“Sir Geoffrey!”
The voice came from nowhere. It echoed off hill and rock swiftly, rebounding until it was impossible to tell from which direction it came.
The knight leading Noel’s mule drew rein and glanced about with his hand upon his sword. They stood upon a narrow trail inches away from a sharp drop that plunged hundreds of feet into a ravine choked with fallen rocks and logs. On the other side, a limestone escarpment rose above them like a wall. In places it leaned over the trail, making the going almost impassable. The air smelled of heat, horse sweat, and orange blossoms, a wild fragrance unlike anything Noel had inhaled before.
“Sir Geoffreeeeeeeee!”
This time the call was plainly a taunt, teasing and shrill.
The knight swore to himself. “This is not a good place. Too close. Kick your mule, and let us ride on!”
Noel was in no mood to cooperate. The jouncing trot the knight had insisted on for the last half hour made his head throb like a bass drum. Looking down at the ground moving beneath his stirrup brought on dizzy nausea. The sun blazed at him without mercy. Noel just wanted to crawl into a dark hole somewhere and close his eyes.
“Come on, I said! Are you deaf?”
Sir Geoffrey tugged on the lead rope and the mule came forward with reluctance.
“Sir Geoffrey! Sir Geoffrey!” shouted two voices in unison. There came the sound of men barking like dogs. The echoes created an unholy din that shuddered along the mountainside.
Noel winced. “The dwarfs,” he said.
“What?”
“It’s the dwarfs.”
Sir Geoffrey stared at him as though he had lost his mind. “I know of no dwarfs.”
“Elena’s dwarfs,” said Noel with the exaggerated patience one used with a half-wit.
“Who-”
“Sir Geoffrey!” said Elena, appearing above them on the lip of the escarpment. She crouched low on one knee, every movement quick and supple, and tossed back her wild auburn hair.
Her hose and tunic had been exchanged for an ankle-length gown of sky-blue. It was straight in cut, with long sleeves, and plain of any adornment except for simple embroidery at the collar and upon the narrow kirtle that drew in her waist. A necklace of dowry coins tinkled softly each time they swung against her breasts. She had washed her face, but her hair had bits of leaf and twig in it as though she had snagged her tresses more than once while running down the mountainside to waylay them.
She was still panting, and a touch of perspiration made her face glow.
Noel forgot his headache. She was the most gloriously alive creature he had ever seen. Her vibrancy and sheer animal magnetism struck an immediate physical response within him. He forgave her for capturing him earlier. He wanted to jump off the mule and grovel at her feet. He wanted to chase her up and down the mountainside, making her shriek with laughter. He wanted to kiss her full lips and taste their strength and eagerness.
“Sir Geoffrey,” she said, her gaze for the knight alone. “Let me ride pillion with you to Mistra.”
The knight looked her over with moderate interest. “Faith, but you are a bold piece.”
Her eager smile faded. “I am Elena,” she said proudly. “Sister to Demetrius and Yani. I carry a message to Sir Magnin.”
Sir Geoffrey’s mouth twisted into mockery. “Ah, now I remember you. I was just in your brothers’ camp, and they mentioned no such message.”
“That is why I have run all this way. Sir knight, please take me to the castle. It is an important thing I carry.”
“The only message you have for Sir Magnin is an offering of your virginity,” said Sir Geoffrey. “Go home, little maid, before your brothers find out what sins you plan and come avenging you.”
She straightened with a jerk as though struck by a scourge. Her face flamed to the roots of her hair. Noel realized that Sir Geoffrey’s remark-although cruel-was exactly on the mark. But it took a real jerk to say it to her face.
“You-you are a jokester, I see,” she struggled to say. Tears made her eyes glisten, but she faced Sir Geoffrey’s jeering grin. “You should trade jests with my dwarf Thaddeus. His fool tales have worn thin from too much use. We need fresh merriment around our fires at night.”
It wasn’t much of a comeback, but it served to wipe the grin from Sir Geoffrey’s face. He said sharply, “You would do well to seek a confessor, little maid, and set your soul to rights. Not only are you playing with fire for your wanton ways and behavior, but a shrew’s tongue will not get you a husband.”
She spat at him. “Damn you!”
Sir Geoffrey spurred his horse and tugged the lead rope to move them on.
“Wait!” she cried, but Sir Geoffrey did not look back.
Noel did, however, and saw her scrambling down the escarpment like a monkey, fingers and bare toes finding holds he could not see. Her dress hiked up around bare, shapely thighs before she jumped the last bit and came running along the trail after them.
