26

The curate bowed his head and said a prayer over the food.  The prayer was too long by at least half in Kendra’s opinion.  Their meal was a simple one--bread, apples, sour cheese, and bitter ale--but every bite made Kendra’s mouth water, and she swore she’d never had food as good.  As she reached for third helpings of everything, she noticed that the curate seemed worried.  Guessing at the reason for this concern, she put the pitcher of ale back on the table without having poured a full cup.  The curate sighed with relief.  Kendra couldn’t help but smile.  Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.

After supper, the curate pulled out the bench from one side of the table so it faced the fire.  He sat on one end, and gestured for Kendra to take the other.  She sat and, slightly intoxicated by the cup and a half of ale that she’d drunk, stared mesmerized at the fire.  The curate drew a pipe and tobacco from the pouch on his belt.  Kendra had always abhorred smoking, but that night found it pleasant enough that she wished to try it herself.  She attributed this to the ale, and was thankful that decorum in his time kept her from it.  Come to think of it, she had never seen a woman smoke a pipe in her time either. 

Soon her long walk caught up with her.  Kendra made her excuses, and went into the curate’s small study, where the curate had set out some blankets.

Kendra pulled the room’s one heavy chair against the door, and stretched out, fully clothed, on the blankets.  She found herself too tired and achy to sleep, and listened while the curate cleaned the kitchen.  She heard him shuffle to the room next door.  Before long his snores ruined her slim chance of sleep.  Kendra heaved the chair away from the study door, only just managing not to cry out when one of the rough rungs bumped her shin.   She set it down with a thump, then waited, frozen, until she heard the curate’s snores resume.

With hands and feet, she sensed her way around the kitchen table to the front door.  She worked the latch by feel, and so pinched her finger in the process.  Kendra grunted with the pain, but didn’t wait to see if the curate woke.  The moon, half full, was up.  The night seemed mystical and full of promise as she ran down the path toward the road.

The darkness beneath the trees slowed her progress tremendously as she was forced to feel her way once more.  Every little noise frightened her.  She might have turned back then, but for the moonlit night that showed at the far end of what had quickly come to seem like a very spooky tunnel of trees.  Even after she was in the moonlight and on the main road again, every creature that stirred, hooted, or flew past her made Kendra start.  In her own time, she had never heard so many animals.  The only way to overcome her fear of unseen predators was to hurry, so she did.

It felt like she walked forever.  Every quick step landed just ahead of her growing doubt and fear so that when she saw a dark silhouette rise above the trees ahead, her first move was to clutch the fob that could take her home.  Frozen in a defensive half-crouch, Kendra stared at the dark mass, waiting like the superstitious peasant she appeared to be for it to attack.  The silent form, huge enough to be cousin to the Loch Ness monster, did not move.  Monsters are myths, stupid.  You’re a scientist.  Hesitantly, eyes fixed on the hulking shadow, Kendra made her way forward, ready to run at the first sign of movement from Nessie.  She rounded a bend in the road, and burst out laughing.  The looming thing was a tower set in one corner of the ten-foot stone wall that surrounded what seemed to be a small castle. 

The castle sat on top of a low rise as if to guard the road, which curved around it.  The gate was not thirty yards from the road.  Two long torches were set in brackets on each side of the gate, and two guards moved through the flickering light as they walked back and forth, their attention evenly divided between road and gate.  Kendra reasoned that the torchlight would hinder rather than enhance their night vision.  She should be able to walk undetected along the footpath on the far side of the road, but decided not to risk it.  She moved off the path and into across field from the castle.  She promptly wished that she hadn’t.  The new grass was not tall, but it was wet, and before she felt it safe to return to the path her feet were soaked.

Finally around the hill, and back on the path, Kendra tottered on toward lights not far ahead.  Her feet were so cold that they stung sharply each time she took a step.  Her teeth chattered. Miserable, she kept one hand on the fob.  I should just jump back.  But she’d walked all day, and endured too much not to get some real data.  Night was surely the best time to find a vampire.  She remembered the coven near Stamford, and shivered.  There had been no fire in their cavern.

“Halt!”

Kendra snorted with surprise and amusement.  It sounded so corny.

A man dressed no better than she was, but with a thick cloak around his shoulders grabbed her arm roughly.

“You think it good fun to break curfew, do you?”  He shook her.  “Edward,” he shouted.  “I think we have ourselves a witch.”

“N-n-no!” Kendra stuttered with cold.

Edward hurried over with a torch, and peered at Kendra.  “Aye!” he took a quick step back.  “Look at her eyes, Aaron!  She’s got devil eyes!”

The first fellow squeezed her arm harder, and yanked her around so that he, too, could study her face.  “Right you are!  Take the watch, Edward.  I’ll march her to the jail.  We dare not keep her here, lest she bewitch us both.”

“Are you daft, man?  Bewitch you alone she will.”

“I’m not a witch,” Kendra said, her teeth chattering.  “If I were a witch, would I not conjure a fire and warm myself?”

Edward and Aaron looked at each other.

“Thus doth her spell begin,” said Edward.

“Aye, she casts doubt in our minds,” agreed Aaron, who shoved her away from him and drew a sword.  “Best to kill her now.”

“And forego the finder’s price?” Edward asked.

“Ah, there is that.”  Aaron lowered his sword.

“What city is this?” Kendra asked, looking at the buildings she could see.  One looked like another castle.  “Why does it have so many castles?”

Aaron raised his sword again.  “She walks to Cambridge, but knows it not,” he said to Edward.

“And knows not of our universities.  She must come from Hell, for all in England know of Cambridge, and Oxford before it.”

“Aye, she has the smell of brimstone on her.  The Inferno begat her.  Her countenance bear witness true.”  Aaron raised his sword.

Kendra ducked.

“Stop!” yelled a melodious male voice.

Kendra heard a sword slice the air over her head.

“Cease and desist!”  The newcomer sounded amused.  “You may not behead every wayfarer who puzzles you.”

“Sheriff,” Aaron and Edward said together, sounding like schoolboys caught in a prank.

“Who have you accosted this time?”

“A woman,  alone after curfew,” Aaron rushed to explain.

“Her visage marks her a denizen of Hell, sir,” added Edward.

Aaron nodded.  “A witch without doubt.”

“Who is without doubt, my good guardsman?  This woman, whom you claim to be a witch,” the sheriff gestured to the shivering Kendra, “or you, two guardsmen frightened by one stranger?”

Edward and Aaron hung their heads and shuffled uncertainly.

Kendra, whose alarm decreased as the exchange went on, turned her attention to the sheriff.  Tall and slim, there was something different about the way he moved.

“Ah, it seems doubt has returned to your existence, and for the best.  It is with questions, lads, that life must needs be met.  Let certainty dog the steps of the ignorant and their unknowing cousins, the arrogant.”

The guards looked at him, obviously perplexed.

The sheriff laughed, and Kendra got a good look at his face.  He was the most handsome man she had ever seen. 

“Shall I relieve you of the burdensome duty this strange woman presents, lads?  I will take her with me, and cast her in my dungeon to await trial if I deem her dangerous.  Will that suffice, my good guardsmen?”

“Aye, sir,” said Aaron slowly, “but--”

“--but there is the matter of the finder’s fee.”  The sheriff cut him off.  “I swear that I will settle with you.  The problem is, lads, we do not yet know who or what you have found.”

With that, the sheriff extended an elbow to Kendra, who took his arm, and allowed herself to be led into Cambridge.