Castle Murders (11 page)

"Everyone out!" Eugéne shouted.

"But, Eugéne!"

"Leave him to us! Go on, get out. Come back later."

"But Ragueneau's men —"

"We'll meet you back here in an hour. Come on, guys, take a hike, okay?"

Grumbling, the troop of cavaliers left. Soon the tavern was empty but for the barkeep.

The two men advanced on the blond.

"Linda!" Gene whispered. "What are you doing here in that ridiculous get-up?"

"They don't let women in bars here. Think I wanted to come in drag?"

"You know, men's beards are almost never blond."

"Yeah, so I found out. Jeez, it was almost impossible to get close to you guys. I chased you all over town, from one dive to the other."
 

"Well, we're on the Legate's poop roster, so we have to keep on the move. What's up? What the matter?"

"It's Melanie. She —"

"Melanie? Who's that?"

"Melanie McDaniel, the new Guest — at lunch? Remember?"

"Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead."

"She wandered into a wild portal and it closed up on her."

"Damn. That's tough."

"It was my fault. I let her out of my sight."

"What were you doing in a wild area?"

"We weren't! The portal popped up in one of the safest parts of the castle."

Gene clucked ruefully. "Well, it's been known to happen. Even the stable areas aren't one hundred percent."

"And it had to happen to Melanie. Gene, we've got to do something. That's why I took the chance of coming here. I had to talk to you. I feel so awful. What are we going to tell that poor girl's parents?"
 

"Would they believe us? Nah, best to say nothing."

"But we have to do
something
."

"Like what? You know how the castle works, Linda. Wild portals can lead anywhere, any universe, and not necessarily one listed in the books. No telling where she wound up. That portal might never open again."
 

"Gene, we have to take the
Sidewise Voyager
out and search for her."

Gene sat back and let air into his lace collar. "Linda, that's going to be a problem, seeing as how the thing's wrecked."

"But Dolbert and Luster say they can fix it."

Gene laughed mirthlessly. "Those two. They've been fiddling with it for months."

"It's not an easy job."

"I'll say. The thing needs parts. Where're they going to get 'em? That thing was built in a universe that I'm not sure even exists in the ordinary sense."
 

"Dolbert has been building some parts from scratch in the castle smithy."

"I dunno," Gene said doubtfully.

"Jeremy says Dolbert's a mechanical genius."

"Yeah, well, idiot savant he may be, but he's still an idiot. Besides, I wouldn't stake my life on Jeremy's judgment. He's somewhat of a cretin himself."
 

"That's not fair. Jeremy's —"

"Forget it. That's not the point. The point is travel in the
Voyager
is risky, even at best. What does Incarnadine say?"

Linda looked downcast. "He's disappeared again."

"He'd probably say the same thing."

"Gene, please. I'll never forgive myself. Never. That poor girl is alone in a strange universe. She might be in danger right now. She might die, Gene."
 

Gene let out a long sigh. "Oh, well. Trouble is my business."

"But if you're afraid —"

"My dear, you're talking to a man who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe. I'm petrified. But let's get back to the castle and see what we can do." Gene started to rise. "Which, I'm afraid —" He sat back down.
 

"Trouble?"

"Well, it so happens the portal is in the Legate's part of town. The city is divided up between the king's regent, who's kind of weak in the power department, and the Legate Ragueneau. Local politics, it's complicated."
 

"What about the revolution you were talking about?"

"They had it without us. The peasants revolted and overthrew the Directorate. Got fed up with starving. But it turned out that Ragueneau was backing the regime because he was buying grain from them at bargain prices and selling it on the . . . but forget about that. It's real complicated, and anyway it's beside the point. The point is, we're on the Legate's hit list, and his goons are out in force tonight looking for us."
 

"Great. How are we going to get back?"

"I dunno. How's your magic in this world?"

"Iffy. I cast a little number to keep my voice low, but apparently it wasn't very effective. How's your swordsmanship?"