“Wait!” she cried again.
“Pull up,” said Noel. “Or she’ll run yelling after us the whole way.”
Sir Geoffrey drew rein with visible exasperation. He shot Noel an angry look and shook his head.
When Elena came panting up to them, Sir Geoffrey leaned over from his saddle and spoke before she had a chance: “Go home, you fool!” he said harshly. “Sir Magnin will not see you. He is an important man. He has a thousand details to see to this day, and the next, and for weeks to come. I vow you are too scruffy to catch his eye even were he not thus occupied. Go home.”
She glared at him. “I will go to the castle whether you give me a ride or not.”
“Oh, aye, hike in and present yourself. Look at you,” he said with a derisive gesture. “Ill-clothed, unshod, your hair hanging in your face. You might get inside the gates, but the seneschal won’t give you entry to the hall.”
His words hurt her. Noel could see her flinch although she glared fiercely to hide it.
“I can braid my hair,” she said. “And I have shoes. I shall wear them when I arrive.”
“Do not go to the trouble,” said Sir Geoffrey. “You will be on your back within five minutes of entering the gates.”
“Hey,” said Noel, deciding this had gone on long enough. “She doesn’t-”
“You may not care about a Greek maiden, Lord Theodore,” said Sir Geoffrey with an ascetic frown, “but as a knight I am just as sworn to uphold God’s law as I am to serve Sir Magnin. You know as well as I what will befall a maid like this in the castle. Our men are full of themselves. They had an easy time defeating your men, and the castle fell the hour they surrounded it. They have wenched and wined themselves all night. The townsmen have locked their women safely away, and the tarts left at hand are not enough to go around. A morsel like this, dirty as she is, is just too tempting.”
Noel blinked. This was one aspect of medieval life that he hadn’t considered. But he knew that Sir Geoffrey was absolutely right. The man’s decency surprised him.
“Sir Geoffrey is right,” said Noel, turning his gaze back to Elena. It felt odd to be lecturing her together as though they were colleagues instead of a guard and his prisoner. “It’s for your own safety, Elena.”
She tossed her head. “I can take care of myself. Last winter I killed a wolf while-”
“You cannot kill Sir Magnin’s men,” said Sir Geoffrey. “He would boil you in oil for it. That is the law.”
“Not Milengi law-”
“But Frankish law and Greek law,” said Sir Geoffrey. “Now go home.”
“No,” she said stubbornly. “I want to see Sir Magnin. I do have a message for him, and not the one you so crudely suggested. And as a member of the Milengi tribe, who caught this man when everyone else failed to recognize him, it is my right to see that our interest in him is guarded.”
Sir Geoffrey opened his mouth.
“Sir Magnin could not have done this as easily as you boast without our support,” she said. “If the Milengi think we are being cheated of our ransom, we will not keep our allegiance.”
“It is your brother who should be making those threats, not you,” said Sir Geoffrey.
She shrugged. “My brother has the wits of a log. Yani and I cannot always convince him to act quickly.”
“And are you certain Yani knows what you are doing?”
She shrugged again. “I do not have to answer to you, Sir Geoffrey. Besides, if I ride in with you, no man in the castle will dare touch me. I will be safe. And Sir Magnin’s order is enough to give me protection. But if I have to walk in, whatever happens to me will be on your conscience. Now what do you say?”
Noel started to laugh at the sour look on Sir Geoffrey’s face, but swiftly changed it to a cough. Sir Geoffrey glared at him. He glared at her. Finally he gestured angrily.
“Very well. Get on behind Lord Theodore. I shall take you to Sir Magnin, but if he refuses to see you, little maid, you are on your own. I have other business more important than guarding your chastity, and you are no responsibility of mine.”
She grinned, unimpressed by his threat, and climbed on behind Noel. The saddle kept them separated, but still he found his senses flooded by a lot of girl. Bodily warmth radiated from her. She smelled musky and sweet, all of herbs, woodsmoke, and the outdoors. The narrow cut of her gown made it necessary for her to hike it up to her knees. Noel gazed down at her slim, golden calf and foot dangling just inches from his own leg.
He swallowed hard, intent on controlling his heat. They went bouncing down the trail at that tail-pounding, head-numbing trot, and within minutes Elena’s arms snaked around his middle to keep her balance. He could feel her breasts against his back. The wind blew strands of her hair against his cheek and they felt like twists of silk teasing and stroking his skin. His blood flamed to the boiling point.
