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 19

Torches lit the Great Hall, illuminating the linen tablecloths and sparkling off the plates and platters. The head cook, his face flushed with his frenzied efforts over the past few days, stood in the shadows of the corridor to the kitchen and servant’s area. Clothed in his finest, his shoulders twitching beneath the unwelcome wool cloth, stained by sweat from the hot fires of the kitchen, he surveyed the fruits of his efforts critically. Sir Thomas nodded to him and smiled. Lisette saw the cook beam happily, his sour features almost cracking with the unfamiliar expression.

He had, indeed, done well, Lisette observed. As had all the tired servants. The Great Hall fairly shone, the tables laid with white linen, woven strands of flowers winding down the centers twined about their best silver candlesticks, polished to a gleam with fine sand by the milkmaid who’d stayed up well into the night to help with work not normally hers to do. They’d all gone to such efforts, their love and concern showing itself the best way they could. It was for her, for Alyce and her, that they had labored so. The kindness and thoughtfulness of these often faceless cogs in the machinery of the Weston household touched Lisette deeply. It was not their fault that the very results of their efforts mocked the sorrow of this most dismal of days in Lisette’s life. Lisette smiled softly at the servants, squeezing their hands discretely as she passed each one and whispering their Christian names, trying hard to show her appreciation for their efforts. Each one, in turn, blushed and murmured words of both congratulations and condolence for this strange dual occasion.

Sir Thomas fairly glowed with pride at the superb showing his household had managed to produce on such short notice. With each awed murmur from the guests as the parade of steaming dishes was brought forth, the elaborately formed and frosted pastries presented, and as each cup of the finest of French wines was poured into the costly silver goblets, Thomas’ chest expanded as proudly as a cock strutting before a hen. Also proud, Lady Katherine showed her self-satisfaction less openly than her husband, but her eyes too gleamed as Lisette watched her take mental inventory of each minutiae that evidenced her family’s success.

Their mourning colors put aside, after the briefest mourning period ever, Lisette reflected darkly, the guests were a faceless swirl of color before her grief-dulled eyes. Jewels sparkled and light, frivolous conversation flowed as they found their seats. Musicians, fetched hastily from Stockbridge, tuned their instruments in the gallery above. Candles and torches colored all about them in soft gold, the heat of their unrationed numbers sufficient to banish the damp chill of the outer storm. The illusion of light and gaiety pushed back the darkness and sorrow everywhere save in Lisette’s heart.

Seated side by side facing the assemblage in the center chairs at the high table, it appeared only she and Geraint were untouched by the foods and entertainments provided, presumably, in their honor. Keeping his gaze resolutely fixed on his plate, Geraint might have absented himself from the proceedings in all ways save for his body for all the heed he paid his new wife. His mind and heart were clearly elsewhere. No matter, thought Lisette. Hers were as well. Banishing for the thousandth time the vision of a knight on a white stead framed by a tempest saluting her, Lisette distractedly allowed the serving maid to refill her goblet with wine. Had she drunk that last cup so quickly? Geraint’s cup, too, was being refilled.

Lisette picked at her food, only forcing down a bite when she noticed a servant or kitchenhand scrutinizing her for signs of satisfaction. How less free are we, the wealthy, the nobles, the gentry, she thought, than the lowly peasant in his rude hut who need please or pretend for none save himself. He was a man who had nothing, thus nothing to lose. He need not aspire to increase his wealth and position, need not barter his own body and that of his children in marriages for which love was not even the least of considerations.

Oh, love, Lisette thought and softly sighed. Had Ashur sought her for love? Or other motives? How well she remembered the way his eyes caressed her, had stripped away her silk shift and burned into her bare flesh. Was that love? Lisette knew not. Her own heart beat faster at the very thought of Ashur’s bare chest beneath her anxious fingers. But was that love? Or something else, something Aunt Agnes had as much as told her was not lost to the obligations of marriage. Could she yet have Ashur, his body, his touch?

No. No. It was wrong. It was wrong and she’d not do it. She was bound to Geraint and she’d not betray the oaths she’d sworn to him before God and all these witnesses. It mattered not that others took their vows lightly or sought in others that which their marriages lacked. She would be true, true to herself and her… Lisette discretely pressed a linen napkin to her lips to hide the wine-induced belch… her husband, she completed the thought somewhat blurrily, wondering what had become of her goblet of wine. Soon it would be Geraint’s arms around her, his touch on her bare flesh. An involuntary shudder passed over her.

Scarcely did she stare, bemused, into the bottom of the cup when a maid appeared refilling it with the rosy liquid. Downing his in one long gulp, Geraint’s was refilled before the girl had a chance to move on. It was only right that she keep pace with her husband, Lisette thought loyally. She drained her cup and held it, wavering, up for more. This was, indeed, good wine. Her father had withheld nothing in this feast.

