After the Storm (2 page)

"What I do know is that the three of us were part of a five-person team that was using Lilydrake Castle as a base for a time travel experiment. It's several miles to the next settlement, so we had plenty of privacy."

"Privacy for what?"

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

Libby shrugged. "It was something to do with testing a radical new time machine called TDD in an isolated environment. It didn't work. The reason we know it didn't work is that when the thing got switched on two people disappeared and the rest of us got pulled back to Time Search headquarters with our memories scrambled. The damn thing stole time from us. Joe and Ed lost a year or so worth of memories, but the malfunctioning equipment sucked out about four years of my life. The shrinks don't want to tell us any more—if they even know any more

—because they don't want to risk implanting false memories. We're supposed to get it all back naturally. So far we haven't remembered a thing. So we got permission to come back to Lilydrake, fix up the old place, do some research, and hopefully, get our memories back at the scene of the crime—as it were."

Marj was thoughtfully silent for a while before she let out a low whistle and said,

"This is weird."

"Yeah," Libby agreed. "Tell me about it." She got up and went to the window.

"The horses have arrived." She looked back at the historian. She tried not to show how restless and anxious and eager and worried she felt. She was trying to treat this expedition into the past in a calm, professional way. She wanted to run outside, jump on a horse and speed off to the castle that held her missing life.

Instead she made herself say calmly, "Time to go. I think we can make it to the road that leads through Blean Forest by nightfall if we don't push the animals too hard. From now on I'm Lady Isabeau, come from my father's stronghold in Wales to fix up his ruined castle in Kent."

Marj stood and gave her a deep bow. "And I am your companion, Lady Marjorie."

Libby smiled. "Just don't let me forget who
I'm
supposed to be while I'm trying to remember who I really am."

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

Chapter 1

"
What you need
is a husband, Lady Isabeau," the Sheriff of Elansted remarked as they rode down the forest track.

Libby stared at the craggy-featured man while Marj responded, "Are you offering yourself for that position, Sir Reynard?"

It was late April, the air was cool, but sunlight filtered through the thick canopy of tree branches. Spring was everywhere in bloom around them. Libby remembered spring in Kent, but as a child who visited with her time-traveling parents. It was a lovely day to be out for a ride, but Libby wished she had a few less people to share the scenery with.

Libby, trying to stay in character as Isabeau of Lilydrake merely gave the sheriff a slight smile in reply to his suggestion. Marj had decided that Isabeau should be the shy sort, so the historian was doing most of the talking. Libby knew she was anything but shy, but was trying her best to stay in character.

She would have sworn that Sir Reynard was normally a taciturn man, but he was making the effort to be charming to the ladies he'd put in his charge. Especially to Lady Marjorie, who was riding on a pillion seat behind Libby's saddle.

"Oh, no," he answered Marj's question with a low, rumbling laugh. "While the Lady of Lilydrake is lovely, I would not look so high for a maiden to wed."

Libby didn't turn her head to look, but she could imagine Marj tugging on her wimple while she looked the sheriff over. She guessed that there would be an Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

amused but critical gleam in her companion's eyes.

"Then why did you bring the subject up?" Marj asked. She had a wonderfully rich, deep voice herself, did Dr. Marjorie Jones. She was a fine match for bantering with Reynard of Elansted. As usual her tone was laced with sarcasm.

"I was thinking of Lilydrake," he replied. "The countryside around the estate is in deep disorder, I've heard. The villages of the demesne are deserted. I'm told Sir Daffyd had virtually abandoned the castle even before the fire that gutted the hall last autumn. It would make less work for me if there were a strong man to hold the fief."

"Yes, 'tis true, the place needs to be put in order," Libby said. She tucked away the local information about the hall's having burned to think about later, and added, "A pity my father has no sons."

"Indeed," Sir Reynard agreed, then rode past them to take his place at the head of the company as the path narrowed once more.

Marj shifted her grip on Libby's waist. She leaned close to speak quietly in her ear, switching from

Norman French to English to say, "What about your two brothers?"

"I was the only one weird enough to get into the time travel business," Libby reminded her. "So, this is the forest primeval," she added as she looked skeptically at their lush, green surroundings.

"This is it," Marj agreed. "What do you think? Remember anything?"

"Nothing recent." Libby looked at the thick branches tangling together over their heads. The oaks seemed jealous of letting any sunlight reach the ground. "I think I'd prefer a bit less rampant greenery. I'm more of a city girl. I think."

"Not me," Marj said. "Carmarthen in the thirteenth century is a great place to get Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

away from everything. Not much night life, though."

"That pretty much goes without saying." Libby chuckled. "You should try living in a yurt in Mongolia like I did."

"So the Horde Study got funding after all, huh? I thought Hemmons tried to kill the research as being unimportant."

Libby gave a grim chuckle. "He lost."

