her neck, caressing gently, as Alex stroked her from behind. His fingers pushed inside her, easing the muscle and working it open.

Sydney shivered in anticipation.

Then his cock replaced his hand. He eased his way in and the whole time Sydney struggled to relax, to let him in. She was right on the edge of her climax already and this slow penetration was pushing her toward the peak. Just having both their cocks in her at once was deeply exciting and all her muscles wanted to clamp around them in pleasure.

Finally, Alex was buried deeply inside her.

Sydney closed her eyes. She was so close to coming that she was afraid that as soon as they moved, she would burst apart with it.

“Better hurry,” Rafe said, watching her closely.

“Mmm…” Alex said. He leaned over the two of them, propping himself up with one arm. The other hand curled over her hip, anchoring her.

They began to thrust.

Sydney caught her breath and held it. Her pleasure leapt upward, clawing its way to the top. She was jittering apart between them, caught by the spiral of excitement. Her eyes squeezed shut as she tried to control it, to make it last.

It was too late. Her climax arrived like a wild animal, tearing apart her nerves and stealing her senses. She might have screamed. She wasn’t sure. All she could focus upon, her whole world for that moment, was the keening throb of her body.

“Ah…gods!” Rafe muttered. His hips lifted as he rammed into her in short, desperate strokes. He stiffened, groaning.

Alex lasted only a few more thrusts, then grew taut and still. She could feel his cock pulsing inside her as he came, then he bent over her, only just barely holding himself up so that he did not crush them both. He was breathing raggedly.

They stayed together as their hearts slowed. The fire crackled next to them, warming them.

Finally, Alex stirred and lifted himself up. He picked Sydney up and laid her back on the blanket next to Rafe. Then he spread his cloak over them and slid underneath himself.

Rafe rolled over on his side, his leg tangling with Sydney’s. His hand settled on her stomach, the fingers moving in slow strokes.

Alex propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at them.

“Did that blow the cobwebs out of your brain enough to talk, now?” Rafe asked him.

Alex smiled. “You know you can’t make me angry so soon after sex. Why are you trying?”

Rafe shook his head. “You are still insisting on taking this suicidal course?”

Sydney looked from one to the other of them. “Alex wasn’t joking, was he? You really are pissed at him?”

“Not pissed,” Rafe said, with a sigh. “He’s just scaring the shit out of me with this insistence on peace at any cost.”

“Peace?” She looked at Alex. “These war games you’ve proposed…they’ll maintain peace?”

“I truly hope so,” Alex said quietly.

Something clamped in her belly, making her heart jump in reaction. “There was no peace. The Vikings swept over both armies even as they were fighting each other. It’s what let the Vikings sneak across the land unnoticed….”

Alex nodded. “Exactly. The only way to hold back the Vikings and stop them from killing Edward is if Aethelfreda and Llewelyn work together. Aethelfreda has the armies of Mercia at her back and Llewelyn has treaties and alliances with most of the kingdoms of Wales. The two of them have enough combined power to stop the invasion dead in its tracks.”

Sydney’s fear made her sit up. The cloak dropped to her hips as she turned to look at Alex. “You’re deliberately changing history?”

Alex sat up, too. “I saw something in the timescape,” he said evenly. “This history, the one we know—it’s wrong.”

Her terror bloomed hot and large in her chest. It propelled her to her feet. She wanted to run around screaming, venting her panic. As she couldn’t do that, she bent and picked up the kirtle and thrust her arms and head into it and tugged it back down around her hips with jerky movements.

When she thought she had herself back under control again, she turned to look at them.

Alex was still sitting up. Rafe had pulled the cloak over his shoulder.

“Are you crazy?” she demanded of Alex. Her voice shook. “There’s no wrong or right here. There’s just what happened…what must happen.”

“It’s just one version of history, he says,” Rafe said. He sounded as unhappy as she was.

Alex crossed his legs and threaded his fingers together. He was naked but might have been sitting there with all his clothes on. She stared at him. The implacable air about him was perhaps the scariest part of it all. “You don’t care what we think, do you?” she said. “You’re going to ignore everything Brody and Veris and Taylor have ever told us about the dangers of screwing with history and you’re going to…what? Make sure the Vikings are stopped?”

“Edward must live,” Alex said simply. “The only way he will live is if the Vikings are turned back before they pour into England.” He reached for his tunic and started to dress.

Sydney was back to staring at him. “Do you know how insane that sounds?” she asked.

“Yes,” Alex said. He glanced at her as he moved around the campfire, retrieving garments and putting them on. “I know I’m scaring both of you. I also know what I saw. This time we’re in is not the only way things might happen. It’s not the way things are supposed to happen.”

“Why must he live?” Sydney demanded. “Explain it to me so that I can see what you say you saw. Whatever it was, it has convinced you to go against every principal we know about time jumping. You’re flouting every lesson learned along the way. Do you even know what will happen if you manage to pull this off?”

“I know what will happen if I don’t,” Alex said sharply, the first sign of impatience or frustration he had shown.

Sydney wrapped her arms around her middle, suddenly cold. “Then we need to know, too,” she said. “If we are to help you in this.”

“Sydney, no,” Rafe said, sitting up. “You can’t think of helping him.”

She gave him a stiff smile. “We need to hear him out, Rafe. Alex is half-way toward keeping the peace between the two kingdoms. He’s already made changes. We might have to help him finish this, if only so that we survive it.”

“Thank you,” Alex said. He took her hand and drew her back to where Rafe was sitting. He picked up Rafe’s undershirt and tunic and tossed them to him, then helped Sydney sit down once more.

Then he sat, too. He crossed his legs and held out his arm so that his forearm was level with the ground and his hand was stiff and flat, the palm up. “Time isn’t linear. That is just how we experience it. It’s how we make sense of what we experience. This event happens and then this one happens as a result of the first.” He touched his inner elbow. “So for us, the events, the result of those events and the result of those results follow one after another, day after day.” He moved his finger along his arm in little increments, moving closer to his wrist.

“We see time in the timescape as an endless plane,” Rafe said.

“This time, I didn’t,” Alex said. He laid his fingers flat on his forearm, then moved them out to one side. “Imagine that the timescape is here, spread out endlessly. That is what I saw, with events rushing forward as they do.” He brought his fingertips back to his forearm, then skimmed them down his arm, over his wrist and along his hand. When he reached the tips, he moved his travelling hand out into the air ahead of his fingers. “Events move endlessly onward into our subjective future.”

“It’s easier to understand time that way,” Sydney admitted.

Alex nodded. “That’s not all I saw.” He drew his hand back to the palm of the other one and touched the flesh at the base of his thumb. “This is what I saw.” He pulled his thumb away from his hand.

“An offshoot?” Rafe asked sharply.

Alex touched the very tip of his thumb. “That is where you and Sydney jumped from. That is where we left Brody and Veris and Marit and Taylor, where the Middle East was about to launch retaliatory nuclear strikes against Gronoya.”

Sydney was breathing hard again. All the loose-muscled glow in her had evaporated. She stared at Alex’s thumb, almost mesmerized.

Alex touched the tip of his thumb again. “That was where it ended,” he said softly.

Because he had said it so softly, without emphasis, it took a moment for Sydney to understand what he meant. She caught her breath. “You mean time stopped there?”

Rafe let out a long slow breath. “The end of that timeline.”

“The end of things as we know it, although time would move on without anyone to witness it,” Alex said. “The loss of a single planet in the universe would make zero impact on time itself. The timescape, though, is built from human perception of passing time and here—” He touched the tip of his thumb again. “There is no one left to see it.”

Sydney swallowed. “This is why you are trying to change things?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse.

Alex drew his finger back along his thumb, to the base where it joined with the rest of his hand. “This is where we are right now,” he said. He drew his finger along his palm, toward the others. “And this is where we must go, if we are not to see the end of days.”

* * * * *

Alex helped Rafe break down the camp and saddle his horse once more. Sydney shivered inside her cloak, even though the night had not grown colder.

“What about this Siorus?” she asked Rafe. “If you can’t trust him, if he tried to have Alex taken out, if you go back he might try something else, especially when you look as though you’re working with Alex on this.”

“It’s Siorus,” Rafe said.

“That’s what I said.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s shee-your-us. It’s a Welsh version of George. When you say it, it sounds like shaw-russ.”

“She says it like an Anglo-Saxon,” Alex pointed out.

“I am Anglo-Saxon,” she said and touched her blonde hair. “That doesn’t negate my question.”

Rafe shook his head. “One problem at a time. I’m still trying to come to terms with the notion that I’m actually going to help Alex try to change time as we know it.”

“I’m heading back to Chirbury with you,” Alex told her, “and I’m the one who Siorus is suspicious of. On the other hand, he doesn’t have much respect for Rhys the Scribe and that will keep him contained.”

“For now,” Rafe added. “Once we have this rolling, maybe it doesn’t matter what he does after that.” He looked at them over the back of the horse, his dark eyes somber. “The whole idea of time jumping seemed like a short path to suicide to me, before I met Sydney and you. When we got to time jump for ourselves, there was a sense of security in knowing that while you were back in time, as long as you didn’t fuck with anything, you would be okay. Now, I don’t even have that. Who knows how it works when you’re making adjustments to history on the fly?”

Alex rested his hand over Rafe’s on the back of the horse. “I know what I saw.”

“And I trust you. I do,” Rafe replied. “We’re just three tiny people trying to screw with time itself. That’s not a force you want to have turn around and bite you. You’ll forgive me if my teeth keep chattering while we do this.”

He moved around the horse and took Sydney in his arms and kissed her. He rested his head against hers. “I love you. Nothing will change that, not even time.”

Then he let her go and kissed Alex. “If you’re wrong about this, I will never speak to you again.”

Alex gave him a small smile. Sydney took his hand, sensing the seed of doubt and fear in him.

“Get her home safely,” Rafe added as he eased up onto the horse. “It’s nearly dawn.” He looked up at the sky overhead. “Let the games begin.”

Chapter Seventeen

Brody backed the big van into a lane entrance, so that it sat nose out toward the street. He eased it into neutral and kept the engine running. Through the big windscreen, he could see the back of the elaborate yard behind Rafe’s house. His black Mustang was parked on the hardstand.

“There. See them?” Veris asked, pointing. He was sitting in the passenger seat.

The house was silent and almost dark except for light in two of the windows on the upper floor. There was a glow of indirect light in the lower windows, which was probably the light from the dining room filtering through the formal rooms at the front of the house.

On the lawn were three silhouettes. Men, from their height. They were standing together, probably talking. One broke off and moved around the corner of the house and disappeared.

“He’s gone to leave the card in the mailbox and toss the bomb into the dining room,” Brody said.

Veris nodded, keeping his gaze on the two shadows on the lawn.

Light flickered between them, illuminating their features for less than a second. A small flame leapt as they separated. The one holding the fire bomb ran toward the house, then threw it in a powerful overarm swing. The window shattered as the fire bomb went through, then the inside of the bedroom lit up as flames grew almost instantly.

Brody breathed deeply. “I still don’t understand why the Council came after us.”

“If it’s something to do with Alex and Sydney and Rafe, then we’re not going to know until they get back,” Veris said. He swiveled on the seat and peered between the seats into the back of the truck. “Everything okay?” he asked.

Taylor looked up from the three pallets on the floor of the truck, where the comatose bodies of Rafe, Alex and Sydney lay.

“They’re fine, but I’m no nurse,” she said. “We should get them off the street and far away from the Council, though. I don’t like lingering out here.”

“Where to, oh wise one?” Brody asked, putting the truck back into gear.

“An anonymous suite in a hotel somewhere that has a nice big freight bay at the back for us to smuggle these three in.” Veris tapped the side window with his knuckles. “Then we jump back and leave ourselves to sort out the rest.”

“You wrote a note to yourself?” Brody asked.

Veris touched his shirt pocket. “Right here where the corner is irritating me every time I breathe. I’ll notice it straight away.”

