Chapter 5 #2
She turned her attentions back to the game, and William felt his head clear. He glared at the priest and cleared his throat. The priest leaped immediately to his feet and began bobbing respectfully.
William waved the man away and concentrated his energies on the two still sitting. Peter seemed to feel the heat of his master’s gaze still somewhat compelling, because he looked up with only a minor hesitation.
“My lord?” he said.
“On your feet, you ungrateful wretch,” William growled.
Peter cast one last, longing look at his game before he crawled to his feet and vacated his place. William sat down with a grunt and looked at Julianna. “You will,” he said without preamble, “show me your sacred relics.”
Her mouth worked a moment or two, and he greatly feared another attack of hiccups. Then she seemed to gather herself together.
And then she shook her head.
William frowned. He was not accustomed to being contradicted. “You will—”
“I want to know the date first,” Julianna interrupted firmly. “The year.”
“The year?” he repeated in surprise. By the saints, perhaps she was further gone than he’d feared.
“The year,” she said, pulling her bag into her lap. “Peter didn’t know, and your priest is convinced it is 1250.”
Twelve-fifty? William shook his head. Daft soul.
Julianna carefully put her checkers game into the bag as well.
William frowned. She was supposed to be pulling things out, not putting them away. Ah, well, it didn’t look as if he’d have his look until he satisfied her demented curiosity.
“ ’Tis the Year of Our Lord, 1299,” he said with a sigh. “A year from the world coming to an end, though I don’t believe that foolishness.” He looked at her to see if she agreed.
She was looking at him as if he were the one who was daft.
“The Year of Our Lord’s Grace, 1299,” he repeated firmly. “The same as it was yesterday and the day before. And as it will be tomorrow—”
A horrendous rending sound echoed in the chapel. He was on his feet, crouched with his sword drawn almost before he knew he intended to do such.
He looked about quickly, but saw nothing. His squire and the priest had flung themselves behind the altar. Julianna was staring at him as if he’d just confirmed her worst fears. Then she slowly held up her bag.
“Zipper,” she said.
He lowered his sword slowly. “Zipper?”
She pulled on something and the sound rang out again, only more faintly this time. William sank to his knees, gaping at the sack. By the saints, there was more to this business of carrying sacred relics than he’d expected.
Then another thought occurred to him. Perhaps ’twas the burden of transporting those relics that had wrought the foul work upon her senses. She was, after all, merely a woman and likely not equal to the stamina required for such a thing. Had her obligation to her relics driven her mad?
That was somehow a far sight more comforting than believing she’d arrived in her current state on her own.
“I want to go home,” she whispered.
That was the other thing that puzzled him. Her language was understood well enough, though ’twas spoken a bit strangely. But her habit of throwing in words he could not divine was frankly quite disconcerting.
“You want to go home,” he said, immediately deciding that he had no time for such a journey.
He had a keep to recover and after it was recovered, he would likely be spending all his time trying to keep it recovered.
Besides, his vow only called for rescuing and defending.
It didn’t call for providing an escort back to wherever she’d come from.
“I’m not really sure how I got here—if here is really a place anyway and not some wacky medieval reenactment boot camp—”
He paused and considered. How had she come to be sitting against his wall with nothing but her relic sack to guard her? Was she a nun? A saint?
“. . . I’m just not up to this,” she was saying, beginning to hiccup again. “I don’t—hic—like to camp, I hate to wear nylons—hic-hic—and I think I’m allergic to your damned horses—hic—”
William greatly suspected that saints did not swear. He was almost certain they didn’t hiccup in such a ferocious manner.
“Not even sit—hic—com songs are working for me!” she exclaimed, glaring at him as if all that was amiss in her life was directly attributable to him.
A madwoman, he decided with finality. But one possessing sacred relics that he was almost certain would aid him in his task.
’Twas a certainty they couldn’t hurt.
“I really want to go home,” she said, shutting her eyes as if even the very thought of such a thing pained her.
“I will help,” William lied, deciding that whatever he had to say, he would say if it would get him a look inside her bag.
She opened her eyes and stared at him as if he’d just saved her from being tossed into a fiery furnace.
“You will?” she whispered.
His conscience pricked him fiercely, and it was with a great effort that he ignored it. The woman was daft. Surely that made his vow of no effect.
Didn’t it?
He gritted his teeth. “Aye, I will,” he said, fully intending never to do the like.
Her look of gratitude was almost his undoing. But he hardened his heart, reminded himself that she was daft and he wasn’t really responsible for her; then steeled himself for a look at things that would no doubt provide him with his heart’s desire.
Never mind that she was striking. Or that she accorded him trust he surely didn’t deserve. She was a madwoman and he wasn’t answerable for her fate.
Or so he told himself.