The Art of Stealing Time: A Time Thief Novel (7 page)

“Who are you?”

“Gwen Owens. I’m an alchemist. I came to Anwyn last night in the company—”

“Suit her up,” Holly interrupted before striding off. “She can take the place of the injured soldier.”

“Suit—whoa now!”

I stared at her back for a second as she marched off, then ran after her, grabbing her arm to stop her.

She whirled around, a dagger in her hand that was at my throat before I could so much as blink. “Are you deaf as well as stupid? I said not to touch me.”

“You didn’t say that to me, and I’m not deaf, or stupid. Nor do I tolerate being pushed around,” I snarled, shoving her hand (and the dagger) away from me. “Not by you, not by anyone. Got that? Good. Now, I don’t know what you think I am, but I’m not a spy, I’m not one of your soldiers, and I’m not going to allow you to push me around.”

She watched me with glittering green eyes while I spoke, and when I finished, she was silent for a few seconds before saying, “Brave words from a woman who spent the night in a cell.”

“I just told you that I’m not stupid. Fighting ten armed men while in the company of my mothers and an elderly mortal isn’t a bright idea.”

“That is possibly true,” she said, sheathing her dagger. “Regardless, you have two choices: you can be executed as a spy or you can replace the injured soldier and take up his banner on the field of battle.” She glanced at her watch. “His shift started twelve minutes ago. You have thirty seconds to decide.”

“You have got to be out of your mind!” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not going to make that sort of a decision! I’m an alchemist—”

“And now you’re either a spy or a fighter. Fifteen seconds.”

I stared at her openmouthed for the count of five until I realized I was wasting time. I was between a rock and a hard place, and I knew it. I couldn’t fight her, not with all the soldiers around us, and I wasn’t willing to risk my mothers’ lives by attempting an escape. Not at that moment, at least.

“Fine,” I said, glaring at her. “I’ll pretend I’m a soldier if it gives you your jollies. But I’m going to suck at it.”

She made a dismissive gesture. “That matters not.”

She strode off again, leaving me damning my life, damning my decision to bring my mothers here, and most of all, wishing they hadn’t abducted Mrs. Vanilla in the first place.

I turned to go back to where the soldier was, and bumped into Colorado, who was standing right behind me with an anxious look on his face.

“I assume you heard what was said.”

His eyes widened. “Yes, but only because I was worried that Lady Holly might . . . er . . .”

“Stab me?”

He made an apologetic little wave of his hand. “She doesn’t suffer fools well.”

“Uh-huh.” I straightened my shoulders and headed back to where the RSI soldier was being assisted in the removal of his armor. “Neither do I, as a matter of fact. I’m not a soldier, Colorado.”

“Well, so far as that goes, none of us were before Lord Gideon called us up,” he said, lifting the newly discarded breastplate and eyeing it before turning his gaze to my chest. “But you are most sturdily built, and I’m sure you will have no trouble lasting two hours.”

“Two hours?” I crossed my arms over my breasts despite the total absence of sexual interest in his eyes as he considered my torso. He discarded the breastplate and went into the tent, coming out with two others.

“That is the length of each shift. It goes quickly, I promise you.” He held up a chest piece, squinted at my boobs, then dropped it in favor of the other one. “I believe this will offer the best fit. There’s no time to have armor made to your specifications, but once your shift is over, we’ll have the armorer get to work on a set so that you’re equipped for tomorrow. We have a very good armorer. She makes Lord Ethan’s armor and has a wonderful touch with the blacksmith hammer.”

“Back up a sec,” I said, obediently holding up my arms when another teenager, this time a slight girl with a pixie haircut who held an armful of chain mail, instructed me to do so. “What’s this about a shift? You guys fight in shifts?”

“Of course,” he said, assisting the page or squire or whatever she was called to slip the chain mail over my head. A few strands of my hair snagged on it, making me wince. Surprisingly, the mail was very light, and although it hung down to mid-thigh, it didn’t seem to be overly large. “If we fought longer than that, we’d get tired.”

It was hard to dispute that logic. I said nothing more while Colorado and the girl (whose name turned out to be Columbine) slapped a plate chest piece on my front. It was attached to the mail with leather buckles, and although it was significantly heavier than the mail, it wasn’t overwhelming.