“For screwing with history, this went very smoothly,” Brody observed. “I thought if we tried to change anything there would be earthquakes splitting the land asunder, and lighting and birds falling from trees. You know, the usual Apocalyptic stuff.”

“We haven’t returned to our proper time yet. We don’t know what the consequences are,” Veris said. “Don’t get cocky.”

“Moi?” Brody asked, touching his fingers to his chest.

Taylor moved up to the front of the van and leaned through the seats. “We still have to deal with the Council, don’t forget.”

“That’s not the worst of it,” Veris said. “Someone is going to have to break the news to Rafe that his beloved house has burned down.”

Brody nodded. “You can do that. This was all your idea, anyway.”

* * * * *

Llewelyn’s soldiers were subdued, going quietly about their morning ablutions with minimal talk, as Alex walked around the camp to where Llewelyn’s cart was sitting. Alex brought his medical chest with him, for Llewelyn would need his dressings changed and the wound checked after four days of travel.

There were a lot of side glances sent his way as he walked. It was a measure of how quickly word had spread of his attempts to persuade their king that a contest between champions was a better way to decide who was the stronger army than war itself. They had been keyed up to fight a battle that had not happened.

Alex did not concern himself with the temper of the men. That was for Llewelyn to worry about and deal with.

As he passed the small group of household retinue that Rafe usually camped among, he glanced at them. Rafe was not there. Nor was his horse tethered to the rope line there.

Alex puzzled over his absence. There had been plenty of time for him to return to the camp before sunrise and creep back in among them and settle down as if he had been there all night.

Perhaps the king had sent for him. If so, why was his horse not here?

He would have to ask after him, once he had seen to the king. He could say he was concerned about the stomach wound Rafe had received in the last battle and wanted to check upon him.

The king was sitting propped up against the wheel of the cart, his injured leg jutting out in front of him. An awning had been tied to the high side of the cart itself and was held up at the front with two spears. It protected Llewelyn from the damp and rain. Furs and cushions added more comfort and two fires in front of the shelter provided warmth.

Rafe was not there, but there was no time to go looking for him now, even though doubt gnawed at Alex. Instead, he waited until Llewelyn beckoned, then ducked under the awning and moved to the king’s side.

“Your negotiations worked?” Llewelyn asked as he raised himself off his butt and shifted to find a more comfortable position. “This ground is an unforgiving bed. I ache from the armpits down.”

“You will surely be seated upon a cushion this afternoon, my lord,” Alex told him as he unwrapped the bandages. “The Lady agreed to almost all the terms.”

“Almost all?”

“She wants three champions put forward for each side. Three champions and three fights. She says that the greater spectacle will subdue the bloodthirst of the soldiers.”

“She may be right,” Llewelyn said thoughtfully. “Three stages of combat will let them think that the honor of the kingdom has been upheld with suitable effort.”

Alex was happy with the way the wound was responding. “In a day or two, you will be able to sit upon a horse,” he told him. “As long as that is all you do.”

“No carving up the enemy while I am seated upon said horse?” Llewelyn asked him. Then he laughed. “If you get your way, there will be no need for carving.”

Alex held his tongue. Everyone of this time thought the Vikings were harmless, because it had been three generations since they had last raided. The idea of Vikings invading England itself did not even occur to them. “Peace would be restored, yes,” he made himself say in agreement, instead.

“And the stakes of these games,” Llewelyn continued. “What are hers?”

“An apology for the death of her abbot.”

“Of course,” Llewelyn said impatiently. “I’ll have the fools who killed him sent to her in irons to do what she will with them. What else?”

“If Mercia wins the games, you are to present yourself to her brother, the high king, and swear allegiance.”

Llewelyn sobered. “Aye, that would be a natural demand, I suppose,” he said slowly. “It would not sit well with the men to subjugate myself to an English king.”

“She said allegiance, my lord. Not fealty or loyalty. And what harm is there in an alliance with the strongest force in England?”

“Oh, I understand the benefits well enough.” He sighed. “If these games stop me from slaughtering the high king’s sister, he could be an ally in truth. Besides, we have to lose the games first. Better to lose a game than my head in battle.”

“I’m glad you see it that way, my lord.”

“And she accepted my stakes?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Return of the hostages? Payment of debts incurred? Safe passage back to Powys?”

“All the terms, my lord, including the promise to ally herself with your forces if the Northmen should ever attack Powys.”

Llewelyn shook his head. “That was not one of the terms I asked for.”

“I asked for it, my lord,” Alex said as calmly as he could. “I thought it was important.”

“You and no other man in this land,” the king replied dismissively.

Alex looked around. “Where are your captains, my lord? Siorus always likes to watch what I do, at least.”

“Because he does not trust you,” Llewelyn said shortly. “I sent him back to Mathrafel. He does not believe these games you have devised will properly settle matters between Powys and Mercia. He would rather have a nice, bloody war instead. It was better than he remain behind than infect the other captains with his doubts. If these games are to satisfy the men, what is in their hearts and minds is as important as the outcome of three simple matches.”

It was an astute observation.

Alex focused upon the fact that Siorus had been dismissed from the king’s presence and sent back home in disgrace. Siorus would not like that at all.

And Rafe was missing.

Were the two connected?

He realized that he was sitting on his knees, staring at nothing, while his mind whirled and that the king was looking at him expectantly. He stirred and closed the medical chest. “Have you decided who your three champions are to be?” he asked.

The king smiled. “Indeed I have.”

* * * * *

Rafe came to with a groan and felt the bumping and trembling of floorboards beneath him. The creaking of wood and leather and weak sunlight on his face told him he was in an open cart that was moving.

He had been unconscious far more frequently than he liked, lately. He was no longer used to sleeping so losing awareness in any way was disconcerting.

At least the blow that stole his consciousness could do no harm. Alex always scoffed at the TV shows and movies that used a blow to the back of the head as if it was as safe as anesthetic. Too hard a blow could easily cause a human permanent damage.

He opened his eyes a fraction at a time, trying to figure out his situation before letting any potential enemies know he was awake.

“I heard your heart speed up,” came the drawl. “I know you’re awake. You can stop pretending.”

Rafe opened his eyes. His hands were tied with rope. Lots of it. Too much of it for him to tear the strands apart.

Siorus was walking his big stallion alongside the cart and from the angle and position of the sun, Rafe knew they were heading west, or slightly north of west.

“Where are you taking me?” Rafe demanded.

“Back to Mathrafel,” Siorus said. “The king has no need of my services now your physician friend has become his trusted advisor. I warned you, didn’t I, about interfering in the natural affairs of humans?”

Rafe sat up. His head no longer hurt, although there was dried blood on the neck of his tunic. He looked around. Behind them was the high mound of Offa’s Dyke. They had crossed into Powys already.

There were two other men, both far ahead of the cart and the boy who was leading the horse that drew it.

“You’re taking me back to Mathrafel out of spite?” Rafe asked.

“I’m taking you back to where the Vikings will strike first and hardest. If your friend has any sense at all, he will do nothing to prevent this. The Vikings will burn this land from neck to knees and plunder the soul out of it while he and the king dance attendance upon the Lady’s whims. Or he can come and get you, and let the king battle the Lady instead.”

Rafe smiled, even though he didn’t feel like smiling. “If you think Alexander will come for me, you’re sadly mistaken.” He made himself halt there. Alex was too focused upon making the two kingdoms find peace. He would not come looking for him because he would figure that Rafe could look after himself.

Rafe looked down at his bound hands. He was doing a bang-up job of that right now.

Siorus shook his head. “I know what lies between the two of you. I could smell it and see it in your eyes. You hide it from humans, but I know he will come for you.”

Rafe didn’t bother repeating himself with a second denial. He studied Siorus instead. “How do you know the Vikings are going to invade?” he said.

Siorus laughed. “When Alexander first mentioned Northmen to Llewelyn, it startled me. The Vikings haven’t invaded England in over fifty years. It’s as if humans have forgotten they are just over the straits, multiplying and biding their time. And here was a simple physician, speaking words that might have been plucked from my own mind.”

“You didn’t say you thought they might attack,” Rafe said. “You said they were going to attack. You know the time and place.” He drew in a sharp breath. “Gods! You know. Are you working with them?”

Siorus’ eyes narrowed. “You are far too astute for your own good.”

Rafe stared at him. “Why?” he breathed.

“For reasons that would surpass your understanding.”

“Try me,” Rafe demanded.

Siorus’ eyes narrowed. “An odd turn of phrase,” he said. His horse plodded on for nearly a dozen more steps before he spoke again. “If someone is powerful enough, they can consider themselves invulnerable. Yet there are ways to strike back, even through time itself.”

Rafe stared at him. “Revenge,” he murmured. “Wait, you speak of time….” He looked about one more time for eavesdroppers and his gaze settled on the boy leading the horse that was drawing the cart.

“Ban cannot speak, nor can he hear,” Siorus said lazily. He seemed amused by Rafe’s concerns.

Rafe settled his back against the wooden palings that made up the side of the cart and studied Siorus. The man was not Welsh, although his Greek heritage gave him almost the right coloring to pass as one. Rafe remembered Siorus from when he had first lived through this time. He had never revealed himself as a vampire and he had “died” in the war when the Vikings invaded and took England for themselves.

So why was Siorus speaking so frankly now, beside the fact he thought he was taking Rafe back to Mathrafel where the Vikings would first strike and would thereby eliminate a messy problem for Siorus?

“Are you…a traveler?” Rafe asked him carefully.

“We are travelling, are we not?” Siorus was still amused.

“You speak of reaching through time to exact revenge. You’re not speaking of the past, of the days that have gone by. You’re speaking of…of the future.” It made him feel slightly dizzy to even say it aloud. Only among a handful of people had he ever spoken of time jumping. The risk he was taking now made his guts shift uneasily.

Siorus didn’t look puzzled. The future was a concept he was familiar with, then.

Rafe’s heart sank. “You’re a jumper, too,” he said softly. “You’re changing events that you remember from when you lived through these days before, just to get even with someone in the future. You want the changes you make to hurt them in some way.”

Siorus’ amusement faded. “You know nothing, scribe. It is of no matter. Very soon, you will be dead.” He moved his horse forward. The conversation was apparently at an end.

“How soon?” Rafe demanded, sitting up and shouting after him.

Siorus didn’t answer.

Rafe settled back against the wall of the cart, staring at Siorus as he moved ahead. “Very soon” was worrying. He remembered the Vikings invading a month from now, only after Llewelyn had laid siege to Chirbury and had been camped outside its main gates for weeks.

How much had Siorus changed history already? How much would Alex change?

How close were the Vikings to landing?

Chapter Eighteen

At noon the next day, the people of Chirbury were drawn to the town square by the ringing of the church bell. They filtered into the square and amassed on the edges of it. The center had been cleared and a barrier made of heavy tree branches resting on barrels kept the spectators out of the tournament area.

A group of pipers and drummers were heralding the start of the games, the heavy, slow beat of their drums beckoning everyone.

At the same time, the gates were thrown open and Llewelyn and his army entered the town, walking down the length of the main street that was lined with Wulfstan’s men and into the square. Llewelyn sat upon the only horse given entry, his injured leg thrust out in front of him.

At the east end of the square, farthest away from the main street, was a series of awnings protecting chairs and benches. Aethelfreda’s senior advisors sat beneath the shade cloth with Aethelfreda in the center of them on her grand iron chair. Another chair of similar stature was sitting next to her.

Llewelyn was offered the chair and with the help of his men, he dismounted and hopped over to it. He nodded his thanks to Aethelfreda before sitting upon the thick cushion, settling into it with a sigh.

Even Alfwynn was in attendance, sitting in a smaller chair beside her mother, a cushion at her back. She was pale and spoke barely above a whisper and her mother would occasionally grip her hand and squeeze it.

Sydney stood by Alfwynn’s shoulder, between her and her mother. She wore the full mail jerkin under her gunna, and her sword and her long knife in her belts. This was the position Aethelfreda had demanded she take during the games, when she had beckoned Sydney to her side after the breakfast meal. She was to protect both of them if violence broke out. “Which it may well do if the decision reached by these games is not to the liking of the men,” Aethelfreda added dryly.

