Love's Labyrinth (5 page)

“Huh?” Alison held up the yellow elastic band on her wrist. “This?”

“We’ll all be burned at the stake for witchcraft, mistresses—Nicholas will see us all burned at the stake!”

“Burned at the stake?” Olivia stood up, brushing the loose grass from her own gown. “Look, you don’t have to stay in character. We’re only trying to help. I’m sure you won’t get into any trouble. It’s really hot today, and with all this humidity, and those clothes…” She reached out and plucked at his thick sleeve, and the young man jerked his arm away with a little gasp.

He shut his eyes and put one hand to his forehead. He bent his head, and Olivia noticed that his hair was nearly the same sherry color as his eyes, and that the nape of his neck was white. Clearly this was one actor who wasn’t concerned with the pursuit of the perfect tan. “Let me think, mistresses. Let me think.” He drew a few deep breaths and, turning away, visibly seemed to calm himself. When he turned back to face them, he seemed to have his emotions almost under control. “Tell me,” he said, speaking with great deliberation, “tell me where you think you are.”

Olivia exchanged glances with Alison. Alison lifted one eyebrow, as if to say: Let’s play along. Olivia shrugged. “We’re at Talcott Forest, just outside of Sevenoaks, Kent. In England.”

“Ah.” He nodded and stroked his chin. “Good. Now, tell me what year you think it is.”

Olivia’s eyes widened but Alison cocked her head.

“What in God’s name are you talking about? It’s 1999, of course. What year do you think it is?”

The young man swallowed hard, glanced up, and muttered, “Blessed Jesu.” Then he said, “It’s the year of grace fifteen eighty-seven, mistress. And Her Glorious Majesty, Elizabeth, has reigned over our fair country for nearly thirty years.”

Alison rolled her eyes and made an impatient gesture. “Oh, come on, give it a rest. Look, let’s just find someone who can tell us where the group has got to. I’m getting really hungry. I’ll be the next one to faint if we don’t get something to eat soon.”

Instantly, the young man seemed solicitous. “You’re hungry, mistress? Ah, that’s good. Yes, that is good. I’ll take you to the house and, uh, have a tray sent up to you both. And you’ll be able to eat, while I—” He broke off and looked distressed once more. “Never mind that now. Just come with me, and I’ll see you have plenty to eat.” He reached to take her arm, but Alison stepped back, jerking her elbow out of his reach.

“Just what are you talking about? We don’t want a tray. We’re not going into the house. We have to find our group. We’re supposed to be at the revel. There is a revel here, right?”

At that, the young man’s face drained of color, and for a moment Olivia thought he might faint again. “Yes,” he whispered faintly. “There is most undeniably a revel to be held here this day. Please, I beg you, good mistresses.” He turned to Olivia with a look of supplication on his face. “I beg you come with me. There’s more here than you know.”

Something about the tone in the young man’s voice rang true. There was an urgency that warned of real danger in his words and in his manner. Clearly he was very frightened. “Alison,” Olivia said slowly, her gaze not leaving the young man’s face, “I think—I think there is something going on here.”

“Damn right there is, and we’re missing all of it because this dolt won’t—”

“I assure you I am not a dolt, mistress.” The young man drew his slender body straighter with an injured air, and Olivia was amused to see that he towered even over Alison.

Olivia held up her hand, biting her underlip. She ran her eyes up and down his body, taking in every detail of his clothing. He was wearing a russet doublet made of wool and, beneath it, a linen shirt that looked as though it had never seen a proper wash. But it was his hose that made her stare. Instead of the nylon dance tights she was used to seeing actors and reenactors wear, these were thick, clearly handmade, and, although reasonably fitted, didn’t cling to his legs with the same ease or flawlessness of fit. His shoes were blunt-toed and flat. She cocked her head, trying to assess what was odd about them, and realized suddenly that they could be worn on either foot. Not until the early seventeenth century had right and left shoes come into use. She swallowed hard as the evidence before her eyes began to mount into a conclusion so outrageous and absurd her mind reeled. “No, Alison—Alison, there’s—there’s something definitely—not right—”

Her heart began to pound, and her breath caught in her throat. For a moment, she thought she might be the one to faint next. She drew herself up and, in what she hoped was the proper Elizabethan manner, asked, “Good sir, will you honor us with your name?”

