I opened the manuscript to the illuminated psalm pages. The gold leaf caught the tower’s light, throwing fragments of brightness across the stone walls. I’d never paid much attention to this particular treasure. It was old, yes, and the illustrations were fine, but it was also damp-spotted and faded. Not, in my estimation, worth much of anything except inherited obligation.
The woman stared at it like it contained the secrets of the known world.
“There,” she said, pointing to one of the margin sketches, the one of the woman in strange dress that I’d never quite been able to make sense of. “That’s the only one that… there’s only one that shows the way back, and I don’t know which detail, and I can’t…”
She stopped, pressing her palm to her forehead.
“Woman,” I said carefully, “what is your name?”
“Harper,” she said. “Harper Ainsley. And before you ask, I’m not local, I’m not a spy for any faction, and I have no idea how to explain what’s happened to me in a way that won’t convince you I’m completely insane.”
“You’re already making a fine case for insanity,” I observed. “Speak plainly. Who sent you? What intelligence are you trying to gather?”
Harper laughed, bitter and entirely without humor.
“No one sent me. I’m a museum curator from Boston, Massachusetts. I was cataloging this exact psalter about twelve hours ago, before it started glowing and transported me here through what I can only describe as some kind of magical temporal rift.”
She looked at me, her eyes bright with unshed tears.
“And I know how that sounds. I’ve had three days to think about how it sounds. But the psalter is real, your castle is real, and there’s probably some explanation involving medieval witchcraft or quantum physics that I don’t have enough information to articulate properly.”
I stood very still.Museum Curator? Boston?
In any other circumstance, I would have assumed this was fever-talking, or madness. But she’d asked for the psalter specifically. She’d recognized the margin sketch. And something in the absolute certainty of her voice suggested this wasn’t deception so much as desperation.
“Massachusetts?” I repeated carefully. “I have never heard of such a place.”
“America. Won’t be discovered for hundreds of years.” She took a deep breath. “I’m from the future,” she said, her eyes widening as if she’d planned to say something else instead. “From the year 2026.”
Merde. I took the matter directly to my father.
This was partly because protocol demanded it, and partly because I’d learned some years ago that letting other people make decisions was occasionally the only way to survive their poor judgment. My father, the Baron of Thames, listened to the entire account with the expression of a man eating particularly bad fish, then rendered his verdict.
“She’s a spy. Possibly a mad spy, but a spy nonetheless.”
“She asked to see the psalter by name,” I argued. “She knew about the margin sketches. She recognized?—”
“She’s clever. That’s what makes her a good spy.” My father settled back in his chair, a heavy oak monstrosity that had held the weight of Thames leadership for three decades. “The question is who she’s working for. King John? The barons? A French faction?”
“What if she’s telling the truth?” I heard myself say, which was monumentally stupid, but my mind had gotten stuck on the image of Harper in the tower, her shoulders curled inward, her strange glorious hair coming loose from whatever arrangement she’d had it in that morning.
My father laughed, a short harsh sound that echoed off the stone walls.
“The truth? What truth could possibly be worse than a spy? We’re two weeks from Runnymede, boy. The king is barely holding onto power. The northern barons are circling. And you’re suggesting that a woman who appeared in our forests speaking madness is some magical accident rather than a calculated insertion?”
“She couldn’t have known about the psalter unless?—”
“Unless someone in this castle told her. Unless she’s been planning this for months. Unless she’s smarter than you are, which, given some of your recent tactical suggestions, wouldn’t be difficult.”
He leaned forward.
“The woman stays locked up until we understand what she wants. If she’s genuine, and she isn’t, she can prove it by providing us with information that helps our position at Runnymede.”
I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it again. We both knew how this would play out. My father had made a decision, which meant the matter was decided. My role was to accept it and find ways to survive it.
“And if she’s not willing to provide information?” I asked.
“Then she hangs as a spy, and we’re done with her.”
