D. A. Houdek

Deb Houdek Rule

Web designer - Science Fiction author - Civil War historian - Genealogy researcher

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Of All the Western Stars

by Deb Houdek Rule

Chapter 11

The subject of Lisette’s dreams was lost in a dream world of his own that night. His mother, her serene smile shining in her perfectly designed face, greeted him as another flawless day in Penrose began… the last day he was to see her alive. In the elaborate structure of her hair misty rays of light shimmered in a rainbow of colors. Her eyes today also shifted colors to match the display in her hair. Her gown, an iridescent fog, swirled around her. Sunlight shone on her face, illuminating it with its pure white light.

Ashur bent low over her hand, a sense of comforting warmth encompassing him. Everything was all right, after all. When he straightened, the image shifted, the pleasant dream contorting into a nightmare. His mother’s face filled with terror as the sunlight brightened… brightened… Searing white heat blistered her flesh. The skin crisped, blackening and burning, and dropped away until only the hollow, accusing eyes of a charred skull stared at him, and her screams echoed through his soul across the light years.

Ashur jerked awake, the rough sheets twisted and damp with sweat. Golden dawn colored the sky and lightened the chamber. Laying still, Ashur stared at the cobwebbed canopy above him, the dream image strong in his mind. Of all the stars in heaven… What had he done?

Struggling out of the sunken hollows of the mattress, Ashur took the bucket of water Maisy had brought the day before, splashing his face with the tepid water. Cautiously he stretched, feeling each muscle. His leg and side protested, but far less than yesterday. He was hungry and eager to be about… But where was he to go? What was he to do? He needed to find his ship, see how badly it was damaged, try to figure out how he’d ended up in the wrong place in time, see if he’d been followed and if he could get home. Except, he thought, surrendering to a momentary pang of grief, home wasn’t the home he’d left.

It wasn’t working. He wanted to see Lisette most of all. He just didn’t want to face this world without her friendly, lovely face there beside him. Ashur sighed and tried to banish thoughts of her. Lisette was as lost to him as his own world. She wasn’t his, couldn’t be. He didn’t love her, he told himself firmly. That had been nothing but a slip of the mental tongue. Really.

He had to concentrate on the business at hand.

These people traveled by slow, crude means, the ship couldn’t be far. But, not even knowing the direction, it could as well be on another planet. Much as he regretted it, Ashur admitted to himself, he needed help. He needed someone who he could potentially let see things a sixteenth century person was never meant to see, someone who wouldn’t turn him in to the Inquisitors, or whatever they had here, as a witch or spy or worse. Lisette was gone. Who here could he trust?

The door creaked and that damnable crone, Lady Cicely, swept in followed by the sulking cretin, Maisy. Maisy carried a pewter bowl from which rose an aroma that started Ashur’s mouth watering. He must be better to be hungry again, especially for heaven-knows-what passed for food here. All that made that miserable oatmeal tolerable was the angel feeding it to him.

"That smells wonderful, Madame," he said, nodding a greeting to Lady Stafford.

She returned his slight bow with a matching curtsy. Ashur marveled at how similar the manners of his time and this were. Simple, formal courtesies, both spoken and by gesture provided a veneer of civility and politeness. It was, he considered, preferable to those societies he had visited where excessive familiarity and absence of formal etiquette were the norm.

"Mutton stew. It’ll do you good," she said. Maisy set the bowl down on the table, slopping a goodly portion onto the table. Mix with the wine and potions that has been spilled there, Ashur thought. Didn’t anyone around here ever clean?

Hunger made it possible for Ashur to blank from his mind thoughts of how this meal had likely been prepared. He only had a fuzzy notion of what a butcher shop and kitchen in the fifteen hundreds looked like, but judging from the little else he had seen, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know more. The stew was hearty and filled with barley. The meat was… well, Ashur was comforted by the thought that, this being Earth, mother planet of the human race, it must be edible for humans… provided the human was desperate enough to risk the cooking methods. The vegetables were few, and of poor quality. It didn’t occur to him that such things were governed by the season here, Ashur took it to be poor management. Still, the food was good. He ate quickly.

Lady Stafford watched with a look of smug satisfaction on her face. "I’d say you’re well enough to join us at the table from here on, miracle though it be," she added, rolling her eyes heavenward. "I suppose you’ll be wanting to get on with your journey… or home to your family… soon."

Ashur hid a smile at her lack of subtlety. But how could he answer? The true nature and distance of his "trip" was infinitely beyond this simple woman’s ken. And his family… A hard knot of agony stabbed him at the thought of them.

