Until Forever (16 page)

R
oseleen found it difficult to be angry with Thorn. A man who inexhaustibly doled out pleasure all day and all night was a treasure to be hoarded. She had been in seventh heaven, having Thorn’s magnificent body accessible, even eager, for a full exploration. And she’d lost count of the climaxes he’d brought her to. She barely remembered being fed at some point during the evening.

It had been quite an experience, one she’d certainly never forget. This morning, she didn’t even feel overused or exhausted, despite their excesses. He’d been too gentle with her for anything but pleasant memories to prevail.

But she ought to be angry with him. She suspected that he’d made love to her all day and night to take her mind off what was going to happen this morning—or what wasn’t going to happen. She should have spent the time analyzing the situation and coming up
with all possible outcomes, instead of wallowing in sensual indulgences.

And now, with dawn less than an hour away, and with her having had only a few brief snatches of sleep to enable her mind to function, it finally became apparent that the camp was breaking, and probably had been all night. A quick glance outside the tent confirmed it. There was barely anyone left in the area. William’s army had marched to the ships. They were going to sail.

She didn’t panic—yet. But she did rush Thorn out of the tent. Guy had the unpleasant task of taking it down and packing all of Thorn’s possessions in a baggage wain he’d obtained, though he’d hired several peasants to help. He’d be following behind them, already appraised of which ship they were to sail on.

She tried to tell the boy not to bother, that they’d be back, just as everyone else would, but Thorn cut off her, reminding her only after they were galloping toward the coast that they needed to play this out as if they weren’t aware of other possible outcomes. At least he said something to that effect. She missed a few words because they were traveling so fast, but he was right.

Once again she’d forgotten to stick to their plan of action, but she had an excuse this time: Her mind was sluggish due to lack of sleep. She reminded herself though that no excuses of any kind could be tolerated because time traveling was serious business.
One little mistake on their parts could alter millions of lives, and a major mistake could obliterate millions more—
herself included
.

The sun still hadn’t quite made it over the horizon when they reached the still-crowded docks. Roseleen hoped that the hundreds of ships out in the mouth of the river were waiting to come in and load, but it was a slim hope. If anything, all the ships presently berthed were probably the last to be loaded with men and horses, the other vessels simply waiting for the tide to send them on their way.

Obviously, nothing had happened yet to end this premature departure of William’s army. And if they actually sailed…

No, there were still a number of possibilities that could occur to send the army back to their campground. A sudden storm at sea would do it. Another fateful wind could blow down from the north. Or maybe one of the duke’s spies would show up at the last minute with the real facts about the position of King Harold’s army.

But nothing did occur, at least not before the last ship departed. That Roseleen happened to be on that ship was due to the stubbornness of her Viking. Thorn had refused to stay behind with a battle in the offing, even though she’d assured him—she was still positive that something would yet occur—that there wouldn’t be a battle for another month.

Roseleen had never sailed on a modern ship, much less an ancient vessel like the one
she was on. Seasickness didn’t bother her, but then it wasn’t one of her worries. She kept watching the sky for some dark clouds, and the sails to determine which way the wind blew. Unfortunately, they couldn’t have asked for a nicer day for sailing. And the winds continued at a steady pace in the wrong direction—wrong in her opinion.

She didn’t give up hope, however, which was why she almost fell into a state of shock when they sighted the shores of England. Simultaneously, English ships swooped down from the north to attack their flanks, ships that wouldn’t have been there if history had been following its correct course. But it wasn’t, and as soon as they had landed, the Normans would find out that the English, at full strength, would be too formidable to defeat.

Maybe not. Maybe some miracle would still occur. Maybe only the timetable had been altered, not the final results. But Roseleen had no intention of being there to find out firsthand. She had been taken unawares into one battle with Thorn. She would pass on this one, thank you, especially since she only had to open a history book to find out the results of it. But she had to get to that history book first.

So she turned to Thorn, who’d never been far from her side during the crossing, and told him, “Take me home.”

She supposed it was natural for him to look back in the direction they’d sailed from. When
his eyes came back to her with a frown, she added, “Not to Normandy. To my home, in my time.”

“You wouldst leave before the battle?”

