Heidelberg Effect (21 page)

Rowan saw Ella frown and realized that, for
a change, she didn’t know everything that was going on around here.
She sat down next to him.

Greta waited patiently for the novices to
clear the table and then she turned to them and smiled.

“I must ask you both to do something for
me.”

“Of course,” Ella said. “Name it.”

“I have difficulty speaking of these things.
I hope you will forgive me.”

“Oh, crap,” Ella said. “We’re too loud in
bed. Is that it?”

“I am so sorry, Ella,” Greta said. “I hope
you will understand. We are a religious house.”

“Of course, of
course.
I’m
the
one who’s sorry. I didn’t even think. We’ll tone it down in
future.”

“It is more than that, I’m afraid,” Greta
said. Rowan could see that the usually cool and collected Greta was
very uncomfortable having to discuss this topic with them. “A
couple that is together in this way…”

“Greta, no problem. Really,” Ella said. “You
want us to stay in separate rooms?”

“Not if it means you will
not
stay
in
separate rooms,” Greta said, looking embarrassed. “I hate to ask
you to do this for me after you have already done so
much.”

“It’s fine, Greta,” Rowan said. “If you’re
asking what I think you’re asking. It’s fine.”

Ella looked from Greta to Rowan. “Did I miss
something?”

Rowan turned to Ella and
ran his hand down her arm. “This is not how I envisioned this
moment—not that I
ever
envisioned this moment, you understand—but if we want to be
together in this century, and I, for one, am not going to be able
to keep my hands off you now that the genie’s outta the bottle, I
reckon we need to make it legal. Heck, they probably cut your hands
off for lesser offenses, huh, Greta?”

Relieved, Greta smiled, her eyes twinkling.
“Or other extremities,” she said.

“Why
,
Mother Superior,” Rowan said,
grinning at her. “You have a wicked sense of humor.”

Ella was dumbfounded. “You want us to get
married,” she said. She looked at Greta and then Rowan.

“I am sorry, Ella,” Greta said. “It is not
romantic, I know, but it is necessary if you and Herr Pierce will
lie together while you are with us.”

Ella looked at Rowan and he merely smiled at
her.

“Okay,” Ella said. “I guess we can do
that.”

“You’re not already married, are you?” Rowan
asked.

“Very funny,” Ella said. She turned to
Greta. “Will it be legal when we go back to our own time?”

Rowan, who was in the process of getting up
to fetch the priest, stopped. “Do you want it to be?” he asked.

“I cannot imagine that it would be legal in
2012,” Greta said. “It will have been performed four hundreds years
earlier.” She called to the priest and spoke to him in German when
he reentered the room.

I’m getting married,
Ella thought, as the priest recited the ceremony.
She took Rowan’s arm and he winked at her.

Later that night, as they
snuggled in a new larger bed together, Ella was deliriously happy.
A part of her tried to remind herself that it wasn’t real. The
other part of her tried to assure herself that it was. She was Mrs.
Rowan Pierce and even if they returned home and,
God forbid,
decided to
go their separate ways, he would always know that his history
included Ella Stevens as his wife. As his lawful 1620
wife.

“Thinking, wife?”

She looked at him and he was grinning.

“You’re enjoying this,” she said.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Most men, I’m told, are leery of
commitment.”

“So you’re convinced this is legal?”

If he was teasing her, she wasn’t enjoying
it. And if he was saying it wasn’t legal, she didn’t want to hear
it.

“Oh, come on, baby,” he
said, pulling her into his arms. “For better or worse we are
married in this world. You
are
my wife. Here and now.”

“You’re right,” she said. “I am.”

Before responding, he kissed her on the
mouth for a long moment. “We got a little business to take care of
before we can consummate this here arrangement,” he said.

“What kind of business?”

“While the juices are flowing and all is
right with our world, we need to have a quick think about how to
handle this Krüger dipshit. Let’s just put our heads together and
come up with some kind of direction before we call it a day.”

