Hope rose.
Shoving her gun into her shoulder holster, Beth eagerly moved forward. “Hey, are you guys actors? Is there a set nearby? Does it have security? Maybe HPD or sheriff’s deputies? Because—”
The one on the far left barked something in a language she didn’t recognize. He appeared to be the oldest of the four, boasting rich brown hair that grayed at the temples.
“English,” Beth said. “In English, please. Are you guys actors?”
The leader said something she again could not understand. What was that—Gaelic?
“Do you speak English?” she asked. “Parlez-vous anglais? Sprechen sie Englisch? Habla used Inglés?” She had always had a knack for foreign languages, both for learning them and speaking them proficiently. She had learned Spanish in high school, then French in college. Marc, who was fluent in at least five or six different languages, had taught her enough German to carry on basic conversations. And her geography professor in college had claimed that knowing English, Spanish, French, and German had enabled him to communicate in every country he had visited throughout Europe.
So, if these guys were European, chances were good that they knew at least one of those.
“Well?” she prompted.
All looked to the leader, who spoke again. He almost sounded like a Scandinavian person speaking English for the first time.
Beth frowned. “Wait. Speak slower, please.” For a minute there, it had sounded vaguely familiar.
When the leader merely looked confused, she said again, lengthening the words dramatically, “Speeeeeeeak slooooooooower, pleeeeeeese.”
While he still didn’t seem to understand her words, he did seem to catch her meaning and obligingly spoke much slower.
Beth stared. Middle English? That’s what they were speaking? Sheesh. No wonder it sounded so weird. She had had a heck of a time learning it when her English professor mother had encouraged her to read rural English literature of the Middle Ages in its original form. And she doubted she would have learned to speak it at all without her talent for learning languages. Josh had had a heck of a time getting it down.
Why the hell would these guys be speaking Middle English?
“Oh, wait,” she said suddenly. “I get it. You’re one of those reenactment groups, right?” If they had learned to speak Middle English, they must be really dedicated to their roles.
When they all just sat there, looking puzzled, she did her best to translate, trotting out her rusty Middle English. But she couldn’t always find a medieval equivalent for the modern words she wished to use. “Are you members of a reenactment group?”
The redhead frowned. “Can you not see we are knights?”
Right. Knights in an apparently fanatical reenactment group if they wouldn’t deign to speak modern English. “Where are the rest of you?” she asked, still struggling to translate on the fly and get the archaic pronunciation right.
“There are only the four of us,” the leader responded, eyebrows colliding as his gaze traveled over her. He had shoulder-length, wavy black hair and bright blue eyes that seemed almost to glow in comparison to his tanned skin.
“No,” Beth said, then mentally cursed. “Nay, I mean where is the rest of your reenactment group? Do you have a club around here? Is there a paramedic there, or someone who—?”
“I know not what a reenactment group is, nor a paramedic for that matter. I am Lord Robert, Earl of Fosterly. And these are—”
“Look,” she gritted, raw nerves and fear for Josh’s safety rapidly eroding her patience as she regained her breath, “now is not the time to be stubborn, okay? I realize you guys are supposed to stay in character, and that sometimes you can be really anal about that kind of thing, but this is an emergency. How far are we from wherever it is you meet with everyone?”
“If you mean Fosterly,” he said in his remarkably authentic accent, “’tis almost a day’s ride from here.”
Yeah, right. So was Florida.
Her fists clenched. “Damn it, this is serious! Quit screwing around!”
The fourth man—blondish-brown hair and chiseled jaw—bristled. “’Tis the Earl of Fosterly you address, girl. ’Twould be wise to—”
“Michael,” the leader interrupted softly. “She is injured and likely out of her head with fever.”
“I am not out of my head,” she snapped. “I’m just trying to get some answers from you!”