Time and Tyra Again Read online

  Brody gripped his hands together, the long fingers turning white at the pressure. “I do not remember,” he said firmly. “I went to war and marched to Jerusalem with my men, at the King’s orders. I went there a single man, Alex. I remember that clearly. Then I slept for four days. When I woke, the world had changed. Everyone, even you, mourned a woman they called my wife, who had died from a wound to the shoulder she took to save a man I didn’t know—a knight who was now my knight commander and a vampire, too. A man who told me he was my lover.” Brody sat up and pushed a hand through his hair, ruffling it. “I remember none of it.”

  His gaze met mine, as if he was daring me to dispute him, or laugh at his fanciful tale. There was pain in his eyes, far back and very old.

  I believed him, because his hurt was real. “It has preyed upon your thoughts since, hasn’t it?” I asked quietly.

  Brody thrust himself to his feet and gripped the rough stone shelf over the fire. “I thought I had let it go,” he muttered. “Veris convinced me it was best I learn how, as he will not tell me anything of those four days. He has let things slip, sometimes, enough to hint at the shape of the days. And now you say Taylor is alive and here in York.” He took a deep breath, calming himself.

  I tried to make sense of it all. Vampires, with their long lives, lead convoluted and circular lives. We meet and part, then meet again as different people, in different corners of the world. We know of each other, even if we have never met. It did not distress me that Brody was not making complete sense.

  I gathered my patience. Brody was distraught. His jaw was flexed, his shoulders held tightly, even though his lean against the fireplace appeared relaxed. So I asked the simplest question I could think of. “Taylor was a vampire, too?”

  Brody spun to face me. “No! She was human! Completely! She left behind a tunic…I swear, Alex, when I sniffed that garment, I could almost see her. It was all too human.”

  “Then, she has been turned since you knew her,” I suggested calmly. “Did Veris…?”

  “How would I know?” Brody asked, flinging out his hand. “He refuses to speak of her, except to confirm I loved her. He implies she is part of our future. Our future, Alex. How can she be here, now, when Veris is not?”

  I put aside the confirmation of what I had long suspected, that Veris was not just Brody’s lover. The three of them had been together. It didn’t shock me. It wasn’t even a surprise. I had long ago got used to the idea and even thought it highly appropriate for those three. They were not the sort of people to live ordinary lives.

  “Perhaps we should ask Taylor?” I suggested mildly. “Speaking to her would most likely provide many answers.”

  Brody kicked at the hearth with his soft boots. “You will have to find her again, first.”

  “Me?”

  He grimaced. “I don’t even know what she looks like.” The grimace deepened into a scowl. “In that, you are luckier than I.”

  I had not considered it in that light. I remembered Taylor with a clarity that came from constant recall. Brody had no memories at all.

  “How could you have slept through four days?” I asked curiously. “You were there. I spoke to you. You behaved no differently than the dozens of times we spoke before we went into the desert.”

  “We went to the desert?” Brody asked.

  Startled, I studied him. “Why does Veris tell you nothing about that time?”

  “He said it is dangerous if I know too much. That it would jeopardize the future. I confess, I do not understand it but on this, Veris is resolute. I have never moved him on it. I gave up trying.” He looked once more into the flames. “I was content, until just now, when you said she was nearby. Now, discontent rages in me.”

  His distress showed in his posture and his eyes.

  “Then, we must find her again and ask her to explain herself,” I said firmly.

  Brody looked at me. There was gratitude in his expression and a hint of relief, making me pleased I had said it. Right at that moment, I genuinely believed I would search for Taylor only for Brody’s sake, for that was the depth of the friendship I felt for him.

  The tap on the door made both of us start, so deeply mired in our thoughts were we.

  The inn keeper intruded only far enough to see both of us. He looked apologetic as he addressed me. “You’d be the doctor that fixed the soldier today?” he said.

  “I am.”

  He nodded. “There be a man below, asking for you. ‘e says ‘is brother is sick.”