“I’ve tried, Rowan,” she said. “All I can
see is us marching up to the front gates fully armed with our
modern day arsenal and demanding the release of the novices and
that Krüger cease and desist forthwith.”

“Yeah, okay, I don’t think the direct
approach is where we want to go with this one, babe.” He yawned and
Ella found herself hoping he wasn’t going to be too tired to make
the marriage binding.

“Well, I’m totally blocked in that case,”
she said.

“Okay, now, let’s look at it like a job.
With police work, there’s usually a crime already committed and I’m
looking for information specific to the murder, drug deal, or
whatever. So normally I have an idea of what I’m looking for in
advance. In this case, anything we find could be helpful.”

“You’re saying we should gather info first
and come up with a plan when we see what we find?”

“Well, I guess I’m saying that we can create
the crime or, in our case, the plan of attack based on whatever we
find out. We can afford to be flexible.”

“That’s good, right? We’ll have more options
depending on what we uncover.”

“Yeah, and since we’re on the side of good
but not necessarily on the side of the law, we’re not limited by
rules either.”

“I like how you think,” Ella said, snuggling
up to him and feeling his warmth through her thin cotton nightgown.
“Beats the heck out of storming the castle with a Taser and a pack
of matches. Rowan, thank you.”

“Crap, Ella. What else am I
gonna do? An asshole in 1620 ain’t that much different from one in
2012, trust me. These are
nuns
for Chrissake. I’m not gonna just stand
by.”

“I really kind of love that about you.”

“Whoa, sister. Don’t be slinging the L word
around. I can get skittish, you know.”

“You look pretty stable to
me. But after we do this—if we
can
do this—I’ve got a little bit of a situation back
in 2012 to deal with.”

“And I’ll be first in line to help you do
that,” he said, looking into her eyes, “But let’s focus on
surviving sixteen twenty first.”

“Bet you never imagined those words coming
out of your mouth.”

“You have no idea. And now what was that
other matter we needed to deal with? Oh, yeah…” She held out her
arms to him and he reached hungrily for his very willing bride.

The next day, Ella, Greta and Rowan cleared
off the worktable in the kitchen so they could hammer out the
details of their plan. A novice toasted bread and made weak
dandelion tea for them as they worked through the morning.

“Okay, Greta,” Rowan said. “What’s the main
thing about this Krüger guy?”

“The main thing?” Greta looked at Ella for
clarification.

“The thing that makes him tick,” Ella
explained. “The most important thing about him.”

Greta thought for a moment. “Well, he wants
to be better known, or feared, than his father was,” she said.

“Okay,” Rowan said. He looked at her and
tapped the table with a metal fork.

Ella could not get used to him without his
cowboy hat. Dressed in peasant clothes, he just didn’t look like
himself. He looked raw and basic. She realized she was
blushing.

“Want to join the group, Ella?” Rowan
said.

“Okay. Sorry. Well, for example, Mother,
does he own anything that he prizes above all else?”

“It is known that he loves his eldest son,
Axel,” Greta said. “He disdains his other son, Christof.”

“What would happen if we were to discredit
Axel?” Rowan said. He rubbed his hands together as if warming to
the idea.

“If Axel lost his favor? That is
unimaginable,” Greta said.

“If he didn’t have Axel,” Rowan said, “would
he make Christof his heir?”

“Christof’s the good guy,” Ella said to
Rowan.

“I know,” he said. “Well, Mother
Superior?”

“Krüger believes strongly in the lines of
primogenitor,” she said slowly. “If Axel were killed or disgraced,
he would hand over the castle and all its power to his next-born
son. But it is impossible to damage Axel. With one who is so
disgraceful already how do you diminish him in the eyes of a fellow
monster?”

“Leave that to me, Mother,” Rowan said,
patting her hand.

Ella was excited.
Thank God for Rowan
.
They had a plan!
She watched him pull their weapons out of the
mailbag and lay them on the table. There was his
Glock, a switchblade, a lighter, and one ammo
clip. Next to these, he set out the block of C4, a handful of
blasting caps, the Taser, the two shotgun shells and both
cellphones.

