Susan Squires - [Da Vinci Time Travel] (11 page)

What was
that
? A tattoo. Her eyes raced over his body
with slightly different awareness. He had several others, all intricate, fancy knots of some kind. Celtic. They were Celtic. But they weren’t expertly done like other tattoos she’d seen.

More like prison tats.
No, no, no.
She didn’t want them to be prison tats. They were just primitive tattoos done in the fifth century. That was all.

He followed her gaze. She realized he’d been letting her look her fill.

“Is that how they did tattoos back then?” That’s what he’d tell her, no matter where he got them. And she’d never be able to prove he was lying.

“No.”

That was surprising. And she was
never
surprised at what people said. He looked sad, just for a minute, or maybe ashamed. Then he turned to a large wicker basket in the corner and lifted the lid to toss in his dirty clothes. “I got them in prison. In this century.” His broad back had muscles and more tattoos. She registered scars and realized she’d seen some on his chest and shoulder as well. He opened a drawer in the dresser.

“I thought you said you’d only been here a month.”

“At this apartment a month. I’ve been in this time for twelve years, maybe a little more.” He had a fist full of socks and some boxers. He pulled open the closet to reveal hangers with jeans and shirts and a single suit that she could see.

“Oh,” she said in a small voice.
Prison.
“What . . . what were you in for?”

“Killing a couple of men.”

“Oh.”
Maybe he didn’t do it. Wasn’t that what they all said?

“And I wasn’t innocent. But it was a fair fight.” He’d surprised her again. He glanced back to her as he pulled
out a hanger with jeans on it. “Well, pretty fair. There were about eight of them. Some of them had guns, but I had my sword. I expect I had a slight advantage.”

He was so matter-of-fact. He didn’t make excuses, or say it was wrong to have put him in prison. And he took his prowess for granted.

“You know, sooner or later, you’re going to have to decide whether you trust me.” He turned around, and his eyes were that clear green again. He looked so serious. Then suddenly he looked away, chuckling and shaking his head. When he turned his face back up his eyes were still laughing. He shrugged helplessly. “I know it all sounds crazy. But you went back in time. What’s crazier than that? We’re in this together, whether you want that or not. So trust me.”

That echoed somewhere deep down inside her. As she took a long breath, she knew she believed him, whether that was smart or not. She exhaled. Her lips curved into a small smile.

“That’s better,” he said. “Now. Tell me what you need from your apartment.”

“Have you ever known any woman who could do that? I’m coming with you.” She’d made her decision. She wanted to know this man, and know what he knew. Besides, she still had to talk him out of killing Mordred.

Mordred opened the computer on the park bench under the big gazebo in the gray morning light. It was drizzling, but here the air was cool and he was dry. Shabby men slept on benches. Others played some board game set between them. The button to turn the machine on was self-evident. While it powered up with a hum, he opened the book he’d stolen from the girl and scanned it quickly, learning about touch pads and clicking. It had taken him some time to
learn to read the modern language yesterday and he still wasn’t entirely proficient, but he got the gist. He spent some time clicking on pictures.
Interesting.
This little window on his new world would tell him everything he needed to know. Including another place to sell his coins for the paper that passed for money in this time. One the girl wouldn’t know he knew about. He typed in “coins” and “San Francisco.” His new home. He smiled to himself. Soon it would belong to him. He clicked on various names of dealers. They had addresses, hours, even maps.
Perfect.

What could one not do with machines that let you look into other places? This time was venal, too. That would suit his purpose. And the leaders were soft. He had seen them on the television. He would be another Caesar, with tribute paid to him from many lands.

First he needed an army. Some might think that difficult, but it was easy to find an army. You looked for disaffected men with much rage and little leadership, already organized, but bickering and impotent. Then you offered them what they most craved: people to blame for what they feared and a leader to give them direction. And they were yours. He’d thought about using the brown men he saw lounging on street corners yesterday. They fit the bill. But they might not accept him. They were too different. He must find a group who could see themselves reflected in his countenance. He would find them. And they would be his.

