Heidelberg Effect (20 page)

Ella grinned and squeezed his hand. “I’m
counting on that, Rowan,” she said.

“I cannot tell you how honored we are to
have you here with us, Marshal,” Greta said to Rowan as he sat in
the convent’s meeting hall. All the nuns and the novices were there
and stood silent behind her. Ella sat next to Rowan with her hands
in her lap.

“Ella has told me much about you. For you to
have traveled so far, so far indeed, to help our poor convent,
well, we are truly and deeply grateful.” Before Rowan could
respond, Greta clapped her hands together sharply and all the
novices and other nuns left the room. The three of them were now
alone.

“A brandy, Marshal?” Greta asked.

At nine in the
morning?
Rowan thought to himself.
He
shook his head. “No,
thanks, Sister,” he said.

“She’s the Mother Superior,” Ella said.

“
Okay,” he said.

“I know Ella hasn’t had an opportunity to
fill you in on the details of our predicament here, Marshal,” Greta
said. “But time is of the essence, and I need to remedy that
immediately.”

“Predicament?”

“It’s why I went back to my apartment
yesterday,” Ella said.

“You mean two days ago,” Rowan said.

“Whenever,” Ella said. “Can I explain,
Mother?”

“Certainly, Ella.”

“Okay, Rowan, there is this asshole who
practically rules Heidelberg at the moment to the point where none
of the laws can touch him and so he pretty much does what he
wants.”

“Are you being
metaphorical?” Rowan said. “Because it’s ludicrous to think someone
is publicly
accepted
as being above the law.”

Ella chose to ignore his comment. “This
guy,” she continued, “has a son who has decided to eliminate all
the Catholic clergy and nuns in town. Don’t ask me why. He’s
already destroyed all the monasteries except one and all the other
convents that used to be on the outskirts of town. He has
threatened the Mother Superior here. Greta, show him your arm.”

Greta quickly pulled up her sleeve to show
Rowan her scarred forearm.

Ella turned to Rowan. “This guy, Axel, the
son of the head jerk, did that to Greta a couple weeks ago to show
her how serious he is about destroying her and her convent. Are you
with me so far?”

“Is this a new movie that’s coming out that
hasn’t hit the States yet?” Rowan said. He looked from Ella to
Greta in bewilderment.

“Axel and his band of thugs have a habit of
kidnapping the young novices and selling them into slavery,” Ella
continued. “And last week, they attacked one of our nuns and beat
her. We don’t even know if she’s alive because they threw her in
the Witch’s Tower. They abducted the young novice with her and have
her in the castle.”

“This would be
Heidelberg
Castle?”
Rowan said.

“And so now you know everything, Marshal,”
Greta said. “We need your help. Yours and Ella’s.”

“So that’s what I’m doing
here, big guy,” Ella said as she slapped Rowan on the knee. “That’s
what
we’re
doing
here.”

“Saving the convent from…?”

“From the wicked warlord, yes, exactly,”
Ella said.

Rowan looked at Greta and then at Ella. “You
guys haven’t missed a beat,” he said.

“Thank you,” Ella said. “I tried to be
thorough.”

“Neither of you has broken character
once.”

“I do not understand.” Greta looked at Ella
with a puzzled expression.

“Never mind, Greta,” Ella said. “I told you
he’d have trouble believing the whole time thing. And none of the
rest of it makes sense until he does.”

Greta stood up and smoothed the wrinkles out
of her habit. “Well,” she said, “normally I would say that time
would take care of that but, alas, time is the one thing we do not
have.” Then she said, “Excuse me, Marshal,” and left the room.

Ella turned so that she was facing
Rowan.

“Rowan, you see this room we’re sitting in?
Did you watch those very strange women who stood behind Greta when
she was speaking? You see how they were dressed? The dull, scared
look in their eyes? You ever seen anything like that in 2012?”

“If you’re going to try to convince me we’ve
gone back in time, Ella,” Rowan said with a grin, “You have a long
and very laborious row to hoe. I don’t know where this place is
you’ve landed, but I do know it is 2012.” Rowan looked around the
rough, and unfinished interior of the room. “Although that
certainly was a very interesting story you told about the evil
warlord in Heidelberg Castle. Would make an awesome HBO
mini-series.”