  “Tell him to come back in the morning,” I said shortly, for I had learned to limit the calls upon my time unless the matter was urgent, or I would lose all semblance of a life. Now I had openly declared myself a healer, the demands would begin.

  The innkeeper nodded again. “That be what I told him, only ‘e says it’s urgent.”

  I hid my sigh. If someone said it was urgent, it generally was. Folk didn’t call for a doctor for stubbed toes, not in that day and age. Only if a family member or friend was in dire need of assistance did they wrap themselves up and travel through dark and chancy night in search of medical assistance.

  Brody’s mouth turned up at the corners. “I’ll keep the fire burning,” he said simply.

  “Come with me,” I said impulsively. Now Brody was here and so greatly troubled, I felt a need to keep him within arm’s reach.

  Brody looked at the flames, clearly judging whether an evening staring at them would be sufficiently distracting, considering the current state of his thoughts. “Why not?” he said, with a shrug and reached for his thick cloak.

  I picked up mine and flung it on, then faced the inn keeper. “Where is the man?”

  Chapter Two

  The man standing by the door, shifting from foot to foot, was tall and dark haired, with black eyes that reminded me of Brody. This man, though, was unshaved and none too clean. The aromas wafting from him spoke of barns and stables and worse. From the state of his clothes, he had been sleeping in such places. Now he was damp, too. The scent was pungent.

  I held my breath, except when I spoke. “Your brother is ill?”

  “He is,” the man said. “Can ye come?”

  “Can you pay?” I said bluntly, although I was not above providing charitable service when I deemed it suitable.

  “Aye, we’ve coin,” the man said.

  “He’s a Scot,” Brody murmured near my ear. “It’s as well I’m coming with you.” He shifted the sword on his belt in a way that let the man glimpse it under his cloak.

  The man shook his head. “No harm will come to ye. Ye’ve my promise on that. Besides, Longshanks has settled things, hasn’t he? That be why he’s back in York.”

  I wasn’t worried. The Scots were ruthless fighters, yet it would take more than courage to harm me. Now that I had been publicly declared a doctor, I could move freely among almost any community and meet nothing but good will for my services.

  Yet I was glad Brody was at my shoulder, anyway.

  We followed the man, Cameron, through the streets and across the Ouse to poorer areas of the town, where the houses were smaller and silent. No good cooking smells came from them and very little light, for tallows were expensive and grease was kept for cooking and sometimes as its own meal.

  Cameron opened the door of one of the smaller cots and stood aside to let us in.

  It was dim inside, lit only by a small fire in a mud brick hearth. There was no furniture, only a sleeping shelf with the doors shuttered and a log turned on its end as a perch in front of the fire.

  On a pallet on the earthen floor was a man in bloody clothes. He was groaning, holding his stomach. His hands were drenched in the fluid, too.

  Brody held me back. “He’s not sick.”

  “One could argue he is deathly ill from a sword to the stomach,” I pointed out.

  There was movement in the far corner, where the light from the fire didn’t reach. A larger shadow detached itself from the dark. Brody’s sword was out before
they had taken a second step.

  It was a hooded woman. “Can you help my brother?” she asked. She lowered the hood of her mantle and the fire played upon her face. She was as out of place in that hovel as we were. Her clothes were rich, fit for the king’s court, yet I stared at her face. Her dear, familiar face.

  “Tyra,” I breathed.

  “Told ye he was shouting at ye on the street today,” Cameron said gruffly.

  Brody drew in a deep breath, controlling his own reaction.

  Tyra glanced at Cameron. There was impatience in her look. Then she returned her gaze to me. “My name is Mary. Cameron is my elder brother. David is our younger brother.” She nodded to the groaning man. “Can you help him?”

  Mary. She was denying her identity.

  Then it hit me with an impact that stole my breath. These were her brothers.

  No one with a nature that allowed them to live for two hundred years would have living relatives of any sort. I knew that with a thoroughness that came from hard experience, watching relatives die one by one from old age, always watching from a distance where they would not see me in my ageless form. It had been one of the harder lessons to learn and it had lodged deep.