Sydney agreed with the Lady that it might go that way and had gathered all her weapons. She even tucked a knife into the top of her boot, just in case.

For now, it seemed that every soldier in the square was merely curious to see how this odd arrangement would work. They were armed, yet they were laughing among themselves, jostling for the best viewing positions and calling out to the other army, with insults and jests. The soldiers of Powys spoke English well enough to be understood and the verbal one-upmanship continued until Wulfstan stepped into the center of the cleared area and held up his hands.

The drums fell silent. So did the people watching him.

“We gather today to settle grievances between our two kingdoms, by the matching of three champions apiece. The side with the greater number of wins will be determined the stronger of the two and their demands will be honored by the loser.”

There was a great deal of murmuring among the audience. Many of the townsfolk and soldiers were hearing this for the first time. In a world where battle was the only way they knew to settle issues between kingdoms and countries, a formalized and limited combat to determine the outcome would be a startling idea.

Sydney heard very few negative notes in the whispers around her. Good.

She scanned the concentration of Powys fighters standing on the other side of the square. Somewhere among them would be Alex and Rafe, although she had spotted neither of them yet. She wondered if Alex would approve of the formality of the start of the games. He had suggested limited combat, while Aethelfreda had filled in the plan with pageantry, to help everyone feel that justice had been done.

Wulfstan waited for the mutters to die down. “To win a match, a warrior must fell his opponent so that he does not get up again. A warrior can also choose to yield.”

Sydney wondered if anyone would yield. On a battlefield, no one watched anyone else fight, for they were too busy fighting for themselves. Here in this square, every move would be observed and analyzed. To yield too quickly would bring shame upon the warrior and dishonor upon their army and leader. They would be motivated to fight as hard as they could.

Not for the first time, she admired Alex’s idea of settling this dispute with games. It seemed simple on the surface yet there were subtleties she was only beginning to understand.

“For the first match, warriors step forward.”

On the left side of the square in relation to where Sydney was standing, the timbers were lifted off the barrels and a Mercian soldier moved through into the square. He was a tall man with broad shoulders, wearing full battle gear, including the helmet. Sydney didn’t know him, but she had listened to Aethelfreda’s strategizing that morning and knew that the first champion was a man called Wilheard. Wilheard was reputed to be the strongest man in the Lady’s army and a good fighter. Dogged and determined.

Wilheard swung his sword experimentally, a smile on his face. The blade swished through the air and an atavistic shiver rippled over the crowd. A soft sigh went up from dozens of mouths.

From the other side of the square, the pole was raised and a Powys soldier stepped through. Like most of Powys, he wore no helmet. His mail shirt hung to his knees with the split in the middle. He wore leather armguards and no other armor or protection.

As he entered, he raised his hands, his sword in one of them. A cheer went up from the watching Powys fighters. Llewelyn laughed. “Gethin has been looking forward to demonstrating his superiority with a sword,” he told Aethelfreda.

“His grave will be no bigger than normal, I assure you,” Aethelfreda replied tartly.

Llewelyn laughed even more loudly and drank from the cup of wine he had been handed. He was enjoying himself immensely.

Wulfstan backed up a few steps and waved the two fighters closer to each other. “The first match begins,” he called, then turned and hurried over to the awnings and the low stool sitting close by Aethelfreda.

The two soldiers squared off, studying each other. Both of them were smiling and full of confidence.

With a snarl, Gethin brought his sword up in a scything motion, trying to catch Wilheard off guard. Their blades clashed with a ring of metal, loud and shocking. For a moment they stood with blades together, assessing each other.

Then the fight began in earnest.

The crowd was unnaturally subdued. This was all so new to them that it did not occur to them that they could call out encouragement to their champion, or insults to the opponent. Instead, they were watching every move, assessing strengths and weaknesses.

Wilheard tripped Gethin with a two-footed jump forward, swinging his sword in a low, flat arc. Gethin leapt back out of the way before the blade cut him off at the ankles. He was forced to move so swiftly he couldn’t keep his balance. He staggered back, then fell onto his ass, his sword clattering on the stones.

Wilheard lunged forward and brought his weapon up to strike as Gethin scrabbled for his sword. Wilheard’s sword point entered into the back of Gethin’s shoulder as he turned to spot his own sword and he cried out, arching backward.

“Halt!” Wulfstan cried, lurching to his feet. He ducked under the barrier and strode out into the middle of the arena. “Gethin has fallen and cannot rise again. This match is declared for Mercia!”

Several of Gethin’s comrades hurried out to help him get to his feet, while Wilheard held his arms out, welcoming the applause of the crowd, as they cheered and clapped. The Powys side of the arena was quiet.

Llewelyn shifted on his chair, also silent.

Aethelfreda glanced at him. “It was an even match,” she observed. “Until the end,” she added with a small smile.

“Such luck can fall upon either side,” Llewelyn replied stiffly.

“We shall see.”

Wulfstan held up his arms again, calling for silence. “The champions for the second match present themselves now!”

From the Mercian side, a tall, thin man stepped out. He was fully armed and also had a shield on his arm. No one had thought to lay down rules about weapons and he was taking full advantage of it.

Sydney recalled his name from the morning’s discussions. Cola was a fierce fighter. He was not strong the way Wilheard was, but he was canny and smart on his feet. That showed by the way he had thought to bring a shield to his match. While Wilheard could fight all day and still spare air to laugh, Cola could end a fight quickly by measuring a man and exploiting his weaknesses.

There was a murmur of approval from the watching Mercians. Someone from Powys jeered. “He needs a shield to hold him down!”

There was a laugh around him.

“Cola! Cola!” someone cried on the other side.

Then the Powys champion stepped over the barricade and strode into the arena. He was a giant, with close-set eyes and a forehead that jutted over them. He looked mean. And powerful. Sydney recognized him as the Powys fighter who had sliced her arm open, the one from whom Rafe had tried to protect her.

“Tegid! Tegid!” a Powys man cried, imitating the first cheer.

Suddenly, everyone around the arena was shouting insults and encouragement, clapping and cheering. Some of the townsfolk were bouncing on their toes with excitement, waving and clapping as they smiled.

“If nothing else, my people will remember this day as entertaining, at least,” Aethelfreda said, studying the spectators.

“That may be the only happy memory they have of the day,” Llewelyn told her. “Tegid is my best fighter.”

“You did not save him for last?” she replied coolly.

Llewelyn did not reply, although Sydney understood his reasoning without explanation. If Powys had won the first match, then he would want his strongest fighter for the second, to ensure the victory for the day. If they lost, then he would want a strong fighter in the second match to at least even the score.

Which meant he had a strategy for the third match, too, one he had hoped he wouldn’t have to use, if he was gambling everything on this second match. Except that now he would be forced to use that gambit, if Powys won this match.

Wulfstan ordered the two fighters to begin and hurried behind the barrier once more.

Tegid and Cola circled each other, taking their measure. Neither of them smiled.

“You need more than a shield against me,” Tegid said, in heavily accented English.

Cola didn’t answer. He just kept circling, making no move to attack. Sydney knew he was trying to make Tegid commit to attack, so that he could defend and estimate his strength and skill at the same time. If Cola really was a master at spotting weaknesses, then it was the perfect opening move.

Tegid gave a roar and threw himself forward, his sword and knife swinging in big, ungainly but powerful arcs.

Cola stepped aside, actually presenting his bare back for a moment, as he spun. He dropped the shield so that it was horizontal to the ground and kept spinning around. His momentum sent the edge of the shield deep into Tegid’s belly, which the bigger man had exposed by moving into Cola’s circle.

Then Cola was spinning and moving away, light on his feet and the shield back up to protect him.

Tegid bent over, breathing heavily, his hand to his belly.

Llewelyn didn’t move or speak. Sydney suspected he was worried.

Then Tegid straightened again, slowly. He grinned at Cola while the Powys army screamed and clapped each other on the back, celebrating that their champion was still in the game.

“God’s teeth,” Llewelyn muttered, leaning forward to peer at the two warriors facing each other.

Sydney ran her gaze over Tegid, wondering what had alerted Llewelyn. Then she saw the dark patch staining the leather of Tegid’s mail jerkin, down by the belly, around where Cola had hit him with the shield.

The shield was blunt and while it might have bruised Tegid’s belly, it could not have bitten into the flesh and torn it, not through the mail. The memory of her confrontation with the giant flashed through her mind. The hot slice across her arm. The feel of her own sword being snagged on something as she tried to turn and run as Rafe had advised her to.

She must have wounded Tegid, too. Low down on his belly like that would be about where she had swung her sword in a blind and futile attempt to fend off his attack as she turned to escape.

Cola must have seen something in the way Tegid has been moving that hinted at a previous injury and he had gone straight for it, hoping to cripple Tegid or at least weaken him.

However, Tegid was smiling despite the blood spreading across his mail. Perhaps Cola hadn’t weakened him as much as he’d hoped.

The spectators were going crazy now, screaming encouragement to their respective champions.

The fight continued, with Cola attacking in quick flurries and feints, his feet moving swiftly. He stayed out of Tegid’s reach and kept up the pressure, making him defend and fall back, only to defend again. Tegid was being pressed close to the barriers. If he was caught with one at his back he would be forced to attack.

Cola must have sensed that he could end the match quickly that way, because he came closer, his sword slashing, driving Tegid back another two staggering steps. The crowd ‘ooohed’ as Tegid held his sword up as a shield as Cola hacked at it over and over.

When his back touched one of the barrels, Tegid gave a mighty roar and lurched forward. His footwork was nowhere as neat as Cola’s. He used his body as a battering ram, put his head down and ran at Cola, his sword up high for a downward stroke.

Cola was surprised by the spirited comeback. He stepped back, bringing his own sword up to block the high guard blow that Tegid was clearly planning to deliver.

That was when Tegid dropped the knife in his left hand and punched Cola in the jaw, in a hard uppercut that connected solidly with the underside of his chin and lifted him right off his feet.

Cola landed heavily on the flat on his back and lay still. His shield rolled on its rim in a lazy half circle, then clattered to the ground, too.

For a few heart beats, the crowd held a shocked silence.

Then they went mad. The noise was deafening as they screamed themselves hoarse, expressing their amazement and their excitement. Sydney watched them pound each other on the back and the arms, venting their enthusiasm.

Powys and Mercia were one for one. The next and final match would decide the outcome.

As a dozen or more Powys fighters raced into the arena to help their champion limp away, Wulfstan moved to the middle of the arena and held up his arms for silence so that he could speak.

And still the crowd cheered and taunted and yelled.

Wulfstan stood with his arms raised, waiting for them to contain themselves. The noise was so ferocious there was no point in him trying to shout over the top of them. He would not be heard.

After a long minute, the volume slackened. Slowly, silence gripped the square. It was tense with anticipation, the air thrumming with it.

Sydney remembered to breathe. It was hard not to get caught up in the drama of it all. Alex’s idea really was going to work. If even she, who had experienced more vicarious blood and violence via Hollywood than any of these simple folk, could also be held in thrall by the spectacle then it was working far better than even Alex had hoped for.

When the noise had abated to a tense murmur, Wulfstan said simply, “The champions for the third and last match will now present themselves.”

The silence held while the crowd waited anxiously to see who the two contestants would be in the third match.

Someone was making their way through the tightly gathered Powys fighters on the other side of the arena, coming not from the left but from the top of the square where the road to the main gates started.

The soldiers separated, making way for the third champion.

It was Alex.

Sydney’s heart squeezed and her belly crawled as she watched him duck under the raised barrier and walk into the arena. He was wearing a knee length mail jerkin just like the other Powys fighters and there was a sword strapped to his hip. His knife was thrust into the belt on the other side. Long gloves protected his hands and wrists.

The warrior garb looked completely natural on him, as if he’d had lots of practice putting it on and wearing it.

And he had. Sydney remembered that he had fought his way through two crusades, not counting the one where he met Brody and Veris. He had been a warrior even before he had become a doctor.