He looked momentarily taken aback, but responded, with a little bow, “Geoffrey Talcott, at your service, mistress. And may I have the honor of knowing yours?”

“I’m Olivia Lindsley, and this is my friend Alison O’Neill. We’re from—” she hesitated, wondering how he would react, “a country called the United States of America.”

He stifled a short gasp. “America?” He glanced around with a wild expression in his eyes, and Olivia had the distinct impression that he thought he might be dreaming.

She practically expected him to pinch himself, but he only turned to look at both of them and forced a smile. “America? There’s nothing there but a land of savages and—” He shook his head and broke off. “We’ll talk more later. We must talk more later. But now, and I beg your forgiveness, ladies, you must come with me. We don’t have any time right now—”

He broke off again and glanced over his shoulder in both directions. Clearly he was afraid they would be seen. He beckoned. Olivia glanced at Alison, who shrugged, although the suspicion in her eyes never faltered. The women gathered their skirts and started off.

“Why aren’t you taking us over there?” Alison began, pointing toward the tent, but broke off as they rounded the other side of the maze and the house came into view. “Oh, my God, the house,” she whispered.

Olivia felt as though the air had been punched from her lungs. Geoffrey clutched her elbow harder as she sagged involuntarily. “I’m okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Really. I’m fine.” But the house that rose before them was very different from the one they had just left, a few scant moments ago. Talcott Forest in 1587 was smaller, without the Georgian touches and Victorian additions. The house had originally been built in the shape of an H, like so many other Tudor manor houses, and the brick was still relatively new. Ivy grew around the base of the walls, and the later terraces were notably absent, but clusters of great trees crowded close about the walls, trees that didn’t exist in the twentieth century. Suddenly, in some cool, detached corner of her mind, Olivia understood why the house was called Talcott “Forest.”

“What happened to the house?” Alison was whispering. Her face was as pale as the back of Geoffrey’s neck.

“Don’t you see, Alison?” Olivia said softly. “He’s not playing a part. He’s telling us the truth. He
is
Geoffrey Talcott, and this
is
fifteen eighty-seven. We’ve gone back in time.”

“That’s impossible,” Alison snapped.

Olivia looked up at Geoffrey. Something about his manner—apologetic, startled but not disbelieving—and the words he’d used when he first saw them step out of the maze all seemed to indicate that, shocked as he might be, the notion of time travel wasn’t quite as unbelievable to him as they thought it to be. “Is it?” she asked, with an accusing stare.

He cleared his throat and coughed, looking sheepish.

“Well, mistresses, no, actually it isn’t.”

“What do you mean, it isn’t?” Alison’s hands were on her hips, and Olivia noticed that she was so tall, she practically looked Geoffrey in the eyes, something that the poor man obviously found disconcerting.

“Well, what I mean is, I did think—I—for the longest time-you see, the idea has intrigued me—and so I made a study and it seemed—the more I studied—it could be possible, and, well…” He hesitated once again, scraping his toe against the graveled ground.

“Well, what?” demanded Alison. “I’ve never heard of anyone traveling through time. Even now—even then—even in
our
century,” she sputtered. “No one’s ever done it.”

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,” quoted Olivia, speaking more softly still, “than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Alison rolled her eyes. “What on earth are you talking about, Liv? You know it’s impossible!”

Olivia drew a deep breath and slowly surveyed their surroundings. “Yes, I’ve always thought it had to be impossible. But…” She nodded first at Geoffrey and then at the house. “Look around you, Allie. I think we’re in the sixteenth century. I mean—smell!” She took a deep breath and beneath the odors of roasting meats and newly mown grass, a deep stench filled her nostrils.

Geoffrey looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, that’s the middens. In the summer it’s practically impossible to keep them smelling sweet—I guess you don’t have that problem where you come from?”

“No!” said Alison. Her arms were still folded across her chest. “No, we certainly don’t. So can you explain how we got here?” There was a distinctly schoolmarmish tone to her voice, and the steely gaze she fixed on him was calculated to cow the toughest kid from the meanest city streets.

“Well,” Geoffrey began, looking even more uncomfortable than ever, “I suppose it is my fault.”

“Your fault! You brought us back in time? Why?” Alison stood with her hands on her hips. “Why would you want to do such a thing? And how on earth did you do it?”

