Chapter 3

1403.  The fifteenth century.  Six hundred years before the Iraq War broke out.  Six hundred years before she had woken up that morning.  Medieval England.

Left alone, Kate paced up and down the tiny room, the bed sheet still wrapped tightly about her.  Her bad leg landed heavily on the wooden floorboards, which creaked dangerously with every step she took.  She was too agitated to notice.

This can’t be real, she said to herself over and over.  This can’t be happening.  No way is this real.  This has got to be a dream.

She had pinched herself countless times, leaving painful blue and black bruises on her bare arms, and she had felt every single one.  She hadn’t woken up, which meant that this couldn’t be a dream.  It was real.  It was too elaborate, too detailed to be a hoax.  You just couldn’t replicate this sort of squalor.  This was nothing less than the real medieval England.

She didn’t know how she had done it, and she didn’t know why, but somehow she had managed to travel back in time.  And not just that – she’d traveled through space, too, from Iraq to England, over three thousand miles.  It was a ridiculous notion – an impossible one, even – but she’d done it.

How? How on Earth could this possibly have happened? People didn’t just pop in and out of centuries out of the blue.  There was always some method, some breakthrough formula or state-of-the-art technology or alien vortex to bring people backwards and forwards in time.  And there had been nothing like that – just a bloody battlefield and a live grenade.  And Kate had never heard of time travel via explosive.  The only place a grenade could send you was the grave.  

Besides, time travel didn’t even exist.  There was research, real scientific research, on why it couldn’t possibly exist.  It was nothing more than a myth, fodder for second-rate TV shows and novels sold in airports.  It was fiction.  It wasn’t real.

…right?

Well, okay, for the sake of argument, let it be said that time travel was possible, and had indeed taken place.  Why had it been her? Why Kate Wallace? The heroes in sci-fi novels all had special powers or were super-geniuses or something like that.  She was nothing more than a soldier, and a poor one at that.  She wasn’t anything special.  Why her? And why here, in England? Why the Middle Ages? Why, why, why?

Kate crossed the room a final time and sank down onto the bed, causing the unsteady bedframe to groan even louder than the floorboards.  She counted to ten and took several deep breaths, but she could not stop her heart from beating a tattoo against her ribs or the icy pit of fear forming deep in her core.

I might never get back.  I might never see my family again.  I might be stuck here until I die of plague or a sword wound or something just as bad.  I might spend the rest of my life in a place I know next to nothing about, with no medicine or indoor plumbing or contact with the rest of the world.  Oh, God, what am I going to do?

“No,” she said out loud, shaking her head slightly to clear it.  “Don’t panic.  That’s rule one, don’t panic.  Panicking won’t help anyone.”

Of course, she didn’t have a particularly stellar track record when it came to remaining calm under pressure, but that was beside the point.  If she sat around crying without trying to figure things out for herself, she’d never get anywhere.  For now, she had to adjust to her surroundings.  She’d only be able to move forward if she stood up and got her footing.  She would learn how to live in the fifteenth century, so that she could focus on getting home.

Kate was just beginning to properly calm down when she heard a knock at the door.  “Hey, it’s Ruth,” a high-pitched voice called out.  “I brought you some things from Mr. Arden.  Can I come in?”

“Yes, come on in,” Kate answered, adjusting her blanket again.  

The wooden door grated on its hinges – this whole building was falling apart – and Ruth walked in, balancing a sloshing mug atop a bundle of cloth.  

“You’re lookin’ loads better,” she said, grasping the mug in one hand and dumping the cloth onto the ramshackle bed.  “When I left, you were lookin’ like the Devil ‘imself was starin’ you in the face.”  She held out the mug, beaming from ear to ear.

Kate took it, holding it in her lap between both hands.  “Yeah, I’m…well, I’m not good, but I’m better.”  She glanced down into the mug at the murky brown liquid and wrinkled her nose slightly.  “Uh…what’s this?”

“Sack,” Ruth replied.  “Some of Hostess’ finest.  The ole blighters downstairs can’t get enough.  Thought it would make you feel better – oh, an’ you don’t owe me or nothin’.”

Kate lifted the mug to her face and sniffed; it smelled vaguely nutty.  “Right…thanks.”  She lowered the concoction back into her lap without drinking.

“You’re welcome.”  The young girl took a seat on the floor near Kate’s feet, hugging her knees and gently tugging down the edge of her dress as it rode up her legs.  Her smile was as bright as a child’s.  “What’s your name, anyway?” she said.  “You never said.”

“Kate,” she replied.  “Kate Wallace.”

Ruth nodded in approval.  “That’s a good name, that is.  One of me older sisters was named Kate.  She was nice, she was.”

“She ‘was’ nice?” Kate echoed.  “Not anymore?”

Ruth’s smile slackened ever so slightly.  “She’s not nothin’ anymore.  She died o’ the plague about…oh, I dunno, thirteen years ago?”

