“You speak about these events like a historian rather than a prophet,” he said slowly. “How certain are you actually? You avoid specifics whenever possible.”
The question tightened something unpleasant in my stomach because the truthful answer was complicated.
“Less certain than I’d like,” I admitted. “I was a curator. I studied surviving records and scholarship. The Magna Carta is one of the most documented political events in history where I come from, but scholarship isn’t the same thing as certainty. The broad shape is reliable. The details become murkier.”
“So you could be wrong,” Aldwin said flatly.
“Yes.” I nodded. “About specifics. About dates. About individuals. But not about the major historical movements.”
Aldwin folded his arms.
“So we’re gambling on patterns.”
“You’re gambling on eight centuries of accumulated historical scholarship,” I corrected. “Which is honestly a better information network than anything currently available to you.”
“Why should we trust any of it?” Aldwin pressed. “You’re one woman repeating books written by men who weren’t present either.”
The irritating thing was that it was actually an intelligent question.
I’d spent so much time trying to survive the time-travel problem that I hadn’t fully confronted the historical-methodology problem.
“Because the scholars I’m drawing from had access to sources that no longer exist,” I said slowly, thinking through it even as I spoke. “Records destroyed by time. Accounts lost in wars and fires. The historical record surviving into my century is incomplete, but it represents the combined preservation efforts of hundreds of generations.”
I looked toward Geoffrey.
“I’m useful for strategy,” I said. “Not tactics. I can explain long-term patterns. I can’t predict individual battles.”
Geoffrey set down his pen. “That may be more useful than you realize,” he said quietly. “Most men can anticipate the next few months. Very few can recognize which families or alliances matter ten years later.”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Speaking of useful,” Geoffrey said, sliding another parchment toward me, “my father wants the household accounts reviewed before Runnymede. The steward’s Latin is…” He paused delicately. “Interpretive.”
I looked down at the account roll. This should have been easy, after all, I had spent eight years cataloguing medieval documents.
I had graduate-level Latin, had literally taught paleography workshops. None of that prepared me for the reality of actual medieval bookkeeping.
The abbreviations looked like someone had attempted to invent shorthand while actively fighting the alphabet. Entire words collapsed into symbols I’d never seen before. Numerals wandered freely between systems. Scribes apparently treated consistency as a personal insult.
I stared at the parchment for a very long time. “This says…” I began uncertainly.
“Fifteen bushels of rye,” Geoffrey supplied without looking up.
“I was going to say fifty.”
“The mark over the numeral indicates fraction.”
I squinted at it.
In retrospect the mark was obvious.
“Right,” I said with dignity. “Naturally.”
“Of course.” His tone suggested he believed me approximately as much as I believed myself.
I managed three more lines before failing spectacularly again.
“This one says…” I frowned harder. “Salt?”
