The Time Duchess (The Time Mistress Book 4) Read online

  Cassandra turned to her son. “What is that you’re wearing?” she asked him, barely suppressing a laugh.

  “What? It’s the same thing I had on when I came back through the portal.”

  “You look pot-bellied.”

  He smoothed his hands over his torso with mock pride. “This is called a peascod belly. It’s very fashionable.”

  Cassandra smiled and took a moment to really look at him. She hardly recognized the clothing that had been soiled and tattered a few days before. The doublet was of a black and white herringbone print, and the “belly” came down low in the front to his hips, bulging out just where his normally flat stomach was, in very much what could only be called a peapod shape. Fashion did make some unusual demands of people. The sleeves of the doublet were long and puffy, and a ruffle came up high around his neck. He wore black wool tights on his long legs, and over them, trunkhose: bulb shaped, short pants that hit him about mid-thigh. They matched the doublet, but had vertical slits that revealed yellow satin beneath. He had flat, pointed black shoes on his feet, a tall black hat on his head, and a heavy, woolen red and yellow floral cape slung over one shoulder. He was a symphony of color and contrasting patterns.

  “It was a bitch to mend and clean,” Shannon commented. “I added the hat.”

  “I lost mine during the fight,” James offered with a shrug.

  “It all looks very expensive,” Cassandra remarked.

  “It was. I had to have a lot of clothes made after I first arrived. One must keep up appearances, mustn’t they?” he smirked.

  “You’ll have to have more made too,” Shannon said to Cassandra, “right away.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “In your bag,” Shannon continued, pointing to the satchel at James’s feet, “are clean linens, a nightgown, hose, cosmetics, and a different outer skirt and bodice. It’s all very heavy so you can’t bring more than that.”

  “Right,” Cassandra sighed. This was happening.

  Suhan looked down at the consol and pushed her long, ebony hair behind her ears. “It’s fifteen hundred hours there. It will be dark in about an hour. You better get going.”

  Cassandra went to the monitor. It was like a window into the past. The portal exited into an abandoned shed in Southwark, little more than an alley with a tall gate. The corresponding location in the present was the Southwark townhouse where the lab was located. It had been for sale until the time travelers had snapped it up. By the modern standards of 2125, it was very old fashioned―probably built in the mid-nineteen hundreds. The MIT Chronology department would own it for the length of James’s journey, still indeterminate, and would then sell it after they were done with it. It was the most comfortable portal lab Cassandra had ever worked in: an actual house with regular bathrooms and a kitchen―bedrooms upstairs, and lots of space in the living area on the first floor for the lab equipment, plus comfy furniture for lounging when off duty.

  The monitor showed only dusky darkness, some faint light filtering down from the narrow space at the top of the buildings that surrounded the alley on three sides. There were a few crates around, and some burlap rags. That’s where they would end up, more than six hundred years in the past.

  Please God, please God, please God, don’t let there be any rats!

  James was talking to Suhan. “We can’t be out much after four o’clock anyway. There’s a curfew at dusk. It’s not that strictly enforced, but it’s still dangerous to walk the streets after dark, especially if you look like you have money.”

  As far as money went, James had plenty stashed in his house in old London, and was carrying extra in duplicated gold coins on his person, as was Cassandra. They were rich beyond what most people in the fifteen-hundreds could imagine.

  “Well then, it’s now or never,” Suhan said, looking up at Cassandra expectantly.

  Shannon placed a heavy cloak over Cassandra’s shoulders and tied it in the front.

  “You ready, mom?” asked James.

  She took a deep breath, and nodded, gently biting at her lower lip. “Alright, let’s do this before I change my mind.” She hugged and kissed her boss, and gave Suhan and the other two women affectionate hugs, after which she and her son stepped into the portal chamber.

  “Bye,” James waved at team.