“Okay,” he said to Greta. “Now, tell me
what’s going on these days church-wise.”

“Church-wise?”

“He means who’s beheading whom as a zealot
or blasphemer. Has Luther shown up yet?”

“Yes, there are many Lutherans in Germany at
this time.”

“But say, for example,” Rowan said, picking
up the Taser and examining it, “if someone were accused of being a
witch or warlock, what would happen to them?”

“They would be burned at the stake,” Greta
said.

“That’s what I call discrediting,” Rowan
said, putting the gun back on the table.

“You are going to make it appear that Axel
is dabbling in the black arts?”

“That’s right.”

“Sounds good to me,” Ella said. “Sounds
effin’ brilliant, in fact.”

“Thank you, darlin’,” Rowan said. “I
appreciate that.”

“But how will you do such a thing?” Greta
said. “Axel is well known in Heidelberg. The evidence would be
instantly dismissed. His father would ensure that he never came to
trial.”

“He might,” Rowan drawled, “if he got to
thinking that maybe Axel wasn’t really his son.”

“What do you mean? Of course Axel is his
son.”

“Really? You know that for a fact?”

Greta gave Ella a puzzled look.

Ella laughed. “Don’t look
at
me
, Greta, I
think it’s a great idea.”

“But how?” Greta said. “How can you possibly
introduce or prove such an idea?”

“We can,” Rowan said, picking up his
cellphone, “through the wonder of modern technology.”

Later, during a dinner of mostly bread, wine
and a few vegetables from the garden, Greta seemed to be very
pleased. She held both Rowan and Ella’s hands and said grace before
they ate. Her smile beamed as she conversed with the nuns and
novices seated at the table with them.

“How well did you know Heidelberg when you
lived there?” she asked Ella after the other nuns had left.

“Mostly the clubs. A few restaurants, I
guess.”

“You know the Church of the Holy Spirit, of
course?”

“Sure, it’s the one at the
end of the
Altstadt
. Very popular place for weddings and stuff.”

“The
Church of the Holy Spirit
is the
most famous church in all of Heidelberg,” Greta said, her eyes
bright with pride.

“You know it’s totally Protestant in 2012,
right?”

“It was already Protestant when I lived in
Heidelberg in the forties,” Greta said. “Even now we pass it back
and forth. Before last year, we actually shared it. Are you
familiar with the Catholic Church of the Jesuits? Imagine. I have
lived in Heidelberg all my life and attended Mass there many times.
Yet I was able to witness the beginning of its construction in
1612. Of course, I must keep to myself the fact that in 1872 it
will get a beautiful new bell tower.”

“Must be a lonely feeling living here,
knowing what you do about the future,” Ella said. “No one else can
truly understand you.”

“It is the exact opposite of that, Ella.
From the minute I landed in this time, I have never felt more at
home or more understood in my life.”

Axel rolled off the sobbing wench and pushed
her from the filthy pallet. His men, who were lounging around the
room waiting their turn, laughed at their leader’s expression of
surprise as the girl attempted to escape.

“Catch her, boys!” Axel said, laughing.
“Better’n a greased cat.”

One of the men reached out to capture the
wretch—a poor village girl who had been taken two mornings ago on
her way to school. She instantly sagged in his arms, compliant and
hopeless as the man began to undo the laces on the front of his
trousers.

Axel stretched and walked over to where the
other three men stood, watching. He held out his hand for a
flask.

“She had already been had,” he said to his
first lieutenant.

“Not surprising. She likely has brothers and
a father.”

“Disgusting,” Axel said. He drank from his
flask and idly watched the girl’s rape. As passive as she was, the
man assaulting her still felt a need to slap her.

“Hey!” Axel’s lieutenant complained. “Leave
something for the rest of us! I like my women to be breathing when
I fuck them!”

“I am sick of these sluts,” Axel said. As he
watched the girl, he remembered the strange, dark-haired novice
from the convent, the one who had looked him straight in the eyes.
His pulse quickened at the thought of her naked and unwilling
beneath him.