“I’m glad you came,” he said to her in a low voice so that Sir Geoffrey could not hear. “You’ve improved what was turning out to be a bad afternoon. How about-”
“You,” she said even lower in his ear, her breath a warm tickle that made his heart pound with pleasure, “are an impostor. George overheard everything that you and Lord Theodore plotted.”
Noel went cold with alarm. When he could find his voice he said, “Hell is too nice a place for George.”
She rested her chin upon the point of his shoulder. “I think he is a very clever dwarf. And Lord Theodore is a very clever governor. You are the fool.”
Noel gritted his teeth. Every bit of attraction she’d held for him vanished. The mule picked its way around a tricky bend in the trail when for a moment they seemed to hang over nothing but air. Noel felt the urge to tip Elena off at that point, but, seething, he curbed it.
“We like this development, however,” said Elena. “Yani and I are pleased because we still have Lord Theodore in our hands in case Sir Magnin decides to trick us. A man who steals another’s castle will steal from his friends as well. You see?”
“I see,” said Noel bleakly. Byzantine intrigue… now he knew why the term originated.
“So we want Sir Magnin to go on thinking you are Lord Theodore. I am along to make sure you do not lose your nerve and confess the truth to him. He is a very intimidating man.”
“I’m not easily intimidated,” said Noel.
He felt the prick of a knife point against his kidney, and stiffened.
“Good,” said Elena, her voice like gold in his ear. “Because I will disembowel you if you betray us. Clear enough?”
“Very clear.”
She laughed, obviously pleased with herself. Noel glowered at his bound hands resting upon the pommel. His knuckles had gone white. Anger blazed through him. He had never felt so damned helpless. Everything, from the moment he stepped through the time portal, had gone totally wrong. Someone unseen and unknown had sabotaged his mission. He was possibly trapped in this time and place for the rest of his life. And now he was being used as a pawn in a local game of politics and war. He wasn’t used to being manipulated. He didn’t like it. He wasn’t going to put up with it any longer.
Ahead, Sir Geoffrey’s attention was centered upon his own mount and the steep dip in the trail. There was no longer a precipice on Noel’s right; the slope remained very steep, but it now looked navigable, if only by a mountain goat.
Not giving himself time to reconsider, Noel leaned forward over the mule’s neck and grabbed the slack lead rope. One quick yank pulled it from Sir Geoffrey’s grasp. The knight glanced back and shouted, but Noel had already turned the mule. He kicked it hard in the flanks, and the startled animal plunged off the trail into a thicket of brush that whipped Noel’s face and arms mercilessly.
The angle was steeper than it had looked from the trail. The mule scrambled and lunged. Finding no bit in its mouth, it stretched out its nose and went where it pleased. Noel found himself pushing against the stirrups and leaning back against Elena to keep his seat. She clutched him and screamed a torrent of Greek in his ear too fast for his translator to handle.
Behind them, Sir Geoffrey yelled again, but Noel didn’t look back. Breathlessly he concentrated on hanging on. The mule plunged through another thicket. Locust branches raked him with thorns. Elena screamed as they caught in her hair. Noel glanced back and saw a hank of auburn hair left hanging from a branch. She pounded on his back with her fist and reached around him, trying to snatch the rope he held in his hands.
“Stop the mule!” she commanded. “Stop it now! We cannot go this way.”
The mule skidded to a halt at the edge of a gully, then jumped down into the bottom of it. Noel’s bones rattled at the unexpected change of direction. He clutched the pommel while the mule scrambled up the other side of the gully. From behind them he glimpsed Sir Geoffrey forcing his horse down the hillside at a cautious pace. He could hear Sir Geoffrey cursing steadily.
“You will kill us,” said Elena. “Stop the mule!”
“No!” said Noel. “I’m getting out of here.”
“You forget I have a knife, to make you stop!”
Noel gave the mule another hard kick in the ribs. It responded with a half rear and picked up speed, jumping recklessly off an outcropping of rock and landing with a stumble that jolted Noel half from the saddle.
He caught himself and hung on grimly.
“Do you hear me?” yelled Elena. “I have a knife.”
“Then use it,” said Noel. He saw a branch coming and ducked flat to the mule’s neck. It veered at the last moment and scraped his leg against the tree trunk. Noel yelled with pain and kicked the beast again. He realized now that it was doing its best to dislodge them. It wanted its freedom as much as he wanted his.
“Use it!” repeated Noel in a burst of complete recklessness. “But if I fall off you’ll fall too.”
“Don’t count on it,” she said and sank her teeth into his shoulder.
