If they did, she could continue her research firsthand. They could even make a trip to, say, the eighteenth century, to get her book published once it was finished. But since women rarely got published before the nineteenth century, at least not if their work was of a serious nature, her book probably wouldn’t come out under her own name, but nonetheless it would be published. And at least in an earlier century, she wouldn’t have to worry about verifying the sources of the information she had gathered here. Books had simply been published in those days, without lawyers nitpicking over them.
Yes, it was possible, but what excited her even more was that she could then keep Thorn.
Here in this antiquated world, he could be happy. And she would be happy wherever he was. And what, actually, would she be giving up by staying here? She could still visit her friends thanks to the sword. Her career—well, that would be hard, yes. She’d worked most of her life to attain the position she had. And she would miss teaching. But when she weighed that against staying with Thorn for the rest of her life, well, he won hands down.
“We could build a fine home here,” Thorn added when she made no response. “There will be grants of land when William has secured England for his own.”
“Yes, I know, William was very generous to his supporters.” And then she laughed, her delight bubbling over. “I’m amazed I didn’t think of—”
She stopped and even groaned, as the one thing that threw a wrench in that wonderful idea suddenly occurred to her. Hadn’t she already concluded that time traveling was too risky, because they could effect changes in the natural order of things without even realizing it?
Here they were, trying to right something that had gone wrong, and every day they remained here, something else could end up changing because of them. To stay here permanently would almost guarantee that they’d alter all kinds of things, and she couldn’t take that responsibility upon herself, not even to keep Thorn.
“What is wrong?” he asked, his hand reaching across the space that separated them to caress her cheek.
She felt like crying, but she wouldn’t put that burden on him. Instead, she took his fingers and kissed them, and somehow managed a smile for him.
“Nothing,” she lied. “It was a nice idea, but of course, unrealistic. We’d end up changing more things, destroying more lives without even realizing it, and that’s something my conscience couldn’t bear up under.”
He sighed. “Verily, did I know you wouldst say that. But have you considered that you are meant to stay here?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Because of the sword, you are here. Who is to say that is not as it should be?”
She shook her head. “I’m here by unnatural means, and that can’t be as it should be. Besides, if I stayed, I’d have to go back often just to make sure I’m not changing things, and if I find that I am…I don’t care to be fixing things like this the rest of my life.”
“But if you found nothing changed when you returned,” he pointed out, “would you then agree that you are meant to stay in this time?”
Now she sighed. His persistence meant he really wanted this, yet how could she possibly agree?
“Let me give you an example of what you’re suggesting. Say we stay here for a year and go back periodically to make sure we’re not hurting anything by staying. We find everything okay and think we’re safe to remain here. We check again the next year, and then the next, and still, everything’s fine. But then ten years down the road, or even twenty, we suddenly find something really wrong.
“It would be almost impossible at that point to figure out what had happened to change things, when we’re talking about a long stretch of years where the change could have occurred at any time during that period. And if we determine at that point that we can’t stay here any longer, how can I go back to my time and resume my life there, when I will have aged ten or twenty years here? And you can’t get us back to ten or twenty years later in my time, where I could maybe claim amnesia or something to account for being missing so long, because the sword can only return us to its present time. Do you get my point?”
“Aye, though I could wish it had not occurred to you,” he replied.
To be honest, she wished it hadn’t either.
37
Shooting down such a nice idea sort of put a damper on their moods for the next few days. And then there was an encounter with Sir John du Priel that only reinforced Roseleen’s conclusions that history shouldn’t be revisited other than through normal means, in books or films.
They had assumed—or rather, Roseleen had concluded—that Thorn had effected the change that had caused the Vikings to defeat Harold Godwineson instead of William, because Thorn had gotten Sir John drunk enough that he missed his opportunity to get the truth out of the English spy the next morning before the spy was killed. That they had been able to fix that change supported her conclusion. Yet they were wrong. Thorn had had nothing to do with it. She kicked herself for not having realized that the other Thorn was a part of the original process of history that had created her time, the 1990s, and therefore could not have caused the discrepancy. This time traveling certainly was rattling her. She vowed to make a better effort to stay cool, calm, collected, and logical.
Sir John came aboard the Mora one day to confer with William, and as he was leaving, he noticed Thorn on the deck with Roseleen and came over to him to ask, “You left ere the thieves showed up in the hostelry in Dives that morning, did you not? I recall seeing you there the evening before.”
“I must have,” Thorn replied carefully. “There was a robbery?”
“Aye, though a botched one in my case. I dispatched both of the ruffians who thought to set upon me in my sleep. They were no match for a knight.”
Roseleen had to wonder if Thorn had also been attacked early that morning originally, when he had been in Sir John’s place because he got him drunk, but had never mentioned it to her. She couldn’t very well ask him in front of Sir John.
“’Tis fortunate you did not overindulge the night before,” Roseleen remarked to Sir John, while she gave Thorn a see-didn’t-I-warn-you look. “You could have been seriously hurt by those thieves as well as robbed if you had been taken unawares in the common room.”