"This is… um…" she said, "It’s boiled wine, I think. What is that called?"

"Brandy?" Geraint answered, speaking his first word since he had — presumably — plighted his troth to her in the church.

"Issss good," she slurred around a mouthful of the sharp, warming liquid. It heated her from the inside out most pleasingly. She looked around the Hall, thinking how Alyce would enjoy this. The room was taking on a hazy distance, softening and blurring about the edges. People seemed to be moving too quickly for her to actually see them. Just as she fixed her gaze on a scarlet gown or velvet doublet the wearer would vanish to be replaced by another.

Too little space for proper dancing, the guests settled for toast after toast with the strong wine and ale that flowed freely. There seemed to be a theme to the toasts that, had she not drunk so much of the strong wine, would have had Lisette blushing hotly.

After a time, Lisette could not have said how long it was for she was floating high above and away from all mortal concerns, she noticed that the men were leading Geraint away. She found herself staring vaguely at his chair, wondering where he had gone, when she realized she was surrounded by twittering ladies trying to pull her up from her comfortable spot. Lisette wanted to resist. She was sleepy, she didn’t want to have to stand up, it was too much effort. She just wanted to lay her head down on the table and close her eyes. But the hands persisted.

The cooler, fresher air of the corridors away from the Hall revived Lisette somewhat. She realized, with a jolt that rammed a cold lump of nausea into her stomach, that she was being led away to the marriage bed for the ritual bedding of the bride and groom.

Her mother’s face swarmed into her field of vision and Lisette tried desperately to explain that it was all a mistake but she could force no coherent words from her mouth. Sometime later she found herself clutching Aunt Agnes by the shoulders, using her for support, while unseen, fluttering hands undid the lacings of her garments.

"It’s all right, dear one," Agnes was saying. "Relax and in time you’ll even come to enjoy it."

"Don’t lie to the girl," a sour voice said and laughter rippled around Lisette.

"Not enjoy it with your husband, you mean, eh?" a high voice teased and more laughter sounded. It hurt Lisette’s ears.

Stiff linen was pulled over her head and her hair was unbound. Virgin white and loose hair for the last time, she thought dully. Lisette felt ill. The wine was not sitting well. All she wanted was to lay down and close her eyes, and stop the room from spinning so madly about her.

Led down another paneled hallway lined with laughing, joking men and women, Lisette gulped repeatedly and searched frantically for a place to vomit.

"Really," she managed to get out in a hoarse whisper, "It’s important that…"

"Here we are!" Her mother’s voice cried out.

They entered the bedchamber, her parent’s own, Lisette’s fuzzy mind noted. It was full of people all drinking and chattering. The candlelight was too bright. Lisette winced.

Upon the high bed, in a new white nightshirt that matched her own nightgown, Geraint reclined against the mounds of pillows. His face was expressionless but his eyes, seeming to Lisette to be unnaturally bright, followed her as she was led across the room.

More wine was poured, more toasts raised. Lisette swayed between the women surrounding her. Then her outer robe was removed from her leaving her in only her nightgown. She was led around to the empty side of the bed where she mounted the steps up to the high platform unsteadily.

Settled in beneath the scented sheets (damnable rose petals again, she gagged), Lisette was grateful to be lying down. The room still tilted and moved unpleasantly but she need no longer try to stay upright. She slumped back against the pillows and endured yet another round of toasts and vile banter. The guests began chanting for a kiss. As though to silence the demanding taunts, Geraint leaned toward Lisette. His dry, close-lipped kiss just missed her mouth. His lips were hot and as stiff and unyielding as his expression. Oh, how she wished it was a different man, her betraying, intoxicated mind cried.

At long, long last the final peeping eye was off of them and the bedchamber door closed. Only the flickering glow of the low fire in the hearth remained. They were alone, alone as husband and wife. Sitting stiffly upright, Lisette gulped. This was it. Some portion of herself readied itself in willing anticipation of this very important moment, even as another cringed in fear and reluctance. Soon she’d know the physical love of a husband and wife. She’d be a true wife, a full, adult woman.

Moistening her lips, Lisette prepared a smile and turned toward Geraint. His eyes were closed. Geraint’s mouth lolled open and a long snore escaped. Lisette stared, at once hurt and relieved. She fell asleep to the crackle of the fire and the rhythmic snores of her husband.

In the shelter of the open airlock, Ashur peered out at the impenetrable dark, listened to the unending splatter of rain, and shivered. His attempt at fire making had been an abysmal failure, the wet wood resisting even the laser torch he’d used on it. Cursing his fortunes, Ashur wished he believed in God so he could blame Him for his troubles. It must be such a comfort to the faithful to have a deity with whom to be angry. At least the universe was being consistent in its dealings with him. No brief hope was offered him without it being thoroughly smashed a short while later.

