Chapter 40 Magellan
Magellan
Magellan lay still with her eyes closed, hearing only the blessed sound of silence.
Then a soft wind brushed across her skin, and she could hear birds singing in the distance as the sounds of nature enveloped her like a healing balm.
Opening her eyes, she found herself lying in the center of a labyrinth, Rhys’s labyrinth at Hereford Manor.
Rhys was lying unconscious beside her. She stared up at the standing stones, dizzy with relief they’d landed someplace safe. They’d made it. They’d made it back. Then shock hit her hard and she couldn’t stop shaking.
She sat up and felt her neck. The burning pain from the man choking her was gone. The song, when she played it, must have healed her.
“I’m going to get help. I’ll be right back,” she said, though Rhys didn’t stir. She got up and ran into the labyrinth’s corridor, still holding the vielle, and tried to remember the tune she had given the path.
While she hummed it, she fought the disbelief she was back in 1829.
Right-left-right. Several times she made a wrong turn and had to retrace her steps, choking back sobs.
She had to calm down. They were home. She thought she would never see this place again.
She would find the countess and summon help. Rhys’s mother would bring the doctor.
Magellan finally made her way out of the labyrinth. She emerged from the entrance and spotted a man in the distance near the gardens. He saw her at the same time and began to walk toward her with concern.
The closer he came, the more confused she became. He looked like Rhys. The resemblance was striking. They could have been brothers—even more so than Cecil—but she’d never met this man before. Did Rhys have another brother?
The man was puzzled by her as well. “May I help you? You are in distress.” He grew more alarmed when he got a good look at her. She must be a sight in a dress that had been worn across seven centuries. He was dressed in fine clothes, and she saw Rhys’s signet ring on the man’s finger.
The ring only the earl was supposed to wear.
For a moment her thoughts turned fuzzy. Magellan looked around and realized the gardens seemed different. All the Greek statues were missing.
She turned back to him, unable to stop the quiver in her voice. “What year is it?” The man gave her a startled laugh, and she pressed, “Please. Tell me.”
“1799.”
Magellan’s knees almost buckled. How had they ended up in 1799 and not 1829? Which meant . . . This could only be Rhys’s father. Except right now he looked to be a few years younger than Rhys. “Are you Godwin Sherwood?”
His eyes widened in surprise, shocked either by the fact she knew his first name or had the nerve to ask him.
He gave her a playful bow. “The Earl of Liron, at your service.” He nodded to the instrument in her hands. “Are you a forest nymph who has come to lure me into the timeless realm of Fairyland with your strange violin?”
She realized she was still holding the vielle in her hand. “No, I’m a . . . traveler.” She grappled with what to say. “From America. And . . . my friend is lying wounded in the center of the labyrinth.”
“Is this some kind of jest?”
“No. Godwin—sir Earl—please. I need your help. Right away.” Without waiting for his answer, she turned and dashed back into the labyrinth.
She heard him call out “Wait!” But she was running ahead, humming the tune to get back to the center. She’d already left Rhys too long.
Godwin ran to catch up to her. “Wait! How do you know the way?”
She kept humming, right-left-right. She was almost there with Rhys’s father following closely behind. Her mind was in a whirl. Why were they in 1799? This made no sense. She shouldn’t be here. They had arrived thirty years off the mark. She reached the center with Godwin two steps behind her.
He saw Rhys lying on the ground and hurried to kneel beside him. “He’s been stabbed?” he asked in shock. “How did you both get here?”
Magellan wasn’t sure how to answer. She placed her hand with her ring on the standing stone beside its engraving. “I believe this was built by Merlin centuries ago?”
For a moment Godwin stared at her in disbelief.
Then he looked to Rhys, and she wondered if it was feasible for a father to meet his unborn son.
Were they disrupting the past and the future by being here?
Right now, she was too terrified for Rhys to care.
But surely Godwin saw the striking resemblance between them.
Then he saw Rhys’s signet ring on his hand.
“My word,” he whispered and looked back to her, his eyes piercing. “Tell me quickly. The truth.”
“We’re both from the future, from different times. I traveled first and he ended up coming with me. The Ley Lines sent us here.”
“The Ley Lines?” Godwin asked weakly, staring at her with a dazed look.
“Listen, we don’t have time for you to process what I’m telling you. He needs help right away. Please! He’s dying.” Magellan choked on the hysteria rising within her. She was on the verge of falling apart.
