Other Timeline Pieces

Singing, Dancing, Burning - Ancient History

She was bound, hand and foot, and thrown into the ruined doorway of her master’s house. Kindling was piled around her and the fire started. Enheduana could hear it, popping and hissing and singing.

… Singing?

Yes, it was. The flames were joyous in their work, eating the straw and licking her side where she lay. She knew she should be feeling pain, but all she could feel was the joy of the fire as she burned, and as she struggled to her knees her own voice joined it in song, ringing out across the square.

The crowd watched, silent and confused.

When Sidu appeared, pushing his way through the unmoving crowd, he wasn’t sure what was going on at first. He ran right up to her, putting his hands into the fire. It didn’t burn him either. She took his hands, the flames licking her fingers, and smiled at him. She told him that as long as he lived, so would her memory.

She told him that she hated the people of the town, and she would not forgive them.

“Look away,” she told him, but he did not. Her face crumbled to white ash as a wind blew up, and the fire grew and spread. Buildings caught. Clothing among the crowd caught. And now, now the screaming started.

Resolution, ~1300

He was seated at the edge of his bedroll with his legs folded and his eyes closed.

“Jianguo,” I said softly.

Slowly, his eyes opened. He smiled at me, but his face was strained and tired.

“The answer?” he asked me.

“No reinforcements,” I said simply. There was no point in dancing around it. “General Ching says he needs them to defend the city.”

He nodded almost imperceptibly. “He expects us to fail.”

“He would not say as much, but that was the impression.”

Jianguo closed his eyes again. I took the moment to sit next to him.

“What will we do?” I asked him.

“We will fight.” Jianguo put his arms around me then. For a long time we stayed like that. I started to pull away; he pulled me down to him and leaned in as if to kiss me, but quickly turned away.

He studied my face in silence for a moment. “I don’t suppose this is one of those fairy stories where the best friend is actually a girl in disguise?”

I sighed. “No, I’m afraid not.”

He nodded, and another very long silence ensued.

“I don’t suppose it matters,” he said finally, before leaning in to kiss me for real. “We’ll be dead soon enough.”

Black Forest, ~1400

Returns

It was hard enough just walking up to the door.

The house looked quiet. Last time I’d been here, there were apprentices, students, servants everywhere. This time there was no one, only the huge outdoor garden blowing in the wind. In the rush of wind I felt like all the plants were reaching for me.

By the time I got to the door I was nervous. It felt like the keep was under siege. From who? Was it me they were scared of? Or was I walking into a trap from one side or the other?

I had to do something, though. I was tired of waiting for other people to explain things to me. Waiting had only given my stepfather a weapon, and my mother a crutch. Maybe it wasn’t fair to take that out on the other set of parents, but I wasn’t going to let it get away from me again.

I knocked on the door. A long time went by before there was any response. Just as I raised my hand to knock again, a young man opened the door. He was younger than me – probably no more than ten – and I thought I remembered him being introduced as a member of the family before, but it was hard to be sure. He gestured for me to come inside.

The moment I was across the threshold, he slammed the door shut behind me and slid the bolts back into place. I started to ask him what was going on, but he only shook his head and looked suddenly shy.

“So what now?” I asked him.

He pointed to the stairway on the far side of the room. I crossed it, noticing how much darker it was than the last time I was here. Not only were the windows shut, but there were hardly any lamps lit, either. I turned at the base of the stairs, but the young man had disappeared.

There was nothing else for it. I had to keep going.

About halfway up the stairs, I paused. The way it curved allowed me to catch a glimpse of several people, all facing away from me. The new wife of the man I now believed was my father. The young woman I’d been introduced to as her oldest student. A young man about my age, her elder son. All of them were whispering heatedly. But I didn’t see my father.

I took a deep breath and turned the corner, giving myself over to plain view. If this was a trap, well, I’d dealt with traps before.

