Marginally comforting.
* * *
Geoffrey came to the tower that afternoon carrying food and fresh water.
“That was stupid,” I told him before he could speak. “What you did in the great hall. Publicly associating yourself with defending me.”
“Yes,” Geoffrey agreed. “I didn’t think it through properly. But my father was correct about one thing. If you know what happens at Runnymede, we need that information. And he was wrong about execution being the proper response to knowledge we don’t understand.”
“I’m a witch,” I said. “I traveled through time. In this century that usually ends with fire.”
“In this century,” Geoffrey said, “we also acknowledge that some things exist beyond ordinary understanding. Saints. Miracles. Phenomena the Church recognizes without fully explaining. Your situation may fall into that category.”
“May,” I repeated. “Comforting.”
“No,” he admitted. “But it’s what I have to offer. A fortnight of uncertain mercy in exchange for everything you know aboutRunnymede. After that… will depend on what Runnymede brings.”
I studied him carefully. Geoffrey de Warenne. Baron’s second son. Strategist. The man trying to keep me alive by convincing everyone else I might still be useful.
And suddenly I remembered his name, why it kept niggling at me. A passing reference in an academic paper from the 1260s. Geoffrey de Warenne had survived long enough to appear in historical records.
Which meant, unless I accidentally destroyed the timeline somehow, he wasn’t going to die anytime soon.
Unfortunately, my own survival prospects remained significantly less certain.
“The charter will succeed,” I said quietly. “King John signs it. It becomes one of the most important constitutional documents in the world.”
Geoffrey nodded slowly, absorbing the weight of that.
“And the king?” he asked. “What becomes of him?”
I hesitated.
The historical record surrounding John’s final years blurred together in my memory with civil war, revisions, and political chaos.
“He lives another year,” I said finally. “Then there’s a siege, I think, and he dies. But I’m not entirely certain of the details.”
“You’ll tell my father what you’ve told me,” Geoffrey said. “Carefully. No exact dates. No specific prophecies. Frame everything as knowledge gained through study. Can you do that?”
“I can try,” I admitted. “I’m not especially good at lying.”
“You’re already lying,” Geoffrey pointed out gently. “You’re simply not lying about the important part. Continue lying about the smaller things, and the larger truth becomes mysterious instead of heretical.”
He left me with that thought as I sat alone on the pallet afterward thinking about the fact that a medieval nobleman had just given me a lecture on strategic cognitive compartmentalization.
And worse, he’d been right.
Four
HARPER
The Baron summonedme to his private chambers on the fifth day of my captivity.
This felt different from the interrogation in the great hall. More intimate somehow, which made it considerably more terrifying. Great halls had witnesses. Private chambers had only the man asking questions and whatever mercy or cruelty he decided to exercise.
The Baron received me seated and without guards, which either meant he felt entirely secure in his ability to control the situation or he wanted me to feel less threatened. I wasn’t certain which interpretation was worse.
In the great hall, surrounded by banners and retainers, he had seemed simply powerful. Here, in close quarters, the scale of his wealth became impossible to ignore.