“You guys do know that I’ve never lifted a sword in my life,” I said conversationally as they strapped on shin guards, plates that resembled wrist braces but that Columbine referred to as gauntlets, and finally, handed me a small oval shield.

“None of us had when we started,” Colorado answered with a cheerful smile. “You’ll learn quickly. Now, as for a helm . . . I’m not sure what we have to fit you. We’ll try a couple, shall we?”

What followed was a painful five minutes as I tried on, and rejected, a number of closed helms. Most of them were simply too small, which just irritated me since I knew that both Columbine and Colorado were thinking what a fat head I had, but one of the helms that wasn’t too small was far too massive to be worn. In the end, Colorado said, “I believe that for today we’ll do without a helm. Now, what do we have left? I’m not sure what we have in the line of a lady’s sword . . . My lord!”

Colorado bowed low.

I turned, ignoring the little spurt of adrenaline. A dark-haired man with a short goatee strolled up, wearing what can only be described as a maroon velvet smoking jacket, a white silk ascot, and a fez. One of his hands was in his jacket pocket, while the other waved as he spoke. Two young women in harem costumes trotted behind him, one bearing a tablet computer, the other holding a spiral notebook and pen. “—That was the last that was ever seen of those brigands. Naturally, I offered to return the jewels and fine silks that had been stolen, but the fair maiden insisted I keep them as a sign of her gratitude. That and her virginity, but we need not speak of that now. End chapter. What have we here? A new recruit?”

“Yes, my lord,” Colorado said, bowing low again while gesturing awkwardly at me. “It is my honor to present to you the Lady Gwen.”

“Hi,” I said, refusing to be awed or give in to my curiosity about the man’s bizarre outfit. I held out my hand to shake his.

He looked at it for a moment, then pulled a monocle from his breast pocket and eyed it like it was made up of worms. “Greetings,” he said finally, tucking away the monocle. “You are not one of Aaron’s souls?”

“If you mean am I alive, yes. My mothers and I sought sanctuary here from some mortal police,” I said, hoping my exclusion of mentioning the Watch wouldn’t come back to sting me. “We were promptly arrested for spying. We aren’t spies. My mothers are Wiccans, and I am an alchemist.”

“Wiccans. Are they here?” He looked around.

“They are housed in Mistress Eve’s tent, my lord,” Colorado said quickly.

“Excellent. I have need of Wiccans. Tell them to start bespelling Aaron’s men immediately. Now, as for you . . . can you make fiery orbs that will rain down from the sky and decimate my enemy?”

“No,” I said firmly. “I don’t make bombs.”

“Pity.” His left arm, the one with the hand in his pocket, twitched and started to move. He grabbed his elbow and jammed his hand back down into the pocket. “You will be fighting on my behalf, I see. Colorado, make sure she wears my colors. All ladies like to wear my colors. And give her one of my signed head shots. The one used in my last book. It’s in profile. Ladies love my profile.”

“I will gladly see that she wears your colors, Lord Ethan, but first I must find a sword suitable for a lady’s use.”

Ethan stroked his chin for a moment, then waved an airy hand. “Give her the Nightingale.”

Colorado’s eyes opened wide. “Are you sure, my lord? That is Lady Dawn’s own sword—”

“She never fights anymore. She’s far too busy trying to find husband number seventy-one. My mother has issues,” Ethan confided. “She will insist on wedding mortals, and they never last. Still, it’s a hobby. Daisy, where were we?”

“End of chapter twenty-eight,” the woman with the notebook said promptly.

“Begin new chapter. By midsummer in the year eleven ninety-two, I had taken control of all the kingdoms of Wales, and was one day considering what act of derring-do I should next accomplish, when a Saracen prince arrived at my castle gates demanding entrance . . .”

Ethan and his entourage wandered off, leaving Colorado and me staring after him.

“So that’s the head of your team. He’s kind of . . . eccentric, isn’t he? What book is he writing?”

“He is engaged in taking down into print the many dashing and thrilling adventures of his life.”

“That explains the artsy outfit. Is something wrong with his hand?”

A pained expression crossed Colorado’s face. “Lord Ethan was smote with a mysterious ailment, no doubt by Lord Aaron.”

“Warts?” I guessed.

“Alien Hand Syndrome,” Colorado answered with a sigh. “It troubles him greatly, but do not mention it. He dislikes people discussing it.”