  Brody sighed. It would not be heard by any of the three humans in the hovel. He had come to the same conclusion, then.

  This was not Tyra.

  Yet every line of her face was identical to those I held in my memory.

  She bent over the writhing man and looked up at us. “Please. Help him.”

  I took off my cloak. “I will need more light. Cameron, stoke the fire and bring candles if you have them. Also, clean cloth and water, as much as you can find.” Cameron scurried to obey.

  “Mary…you said your name was Mary, yes?” I asked her.

  She looked up at me and the jolt was that of a thunderclap. Taylor had looked up in that way, her head tilted just a little to one side.

  I remembered to breathe.

  “Yes. Mary,” she said quietly.

  “Do you have your sewing basket here?”

  She nodded.

  “I will need thread, the stoutest you have. And a good needle.”

  Brody took my cloak from me. “What can I do?”

  “Find out why the man got a sword in the gullet,” I said shortly, thinking of the soldiers in the inn that afternoon. “There is no war near here and a wound like his, honestly got, would not need this subterfuge.” I looked at him. “I would prefer to know if I am entertaining disaster by stitching the man up again.”

  “As would I,” Brody said. He moved over to the fire, where Cameron was feeding fresh tinder and logs onto it and bent to speak to him.

  I wrenched my gaze away from Mary’s face, as she watched her wounded brother, rolled up my sleeves and knelt in the dirt next to her, to tend the man.

  It was the beginning of a long night.

  * * * * *

  It was close to dawn before I had finished the cleaning and stitching. David had long since fainted, to my relief, and remained unconscious throughout.

  Mary and Cameron moved around the cottage behind me, fetching and carrying, providing whatever I asked for. I don’t know where they got the cloth and the water, for the cottage appeared to be empty. I did not care, except to curse that I had left my chest of supplies and tools at my lodgings, pushed under the bed and out of mind. There were herbs in the chest that would help, now.

  A straightforward stab is easier to treat with a simple needle and plenty of thread. A more jagged one, produced by a side swipe of a blade, for example, is complicated and there is a greater danger of organ damage. David was lucky. There was no telling odor emanating from his wound that would speak of perforated bowels or intestines.

  Yet it still takes time to close up a deep wound in a way that would keep the edges firmly closed until they naturally knit back together. I had completed such operations thousands of times on dozens of battlefields and was confident of my skills. Unless David hung for whatever reason had given him the wound, he would otherwise live.

  Light was beginning to show through the chinks in the shutters when I sat back while Mary silently changed the stump of the candle sitting next to David for a fresh one that would cast better light.

  Brody crouched down next to me.

  “Did you learn anything?” I asked.

  Cameron sat upon the upturned log, looking dourly at the fire. Brody had taken him out into the night a while before. I didn’t bother asking why. Now they had returned and Cameron was sulking.

  Brody nodded in answer to my question. “There’s more of Mary’s clan in York besides her two brothers. They tried to attack the King’s party this afternoon.”

  I nodded. It was as I had expected. “Why on earth would anyone with any sense attack the King? His army goes with him everywhere.”

  “It wasn’t the English king we were wanting,” Mary said, her voice low yet clear.

  “The soldiers I treated were from the back of the file,” I said in agreement. “What is back there that would make such an attempt worth it?”

  Brody made a sound of disbelief and got to his feet. “The crown jewels,” he said, staring at her. “The wagon with the jewels travels at the end, where it won’t be noticed.”

  Mary wrinkled her nose. “Baubles for rich, fat Englishmen,” she said contemptuously. “Jewels do not feed children. Who cares if they’re stolen?”

  “Edward might care a great deal,” Brody replied. “Is that why they tried?”

  I thought of Alfonso, the King I had served, and his fondness for grandeur and richness. I gasped. “The crown!” I looked at Brody. “Does the King’s crown have any significance here, apart from being a crown the king wears?”