“Yes, what did you do?” asked Olivia, overcome with an almost academic curiosity. This was one for MIT.

“I built the labyrinth. You see…” He ran a hand through his mop of unruly curls and waved the other toward the massive hedges. “I’ve had this theory—about time. And I’ve done a lot of reading at university, you see, and studied a great deal with Dr. Dee—”

“Who?” asked Alison.

Geoffrey looked faintly shocked and Olivia answered smoothly, “He was Queen Elizabeth’s physician and astrologer. He was revered as a man of very great and esoteric learning. Though I suppose at this point in some places, he still is,” she finished with a wry smile.

“Exactly,” said Geoffrey. “You are very learned, too, I see, mistress. Has no one yet built a time portal in your time?”

“No!” declared Alison. “No one’s even tried such a thing. It’s impossible!”

“Do we really know that, Allie?” Olivia shook her head as she gazed from the manor house to the clusters of trees to the high hedge behind them. “Do you really think it’s the sort of thing we’d be told about, if the government or anyone else were experimenting with such a thing? Look at all the TV shows there’ve been about time travel. Everyone’s considered it. And just because we don’t know about it, why wouldn’t it be possible that someone’s done it?” She glanced up at Geoffrey, who was listening to this exchange with a confused look on his face. “Obviously, someone has.”

Alison took a deep breath. “All right. I’ll concede that maybe it’s possible, and all right, I guess it can be done. But now what? How do we go back? Reverse the way we came? Walk backward through the labyrinth?”

Both women turned to Geoffrey, who flushed. “Well, mistresses.” He paused. He sighed. “The truth of it is, I’m not quite sure. I—I must confess I don’t know how it worked to bring you here. My intent was to go forward in time, not backward. And—and I never gave it any thought.” He looked down at his shoe with the same sheepish look. “It, uh, it really didn’t occur to me that I might bring someone back.”

“Good God.” Alison groaned as she rolled her eyes. “Spare me from mad science run amok. How did you think you were going to get back? Or didn’t it ever occur to you that you might want to? Didn’t you ever think that maybe you wouldn’t like the future? Or not understand it? Or not want to stay?”

Geoffrey looked momentarily confused by this verbal onslaught. He opened his mouth, but almost instantaneously, his expression changed to one of alarm. “Oh, by our Lady,” he whispered, his face blanching paler than it had when he’d fainted. “It’s Nicholas.”

“Who?” asked Alison, looking as confused as Geoffrey had just a moment ago, but Olivia drew herself up and automatically smoothed the blue satin skirt, her attention drawn to the tall, dark man in the center of the crowd who approached with an arrogant set of his shoulders. He seemed much too young to be Geoffrey’s father, but in this time and place, thought Olivia, her judgment could be very wrong. His hair was dark and clipped close about his head in the Elizabethan manner, but it curled in soft ringlets about his ears, and on his forehead. He bore a strong resemblance to Geoffrey, but his coloring was more intense, as was the expression he was wearing when he saw Geoffrey and the two women. He looked five or six years older than Geoffrey.

His clothing was far more ornate than Geoffrey’s, for he wore a bright blue doublet shot through with silver threads that sparkled in the sun, and scarlet hose. His Venetian breeches were alternating panels of blue and scarlet. Olivia was momentarily dazzled by a style of masculine dress that was as brilliant as a peacock’s display. He was not alone, Olivia noted, which was doubtless the cause of Geoffrey’s immediate alarm. He was surrounded by at least thirty people, mostly men clothed in the same ornate elegance. Beside him, her hand on his arm, walked a white-faced woman wearing a curly, dark red wig and dressed in an elaborate gown of cloth of gold and black silk, ornately embellished with pearls. Her face, despite its masklike makeup, was animated; her lips moved as they walked. Everyone who followed was listening with rapt attention, and Nicholas’s head was bowed down respectfully.

She could be only one person, thought Olivia as a shiver ran up her spine. To borrow from Mary Higgins, thought Olivia, here was the immortal Gloriana herself, on the arm of their own, albeit unknowing, host. Think fast, she told herself. “Alison, mind what you say and hide that key thing,” Olivia said softly, speaking through clenched teeth. Beside her, Geoffrey was audibly breathing hard and looked as though he might faint again.

“Liv, who is—” Alison broke off as the party approached, but slipped the yellow elastic band off her wrist and hid it in her clenched palm.