“Oh, it’s just you,” his wife said with a sigh of relief. Well, that was one question answered; at least it wasn’t me. “I don’t mean to insult. It’s simply been… trying, lately.”

“Is that why it’s so quiet? Was everyone sent away?”

She nodded. “For their own safety. You’d do best to leave as well. I understand why you want to see my husband, but I think you’re really best off not being part of our family right now.”

I shook my head. “I’d rather die with a family than suffer alone.”

She smiled, thin and sad. “Well, he’s in the library. I hope he knows what he’s doing.”

I nodded to her, then to her apprentice and her son in turn. Her son’s eyes were – something about them caught mine and held them for a fraction too long.

No, I told myself. This is no time to get distracted.

I hesitated again at the door to the library, and then quickly crossed the threshold hoping it hadn’t been noticed.

“Sir?” I called. It was even darker in here than in the rest of the house.

“I’m over this way,” his deep voice answered. I couldn’t see him but I could head in that direction, at least. “Scared to call me ‘Father?’”

“I’m not yet sure I’m entitled, sir,” I told him honestly. “I don’t wish to get my hopes up too high.” Picking my way through the books, I found myself in a corner surrounded by tall plants. Some grew out of pots, but I realized that most were coming out of small holes in the floor or through the almost-barred windows.

“What is-?”

“I had my suspicions about you the first time you passed through my forest,” he told me. I stood politely on the edge of the wild corner, unsure what I should do. “I wrote to your mother. I knew her, a long time ago.”

“You would have had to,” I said.

“I didn’t know about you, or I would have… I don’t know what I would have done. Your stepfather’s family outranks my position here even in the best of times. But I would have done something.”

“As much as he disliked me, he might have been glad to be rid of me,” I told him honestly. I thought about the elder boy in the front room. “You were both married when I was conceived, weren’t you? He didn’t want to admit it publicly, but he knew.”

He stepped forward, away from the plants and into the dim light. He looked older than the last time I’d seen him, more worried. “We can’t-” He hesitated. “Your mother and I were… naive. But I don’t want you to feel unwanted. Regrets will do us no good at all, now. Let me look at you.” He gestured behind him, and one of the plants raised a lantern. He extended a hand to me.

I reached for it, wondering what exactly he was hoping to see in me. My mother?

He didn’t get more than a look before I took his hand. At his touch, a rush of pain shot through my head, starting at the base of my skull. I felt my knees buckle, and someone caught me from behind.

No, not someone. The plants had reached out and caught me, twining around my arms and my waist.

“Oh, gods, no. Don’t make it this easy. Don’t make it this hard,” he murmured.

I blinked up at him. “What–?”

Someone was behind me now, and these were definitely human arms holding me up now. The plants relaxed and fled as if even they were confused about what was going on. A moment later, he had picked me up and I could see it was my father’s son. Whatever I had seen in his eyes before was stronger now, scared and angry.

“What are you doing in here?” my father asked.

“She needed help.”

“No one called for you.”

“She needed help,” he repeated, carrying me back through the library. I could hear my father following behind him.

“Temyl? Richel?” His wife – my stepmother, I suppose – was hovering in the doorway of the library. “Temyl, what happened to her?”

“The gods are kind to us, my dear. She’s the one we’ve been waiting for.”

“She – but she’s your daughter! That is hardly kind.”

“We’ve found her. That’s all we can ask for.”

Her voice shook, though I couldn’t see her anymore. Richel was carrying me into a room and setting me down on a bad.

“Richel took off running without a word,” I heard her say quietly. He sat next to me on the bed. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know where to begin. Apparently neither did he.

“Our own Richel,” my father mused. I wonder if they knew we could hear them. “Under our noses the whole time.”

“This is heresy. She’s his sister. This can’t be right.”

“This was always heresy, Lyse.”

“My boy…”

A minute later I saw shapes in the doorway. The two of them were looking in on us. Richel stared back, his face oddly fierce, like he expected them to drag him away. I had some of my strength back, and thought about arguing or demanding answered, but I didn’t know how likely they were to give any.