In the same way, he had known that the girl with the magic machine in the circle of stones was so tenderhearted she’d keep him from being killed if she could. She’d been almost too easy. Too bad he’d not been able to have sex with her while he slept in her apartment. But he couldn’t ravish her while he needed her goodwill. Then
she’d gone to the man who seemed to know him, and Mordred had been forced to move on quickly. They both would know him now.

Inconvenient. But he knew how to take care of that.

Gawain sat in his Range Rover outside the coin dealer’s shop over on Polk trying not to look at Diana, asleep in the passenger’s seat. The dealer said he hadn’t seen Mordred. So they were on a stakeout, hoping Mordred would show up.

Not comfortable for Diana. Women always had to go to the bathroom. But there was a McDonalds’ at the corner where he could watch her all the way into the Ladies through the glass. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight. Not now that he’d tracked her down after all these years. She’d had to make the trek a couple of times already in the steady rain. The last time she’d brought back big cheeseburgers and Diet Cokes. Between the doughnuts and McDonald’s, he was going to have to run a few extra miles tomorrow. If he got the chance. He might be dead tomorrow if he found Mordred. He was strong, but Mordred had better magic.

It was cool in the car because they had to leave the windows open to keep them from steaming up. Gawain was the one steaming, in spite of the brisk air. He glanced to Diana. The bulky sweater was nothing if not chaste. Jeans and boots? Hardly provocative. But the swell of her
breast under the sweater did things to him. The curve of her bottom in the jeans . . .

His own jeans were getting uncomfortable. You weren’t supposed to think of the one you were sworn to protect like that, no matter how long it had been since you’d had a woman. That was a failure of honor. Not surprising, from him.

He’d even failed at protecting her, for more than twelve years at least. He’d been too late to prevent her going back in time, too late to prevent her bringing Mordred forward, a disaster he would now have to correct. To spare her pain he must ensure she remain ignorant of some things.

Since he’d found her, he’d studied her movements, read her books. He felt he knew her soul now. Her books were packed with her sensuality and her intelligence—emotional as well as intellectual. They were fierce forays into other lives, other times. She was courageous, of course. The only glaring weakness in her writing was her heroes. They talked about their feelings. What man did that? Yet, all in all, he liked the woman who wrote those books. Not surprising. He only hoped that who she was would let her accept . . . well, who she really was.

He glanced away from the coin dealer’s shop to take in her sleeping form. You had to see her eyes to really appreciate her. Oh, she had lovely fair skin and silky brown hair. Her heart-shaped face was quintessentially feminine. But her eyes grabbed your soul and shook it. They said she knew sorrow, that she
understood
things. Except maybe men. The way her eyes shifted from gray to green in the light almost made him think she had eyes like his own. But no one had those anymore.

Lucky for them. He had a hard time controlling his eyes changing color these days. Which was why he didn’t look at anybody directly. He mostly glanced up from
under his brows and let people’s inclination to call the color change a trick of the light do the rest.

He’d had to let Diana see his eyes in the liquor store. That was the only way into her dreams. He needed her to trust him, and the way to get her trust was through her dreams. He wasn’t sure she did trust him even now. He’d botched even so little a task.

She stretched and opened weary eyes. She probably hadn’t been sleeping well lately, he thought with some guilt. The stretch was . . . unfortunate. Her breasts swelled under the sweater.

“Good afternoon,” he said, clearing his throat and willing his thoughts into other channels.

“Nothing?” she asked.

“Nada.” He spoke Spanish now as well as Latin, Celtic, and English. Thank prison for that. It was easier to get by if you spoke everyone’s language. And if you were good with your fists.

She fell silent. Not a good sign. He could practically hear her thinking. Her curiosity was his worst enemy. True answers to her questions would only frighten her. The only thing to do was put her on the defensive. “So how did you go back in time to get him?”

He saw her thinking about lying, or refusing to tell him. In the end, she just sighed. “I warn you, it’s hard to believe.”

He shot her a look under his brows.