"Great, but I'm not Superman."

"Oh? What was all the bragging about?"

"Hey," Gene said with some embarrassment, "we were just having some fun, okay?"

"Just a bunch of the guys out for a good time."

"This isn't the twentieth century here. In fact it's the —"

"We'd better go. We have to make a run for it."

Gene grunted. "Right. You game, Snowy?"

"For a fight? You bet."

"Guys, please! This isn't a game. We just have to make it back to the portal. The thing is to avoid trouble."

"It's late, and there'll be patrols."

"We'll have to duck in and out of alleys."

"Yeah, do the stealth bit. Right. Okay, let's go."

Linda looked Snowclaw up and down. "Sheila did a good job on you."

"I hope I can last until we get back to the castle," Snowclaw said. "I've been feeling kind of shaky. It's rough being human."

Gene said, "No kidding, Philip Marlowe."

 

 

 

Mill

 

She had wandered all afternoon without seeing signs of intelligent life, and when she found the dilapidated mill house she was overjoyed. She had begun to think that this world was uninhabited. The old mill, floorboards half-rotted, beams sagging, proved that it at least had been inhabited at one time.
 

It was dusk when she finished gathering enough tall grass to make some sort of mattress to lay over the plank flooring up in the loft. As bedding, she made do with two old gunnysacks. They were scratchy and mildewed, but when the chill of night came on, she was grateful for them.
 

Nocturnal chirping and twittering came out of the forest. The moon was out, outlining the small window above her and throwing an oblong of blue light on the floor. The wind played in the trees.
 

An owl hooted. She thought it was an owl.

She wondered about nonhuman worlds. Was this one? The mill looked human enough, but how could she know for sure?

She turned over and tried to fall asleep, unsuccessfully. A cricket trilled very near, then stopped. The old mill creaked and groaned.
 

She heard something, far off. She listened intently. The sound grew. It was a thumping . . . a stamping . . . the sound of hooves. They came nearer, nearer. They were right below the window. She froze, her heart bouncing against her breastbone.
 

The hoofbeats stopped.

Below, footsteps. Someone had come into the mill and was looking around. Something crashed. A male voice uttered an unintelligible curse. More crashing. Whoever it was went outside again, then came back.
 

She listened as more activity went on below. Gradually it subsided. Then everything was quiet again.

Someone sighed. Coughed. Cleared his throat. Then let out a long breath.

In a little while, she heard snoring.

Whoever it was, he sounded human enough. But she was still afraid. Highwayman? Rapist? Murderer? All of those, maybe.

She was afraid to relax her body, afraid to move a muscle. Her back ached, and her stomach churned.

She was worlds away from the existence she had known just hours ago. It seemed like years. The short time she had spent in the castle seemed like another life, and this, still another.
 

Was this all a dream? Yes. She'd be waking up soon in her room in Haberman Hall. There was a calculus test to cram for. She'd have a few hours to do it if she got up early enough. What time was it?
 

She felt her wrist. Her Phasar Quartz was still on her wrist. It had a night light. Slowly, she ducked her head under the sack and pressed the tab on the side of the watch.
 

The tiny digital readout seemed to light up the night.

7:39 a.m.

Okay, the sun should be up by now. So how come it isn't?

No, she was not on Earth. She was somewhere else entirely. Where? The trees and flowers and plants had looked earthlike enough, but they were also different somehow. She'd seen no maples, but something that looked like an oak. That was it as far as her tree-knowledge went. The sun had looked like the sun, and she wasn't about to get up to look at the moon.
 

The crickets sounded like crickets. Some help there. Maybe this was Earth, but the past. No, Linda had said nothing about traveling in time.
 

She wondered if she would ever see her world again.

Through the window, the sky was gray. It was morning. She marveled that she had actually fallen asleep. How long had she slept? What about . . .?
 