“Fine,” Ella said, as she stood. “Come with
me.” She led him out of the room, past the kitchen and down the
narrow hall to her private cell. On the bed was a neatly stacked
pile of men’s clothes.

“For this field trip, you’ll need to leave
your piece in my room and put on the period clothing.” When he gave
her a long-suffering look, she said, “Just do it, please.”

As he put on the peasant’s outfit, Ella
picked up his cellphone.

“You still have power?” she asked.

“Yeah, but no bars,” he said, as he pulled
on a stained pullover that was ripped on both sleeves. “Is this
blood?”

“I think it belonged to the butcher’s son or
something,” she said. She powered his phone off. “We’ll need to
save the battery.”

She watched him standing in his peasant
outfit. “Just get rid of the boots, and you’re good,” she said.

“I ain’t taking my boots off.”

“Peasants in 1620 rarely wore cowboy boots
with their rags,” she said. “I don’t even have to look it up on
Wikkipedia. Here, put these on.”

Rowan pulled off his boots and his socks and
replaced them with a pair of simple leather shoes that Ella had
handed him.

“Happy?”

“Oh, one last thing, Rowan, and this is
very, very important,” she said, stopping him at the door with her
hand on his chest. “You mustn’t speak. Not a word. Promise?”

“Fine. No speaking. Let’s go.”

As she led him out of the convent and into
the town, Ella prayed they wouldn’t run into anyone dangerous.

An hour later, they were back in the convent
kitchen. Rowan sat on one of the rough-hewn benches. He held a
dirty rag to the blood pouring out of his nose. His eyes were
darting around the room as if his thoughts were coming to fast to
follow.

“He’ll take that brandy now, Greta,” Ella
said when Greta came into the kitchen.

“He believes?” Greta asked.

“Oh, baby,” Ella said.

“What happened?”

“Nothing, really. We didn’t even make it all
the way into town. Just walking down the lane is pretty convincing,
you know? With all the animals and no office buildings or shops or
anything. I had to keep telling him not to talk because he was
starting to freak out.”

“How is it that he is bleeding?”

“Oh, you know that old guy at the end of the
lane who’s always herding his goats?”

“He approached him?”

“No, goat guy took offense at Rowan staring
and bopped him one. Rowan didn’t even try to defend himself.”

Greta took the dirty rag from Rowan. “It is
a lot to take in,” she said. A novice came into the kitchen and
Greta spoke to her in German. The girl left and returned with a
brandy bottle and handed it to Greta.

Greta poured a large glass and gave it to
Rowan.

“Drink this, Herr Pierce,” she said. “It
won’t change the reality, but it will make it easier to
accept.”

Rowan drank the brandy straight down and
held the empty glass in his hand.

“How is this possible?” he said, more to
himself than anyone else.

Later that morning, Ella and Rowan sat in a
hidden courtyard of the convent garden.

“Greta has devised a brilliant cover for
you,” Ella said.

Rowan didn’t speak.

“We’re going to give you a hoe and put you
in the garden as the half-witted gardener from, well, I don’t
remember that part. But you won’t have to speak and you can stare
at people all you want. In fact, they’ll expect it.” She looked at
him and bit her lip. “You, okay, Rowan?”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Of course, you’re fine,” she said. “And why
wouldn’t you be? Fly to Heidelberg to rescue your crazy MIA
girlfriend and end up in the seventeenth century hiding out as a
deaf mute convent gardener?”

Rowan ran his hands through his hair. “How
is this possible?”

“I said those very words about a million
times when I first got here. After the shock wears off, it’s just
like, whatever. Sixteen twenty. Bring it.” She smiled
encouragingly.

“Sixteen twenty,” Rowan said. “Shit.”

“I know,” said Ella. She leaned in and
kissed him on his full lips. “But we’ve got a convent of damsels to
rescue before we can go home, Marshal.”

“How sure are you that we’ll be able to
leave?”

