A Trespass in Time (20 page)

            Rowan swung his legs out of bed and sat on the edge, scratching his head.

            “You never told me what you’re doing in a convent,” he said. “Is there a place to take a shower around here?”

            “No, and you’re going to have to go to the garden to relieve yourself.”

            He gave her an incredulous look.

            “I tried to explain it to you last night,” Ella said, smiling in spite of herself. “Now I’m going to let the day explain it.” She patted him on the knee. “Finish your breakfast,” she said. “Get dressed and I’ll be back in a few minutes to introduce you to your new world.”

            As she got up to leave, he reached out and took her hand.

            “Ella?”

            “Yes, Rowan?”

            “I just want you to know that no matter what bunch of crazies or whacked out nonsense you’ve got yourself involved with here, there’s no place on earth I’d rather be.”

            Ella grinned and squeezed his hand. “I’m counting on that, Rowan,” she said.

            “I cannot tell you how honored we are to have you here with us, Marshal,” Greta said to Rowan as he sat in the convent’s meeting hall. All the nuns and the novices were there and stood silent behind her. Ella sat next to Rowan with her hands in her lap.

            “Ella has told me much about you. For you to have traveled so far, so far indeed, to help our poor convent, well, we are truly and deeply grateful.” Before Rowan could respond, Greta clapped her hands together sharply and all the novices and other nuns left the room. The three of them were now alone.

            “A brandy, Marshal?” Greta asked.

            At nine in the morning?
Rowan thought to himself.
He
shook his head. “No, thanks, Sister,” he said.

            “She’s the Mother Superior,” Ella said.

             “Okay,” he said.

            “I know Ella hasn’t had an opportunity to fill you in on the details of our predicament here, Marshal,” Greta said. “But time is of the essence, and I need to remedy that immediately.”

            “Predicament?”

            “It’s why I went back to my apartment yesterday,” Ella said.

            “You mean two days ago,” Rowan said.

            “Whenever,” Ella said. “Can I explain, Mother?”

            “Certainly, Ella.”

            “Okay, Rowan, there is this asshole who practically rules Heidelberg at the moment to the point where none of the laws can touch him and so he pretty much does what he wants.”

            “Are you being metaphorical?” Rowan said. “Because it’s ludicrous to think someone is publicly
accepted
as being above the law.”

            Ella chose to ignore his comment. “This guy,” she continued, “has a son who has decided to eliminate all the Catholic clergy and nuns in town. Don’t ask me why. He’s already destroyed all the monasteries except one and all the other convents that used to be on the outskirts of town. He has threatened the Mother Superior here. Greta, show him your arm.”

            Greta quickly pulled up her sleeve to show Rowan her scarred forearm.

            Ella turned to Rowan. “This guy, Axel, the son of the head jerk, did that to Greta a couple weeks ago to show her how serious he is about destroying her and her convent. Are you with me so far?”

            “Is this a new movie that’s coming out that hasn’t hit the States yet?” Rowan said. He looked from Ella to Greta in bewilderment.

            “Axel and his band of thugs have a habit of kidnapping the young novices and selling them into slavery,” Ella continued. “And last week, they attacked one of our nuns and beat her. We don’t even know if she’s alive because they threw her in the Witch’s Tower. They abducted the young novice with her and have her in the castle.”

            “This would be
Heidelberg
Castle?” Rowan said.

            “And so now you know everything, Marshal,” Greta said. “We need your help. Yours and Ella’s.”

            “So that’s what I’m doing here, big guy,” Ella said as she slapped Rowan on the knee. “That’s what
we’re
doing here.”

            “Saving the convent from…?”

            “From the wicked warlord, yes, exactly,” Ella said.

            Rowan looked at Greta and then at Ella. “You guys haven’t missed a beat,” he said.

            “Thank you,” Ella said. “I tried to be thorough.”

            “Neither of you has broken character once.”

            “I do not understand.” Greta looked at Ella with a puzzled expression.