But Sir John disabused her of that notion quick enough. “Nay, lady, ’tis to my fortune that I am well-trained to rouse at the first sound of armed combat, whether I am in a stupor or nay. Yet the common room was not disturbed that morning. Only those abiding upstairs were set upon and robbed. Though one of the two thieves who thought to do me ill revealed ere I dispatched him that it would have been otherwise.”
“Otherwise?” She frowned.
Sir John nodded. “’Twas mischief long in the planning apparently. The intent had been to rob the entire hostelry, common room as well as those sleeping above. Yet their leader was sore injured earlier that morning. Some knight had clouted him good when he and his cohorts attempted to molest some wench. But without the leader, the rest decided to avoid open combat in the common room, and just rob those few customers still asleep upstairs. Those in the common room were not disturbed by it.”
Roseleen groaned inwardly. In other words, Thorn hadn’t changed things at all. Had that morning gone as it was supposed to, the common room would have been set upon as well, and Sir John would have been roused to defend himself, and probably sobered up enough afterward to make that morning interrogation as he was supposed to.
They had corrected the change by getting Sir John upstairs, yet the change hadn’t been caused by Thorn, it had been caused by her. And the look Thorn was now giving her said so. She had caused the change when she’d left Thorn’s tent, and run into those ruffian-thieves who’d attempted to rape her. Because of her, their leader had been injured and so their plans had been altered, leaving Sir John sleeping blissfully unaware in his drunken stupor in the common room, well past noon, so that he had missed his chance to get the truth out of the English
spy.
And they hadn’t put the course of events back to exactly the way it had happened originally, but getting John back upstairs and preventing him from getting drunk had given them the same end result at least. Thank heavens for that.
Sir John and Thorn exchanged a few more words about the incident and thieves in general. But the moment the knight left them, Roseleen beat Thorn to any blame-casting.
“All right, so that altered history wasn’t your fault, it was mine, but it doesn’t change the fact that everything I’ve said is true,” she told him. “Our presence here, mine in particular, obviously, changes things. So we need to leave here as soon as we find out how to fix this new change—if we can find out,” she amended with a sigh. “I still can’t imagine what went wrong this time, or why. But hopefully you’ll be able to figure it out on the day of the battle.
“By the way, were you attacked that morning by those thieves—originally?” she asked him.
“Aye,” he replied. “And likely by the same two that bedeviled Sir John.”
“Why didn’t you mention something that important when we first discussed this?”
“Important? Nay, ’tis too common an occurrence in these times, to give it importance. I did not even recall the incident, until Sir John mentioned it.”
“I suppose you also dispatched both of the thieves that set upon you?”
“Certainly.” His look and tone said she needn’t have asked.
She sighed. “I guess it’s just as well you didn’t mention it, or I might have drawn still another conclusion that wouldn’t have gotten things fixed quite so easily. That they were fixed is all that counts. And with a little luck, which we’re due, this other matter with the arrows can be fixed too.”
38
It took two long weeks for October 14 to arrive. Roseleen spent most of that time aboard the Mora, usually by Thorn’s order, but sometimes by choice, as when the smoke of burning huts was heavy in the air.
It didn’t take long for the Normans to secure the port of Hastings and its immediate environs. Devastate would have been a more appropriate description. But then even the famous Bayeux Tapestry that depicted William’s battle for the coveted English throne had one scene that showed him feasting at Hastings with his brothers Odo and Robert while a woman ran from a burning hut with her child.
This was war, after all, something that Roseleen had to keep reminding herself. That she knew the outcome and all the tactics employed well in advance tended to downgrade the seriousness of it in her mind, but the fact was, people were dying out there, and a lot more would die before the end of the day.
William and his army were long gone when that realization hit her in relation to herself. She might be perfectly safe being left behind with the ships, but Thorn had marched with the army down the road that connected Hastings with the town of Battle. He might not be able to die, but he could still get hurt, especially since he wouldn’t actually be fighting to kill anyone, merely defending.
And she knew that William’s scouts had reported in the middle of the night that Harold had arrived with his army, that the Normans had broken camp and were marching to meet the English, and the battle would begin this morning by nine o’clock.
That was no more than an hour away. And it didn’t take more than moments for the thought of Thorn being hurt and her not being there to help him to drive her crazy. She had to get to the battlefield. She knew the layout of it, and that the English would be contained on the ridge where they took their stand, that every Norman assault would be against that containment, so the battle wouldn’t be spread out where it might reach her if she sneaked in on the sidelines. And she could at least keep an eye on Thorn then.
Making the decision to go was so much easier than accomplishing it, because she happened to get stuck with Guy of Anjou, who had been charged with guarding her. He liked it no better than she, but he was staying close to keep her in sight. He took his duty very seriously since he’d nearly lost her the last time.
She had little doubt that he’d prefer to be in the thick of the battle, guarding Thorn’s back, as was a squire’s duty. But he wasn’t a squire yet, so here he was with her instead. And she couldn’t see any way to take off without him this time—which meant convincing him to come with her.