Yet no one here knew that.

“The physician?” Aethelfreda asked, sounding as confused as Sydney did. “What foolery is this?” she demanded of Llewelyn as Alex walked into the center of the arena and bowed low toward them both.

Llewelyn just smiled. “Your champion, my Lady?” he asked politely.

Aethelfreda looked down at her knees, a deep frown marring her forehead.. Then she turned on her chair and looked at Sydney. “Go and deal with this…this warrior!” Her tone was withering.

Sydney could feel her heart thudding in her throat and hear it in her ears. The beating drowned normal sounds. She could barely breathe. “Eadric…” She struggled to speak above a whisper. Eadric was supposed to be the third champion and he was Wulfstan’s most able soldier.

Aethelfreda shook her head almost violently. “They laugh at us by fielding a man of letters, who can barely hold a sword. We will show them our might by having a mere girl crush him. You. Get out there and finish this off!”

Chapter Nineteen

Sydney couldn’t remember making her way across the arena to stand in front of Alex. Her heart was running too hard, her thoughts a haze of panic. Someone plucked her veil and filet from her head as she stepped out, leaving her bare headed and her hair in the long braid down her back.

The sounds the crowd were making washed over her, adding to her disorientation. They were delighted. Both sides were equally as thrilled at the coming match. They were eager for it. She couldn’t make out individual words, although the frantic roaring excitement was unmistakable.

Alex watched her approach with a calm expression. He had not withdrawn his sword yet. He stood with his hand resting on the hilt.

Sydney was breathing hard by the time she reached him.

He gave her a very small smile, one that wouldn’t be seen from afar. “They want a show, Sydney. We have to give them that if we are to survive this.”

She swallowed. “I can’t kill you. Even if you were human, I couldn’t.”

“Mercia must win,” he said. “Do your best.” He stepped back, pulling out his sword in a vision-defeating blur of speed.

Sydney just barely pulled her sword and threw it up in time. Their blades clashed, the sound ringing in her ears. Fright tore through her. Was he really trying to kill her? That was imp—

He swung again, this time a cutting sideways motion that would come under her guard.

She parried with a chopping stroke, throwing his blade aside, then lunged forward, driving the point of her own sword in toward his torso. The movement was automatic, a product of hours and hours of fencing training that Rafe had insisted she take and many more hours spent with Alex and Rafe as they took her through more ancient forms of sword fighting than the modern and elegant sport of fencing could teach her.

Alex jumped out of the way easily and fell back a step, measuring her, his sword swinging in an easy circle. It was the doodling of a man used to swords and from the sounds the townsfolk were making, they had recognized his ease and skill, too.

Sydney found she could breathe once more. The initial panic had abated. Now, even though her heart was a runaway express train, trying to tear itself from her chest, she could at least think.

The moves, the strategies she had painfully learned came flooding back. The mental mode where she could think of nothing but winning the fight clicked into place in her mind.

She brought the sword up into the high guard position and attacked, moving as fast as she could.

Alex stepped into her rush and their swords locked. For a moment, they were body-to-body, eye to eye. “You’re being predictable,” he told her, his tone withering. Then he grabbed the back of her head and kissed her.

Fury erupted inside her, white hot and explosive, made worse by the laughter that erupted from the audience.

She shoved him away. He had been expecting the shove and merely walked away, his balance unaffected by the push.

Then he came at her again and she suddenly had no time to think. His attack was blindingly fast and she could barely parry his thrusts and cuts. She fell back and back again as he kept up the pressure. Her fighting brain told her he was trying to corner her against the barrier.

With a turn and parry, she dodged underneath his arm and moved away from the barrels and bars back toward the center of the arena. She pulled out her long knife and hefted it in her left hand.

Alex smiled. It was a feral expression, one that delighted the crowd. He came at her again, only this time she could see by the shift of his shoulders that he was going to feint to her left. He was telegraphing, telling her what he was going to do.

He feinted and she dodged easily, then threw both sword and knife up in a high arc to block his sword as it swung up and came down again.

There was a squeal of metal on metal, as the three blades came together and locked.

Sydney tilted her head to look at him. “A show, huh?” She jerked her knee up and rammed it into his crotch and spun away, her sword squealing as it was pulled out of the lock.

With both knife and sword held up in front of her, she backed away from Alex where he stood bent over from the waist, recovering. She knew she had not really harmed him. Her knee had connected solidly with his inner thigh, yet he was pretending she had driven her knee deep into his genitals.

People were pounding on the barrels, screaming their delight. For them, this was much better than cowering behind palisades while armies fought each other to bloody pulp, waiting to find out if their homes would be plundered and their women raped, or if they would survive the day at all.

Alex turned to find her. He straightened up with the help of his sword, then walked slowly over to where she was waiting. His eyes were narrowed.

They came together with another clash of metal and fought each other off, circling and returning to re-engage, over and over again. Sydney’s heart settled into steady rhythm as she worked the fight, anticipating what Alex would do next and maximizing the impact.

Then, when they were close enough to speak, Alex said shortly, “Time to end it.”

“How?”

They separated and paused, eyeing each other.

“Now,” Alex said and came at her with the same frightening speed that he had used with his first sally. He chopped and slashed, driving her steadily backward as she tried to think how a woman, even a strong and skilled one, could overcome a man who was as skilled as Alex clearly was. They had to make it look realistic.

That was when her feet went out from under her. It was as if she had stepped on black ice. There was no grip for her boot at all and she fell backward and landed on her butt and her back, just barely holding her head up so that she didn’t knock herself out on the stones.

Alex raised the sword, point down, as if he intended to drive it into her and lunged forward.

His foot slid, spilling him sideways.

Sydney rolled herself out of the way with a Herculean effort. She had dropped her sword, but she still had her knife. She pushed herself to her feet as Alex propped himself up on the ground with one hand, recovering his balance. Moving as fast as she could, she stamped on the flat of his blade, trapping it under her foot. She grabbed his hair in her fist and yanked his head back and rested the knife against his throat.

Alex grew still.

Sydney looked up and around her. Everyone watching the arena was on their feet, except for Llewelyn and Aethelfreda and Alfwynn, whose face was even whiter, her eyes enormous.

“Kill him, kill him…!” The crowed was chanting the blood-thirsty demand.

Sydney waited until the chant died out. Then she lifted her voice. “He’s too useful to kill,” she cried.

Jeers and sounds of disappointment.

She waited again for the volume to die before speaking. “I say we put him to work for Mercia, instead of Powys,” she declared. “I name him as my prize for winning for Mercia!” She shoved Alex forward again and tossed the knife away. It skidded and clattered across the stones.

The noise was deafening as she headed over to the awnings where the two leaders sat. She stopped in front of them, trying to catch her breath. “I believe that Mercia wins the day.”

“Mercia wins most handsomely, indeed,” Llewelyn said. He did not sound upset about it. There was even a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. His dark eyes considered Sydney closely. “How could we win against such a disarming weapon, my Lady of Mercia?”

Aethelfreda gave him a polite smile. “You agree to the prize my champion has claimed?”

“I would be hanged by my toes by your people if I did not grant the prize,” Llewelyn replied, inclining his head in a courtly manner.

“Then we should return to my chamber to settle the terms of this agreement,” Aethelfreda said, getting to her feet. She waved to Wulfstan, who hurried over and bent his head to hear her over the noise in the square. “There are barrels of ale in the storerooms. Open them. A cup for whoever wants it, for as long as the ale lasts. We should let them enjoy this day.” She glanced at Llewelyn. “Your men should join the merriment, my Lord. They have earned it.”

Llewelyn nodded toward the arena behind Sydney. “I believe they have decided that for themselves.”

Sydney glanced behind her. The barrels and branches had been rolled aside and people were everywhere, shouting and talking to each other. Everyone was smiling, even Powys.

Two of Wulfstan’s lieutenants were making their way through the crowd, a hand each on Alex’s arms, pulling him toward the awning.

“Bring your man with you, Sunngifu,” Aethelfreda told her. “I want you by my side as we settle this.”

Alex was hiding a smile. His eyes, though, were dancing with merriment.

That was when Sydney realized that her prize for winning the fight was a slave of her own.

* * * * *

Servants brought Aethelfreda’s big chair in from the town square and arranged it opposite the slightly smaller chair that Llewelyn had spent the afternoon sitting upon, as his captains and Aethelfreda’s filed into the room and formed a loose circle around them.

Llewelyn had barely lowered himself down onto the cushions, however, when someone pushed their way through the door into the small room, shoving people aside in his haste.

It was a Powys man, unarmed, red in the face and sweating heavily under his cloak. He looked very young. “The Northmen are coming!” he cried. “Their sails have been seen on the south tributary of the Afon River!”

Llewelyn sat up straight. “That will bring them within three miles of Mathrafel,” he said quietly. “How many ships?”

“Twenty-five, they say.” The boy gulped.

“That is an invasion force,” Aethelfreda said, just as quietly.

The silence in the room was eloquent. Sydney could almost hear their fear. She glanced at Alex, who was standing just behind her shoulder as a good slave should. He shook his head just enough for her to see it. He didn’t know any more about this than she did.

“Where is Rafe?” she whispered so softly even she could barely hear it. It would be loud enough for Alex to hear in this crowded room.

Again, he shook his head. All the humor in his expression had evaporated.

Llewelyn bent forward toward Aethelfreda, even though the movement must have pained his injured leg. “My Lady, even though Powys lost today, I would ask you to consider riding with me to meet this new threat. The Vikings know we are vulnerable. They are striking at the very heart of Powys, to remove us from the board so they are free to plunder their way into England itself.”

Aethelfreda pressed her lips together. “We agreed upon this day of games to avoid the unnecessary bloodshed of our people. If Mercia does not ride with you to meet this threat, then we would be condemning those same people.”

“We must ride at once,” Llewelyn said. He tried to stand up, then with a grunt, rose on one leg, the injured one resting lightly on the floor. “We must turn back the Vikings first. Then, when our western shore is secure once more, I will meet the terms of the agreement we reached this day. I will present myself to your high king.”

Aethelfreda nodded at Wulfstan, who turned to face the room. “All hands! All arms! Gather at once! We ride at sunset!”

“And I will go prepare my own men for the ride,” Llewelyn said. Two of his captains came forward to prop him up and help him walk.

That was when Alex caught the back of Sydney’s elbow. “Quietly. Ease your way out of the room. We must ride even faster than these two armies,” he said softly by her ear.

The room was emptying as people hurried away to pack and prepare. They were almost running. Sydney looked at Alex. “To where?”

“To find Rafe. I think he’s in Mathrafel.”

“Where the Vikings are sailing to?” Something shifted in her chest, making her heart hurt.

“Yes, where the Vikings are heading. We must beat everyone there and pull Rafe out from under the war of three kingdoms.”

* * * * *

The window in the king’s chamber at Mathrafel gave a view down the valley toward the river that glinted in the distance, the water dancing in the last of the sunlight. Rafe was familiar with the view. Siorus had been staring out the window for the last three hours, motionless.

Rafe shifted on the king’s chair. It was the only seat in the room. Siorus had released his bonds once they had reached the fortress, for his men guarded the door and the window looked down upon a hundred foot drop to the ditch far below the palisade that protected the hill the fortress was built upon. There was nowhere for Rafe to go.

“They’re coming, aren’t they?” Rafe said at last. “That is what you are watching. Viking sails heading down the Afon. That’s why you sent the boy galloping to the east this morning. The Vikings are nearly here, weeks before the date you arranged with them.”

Siorus glanced at him and said nothing. There was a troubled look in his eyes that confirmed Rafe’s guess.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” Rafe asked. “You’ve changed history. You’ve changed the way this was supposed to go.”

“You and your doctor friend have done some changing of your own,” Siorus pointed out.

“We were changing it back!”

Siorus looked at him, startled.

Rafe got to his feet. He couldn’t sit any longer. “You don’t understand, do you? The changes you have been trying to make to get even with whoever it is has trickled down to the future. That’s where we came from, the future that you made.”

