July 1069
When Robert found us about four hours later, he opened the door to find the two of us quietly sitting in separate seats reading separate books, with my overcoat around her after a half hour of chilling air had left her freezing.
She'd recommended Leo of Naples' Latin translation of the Alexander Romance, which John had apparently acquired after she'd brought in a copy in the original Greek. It's very exaggerated, and not exactly historical. Fantasy historical fiction is the genre I'd put it in if I had to.
We both looked up from our books in his direction when he opened the door, and he spent a few moments looking back and forth between us with a confused expression on his face before shaking his head and gruffly clearing his throat. "Jedi, if we could have a word?"
Eventually, I'm sure the joke will get old. It hasn't yet.
"Sure," I said, carefully closing the book and putting it back on the fiction shelf before walking over to Elfleda to take my coat. "Need this, sorry."
"It's fine," she said idly, shrugging it off as I approached. I took it, put it on again, tugged and brushed it so that it sat properly, and then headed towards Robert. He stepped back from the door, I stepped through, and he closed the door. And continued to look at me.
"Have you come to a decision?" I prompted after an awkward silence.
Robert grunted. "We'll try your way. Though God only knows how the king will take it."
That was good, though it meant there was another meeting with the vampires in my near-future. Probably.
"Great. Then if that's it, I think Eadric and I will be leaving tomorrow."
Robert gave me a strange look.
"I don't live here," I reminded him. "And at this point, my job is essentially done. There's a solid framework for a lasting arrangement, and unless things go very wrong with the king, I have no further role to play. So I'm going back home. Ideally, after being paid."
"You're a hermit," he said.
"Being a hermit can be surprisingly expensive if you're trying to be a helpful hermit," I said. "Looking after my horse, my house, buying food and drink, lodging when I travel, investigation expenses, it adds up. And I think that, even if negotiations do fall through, I've done you a good service by revealing the problem to you and arranging a détente."
"I suppose you have at that," Robert grunted. "Very well. How much?"
Aaand that's where my plan fell apart.
"Well, I don't feel comfortable charging under the assumption the arrangement comes about when that's still in flux," I said slowly, stalling for time as I tried to figure out a remotely appropriate basis for naming a sum. "So there's just the matter of expenses, expertise in negotiating with the centaurs, the revenues from the increased swine population that can now be supported."
Robert snorted. "You have no figure in mind, do you?"
"I wouldn't say that…"
Robert was silent for a few moments, then offered, "Ten shillings. It's the bounty on a thief, as I recall. Close enough."
I did some math real quick and that came out to half a pound sterling and a millennium's inflation is absurd so call that something like multiple thousands of dollars and I was suddenly reminded of why I tolerated working for rich clients.
"That would work nicely, thank you," I said, deliberately avoiding the g-word that might cause him to be less beneficent in the future.
And that was that, really.
The rest of the day passed without incident, I got paid, grabbed some food as a bribe to Larissa to carry a message to Helga for me, had a night of uninterrupted sleep, and in the morning I met up with Eadric and his footmen and we headed back towards Dorham. All very neat, simple, and routine.
For some reason, that put me on edge.
"So what happened?" Eadric asked once we were half an hour out of town. He sounded gruff and looked sour; clearly, he hadn't enjoyed being left to flounder in a Norman court for a few days, and I doubted he would ever willingly come back to Berkhamsted without very pressing reason.
"Centaurs in the woods being half-justified partisans, half-conceited assholes keeping people out of the woods," I summarized. "I went to talk to them, hashed out an agreement, and now I hope Robert can carry this across the finish line."
Eadric shot me a strange look, then shook his head and turned away.
"What about you?" I asked.
"The earl was asking after my son and daughter and bringing them to court. Seemed more interested in Eva than Cuthbert," Eadric said sourly.
"Why?" I asked, even though I had some idea.
Eadric was silent for about half a minute, though I could see him working his jaw and shifting his lips. "Men can die in many ways. From battle, from training, from sickness, accidents, murders. Cuthbert is yet young, and unmarried, and childless. If he dies, then there's just Eva, and whoever marries her gets Dorham."
"And even if that's not the goal, bringing Cuthbert in and maybe getting him a Norman wife will work almost as well," I said.
"Aye," Eadric replied with obvious distaste. "There's some hope to find good spouses for them in Mercia, but God only knows how long that will remain the case. Earl Edwin and his brother already tried rebelling, and failed before they could even gather their fyrds. I doubt he'll remain Earl of Mercia for much longer, and then what? More Normans?"
"Basically," I said, already knowing how this story would go. Short of me significantly derailing my course of history by going all Dark Lord Dresden, Emperor of Britannia, the Normans were going to steadily replace and integrate with the Anglo-Saxons. Maybe something I did or would do in the future could spark a butterfly effect that overthrew the Normans, but I really doubted that. "I'm not going to tell you to give in, because believe me, me giving that advice is the height of hypocrisy. But I will say this: you should consider the reasons for and against both sides, working more closely with the Normans and stubbornly resisting. Saying fuck it all, staying true to your beliefs, and damn the consequences is a very seductive point of view. And sometimes, it's necessary. But other times it also leads to unpleasant consequences. Not just for you, but the people around you."
"That's simple for you to say. You don't have ties to the people or the land," Eadric grumbled.
I shrugged. "You're right, I don't. But I also don't have any ties to the Normans. It makes me about the most unbiased point of view you're going to get."
He didn't have anything to say to that.
We were lucky enough to not run into any travelers on the road, suspicious or otherwise. I think after the last encounter, Eadric had a fairly justified suspicion of people you ran into on the road.