The pain was unexpected and intense. Noel stood up in the stirrups and twisted around, trying to grab her by the waist and sweep her off.
She clung to him, her nails digging in, her hair flying wildly.
The mule dodged to one side, and Elena slipped. She clawed at his arm, trying to pull herself back. Yelling and pleading in fear, her words were drowned out by the pounding of the mule’s hooves and the throbbing desperation within Noel’s ears. She was still sliding, her head dangling near his foot, near those dangerous hooves.
He thought about what it would be like to fall at a speed like this. He thought about what might happen if she happened to roll beneath the mule. He thought about slashing hooves cutting young flesh to ribbons, of smashing bones, of Elena being broken like a discarded doll upon the ground.
“Damn!” said Noel. He tightened his fingers around her own and heaved himself hard to the left in an effort to pull her up.
He nearly succeeded. She was sobbing “please” over and over again, struggling to help him, struggling not to pull both of them off. The nearly intolerable strain of compensating the balance eased off. She clutched his shoulder, then his neck. She settled herself astride, then screamed.
Startled by the raw terror in her voice, Noel looked ahead and saw the chasm yawning ahead. It plunged hundreds of feet down, a precipitous barrier effectively separating the base of Mt. Taygetus from its foothill Mistra.
Frozen, he stared at the looming disaster for an eternity. Elena’s scream went on and on forever. He wanted to scream with her, but he hadn’t the breath. The mule’s head came up as though it too saw the gorge ahead. It slowed, but not quickly enough, not soon enough. The awful certainty that they could not stop in time slammed through Noel with the force of a sledgehammer. He hauled back on the rope with all his might, but the mule wasn’t responding. The idiot animal actually tossed its head in protest.
“Stop!” shrieked Elena. “For the sake of God, stop!”
“I can’t!” shouted Noel.
The edge rushed closer. Suddenly there was not enough time left for anything. It was coming, coming too fast, coming like a metro shuttle.
Elena shoved hard. For an instant he thought she was trying to knock him from the saddle. Then she went sailing off. He heard the thud and her cry of pain as she hit the ground. She rolled over and over and caught herself from going off the edge.
The mule’s forefeet planted themselves, and the animal’s rear sat down to create a drag coefficient. Impetus still carried them, in a choking cloud of dust, and Noel heard the animal scream in fear of its own.
“Jump!” called Elena. “Jump before it’s too late!”
His feet were tangled in the stirrups. His grip on the rope had locked on so tightly he seemed unable to loosen his rigid fingers. He struggled, panic taking over. In the last possible second, he got free and hurled himself off to the left.
The mule’s feet went over the edge, and he heard the animal scream again. The mule did an impossible twist and scramble, but it could not stop itself from going over. Noel missed the ground and fell into the chasm as well.
A yell forced itself into his throat and lodged there. He envisioned his body twisting and plunging for hundreds of feet. It was too far; it gave him too long to think, and to remember, and to regret. He didn’t want to die, not here, not like this. Ending up mushed at the bottom of a ravine in the wrong century and the wrong country, his LOC crushed with him, all that he had learned gone to waste, all that he could still achieve unaccomplished… dear God, he didn’t want to die.
A tree growing twisted and wind-carved on the side of the ravine caught his fall. Noel hit it hard and went crashing through the branches with a snapping, crackling velocity that slowed him down but didn’t stop him. The tree, however, did deflect his body.
A few seconds later he hit the steep slope with a crunching thud that shattered the breath in his lungs and numbed him totally. He tumbled, picking up velocity again, but at this level there were too many fallen logs, spindly wind-blasted trees, and rocks choking the sides. He came to a stop at long last, halfway down, and lay there so dazed and disoriented he could not at first comprehend what had happened. His vision was a gray blur of shape, without color. His hearing was only a roar. He still experienced the sensation of falling, although another part of his brain knew that he had stopped.
He could not seem to draw breath, and he could not move.
Paralyzed, he thought and felt despair.
“Theodore!” The sound came crashing and echoing down to him from far away. “Lord Theodore!”
Noel’s eyes flickered open. He heard, but he could not make himself care. Wrong number, he thought.
The mule lay perhaps ten or fifteen feet away from him. The impossible angle of its head told him its neck was broken. Sunlight glistened on the blood that had flowed from one nostril. It had been a strong, good-looking animal, and he’d killed it.
Killed me too, he thought and wished it were over.
“Lord Theodore!” called the voice. Sir Geoffrey’s voice.
“Lord Theodore!” called Elena.
Noel shut his eyes. They could not get to him down here. He did not care.