25

With fear for her safety anywhere near Huntingdon, and a larger measure of not knowing what to do or where to go, Kendra just kept walking.  She could not walk as quickly as she would have liked in her slipper-shoes and dress.  When she stopped fighting it, the slow pace gave her ample time to sort through her feelings about the execution she had just witnessed.  The whole thing, and especially the crowd’s reaction, had made human life seem cheap.  Although she hadn’t seen any of them well, Kendra knew from the reading she’d done that Alice Samuel was seventy-six-years old.  Her daughter, Agnes, had to be in fifties, not much older than Kendra’s own mother.  Life was so short, so fragile.  Kendra glanced nervously into the woods at either side of the road.

When she’d worked through enough of her fear of mortality, Kendra created a cover story for herself.  She was walking to her new position as scullery maid at the home of Lord Muckety-Muck in the next big town.  She’d have to play dumb if anyone pressed her for details.  That settled as well as it could be, Kendra took closer notice of her surroundings.

The trees seemed taller and older than trees in the States.  The bark of the huge trunks was broken into wider chunks on the maples, narrow but thick on the oaks.  She squinted at the leaves to be certain of the distinction.  Leaves at least had not changed--or had they?  Could it be that they contained less chlorophyll in this era?  Certainly they had a vastly smaller load of carbon dioxide to photosynthesize.  Kendra adjusted the scarf tied over her head, and tried to stop thinking scientific thoughts.  She ought to at least try to stay in character--or, more accurately, to get into it for the first time.

The cottages she saw were set far apart from each other, and, once she’d left Huntingdon, set back from the road.  They seemed squat to Kendra, like the inn she’d visited on her first jump.  The strangely long, thick roofs, thatch she supposed, dominated the low white walls of every building she’d seen except for the court house, or whatever it was, in Huntingdon.

She was sorry to be anywhere near the one farm that straddled the road, farmhouse on one side and barn on the other.  A cloud of flies left the few cows when she approached, and swarmed around her.  A second later the first one stung her.  Floppy slipper-shoes, long dress and all, Kendra ran.

It seemed to take forever to outrun the flies, but after she had, the walk in the sun became hypnotic and timeless.  Kendra wandered on, neither modern nor contemporary, a denizen only of warm spring sunlight--until a passing carriage forced her off the road.  Soon after that rude jolt, her bodily needs kept her from falling once more into the trance of near-summer idyll.

Kendra was hungry, and even more than that, thirsty.  She actually caught herself looking around for a convenience store that would have a restroom.  The absurdity of the anachronism made her laugh.  She walked on.  Maybe she would pass an inn.  Increasingly uncomfortable after she’d walked a mile farther, Kendra adjusted her expectations down another notch.  As long as she was upstream from any nearby farm or village, she could drink out of a brook without fear of disease, and she could pee in the woods.

With her immediate needs soon settled, she walked on.  It had been after noon when she’d set out from Huntingdon, and that had been hours earlier.  As the sun lowered in the sky, the spring day cooled quickly.  Though her feet ached from walking virtually barefoot, and Kendra longed to sit on a nice big boulder to rub them, she had to keep moving to avoid a chill.  She passed an inn just as the sun rested on the treetops, but she didn’t dare stop then.  They were busy with the supper crowd, and she was a stranger with no money.  She hurried on, hoping that the presence of an inn meant there was a town nearby.

Traffic turned out to be a better indicator.  When she’d walked another hour, a steady stream of carts and horses forced Kendra to leave the road and walk on the footpath that appeared, worn into the verge on each side of the road.  Most of the traffic headed south, as did Kendra.  Foot traffic also increased, and Kendra was soon passed by a thin man, dressed in peasant garb, or close to it.  He looked at her disapprovingly and strode on.  A few more men passed her, but no women.  All but one seemed disapproving.

The exception was a cheeky, chubby fellow in clean, patched black robes.  He pinched her bottom as he stepped along beside her.

“How ‘bout it, lass?  My old knob needs a good polish, a rare thing in my profession.”  He gestured toward his robes, as if that should tell her what he did, or who he was.

Kendra stepped off the footpath, away from him.  She had to draw up her skirt to keep it out of the thistles.  Her chubby assailant misunderstood the gesture and followed her.  He put his arm around her waist.  She slapped his face as he pulled her close.

“Release me!”  It was the most old-fashioned thing Kendra could think of in the middle of being harrassed.

He let go abruptly.  “I beg your pardon!”  He was clearly flustered.  “I took you for a bawdy lass.”

What the hell is that?  Kendra knew that she could not force her way through the thicket behind her.  The road was filled with horses and wagons, and other men headed south passed them on the footpath, each glancing curiously at the spectacle Kendra guessed that she provided.  She doubted that, while in a dress, she’d be faster than her chubby assailant.  She therefore ran past him and on down the path.

“Wait!” he cried.  “Let me make amends, lass.  I am but a humble curate, nonetheless I can offer you supper and a place to sleep with no bother from me.”

Kendra’s stomach grumbled.  Her feet hurt each time they pounded the firm dirt path.  Without volition, she slowed her pace.

“Very good, very good,” he said, and smiled as he caught up with her.  “I try never to insult the fairer sex.” 

He seemed sincere, or did she just want to think so?  Kendra said nothing as she followed the curate.  That seemed to suit him.  Once he realized that she would not answer his questions, he talked non-stop about his little parish. Most of his business seemed to come from some jail nearby.

“Here we are,” he said before long, and turned off the road to the west.  Kendra followed him down a narrow passage cut through the thicket, onto a winding, bumpy path to a squat cottage.  It was slightly taller than some she had passed.

“Come in, come in.”

Kendra remained on his doorstep, a large flat stone really, and tried to peer past the curate to the interior.  She could see nothing in his dark house, but it smelled fine.

 “I mean you no harm,” he reassured her, and then having glanced inside, he seemed to realize how dark it was.

“Ah,” he said, “perhaps light will vanquish your fear.” 

He disappeared into the cottage.  Kendra heard something rustle, then saw a few orange specks glow near the floor of the cottage.  She heard the curate blow a few times.  Little flames leapt into being where the orange specks had been.  Soon the flames were high enough to cast his figure in silhouette.  Shortly thereafter he returned to the doorstep, lit candle in hand, to fetch her.

“I hope you’ll find it very cozy.”  He extended his free arm in another gesture of welcome.

Not knowing what else to do, Kendra walked into his cottage.