Swept Away (16 page)

“Crap, Ella. What else am I gonna do? An asshole in 1620 ain't that much different from one in 2012, trust me. These are
nuns
for Chrissake. I'm not gonna just stand by.”

“I really kind of love that about you.”

“Whoa, sister. Don't be slinging the L word around. I can get skittish, you know.”

“You look pretty stable to me. But after we do this—if we
can
do this—I've got a little bit of a situation back in 2012 to deal with.”

“And I'll be first in line to help you do that,” he said, looking into her eyes, “But let's focus on surviving sixteen twenty first.”

“Bet you never imagined those words coming out of your mouth.”

“You have no idea. And now what was that other matter we needed to deal with? Oh, yeah…” She held out her arms to him and he reached hungrily for his very willing bride.

The next day, Ella, Greta and Rowan cleared off the worktable in the kitchen so they could hammer out the details of their plan. A novice toasted bread and made weak dandelion tea for them as they worked through the morning.

“Okay, Greta,” Rowan said. “What's the main thing about this Krüger guy?”

“The main thing?” Greta looked at Ella for clarification.

“The thing that makes him tick,” Ella explained. “The most important thing about him.”

Greta thought for a moment. “Well, he wants to be better known, or feared, than his father was,” she said.

“Okay,” Rowan said. He looked at her and tapped the table with a metal fork.

Ella could not get used to him without his cowboy hat. Dressed in peasant clothes, he just didn't look like himself. He looked raw and basic. She realized she was blushing.

“Want to join the group, Ella?” Rowan said.

“Okay. Sorry. Well, for example, Mother, does he own anything that he prizes above all else?”

“It is known that he loves his eldest son, Axel,” Greta said. “He disdains his other son, Christof.”

“What would happen if we were to discredit Axel?” Rowan said. He rubbed his hands together as if warming to the idea.

“If Axel lost his favor? That is unimaginable,” Greta said.

“If he didn't have Axel,” Rowan said, “would he make Christof his heir?”

“Christof's the good guy,” Ella said to Rowan.

“I know,” he said. “Well, Mother Superior?”

“Krüger believes strongly in the lines of primogenitor,” she said slowly. “If Axel were killed or disgraced, he would hand over the castle and all its power to his next-born son. But it is impossible to damage Axel. With one who is so disgraceful already how do you diminish him in the eyes of a fellow monster?”

“Leave that to me, Mother,” Rowan said, patting her hand.

Ella was excited.
Thank God for Rowan
.
They had a plan!
She watched him pull their weapons out of the mailbag and lay them on the table. There was his Glock, a switchblade, a lighter, and one ammo clip. Next to these, he set out the block of C4, a handful of blasting caps, the Taser, the two shotgun shells and both cellphones.

“Okay,” he said to Greta. “Now, tell me what's going on these days church-wise.”

“Church-wise?”

“He means who's beheading whom as a zealot or blasphemer. Has Luther shown up yet?”

“Yes, there are many Lutherans in Germany at this time.”

“But say, for example,” Rowan said, picking up the Taser and examining it, “if someone were accused of being a witch or warlock, what would happen to them?”

“They would be burned at the stake,” Greta said.

“That's what I call discrediting,” Rowan said, putting the gun back on the table.

“You are going to make it appear that Axel is dabbling in the black arts?”

“That's right.”

“Sounds good to me,” Ella said. “Sounds effin' brilliant, in fact.”

“Thank you, darlin',” Rowan said. “I appreciate that.”

“But how will you do such a thing?” Greta said. “Axel is well known in Heidelberg. The evidence would be instantly dismissed. His father would ensure that he never came to trial.”

“He might,” Rowan drawled, “if he got to thinking that maybe Axel wasn't really his son.”

“What do you mean? Of course Axel is his son.”

“Really? You know that for a fact?”

Greta gave Ella a puzzled look.

Ella laughed. “Don't look at
me
, Greta, I think it's a great idea.”