"Good. What's it like on the steppes?"

"I don't remember."

"Lucky you."

Libby started to shrug, but Marj's hand on her shoulder reminded her that it wasn't a common gesture for medieval ladies.

They'd been on the road for two days now, most of it in the company of Reynard of Elansted and his men. It was the sheriff who'd insisted on their joining his party for safety in numbers when they'd met him on the Blean Forest road. To have refused his offer would have been out of character.

"I wish there were still a timegate at Lilydrake."

"Couldn't have used it if there was," Marj reminded her. "Continuity Factor won't allow it if you're going to deal directly with the locals to do your research."

"There are too many rules to time travel," Libby complained. Some of them were the laws of physics, some of them were safeguards and obstructions imposed by the Hemmons Oversight Committee. Most of them were the laws of David Wolfe, the man who'd invented time travel. The Continuity Factor stated that one thing had to happen after another. Time Search personnel had to seem to take the same amount of time to travel from one place to another as everyone else. "It's not polite to freak out the locals, as my mother once told me. Our mission Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

statement is not to mess up the past, the past did a perfectly good job of messing up on its own. We come back to observe, and we do it one day at a time, within the understanding of the people we encounter. So spake the great Jane Wolfe and her mighty consort. Never mind that they broke all the rules themselves back when
they
were having adventures. Back when dinosaurs walked the earth," she added sarcastically.

"Before Elliot Hemmons tried to take over Time Search, you mean," Marj chuckled. "Rumor has it they made up the rules after they had the adventures, including your birth in a drafty castle bedchamber."

"Technically, that makes me a local, you know. Maybe you shouldn't be interacting with me."

"It's too late for me to jump off the horse now, kid."

Personally, Libby wished she could just return to Lilydrake before the accident and prevent it from ever happening. The Continuity Factor covered that as well.

Not only couldn't someone be in two places at once, it wasn't possible for time travelers to change their own personal history. It had been tried, it hadn't worked, no one knew why. Time travel did not allow second chances.

"This is inconvenient," Libby said, thinking mostly about the uncomfortable time she'd spent in the saddle recently. "But it does make sense. Wait a minute—

I remembered." Libby jerked with surprise, which very nearly caused Marj to lose the grip she had around Libby's waist.

"What?" the shaken historian demanded.

"Mongolia."

"Keep your voice down," Marj warned in a stern whisper. "What about Mongolia?"

Libby almost laughed with delight, then tears that she wasn't sure were of relief Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

or heartbreak blurred her vision. "Nobody told me I was in Mongolia. I remembered it. I just—remembered. All on my own." She glanced back at Marj.

"How about that?"

Marj's grasp on her waist turned into a swift hug. "Good for you. What do you remember? Details."

Libby concentrated as she stared intently ahead, just barely aware of the horsemen and footsoldiers moving along the road with them. She stared, and she thought, but no details emerged immediately from the effort.

Then up ahead someone called out, "Wolvesheads!"

And just as her imagination began to sketch out the slender shadow of a man silhouetted against a stark Asian sunset someone jumped out of the woods and grabbed her horse's bridle.

"Oh, good," she said, looking down at the ragged man. "An outlaw."

He was hard-eyed, the stench from him nearly overpowering, but he was exactly the sort of person Libby was looking for. At least she hoped he was an outlaw.

She reached down to slap his hands away from her horse. Surprised at her reaction, the man backed quickly away. He drew a knife and ran forward as another man stepped out of the woods. This one raised a bow.

"Duck!"

"What?" Marj shrieked. Libby pushed her off the horse.

As Marj hit the ground, Libby lifted her heavy skirts and kicked the man with the knife in the throat. She backed the horse up just as an arrow sped by its head.

The arrow hit one of Reynard's footsoldiers in the shoulder. He fell to the ground with a muffled scream. Her horse made a similar sound, and tried to rear.

Libby looked around frantically as she fought to keep control of the animal. She saw the soldiers locked in hand-to-hand combat with the men who'd ambushed Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

them. Marj had grabbed a staff tossed to her by one of their companions and had joined Joe and Ed in fighting off a pair of robbers. There were outlaw archers hidden among the trees, but Reynard of Elansted had bowmen of his own.

Elansted's men had formed a circle to protect her and Marj. They were obviously better prepared for this fight than the men who'd attacked from the woods.

"Don't kill them!" Libby shouted as Reynard came riding toward her.

There was blood on his sword, but he answered as he rode past, "I'm not going to kill the wolvesheads. I'm going to see them properly hanged," he added as he wheeled his horse to shout orders at his men.

Hang them?
You can't hang these men
, she thought as the sheriff and his soldiers rounded up what outlaws they hadn't already killed.
At least not until I'm done
with them
, she added as she remembered that the outlaws had been the ones who'd attacked them.