There was really nothing I could say to that, so I just stood patiently by while Colorado sent Columbine off to fetch the oddly named sword.

“This was Lady Dawn’s,” he said when she returned with it. It was a smaller sword than that which Colorado bore, with a narrow blade and a delicately scribed hilt that flashed blue and green. “She named it the Nightingale because it would sing when she slew her enemies. It was her favorite sword when she ruled the mortal world.”

“It’s very pretty. Are those emeralds?” I examined the hilt, seeing a couple of spells woven into the intricate design.

“And sapphires. You will take the utmost care of it, I have no doubt. Lady Dawn would not care to know her Nightingale was being abused.”

I tried to remember the history of Wales that I had learned a long time before, but I didn’t remember anything about a woman named Dawn.

“Absolutely,” I said, making an experimental slash or two in the air. The sunlight flashed and glittered on the sword, the gems adding brief bursts of color. I’d never so much as picked up a sword before, but this one pleased me on a primal level. It felt good in my hand. It felt right. “I’ll take very good care of it. So, what exactly do I do when I get to the battlefield? Join up with the other people?”

Colorado took me by the arm and steered me toward the far edges of the camp. “Oh, you won’t be fighting with others. Each soldier fights his or her own shift.”

“But—this is a battle, isn’t it?”

“Yes, of course.” We broke free of the encampment and walked up a slight incline to a knoll. Overhead, thick oily black and gray clouds blotted out much of the bloodred sky, periodically streaked with blue-white fingers of lightning. A distant rumble of thunder completed the nightmarish scene.

“But you have just one person fighting at a time?”

“Just one.”

“But . . . ,” I repeated, shaking my head. “That doesn’t seem to be a very efficient way to fight.”

“On the contrary, it’s quite very efficient. Lord Ethan found very early on that to have all of our troops fighting at the same time meant that many people were killed.”

“Isn’t that the whole point? I mean, killing your enemy?”

He looked horrified. “I do not know how you do things in your native land, Lady Gwen, but here in Anwyn, we do not condone slaughter.”

I felt like a genocidal fool. “Sorry. Obviously this way makes much more sense.”

“It does. We send out one person for a two-hour shift, after which he—or she—is free to rest until the following day’s shift. Few people are injured, and even fewer are killed. It is, as Lady Dawn says, a win-win situation.”

“Kinda makes you wonder why you bother fighting at all.”

“Oh, we don’t wonder that. We know why we fight. Lord Aaron attacked my lord. He had to answer. It was the only honorable thing to do.”

We crested the top of the knoll as he spoke. He stopped, nodding toward the center of the hilltop, where the grass had been blackened, eventually wearing away to nothing but dirt as red as the sky. Standing with his arms crossed (not as easy to do while wearing armor as you might think), his sword sheathed at his side, was a knight in full armor, including helm, obviously awaiting me. “That is the battlefield.”

I looked around. The area surrounding the knight appeared to be about twenty feet in diameter. “That’s a battlefield? The whole thing?”

“Indeed it is, although if you wish to get a running start, you are permitted an extra fifteen paces.” He clapped me on the shoulder, making me stagger forward a couple of steps. “Good fighting, Lady Gwen! Your replacement will be up in a little less than two hours.”

I watched him trot down the hillside, and then I turned back to look at the knight and the so-called battlefield. It could have served as a baseball diamond for guinea pigs. I took a few steps forward until I was at the edge of the scorched grass. “Um. Hi. I’m Gwen. I guess I’m supposed to fight you.”

The man inclined his head, a flash of lightning reflecting off the closed metal visor.

“Just so you know, I’m new to all this. I’m an alchemist, not really a soldier. I was kind of . . . er . . . conscripted into this job. Totally against my will, because as I said, I’m not a fighter, but there are times when you just have to take the lesser of two evil choices, and this was it. The lesser, that is. So, what’s your name?”

Yes, I was babbling, but there was a method to my madness. I figured I had at worst an hour and a half to kill before someone else came to fight, and if I could use up some of that time in pleasantries, I was willing to chitchat like I’d never chitchatted before.

The knight didn’t answer for a moment, but then he shifted his visor up so he could look at me unimpeded by metal. “I can’t tell you.”

“Is it against the terms of the fighting or something?” I asked, digging the point of the sword into the ground so I could lean on it.