Once we made it back to Dorham I split off to head back to my house. I'd just taken everything off of Shadowfax, dusted the various surfaces, and sat down with some too-fucking-warm beer and a serious desire to transfer the heat out into something else when someone knocked on the door.
"Hell's bells," I groaned. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."
Grumbling all the while, I got up off my chair and shambled my way over to the door. "What?" I asked irritably as I pulled open the door.
Eadric looked back at me, and I sighed and went on, "Is the sky raining cats and dogs or something?"
"...no," Eadric said after a moment. "Hilda is inviting you to dinner."
I looked out the door and up at the sun. "It's not that late."
"Still," he said.
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "Fine. Just give me a few minutes." I closed the door, finished the beer, grimaced, and grabbed my staff and sword from where they were standing. I strapped the latter to my waist, then walked back out. Eadric gave me a look when he saw me armed.
"In my line of work, there's no such thing as being over prepared," I said by way of explanation.
Not that I was expecting a sudden attack during the twenty minute walk to the manor, but I'd been unpleasantly surprised more times than I can count or care to remember.
The late lunch, early dinner - linner? No, that's not nearly as pleasing a contraction as brunch - was a mixture of chicken, beef, bread, and some herbs and vegetables. Technically sort of enough to make a sandwich, but also not really.
Note to self: figure out tomatoes. They're a necessary part of both the burger and the pizza projects.
There were some polite pleasantries exchanged, Hilda pressed Eadric and me for details about what had happened - more me, once it became clear that Eadric wanted to discuss things in private and I had the more 'exciting' story.
"I'm curious about something, if you don't mind my asking," Hilda said after I was done with the centaur story.
"Depends what it is, but you can still ask," I replied, before shoveling some chicken into my mouth.
"Your hands. You wear a black glove on your left, but not your right. Is there some particular significance to that?" she asked.
I set down my fork, washed down the chicken with some watered ale, and held up a finger as I finished chewing. "You know, you're actually the first person to ask me that," I said once I was done. "And yes, there is, but it's not really all that exciting."
"How so?" she asked.
I sighed. "Well, some years ago, an enemy of mine burned my hand, badly. I'm talking charred black, maybe should have amputated badly. I didn't take the physician's advice, and it's healed some over the years, but it's still a gruesome sight."
"How did it heal?" Eadric asked.
"Magic, salves, exercise, and sheer stubbornness," I said. "I can show you if you want, but it's... not pretty."
In retrospect, I wonder if there wasn't some other force at play right then. Not anything terribly overt, but still; I showed off a gruesome war wound with very little prompting, and considering what happened next, well...
Hilda looked over at her husband, and he seemed to deliberate, glancing over at their children. Then he shrugged, and turned to face me. I shrugged in turn, then slowly took off my glove.
The hand was definitely a lot better than when it had first been burned. 'Better', however, was definitely relative. It was like, well, there aren't really any timely metaphors or people of comparison. The best way I can describe it as if it were wrinkly old man skin, dried and weathered out in the sun for days, then scrunched up, matted, stretched back out, and then smoked over a fire. It was pinkish, and leathery, and scarred, and even though I had full articulation and a fairly decent sense of touch, the sight of it still produced enough nausea and the unwelcome memory and stench of sizzling flesh that I preferred to cover it up.
Eadric and his family went through the whole process of immediate, instinctive revulsion, followed by morbid curiosity. I stretched out my hand and held it over the center of the table, and wasn't too surprised when someone reached out to tentatively poke it.
I was surprised that the someone in question was Eva, more so when she flinched back with a shriek as something like an electric current established itself from the momentary skin contact.
I heard Eadric's chair screech as he pushed it back and saw Hilda reach out to caress Eva's hand, only to discover it was completely fine. I, meanwhile, just let out a long, resigned sigh.
It was just my luck my landlord's daughter was gifted with magic. And quite a good amount of it too, if the initial contact was any indication.
"And I think that's enough now," I said, pulling my hand back and putting the glove back on as I weathered the glares of Eadric and Cuthbert, one far more concerning than the other. Hilda bundled both her children off at that point, and I was left alone in the dining room with Eadric.
"I think you, Hilda, and I need to have a private chat," I said, grabbing some more food while I could.
Eadric stared at me, eyes narrowed, and after a brief pause asked, "What was that?"
"Either a really bad case of static electricity, or something we need to talk about," I repeated. "But I didn't do anything, if that's what you're wondering."
Eadric folded his arms together and looked at me. There was complete silence for about half a minute, save for the sound of cutlery on plates and the chewing of meat, then, "What about the vampire?" he asked suddenly. "You left him, at the court."
I nodded. "I don't think he's a threat."
Eadric's expression turned dark. "You don't think he's a threat," he repeated slowly.
"No," I said, giving him a look. "If I did, there'd be a partially melted castle in Berkhamsted right now. There isn't. I acknowledge it's hard for you to accept him as a person after what happened, but he is. I'm not going to kill him just because he acted somewhat like an asshole, or because he's different." I drank some more ale. "I mean, if I did that, I'd have to kill myself. And you."
Eadric didn't look too pleased by my response, but I didn't care that much. Honestly, I just didn't care much about anything, really. Eadric had been right when he'd said I had no connection to this time, place, or people, and it just...
It all made me bitter, I suppose. I hadn't left things in a good state, back home, but they hadn't been terrible either. I'd helped fix some of my mistakes, my fuckups. Things were on the upswing, on the whole, and I'd died and gone on to my judgment with that assurance. And rather than... whatever might have happened, wherever I might have gone, heaven or hell or something else, I got thrown back in time and woke up to a nightmare, then forced back into the same routine as before, just worse.
Yeah, I wasn't really feeling attached to anyone here. Just ties of duty and obligation, mixed in with the cold 'comfort' of the knowledge that there was no way back for me.