“I had no problem doing it yesterday or
whenever it was that I went back to my apartment. Once our work
here is done, we’ll go back.”

He wrapped his arms around her to kiss her
again.

“Okay,” he said. “So let’s get this done so
we can get gone. If my breakfast and the bathroom conditions are
any indication, I can already tell you that 1620 sucks.”

First thing after lunch, Rowan went to the
garden to hack away at the weeds and the dormant vegetable patch
like he knew what he was doing. He worked for three hours, breaking
a sweat in the cold, stopping frequently to stare out toward where
the Heidelberg skyline should be. Twice, Ella came to bring him
water or ale. Once, when she was walking toward him on the garden
path, she watched him—the perfect picture of a seventeenth century
peasant—pull out a cellphone to check the time.

“Rowan, give me that,” she said, holding her
hand out to him as she walked. “That’s the kind of thing that can
get you killed. What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I’ve got blisters, I’m
starving for something I don’t have to pick the bugs out of first,
and I’d like to know if this hell of a day is nearly over so I can
fall into that lovely bed with the straw and the roaches.”

“Need to work on the attitude, Marshal,”
Ella said, handing him a dipper of water.

He took a long draught and
wiped his mouth on his filthy sleeve. He squinted up at the
darkening sky and then turned back to his work. “Water tastes like
donkey piss,” he said. “And don’t say I’ll get used to it,” he
called after her. “Men from these times
beat
their women for
less.”

At bedtime, Rowan fell asleep as soon as his
head hit the pillow. Ella took a bath down the hall and then curled
up on the blanket pallet on the floor next to him. As she closed
her eyes, she found herself thinking that just listening to his
deep even breathing as he slept gave her hope and comfort for the
future.

The next morning, he seemed better. When she
woke, he was already awake and was watching her from the bed.

“I took your bed,” he said.

“I don’t mind,” she said. “You’ve got a lot
on your mind.”

He didn’t answer for a moment. She got up
from the cold floor and slipped into bed with him. The bed was so
small she was in danger of falling out.

“I’m better today,” he said into her hair as
he held her close. She reached between his legs and looked up into
his brilliant blue eyes, now half-shut at the sensation of her
touch.

“I can see that,” she whispered as she
lifted herself up to straddle him. He groaned and held her rocking
hips with his big warm hands, moving with her until she sat up
straight on him and arched her back as the waves of pleasure welled
up inside her. Later, when they both collapsed limp with spent lust
on the bed, she stayed on top of him because there was no room for
two in the bed. She lifted her veil of long hair that draped his
face and kissed his lips.

“Good morning, lover,” she said.

“Good morning, beautiful,” he said, giving
her bottom a squeeze. “I think I’m starting to get used to it.”

Both Rowan and Ella soon realized that,
regardless of how the day started out, the day’s chores were no
less onerous. At midday, after a frustrating morning of digging and
throwing weeds onto a pile to be burned, Rowan came into the dining
hall for lunch. Greta was already seated at the table. To her left
was a rotund, squat priest, who sat studying his fingers on the
table in front of him. Rowan sat down.

“Hello, Rollo,” Greta said,
in keeping with Rowan’s new name. “A good morning,
ja
?”

Rowan looked at the priest
and then at Greta. “
Ja
,” he said. While they waited, Ella and the other nuns and
novices served them. She set down bowls of steaming broth in front
of Rowan, Greta and the priest, then returned to the kitchen to
fetch bread. Once the table had been completely furnished, she and
the other women sat at the far end of the table. The little priest
said the blessing and everyone ate.

The meal was somber and quiet. Rowan kept
trying and failing to catch Ella’s eye. Eventually, he resigned
himself to plowing through the bland meal before returning to work.
Just before he was about to excuse himself, Greta addressed
him.

“Remain seated, please, Rollo,” she
said.

Beats the cold
garden
, he thought to himself.

Greta spoke to the priest and he stood up
slowly. One of the nuns escorted the priest out of the room.

“What the hell was that all about?” Rowan
asked as soon as the man was gone.

Ella began to clear the table.

“Ella, will you please join us?” Greta
said.