“But how?” Greta said. “How can you possibly introduce or prove such an idea?”

“We can,” Rowan said, picking up his cellphone, “through the wonder of modern technology.”

Later, during a dinner of mostly bread, wine and a few vegetables from the garden, Greta seemed to be very pleased. She held both Rowan and Ella's hands and said grace before they ate. Her smile beamed as she conversed with the nuns and novices seated at the table with them.

“How well did you know Heidelberg when you lived there?” she asked Ella after the other nuns had left.

“Mostly the clubs. A few restaurants, I guess.”

“You know the Church of the Holy Spirit, of course?”

“Sure, it's the one at the end of the
Altstadt
. Very popular place for weddings and stuff.”

“The Church of the Holy Spirit is the most famous church in all of Heidelberg,” Greta said, her eyes bright with pride.

“You know it's totally Protestant in 2012, right?”

“It was already Protestant when I lived in Heidelberg in the forties,” Greta said. “Even now we pass it back and forth. Before last year, we actually shared it. Are you familiar with the Catholic Church of the Jesuits? Imagine. I have lived in Heidelberg all my life and attended Mass there many times. Yet I was able to witness the beginning of its construction in 1612. Of course, I must keep to myself the fact that in 1872 it will get a beautiful new bell tower.”

“Must be a lonely feeling living here, knowing what you do about the future,” Ella said. “No one else can truly understand you.”

“It is the exact opposite of that, Ella. From the minute I landed in this time, I have never felt more at home or more understood in my life.”

A
xel rolled
off the sobbing wench and pushed her from the filthy pallet. His men, who were lounging around the room waiting their turn, laughed at their leader's expression of surprise as the girl attempted to escape.

“Catch her, boys!” Axel said, laughing. “Better'n a greased cat.”

One of the men reached out to capture the wretch—a poor village girl who had been taken two mornings ago on her way to school. She instantly sagged in his arms, compliant and hopeless as the man began to undo the laces on the front of his trousers.

Axel stretched and walked over to where the other three men stood, watching. He held out his hand for a flask.

“She had already been had,” he said to his first lieutenant.

“Not surprising. She likely has brothers and a father.”

“Disgusting,” Axel said. He drank from his flask and idly watched the girl's rape. As passive as she was, the man assaulting her still felt a need to slap her.

“Hey!” Axel's lieutenant complained. “Leave something for the rest of us! I like my women to be breathing when I fuck them!”

“I am sick of these sluts,” Axel said. As he watched the girl, he remembered the strange, dark-haired novice from the convent, the one who had looked him straight in the eyes. His pulse quickened at the thought of her naked and unwilling beneath him.

He finished the flask and tossed it into a corner of the room where it broke into shards. “Why have we not returned to the convent?” he said.

“You must only give the order,” his man replied. He was untying the laces on his trousers as he anticipated that his turn was near.

“And why must I do that?” Axel said, grabbing the man by the arm, preventing him from going to the girl who was now no longer crying but stretched out silent and motionless on the dirt floor. He indicated to another watching man that he could take his turn.

“Perhaps, lord,” the lieutenant said, “you would prefer to be made a surprise gift of these young virgins?”

Axel grinned and gave the man a punishing grip on the arm with his fingers. “I want the head hag alive at least at the start,” he said. “But there is one who must be taken alive and untouched.”

His lieutenant nodded. “We all know the one,” he said. “The one who stood and stared at you in the market.”

“Yes,” Axel said, licking his lips. “I have never seen a woman look at a man in such a way. If I don't end up carving those eyes out of her face, I will keep her chained in the dungeon as a pet.” He laughed and his gang of men joined in. Soon the hall rang with their howls.

R
owan kept
a sharp eye out in all directions as Ella straightened the tablecloth on the little patch of lawn on the bank of the Nekker. Instead of eating their lunch with the others in the convent today, they had decided to escape into the fresh air and the countryside just outside the city. He sat on the ground feeling the exhaustion that came from a morning's hard physical work.