It was incredible how stubborn that lad could be, and how condescending. He laughed, of course, when she broached the subject with him. And he stood fast in his refusal to budge from that ship for a good hour, even when she had him convinced that through a dream, it had been revealed to her that it was a certainty the battle would be met today. Medieval folk were too superstitious not to credit things like dreams and omens.
It was an appeal to his own importance that finally enabled her to get through to him, when she said, “If England is conquered, other Normans will come to settle here. And they will all be eager to hear about the glorious battle that won them this prize. It’s going to be one of the most famous battles in history, Guy. Wouldn’t you prefer to be able to say you were there and speak of it with authority? Or will you have to admit that all you know of it, you gleaned from others’ accounts?”
He didn’t immediately change his tune at that point, but she’d hooked him through his vanity, so it wasn’t long after that that he grudgingly agreed to fetch his horse—about the only one that had been left behind—and take her a ways down the road, not too near the battle, he’d stressed, but merely close enough for them to be of assistance when it was over.
“Oh, sure,” she felt like saying, but refrained from doing so. But she knew damn well he wouldn’t be able to resist taking a peek at that battle if they got close enough to hear it. And she was right. He did it by playing dumb, pretending he didn’t hear any of the various sounds of combat until they were nearly right up on the Normans’ flanks.
Only then did he say in exaggerated surprise, “Verily, we have come too close.”
Yet he didn’t turn his horse about. He sat there and waited for her to convince him that they’d be safe where they were. Trouble was, where they were, she couldn’t see much of anything with all those tall Norman backs in front of her, even if the fighting was taking place up the gradual slope of the ridge where Harold had taken his stand. But to the west was another hill, probably the one where William had first sighted the English.
So she told him, “Nay, this is much too close. I think yonder would be much safer, don’t you?” She pointed to the hill. “And we might even have an unobstructed view of the battle from there.”
He needed no further encouragement to swing their horse in that direction. And soon they were both dismounted and somewhat concealed by the underbrush, with a clear view of the ridge. Harold’s standards could be seen near the lone apple tree at the topmost point of the ridge where he’d planted himself, both the dragon of Wessex that he fought under, and his own personal banner of a Fighting Man.
It was a tightly contained mass of men, just as the accounts had claimed, a very strong defensive position that could have won Harold the war if his men hadn’t broken rank to chase the retreating Normans when they lost hope. She didn’t know what point the battle had reached—and then she did.
Disheartened, Guy said, “We are retreating.”
Indeed the Normans were, but she knew that to be the beginning of their triumph. “Yes, they’ve heard that William has been killed, they’ve tried to break through the English shields all morning with no success, but look there,” she told Guy, excited. “That’s Bishop Odo swinging his mace, exhorting the men to take heart, assuring them that William is hale and hearty.”
“But the English are now attacking!” he exclaimed as the English started rushing down the slope after the Normans.
She grinned. “Don’t worry, Guy, that is their greatest mistake. Watch and you will see William’s knights turn to make mincemeat of them.”
He looked at her aghast when that was precisely what began to happen. Roseleen didn’t notice. She was too busy now trying t
o locate Thorn, and finally found him at the base of the ridge near William, neither actively fighting yet.
She sighed in relief, and then realized belatedly that of course he’d stay near William, and thus out of the attacks of the mounted knights. It was why he was there, to find out why William didn’t give the order for the arrows to be fired into the air later.
They had a long wait yet, so she remarked offhandedly, “That retreat was genuine, but there will be other feigned ones that will yield the same results.”
“How do you know?”
“Ah, I told you, I dreamed it,” she replied.
She couldn’t tell whether the boy accepted that lame excuse, but she noticed that he was looking at her differently now, impressed that she knew so much about what was going on before them. “Do we win?” he asked her hesitantly.
A good question that demanded a yes, she thought, unless the Normans failed to fire those arrows this time, and the answer would be no. So she said, “My dream didn’t get that far, though it certainly looked hopeful.”
He nodded, satisfied, and went back to watching the carnage. She averted her own eyes from that, and simply kept track of Thorn. So she was quite surprised when she later saw him talking to Sir Reinard, and not in an angry or threatening way. She even saw him throw back his head and laugh, which surprised her even more.
She was so bemused over that, that time passed without her noticing much of anything. Then suddenly it was late afternoon, and she saw the arrows flying through the air. She blinked, and her eyes flew up the hill. Sure enough, Harold Godwineson had been struck by one, just as the accounts claimed. She cringed and looked away in time to see the Norman cavalry charging up the hill.
The battle would be over soon. Harold would die by sunset at the very spot in which he had held firm since morning, the Normans would quit chasing any survivors from his army by nightfall, and an intimate of Harold’s, Edith Swan-neck, would be brought in to verify which body was his. By William’s order, he would then be buried on the shore that he had defended. Only much later would the new King of England permit Harold’s body to be moved to consecrated ground at the church of Waltham.