  There was a familiar whirring noise, and a lurch. As they entered the wormhole, they were plunged into darkness. She closed her eyes. There was the normal, unwelcome, dizziness. Breathe, breathe. A rush of cold air. She held James’s free hand. It felt hot and damp through her thin gloves. Sweat dripped down her forehead. Her stomach turned. Breathe? It wasn’t easy in the restrictive clothing. Would she faint? Throw up? Both were distinct possibilities. The floor abruptly fell out from beneath her. There was nothing to hold onto but James, and she squeezed his hand tightly. Lights flashed behind her closed lids, stung by tears. And then, solid ground. Quiet. A musty smell. She opened her eyes and turned tentatively to look at James. The cramped space was gloomy.

  “We’re here,” he smiled shakily while gently retrieving and massaging his hand.

  “Sorry about that,” she grimaced. “Let’s get going.”

  “It’s okay,” James said as he turned to the gate. He pushed at it but it wouldn’t give. He pushed harder. “Something’s blocking it.”

  She peered out through a crack in the boards. “I think there’s a person sleeping out there.”

  James kicked at it hard and someone on the other side grumbled. “You there,” he shouted. “Out of the way!”

  “Devil take thee!” cried a shocked and startled man’s voice, thick with sleep.

  There was a scraping sound, as James pushed harder.

  “You are blocking the gate,” James yelled.

  “God’s blood! How are ye there?!” the man cursed as he leapt out of the way in fright.

  James pushed once more and the old gate creaked open on ancient hinges. He looked out, and Cassandra craned to see over his shoulder. Fog enveloped everything. They hesitantly stepped out into the passage. A large man, dressed in rags and stinking of garbage and urine, was now leaning on a wall, uncertainly leering in their direction.

  “Let us pass, sirrah,” James said, drawing himself up tall.

  There was a knife in Cassandra’s pocket. She never time traveled without one like it, concealed on her person just in case. She clutched it, and pulled the hood of the cloak up over her head. James stalked past the man and held his hand out to his mother. Cassandra took it, cringing over the ridiculous contrast between their finery and the lowly surroundings.

  “By St. George!” the man uttered, staring at them with wide eyes.

  “Never you mind,” James replied. “Give the lady her due.”

  The unfortunate seemed suddenly to become aware of the possibility that had unexpectedly presented itself and bowed as though hinged at the waist, doffing his filthy hat in shaking fingers. He kept his eyes down as though he were in the presence of the Queen, and mumbled hopefully, “Per’aps you would spare a penny for an ‘umble beggar, m’lord and lady.”

  Cassandra looked over at her son imploringly. James put a coin into the man’s blackened palm. “This is all I have got, so do not presume to ask for more.” From the size of the coin, it looked to Cassandra like a shilling―an enormous sum: the equivalent of a day’s wage for a well-employed craftsmen. This man was, of a certainty, not used to seeing so much money all at once. His wide eyed reaction was predictable. “I thank ‘ee, I thank ‘ee! Shall I escort y’ to the bridge? Tis rough ‘eres about.”

  “No, good man. My thanks to you. We shall be on our way.”

  The vagrant continued to call his gratitude after them as they hurried away through streets of low, humble dwellings, packed closely together. The darkness was closing in, the fog thickening. The odors that permeated the streets were of things Cassandra hadn’t smelled since she’d been in Renaissance Italy: the cooking of rancid food over smoky, greasy fires, human waste composting
in the open air, dankness and damp. One smell pervaded over all though. Even if Cassandra hadn’t had James to guide her, she could have followed it to its source: the Thames River. She covered her nose with a handkerchief. “Dear God!”

  “I wish I could say you get used to it, but you won’t! I know I haven’t,” her son remarked.

  They passed a row of inns on the approach to London Bridge, neater looking dwellings, of white plaster and dark wood trim, with peaked roofs, and small windows of thick glass. Passersby in thick cloaks of nubby wool eyed them suspiciously. Cassandra screeched as something skittered past them on the ground.

  “Shhh!” James hissed.

  “A rat!” Cassandra whispered hoarsely, shivering with revulsion.

  “Yeah. It won’t be the last one you see. Now stay close,” James said.

  She drew her arm through his.