“Oh,” Kate said, immediately regretting that she had asked.  “I’m sorry.”

Ruth shrugged.  “I was only a little scrap when she went off – littler than I am now, I mean.  I don’t remember her much, but I think she must’ve been nice.  You’re nice, too,” she added, “even if you’re a little odd.”

“Thanks, I think.”  An uncomfortable silence settled in, and Kate’s eyes quickly swept the room, searching for something to talk about.  “So you live here all by yourself?”

Ruth nodded.  “Yup.  Me mum and the rest of me brothers and sisters went off at the same time as Kate – my sister, that is, not you – and me dad got strung up at Tyburn for stealin’, so it’s just me left.”

Kate shuddered involuntarily.  Strung up…that had to have meant hanging.  What a horrifying image.  “I’m sorry,” she said again, not sure what the right thing to say was.  “That must’ve been hard for you.”

Ruth looked away.  “It was at first.  Dad and me were close, and after he left, I was all on me own, but it’s all right now,” she said brightly.  “Sheriff Arden looks after me sometimes, so I’m not lonely.  And this room is a lot nicer than the one I was livin’ in with Dad.” Here, Kate glanced around the cramped and dirty space with disbelief. “And anyway, I wouldn’t make much money if he were still here, would I? The customers don’t like havin’ old men watch.”  She giggled at that, snorting once.

Kate fidgeted uncomfortably.  “Oh.  So, uh…you are, then?”

Ruth frowned.  “I’m what?”

“A prostitute.”

“What’s a prostitute?”

Kate stared at her.  Did they not have that word in the Middle Ages? She felt her face heat up with embarrassment; she’d have to explain to her.  “It’s, ah…it’s a woman who…you know…makes money by…letting men pay to sleep her,” she finished quickly.

“Oh, a woman o’ the streets, you mean?” Ruth asked.

“Sure.”

The younger girl nodded in understanding.  “I gotcha.  Yes, I am.”  She laughed again at the distressed look on Kate’s face.  “Oy, what’s with that face? Sheriff told me that Mary Magdalene was a woman o’ the streets, and the Good Lord never complained about havin’ her around.”

She didn’t seem offended, but Kate still felt a bit awkward.  Not sure what else to do, she mechanically took a sip of the drink.  It was unusually sweet, but strong.  She felt the liquid slide into her stomach and warm her insides, and some of her terror melted away.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” Ruth said suddenly.  She gestured to the cloth bundle next to Kate on the bed.  “Sheriff asked me to give you those clothes.  They’re his wife’s, but they don’t fit her no more, so he said you can keep ‘em.”

Kate examined the pile, sorting through the garments with one hand.  There was a homespun, off-white tunic with long sleeves, a second brown dress, a puffy white chemise, and brown stockings.  There were also a worn pair of shoes and a dark brown hooded cloak which, Kate noticed with wonder, was trimmed with soft, dark gray fur.

“Mr. Arden is very generous,” she said to Ruth.  “You’ll have to thank him for me.  But I was wondering…where are my old clothes?”

Ruth blinked up at her confusedly.  “Old clothes?”

“Yeah, the ones I was wearing when you found me.  The green ones.”

“But you weren’t wearin’ anythin’ when Sheriff found you.  You were as naked as the day you were born, ‘cept for that silver round your neck.”

Kate’s face flushed scarlet again at the thought.  “I was?”

“Yup,” Ruth answered with a nod.

Kate frowned.  She had definitely still been in uniform when she had jumped on that grenade, so she must have lost them when she traveled back in time (it was still so surreal for her to say it, even to herself).  Just as well, she supposed; there would have been some difficult questions if the locals had seen a woman wearing pants, let alone an unfamiliar military uniform.  Why were the tags left, though? Couldn’t whoever took the clothes get them off?

“What happened to you, anyway?” Ruth was saying.  “How’d you end up in an alley like that? Did some wicked man have evil on his mind?”

Kate shook her head.  “I don’t know.  I mean, I can’t remember.  Not how I got here, or where my clothes went, or anything.”

Ruth frowned in sympathy.  “Poor thing.  Maybe Sheriff could help you find out? He’s good at that sort of thing.”

“Maybe,” Kate agreed, privately hoping that no one would get too close to the truth.  “Now, would you mind helping me with these clothes? I’m not sure what goes on first.”

To her relief, Ruth did not ask why she would not know how to wear typical medieval clothes.  Instead, the younger girl stood up and eagerly pulled on Kate’s hand.  Kate stood up, placing the mug of sack on the edge of the bed and wincing at the pain in her leg.  With some hesitation, she let go of the blanket, letting it fall to her feet.  