  Mary hissed and got to her feet and I knew I had guessed rightly.

  Brody nodded. “Saint Edward’s crown. Every king since Edward the Confessor wore it. John was the last. Henry, who succeeded him, declared the crown a holy relic and too precious for a simple king to wear. He carried it in a gold-lined lockbox with him, everywhere. So has every king since.” He looked at Mary, who was standing at the fire, warming her hands. “If the crown was stolen, it would be a symbolic defeat greater than any battle the king might lose.”

  He dropped his voice and turned his shoulder so he was speaking to me directly and at a volume that wouldn’t be overheard by anyone else in the room. “Edward just forced the Scots into recognizing him as the mediator of the Scottish succession. The Scottish lords gave way. Most of them are half-British, anyway. The common people, though, would find the theft of the King’s crown a fitting retribution for the insult.”

  “Until Edward marches into Edinburgh and slaughters them all,” I whispered back. I knew a little about Kings and their affinity for symbols and pageantry.

  Brody scowled. “The Scots are a nation of hot heads,” he breathed. “I guarantee they haven’t thought beyond slapping the King in the face with this.”

  I looked at the grumpy, slouched figure of Cameron, outlined by the fire. “Surely they would not try again?” I asked, thinking of the relentless courage of their fighters. “The crown will be locked up in the keep by now and the curtain wall is unscalable.”

  “Not for Scots used to scrambling about mountains,” Mary said quietly, turning to look at us.

  I think I might have gaped at her.

  “You’re mad,” Brody said. “All of you. It would be suicide. York castle is the most highly defended keep north of the Tower of London.”

  “What have we got to lose?” Mary asked, with a quiet dignity.

  David stirred groggily next to my knees. “Talk to her,” I urged Brody. “I must finish this quickly.” I bent to my work once more, only vaguely hearing the two of them talking behind me, their tones strident. Cameron stayed by the fire, dour and silent.

  The light issuing through the cracks of the shutters was bright by the time I finished. David was definitely returning to consciousness by then.

  I washed my ha
nds in the bowl, then got to my feet. Mary had returned to the fire, which was burning low. Brody stood with his feet planted and his arms crossed. He looked as though he had made no headway at all.

  At my glance he scowled heavier than either Mary or her brother. “Mary is being kept in the castle as a bond forcing her father to abide by Edward’s strictures in the north.”

  I shrugged. “It’s a common enough practice.” Alfonso’s queen had kept the marriageable daughters of both enemies and allies at court, too. Some of the most strategic alliances had been cemented under the queen’s supervision.

  “Edward’s queen has not stirred out of London in nearly twenty years,” Mary said and hesitated, looking uncomfortable. Color bloomed in her cheeks.

  Cameron stirred. “Edward is a bloody letch,” he decreed. “If my sister survives with her maidenhood intact long enough to be well married, it will only be because she is more nimble than he.”

  “You want to steal the crown to distract him, then?” Brody asked, amused.

  “A symbolic castration, as they can’t arrange a proper one,” I added.

  Mary whirled to face us, her face working. “This is not just about me! It is for everyone. When they hear the news that Longshank’s precious crown has been taken from right under his nose, then, oh, then, the pleasure that will give them all…!” Her face glowed as she spoke.

  “Hope,” Brody said flatly. “You’re talking about hope.”

  “Yes!” Her tone said that Brody had put his finger upon the core of it and she only just now recognized it, too.

  David moaned softly. His eyes were still closed, yet his hand moved to his belly. We were disturbing him, which would not help him heal. I looked at his sister. In my mind, she was still Tyra, even though every word she spoke gave lie to the belief. “I would speak to you outside, for a moment, with your brother’s permission?”

  Mary didn’t look at her elder brother. She moved directly to the door. Cameron did not protest, either.

  I unlatched the door and glanced at Brody. “This must be halted now,” I said.

  Brody nodded. “Good luck,” he added, as Mary stepped through the door, raising her hood.