In the end, they went away without a word. When I woke in the morning, I was still dressed in my traveling clothes, and Richel was asleep in a ball at my feet.

Priorities

Flora wandered through the gardens of her father’s house. She held her hands out as she walked, and the vines and low-hanging branches reached for her. Softly glowing flowers sprung up in her wake.

“It’s time,” Richel said. “And my mother asked if you could do something about those moonflowers coming up. They’re getting in the vegetable beds.”

“I don’t know,” she answered, turning to consider them.

Richel shrugged. “If we survive the end of days, you can try.”

“And if not, that will solve the problem.”

Melanosis , ~1400

01

A disgrace at twelve, a has-been at thirteen, a forgotten, deposed heir at fourteen. I told myself that this was fine with me, that I preferred my father's library to the fields and the fights and the endless training of the mind, but I was old enough to know perfectly well what lying was, even if I was lying to myself.

Mother had been expecting the attack for days, but she didn't tell her women. When the alarm sounded, they assembled outside as if it were any other drill. I had an excellent view from the library as my mother strode to their lead with his second, crystal blades in hand.

I told myself I wasn't jealous, and imagined I could see fear on the face of the girl beside her. I watched darkness gather over their heads, silently, and then the clouds broke open and a bright light shone through. It hovered for a moment and then broke over my mother and her women like a wave, plowing through the soldiers, an inhuman wail in the air. When it reached the manor, it was strong enough to knock me back from the window.

The lights in the library flickered and then flared brightly. I winced and tried to shield my eyes.

There was a form. No, two. Pure light, featureless, but I could feel them looking at me with disdain anyway. Devas, beings of light. Another figure appeared from the light behind them, this one taking on a humanoid form. Someone I recognized, the traveling man had I trained with, but he had disappeared in the line of duty and I thought it was a trick. They wanted… something. Something my parents were charged to guard, some birthright I'd lost without knowing I'd had it. Only the one who looked like my teacher spoke and words sounded strange from him, as if he was always screaming though he spoke no louder than my own voice. He said that since I didn't know, to get out of their way and he would spare me.

I don't know why I stood my ground. Desperation and a desire to live up to my mother, I suppose. It was stupid. I was going to die and I didn't care, as long as I died trying to do something that mattered.

And then there was a weight in my hand, cool and smooth to make me aware just how sweaty my palms were, and it took me a long, long minute to understand.

Now, of all the times, to finally summon up my crystal.

My mentor laughed and smiled and said he was glad I had it in me after all, and that's when I knew his appearance wasn't a trick.

"They said you died, Chenek," I whispered.

"Not quite." His own blade flashed into view and I hurried to find the dusty memories of fighting. As he swung at me, I parried weakly and jumped back. He gave a few more blows that I pushed aside. I could tell he was going easy on me and meanwhile, the two devas were tearing the library apart looking for whatever it was they wanted.

Even with a blade, I was useless.

He pinned me against a shelf. "It's a losing battle, Rajani." Judging by the light pouring in the window, he wasn't lying.

One of the devas screeched and my former mentor turned and nodded. "We've found it." I looked for my mother outside, but I couldn't see anything. There was only light streaming in from the window.

He turned to leave and I did the only thing I could think of – I charged, holding my crystal blade high. Even as I jammed my blade into his kidney, he turned, and smirked, and his blade swung to target my chest. I felt the light, felt it inside me like acid, and felt my lungs collapse on themselves. My crystal blade fell to dust in my hand and I dropped to the floor.

In a moment, the devas were gone. A minute more, and the library was as well, along with the only home I knew.

02

There was light and only light, and I might as well have been blind for as much as it showed me. I fought the energy that was eating outward from my chest, trying to get back to its source all around me. I didn't want to lose myself to the light.
Suddenly there was a shadow before me, seemingly cast by nothing, and I lurched toward it desperately. It wrapped me tightly and under the keening wail of the light I heard the shadow whisper before I lost consciousness.