She must have noticed the pain flash across his face, for her demeanor softened. "Your pardon, young man. I did not mean to hurry you… nor pry into your affairs. You are welcome in our home and at our hearth as long as needs be."

A rush of genuine gratitude filled Ashur and for an instant he regretted his harsh thoughts about her. Ground roast toads and all, she was doing the best she could for him, a total stranger of unknown history and intent. There weren’t many in his time who’d do so much.

Lady Stafford excused herself, cuffing Maisy who had hunkered down in a corner and dozed off. Glaring, the girl trailed after her mistress, returning with her a few minutes later laden with clothes. Ashur downed the last of the stew, enjoying the warm, satisfied feeling it made in him and wished for more. He looked curiously at their bundles.

"Coat, doublet, and hose of my Geraint’s. You’re near enough to the same size. And this…" she held up a white shirt with a tie opening at the neck and wide, full sleeves. It looked like a pirate outfit of the eighteenth and twenty-second centuries, he decided, not displeased. "This was made for you by Lisette, the Mistress Weston. A good, Christian lass," she said, clearly reminding Ashur of the impersonally charitable nature of Lisette’s act.

Ashur took the shirt, visualizing Lisette’s fine, strong fingers manipulating the fabric. At the neck and sleeves was a pattern of leaves and vines, with flecks of gold catching the light as he turned it. This was no simple, indifferent work, but an act of affection.

"She is kind, Lady, as are you," he said looking over the other clothing. They seemed nearly new to Ashur’s untutored eye. Not castoffs or rags, but apparently some of their finest. When did sewing machines and automatic spinning and weaving machines come about? He couldn’t remember exactly, but it must be much later than this. Why every inch of this clothing must have been painstakingly created by hand. Ashur felt humbled by the thought. These truly were kind and precious gifts they gave him.

Trying to appear casually indifferent, Ashur asked, "When will Mistress Lisette be returning?"

Lady Stafford raised an eyebrow, but answered evenly. "Like as not she won’t. She and my son will be wed in less than a month and then they’ll live at another of our properties." Ashur was too well tutored in controlling his public face to let his emotions show, but he was dismayed. Not returning? And, though he told himself it didn’t matter to him, Ashur felt a pang at the thought of her marrying so soon. Still, much could happen in a month’s time…

Lady Cicely stood, watching him, waiting. Surely she didn’t expect him to dress in front of her. Perhaps she did. The standards of modesty here eluded him. He stood awkwardly, balancing on his undamaged leg, studying the fastenings and openings of the garments. The hose were brown knit with an exaggerated codpiece that amused Ashur. Curious standards, indeed. The doublet was a soft, lighter brown material. "Velvet?" he asked.

"Mock velvet," Lady Stafford answered, pulling Maisy by the arm, directed her to gather up the used bowl and the wash basin and bucket. "A brushed mixture of linen and silk." After another long, uncomfortable stare, she nodded and left.

It took Ashur rather long to dress in the peculiar clothing. When done, he felt like an actor in an historical. Just as well, he thought, he’d have to do quite a bit of acting to get along here. Over the hose (he’d have much preferred his own breeches, but they were too badly damaged even to consider repairing), he put the shirt Lisette had sewn. The material was crisply starched and freshly clean. A hint of rose scent tweaked his nostrils, it was her smell. Just putting on the shirt made Ashur quiver at the memory of her soapy hands massaging his body. Ashur closed his eyes and sighed.

Lacing and tying the closings of the doublet took a bit of doing, both deciphering the intent of the fastenings and working slowly around his sore muscles. There were tiny slashes worked into the upper part of the doublet, apparently to let the white of the shirt show through. It ended in a skirt that came to his mid-thigh. The coat seemed excessive and cumbersome, but he put it on anyhow. The broad, flat shoulders puffed out. Soft, dark fur trimmed the collar and sleeves. No environmentalists on Earth in this era, he mused, remembering with amusement the obsession with the subject that had blinded the sensibilities of many well-meaning fools who didn’t see that science and technology were the way out of problems, not the cause, five hundred years ago… no, five hundred years ahead. Ashur shook himself.

The clothing fit him well enough, though he couldn’t say he like the idea of wearing a skirt. His own boots, dark brown and of a virtually indestructible material fashioned to resemble leather, came to his knees, making him feel more properly clothed.

