Kiss Across Swords (Kiss Across Time Series) (33 page)

His smile grew warmer.

“That was ‘good morning’ was it not?” Veris asked, kissing her neck.

“Yes,” Taylor confirmed. She turned to smile at him. “And it does seem to be a good morning, after such an awful day yesterday.”

Veris looked from her to Brody. “Am I the only one here to have any feelings of awkwardness? Hesitation?”

“Yes,” Brody said flatly.

“I lie here at this moment with my…coupled with your wife at the same moment as you. I spent the night with her, although that had not been my intention—”

“I knew you would,” Brody interjected.

Veris hesitated. “You knew? But you still agreed to let me tend her? Knowing that?”

“Yes.”

Under the blanket, Veris’ hand lifted and began to smooth its way along Taylor’s side. Up and down, like one might soothe a restless horse. She wondered if Veris was aware that he was doing it. He often reached for her this way if he was uncomfortable. The physical man’s version of a pacifier.

“I do not understand,” Veris said at last.

Brody nodded. “You can’t understand. Not yet. Not for a few centuries, anyway. Just between the three of us for right now, accept it and enjoy it.”

Veris’ response was slow to come. “I will consider it.” His hand slid up to cup Taylor’s breast and he kissed her cheek. “It is a most persuasive offer, after all. Thank you for the night, my lady.”

He withdrew from her, which caused Brody’s cock to dislodge, too.

“Let me see your wound one last time.” Veris pulled the blanket back enough to look at the still uncovered wound and she lay down to let him see it better.

“Remarkable,” he muttered.

Brody leaned over to look as well and whistled a long low note. “Either Alexander knows his stuff or Veris does. That looks like it was done a week ago.”

“I think they both know their stuff,” Taylor said. “It barely hurts anymore. It’s just muscle stiffness now.”

“Leave off the chainmail,” Veris told her. “It will irritate the stitches. But I would suggest riding on the wagon again today. You cannot go on horseback a day after the wound you received. The men will start muttering about witchcraft.”

Taylor sighed. “I will be bored silly. I agree that I must stay on the wagon, but you promise you will visit me?”

Veris looked startled. “Me?”

“Both of you,” she insisted. “From time to time at least. When you aren’t ordering your men about or watching sand move in front of your horse’s nose.”

Brody chuckled. “I’ll see what I can arrange.” He rested his hand on Veris’ bare thigh, where he kneeled next to Taylor. “I suggest you get dressed, Veris. The men are moving about now and they love scandal as much as the women at court.”

Veris glanced over his shoulder toward the wagon that shielded them from the main camp and frowned. “Centuries of masks and quite suddenly I grow tired of it. How strange.” He got to his feet, looking down at them, the frown deepening. It seemed as if he would speak again, but instead he turned and dressed silently. He left with a simple nod, for by then the camp beyond the wagon was fully active and the chatter of the men loud.

Brody helped Taylor bathe with the last of the water in the pot sitting by the fire, then dress, for her arm was still stiff enough that lifting it above her shoulder was difficult.

They spoke of generalities, for the voices of the men beyond the wagon drifted back to them clearly, a warning that their own words would carry just as well and they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves by using English.

So it was a good two hours after the entourage had got underway before Brody could make his way back to Taylor’s wagon, hitch his horse to it and climb aboard to sit on her blankets and speak to her.

He crossed his legs and threaded his fingers, studying her. “You wanted to talk?” he said in English.

“You didn’t?” she asked. “After last night and this morning?” She hugged her knee. “Haven’t you ever wondered why we were here? What mechanism decides when we get to jump back?”

He took a breath. “I’ve been too worried about making sure Veris and I got together and shoring up our personal histories again to think about it.”

“Exactly. We’ve fixed things. We’ve put things right. You and Veris are together again and in a tenuous sort of way, Veris is kind of with both of us. He’s thinking about it, anyway. But that part doesn’t even really matter in this time and place. He’s with you and that’s all that counts. So if that’s why we’re here, then why haven’t we jumped back?”

“Who says that’s why we’re here?” Brody asked.

“Who says it isn’t?”

“Because we didn’t have the problem when we jumped here,” Brody pointed out. “We jumped, then we created the problem for ourselves.”

Taylor chewed that one over. “Then
why
are we here? And when do we get to go back?”

Brody shook his head. “No one knows. In four years, we’ve never been able to figure out a pattern. You know this as well as I do. This is the longest time we’ve ever been held in a jump and this is the first time we’ve never been able to bring one of us back in time.”

“It’s the first time one of us in our own time hasn’t been there physically. Veris was in Europe,” Taylor pointed out. “And he was pissed at us.”

“Pissed at
you
,” Brody amended. “And he wasn’t pissed. That’s putting it way too crudely. It’s never that simple with Veris.” He pushed his hand through his hair. “What do you want me to say? I don’t have answers any more than you do. Veris was the one who seemed to understand more about this stuff than either of us. He certainly spent more time thinking about it.”

Taylor hugged herself. “I want to go home,” she said truthfully. “I want Veris back. The real Veris.
Our
Veris. I like this one. I
love
this one. I do. But he’s not the real one who knows us so well. I want that one back.”

Brody’s gaze cut away from her.

“What?” Taylor said sharply.