Ruth’s eyes widened, and she let out a little gasp.  “Oh…I-I’m sorry, Kate, I…”

Kate bit her lip and averted her eyes.  She knew Ruth was looking at the multitude of scars riddling her body.  “It’s fine,” she said shortly.  “The chemise goes on first, right?”

Ruth jumped slightly, then hurriedly grabbed the thin white garment.  “Uh, y-yes.  You wear this under the white one, and then the brown on top o’ that.  You can keep the chemise on at night if you want, but usually I just –”

Exactly what Ruth wore at night Kate wouldn’t find out, for at that moment, the door opened with such force that it slammed against the wall and rattled in its frame.  Kate registered that there were three men standing in the threshold – Arden, another old man with a scraggly white beard and an enormous belly, and a much younger man with dark hair – before realizing that all of them had a full and unimpeded view of her naked body.

Without stopping to think, Kate picked up the mostly-full mug of sack and hurled it at the three intruders.  The fat man, who had apparently been the one to open the door in the first place, immediately yanked the door shut, a split second before the mug would have collided with his head. The mug slammed against the wooden surface with a thud and clattered to the floor, spilling alcohol everywhere.

“Well thrown, madam!” a voice called out from the other side.  Judging by the timbre, it was most likely the youngest man.

“Piss off, pervert!” Kate shouted back.  Her face had now taken on the color of a cooked lobster.  Three medieval English strangers had just seen her naked body.  That was probably just about the most embarrassing thing that could happen to someone.

Furiously, she snatched the shift out of Ruth’s hands and slipped it over her head, struggling a bit with the armholes.  The white and brown dresses followed quickly.  They fell to her ankles and completely covered the length of her arms, but they fit well enough to live with.  Kate then plopped down onto the bed and pulled on the stockings and boots, her hands still shaking with rage.

Ruth watched all of this with wide eyes, looking much too horrified for the situation.  Kate glowered at her sourly.  “What’s the matter with you?” she grumbled.  “Don’t tell me it’s the language.  You must hear worse than that every day in a place like this.”

“N-No,” Ruth stammered.  “W-Well, yes, I do actually, but Kate…d-don’t you know who that was?”

She shrugged.  “A couple of sick bastards spying on a naked woman.  Jesus-fucking-Christ, don’t people knock in England?”

Ruth flinched, and Kate realized in hindsight that her curse had been a bit too much for the fanatically-religious of the Middle Ages.  “Well, n-no…uh, I mean, yes, you’re supposed to, but Sir John never does.  You have to block the door when you’ve got customers so he don’t get in…but that’s not important!” she added, shaking her head as if to clear it.  “The younger man, the tall man! Don’t you know who he is?”

Kate shook her head, now starting to feel more curious than angry.  "No, I don’t.  Who is he?”

Ruth leaned in and lowered her voice to a whisper, as though afraid of being overheard.  “That’s Prince Hal.”

“…Who?”

“Prince Hal! The Prince o’ Wales! King Henry’s son!”

Kate stared at her.  “You mean the next king?”

Ruth nodded like a bobble-head toy.  “Uh-huh!”

 “Pull the other one.”

“No, really!” Ruth insisted.  “It’s really him! Hal, the Prince o’ Wales!” Her eyes widened to the size of golf balls.  “And you just threw a cup o’ sack at him!”

Kate was not impressed by her theatrics.  “If he’s the next king of England,” she said, “what’s he doing in a dirty little tavern?”

“An excellent question!” the voice called out again – Hal, or whatever his name was.  “One that my father has struggled to answer for years now.  You sound fully clothed now, so may I come in so that we may ponder the answer together?”

At the sound of the voice, Kate’s face colored in embarrassment and anger again.  She opened her mouth to tell the man at the door exactly where he could go to ponder, but Ruth had already let out a frightened little yelp and scampered across the room.  She opened the door fully, cowering unseen in the little space open space between the wall and the door.

The first one in was Arden, his wrinkled hands covering his bright-red face.  “Beggin’ your pardon, stranger,” he whimpered.  “I didn’t mean to, honest, I didn’t! If I’d only known – I told him, I said, ‘Sir John, you’d better knock,’ but would he listen? No…”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Ralph, stop your sniveling,” the fat old man said, sauntering in with a self-satisfied smirk beneath his scraggly white beard.  “Pious chastity is all well and good, but our old eyes need all the pretty sights they can get.”  He winked at Kate, and his smirk widened.  “And believe me, young madam, that sight was particularly pretty.”

Kate’s temper flared once more.  “What was that, you old pervert?!” she snarled.  She clenched her right hand into a fist and drew her arm back, but before the punch could connect, a hand reached out and tightly gripped her wrist, stopping her momentum completely.  

“Now, now,” the third man, Hal, said.  “You will not gain anything from violence, though he undoubtedly deserves it.  Shame on you, John Falstaff.  You know better than to enter a lady’s room without knocking.”