“Most definitely,” she assured him, despite his amazed tone, then quickly said, “Look, I’m sorry. I know you’d love to be in on this battle, but we can’t. History is changing even as we speak. There was never a sea battle here, yet those ships yonder are engaged. And Duke William really doesn’t stand a chance of winning at this point in time. Circumstances helped to give him an advantage next month. Right now, King Harold has all the advantages.”

“If one thing has changed, could not other things have changed also?”

Roseleen knew he was right. Anything was possible now, with history rewriting itself.

So she said, “Yes, and we’ll know in a few minutes, as soon as I get to my research books. With them, I can find out what went wrong here, what changed things. So take me back now, Thorn.”

He stared now at the English shore in front of them, as if he were actually undecided, as if the choice were his to make whether they left or stayed for the battle. She reminded him that it wasn’t.

“You promised, Thorn, that you’d return us when I ask. So let’s go, and pronto.”

“What does this ‘pronto’ mean, that you keep—”

“It means
now
,” she fairly snapped, no pa
tience left. “As in yesterday, as in…just do it.”

He did. With a sigh to let her know how much he objected, he drew his sword. The next moment, they were both back in modern-day England, but not in her bedroom in Cavenaugh Cottage, or any other room in the lovely old home that had been bequeathed to her.

They stood in open country, with a high wind blowing. There were only a few trees to break the monotony of the dismal landscape. Not a house or a barn was in sight, or any roads, or utility poles. No signs of life at all. Dark gray clouds moved swiftly overhead, threatening rain at any moment.

In horror, Roseleen whispered, “Where have you brought us, Thorn? And please tell me it’s a mistake.”

But he said exactly what she didn’t want to hear. “I have returned us to your house, in your time, as I did before—yet it is not here.”

T
horn had put it rather simply, for such an alarming statement. No, Cavenaugh Cottage certainly wasn’t there. But why wasn’t it? Roseleen wondered. Had it been destroyed somehow, or had it never been built in the first place? And this was only one change, she realized. How many other things would be different now?

The world as she knew it had been altered, but the question was, how drastically? Obviously, her own ancestors had survived, because she still existed. And she assumed she looked the same, since Thorn wasn’t staring at her strangely. But had her grandparents moved to America as they’d originally done? Was she English now, or still American? Was there even an America, or was it a country by a different name now?

The possibilities and questions were endless, and pointless. She wasn’t going to get any answers until she could find a phone.
She’d call David or Gail. They’d think she was crazy, when she posed the questions she was going to ask them, but she had no choice.

As for what changes had occurred in the history of the world—obviously, her research books weren’t going to be available to supply those answers. If she had lodgings anywhere around here, she had no idea where to find them. And maybe she didn’t have any research books in this different world. She might not even be a professor here, might not have attended college, might not…

She
had
to get to a phone. She also had to find a library. And she had to fight down her feelings of dread and her fear that there would be nothing she could do to get things back to the way they should be.

“What has occurred here, Roseleen?”

Thorn sounded merely curious, while she was approaching the red section on the panic scale. “Just what I warned you would happen. Everything’s different, because that battle wasn’t supposed to take place at that time. But it did, and the rest of history went on to reflect it, a chain reaction of changes in every century thereafter, leaving us with…I don’t know what. The people I know and work with might not even exist now—oh, God, I can’t believe this has actually happened, and just because of one little spy’s false confession.”

His arms were suddenly around her, gathering her close, and his wide chest was there for her to cry on. But she didn’t cry. His sim
ple action had reminded her that she wasn’t alone. Without a doubt, she knew that her Viking wouldn’t let anything or anyone hurt her, and that made her feel safe and protected, tamping down those other negative feelings that had been getting out of hand.

She drew from his strength, and he had a lot to give. With a sigh, she said, “I need to get to a phone to call my brother, but it doesn’t look like we’ll find one around here. Are you sure you’ve got us back to the right century?” she added hopefully. “You couldn’t be a few hundred years off the mark, maybe?”

“Nay, as I told you, the sword will return to its own present, no matter if that present is altered.”

“Okay, so you’ve got this time-hopping thing down pat.” She sighed again. “It looks like we’ve got a long walk ahead of us, to find someone who can help or point us toward the nearest phone or library—if such things even exist.”

Before that thought could cause her further panic, another occurred to her that brightened her expression with excitement. “Wait a minute!” she said. “Maybe things have only gone drastically different in this country. You said you could travel back to anyplace you have been before, didn’t you, Thorn? And it doesn’t even matter what country you’re in when you do it, because we ended up in France on that last jump.”