  “Normally, it would be better to hire a wherry to take us across the river because we could have it pull up right to the steps of my property. But the rapids are fierce here near the arches.”

  “We could walk up the bank a bit and get on there,” she suggested, though not at all sure she was ready to brave a boat across the formidable river, nor confident that there wouldn’t be a plethora of rats along the shore.

  “No, we’d have to walk by the Clink Prison to do that, and the neighborhood is even worse over there. The bridge is as safe as anyplace else, it’s just that we have a few blocks to walk on the other side, and I’d rather we were home as soon as possible. We attract attention.”

  Cassandra had no eyes for anything other than the grotesque site that greeted her upon their entrance to the bridge. A huge stone gateway loomed, with pikes sticking out of the towers atop it, upon which a gaggle of severed heads were impaled. Through the gloom they seemed to stare down at her and James, admonishing them not to stray from the path of the strict Elizabethan laws. A smell of rotted meat wafted over her. She wretched, but managed to hold her breath until the gateway was behind them and the scenery lining the bridge grew more pleasant. Now, fine homes, one after another, pressed tightly together, were to be seen along every available inch of the span, except, of course, for on the draw bridge itself in the middle. There was very little room for traffic between the homes lining either side. James maneuvered their way through the throngs of merchants finishing up business for the day, as well as through a herd of sheep complete with shepherd making their way out of the city before the evening curfew caught them there. This bridge was the only means across the waterway by foot from the south.

  Cassandra pulled her hood farther down, leaving just enough space to see where she was walking. She and James turned left at the end of the bridge onto Thames Street.

  “Just a few blocks to go,” said James reassuringly.

  She never thought she’d travel to this period, but here she was, hurrying through the dark, dirty, fetid streets, lined with ramshackle wooden houses that she knew would all be destroyed in the Great Fire of 1660, little shadowy shapes that could only be one thing, scurrying next to the walls.

  Though it was a privilege to see the city as no one in the future ever would again, she reminded herself, both she and her son were too conspicuous here on the street. The wealthy did not go out strolling at dusk. There was no sense, it was reasoned, to make one’s self vulnerable to those who schemed daily to separate upstanding citizens from their money. Of course there were also simple thieves and pickpockets about. Cassandra lowered her gaze and allowed James to lead her.

  Suddenly, he pulled up short, causing her to nearly run into him. She peeped out from under her hood to see a man standing in front of them, blocking their way. Where had he come from?

  “Gimme your money,” he growled. He was big. Really big, in a time when people were generally a bit smaller than they’d later evolve to be.

  “Do you think we are fools to be carrying money with us?”

  “We’ll see about that.” The man made a grab for the satchel James was carrying, but her son swung it out of reach and then in a continuing arc, up into the side of the block-like head. The man reeled, but only for a moment. He came back at James, his right fist aimed to make contact, but James deftly deflected the punch, grabbed the man’s arm and twisted it backwards, ripping a scream of anguish from his throat. Cassandra joined in, lifting her skirts and sending a kick into the robber’s groin. The scream was cut short, and the would-be attacker fell, moaning and writhing, to the ground.

  “Good one!” James yelled to her as he smashed the back of the man’s head with his boot, flattening him to the pavement.

  “You’re not the only one who knows how to fight,” she grunted, quite unladylike, adrenaline flooding her veins, her breath coming quickly.

  The thief lay where he was, whimpering in pain and confusion.

  “Let’s get out of here before someone sees us!” James plucked his hat from where it had fallen to the street, and grasped her hand. “I definitely do not want to have to explain anything to anyone,” he grimaced, and off they ran.

  Moments later, he pulled her down a side street where the houses were more substantial: of brick and stone mostly, the homes of the wealthy.

  “We’re here,” he panted, pounding on the door. “One does not carry house keys,” he explained, noticing his mother’s look.

  A plump woman of perhaps forty opened the door a crack and looked out. “Why Master Gwynne! Where ever have you been keeping yourself? We have been worried sick.”