I woke in the arms of a woman with hands darker than I had ever seen and hair like soft and grasping like the shadows. I couldn't move, but I didn't really want to just then. I must have gasped or breathed or shifted my weight, because she leaned back and smiled at me. Her eyes were abyss itself and I could not look away.

The weight of her arms fell away and I realized that I couldn't move because she'd wrapped me in a leather blanket. I shugged it off and stared at it, and then at my hands, before I realized I was nude. I started to cover myself with the blanket.

"It is all right," she spoke and I stopped. She reached for me and I took her hand, which looked even darker next to my copper skin.

"Who– How–" I started, but she shushed me.

"Don't worry about that right now."

She taught me everything.

I raised my arms and felt the darkness sing through them, within me and without me seeming to merge.

She told me what had happened to me, and to my mother, and who my teacher had been, and the true nature of the world.

At night, when I shivered, her shadows and her arms wrapped around me.

She asked me if I wanted to protect the balance and stop the advance of the light.
I'd been trying to summon my crystal, but could not. I felt a failure and told her this.

She smiled sadly. "Your blood was destroyed with the rest of you, my dear. I can preserve you here, but if you wish to leave and fight, you must accept a new one."

"A new… body?"

"Will you?"

Of course I would do anything she asked of me.

She laid her hand on my chest and I was suddenly aware that the shape I wore was memory and will wrapped around my soul like those blankets. She laid the memory of my chest open with her hand, and I trembled before her. I felt her move inside me. Shadows rose up on all sides and I lost first my sight, then my other senses.

After that was a blur of screaming and fever-dreams as I became what she asked me to be.

When I woke, it was again in her arms, and again to her smile.

"Now summon your crystal," she said.

It came easily to me now, the weight solid and faintly pulsing in my hand.

"It's… different." The hilt was twisted with thorns. I wrapped my hand around it and the thorns twisted against my skin. I winced. They bit in against my flesh and I felt blood flow along the blade as if it were part of me.

"Your blood is different," she answered simply. "Are you ready?"

I didn't want to leave her, but I nodded. Then it went dark.

–

There is wind whipping past my face and I smile to see the lightning on the horizon. I feel the weight of a crystal blade settle in my hand. I no longer call it – it comes and goes of its own accord.

As do I, slipping between the worlds like the pages of a book. There is darkness and light and I walk between them.

The storm is coming faster and rain begins to pelt my skin and clothes. The air is thick with electricity. I raise the blade as the lightning falls –

This is my favorite part, the peace between. I breathe deeply here.

And then I arrive.

–

03

I woke to the sound of two voices, male, quiet, speaking a language I didn't know. They were both strangely pale with dark hair; I wondered at first if they were sick. Something in my head felt wrong, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. There was too much strangeness and it was still hard to think straight.

When I started to sit up, the smaller man looked over. He met my eyes and yelped in excitement and ran out the door. The larger one came over and sat beside me.

He said something, but I still didn't understand him. It sounded like a question, and his face was open and concerned. I shook my head, hoping he would know what I meant, but he just frowned and repeated himself.

"Do you understand me?" I asked him, but I could tell that was a lost cause almost before the words were out of my mouth. I was just starting to wonder what was going on when the door swung open and the smaller man returned. The other stood and walked over to him and they huddled in conversation for a few moments, then they both turned toward the door.

The new man was older, with hair the color of river sand and skin just as pale as theirs. On his face I could see lines around his eyes and brow. He repeated the sounds the other man had made and I shook my head again.

After a moment he pointed to himself and spoke slowly. "Hii-ro-nih-mas. Hieronymus." I recognized that he was describing himself; I guessed it was his name. He seemed to want a response, so I pointed to him and repeated the sounds.

He- Hieronymus- smiled at me and repeated the gesture with the larger man. "Dahn-tay. Dante." I nodded and said the name again. We repeated the process with the smaller man, "Orlando."