“You look tired,” she said, handing him a sandwich and sitting down next to him.

He smiled at her and for a moment thought of skipping lunch in favor of a different indulgence. He noticed that Ella looked more vibrant than he had ever seen her in Atlanta. He wondered if that was the effect of living in Germany—or of 1620.

“I am, a little, I guess,” he said. “But it's a
good
tired.”

“I know,” she said, pouring beer into two cups for them. “That's how I feel. I never had this in my other life.”

“Thinking about staying, are you?”

“No.”

“I was thinking how alive you seem now. During this time.”

“It's probably just fear for my life. Back in Atlanta, I hardly ever felt like I was going to die as many times during a single day.”

“Unless you went to Starbucks,” he said.

Ella looked at him with what appeared to be an uncomfortable, almost guilty expression.

“I hate how we fizzled out,” she said.

“Me, too.”

“If I'd stayed, do you think we'd…you know?”

“Who knows? We're doing pretty good right now.”

“And when we get back to 2012?”

Rowan put his beer on the grass next to him and didn't answer.
What did she want him to say? That they'd stay married? That they'd date?
They had started down that road once before. It hadn't gone so well.

“Guess we'll just have to wait and see,” he said.

E
lla put
the remnants of their lunch in a large wicker basket. Whenever they
weren't
talking about their relationship, they seemed to get along wonderfully. He teased her and praised her and took possession of her like they'd been together for years. He acted like he loved her company, respected her opinions, desired her in all ways that mattered. In fact, being with him this last week at the convent had been nothing short of exquisite.

She didn't know how she hadn't seen it before. The fact was, she loved him. She had probably loved him from the moment he'd kicked open the doors to Starbucks and rescued her.

Forget Starbucks, she thought. He had come to rescue her from
across centuries
. And maybe, just maybe, that meant he loved her too. At least a little.

The rest of the day was a long one filled with more hard work and conversation as Rowan, Ella and Greta fine-tuned their plan to discredit Axel to his father. After dinner, they met in the kitchen before heading for their separate chambers for the night.

“Well, one thing's certain, we can't do anything from here,” Ella said. “So, first thing, I've got to get inside the castle.”

“
That
ain't happening,” Rowan said.

“I can't gather intel from the convent, Rowan. I need to be in the castle.”

“I said
no
.”

“Okay, Rowan, you
do
know we're not really a product of these times, right? You can't tell me what to do.”

“Guess again, Ella.”

“Greta, do you have any ideas? Serving girl? Cook? Laundress?”

“You don't know how to do any of those things, Ella, in a way that would not get you either burned at the stake or thrown into an insane asylum,” Greta said.

“Okay, not being too helpful here, you two. I need
suggestions
.”

“You can't go undercover at the castle,” Rowan said. “You know what they do to pretty girls. You'll be on a boat to Istanbul before dinnertime.”

“Your husband is correct,” Greta said. “You cannot go as a pretty girl.”

“Okay, good,” Ella said. “Now we're getting somewhere. What kind of service can I offer as a boy, maybe an addlepated boy, so there's less expectation from me? Would that be believable?”

“
None
of this is believable!” Rowan slammed a fist on the table, causing a dish to fall to the stone floor and shatter.

“Not helpful, Rowan,” Ella said. “I don't need appalled indignation or arguments here. I need fucking suggestions. Sorry, Greta.”

“Do you know anything about horses?” Greta asked.

“I used to ride in competition as a teenager. You're thinking stable hand or something? But how would that give me access to the house?”

“You'll be within the compound. It's a start.”

“Jesus, Ella!” said Rowan. “Can you imagine what they'd do to a
stable boy
found wandering around the family's bedchambers?”

“I get it, Rowan. It's dangerous. If you have a better suggestion that won't get me raped, sold into slavery, or shut up in a seventeenth century loony bin, I'm all ears.”