Siorus gave a small smile. “Then it worked,” he said softly.

“Not anymore.” Rafe pointed at the window, moving toward it. “They’re here, much sooner than you expected, much sooner that I remember them coming. Now, not even you can guess what will happen next. We’re in a dark time where anything can happen. The future is anyone’s guess.”

Siorus’ eyes narrowed. “I do not care how the future changes, as long as it does change. That will be enough.”

“Plato should have kicked your ass out of his school,” Rafe raged. “You don’t get how dangerous this is! You have no idea how what you do now will affect the future.”

Siorus shrugged and turned back to the window.

Rafe brought the metal cup down on the back of Siorus’ head, as hard as he could. Unlike humans, a blow to the back of the head wouldn’t permanently hurt Siorus at all. He slumped to the floor with a satisfying grunt of pain and grew still.

“Your turn,” Rafe told him.

He put the cup back next to the king’s chair, pulled Siorus’ sword from his belt and headed for the door. He had a whole fortress of Siorus’ men to wade through and no time to waste.

Chapter Twenty

Alex rode into the night and all Sydney could do was cling to her mare and follow as best she could. She was not nearly as good a rider as he and Alex could see the night far better than she could.

They had ridden out of Chirbury as the last of the sunlight was fading. No one had challenged them. It would take more courage than a man had to question the acts of the Lady’s victorious champion and her new slave physician.

However, the horses could not keep up the frantic gallop forever. Eventually, Alex let them slow to a walk and reached back to draw the mare’s halter forward so that Sydney was level with him.

“Why do you think Rafe is in Mathrafel?” Sydney asked. They had not had time to discuss anything before leaving the burh.

Alex pulled a flask up from his belt and unstopped it. “Here, it’s watered wine. The water was boiled so it’s perfectly safe.”

She grimaced at the flat taste of the water that not even the sharp wine could disguise. It eased her parched throat, though and she was grateful for it.

“I think Llewelyn’s captain took Rafe,” Alex said.

“Siorus?” Sydney clarified, pronouncing the name carefully.

Alex nodded. “Siorus was sent back to Mathrafel in disgrace because he did not support the king’s wish to compete in the games I proposed.”

“You mean, Siorus didn’t like your idea,” Sydney amended.

“Either way, the king sent him back home because he was getting in the king’s way. Siorus overplayed his hand. I think he resented my influence over the king so much he took Rafe just to spite me.”

“He knows about us?”

“He’s a vampire. There’s not much you can hide from us, remember?” Alex gave her a small smile. “He’s very old and wise as a result. I didn’t realize he was of the blood until he revealed himself.”

“And he’s got Rafe?” She swallowed. “Would he kill him? Is he that pissed at you?”

“I don’t know,” Alex said shortly. “If he takes his time about it, the Vikings will have them both. I don’t think even Siorus expected them to move against England this soon.”

“The Vikings will kill them, then?”

“Or enslave them,” Alex said. He sighed. “Rafe has been through that once already in his life. I would spare him a second time if I can.”

Sydney bit her lip. “It’s all messed up, now, isn’t it? The future, I mean. The Vikings are here early, the Mercians and Powys have negotiated peace…does anyone know what will happen next?”

“I don’t think even Rafe remembers it happening this way,” Alex said before coaxing his beautiful white horse into another ground-swallowing gallop, leaving Sydney to follow as best she could.

* * * * *

When they were within a mile of the fortress and he could see the lights of the Viking camps on the river to the north, Alex slowed to a walk, then slid off his horse and grabbed the halter. He coaxed Sydney’s mare forward and pulled her to the ground, too, then pressed his hand against her mouth to indicate she should stay silent.

He bent to murmur in her ear. “It’s a cold, still night. Sound travels too well. Follow me. We’ll circle around the fortress as far as we’re able to. I want to see what is happening there before I decide what to do next.”

Sydney nodded. He could tell she was very tired by the stiff way she moved and the set of her jaw. She hated making allowances for her human weaknesses in front of him and Rafe, so he said nothing. Instead, he kept half an eye on her as she walked beside him. If she tripped or fell, he could catch her and then argue about leaving her somewhere safe.

He tied the two horses’ reins to a tree, loosely enough so that they could crop on the grass at their feet. He patted Atiya’s nose affectionately and took Sydney’s hand.

There was nothing moving in the night. No night creatures, no humans. Like the night Powys had marched into Mercia, the land had emptied of every living thing except the trees, escaping the oncoming army.

Alex took the warning to heart and began to pick out his steps even more carefully, every sense straining.

Instead, it was Sydney who spotted the sentries first. She tugged on his hand and pointed. Her human vision had seen the flickering light before he had noticed it. Light was not prey and vampire night vision was not drawn to it the same way a human would spot it as brightness upon an ocean of darkness.

He bent to speak in her ear again. “Stay here. Hug the ground. You can’t move silently. I’ll check ahead.”

She bit her lip. He could see that she wanted to argue with him.

“You’re too tired,” he added. “You’ll lose concentration.”

She nodded in agreement, her face unhappy. She was a realist, though. She moved carefully over to the nearest tree, lowered herself slowly to the ground and drew her knees up to her chest. Then she wrapped the cloak around her and lowered the hood over her face until only the fine point of her chin was visible.

Alex squeezed her shoulder in gratitude, then made his way forward in the dark. Already, the sky in the east was starting to lighten. It would be dawn soon and he knew without doubt the Vikings were only waiting for enough light to attack the fortress.

They had strung sentries out around the fortress in a loose circle, each one a dozen yards apart. It was an early warning system. The sentries would send up an alarm if anyone tried to sneak out of the fortress before sunrise. Individuals might be able to slide through if they were very good at moving across open ground in the dark, while armed men with their jingling mail and weapons would most certainly be spotted.

Alex completed enough of a circuit around the fortress to be reasonably certain the Vikings had fully encircled it. Then he made his way back to where he had left Sydney, thinking hard. Dawn was painting the sky orange over by the horizon, while the rest of the sky was changing from inky black to a lovely indigo and fading into dark blue when he finally reached the tree.

She was not there.

Tamping down his fright, he bent to examine the ground at the base of the tree. Her boots were clearly outlined in the damp earth. They were not hurried steps she had taken. The trail lead east, back the way they had come.

Alex backtracked, following her trail, as an early morning mist swirled around his legs and wreathed his head. Soon, he knew for certain what she had done and when the two horses appeared in front of him, parting the misty fingers, he was able to reach for Atiya’s halter with a calm expression on his face. “You went back for the horses,” he said as Sydney bent to offer him Atiya’s reins.

“I thought you might need a fast escape.”

Which he might well have done if she had not spotted the sentries in the first place. He pulled himself up onto Atiya’s back, then leaned over and kissed her. “I think that of the three of us, you have been the most effective.”

“Effective?”

“You have done more to influence change than anything I might have done.”

“I did my best not to change anything, until you came along and said we should,” she pointed out. “Where are we going, anyway?” she asked as he turned the horse to the north.

“There is a poor man’s hut, close by the border with Mercia, where we can hide out for the day, far away from the carnage the Vikings are about to deliver. If Llewelyn and Aethelfreda reach Mathrafel today—if they rode through the night as we did—then the fighting will be even more intense and there will be no room for innocent bystanders. Tonight, when the Northmen are either licking their wounds or celebrating their prowess, I will see if I can find a way to sneak into the fortress and find Rafe.”

They rode for a mile or so before she spoke again. “What did you mean by my influencing events? Were you talking about being the Lady’s champion?”

“Indirectly,” Alex said. “You became the lady’s champion because you stood up to the soldiers who attacked you. That took courage.”

“It took training, which you and Rafe have given me. Twenty years of security work helped, too.”

“Nevertheless, follow the events backward. The reason you were able to defeat me in the arena in a way that looked convincing and gave Mercia the victory they needed to maintain peace was because my foot slipped. Did you notice what we both lost our footing over?”

“I was too busy trying to look ferocious and intimidating,” Sydney replied.

“It was blood,” Alex said.

“Ugh.”

“To be precise, it was Tegid’s blood. Cola opened his belly wound with the blow from his shield and Tegid left a pool of blood on the stones, enough for us both to slide through it. The reason he had that wound in the first place was because you fought him off and sliced him open.”

Silence.

He glanced at her. Sydney was frowning, working it out for herself. “And I was there to fight Tegid because I had fought off Mercian soldiers in Chirbury and was brought to the Lady’s attention.”

“Which is far more than either Rafe or I have managed,” Alex said.

“Are you joking?” she replied. “You wrestled the leaders of two kingdoms and negotiated peace!”

Alex grinned. “A fact we may all live to regret, yet. We no longer know what will await us when we jump back home.”

Sydney looked startled, then thoughtful. He left her alone with her thoughts.

They were close to Bran’s hut when Alex caught the scent of human blood. He halted and held up his hand in warning. Sydney stopped and watched him.

Alex twisted around, sampling the air, determining a direction. When he had found it, he slid off the horse and headed for the big yew tree standing by itself, spreading shade for thirty feet around its twisted trunk. He bent underneath the canopy and walked silently over to the trunk. On the east side of the trunk a man was sitting with his back against the bark. His eyes were closed and he was softly snoring.

His neck was bare, the skin pale. There were markings there that only one of the blood could read. Alex studied the invisible traces, his heart lifting. He left the man to slumber and returned to Atiya and Sydney. “Rafe has been here,” he said. “He must have needed to feed after escaping the fortress.”

“I didn’t think you needed to feed while Veris and Taylor and Brody were watching over us.”

“If his heart has been running too freely, or if he has lost blood, he would need to feed to compensate.” He climbed on the horse. “That means I know where Rafe is, and it’s not in Mathrafel.” He nodded in the direction of Bran’s hut. “Half a mile from here.”

Even Atiya seemed to sense they were close to their destination, for he kept trying to break out into a gallop. Finally, Alex let him have his head and they pounded along the vale.

Rafe was waiting for them, standing outside the hut and leaning on the long ax, which he had been using to chop wood for the cooking fire.

The child Efa had been placing the wood on the old tree stump for Rafe to split, and Bran was sitting on a wider log placed end-down in the dirt, next to the door of the round hut, his injured arm held against his chest and his face turned up to the sun.

When Rafe saw it was them, he dropped the ax and hurried forward.

Alex and Sydney slid from their saddles and met him just in front of the horses’ noses. For long minutes, Alex lost track of who was kissing who and didn’t care.

Then he realized that Efa had moved closer to them and was watching them with some annoyance. Alex tapped Rafe’s shoulder and nodded toward Efa.

Rafe turned to face her and bent a little to put himself at her height. “These are the people I told you about.”

Efa crossed her arms, her face tightening up. “You didn’t say that one of them was a girl!”

* * * * *

Alex balanced himself carefully on the old beams that had been used to build the original roof supports. They were solid enough despite their age, but they were rounded and difficult to walk upon. Also, they were hidden beneath a thick thatch of straw. Most of the straw was molding and no longer shed water and much of it was growing wild grass upon it, the seeds blown here by the wind and fed by the rain. Alex had volunteered to replace the worst of it using some of the new bale of straw that Rafe had bought for the children. He had watched men thatching roofs in the past. Similar to many survival skills, it was more difficult to do than it appeared to be when one merely watched it being done.

However, the work was relaxing, for the sun was warm on the back of his shoulders and the air was just cool enough to stop him from overheating. Plus, the view from the very top of the conical roof was spectacular, with the land rolling for miles to the horizon.

They had agreed to remain at the hut until the outcome of the battle between Mercia and Powys and the invading Vikings was decided. “Once the land is clear of soldiers looking for trouble, we can travel to the monastery where I think the monk who is copying Nennius’ book will be,” Rafe had said. “Then, finally, we can jump home.”

The sun was high when Alex glanced west and saw thick dark smoke rising into the pale blue sky. He studied it for a while, then climbed down to the ground.

Rafe was dressing another deer and Sydney was being Sydney—she was teaching Efa to hold a knife for maximum strength of grip. The youngest child, Cefin, was sitting on the ground playing knucklebones.

