She was an archaeologist who studied the medieval period for a living. If anyone was equipped to survive being dropped into 1192, it was someone who understood how people lived, what they believed, and how to navigate their world.
You can do this.You’ve read hundreds of primary sources. You know the period. You know the culture. You can adapt.
She reached up to touch her throat where the necklace had rested.
“Okay,” she whispered to the empty room. “Okay. I’m in 1192. I’ve got a year—maybe—before the next May Day. A year to figure this out.” She took a shaky breath. “I study medieval history. I’ve got this. It’s fine. It’ll be an adventure.”
She didn’t sound convinced.
Outside her window, she could hear the sounds of the castle settling for the night. Distant voices. The clatter of dishes. Someone laughing.
The lord hadn’t laughed. Hadn’t spoken. Had simply looked at her with those unreadable gray eyes, watched her hands like they held some secret he was trying to decipher, and offered her shelter without asking anything in return. Then he’d fled rather than witness her falling apart.
She should be terrified of him. Everyone else clearly was—she’d seen how the servants flinched when he passed, how even Bertram measured his words carefully. But when she closed her eyes, all she could see was his hand, reaching for hers in the rain.
Tomorrow, she decided, she would find a way to communicate with him. If he couldn’t speak, perhaps there was another way. Her mind drifted to Jennifer, to the sign language they’d learned together, to the idea that words weren’t the only bridge between two people.
She’d noticed him watching her hands. Maybe that meant something. Perhaps he was already looking for a bridge too.
The fire crackled low in the small hearth, and somewhere beyond her door, she heard footsteps pause—just for a moment—before moving on.
She didn’t know if it was him. But she found herself hoping it was.
CHAPTER 7
For one blissful moment, Elodie kept her eyes closed and told herself she was in her London flat. The lumpy bed was her lumpy bed. The distant sounds were just the neighbours being weird again. Any second now, her phone alarm would go off and she’d have to?—
“Bloody buggering hell,” she whispered, and opened her eyes to medieval stone walls.
Not a dream, then. Still very much trapped in 1192.
Pale morning light crept through the narrow window, painting a stripe across the floor. Her chamber was small but clean—she’d been too overwhelmed to notice much last night beyond the bed and the basin. Now she cataloged details from the iron candle holder on the wall to the simple wooden chest at the foot of the bed, and to the wool gown draped over a stool.
Lady Margaret’s gown. Gareth’s sister. As an only child, Elodie had wished for a sister or brother, but the thought of losing them, and the look on his face, made her rethink that wish.
She’d found the toilet last night during the restless hour she’d spent exploring every detail of her tiny room instead of sleeping. A small door in the corner that she’d assumed wasa cupboard turned out to be a garderobe—a medieval loo, essentially. A stone seat with a hole that dropped into... she’d decided not to think too hard about where it dropped into or who had the disgusting task of emptying the barrel. At least it was private, which meant she’d been given a guest chamber of honor.
She used it quickly, trying not to dwell on the complete absence of toilet paper (there was a basket of moss and old rags, which—fine, she could adapt, she was adaptable), and was splashing water on her face from the basin when someone knocked at the door.
“My lady? Are you awake?”
The voice was young, tentative. Elodie grabbed the rough blanket and clutched it to her chest even though she was still wearing her shift from last night. “Yes! I mean—come in? Is that what I say? I don’t actually know the proper form for?—”
The door opened to reveal a girl of perhaps fourteen, dark-haired and round-faced, carrying a second basin of water that steamed in the cool air. She stopped short at the sight of Elodie standing in her shift, still talking.
“—this situation, obviously, because I’ve never been a guest in a castle before, well I have, but they were in ruins, which is quite different from having someone knock on your door expecting you to know what you’re meant to—” Elodie clamped her mouth shut. “Sorry. I ramble when I’m nervous. Which is most of the time, honestly. I’m Elodie.”
The girl’s eyes were the size of dinner plates. “I know, my lady. Everyone knows.” She bobbed what might have been a curtsey. “I’m Marian. Bertram sent me to help you dress.”
“Marian. Lovely name. Very?—”
Very Maid Marian, actually, which—stop it, Elodie, Robin Hood isn’t even a thing yet. Or is it? When do the balladsstart? God, you’d think someone with a PhD in medieval studies would know this.
“—very pretty,” she finished lamely. “You really don’t have to call me ‘my lady,’ though. I’m not nobility. I’m just... nobody, really. Elodie Hart, failed academic and accidental time traveller.”
She regretted the last bit immediately, but Marian just looked at her with polite incomprehension, her mouth partway open.
“Bertram says you’re to have Lady Margaret’s things. For as long as you’re here.”