She rolled over. A tall man was standing over her. She threw the sacks off and jumped to her feet.

The man sized her up. Apprehensively, she did the same to him.

He was young, about twenty-five, with a light beard and hazel eyes. He had on a hooded doublet and cape and wore high boots. A cross-hilted sword in an ornate scabbard hung at his left side.
 

He said something, and for some reason she understood him, though he hadn't spoken English. He had said, "So you are a woman. You dress like a boy."
 

He eyed her up and down. "Not a bad woman at that. Young. Run away from your parents?"

"No," she said. Then: "I'm lost. Can you help me?"

The man frowned. He didn't understand. She couldn't understand why the comprehension was one-way.

"A foreigner, eh?" He took a step toward her, and she edged back against the wall.

He stopped, smiling. "You've got nothing to fear from me," he said. He had something in his hand. It looked like a brownie or a piece of sheet cake. He was offering it to her.
 

She took it. It smelled okay, and she took a bite. It was chewy and tasted like an oatmeal cookie with ginger and cinnamon. It was good. She smiled at him.
 

"Yes, break your fast, because you've got to be on your way. My kindly half-brother's paladins are close on my heels, and they leave no unprotected woman unravished."
 

He laughed, more or less to himself. "Why am I telling you this? You don't understand, and their having at you might be all the diversion I need to get clean away. I know they won't pass one like you by. You even have all your teeth."
 

She understood all of it. The language sounded like Scots, burred and broad-voweled, but with a hint of something like French in it. Anglo-Saxon? No, she remembered what that had sounded like; the prof for early eng lit, as her class schedule printout had put it, was given to dramatic readings of Beowulf and other incunabula. This was different. Medieval French? Maybe, but she doubted it.
 

"Come along, then." He went down the rickety ladder to the ground floor. She followed.

Outside, she watched him saddle his horse. The tack was of a type totally unfamiliar to her; it looked unwieldy and not at all comfortable. The horse was a chestnut mare and had a long flowing mane.
 

He mounted. "Well, then, girl, it's farewell. I'd advise you to be on your way. You're a pretty wench, and I'd like you for myself, but I don't intend to be caught with my breeches down. God go with you."
 

"Wait!"

He halted. "What is it?"

"Take me with you."

His brow lowered, but he appeared to understand. "I think not. Much as I'd like to have my bedding warmed, you'd be a millstone round my neck."
 

"I'm lost. Please help me. I have no one else to turn to."

He scowled. "What a
strange
tongue you speak. Sounds like a mallard in heat. Whereabouts do you —"

He suddenly looked off, his expression tightening.

"Damn them. They usually lie slugabed."

He turned back to her. He extended a hand.

"Come on, girl. Hurry."

She clambered up and took a precarious seat on the animal's rump, circling her arms around the man's waist.

The horse headed down the trail and away from the stream, first at a trot, then a walk, then breaking into a canter. She found the canter easier on her backside than the trotting. The horse's hard bony spine knifed between her buttocks. It hurt. She wondered how long she could ride like this.
 

Hoofbeats behind. The man gave a quick look back, then heeled the horse into a full run.

They plunged headlong through the woods. Melanie held on desperately, but there was little riding experience in her background. She had no idea of how to maintain a seat on a mount, much less how to hang on riding tandem. She bounced and slid, shifted and recovered, not daring a look behind.
 

But she could hear the pursuit, their hoofbeats sounding on the beaten dirt of the trail, closer, closer still.

They rode up a hill, ran along the crest, then down into dense trees, branches whipping at them from both sides. Splashing through a brook, they mounted a shallow bank and came back onto the beaten path.
 

It happened when they tried to take the next steep incline. The horse hesitated at the bottom, then leaped. Melanie lost her grip and slid off, hitting hard, her head slamming against the ground. The rider kept going, not looking back.
 

She was stunned momentarily. When she lifted her head she saw three men on horses standing around her. She sat up.