I entered the solar and made my curtsy to Lady Elaine. She told me to sit by the window with Margaret and Eleanor. I curtsied to these two amiable young ladies and joined them. I listened to their friendly conversation as we all stitched on a tapestry depicting a woodland scene of fantastical animals.

I had been surprised at the quality of the fabric and thread. Having tried my hand at weaving in my proper time, I had expected coarse materials. Therefore, I was rather surprised to discover that one who had been born in this time and raised practicing the homemaking arts of the day could quite proficiently produce fine cloth that could rival the texture produced by any machine in the twenty-first century.

We had been stitching for several hours when a page came to summon me. I followed him to the great hall where I was presented to Lord Oliver and his aide-de-camp, Sir William de Kere. I dropped them both a curtsey while trying to quell the uneasy feeling that rose within me every time I was near Sir William. I couldn't help the feeling that something about him wasn't right. It was non-specific, but bothered me, just the same.

Sir William explained that as the newest member of the house, it was easiest for me to assume a new duty, so I was to assist a learned man in creating a new weapon for Lord Oliver. A guard brought in a man who appeared to be in his early fifties. He was clean-shaven with short, curly, grey hair. He was dressed in a long tunic and hood in a hue somewhere between blue and grey, but the thing that struck me was that he was wearing eyeglasses. But they hadn't been invented yet! That meant he had to be like me. Perhaps he had been sent to rescue me. Yet, he wore no marker around his neck. Well, perhaps he carried it somewhere else.

He was introduced to me as Edward de Johnes and called himself a magister (which is a medieval term for scientist or scholar). I curtsied to him and gave my name as Philippa Mortimer of Kent (although it is really Pippin Blake of Grand Rapids, Michigan). We followed a guard to a workroom and were left there to our task.

De Johnes and I stared at each other until he finally asked me what it was about him that so interested me. He spoke in a thick Scottish brogue and his speech was very stilted. (More so than mine.) I responded that his glasses were slipping down his nose. He reflexively reached to push them back into place, and then stopped mid-motion as it dawned on him that I had called them by their proper name.

"Have you ever heard of a man named Doniger?" he asked me.

"Do you refer to Robert Doniger?" I asked him in response.

"Oh, thank God. Can you get us out of here, lass"

I felt my heart plummet into my toes. "What? I thought you were here to rescue me!"

"Oh, no. I just came for a brief sightseeing tour. We were attacked and that coward, Frank Gordon left me behind to save his own arse."

"That sounds familiar. Vince and I got separated and he never made it back to our rendezvous."

"How long have you been stuck here?" he asked me.

"Eighteen days."

"How have you survived?"

"I'm pretty handy with a needle, so I've become one of Lady Elaine's sewing women. It's kept me fed, but doesn't give me any time to explore or try to find a means to escape this time." I explained.

"Well, we have to get out of here in the next three days. After that, there won't be anything left here," he informed me.

"The siege of La Rocque is that near?"

Edward nodded in the affirmative. "By the way, my name is really Edward Johnston," he said as he offered his hand.

"Pippin Blake," I gave him my real name as we shook hands.

"Pippin?" he raised an eyebrow.

"My mother was into The Lord of the Rings", I explained.

"Ah, and are you really from Kent,"

"Grand Rapids, Michigan," I informed him.

"Your Middle English and accent are very good," he commented.

"Thank you. I majored in Medieval Studies. What's your area of expertise?"

"I'm an archeologist."

"Are you on of the group working on the dig here?"

"I was."

An idea was forming in my head. Perhaps a means of escape could be arranged. "If we were to leave some sort of a sign or message for your team to find, would they send someone to rescue us?"

"Oh, most definitely. My son is with the team right now and I know he won't let anything stop him in getting me back."

"Okay, so where do we leave it?" I was getting excited at the thought of finally getting back to the future. (Talk about a cliché!)

"Well, it can't be here," Professor Johnston reminded me. "I know for a fact that only the foundations survive the burning.

"Then it will have to be someplace that we know will survive into the twenty-first century. Parts of the mill make it. La Rocque is somewhat still standing, but getting in there would be a nightmare."

"The monastery!" The professor interjected. "Kate has been searching it for a hidden tunnel that she believes runs from the monastery to La Rocque. I'm pretty sure if we leave some sign there, she'll find it. Do you think that we can both make it there?"

"If we want to have an escort the entire time and have Lord Oliver aware of everything we did there, then yes. But somehow, I don't think that we'll be able to explain any kind of sign we leave."

"I'd rather not have an escort. I need to try to stay away from Oliver. I had to make a rather rash promise to keep my head mounted on my neck." Johnston informed me.

I then remembered that Sir William had said something about a new weapon. My curiosity was piqued. "What exactly did you promise him?"

The professor looked down at the wooden floor and mumbled something incoherently.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that," I told him. "Could you please repeat it?"

He sighed heavily and said quite clearly, "Greek Fire."

"What?" I couldn't help screeching. "You can't possibly be serious!" I was absolutely horrified. "That would give the English a great advantage. I could change the outcome of the battle for La Rocque, the Hundred Years War and all of history from this point on!"

"I know, I know," he acknowledged. "That's why I need to get away from Oliver's men."

"Okay, okay." I needed to calm down. I was bordering on hysterical. I began reciting the Hail Mary in Latin. I had made it all the way through twice before I felt sufficiently calm enough to think clearly. "Alright, what we need is a diversion and a pretext for leaving the manner. Perhaps there's an herb we need. One that we can't use dried. It needs to be fresh. That way they can't just give us one out of the kitchen. That should get us into the woods. Once there, I can distract the guard while you quietly slip away and get to the monastery. You can leave a message and claim sanctuary from Lord Oliver's men."

"It could work. It's certainly worth a try," Johnston agreed.

We called a guard and put our plan into action. It took a bit of convincing, but the guard finally agreed to accompany us to the forest on our quest. We left the manor and made our way to the wood line in the direction of the monastery. Once we were deep into the trees, we pretended to search for our invented herb. We surreptitiously moved farther apart. Once there was a good distance between us, I called the guard over to me. As I distracted him, Edward quietly slipped away. Once he was safely gone, I made a great show of singling out a particular plant and calling out, "Is this the correct one, De Johnes?"

My query (as expected) was met with silence that was only broken by the normal noise of the woods. I acted quite surprised to find myself without the magister. The guard was about to go after him when I haughtily informed him that Lady Elaine would be most displeased if he left me alone in the woods to fend for myself.

He reluctantly escorted me back to the manor. I returned to the solar and resumed sewing with the ladies. I silently prayed that the professor had safely made it to the monastery and accomplish his task. Now, I could only wait for a rescue to come.