The fat man, John Falstaff, shrugged indifferently.  “I do, my boy, but you know as well as I do that little Ruth is about as much a lady as I am.”

“Oy!” Ruth yelped indignantly, poking her head out from behind the door.

“You know it’s true, dear,” Falstaff said with another wink.

Arden sighed and placed a restraining hand on Falstaff’s shoulder.  “Now, Sir John, don’t you think you’ve insulted enough women for one night?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Hal cut in with a chuckle.  “He has not even gotten to the veteran whores downstairs.”

Momentarily forgotten, Kate looked up curiously at the youngest man.  The prince – if indeed he was a prince – was about a head taller than she was and had a thin, wiry build.  He was fairly good-looking, with thick dark brown hair and a rather long, straight nose.  He must have been very young, only in his mid-teens, but there was something in his face that made him seem much, much older.  Not quite regality, but…something.  

Could it really be true? Could he really be a prince? Sure, he was dressed a little better than the others – an indigo tunic that fell to his waist rather than his ankles, and a tight, tight pair of pants – but that didn’t mean prince.  A member of the royal family certainly wouldn’t be hanging around in taverns with prostitutes and old perverts.  As far as Kate knew, the only situation that that remotely resembled was…

Sensing her intense gaze, the maybe-prince looked back at her and smiled.  “I am so terribly sorry to have startled you, madam,” he said.  “Incredibly rude of me not to knock, I know.  But when Hostess Quickly told me about you, I am afraid I was just too excited to wait for you to come down.”  

His smile took on a flirtatious quality; seeing the unimpressed look on Kate’s face, however, he cleared his throat and turned towards Arden.  “Ralph, my good man, are you not going to introduce us?”

Arden jumped at the sudden address.  “Ah, yes, of course.  My lord, Sir John, this is…uh…”  He looked over at Kate helplessly.

“Kate Wallace,” she finished.

“Kate Wallace,” Hal repeated, his smile widening again.  “Lovely name.  Short for ‘Katherine,’ isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“Lovely,” he said again.  “I am…well, I suppose I should let Ralph finish, shouldn’t I?” He winked at Arden, who fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Madam Wallace,” he continued, “may I present my lord Henry of the Plantagenets, Prince of Wales.”

The prince bowed low.  “My lady,” he said, brushing his lips over her hand.

Kate gaped openly at him, and then jerked her hand back, startled.  “Y-Your Majesty!” She tried to bow, but she lost her balance and started to fall.

Immediately, Hal’s arms shots out and caught her before she hit the floor. “Are you all right?” he asked.  “You are not injured, are you?”

Kate straightened up and wriggled out of the young man’s grasp.  “I’m fine, Your Majesty,” she said, feeling her face burn once again.  “I have a bad leg.  I was sh– I mean, it was hurt in an accident,” she corrected quickly.  She was fairly certain that guns and bullets were not part of medieval English warfare.  

“You have my sympathies.  I know many a good man who suffers from the same thing.”  He looked back over his shoulder.  “Ralph, would you go downstairs and ask Hostess Quickly if she has any spare walking sticks? I am sure at least one of their owners will be too overcome by drink to walk even with help.”

“Of course, my lord,” Ralph replied.  He went quickly out the door.  Kate heard his heavy footfalls on a flight of stairs.

“Now, where were we…?” Hal mused, almost to himself.  Falstaff cleared his throat loudly.  “Ah, yes.  This is Sir John Falstaff, resident sack enthusiast.”

Falstaff nodded at Kate.  “Speaking of which, madam, are you aware of the colossal waste of good sack you have brought about?” He jerked a pudgy thumb over his shoulder at the empty mug on the floor.

Kate’s face twisted into another scowl.  “And whose fault is that? I wouldn’t have thrown it if you hadn’t peeked at me changing!”

“An excellent point,” Hal added.  “In light of which, it seems only right that the two of us replace it for you.  What say you?”

“Uh, thanks, but no thanks,” Kate answered.  On top of everything else, she didn’t feel particularly inclined to spend any more time with a fat old nympho and a prince in disguise.  

Falstaff didn’t seem any more enthusiastic than Kate.  “There, Hal, she doesn’t want any more.  Let’s keep what little money we have in our pockets, where it belongs.”

“Speak for yourself,” Hal retorted.  “I have the royal coffers at my disposal.”  He grinned down at Kate again.  “Really, I insist.  Let me buy you a drink, as an apology for my behavior.”

Kate hesitated, and then nodded reluctantly.  He looked so eager that she couldn’t turn him down; after all, he may declare war on her or something.  “One drink.”

Hal’s smile grew, if possible, even wider.  “Excellent! Let us be off then.  Lean on me, and we will go slowly.”

“Wait, wha–?”

Before Kate could protest, Hal wrapped an arm around her waist and half-dragged, half-carried her out of the room, with Falstaff and Ruth close on their heels.