"Qual è il suo nome?" he asked, pointing at me now, and though I couldn't understand him, I could guess what he wanted. I opened my mouth to tell him my name, then stopped.

There was nothing there. All the creeping wrongness came crashing in on me as I tried desperately to think of why I'd forgotten my name. The harder I searched, though, the more I realized was missing - home, family, there was nothing. Trying to remember was like waling into walls. I fought off the urge to throw up.

The weight of a hand on my shoulder cut through my thoughts. I looked up to see Hieronymus looking at me, his eyes troubled.

The door opened again and he looked away; I felt a distinct annoyance at that before looking in the same direction. Another new face, younger than the other two and uncannily like a younger version of Hieronymus, stepped inside. He was carrying a mug, which he passed to the older man. I wanted to ask who he was, what was going on, and a hundred other questions, but I still couldn't seem to get oxygen into my lungs.

Hieronymus's hand slipped out of his robe holding a small bottle, and he poured a little something into the mug. He gestured over it in the shape of a five-pointed star before handing it to me. It was warm and smelled comforting and just a little spicy. I sipped hesitantly, but the taste was thick and sweet enough that I began drinking in earnest. I felt my muscles relax, and warmth spread from my hands and throat into my entire body.

He turned to the others and said something quickly. Without argument, the younger men all filed out. After the door shut, he sat beside me and took the empty mug away.

"Dormi bene," he told me as my eyelids slid shut, and though I didn't know what it meant, I could guess he wished me well.

04

I lost track of time as I learned the language and built new memories to take the panicked sting out of the holes left by old ones. Over time I met all of Hieronymus's apprentices, learning names while I still had none.

Enzo, the youngest, liked riddles and theoretical arguments and letters from his mother in Venexia. He was quiet and pale and had been sickly as a child, leading desperate parents to send him to Hieronymus when they had no idea what else to do with him. Hieronymus had considered it only because having allies in the city was useful, but Enzo's intelligence and passion had quickly charmed him.

Ioannes was the next eldest, and lorded it over those he could. He was Hieronymus's son and there was always some jealousy between himself and the rest. To his mind, his father's apprentices were threats to his inheritance — he seemed to want his father, and his father's knowledge, to himself.

Dante had come to Hieronymus out of the army, with a crippling injury to his right leg. He'd come on the heels of the rumors about a magician who could heal, and found more than medicine in Hieronymus's home.

The eldest apprentice was Orlando, an archer who'd originally taken a vow of poverty and was living in the woods nearby when Hieronymus arrived from the north. At first he'd argued faith and philosophy with Hieronymus, but he'd been sufficiently impressed that he asked to study with the older man. Hieronymus was hesitant to take this first apprentice; he'd only had one student before, and that had ended badly before his son was born. Hieronymus has since chalked that up to being too young and too proud when he began teaching, but at the time, the wound was still fresh.

Orlando had spent over a month sleeping right in Hieronymus's doorway (not much worse than the hermitage, Orlando confessed, except when it rained) before the alchemist relented. He told me the story with a hint of pride the night Hieronymus asked me to stay.

"I know you're interested," Hieronymus said to me, taking me aside as the young men went to dinner. "We would enjoy having you here. The boys are all getting on well with you.

"And you're not worried that I'm a woman?" I pressed. I had heard whispered rumors that made me doubt what they all thought of me.

"Alchemy is about balance. It would be good to have a feminine influence around here."

"If you're quite certain."

Hieronymus nodded. "Of course I'm certain."

"Then I'd love to." I smiled. Libraries felt safe to me, and surely Hieronymus had one of the largest in his country.

That was when I finally got the grand tour, the things only students got to see: the second library, the laboratories, and the chapel.

The other chapel, I should say. The chapel upstairs was for prayer to the Lord of Light, the one Orlando had pledged hermitage to. Orlando's presence and the regular services in the chapel were enough to convince people of orthodoxy despite the rumors.

