Seasons in the Mist, #5

By Deborah Kinnard

The new-minted Lady Jessica slept that night, when she slept at all, in a wall chamber adjoining Lady Alys’s solar. Though Alys’s serving maids slept wherever they could squeeze their pallets on the solar floor, Alys had not allowed Jess to do so. She insisted that a “highborn” guest must occupy a guesting chamber. Thus it was that Jess found herself stuffed naked into a cupboard bed built into the chamber wall. The room itself felt dank with moisture from the thick stone walls of the manor house. A well-banked fire in the small hearth provided welcome warmth and its own aroma to add to many others. Her tick smelled of straw and past occupants. Though the linen sheets seemed clean, they abraded her skin. She turned and turned on the goose feather pillow, covered in the same scratchy linen as the sheets. Sleep would not come, not that she had expected any. At odd times she fought rising hysterical laughter, remembering feeling jet-lagged twenty-four hours ago, and now staring at a rising fourteenth- century sliver moon outside a wood-shuttered casement.

The atmosphere in her chamber warmed slowly, gradually stopping her shivering. Though at times she shuddered from purest fear, Jess realized she must make the best of her situation. And carefully, too. She must watch every word, and never, no matter how dire her need, tell any of these fanciful, credulous people the truth.

The truth would smack of sorcery. She’d have to walk the thinnest possible tightrope. Surely, surely this experiment wouldn’t last long. After a few days, something would happen and she’d be back at the Mossock she knew—or even home. She wanted only to return to her own time and figure out how to incorporate her bizarre experience into her research. She nearly moaned in anticipation at the possibilities, but until she went home, she had no desire to run afoul of their sensibilities.

Father God, why did You pick me? David Graber or the Millards know this era. Any of them would’ve been a better choice than me. This isn’t even my time period. Not that I know what year this is. I’ll have to find some way to ask without asking…

She turned over and tried to punch the pillow into a different shape. It resisted and gave off a faintly dry smell as air puffed out. Panic surged up again. She beat it down with as little effect as she’d had on the pillow. If finding out what year she’d landed in were her only problem…if only. She could foresee a dozen, a score, a hundred different pits into which she could fall, a stranger in this strangest of lands. Her hair was too short. Her attempts to speak the language were off-base, if Alys’s occasional puzzled expressions were any indicator. Her teeth were too straight, thanks to Dr. Banks and expert orthodonture. Heaven forbid anybody should glimpse her lone filling. What would they make of her appendicitis scar?

“That’s nothing,” she could see herself blurting out. “Just modern surgery.”

They’d tie her to the stake and hurry off for kindling.

She rolled again onto her back. Like any avid historian, at times she’d speculated on what it would be like to live in the Middle Ages. The reality, at least the first twenty-four hours, was nothing like her romanticized version. She’d never imagined the hardships, the dust, the lack of conveniences, the everyday odors they all apparently took for granted. Even Lady Alys, higher-born and cleaner than the rest, smelled of skin and sweat.

For Lady Jessica de Lindstrom, one-hundred percent liar and fraud, the smell of fear.

***

Sounds. She awakened to the manor beginning to bustle. Grainy-eyed, Jess stretched and yawned. Then found herself without sleep shorts or tee shirt, and remembered. A sick feeling socked her in the gut like a fist. Yesterday she’d been in England, modern-day, excited and rubbernecking. Today she was here, groping for new ways to cope. To try to fit in where she most assuredly did not belong.

She sought water to wash, and found it in a small basin on a stand near the door. Very little water. She did her best, splashing her face many times and furiously scrubbing her teeth with a finger and the hem of her undergown. Donning her single outfit took no time at all, but pulling the tangles out of her hair with her fingers defeated her, and she went downstairs to the hall as she was.

Alys, already up, greeted her warmly. “Maude, bring my second best comb.” She did Jess’s hair while chatting about the day’s plans. Mass first, of course, and then sewing. Alys had some stuff they would make up into a gown just Jess’s size. After fastening the linen coif over Jess’s braids, Alys handed over the comb.

“It is made of sandalwood,” she said. “It will impart its aroma.”

“Lady, no, I can’t take your comb.”

Gently, firmly, Alys closed her hand around it. “It is my gift to you. Do not say me nay.”

The manor folk trooped after Jess and Alys out the big main gate and across the road to the village church. Jess found it unnerving to have the villagers bow to her or tug their bangs—no, forelock, she reminded herself. A sign of respect for the gentry of whom she made no part. She tried not to gape at the village that lay just beyond the round-towered church. The homes looked like hovels and smelled worse, each one low to the ground and thatch-roofed. From some of the house windows, a sheep or a placid ox peered out.

Mass, then. Jess felt equally challenged not to rubberneck the interior of the building. Older than Mossock, its architecture called the eleventh century to mind, rather than the thirteenth. Round-headed arches formed the doors and tiny, high-set windows. Two great candles smoked with a vaguely sour smell, competing with wisps of smoke from a censer the priest jerked through the air like a pup on a leash.

The villagers stood aside until Alys, Jess and the manor household filed into church. The church held neither bench nor chair, so everyone stood to hear the service. Children whispered, shushed by their parents. Whitewashed walls instructed the faithful with brightly colored paintings of the Virgin, Christ Triumphant, several anonymous and uncomfortable-looking saints, and the harrowing of hell.

The mass, at least, she understood. She’d learned medieval Latin well enough to say the mass herself, and the priest’s chanting sounded almost familiar. His rusty brown robe showed many mended spots, and short brown curls around his tonsure jiggled when he moved his head. Alys whispered, “Father Stephen. He is new here, and I do not know him well, but he seems a good man.”

The good father ran through the liturgy quickly, enunciating without inflection. Overall, he didn’t appear to be in a good mood. She took an instant disliking to his small, alert eyes. His stomach made most irreverent hungry rumbles, like Jess’s own.

After mass Maude served breakfast, consisting of another jug of wine, some stewed fruit and a large meat pie. Too hungry to worry about cholesterol or the strangeness of pie for breakfast, she consciously aped Alys’s table manners and dug in.

Before they’d finished, Maude returned with the aggrieved expression Jess had already noticed. She didn’t seem to approve of Mossock’s house guest. Or was it her own paranoia, since she was truly not what she seemed? Maude and Alys had a quick exchange in the tongue Jess didn’t understand. Cornish? English, but a dialect they didn’t teach us? I can’t get a word of it.

Maude finished up, gave a stiff little bow and left them alone. “Good news,” said Alys. “Kei—my husband’s master-at-arms—has returned this morn. My husband is but a day’s ride away. By vesper time tomorrow he will be home.”

Jess smiled approval, though she felt only trepidation. What would Sir Geoffrey de Tallac make of her? Would he offer her the simple, open-hearted hospitality Lady Alys gave? Or would he demand a better story, a more plausible explanation of how a woman had come to be lost and alone? Would he look skeptically on her half-story of untruths?

She lifted another bite of pie on her borrowed eating knife and prayed heartily for Sir Geoff’s horse to throw a shoe.

***

I like the scene where Jess is lying in bed and reflecting. It again shows her fears, as well as how uncomfortable the era was. Everything scratchy and rough, cold and damp. I can feel it.

From the time she wakes up, though almost the whole scene is an ongoing summary. Nice description of the church, but it doesn’t feel like a scene. Not much was in the moment. I'd like to see more interaction with others in the second scene, especially after a scene that’s pure reflection.

Other than that, finish this quickly, Deb and get it published.