  “I am so sorry, Mistress Flint,” he said, still breathing hard. “I received word that my aunt was in the country and I went to Cornwall to retrieve her. It was very sudden, forgive me.”

  “What has happened, are you well?”

  “We were nearly robbed, but I fended them off.” He couldn’t very well tell her a woman had aided in the escape. “Come, good aunt.” He strode past the housekeeper, ushering Cassandra forward through the stone-lined entryway.

  “Wait, Master Gwynne, there is something I must tell you―”

  “Allow me to introduce Duchess Von Schell. She is in the country from Austria―”

  Cassandra dabbed at her face with a handkerchief. “Very nice to meet you.”

  “Oh, dear lady, I am so sorry for your difficulty. But, Master, please, do not go into the―”

  “Gwynne!” A man’s voice shouted.

  “Who is there?” James replied.

  “Master, I have been trying to tell you―” the housekeeper began.

  A black-haired man leapt to his feet from a chair in front of the fire, pointing his finger at James. “You scoundrel!”

  “Shakespeare!” James cried scornfully. “How come you unbidden to my abode?”

  Cassandra stared at the face that was so familiar: high receding hairline, long flowing black locks, a pointed beard, slender nose, and eyes that could almost have passed for Middle Eastern in their color and shape. He was dressed all in black, with a white ruff around his neck, his arm in a sling.

  “He’s been here every night you’ve been gone, awaiting your return,” Mistress Flint was whimpering, wringing her hands, “and said he would be, ‘til you came back. The manservants took their leave when you did not appear for dinner the first night and have been off loafing ever since. It is only I, the maids, and the boy left here to defend the household.”

  “How dare you harry my staff like this?” James stormed.

  “I knew not what to do,” Mistress Flint, continued, teary-eyed. “He said you attacked him and he would have his vengeance.”

  “And I will, you blackguard! You mountebank!” Shakespeare shouted, lunging for James, slugging him square in the face.

  James fell to the floor with a crunch, collapsing a small table on his way down. Cassandra and Mistress Flint both screamed and ran to him, dropping to their knees on either side.

  “James!” Cassandra cried, casting a baleful glare over her shoulder at her son’s attacker. She turned back to James patting his cheek. “Are you all
right?”

  His eyes fluttered open and he grimaced in pain. His nose was bleeding, and a puffy bruise was already forming under one eye.

  “Henry,” Mistress Flint called sharply to a thin boy standing in a corner of the room, “fetch some salts.”

  “And a cloth, dampened with cool water,” Cassandra cried.

  The boy jumped as though poked with a stick, blinked, and nodded rapidly before running off.

  James tried to sit up on an elbow but fell back, his head bumping on the floor.

  “Just stay down for a moment,” Cassandra instructed.

  “We shall have him good as new very soon, madam,” said Mistress Flint.

  “Not if I have anything to do with it!” shouted Shakespeare, still ranging for a fight.

  “You disgrace yourself, sir,” Cassandra fired turning once again to Shakespeare. “A great writer such as your reputation descries, brawling like a schoolboy.”

  “It was he who attacked me, at the Bear Garden,” Shakespeare rejoined with eyes wide.

  “He told me of it. He regretted his actions, but we both know ‘twas you who provoked the incident.”

  “And…who, if I may be so bold to ask?” Shakespeare retorted haughtily, “are you?”

  Henry abruptly rushed back into the room with a bottle of smelling salts. On his heels was a lank-haired young maid with bulging eyes. She carried a cloth and a wooden bowl of water. Mistress Flint snatched the salts and held them under James’s nose while he did his best to push them away. Cassandra on the other side of him, took the cloth from the maid, dipped it in the bowl, and pressed it gently to her son’s nose to staunch the blood. “Dear God in heaven,” he exclaimed, “let me be!”

  “He fares well enough,” Mistress Flint observed.

  “Ay, I see now that he shall recover,” said Cassandra, continuing to dip the towel into the bowl as she wiped away the rest of the blood. After ringing it out a final time she pressed it to James wounded eye.

  “I’ll do it,” he said irritably, taking it from her and sitting up.