“Aye.”

“Then take us back to my classroom, to the
night I first summoned you. If my college still exists, they’ll have all the history books we need.”

“To take you there, Roseleen, would be to have you meet yourself,” he pointed out.

She groaned again, very loudly. “Did your Odin ever say exactly what would happen if that occurred?”

“Nay, he did merely stress that it must not occur.”

“Then could you maybe advance the time a bit, to the day after I first summoned you, but still get us to my classroom? I wasn’t there the next day, and neither were you.”

“Certainly,” he replied. “Did I not say such was possible?”

He expected her to remember every little thing he’d told her about time traveling, when they were in the middle of a crisis? But before she could say something to that effect, they were already on their way—and in for another surprise.

The classroom was there, it just wasn’t Roseleen’s classroom—or rather, it was smaller than it should be. The view out the windows was the same though, the grounds lit up even on a Saturday night. At least, she assumed it was Saturday night, the night after she’d first met Thorn.

And there was electricity, certainly enough light from outside to see the light switch by the door, which she flipped on immediately. Thank heavens for small advancements. No Age of Invention was just one of the possibil
ities that could have occurred in this altered world.

“Okay, this is at least familiar ground,” she told Thorn with a great deal of relief. “Obviously, the founder of Westerley College still founded it.”

“Yet is it not the same,” he remarked.

“I noticed,” she said as she headed for what she hoped was her desk. “And thank goodness this change is only a minor technicality that was due to probably nothing more than a shortage of funds this time around, which would have cut down the size of each classroom—”

“Speak so that I may understand you, Roseleen.”

She stopped abruptly, turning back around to him. That had been pure testiness in his tone.
Now
he was getting upset about something? When she saw that he was staring at the walls where the medieval posters should have been, but weren’t now, she guessed what was bothering him. He even confirmed it before she could ask.

“I am beginning to realize that Lord William did not achieve his goal,” he said.

“I already told you the odds were against it if the Normans attacked at that time. You didn’t believe me?”

“We had strength in numbers.”

“Harold Godwineson had greater strength in numbers,” she reminded him.

“William’s cause was just.”

“There are those who disagree—”

“
Why
did this happen, Roseleen?” he demanded impatiently. “You said he became king.”

“Yes, in the proper order of things he did, but that proper order must have been changed by that premature attack we were witnessing. And since that attack was a direct result of that English spy and his false confession, I can only assume that something went wrong there.”

“Where?”

“With that spy. Maybe he wasn’t caught originally. Or if he was, maybe he thought better about lying, or somehow William found out he was lying, or…There I go speculating again, when there
has
to be a history book around here. I kept the first and second semester volumes from the course I taught in the bottom drawer of my desk. We’re due for a little luck…”

She yanked open the bottom drawer, and there were two books. But they weren’t hers. They were different in size and the authors were different, though the subject was still medieval history. And they were engraved as she’d had hers engraved with her name. The name on these…

“I don’t believe it!” she fairly shrieked. “Roseleen Horton? Roseleen
Horton!
I married that lying, cheating, conniving bastard?”

“Who?”

“Barry Horton,” she lamented in disgust. “You remember?
Blue
berry.”

“The one whose likeness you destroyed?”

“Exactly. I despise the man. He stole from me. How could I possibly be so stupid in this revised version of the world as to marry him?”

“You are married?”

There was a sharp edge to his tone that she failed to notice in her agitation. “Not for long,” she assured him. “There has to be a way to correct whatever went wrong and get things back to normal here, because I’d go nuts if I thought I had to live with Barry as my husband. We just have to figure out what needs to be corrected, and I’ll get started on that right now. Pull up a chair, Thorn. This may take a while.”

It would have taken much less time if the authors weren’t so detailed in their chapter summaries, or such overall good writers. Roseleen’s fascination was caught in discovering all the differences in the two histories, and what things didn’t change. And included in the back of the second volume was a brief accounting of the centuries after the Middle Ages, right up to modern times, at least these new modern times, listing all the major events of importance.