“The fortress is burning,” Alex said.

Sydney straightened up, shading her eyes to look at him.

“Does that mean Powys is losing?” Rafe asked from over by the tree, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. He held the other hand out from his side, for it was thick with blood and gore.

Sydney looked down as Efa gripped a fold of her gunna, then back at them. “I don’t think it matters who is losing.”

“If the Vikings win, then we’ll have a devil of a time getting to the monastery,” Alex pointed out.

“I don’t think we should even try,” Sydney said. “Not right now.”

Rafe plunged his hands into the bucket of water standing nearby and scrubbed them. “Talking to the monk, getting him to add the extra pages…that’s the whole reason we’re here.”

“Maybe it’s not, anymore,” Sydney said. She smiled down at Efa and rested her hand on the girl’s head. “Things have changed so much, maybe that’s not even needed anymore.”

“You’ve been thinking it through,” Alex told her. “Are you saying we should jump back now?”

Sydney sighed. “If we still need to talk to the monk, then we can always slip back here again and this time we’ll be braced for the chaos and for change and will deal with it better. If we don’t need to speak to the monk anymore, then there’s no reason to stay here. The only way we will know what to do, though, is to go back and see what changes have been made.”

“Better to speak to the monk anyway,” Rafe said. “Hedge our bets.”

Sydney shook her head. “The monastery is three days’ ride away, you said. That’s a lot of miles, all of them filled with one or two armies on the run, trying to hide away from the victors of this battle. They’ll be desperate. I don’t want to take that risk.”

“You can stay here,” Rafe said.

Sydney shook her head. “It’s not risk to me that I’m worried about. No, Rafe. I say we go home. Now. I can’t make decisions in a vacuum. I need information. I need to know what has changed.”

Alex smiled.

“What are you laughing at, infidel?” Rafe demanded.

“You heard the Lady,” Alex told him. “We’re going home. Now.”

* * * * *

Sydney dropped down in front of Bran once last time and looked him in the eye. “You understand what you are to tell Rhys when he comes back inside?” she asked.

Bran showed her the folded and sealed letter that he had tucked up the sleeve over his missing hand. “I’m to give him this and tell him that he and two dear friends of his wrote it and he must follow the instructions.” His brow wrinkled. “He really won’t remember anything?”

“Leave him be,” Rafe said softly. “We’ll be fine.”

“This is the first time in your history when you’ll have a gap in your memory,” Alex told him. “Brody had a hell of a time adjusting to the changes when he emerged on the other side of a time jump. I want to minimize that with you.”

“The letter will do,” Rafe said. “I’m not as stubborn as Brody.”

Alex snorted. “If you say so.”

Sydney smiled and got to her feet. “Goodbye Bran, Efa, Cefin.”

Alex bent over Bran. “Your arm is healing well. You should have no other trouble with it, except for learning how to live without the hand.”

“If Rhys is to stay, that will be easier than I hoped,” Bran said frankly.

“I’m staying,” Rafe assured him. “Except, I think, we might all have to relocate to somewhere in England. We can talk about that when I get back. We’re just going to step outside for a minute, okay?”

Bran nodded and Efa and Cefin watched them leave, their eyes big.

Alex stepped out to the bare patch of earth in front of the hut and Rafe and Sydney moved to his side. He slid his arms around their waists. “Remember that when we get back, any changes we have made will have echoed down to our time already. The others won’t remember anything of the way it was when we left.”

Sydney drew in a slow breath to steady herself. “Kiss me,” she demanded.

Rafe turned her chin up and kissed her. Alex tightened his arms around them both, and felt the giant invisible hand swipe them off their feet….

* * * * *

…and opened his eyes, blinking to clear his vision.

The familiar wood paneling that covered the ceiling of Sydney’s bedroom was marked with long shadows the way it did in the morning when the sunlight peered directly through the windows.

The windows were open and he could smell freshly cut lawn.

Someone stirred, next to him.

“Oh, my aching back!” Rafe muttered and groaned.

“Welcome back,” Taylor said.

Alex lifted his head. Taylor was standing at the end of the bed and gave him a small smile as he spotted her.

Brody pushed the bedroom door open and hurried in. “I heard Rafe speaking… they’re back!” He gave a great gusty sigh of relief.

Veris was standing beside Taylor, looking down at them. He crossed his arms. “I have a letter telling me your house burned down,” he growled. “And I even remember it burning…yet here we are standing in your house. What the fuck did you do back there?”

“What the hell happened here, then?” Sydney shot back.

“Quickly,” Alex said, struggling to sit up. “Tell me, what country lies to the west of England?”

Taylor looked surprised. “Wales, of course.”

“Not Gronoya?”

“What’s Gronoya?” Brody said.

“Who burned down my house?” Rafe demanded. “I’ll kill them!”

Chapter Twenty-One

“So let me get this straight,” Veris said, leaning forward on his elbows. “You brokered peace, put on England’s first Olympic Games, let a girl beat you in the arena, were enslaved and saved the life of the King of Powys. Rafe outed one of the blood and also knocked him into the next century. Sydney became the Queen of Mercia’s favorite warrior, saved her daughter from dying and was the reason this whole games-for-honor thing worked at all.”

They were sitting in the big, casual living room at the back of the house, where the tall French windows were propped open to let in the early morning breeze and the heavenly smell of cut grass. The air was scented with roses, for the rose bushes were just outside the windows.

Heavy traffic on the Santa Monica could be heard in the distance and overhead, a plane was circling into LAX. The sights, the sounds, the scents were heavenly, all except Veris’ scowling visage.

Sydney was sipping her third cup of coffee. She had bolted down the first two as if she was drinking water. Marit was sitting on the arm of the sofa next to her.

Brody was standing by the door to the living room, as if he really didn’t want to be there.

Taylor was much closer to Veris, where he sat in the upright chair almost as if he was the judge in the room.

Veris looked at them all. “What part of ‘don’t change history’ did you not understand?” he demanded.

Rafe was fidgeting in the armchair. He had not agreed with Alex about finding a peaceful solution, yet he had gone along with it because Alex had asked him to trust him. Now, he leaned over and picked up the folder letter sitting on the coffee table between them. “You mean ‘don’t change history’ the way you didn’t change history?” He let the letter drop back down. “You deliberately changed things because you were peeved about the council. We at least had a better excuse.”

Veris sat back and crossed his arms. “So you say.” Disbelief tinged his voice.

Sydney got to her feet. “Of course you don’t believe us. You were here. You don’t remember the way it was.”

Veris rose, too. “If we really were living in an alternative stub of time, then when you changed things, none of us should have been able to remember the Council burning down the house with you three in it, yet the letter is here. We remember it.”

“Because you were already living in this timeline when it happened,” Sydney told him. “The changes we made took days to put into place. Every time we changed even the smallest thing, it rippled down to here.”

“A butterfly lands in Beijing, it rains in Chicago,” Brody said from over by the door.

“I know the principle,” Veris growled. “If the changes had already been made, then the house should still be gone, yet here we are.”

“More changes,” Sydney told him. “Changes that happened after the house was gone. You don’t remember them as changes, because your memories say you lived through a time when the house wasn’t burned down. Review your memories. Can you really remember seeing the house burn down?”

Brody moved closer to the sofa. “I can’t,” he said softly. “I only remember Veris telling me the Council had come after us, because of what is in that letter.” He nodded to the letter on the table.

Alex moved over to Sydney’s side. “Successive waves of change came through and you changed a short period of time in the middle of those changes.”

Veris scowled at him. “And you of everyone should have known better! You’ve been listening to us for years talk about how little changes can create massive ones at this end!”

“If you had seen the timescape as I saw it, you would have known that peace was the only alternative,” Alex told him.

“Back off, Veris,” Sydney said quietly. “You’re being a hypocrite.”

Veris’ arms loosened and his eyes widened as he looked at her. Then he sighed and sank back down onto the chair he had been sitting on. “True,” he said. “We did exactly what you did and our reasons were just as solid.” He glared at Rafe. “Unless you preferred to jump back to no bodies and instant, permanent death?”

Brody snorted. “Way to apologize, big guy.”

Veris pushed his hand through his hair. “Ah…this is such a fucking mess,” he groused. “Are the Council still pissed at us, or not? Do we have to pull up the drawbridge?”

“Why don’t you ask them?” Sydney suggested. She hadn’t returned to her seat. She was still standing over Veris, not backing down an inch.

“As if I know anyone on the Council,” Veris growled. Then he looked at Rafe. “You do, though.”

Rafe frowned and his gaze focused inward as he reviewed his memories. “I do,” he said at last. “And it’s not the person I remember from before.”

“Who is it?” Taylor asked curiously.

Rafe smiled as he glanced at Alex. “You won’t believe this.”

* * * * *

The limousine wasn’t a stretch limo, although it had the blackened windows and anonymous look that most limousines in Los Angeles tended to have. Because there were so many of them in the city it would pass by unremarked, especially here in Beverly Hills.

Everyone, including Mia and the twins and Marit, stood on the wide steps up to the front doors of the house, watching the limousine as it rolled around the curved driveway and halted under the portico, out of the sun that was playing on the roses just beyond the big columns holding up the portico roof.

The driver did not get out of the car. Instead, the back door was opened from the inside and a long pair of legs emerged, encased in high quality worsted wool suiting. The passenger unfolded themselves and stood up, looking at the ten people ranged on the steps.

“Siorus!” Alex breathed.

The thin, tall man gave him a tight smile. “Cyrus, the man you call Siorus, was my brother. My name is Herakleides.”

“Was your brother?” Sydney echoed.

“For various transgressions and sins, my brother was excommunicated by the Council, some years ago.” Herakleides said it with a degree of defensiveness, as if he was apologizing for the family’s black sheep.

“Excommunicated?” Taylor repeated. “He was on the Council itself?”

“He means kicked out of the brotherhood of the Blood,” Veris said. “Not even to be provided the minimal protection that one of the Blood can give to another, with no hope of appeal.”

“Is he even alive?” Brody asked.

“I don’t know,” Herakleides replied, still sounding apologetic. “Perhaps this story you have offered to tell me will shed some light on that, as you clearly have met my brother somewhere in the past.”

* * * * *

Because this was a formal occasion, they used the front room, which featured all the wood paneling and pleated leather furniture, chandeliers and carvings a Supreme Court judge would naturally be expected to have. Mia took the twins down to the playroom in the basement, while Marit stayed by Sydney’s side.

Herakleides paid no attention to the room. It was likely, Alex thought, that he had seen far too many grand rooms like this to be even slightly impressed. Instead, the councilor sat in the big wing chair and listened while Alex and Sydney between them, with asides from Rafe, told the story of their call back to the tenth century and what happened there.

Veris was even more frank about the role he and Brody and Taylor had played in saving the three of them and Alex realized he was exaggerating just slightly the drama of the event. It wasn’t enough to make the adventure sound impossible. It did showcase the Council’s peremptory judgment.

Herakleides listened to it all without comment. Then he looked from one to the other of them, weighing them all up. He folded his hands together on his crossed knee. “The reason that Rafael remembers another contact on the Council is because that is a latent memory from the alternative timeline. That Council is the one that reacted to the news that you were attempting to change time.” He gave them a stiff smile. “I do not know if I was a part of that alternative Council or not, as I only remember the Council in this timeline and we were not informed of your activities.”

“Why not?” Veris asked.

“I imagine,” Herakleides said dryly, “that my brother reached out to Thorsby and told him what you were trying to do. They were…close, the pair of them.” He grimaced. “Two peas in a pod, actually. Thorsby is not a part of the Council as I know it, which is why we were not informed in this timeline.”

“Everything keeps coming back to Cyrus,” Sydney pointed out.

“That’s because he’s the one that started all this in the first place,” Rafe said.

Everyone looked at him.

Rafe was wearing one of his expensive business suits and sitting in the chair that was the twin of the one Herakleides had chosen for himself. He lifted his hands up, offering his explanation with a gracious gesture. “He revealed that he was a time traveler, back in the tenth century. He told me that he had made a deal with the Vikings to get even with someone in the future by changing history and their world as they knew it. He didn’t say who.”