            “Never mind, Greta,” Ella said. “I told you he’d have trouble believing the whole time thing. And none of the rest of it makes sense until he does.”

            Greta stood up and smoothed the wrinkles out of her habit. “Well,” she said, “normally I would say that time would take care of that but, alas, time is the one thing we do not have.” Then she said, “Excuse me, Marshal,” and left the room.

            Ella turned so that she was facing Rowan.

            “Rowan, you see this room we’re sitting in? Did you watch those very strange women who stood behind Greta when she was speaking? You see how they were dressed? The dull, scared look in their eyes? You ever seen anything like that in 2012?”

            “If you’re going to try to convince me we’ve gone back in time, Ella,” Rowan said with a grin, “You have a long and very laborious row to hoe. I don’t know where this place is you’ve landed, but I do know it is 2012.” Rowan looked around the rough, and unfinished interior of the room. “Although that certainly was a very interesting story you told about the evil warlord in Heidelberg Castle. Would make an awesome HBO mini-series.”

            “Fine,” Ella said, as she stood. “Come with me.” She led him out of the room, past the kitchen and down the narrow hall to her private cell. On the bed was a neatly stacked pile of men’s clothes.  

            “For this field trip, you’ll need to leave your piece in my room and put on the period clothing.” When he gave her a long-suffering look, she said, “Just do it, please.”

            As he put on the peasant’s outfit, Ella picked up his cellphone.

            “You still have power?” she asked.

            “Yeah, but no bars,” he said, as he pulled on a stained pullover that was ripped on both sleeves. “Is this blood?”

            “I think it belonged to the butcher’s son or something,” she said. She powered his phone off. “We’ll need to save the battery.”    

            She watched him standing in his peasant outfit. “Just get rid of the boots, and you’re good,” she said.

            “I ain’t taking my boots off.”

            “Peasants in 1620 rarely wore cowboy boots with their rags,” she said. “I don’t even have to look it up on Wikkipedia. Here, put these on.”

            Rowan pulled off his boots and his socks and replaced them with a pair of simple leather shoes that Ella had handed him.

            “Happy?”

            “Oh, one last thing, Rowan, and this is very, very important,” she said, stopping him at the door with her hand on his chest. “You mustn’t speak. Not a word. Promise?”

            “Fine. No speaking. Let’s go.”

            As she led him out of the convent and into the town, Ella prayed they wouldn’t run into anyone dangerous.

            An hour later, they were back in the convent kitchen. Rowan sat on one of the rough-hewn benches. He held a dirty rag to the blood pouring out of his nose.  His eyes were darting around the room as if his thoughts were coming to fast to follow.

            “He’ll take that brandy now, Greta,” Ella said when Greta came into the kitchen.

            “He believes?” Greta asked.

            “Oh, baby,” Ella said.

            “What happened?”

            “Nothing, really. We didn’t even make it all the way into town. Just walking down the lane is pretty convincing, you know? With all the animals and no office buildings or shops or anything. I had to keep telling him not to talk because he was starting to freak out.”

            “How is it that he is bleeding?”

            “Oh, you know that old guy at the end of the lane who’s always herding his goats?”

            “He approached him?”

            “No, old goat guy took offense at Rowan staring and bopped him one. Rowan didn’t even try to defend himself.”

            Greta took the dirty rag from Rowan. “It is a lot to take in,” she said. A novice came into the kitchen and Greta spoke to her in German. The girl left and returned with a brandy bottle and handed it to Greta.

            Greta poured a large glass and gave it to Rowan.

            “Drink this, Herr Pierce,” she said. “It won’t change the reality, but it will make it easier to accept.”

            Rowan drank the brandy straight down and held the empty glass in his hand.

            “How is this possible?” he said, more to himself than anyone else.

            Later that morning, Ella and Rowan sat in a hidden courtyard of the convent garden.

            “Greta has devised a brilliant cover for you,” Ella said.

            Rowan didn’t speak.