As we walked down the stone stairs into the bowels of the castle, Hieronymus explained to me that there were many forces in the universe, of which light was only one. There was the void from which all the elements proceeded but which contained none of them. This was the pure potential for creation, he told me, to which God had been speaking when he said "Let there be light."

"Are you familiar with the Five Forces?" he asked me.

"I– I think so, yes." Again, knowledge without context. I'd certainly heard enough about the Lord of Light while I had been staying here, however.

Hieronymus launched into an elaborate story about the Lord of Light and the Dark Lady. I couldn't follow all of it, but he was so excited about it that I couldn't bring myself to stop him. I was, however, beginning to understand that Hieronymus's reputation for heresy might not be unearned; no one had said anything about the Dark Lady during my stay.

"This is where we call on the Dark Lady," he said as he pushed open the door to the lower chapel.

The chapel upstairs was a pavilion filled with stained glass and sunlight, but this was something else altogether. Candles glowed in alcoves on either side, and blue glass decorated an altar with a silver statue of a veiled woman. I caught my breath the first time I saw it. I could have sworn I'd been there before, and I told Hieronymus this.

"I knew you would be a natural at this," he said with a smile. That wasn't quite what I'd meant, but I didn't think I could convey the feeling in my native language, let along this new one I'd been learning for only a few weeks.

This wasn't the first time Hieronymus remarked on this. "I wonder if you studied the art before you found your way to us," he'd mused over dinner last night. That opened the floodgates. It seemed that everyone had an opinion.

Dante wondered if I might be from some undiscovered southern country, perhaps even the fabled land of Solomon. Enzo suggested I simply came from further east than Hieronymus had studied, and that sidetracked them into a discussion of skin tone and geography that went so fast I had difficulty following it.

Then Orlando spoke quietly. "Perhaps she is simply inspired."

The table fell silent. The other young men looked first at him in surprise, then at me, thinking, judging, wondering. Could it be that I was touched by the lady they'd been entreating?

The thought was a bit frightening with all of them staring at me.

"Let's consider more likely alternatives first," Hieronymus interrupted, breaking the silence, and the meal had continued, but down here I couldn't help think of that moment again.

After what seemed like a long time, Hieronymus gently took my wrist and pulled me away from the chapel.

"I'll need to call you something," Hieronymus said at the end of the tour, as we walked back to the main hall.

I frowned. "I'm sorry, I still don't remember."

"No, it doesn't have to be your old name. I just need something to call you now. A new name for a new life."

I shook my head. "I have nothing."

"May I choose one for you now?" I nodded. He considered for a moment.

"Melanosis, then. Because you are a fresh start, a prima materia." I liked the name, but like everyone else's, it was quickly shortened. No longer nameless and alone, I was Nosa, one out of five.

Dawn

Outside, light is creeping over the stone walls. The sky is grey, but I can't tell if its from clouds or the dawn. I haven't slept yet.

If Lord Hieronymus were to find me here, there would be a stern lecture about respecting my limits and taking care of my body, I'm sure, but my Lord is not here. I left the library and my studies behind an hour ago, but my mind refuses to stop racing. I do my best thinking at night, after the others have gone to bed and forgotten me. The emptiness of a guttering candle after midnight is a strange comfort.

Dawn is climbing slowly from her rest and I find myself kneeling before the open window. The position is familiar in that way that gives no context. It's only hollow instinct, but instinct is all I have.

This moment is reverent and sacred and, may she forgive me, I've forgotten the name of the goddess I'm praying to. I go through the motions because it feels right, and because I hope the name will fall off my tongue. Any sensible deity would laugh at me or strike me down, I'm sure, but I pray anyway and think I can feel her close by. There is a hint of touch on my cheek, a prayer whose words are lost to me before my lips have even stopped moving, and then only the silence of dawn.