Godwin seemed to realize how desperate the situation was and snapped to. “Let me get help to move him. I’ll be right back.” He stood up and backed away, looking afraid to turn his back on them. “You won’t . . . vanish . . . will you?”
“Not unless I play this.” She held up the vielle. “Please hurry.”
Godwin hesitated, countless questions in his eyes, but he nodded and ran off.
Magellan wobbled for a moment, feeling faint with exhaustion. She sank down to her knees and grabbed Rhys’s hand. “Rhys. You have to hang on.” She closed her eyes and pressed his palm to her cheek, trying to keep her panic at bay. He couldn’t die. He couldn’t.
Minutes must have passed because Godwin was suddenly there with three footmen behind him. They had brought a makeshift stretcher made of canvas and wooden poles and carefully lifted Rhys onto it.
Magellan pulled herself to her feet and stumbled, her last reserves of energy gone. Godwin offered his arm to help her even though she was filthy. She shook her head. “Thank you, I can manage.”
Godwin led the footmen out and she walked beside him, somehow making it to the manor without having to be carried too.
Godwin said, “I’m afraid I am at the disadvantage of not knowing your name.”
“Magellan Brighton.”
“And your friend?”
“Rhys.” She almost added Sherwood but didn’t.
Godwin gave her a sharp look but didn’t comment. When they reached the manor, the butler was waiting with the door open. The footmen carried the stretcher through a series of hallways to an infirmary behind the kitchens on the ground floor.
Godwin said, “You’re lucky you arrived when I was here. I was planning to return to London for the holiday season.”
Magellan didn’t even know what day it was anymore. Was it December yet? How many days had they wasted in the Renaissance? Time had become a blur. All she knew was they were running out of it.
She gave Rhys’s father a faint smile, knowing luck had nothing to do with it. The Ley Lines had delivered them to this precise moment in time on purpose. Now she needed to find out why. But first, Rhys needed help.
“Tell me about his wound,” Godwin said.
Magellan described what happened and what the doctor in Florence had done. Rhys had been unconscious with a fever for days.
Godwin instructed the housekeeper, “Bring me vinegar, honey, crushed garlic, and salt. Send someone to my laboratory. On the shelf is a crystal distillation of willow bark. I’ll need all of it.
” The woman hurried off. He told another servant, “We’ll also need boiling water, hot tea, and bone broth. ”
It took Magellan a moment to realize no doctor had been called. Godwin was to be the doctor. He put on little spectacles she recognized and was busy lifting Rhys’s bandages and examining the wound.
“Nasty business. I’ll need to reopen the stitches and flush it out.”
Magellan nodded and sat down in a nearby chair before her legs gave way. The earl issued orders for a guest room to be readied for her with a bath, fresh clothes, and a tea tray. It sounded like a dream.
She shook her head. “I can’t leave him.”
“I don’t need two patients, Miss Brighton.”
“I’m not leaving. What if he wakes? He’ll think—” She almost said he died and went to heaven but stopped.
Godwin seemed to realize she could not be persuaded.
He went to the water basin at a large table and washed his hands.
Then he doused them with a pungent liquid that smelled like alcohol.
She watched him line up an assortment of clean surgical tools—a vast improvement from 1570—and select a pair of small scissors and tweezers.
He ordered the remaining footmen to come and assist holding Rhys in case he woke.
“Hopefully he’ll stay asleep through this.”
He didn’t.
Rhys woke up screaming when Godwin began taking out the inflamed stitches. Two large footmen had to hold him down. Magellan stood behind Rhys’s head, her hands on his brow, trying to calm him.
She watched Godwin painstakingly flush the wound until the blood flowed bright red again. Then he cleaned it further with a concoction of things. Magellan had no idea what everything was. Rhys screamed the whole time.
He choked on her name. “Magellan.”
“I’m here. I’m right here.” She kissed his brow. “We’re cleaning your wound to make it better.”
Godwin lifted a brow at the tender gesture but kept on working. “Keep him steady,” he told the footmen and then looked to her. “We’re almost done.”
At those words Rhys opened his eyes in shock and turned to him. “Father?” he asked before he passed out.
Godwin stared at him in bemusement. Then his eyes went to Magellan.
Neither said a word. Godwin focused on stitching the wound.
Then he coated it with a honey-like sludge and gently wrapped it with clean bandages.
He placed cool towels on Rhys’s neck, shoulders, and head.
His eyes fell on Rhys’s signet ring again.