Fitted now as a stylish, he presumed at least, gentleman of the fifteen hundreds, Ashur was eager to explore his new world. The heavy door creaked obligingly as he pulled it open and he looked into the corridor beyond. It, too, was scattered with those dried weeds that were on the floor of his chamber. Soot from torches and candles streaked the walls with black and coated the ceiling possibly with a several centuries’ accumulation.

Moving slowly and leaning on the coarse stone wall for support, Ashur crept down the corridor, taking in every detail, from the astonishing variety of smells that wafted from each doorway and open window. The scents were varied, tangy spices mixed with indiscriminately with heavy perfumes and the rank stench of sewage. The breeze shifted as he passed one narrow window, an old arrow slit, he believed, and he gagged at the smell of decaying meat and compost.

Down a narrow spiral stairway, scarcely the width of one man, Ashur made his way down the worn, uneven stairs. This place was virtually a labyrinth, he thought as he came out onto another level, with branching corridors and more stairs leading in diverse directions. It was like wandering through an Escher drawing or a VR game. It was suitable, he thought wryly, even in his time, a thousand years away, the English still built things in an seemingly haphazard tangle as they strove to build the new in the midst of the old. He’d visited this part of Earth on several occasions and still found it delightfully ironic when being whisked through the most advanced new spaceport on the planet to suddenly be turned out of the way to bypass some old stone ruins, domed over and sealed in plastique. Even in the year twenty-five hundred a map of London defied all logic for its layout.

At last Ashur came to a doorway standing open to the outside, and for the first time he truly felt awed with wonder at this world of the past he found himself in. He stood at the top of a stone stairway that led down into a garden of surpassing beauty. The flowers had escaped their rigidly ordained beds and sprawled in a riot of color and scents. On a tall, bushy plant hung grape-like clusters of tiny lavender flowers. Ashur drank in the sweet fragrance of the lilacs, thinking how he’d like to transplant this wonder to the rooftop gardens of his home.

What a paradise they had, these people, Ashur thought as he tilted his head back to savor the heat of the sun baking into his bones, and they spoiled it with filth and cold stone enclosures. They ought to be dancing naked in the sun, feet bare on that shockingly green lawn, not encasing themselves in thick and scratchy wool.

"Ah, there you are," came Lady Stafford’s voice from his left. She carried a basket over her arm filled with bits of plants, stems, roots and leaves. Before Ashur could express his delight at the beautiful garden, she said, "The garden is in such disarray. Terribly unkempt. We’ve lost some of our servants of late. I can’t even find that wench Maisy. Run off, no doubt, the lazy wench." As she began climbing the steps she sighed. "We ought to be moving to another house now, we wintered here, but I’m afraid…" she trailed off, shaking her head.

From what he had seen of the castle, Ashur could well imagine wanting to move often, leaving this one to be shoveled out and disinfected… no, they didn’t know about disinfectants yet. Maybe a flame-thrower would do it. Or a nice laser-guided fission bomb.

"May I help in any way," he offered, considering that his best skills would be of dubious value here.

Lady Stafford, paused, measuring him up and down. She seemed dubious that he possessed any useful skills as well. "Mayhap, milord. Even though you’re not yet well, just having a gentleman about to direct the servants and see that they’re minding their chores would be of great help. All those other," she contemptuously spat out the words, "hangers on and dandies went off with my husband. They’d not dirty their hands with honest work when there’s favor to be curried."

All gone? "Are any of those who found me yet here?" he asked. In answer to her curious look he hastily added, "I think some of my things, money perhaps, may yet be found. If I knew where the place was…"

She nodded. "I know not the exact place. Lisette and Geraint found you, brought the others to the place to help."

So Lisette knew the exact spot. "And Geraint, too, is gone?" He held his breath waiting for her answer.

"No, no… he’s still here." Ashur’s heart lifted. He hadn’t been impressed with Lisette’s fiancee, but given a Hobson’s choice, he’d accept anyone who could guide him to his ship. He’d figure out how to explain things later. But Lady Stafford was continuing. "Rather, I should say, he’s gone off again for a few days." She paused, wiping her sweaty brow with her sleeve. Shaking her head, she said reflectively, "He’s in the habit of going off for several days at a time. I know not where, but I suspect it’s to that monastery to study with the monks.

More likely off chasing women than chanting with monks, Ashur thought. That’s what he’d be doing. It was how he’d pleasantly filled his spare time for a good many years; women, hunting and wine. Perhaps, he thought, things haven’t changed all that much. With those things he could perhaps survive comfortably if he was trapped here. That sort of leisure didn’t come cheaply, though. What he needed was… what would they call it… a patron. That was it. He needed a patron.