Chapter 13
Z achary stood on a little bluff that straddled two medieval estates and contemplated things that perplexed him.
To his right was Styrr Hall, visible in the distance as it sat on one end of what Zachary could see were vast tracts of land, much of it arable, the rest a bit on the marshy side. It was the sort of place where an arrogant monarch might decide to take a ride just to see if he could lose all his crown jewels at once instead of over years thanks to sticky-fingered courtiers. Neither the land nor the hall was welcoming. It all gave the appearance of a place that had somehow seen better days and had no hope of them returning.
Short of an enormous influx of cash, of course.
He looked to his left and saw Meltham Keep, a rather smaller place apparently owned by Ilbert of Meltham, whom Zachary had met not an hour earlier. A friendly sort of guy that would have, in seventh grade, talked everyone out of their lunch money in return for promises of something really great and left them feeling as if they’d gotten the bargain even when he didn’t deliver. His fields were currently being tilled by happy peasants, his breakfast had been served by equally happy lads and lasses, and his ample wife had presided over it all with a cheer-fulness that had been infectious. The mere mention of Styrr’s name had left the wife gushing about his fine qualities and Meltham himself wearing as much of a smirk as he likely ever permitted himself.
Something was definitely up there.
Zachary looked at Parsival, who stood next to him wearing an equally contemplative expression.
“Why do I have the feeling Lord Meltham is holding something over Styrr’s head?”
“He smiled too much.”
“And he invited us to join him in a game of chance,” Connor offered from where he stood on Zachary’s left. “There is a man who is accustomed to putting his hand into fat purses that aren’t his.”
“We don’t have even thin purses,” Zachary said with a smile, “though he seemed to think we might have left them behind where we could go and get them and gamble the contents away.”
“Obviously our attempt to pass ourselves off as peasants was a failure,” Parsival said with a little sigh. “I never held out much hope for it. At least in my case it is very hard to disguise such superior bloodlines.”
Connor made a noise of disgust and walked away to swing up into his saddle. “Let’s go home. We’ve proven that Styrr needs funds, but nothing else. Perhaps there is nothing else to prove.”
Zachary looked at Parsival. “Is this hall worth killing an older brother for, do you think?”
“I wouldn’t kill my older brother for it,” Parsival said with a smile, “but I’m fond of him. I don’t think Geoffrey bore Roger any love.” He shrugged. “Roger never cared for the trappings of court, leaving Geoffrey free to wrap himself in them as he wished. One would think that would have been enough to satisfy him.”
Zachary nodded and turned to get back on one of Robin’s lesser steeds. He’d hoped for a mystery that might equal Geoffrey’s eagerness to indulge in wedded bliss, but he’d found nothing. He and Mary’s cousins had discussed a trip south to London to see what sort of dirt could be dug up at court, but they’d come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t yield anything useful, either. Zachary was convinced Geoffrey of Styrr was a medieval Dorian Gray, presenting a youthful, perfect face to the crowd at large while hiding all his dirty deeds on a portrait in the attic of Styrr Hall.
He just didn’t want Mary to be the one to find that painting and realize just what she’d been shackled to.
He sighed deeply. He had exhausted his options for time gates in the north and she was close to exhausting her options for getting out of marriage to a man who not only didn’t deserve her but might be detrimental to her health.
And short of providing conclusive evidence of nefarious deeds, he wasn’t sure how he would convince Robin of the latter.
 
 
I t was afternoon before they rode up the way from Artane’s gates to the stables. Zachary frowned at the sight of commotion there. Maybe commotion wasn’t the right word. There wasn’t any more activity in the inner bailey than usual; this just seemed more purposeful. Or maybe it was that he suddenly found himself with his hands full of a horse that didn’t like the fact that two sixteen-year-olds were running his way.
He managed to keep his seat, barely, then dismount without landing on his head. He soothed his horse, then handed the reins off to one of Rolf’s lads before he turned on the twins.