He sighed heavily. “I had a long night of staring into the flames last night,” he said at last. “And it occurred to me that we’re repeating your mistake from old Norway. We’re meddling in history again.”

She felt a cold chill in her gut. “We’re fixing it,” she said sharply.

“Are we?” he asked. “The problem with Veris’ past was that you were in it, when in the
real
past you didn’t exist.” He spread his hand, palm up, to indicate her. “Here you are again. What changes are you introducing this time?”

Taylor bit her lip. “We’re trying to minimize those changes,” she said slowly. “Putting him back to where he should have been if I hadn’t been in Norway.” It was a pathetic attempt at denial and she knew it. So did Brody. She could see it in his face.

“Maybe when we get back,” he said gently, “the Veris we knew won’t be there waiting for us at all. The Veris waiting for us will be totally different because of changes we make here and now.”

Taylor shook her head. “No.”

“Perhaps that’s why we’re here,” Brody said relentlessly. “Perhaps we’re here to pay the price for all our time travelling. Perhaps this is where the buck stops.”

“Something troubles you, my friend.”

Brody stirred himself, looking up from the sand moving just ahead of his horse’s head. It grew hypnotic after a while, he realized. He looked at Veris. “I’m sorry. You said something?”

Then he realized that they had both spoken Saxon and that Alexander was turning his head to listen, his eyes narrowing with sharp intelligence, a furrow between his brows. As Alexander could not possibly understand, Brody was not troubled. But he shifted back to French, anyway. “I apologize. My thoughts were elsewhere,” he told Veris. “You spoke?”

“I did,” Veris agreed. His gaze shifted to Alexander. He did it without turning his head.

The Fatimid was sitting cross-legged upon his horse, his reins between his calves, balancing a thick leather portfolio upon his knees. The portfolio acted as a simple desk for a parchment and a piece of thin coal-like substance which he was using to write upon the parchment. Brody wondered if it was lead. An early and simple pencil.

“I am not good company this day,” Brody replied, for both Veris and Alexander’s ears. “My thoughts bother me.” That would give Veris a way to avoid speaking of anything he didn’t want Alexander to hear. They couldn’t drop into Saxon in front of him without raising his suspicions.

Veris lifted a brow. “Indeed. I’ve had thoughts of my own that need sharing. They might serve to cheer you.”

Brody cocked his head. “Really? What thoughts would they be?”

“I have considered the matter at length, my lord. It would be my honor if you would accept me into your household as your knight at arms.”

Alexander paused in his scribbles and looked at Veris, his eyes widening.

“You wish Selkirk to release you?” Brody asked carefully.

“I do.”

Brody took a breath. His heart was suddenly hurrying. He tried not to show it in his voice or mannerisms. “Do you believe Selkirk would have any objections to releasing you, Will?”

“Aye, he might have one or two, but I believe I could point out more reasons that would be to his benefit.” Veris’ expression was grim and Brody knew he was thinking of Davina. Veris was actually going to tell Selkirk about Davina. A hint or a bald statement. Either way, he was going to use Selkirk’s wife as leverage for his freedom.

It might be dangerous. If Davina learned what Veris planned to do, she could try to counter his attempt to escape her husband’s household…and her dungeon.

Brody wanted to protest that Veris didn’t have to go to such lengths to barter for his freedom. History and Brody’s memory of the siege of Jerusalem told him that Selkirk would die tomorrow in the first attack upon the walls of the city. Veris would be free to seek a new master without this added danger.

But things were different and now Brody couldn’t say for sure that Selkirk
would
be one of the early victims of the Fatimid swords.

He glanced at Veris calmly waiting for his answer. Veris needed to break away from the poisonous Davina for his own sake.

Brody nodded. “Arrange it, Will. As soon as possible. I’d welcome a knight with your skills into my household with open arms.”

Veris nodded. “As soon as possible, then,” he said gruffly.

But he seemed to be holding back a smile.

Brody didn’t bother hiding his.

* * * * *

The sun was level with the tops of the highest buildings of Jerusalem when they arrived back at the city.

Theirs was a heroes’ welcome, for water and fresh food had grown so dangerously low in the nearly three days they had been gone that people from the northern and western camps fell upon the wagons of food and water with almost manic delight. Only quick thinking by the more level-headed senior leaders kept the water barrels whole and unbreached, as they inserted guards in front of the desperate allies and went about ladling out first rations of fresh supplies immediately, straight from the wagons.

Brody helped Taylor down from her wagon, over the tops of the heads of soldiers and camp followers and carried her back to their tent on the back of his horse. Veris accompanied them part of the way.

“I will leave you here,” Veris said, reining in his horse.

Brody halted, too. “You meant what you said earlier?” he asked softly, in Saxon.

Taylor looked from one to the other, puzzled.

Veris nodded. “Yes, by the gods,” he said flatly. “There are reasons for why you came into my life.” He dropped his gaze to Taylor. “Both of you, I think.”

She shivered and Brody’s arm tightened around her.

Veris looked back at Brody. “This must be at least one reason. If it isn’t, I’ll make it one. I’ve been looking for a way…an excuse. You’re a damn fine excuse. A worthy one.”

“She’s not going to agree with you on that,” Brody told him. “Watch your back. I won’t be there to ward off spears, this time.”

“I will.” He grinned, turned his horse and headed north, parallel with the long line of tents and encampments sitting out of bowshot of the western walls of the city.