“Okay. I see your point.” She shrugged apologetically. “Well . . . a woman I didn’t know gave me a very valuable book, out of the blue.” Her glance stole to her shoulder bag on the floor at her feet. “She insisted I use it to make myself happy, that it was my destiny. And she told me to look behind a door that’s always locked at the Exploratorium.”

“What was this book?”

“It was by Leonardo da Vinci. Do you know about him?”

“Of course I know about him. There
are
history books in prison.”

“Don’t be so sensitive. I’m just trying to be polite and not make assumptions.”

“Okay. You’re polite.” He didn’t mean his voice to be so gruff. She was right. He was sensitive. Being Merlin’s son was a curse. Everyone either feared him because they thought he might have his father’s magic or pitied him because he didn’t. He’d kept quiet about what small powers he came into at puberty. Better his father think the magic skipped him altogether than that he was only a fraction of the heir his father wanted. His disappointment had been a ghost that haunted Gawain. Instead, he trained. He poured his frustration and his disappointment in himself into becoming a warrior. Muscles you could get through force of will alone. Magic you couldn’t. His father discounted his achievements, of course. And he failed at being a truly perfect knight at every turn. But he wouldn’t blow this chance to prove himself. His father had given him a task. He might be late in executing it, but he could still protect Diana. “And what did Leonardo have to do with time?”

“The book said he made a time machine.” She glanced again to the bag at her feet. “I didn’t believe it of course.”

“But he did. Mordred is certain proof. So the machine was hidden in the Exploratorium?”

“Yeah.” She seemed a little amazed. God, when she looked at him with those clear, gray-green eyes, he could feel it right through to his soul. Or . . . maybe right straight down to his . . .

He shifted uncomfortably, and felt a flush rising to his face. “So show me.”

“What?”

“Well, you’ve got the book in your bag, haven’t you?”

She looked like she’d been caught robbing a bank.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I won’t take it.”

She unfroze herself and, after some hesitation, reached for her shoulder bag, hefted it onto her lap, and pulled out a large book bound in beautifully tooled leather. A scene of angels swirling up toward heaven decorated the front cover. Clearly Renaissance. She ran her fingertips over it reverently. “It’s miraculous, really, that he could have built a time machine in 1508. And yet, if anyone could do it, wouldn’t it have been Leonardo da Vinci?”

“He was a magician, you know.” Gawain knew about magicians.

She laughed. He hadn’t heard her laugh before. It shot straight to his heart. It sounded like the Diana he knew from her books. “Artist, emphatically yes. Scientist, of course. The best of his time. But magician?”

“What do you think a magician is but someone who understands the beauty inherent in the way the world works on such an elemental level that the way he uses those rules seems miraculous to us?”

Her mouth parted. Her lips formed a soft, “Oh.” She blinked twice. “I . . . I guess I never thought of it that way.” And then the way she looked at him . . . changed. Her head cocked and she examined him with a new curiosity. Was there . . . was there a little heat in that gaze? God preserve him from a look like that. His treacherous body was already urging him to abandon the sanctity of his role as protector.

“Who would know a magician better than I do?” He stared out the windshield into the rain. “I was born of one.”

“I guess you’re right.” She held out the book, hesitant. “Do you want to see it?”

He turned his head only. She offered her most prized
possession to him. If that wasn’t a gesture of trust, he didn’t know what was. He nodded, and opened the book carefully.

Only one day since he’d been on his own and he had money, a roof over his head, and a plan. Medraught of Orkney threw his duffle onto the couch. Through huge sheets of glass he could see the harbor on one side and a street that cut straight up a steep hill on the other. The man who had rented it to him said it wasn’t finished yet. But Medraut didn’t care. One could have gatherings of many men here. And because the other lofts were not yet inhabited, there would be no one to report those gatherings to the king as long as they occurred at night, after the workers had departed.
Wait.
In a city the ruler was now called a mayor, though he seemed relatively powerless, according to the online edition of the
Examiner.
He couldn’t even rule his own council, who might be called Supervisors but appeared to supervise nothing.