“Do that again and I’ll take your heads and crack them together,” he said shortly. “Whatever you have to tell me isn’t worth it.”
“The banns were read today,” Theo blurted out.
What?” Connor said in astonishment. “You’re daft.”
“And we’re a handsbreadth from being thrust out the gates,” Theo added faintly. “I think we vexed Uncle Robin overmuch this morning.”
“What did you do this time?” Parsival asked in surprise.
“We tried to follow you,” Samuel said, his face devoid of all color. “We didn’t make it past the village.”
Zachary closed his eyes briefly. “By yourselves?”
They shook their heads as one.
“I take it Lord Robin is the one to have found you?” Zachary asked grimly.
Theo nodded. Samuel simply looked ill.
“What were you thinking, you fools?” Connor exclaimed.
“Mary wanted to help,” Theo said weakly. “’Tis her life, after all.”
Zachary bent his head and rubbed the back of his neck, then he sighed deeply. “Where is she?”
“In her chamber. But Uncle Robin wants to see you all in the lists when you return.”
“Does he indeed?” Parsival asked in surprise. “Why?”
Theo shifted. “I fear we might have blurted out something that might have resembled telling him that you three knew better than he who Mary should bind herself to.” He paused. “Or words to that effect.”
Connor and Parsival exchanged looks, then Connor sighed. “I’ll go first. I might manage to take the edge off him.”
“Thad’s been trying for the past pair of hours,” Samuel offered. “Unsuccessfully, I might add.”
Connor shot his brother a look. “And what again were the possibilities for your punishment? I hope they were dire.”
“Uncle said he would invent something appropriate when he was less likely to murder us.”
“Then you’d best find some way to appease us as well,” Connor growled as he walked off. “And keep your bloody mouths shut the next time!”
“We’ve considered that,” Samuel called after him. He looked at Theo. “Haven’t we?”
“If we haven’t, perhaps we should.”
Zachary would have smiled, but he was too sick at heart. He looked at Parsival. “I appreciate the company today.”
“And just where are you scampering off to, you coward?” Connor yelled, turning around to look at him. He continued to walk backward toward the lists. “I believe my uncle wants to see us all in the lists.”
“I’m going to the smithy,” Zachary called after him. “I’m going to see if Master Godric has a sword to loan me.”
He could only hope he managed to keep himself alive with it.
 
 
It was sunset before the torture ended. Zachary couldn’t say that he’d fared particularly well. He’d been up well before dawn and spent the bulk of the day in futile endeavors that had drained him of all his enthusiasm for anything useful. He had stood against a furious Robin of Artane for almost an hour, which was something, though he’d been last in line and perhaps all the others had managed to wear Robin out just the slightest bit. Perhaps.
The man was, he would readily admit, absolutely terrifying with a sword in his hands.
But now the joy of having been used to alleviate Robin’s frustrations was over and he’d been granted the concession of dinner. He walked back across the courtyard with Parsival, wondering where he might find that dinner that didn’t involve crossing swords again with Robin of Artane to have it.
He returned Master Godric’s sword to him, then stood at the entrance to the forge and listened to Parsival talk to the man about things he couldn’t bring himself to pay attention to. He simply looked up at the sky and considered the impossibilities of the situation.
He’d managed the barest minimum of conversation with Robin earlier, telling the lord of Artane that he was convinced that Styrr was definitely up to something. He attempted a bit of conjecture about Lord Meltham’s perhaps swiping a bit of Styrr’s lunch money, necessitating a hasty marriage to a very wealthy lord’s daughter that Robin might know.
Robin had told him to mind his own business.
Which was, he also had to admit, what he probably should have done in the first place.
He rubbed his hands over his face. Maybe he hadn’t had any part to play in Mary’s life. Maybe his difficulty in getting home could be chalked up to nothing more than his failure to get himself south to Falconberg. Maybe Mary would go on to have a decent life in spite of her fears.
He continued to study the darkening sky. What if she was destined to marry Styrr, bear him half a dozen beautiful children, then live out her life in peace? For all either of them knew, Styrr would marry her, sire all those children, then fall off his horse and kill himself by bashing his head against a rock.