A Passing Fancy, 1881

People talk about the wild, crazy, dangerous, brave young woman whose love of science or adventure is so true that she disguises herself as a boy, the better to pursue what she wants. It’s not that she doesn’t secretly crave womanly things and a good, kind, probably rich husband – no, she just is doing what she has to, this distasteful but oddly romantic image of passing herself off as a boy.

That is not me. That was never me.

And while they may adore having stories written about them in pamphlets and illustrated showing their girlish good looks in a newsboy’s cap, I wanted no such thing. That didn’t stop them, of course, when they found out. I was from a good family. I was expected to do certain things, in a certain fashion.

After the story got out there, of course, I got the strangest proposals from the kinds of men who find those women attractive – there are two types, really. Those who want a strong woman so they can break her, and those who want a strong woman so they can hide behind her. Neither held any appeal for me. I wanted to sneak away again but my parents would have none of it. I was carefully locked away, and on the thind floor. I had only begun plans to build an escape device when the final letter came.

Something about it was different from the moment I saw it. The envelope was gently perfumed and the handwriting delicate and perfect. Under my parents’ watchful eye at breakfast, I opened it and read it over.

It was not a terribly forward letter. He said only that he thought he understood why I did what I did, and he would very much like to meet me and discuss it over tea, but there was something in the way he phrased it…

I told my parents that I would see him. They were delighted, if confused by what seemed a sudden change of heart. Still, neither of them much believed in studying the mouths of gifted equines. Letters were sent, mutual friends were pressed into service. I wrote a reply, carefully worded, elaborating a bit on my adventures and thanking him for his understanding. Another round of letters and a stifling visit entirely in the company of both our mothers, three aunts, and a grandmother had to be put out of the way before I was able to steal a few minutes to walk with him through the grounds.

“You said you understood. Explain,” I said, dropping the polite pretense I’d put on to please my mother.

“I… that is to say… you replied that you appreciated my understanding.”

“I want to make quite clear what it is that we are both understanding, sir.”

He stopped and swallowed hard, looking away from me. We stood for an interminably long time there beneath the flowering garden trees as he knotted and unknotted his handkerchief, long enough that our mothers no doubt got all sorts of wrong ideas.

“When I was younger,” he finally said, his voice so quiet that I had to lean in to hear him, “I thought that one day I would leave. Just leave entirely, taking passage on a ship or a train and never return. Instead I would arrive in some far country where I had never been, and become an entirely different person.”

I waited, but he seemed at a loss again. “What kind of person, sir?”

He looked me in the eyes then, though his hands shook with the weight of what he was saying. “The sort of person who is quite suspect travelling without a husband or brother or aunt.”

“The sort of person who- oh,” I said as I unraveled it. “You wish to arrive somewhere no one questions that you are a woman.”

“And you, I suspected from your accounts, were far from ready to leave behind your life as a man.”

I smiled at that, just a quick motion, and I think we both relaxed now that we knew where the other stood. She straightened her jacket and looked back toward the house.

“My father has associates in the orient,” she said. “Men I’ve never met, but to whom he would write letters of recommendation. If we wed, I could quite reasonably ask that we go there to make my fortune. And when we disembarked in that far place, where no one knew us… well, if you were Mister James Redgrave and I were your new wife Judith, who would disagree?”

“Your words are very tempting, Miss Redgrave,” I said to her, just to gauge her reaction. She looked as if she might swoon, and the color in her cheeks was delightful. For the first time I supposed that I was lucky to have gotten away in the first place. That she might be offering me a second seemed almost too much to hope for.

Her face was honest, however. I knew her confession would cost her more than mine had, if it ever became common knowledge.

“Let us make a go of this, then,” I told her. “Though it saddens me that we must keep up the pretense through the wedding, I suspect the fantasy of the wedding tour afterward will strengthen you as much as it does me.”

She shoved her handkerchief back into her jacket pocket and took my hand. “Then you would agree that we have… an understanding?”

“I would very much agree, Miss Redgrave,” I said, and allowed her to take my hand and lead me back to the house where our families waited.