Wilding

7. 3

3

“642.” Thomas didn’t need the older man’s answering nod. He could feel the truth of it in his bones. He had travelled through time and ended up in Britain, in the Dark Ages. He tore his gaze from the other man, looked around at the twisting trees, smelled the fresh, clean air. It felt so real.

It can’t be. He didn’t know a lot about Britain in the Dark Ages, but he did know there is no way he should be able to understand this man. Yet they were conversing easily. You speak strangely, to be sure, but now I understand. The man’s words came back to him. Those first few moments, Celyn had not understood him, it seemed. But now he did. Why?

The other man broke into his scrambled thoughts. “Where did you come from, boy?”

The twenty-first century. Right. Earlier the man had just about skewered him. If he even tried to tell him the truth, what would happen? A vision of being burned at the stake as a witch flashed through his mind.

But how could he explain it? His clothes, for one thing. “I don’t know,” he said, hoping he could pull off the lie. His brother always told him his face was a book, able to be read by anyone. Danny. He forced away the sudden despair that pierced him and continued. “I can’t remember anything. Just that I was walking through a field, and those things—” Fear closed his throat. Had demons brought him here? The thought made his toes curl.

“Perhaps the blow to your head has stolen your memory.”

Thomas nodded. The explanation would work for now, until he could figure out a way to get home.

“You are not from Bernicia, that much is certain. Your garments are strange, and your Latin has an odd sound to it that I have never heard before.”

Latin? “I don’t—” he stopped. The words sounded wrong, all of a sudden. What he heard coming out of his mouth didn’t quite match up with what he meant to say. But why hadn’t he noticed before?

“The monastery you hail from must be far away.”

Now the other man’s words were sounding odd, too. Not quite English, they had an Italian-type feel to them. Latin.

The man was speaking Latin, and so, apparently, was he. Even though he knew no other language than English.

He swallowed down the hysterical laugh that bubbled up. All of this was impossible. He began to have a whole new sympathy for Alice in Wonderland. Apparently, he had fallen through a rabbit hole, too.

His thoughts skittered back to what the man said, trying to think through what he knew of this time in history. AD 642. Right. Before the Norman invasion. Basically the Dark Ages. Super. Not a lot of civilization. Peasants. Feudal lords? Or did that come after? He looked the other man over again—his embroidered cloak and silver-handled sword—seeing him with new eyes. A certain air of privilege marked him. This man was no rude peasant, but one of the upper nobility. Lord Celyn, Thomas remembered belatedly. Of Bernicia.

Celyn was waiting for him to answer. Monastery. Okay. I’ve got a cross. Safer to pass as a peaceful monastery-type than some kind of warrior.

“I suppose so,” Thomas said, ignoring the odd dissonance of his words. Concentrating on it made him dizzier than he already felt, so he pushed the problem away. “I don’t know much about Bernicia—I mean, I don’t know exactly where we are.” He took a deep breath, trying to ignore the panic that was threatening to overtake him. Whether this was a dream, or he was suffering some mental illness, or this was really happening, he had to figure out how to fix it. How to get back. Panic wouldn’t help.

“You said it is in the north of England…in Britain?” He amended the word hastily, England sounding odd to his own ears.

Celyn nodded, frowning slightly.

Thomas pictured the British Isles in his mind, trying to think of some place that this man might know, that was the same now as it would have been in his time.

642. No cities, obviously. He wasn’t even sure how many people lived here now. At the most, there might be some small villages or settlements. Northern England. Think. “How far north? Are we near Hadrian’s Wall?”

“The Wall? We are north of that, and another’s week’s travel from Bebbanburg.”

“Bebbanburg?”

“Where my lord king Oswy holds court, along the eastern coast.”

Thomas’ rusty history of Britain was kicking into gear now. The Angles and the Saxons, two Germanic tribes, took up residence in Britain after the Romans left. They shared the island with the Celts and Picts, battling it out among themselves for dominion. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember too many details, except that eventually the two groups became known as the Anglo-Saxons sometime before 1066 and the Battle of Hastings. And some time before then, the Vikings came calling, too.

Great. Hopefully not now. Panic flared. “I don’t understand. How could this happen?”

Celyn’s shoulders shifted under his cloak in a small shrug. “As to that, I have heard stories of the Thin Places,” he said. “Places where this world and the Otherworld lie close together, where it is easy to travel from one to the other, especially on an ysbryd nos, a spirit night, such as the night the Scotti call Samhain.”

“Last night.” Halloween. Sah-win. He filed away the word for future reference.

The other man nodded. A Thin Place? The rabbit hole was getting deeper by the second. “And you think I came through one of those? From this Otherworld?”

Celyn half-shrugged again, but his eyes betrayed his casual manner. “The Otherworld is the home of the tylwyth teg. And a white stag the sign of one.”

The deer, its pale radiance in the gathering darkness at the edge of Parker’s Field. Unease skittered down his spine. “Till-eg tay?”

Celyn motioned with his hand, impatient. “The faery people.”

Faeries? Once again, Thomas bit back the laughter that bubbled up. The man was deadly serious, that much was certain. They actually believe in that stuff in this time, he reminded himself. No wonder the man had drawn a sword on him. Think you, there is good iron in this blade, he had said. Iron, anathema to faeries, if Thomas’ memory of faery stories was correct. Not a story to him. He really believes it.

Would it be better to admit to being a faery, or to deny it? He could see danger no matter what he did. Perhaps it was best to avoid the topic. He shook his head. “Look, I have to get out of here. I don’t remember where I came from, but you and I both know I don’t belong here.” A sudden idea struck him, and he sat up straight. “Take me to the place you saw me last night. Maybe I can figure out a way to go back!”

He pushed himself to his feet and regretted it, as the dizziness increased fourfold and the world swooped around him. He staggered and almost fell but for the other man’s strong arms catching him.

“You can hardly stand, let alone walk. You must rest.” He eased Thomas back down to the log. “They say the doorways between the worlds are only open at the times of changing. Dawn and dusk. Summer to winter. It would be no use to try it now.”

Thomas opened his mouth to protest when he heard a sound, faint but unmistakable: a burst of laughter.

Celyn froze, listening.

Thomas’ heart kicked into double time. The last thing he needed was someone else to drop by on this little party. He strained his ears to hear anything else, but only a bird’s chittering song filled the silence.

“Stay here,” Celyn ordered as he rose to his feet. In a few paces he reached the edge of the clearing and melted into the trees without a backward glance, leaving Thomas alone.

Indecision froze Thomas for a moment and then he pushed himself upright, ignoring the dizziness, which quickly faded. It was awkward to be with Celyn, but he’d rather be with the warrior than without him if someone else showed up.

He ignored his aching head and his queasy stomach and forced himself to move quickly, entering the closely spaced trees where the other man had disappeared.