He wished he’d paid more attention to that book of genealogy he’d read in Anne’s modern-day solar. At the time, what had impressed him had been how prodigiously that first generation of de Piaget siblings had reproduced. He hadn’t intended to need the knowledge beyond being able to drop the occasional name to flatter Gideon.
He did remember that Robin hadn’t been beyond repopulat ing the north of England himself, though he and Anne had been less busy than Robin’s brothers and sisters. Robin’s children hadn’t put the brakes on, either, though there had been fewer of them to start with than their aunts and uncles. He frowned as he struggled to remember how many children Robin’s eldest had had. His only frame of reference there was William, who was Phillip’s great-grandson, and he’d never thought to ask William any questions about his progenitors.
Next after Phillip had come Kendrick, who he thought had died before his time. There had also been a Jason, who had apparently married well and produced a half dozen sons.
He shivered. He hadn’t met Kendrick and he hoped he didn’t. Knowing about someone’s death before they met it prematurely was something he didn’t think he had the stomach for.
He knew he was missing someone in those first sets of inhabitants, but he felt like he was reaching for a name in the fog. All he could think about was poor Robin and Anne who had lost a child as an adult—
Maryanne. Someone had had a daughter named Maryanne who had also died as an adult.
Maryanne.
“Zachary?”
Zachary looked at Parsival. Well, he would have, but he was having trouble seeing him.
“My friend, are you unwell?”
Zachary leaned against Godric’s wall because he thought he might fall down if he didn’t. Maybe he had the generations wrong. Maybe he’d been so wasted from engine smoke that day that he’d misread the de Piaget generations and misunderstood the relationships. He looked at Parsival.
“Do you have an aunt named Maryanne?”
Parsival looked at him blankly. “What?”
“Is there a woman in your family named Maryanne?” Zachary repeated impatiently.
Parsival’s mouth fell open. “Are you daft, mon ami? We have only one Maryanne.”
Zachary shook his head. He wanted to stop, but a particularly horrible sensation of déjà vu washed over him, more than once. He was standing where he was, but he was also standing in Anne’s solar looking at that huge book in the glass case.
Maryanne.
He couldn’t believe it could be Mary, but what did he know? He stood there and shook his head over and over again, unable to stop. It wasn’t possible. Surely.
“’Tis an old custom of these Englishmen,” Parsival said, looking at Zachary as if he expected him to lose it at any moment. “In times past, the parents might take their names, toss them together, and see what emerged that was pronounceable. I suppose Mary is fortunate she wasn’t called Robanne. Or Annebin. No one calls her both names together, though. Well, Jackson does, but the rest of us do not. Not often, at least. Why do you ask?”
Because suddenly, as if he were reading it afresh, the entry he’d read in Artane’s solar came into focus.
Maryanne de Piaget, b. 1231, d. 1258.
April 12, 1258.
Ten days from where he stood. He knew that because Godric’s cousin had sent word he’d been delayed and wouldn’t arrive until the sixteenth. A fortnight from then.
“Zachary?”
Zachary leaned over with his hands on his thighs and concentrated on breathing. It was one thing to traipse through time and see things he probably shouldn’t have, or be a bystander for things he would survive while others didn’t. It was nothing special to pick up a few interesting historical tidbits and find himself fairly fluent in tongues that had been dead for centuries.
It was another thing entirely to look at a woman, a lovely, vibrant woman, and know she would meet her end and there was nothing he could do—should do—to stop it.
Actually, he knew exactly what that felt like because he’d had it happen to him before. The only difference was, he hadn’t loved that poor girl who had met her end despite his efforts to save her.
He pushed himself upright and walked away, ignoring Parsival’s exclamations of dismay. He bypassed the stables and walked into the lists. He ignored Mary’s cousins, ignored Jackson, who stood in his way like a statue. He simply walked around him and continued on to where Robin was standing.
