It felt like failure and betrayal to admit this to myself.
But the truth is, I had a fucking crush on somewhat fancied him. Always had. How ridiculous. Anyone could fancy Tristan Lyons; it took no special qualities. I wished to demonstrate, at least to myself, that I was made of special qualities. So I chose to disregard my sentimentality.
This was hard because: first, he looked pretty hot when he was thrusting that rapier, and second, I was aware he was about to go away to a place far more dangerous than my DTAP had been, and while it was possible he would return immediately, it was also possible he would not return at all. That he would be really, truly, not just Schr?dinger’s-cat-like, dead.
Nothing like the possibility of eternal separation to bring out the romantic in a girl.
But I squelched it. Before he went into the ODEC on July 19 with Erszebet, I just clapped him on his shoulder. (Said shoulder was clad only in a T-shirt; recent improvements to the ODEC had included a heating system that made it into a shirtsleeves environment, and we had taken our rack of snowsuits to Goodwill.) I squeezed said shoulder but did not speak any of the words that my mouth suddenly wanted to form. I gave him a peck on the cheek, and watched as he passed through the airlock into the decontamination chamber. He’d already taken the medicines to sterilize his gut, but now scrubbed himself in the disinfectant shower and emerged in a pair of surgical scrubs, the ungainliness of which helped to dampen my romantic stirrings. Through the glass I waved like a younger sister as her brother goes off to summer camp. He nodded while backing into the ODEC, where Erszebet was waiting. He closed the door behind him. Oda-sensei, at the control console, flipped up the cover over the toggle switch, switched it on. The Klaxon clacked, however muffled. We waited.
It felt like years passed.
Finally, Erszebet opened the ODEC door. Oda-sensei powered down the ODEC. I had been hovering anxiously at the door. When he signaled me it was safe, I went inside.
Lying on the floor were Tristan’s scrubs and two white ceramic fillings I hadn’t known about. How ridiculous to confess this, but it saddened me that I had not known about his fillings. The gulf of my ignorance regarding his dental work left me feeling irrationally bereft.
Erszebet grabbed my arm and tugged it to get my attention. I forced my eyes away from the artifacts of Tristan to look at her.
She reached gently for my face and with her thumb and finger caressed the very pursed space between my brows. I hadn’t realized I’d been frowning. “If he doesn’t make it back, you will easily find a better lover,” she said consolingly.
I blushed so intensely it almost made my eyes water. “He’s not my lover,” I said irritably.
Erszebet gave me a knowing grin. “He’s not your lover yet,” she said.
LETTER FROM
GRáINNE to GRACE O’MALLEY
A Monday of Mid-Harvest, 1601
Auspiciousness and prosperity to you, milady!
Gráinne it is who’s writing this, and ’tis the most astounding news I have to share with Your Grace. I’m after meeting a gentleman by the name of Tristan Lyons. You’ll want to add him to your stable of faithful vassals, and I think he can find his way there with the proper inducements. I’ll be working on him to that end, anyhow.
I was putting in my time at the bawdy-house beside the brewery. I know Your Grace would rather I not, but truly it’s the best way to hide in plain sight, and sometimes it’s great crack. I was servicing—or, to put it another way, being serviced by—a gentleman of Bess’s court, a lumbering heap of a knight and not the brightest candle in the chandelier. He thinks he’s never revealing any secrets, but sure it’s as easy to read him as it is to read the signs on the High Street, so it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. Himself it was who let slip the rumour about the Earl of Essex some months back. As you might recall this allowed Your Grace’s agent to adopt some of His Lordship’s silver that was left tragically unattended during His Lordship’s arrest.
So there we were getting along with business, and I look over his shoulder and what I see there in the corner is a bit of glamour. So I know there’s some magic afoot but it’s not me performing it, and there’s nobody else in the room. And just as it’s occurring to me that another witch must be Sending me something, what is there in the corner suddenly but a large handsome man, buck naked, looking dazed as a newborn, and doesn’t he fall right to his knees and clutch at his head in utter confusion. And then he moans a bit, louder than my dim fella, and my dim fella hears him, stops abruptly in his exertions, and looks over his shoulder.
You don’t want to have to go explaining to a man in the heat of passion why there’s suddenly another naked man in the room. Especially one who’s a better specimen. This new naked fella, he was tall and broad and the healthiest looking lad I’ve seen in ages, even finer than the lads back home. I guessed right off he was probably from the Continent or maybe the Golden Age, you know how them idiot pagans like to mess around—not from around here, anyway, which means he would be needing clothing and some dosh, like they do.
So I thought fast and said to your man who was on top of me, “Hey now, look I’ve got you the voyeur you were importuning me for last week, but it’s going to cost you extra for the privilege, so let’s finish up here and give me the silver for it.” He was too astonished to speak and that gave me a moment to consider the situation.
I had to reckon what the new fellow would be doing here, given he clearly was not Irish. He looked more Saxon, but what did that mean now the Vikings are no more? Was he an enemy or a friend? Did he come here deliberately to me, or maybe a blunder it was? He looked familiar, yet I knew of a certainty I’d never clapped eyes on him before—and as I needn’t belabor to you of all people, milady, this told me that what was occurring here and now was sure to be repeating itself on other Strands. Something was afoot. Some shite-for-brains was actually trying to accomplish something by sending this poor young buck to other times and places. He was still looking bolloxed so I couldn’t ask him yet.
Meanwhile my dim fella had collected his meagre wits enough to protest that he’d never wanted a voyeur. I said, “Oh, come now, I know you too well for you to hide anything from me, you’re falling all over yourself for the opportunity. Finish off and be giving me the money, so.”
He’s out of the humour now, which I don’t mind. Very grudgingly, in a foul mood, he reaches for his belt on the floor and yanks out some extra coin and tosses them to me in a huff. The fellow on the floor has pulled himself together a bit, looks around the wee room and his eyes widen.
“It’s all right, lad,” says I to him. “You’ve played your part well so far.”