“That would be me, I imagine,” Herakleides said. “Even when we were human, he resented anything I achieved or acquired that he could not have.” He sighed. “The changes he put in place, they really threatened the entire world?”

“The country of Gronoya, that we know as Wales, had already taken out Iraq with nuclear warheads. Everyone was just waiting for the Middle East to strike back,” Veris said with a growl. “I don’t remember that at all, but I believe Alexander and Rafael and Sydney when they say they do remember it.”

“It’s quite true, Far,” Marit said suddenly. “I’ve seen it, too. A black place, where time ends. We were heading there. Now we’re not.”

Herakleides studied Marit thoughtfully. “We are no longer heading there because of this peace that Alexander arranged?” he asked her. He didn’t seem to find it odd that a twelve year old understood time travel paradoxes. Most of the long-lived vampires were able to encompass such oddities with ease and Herakleides was very old.

Marit nodded.

“The way I remember it,” Sydney said, “is that Powys, the strongest kingdom in Wales, pulled every able soldier over to Mercia to battle the Lady’s army at Chirbury. That emptied Powys and without Powys, the rest of the Welsh kingdoms were vulnerable to an attack. Siorus—I mean, Cyrus—was a favorite of Llewelyn’s and used that influence to convince Llewelyn that the only honorable reaction to Mercia taking the Queen of Brycheiniog hostage was war. He kept up his propaganda, until the entire Powys army was frothing at the mouth, determined to wipe Mercia from the earth in order to restore their good name and reputation and prove the strength of Powys. He also whispered in Llewelyn’s ear that this would be a good time to take stock of Mercia’s strength and deplete it at the same time. He kept whispering and convincing, until Llewelyn was unable to look away from Mercia and notice how his rear was unguarded.”

“Then he negotiated with the Vikings to raid Powys,” Rafe added. “I imagine he had some sort of deal worked out where he got to live like a prince among them, or perhaps he was simply happy with the idea that the Vikings would control Wales into the future and ruin whatever life you might have had.”

“A pointless exercise,” Herakleides said, “as I don’t remember the life I had in that alternative time. I’m sure Cyrus overlooked that point. He always was very good at self-denial.”

“It is historical fact,” Taylor said, “that after repressing the Vikings, Llewelyn and his brother presented themselves to Edward, the high king of England, Aethelfreda’s brother. An alliance was formed. Thirty years later, when the Vikings attacked again, Wales and Mercia and most of the English forces were able to hold them at bay. So instead of Gronoya, England and New Denmark, we have the United Kingdom, made up of Scotland, Wales and England. And we have peace. No one is firing nuclear weapons.”

Sydney held out her hand. “Wait,” she said softly. “Maybe Cyrus didn’t overlook that you wouldn’t know about the life you once had before he changed things. Maybe he didn’t care that you wouldn’t know, because he would know.”

Herakleides raise his brows. “Then he is still alive,” he concluded. “Somewhere in the world, he remembers what he nearly managed to do. That is not a good thing for any of you in this room, who have defeated his plans.” He got to his feet. “My brother is very good at holding a grudge. It is perhaps fortunate that your other enemies can no longer be found in this time.”

“There’s a comfort,” Brody muttered.

Herakleides smiled for the first time. “You are a particularly resourceful group. I am sure you will weather whatever storms you have brought upon yourselves. I will bid you good day. The Council has no further concerns related to your affairs.”

He nodded at them all and Sydney led him out of the room.

Veris blew out his breath. “’Whatever storms we have brought upon ourselves,’” he quoted. “They’re washing their hands of the whole affair.”

“That’s typical,” Rafe said gravely. “They have always had a hands-off policy regarding time jumpers, because most of them kill themselves off, usually during their first jump.”

Taylor pulled her feet up onto the sofa and settled on the broad leather cushion. She let her hair out of the French pleat and shook it back around her shoulders. “There’s still one question I can’t answer. How did Cyrus know about time jumping…and who took him back to Wales? He didn’t jump by himself. Not even Alex really jumped by himself. He had help from Marit. So who helped Cyrus?”

Sydney came back into the room. “I heard that. And I heard what Herakleides said about Tira. Does that mean he thinks they have something in common?”

Veris looked at her, startled.

“Well, Cyrus needed someone to take him back into time,” Sydney pointed out. “Tira is a good candidate. They’re both as nasty as each other.”

“Then why didn’t she show up and cause her usual mischief while we were there?” Rafe asked.

“Because Tira has been alive for a very long time,” Sydney said. “Babylon, you said, Veris.”

“I only think that’s when. No one really knows for sure.”

“She was definitely alive in the tenth century, somewhere in the world. If she jumped Cyrus back to the tenth century, he would have arrived in Powys and she would have found herself…somewhere.” Sydney shrugged.

“Hopefully, somewhere near far Outer Mongolia,” Brody said shortly. “It would take her over a year to get to England from there, if not longer. I hope she left Cyrus scrambling for his life for fucking years until she got there and could jump him back.”

“If it was Tira,” Sydney added. “We’re speculating. She has never been able to properly time jump before now.”

“She’s been determined to learn how ever since I met her,” Taylor added. “Maybe she finally did.”

“Or maybe she will learn how,” Veris added. “Herakleides said she wasn’t anywhere in this time.”

“You’re talking about the future,” Alex said. “You think that’s where Cyrus and Tira jumped from? Somewhere in our future?”

“It’s a good bet, yeah,” Brody said.

“Only,” Veris added, “how far into our future?”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Marrakesh, Morocco

“When you said ‘let’s go somewhere none of us have ever been before’,” Rafe told Alex as he stretched out on the lounger, “I had no idea it would be so damn hard to find that place.”

The courtyard where they were lounging next to the blue lagoon-like pool was the private courtyard of the house they had rented for a month, just to get away from everything. Alex had not said it aloud to the others, however, he was even mildly pleased to get away from Veris and Brody, who could be pedantic and insistent at times. It was a product of their great ages. It was good to be able to breathe and think, with his two favorite people in the world the only ones able to interrupt his thoughts.

The walls of the courtyard were white, with graceful stone arches leading into the interior of the house. Green potted plants dotted the colorful mosaics that surrounded the pool.

Sydney was lounging in the pool itself, her head resting on the tiles. “I thought that Alexander at least might have been to Morocco.”

“You’re typecasting,” Alex said lazily. “Just because I come from a land of deserts doesn’t mean I’ve visited all such lands.”

“I think she meant because you lived in Spain, idiot,” Rafe said, opening one eye. “It’s right across the straits from here. Although, I lived there, too, long before he got there.”

“Now who’s being prejudiced?” Sydney said. “Just because you’re older doesn’t mean you’re any wiser or better.”

“As Cyrus proved,” Rafe returned.

The mention of his name sobered them all. The light and relaxed atmosphere dampened for a moment.

Alex sighed. “Perhaps we should talk about him. We’ve been very good at not talking about what happened.”

“I don’t want to,” Sydney said shortly. “He fucked with the past, nearly destroyed the world and we—I mean you, Alex—fixed things. End of story.”

“Except he’s going to come back again,” Rafe said softly. “You just know he is. He isn’t the sort to give up once he’s taken a beating. He’s one of the fighters who keeps coming back and back until even the strongest opponent drops from exhaustion or makes a mistake. Then he has you.”

Alex nodded. “And this time, he’ll have Tira with him.”

Sydney straightened and stood up, then walked up the tiled steps to the lip of the pool and stepped out.

Alex’s heart squeezed as he watched her and his body tightened.

“I had no idea you were sitting in that pool naked!” Rafe cried. “Damn it!”

Sydney walked over to them, trailing water drops, her hips swinging as she walked. It was mesmerizing. Alex barely got his legs out of the way as she sank down onto the edge of his lounger.

Was her hair longer than he remembered?

Sydney twisted her hair out of the way and squeezed the excess water onto the tiles at her feet. She looked at Rafe, sitting only inches away. “You’re worrying about something that might happen—”

“That very likely will happen,” he replied. “Tira doesn’t give up easy, either.”

“My point is, it hasn’t happened yet. Let it go, Rafe. After all these centuries, haven’t you learned how to live in the moment?”

“Sure, but not until I’ve made all the necessary precautions against a probable threat.”

“You’re not taking precautions right now. You’re just worrying out loud,” she told him gently.

Rafe gave her a small smile. “So what precautions should we be taking, so I can get on with living in the moment? Because there’s a drop of water sitting on the very tip of your nipple that I want to lick off.”

“For a start, you can turn me.” She looked at Alex. “Both of you.”

It was one of those rare moments when time stood still. Alex actually lost track of time passing. High overhead, he heard the call of a hawk, telling him that it was just him reacting to her proposal.

“No…” he said at last. He had to breathe it out. His chest wouldn’t unlock enough to speak properly.

Rafe shook his head. There was pain in his eyes.

Sydney picked up Alex’s hand. Her flesh was cooler than his in this torrid climate and damp, too. Then she reached for Rafe’s and held it.

“Think about it,” she said softly. “It makes sense. There isn’t…there won’t be children, so that’s not a reason to wait like it was for Taylor. And you just know we’re going to end up jumping back in time sooner or later. Even Brody and Taylor and Veris keep jumping even though they swear they’re never going to do it again. They keep being forced to it. So instead of refusing to consider it, we should acknowledge that it’s going to happen again and work with that.”

“That’s no reason—” Rafe began hotly.

Sydney held up his hand and squeezed it and he stopped. His expression was miserable and Alex rested his hand on Rafe’s shoulder. He wasn’t feeling much happier about this himself.

“I would be so much safer if I was a vampire, when I’m back in time,” Sydney added. “I would be invulnerable to disease, stronger and faster than anything that came at me. If Tira really is going to come after us, then I will no longer be the vulnerable one that she can use as leverage against the two of you. Not like she used Taylor.”

Alex stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. “We like protecting you,” he said simply. “It is one of the privileges of our lives to do that. And…” He swallowed again. “I would miss lying with you at night while you sleep.”

Sydney’s face softened. Her smile was warm.

“You’d miss her sleeping in your arms a whole lot more if she was dead,” Rafe said.

Alex jerked and looked at him, shocked.

Rafe shrugged. “Sydney is right. Tira exploits weaknesses, just as Siorus does, and she considers humans to be weak.”

“Because we are weak compared to you,” Sydney added.

Alex could only shake his head. The idea of turning Sydney was making his gut roil in a way that reminded him of what it felt like to be ill, a sensation he’d not experience in many centuries. Fear was making his heart pound.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Rafe said. “Breathe, Alex. You’re starting to hyperventilate.”

Sydney shifted on the lounger and he felt her cool hands on his chest, through the light cotton shirt. “It’s Anna, isn’t it?” she said softly. “She left her mark on you, not just as your maker. The idea of another vampire, a woman, in your life is scaring the hell out of you.”

Alex made himself breathe deeply, recognizing that Rafe was right, his breathing was too fast and shallow. He looked Sydney in the eye. “How do you know about Anna?” he asked. Even saying her name was difficult.

“Taylor told me.” Sydney’s smile was warm. Understanding. “I am not Anna.”

“Thank God for that,” Alex said earnestly. His chest unlocked and he could breathe properly once more. “Forgive me. It is an ancient matter. However, for nearly a century I was as much a slave as Rafael ever was.”

“More than I was,” Rafe corrected softly. “She knew exactly what she was doing and she kept you on her string deliberately. She enjoyed it. When I was a slave it was just the way things were. None of my masters were ever delighted about having me at their beck and call.”

Sydney studied Alex candidly. “Do you believe I would ever do that to you?”

Alex shook his head. “You’re incapable of such cruelty,” he added.

She picked up their hands once more and looked at them for a long moment. Her beautiful green eyes held a grave expression. “If you do turn me, then you have to put up with me being in your lives for many, many centuries. If you don’t love me enough, if you can’t stand the idea of my being a part of your lives for the foreseeable future, then tell me you don’t want to turn me.”