Robin looked at him darkly. “Back so soon for more?”
“I need a steed, my lord,” Zachary said hoarsely. He didn’t dare say anything else. The knowledge he had in his head was so terrible, so profoundly, devastatingly awful, he just couldn’t say anything else.
Robin blinked in surprise. “Is aught amiss?”
Yes, Zachary wanted to shout. Your daughter will marry that bastard who doesn’t love her, and he is likely the one who puts her in her grave!
But he couldn’t.
For all he knew, he was wrong. Maybe Mary had had a daughter Maryanne and he’d just confused the dates. Maybe she needed to marry Styrr and have that daughter. Maybe she was killed in a riding accident. Perhaps Styrr had been killed with her. Interfering would leave Styrr alive when he should be dead and add threads to the cloth of time where they didn’t belong. Maybe Robin would be so grief-stricken when Mary died that he would wipe out the entire Styrr family. Those were threads Zachary didn’t dare leave in where they should have ended.
He couldn’t understand why anyone ever visited a fortune-teller. Knowing the future was a terrible, dreadful, appalling thing. It was far better left shrouded in mystery.
“I am simply in haste,” Zachary croaked, when he trusted himself to speak again. “I have nothing of value to give you except for my knives—”
Robin waved aside the words impatiently. “You saved my daughter’s life on the way to Wyckham. I’ll even concede that today your motives were pure. A horse in trade seems a very poor bargain to me.”
You saved my daughter’s life.
Zachary nodded briskly, because if he’d spoken, he would have shouted.
“When do you want to leave?” Robin asked.
“Now.” If he didn’t get out of Artane in the next ten minutes, he was going to lose it.
“As you will,” Robin said, nodding toward the stables. “Let’s see what I have that will suit you. I’ll see the portcullis raised immediately.”
Zachary nodded his thanks, then followed Robin across the lists. He said nothing to Mary’s cluster of cousins who were standing in the middle of the courtyard, though he knew he should have. They were silent, so perhaps his expression told them all they needed to know.
He walked into the stables behind Artane’s lord, accepted gratefully the horse Robin chose for him, then waited impatiently as it was tacked up. He held out his hand to Robin, shook his, then looked at him gratefully.
“Thank you, my lord Robin, for all your many kindnesses,” he said sincerely.
“I’ll think of you fondly every time I visit my hounds,” Robin said seriously. He paused. “No more words to bludgeon me with? No last pleas for me to keep my daughter here to tend my steeds?”
“My lord, I wouldn’t presume to interfere,” Zachary said, though he almost choked on the words.
Robin pursed his lips. “You already have and more than you’re likely comfortable with.” He nodded toward the stable doors. “Be off with you, lad. And good fortune to you.”
Zachary took the horse by the reins, then turned to walk out of the stables. He only made it five steps before he came to an ungainly halt.
Mary was standing at the entrance, watching him silently.
He hoped he hadn’t made the sound of distress that was echoing in his head, but he couldn’t guarantee that. He put himself on the right side of the horse and continued on. He only paused once.
At the door.
He reached for Mary’s hand and held it, hard.
She held his just as tightly. She didn’t say anything, nor did he. He held on to her hand as long as he dared, then he let go without speaking to her or looking at her.
He couldn’t.
He did catch a partial view of the look Robin sent his daughter. It wasn’t quite pity, but it was full of parental distress. The man was, after all, only a man and doing the best he could to give his children the opportunities he thought they should have.
Heaven help them all.
Robin walked with him down to the gates and commanded that the portcullis be raised. Zachary thanked him once again for the mount, then swung up into the saddle and rode beneath the spikes. The portcullis slammed home behind him with a bang.
And that was that. Zachary set his face forward and rode through the village. He supposed he might actually be able to make it to Falconberg in three or four days if he rode hard. He wasn’t quite sure what he would do with the horse once he was there, but maybe one more equine addition to the future wouldn’t throw things completely off.
He rode on, because he could do nothing else.
Though it about killed him to do so.