            “We’re going to give you a hoe and put you in the garden as the half-witted gardener from, well, I don’t remember that part. But you won’t have to speak and you can stare at people all you want. In fact, they’ll expect it.” She looked at him and bit her lip. “You, okay, Rowan?”

            “I’m fine,” he said.

            “Of course, you’re fine,” she said. “And why wouldn’t you be? Fly to Heidelberg to rescue your crazy MIA girlfriend and end up in the seventeenth century hiding out as a deaf mute convent gardener?”

            Rowan ran his hands through his hair. “How is this possible?”

            “I said those very words about a million times when I first got here. After the shock wears off, it’s just like, whatever. Sixteen twenty. Bring it.” She smiled encouragingly.

            “Sixteen twenty,” Rowan said. “Shit.”

            “I know,” said Ella. She leaned in and kissed him on his full lips. “But we’ve got a convent of damsels to rescue before we can go home, Marshal.”

            “How sure are you that we’ll be able to leave?”

            “I had no problem doing it yesterday or whenever it was that I went back to my apartment. Once our work here is done, we’ll go back.”

            He wrapped his arms around her to kiss her again.

            “Okay,” he said. “So let’s get this done so we can get gone. If my breakfast and the bathroom conditions are any indication, I can already tell you that 1620 sucks.”

            First thing after lunch, Rowan went to the garden to hack away at the weeds and the dormant vegetable patch like he knew what he was doing. He worked for three hours, breaking a sweat in the cold, stopping frequently to stare out toward where the Heidelberg skyline should be. Twice, Ella came to bring him water or ale. Once, when she was walking toward him on the garden path, she watched him—the perfect picture of a seventeenth century peasant—pull out a cellphone to check the time.

            “Rowan, give me that,” she said, holding her hand out to him as she walked. “That’s the kind of thing that can get you killed. What are you thinking?”

            “I’m thinking I’ve got blisters, I’m starving for something I don’t have to pick the bugs out of first, and I’d like to know if this hell of a day is nearly over so I can fall into that lovely bed with the straw and the roaches.”

            “Need to work on the attitude, Marshal,” Ella said, handing him a dipper of water.

            He took a long draught and wiped his mouth on his filthy sleeve. He squinted up at the darkening sky and then turned back to his work. “Water tastes like donkey piss,” he said. “And don’t say I’ll get used to it,” he called after her. “Men from these times
beat
their women for less.”

            At bedtime, Rowan fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Ella took a bath down the hall and then curled up on the blanket pallet on the floor next to him. As she closed her eyes, she found herself thinking that just listening to his deep even breathing as he slept gave her hope and comfort for the future.

            The next morning, he seemed better. When she woke, he was already awake and was watching her from the bed.

            “I took your bed,” he said.

            “I don’t mind,” she said. “You’ve got a lot on your mind.”

            He didn’t answer for a moment. She got up from the cold floor and slipped into bed with him. The bed was so small she was in danger of falling out.

            “I’m better today,” he said into her hair as he held her close. She reached between his legs and looked up into his brilliant blue eyes, now half-shut at the sensation of her touch.

            “I can see that,” she whispered as she lifted herself up to straddle him and slip him inside her. He groaned and held her rocking hips with his big warm hands, moving with her until she sat up straight on him and arched her back as the waves of pleasure welled up inside her.

            “Hold on, baby,” he panted. “Just a little bit longer.”

            “I can’t, I can’t,” she gasped. “Oh, God, Oh, God!” She cried out and rode the wave of ecstasy that exploded between her legs and into the very center of her being, feeling him pound into her, filling her up. “Oh! Oh! Oh!” She felt his hands on her waist as he drove into her, slamming her down on top of him until he groaned loudly and held her firmly onto him before they both collapsed limp with spent lust on the bed.

            She stayed on top of him, because there was no room for two in the bed and felt him shrink away and out of her. She lifted her veil of long hair that draped his face and kissed his lips.

            “Good morning, lover,” she said.

            “Good morning, beautiful,” he said, giving her bottom a squeeze. “I think I’m starting to get used to it.”