Rafe drew in a sharp breath. She shook his hand again, silencing him. “If you do love me enough that you want me around forever, then turn me and I will stay. Because I know I love you. I love you enough that I would do exactly what Alex did and change time just to keep you with me. I want to give up the rest of my humanity so that I can do that.”

And she bit her lip, waiting for them to speak.

“Put that way,” Alex told her, “I can’t see that I have any other option than to sink my teeth into you this very instant. Yet I do not want to.”

“Alex…” Rafe breathed.

Alex pulled Sydney up against him, laying her damp body over his and looked into her eyes. “Can I turn you tomorrow? I’d much rather make love to you right now.”

Sydney relaxed against him and rested her head on his shoulder. “Tomorrow is fine.” Her voice was thick with unshed tears.

Alex held her and let out the last of his panic and fear on a deep exhale. Peace entered his soul.

Rafe leaned over and kissed him deeply, over the top of Sydney’s head. He dropped a kiss onto her cheek, too. “Together forever,” he breathed. “That’s not scary at all.”

Sydney laughed almost soundlessly, her chest vibrating against Alex’s.

“No, it isn’t scary,” Alex agreed. It was the absolute truth.

Epilogue

Caergybi Monastery, Angelsey, Wales. 917 A.D.

Northern Wales was host to some of the most remote and wild country in the land. Caer Gybi, on the far northern tip of the island that was the dot at the top of that wild land, was probably even more wild, which was why the monastery had been built there. It discouraged all but the most ardent of visitors, leaving the brothers to tend to their devotions and their gardens in peace.

Brother Eifion was glad his duties did not include tending the vegetables, for at this time of year the chill winds swept across the open sea to whistle along the quay and swirl coldly across the island, leaving tender green shoots frozen in their wake. It was not enjoyable to be outside, even in the middle of the day.

His love for God was better expressed through the use of his skills as a scribe and illustrator instead, such as the tedious manuscript he was currently copying. He offered up a silent prayer to God for his impatience and decided that he would work through the night to repay his selfishness. He turned away from the window, preparing to settle at the high desk and begin work once more.

There were three people standing on the other side of the chamber. They were holding each other, their knees bent, as many people did when they were standing on the deck of the boats that crossed over from the mainland, especially on days when the sea was high, like today.

One of the three was a woman. She was of surpassing beauty, with a firm line to her jaw and clear green eyes. Her clothes were those of a lady of rank. Eifion tried to look away from her, for he had not seen a woman for many years and the sight of one now reminded him of his vows in an uncomfortable way. Yet it was difficult to pull his gaze from her.

She was looking around the room with curiosity.

“Who are you?” Eifion said. “What are you doing here, and how did you find your way into the monastery? There are doors and barriers—”

The taller of the two men, who had remarkable eyes, too, gave him a smile, showing very white teeth. “I have been searching for you, Brother Eifion, for many months now. I wanted to talk to you about that.” He nodded toward the book sitting propped open on the high, sloped desk, showing the incomplete page.

“Nennius?” Eifion frowned. “I am making a copy.”

“Yes, I know. I am a scholar of sorts myself and I know his work. I have seen other copies, including one that has made its way to Constantinople.”

Eifion drew in a breath in surprise and delight. “Constantinople! Constantine was ours, a Briton, and he became Emperor of the greatest city in the world.”

“Indeed,” the dark haired man said gravely. “That is in part why I am here. There is a story in the copy of Nennius I read in Constantinople that no other copy here in the west seems to have. I wanted to see if your copy would include it.”

“I have copied every story that Nennius included in his history,” Eifion said stoutly. He was on firm ground, confident that his copying skills were adequate. The idea of editing a manuscript because a story offended God’s tenets was a modern one that he did not agree with. If the original author had seen fit to include the item in his book, then it was not up to Eifion of Caergybi to decide if it should remain or not. His was not the name on the title page, after all.

The man smiled at him. “Do you have the story about King Arthur’s poet?”

Eifion was surprised. “No…” he said slowly. He considered the matter. “There is another story that has been left out? About King Arthur? Can you tell me that story?” He pulled over a loose parchment sheet and dipped his pen in the ink and blotted it, then held it paused over the page and looked up at the man expectantly.

The man came over to the desk, throwing the long edges of his cloak back over his shoulders. “There is a seal that goes with the story, if I may draw it for you…?” He held his hand out for the pen.

Eifion gave it to him willingly.

The Next Book in the
Kiss Across Time series

Time Kissed Moments II will be released in December, 2016. Book 6 of this series will be released in early 2017.

In the meantime, try more vampire time travel ménage stories from the Beloved Bloody Time series.

Bannockburn Binding, Book 1, Beloved Bloody Time series.

Time is theirs to keep. But it comes with a price

In the early 23rd Century, vampires learned how to travel back in time, and created a time-tsunami that threatened life as we know it, until they corrected their mistake.  They created the Chronometric Conservation Agency, which is tasked with preserving history and therefore protecting humanity’s future.  The Touring arm of the Agency offers trips back into the real past, with vampire guides, called travelers.

When Natalia (Tally) Marta, vampire and traveler, takes her client to visit the siege of Stirling Castle in 1314, she is caught and held hostage for ransom by Robert MacKenzie, a Bruce clansman. Rob finds himself drawn to the wilful, stubborn and very different English lady he has captured and the relationship becomes an intimate, highly-charged sexual pairing. Swiftly, Tally and Rob realize their bond is more than sexual, that the emotions stirring their hearts are true.

Christian Lee Hamilton, vampire, one of the last true southern gentlemen, and Tally’s ex-lover, knows the 1314 time marker enough to jump back and help Tally return home. His arrival at Bannockburn adds complications, for Christian finds himself drawn to Rob MacKenzie as much as Tally is. But neither of them can stay in the past forever. To do so means certain death.

WARNING: This vampire menage time travel romance contains two hot, sexy alpha heroes, frequent, explicit and frank sex scenes and sexual language.  It includes heart-stopping sexual scenes between the aforementioned sexy heroes, menage scenes, and anal sex.
Do not proceed beyond this point if hot love scenes offend you.
No vampires were harmed in the making of this novel.

This book is part of the Beloved Bloody Time series.
Book 1.0: Bannockburn Binding
Book 1.1: Wait*
Book 2.0: Byzantine Heartbreak
Book 2.1: Viennese Agreement*
Book 3.0: Romani Armada
Book 4.0: Spartan Resistance
...and more to come!

[*Time Twist Tales - short stories and novellas featuring the characters and situations found in the Beloved Bloody Time series.]

These are continuing characters and storylines. Reading the series in order is strongly recommended.

A Vampire Menage Time Travel Futuristic Romance
___

Amazon Best Seller – Top 100 (#5)
#1 Amazon Time Travel Romance Bestseller
#1 Amazon Fantasy Romance Bestseller
Reviewers’ Top Pick —The Romance Reviews
Nominated Erotic Paranormal Book of the Year 2011—The Romance Reviews

This beautifully crafted story has so much to it than it appears at first; the storylines are creative, the characters surprise us – over and over again —Reading Romances

Reviewers’ Top Pick: Oh wow, is this a great read! I simply couldn’t put this down once I started. OMG! I didn’t see this resolution coming. —The Romance Reviews

Tracy Cooper-Posey has cemented her spot on my “auto buy” list...the characters and worlds that Tracy builds for her readers is impossible not to love. —Vampire Romance Books

Bannockburn Binding is an amazing tale which contains a unique and fresh plot. The story had me so emotional unbalanced that I was afraid to read another page. This is one hot tale with an ending that definitely caught me completely by surprise. —Coffeetime Romance Reviews

It was AMAZING. I was really, really surprised by this book. —Goodreads Reader

Loved this! Very unique and inventive twist on vamps/time travel. Thank you for keeping me up ALL NIGHT when I knew I shouldn’t. I couldn’t put it down. —Barnes & Noble Reader

The storyline is incredible. I must confess I’m dying to read the next book in the series! —Booked Up Reviews

THIS IS A “SMOKIN’-HOT” GOOD READ! I really got sucked into the story……… so much so, that I borrowed the next book in the series and have already read that one! —Amazon Reader

You’ll want to finish it in one sitting! The ending comes together seamlessly —Romancing the Darkside

Get your copy of Bannockburn Binding now – it’s free!

Available at all good booksellers.

About the Author

Tracy Cooper-Posey is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author. She writes romantic suspense, paranormal, urban fantasy, futuristic and science fiction romances. She has published over 55 novels since 1999, been nominated for five CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award.

She turned to indie publishing in 2011. Her indie titles have been nominated four times for Book Of The Year and Byzantine Heartbreak was a 2012 winner. Faring Soul won a SFR Galaxy Award in 2016 for “Most Intriguing Philosophical/Social Science Questions in Galaxybuilding” She has been a national magazine editor and for a decade she taught romance writing at MacEwan University.

She is addicted to Irish Breakfast tea and chocolate, sometimes taken together. In her spare time she enjoys history, Sherlock Holmes, science fiction and ignoring her treadmill. An Australian, she lives in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, a former professional wrestler, where she moved in 1996 after meeting him on-line.

Other books by Tracy Cooper-Posey

* = Free!

Blood Knot Series (Urban Fantasy Paranormal Series)

Blood Knot*
Southampton Swindle
Broken Promise
Vale
Amor Meus
Blood Stone
Blood Unleashed
Blood Drive
Blood Revealed
Blood Ascendant

Beloved Bloody Time Series (Paranormal Futuristic Time Travel)

Bannockburn Binding*
Wait
Byzantine Heartbreak
Viennese Agreement
Romani Armada
Spartan Resistance

Kiss Across Time Series (Paranormal Time Travel)

Kiss Across Time*
Kiss Across Swords
Time Kissed Moments I
Kiss Across Chains
Kiss Across Deserts

Kiss Across Kingdoms

The Kine Prophecies (Epic Norse Fantasy Romance)

The Branded Rose Prophecy

The Stonebrood Saga(Gargoyle Paranormal Series)

Carson’s Night*
Beauty’s Beasts
Harvest of Holidays
Sabrina’s Clan

Destiny’s Trinities (Urban Fantasy Romance Series)

Beth’s Acceptance*
Mia’s Return
Sera’s Gift
The First Trinity
Cora’s Secret

Interspace Originas (Science Fiction Romance Series)

Faring Soul
Varkan Rise
Cat and Company (Upcoming)

Short Paranormals

Solstice Surrender
Eva’s Last Dance

The Vistaria Affair (Romantic Suspense)

Red Leopard*
Black Heart
Blue Knight
White Dawn

Go-get-‘em Women (Short Romantic Suspense Series)

The Royal Talisman
Delly’s Last Night
Vivian’s Return
Ningaloo Nights

Jewells of Tomorrow (Historical Romantic Suspense)

Diana By The Moon
Heart of Vengeance

Scandalous Sirens (Historical Romance Series)

Forbidden*
Dangerous Beauty
Perilous Princess

Romantic Thrillers Series

Fatal Wild Child
Dead Again
Dead Double
Terror Stash
Thrilling Affair

Short Science Fiction Romane

5,001

Contemporary Romances

Lucifer’s Lover
An Inconvenient Lover

The Sherlock Holmes Series (Romantic Suspense/Mystery)

Chronicles of the Lost Years
The Case of the Reluctant Agent

For reviews, excerpts, and more about each title, visit Tracy’s site and click on each title in turn: http://tracycooperposey.com/books/tracys-trilogies-series/

Copyright Information

This is an original publication of Tracy Cooper-Posey

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2016 by Tracy Cooper-Posey
Text design by Tracy Cooper-Posey

Cover by Dar Albert
Wicked Smart Designs
http://WickedSmartDesigns.com

Edited by Helen Woodall
http://HelenWoodallFreelanceEditing.blogspot.com/

All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

FIRST EDITION: April 2016

Cooper-Posey, Tracy
Kiss Across Kingdoms/Tracy Cooper-Posey—1st Ed.

Romance—Fiction
Paranormal – Fiction