It was a good two hours later before she closed the second book, and she’d merely been skimming through the summaries in both books, not the whole chapters. Thorn had sat there silently all the while, mostly just watching her read. That took quite a bit of patience on his part, which the average man just didn’t have. Of course, there was nothing av
erage about Thorn. She’d discovered that right from the start.

And now she had to tell him the bad news, that his hero, his liege lord, had died far sooner than he should have. But she didn’t have to go into detail about that, and she could keep him from dwelling on it by mentioning all the other incredible events she’d just read about.

So she told him, “It’s what I suspected would have happened, Thorn. What had previously been Duke William’s advantage, that Harold Godwineson had come straight from battle with another army, became Harold Hardrada’s advantage instead. The Norwegian king was able to defeat the English and become their new king.

“His house ruled England for a little more than a century, then what they call the Great Scandinavian Wars broke out. Instead of England’s becoming more powerful from the infusion of strength it received through William’s Norman line, it became just a minor country that supplied soldiers for the wars up north, which lasted several centuries.

“America was discovered much later than it should have been, and given some ridiculous-sounding name I refuse to repeat,” she said in disgust. “It was still a melting pot of nationalities from tyrant countries, and still became independent, but not until the eighteen twenties.

“Europe has regressed to feudal states, under what is very similar to the feudal sys
tem of old that you’re familiar with. The new ‘America’ finally went democratic, though more than a hundred years late. Of course, better late than not at all, I suppose. With all the extra wars, little and big, and so many that I lost count, it’s no wonder the Age of Invention got passed by, with only a few of the wonders of my day making an appearance in this new time. At this rate, it will be another hundred years before this world catches up to where it should be in the way of technology.”

She took a deep breath after that long recital and waited for Thorn’s reaction. And waited. She was annoyed that he just continued to stare at her, making no comment after all that.

She let another few seconds pass before she finally demanded, “Well, say something.”

He obliged her, but first he glanced again at that empty wall that should have held the medieval posters. “Do those books make mention of that English spy?”

Roseleen sighed. So much for getting him a little distracted from William of Normandy’s premature demise. “Yes, it’s documented this time around, and that spy’s confession, verified as false, by the way, gets full credit for the Normans’ defeat. Up to that point, history is as I know it, every other occurrence exactly as it should be.”

“As it should be,” he repeated thoughtfully. “And as it should be, there was no spy, correct?”

“Yes, at least, it was never documented. He
could
have been part of the original scenario, but not have been important enough to be mentioned.” Then she suddenly frowned. “You know, it occurs to me that this undocumented incident might not have occurred at all if you and I hadn’t been there, but I can’t see how we could have changed anything that concerns that spy. I certainly didn’t meet the fellow. Did you, when you went to see William yesterday morning?”

“Nay, he had already been disposed of.”

“Then it was a done deal before we even got there—wait a minute! What about your other Thorn?”

“Other Thorn?”

“I mean you,” she said impatiently. “When you were first summoned to the eleventh century through the sword. You weren’t really supposed to be there that time either, you were there only by unnatural means, because of the sword’s curse. But when you were there then, did you have anything to do with that spy? Were you the one who captured him, or interrogated him?”

“Nay, I did not even know of him, until Sir John du Priel made mention of him.”

“Sir John?”

“He was present when the spy made his confession. He liked not the handling of the interrogation, and intended to question the man once more the next morn, but I challenged him to a bout of drinking that even
tide, and he lost. He still slept the next morn, I believe.”

Roseleen’s eyes flared wide. “And that morning was when we were there yesterday, right? When the duke made his decision to sail?”

“Aye.”

“So the spy was disposed of before Sir John could speak to him again. That’s it, Thorn! This Sir John fellow would probably have gotten the truth out of the man, and everything else would then have continued as it should have, with the two Harolds fighting first, and William not sailing to England until the end of September.”

“Yet how can that be changed?” he questioned. “I have no control over what was previously done when I was first there, Roseleen.”

“Yes, you do,” she said with a grin.

“How?”

“We just have to go back a day sooner, before you were whisked back to Valhalla, and prevent your other self from challenging Sir John to that drinking match.”

He looked at her as if she’d asked him to chop off his own head. “I cannot confront myself. This you were told. The very heavens would shake—”

“Don’t exaggerate Viking style,” she chided him. “And I’m not asking you to meet up with your other self. I can take care of that. You can just make sure that Sir John gets to bed early that night.”