The stallion snorted and stamped its feet, startling Ashur for a moment. Not certain what wild beasts inhabited the woods of Renaissance England, he was wary of all strange sounds. There were no mortality safeguards in this game. Ashur had certainly not made a friend of that obstinate horse today. At least he’d managed to get the saddle off and a long lead to tie it to a tree so it could graze. In the faint light spilling from the airlock, Ashur watched the shape of the horse as it fell to cropping the tall grass in the tiny clearing near where his ship had come to rest. It was a pleasant little meadow, one he knew from his dreams, dreams of a dancing nymph…

Ashur mentally shrugged. He must have gotten a look at the place when he left the ship, though he could not consciously remember it. No mystical connection to Lisette, no prophecy of some wondrous affair between them that was somehow part of cosmic destiny… just the concoction of his brain putting together existing data in a new pattern. And Lisette was married now to android boy, married as she was, no doubt, historically meant to be. They’d live the pitifully short lifespans allotted wretches here and now, have a dozen kids, be remembered — if at all — in the future as faceless names in a genealogy fading into a lost and forgotten portion of history. And Ashur, he was going to die in that history, unseen, unknown, unrecorded. He would never leave this place, of that he was now certain. He’d not been able to change the ordained path of this present, to stop Lisette’s wedding. He wouldn’t be able to return to his time, nor any time in between and change what was, what would be, done. He couldn’t affect the course of time, past, present or future, for this ship would never fly again. It was a hopeless wreck.

Ashur glanced behind him into the dark interior, lit only dimly by the sole pocket lamp in the poorly equipped emergency kit. The hull, a titanium alloy, was crumpled and torn open. No sixteenth century village smithy was going to provide the means to repair it. Even in the shipyards of his time this wouldn’t be repaired, but scrapped as a hopeless wreck.

So badly damaged was the ship that Ashur couldn’t get power to any system. No chance the emergency beacon had given his location to either friend or foe, it hadn’t come on, didn’t work.

Ashur put his head in his hands and indulged in a few minutes of pure, unadulterated self-pity. This had not been a good day.

He sighed and lifted his head. Well, that hadn’t helped. At least, he consoled himself, there were clothes in the ship that made him feel normal again. They were dry and warm and had not a single skirt or lacy frill amongst them. The fabric, of a type that wouldn’t exist on Earth for another seven hundred years, kept him warm when warmth was needed and cool when that was needed. The ship’s emergency food supplies, on the other hand, bore the same resemblance to the sumptuous feast Agnes laid out as the end product of that horse over there did to a rose. Still, hunger made him open another self-heating package. The neatly sealed packets of water were good, at least. No worries about deadly whatevers in them unlike English water. Ashur found he savored a simple drink of water immensely after the weeks of nothing but thick, odd-tasting ale and unaged wine.

"Oh, Lisette, Lisette…" Ashur moaned and was, himself, surprised that those words came out of him. He hadn’t even been thinking about her, had he? He’d been thinking about his predicament and all he’d never see again. What was it about this girl out of a history book that so infected his soul that he couldn’t toss her off and forget about her as he had done with dozens before her? Maybe he craved the unattainable. Yes, that might be it. Like King Henry the Eighth had with his second wife, the one he beheaded… Anne Boleyn, that was her name. No, wait… That hadn’t happened yet. This was 1518 and those events many years in the future. He’d have to watch it, be extremely careful not to make offhand comments. If only he could power up the ship’s computers to look up…

"Baby!" he cried aloud.

Ashur leaped up, snatched the small light and dived back into the black, smashed interior. It took him several minutes to find, for everything had been tossed about upon impact. Yes… his old portable A.I. unit would still work. Its power cell was guaranteed for the lifetime of the owner. Laughing to himself, Ashur wondered if the manufacturer would honor a thousand year claim.

He unfolded the tiny device. It was smaller and lighter, he noticed, than the single volume of Canterbury Tales he’d been reading at Agnes’ house. Ashur examined the smooth, featureless surfaces critically. It might cause curiosity, but nothing that would get him burnt or sent to the Inquisitors. And it wouldn’t activate for just anyone, no fear of some nosy servant turning it on by accident and thinking it was some tool of the devil. No, it activated only for Ashur’s DNA pattern and no one else’s unless he reprogrammed it to accept another person, and that seemed profoundly unlikely.

The familiar device was oddly soothing to hold. Something known in an alien world, it was. He pressed his thumb to the lower right corner of the screen, just to see it light up with its friendly glow.

"Hello, Ashur," the friendly voice intoned.

"Hello, Baby," he answered. Maybe it was an odd name for an Artificial Intelligence unit, but she was as little and bubblingly friendly as a baby. His brother Barton had tormented him unmercifully about it, thereby guaranteeing that Ashur obstinently wouldn’t change the A.I.’s name.

He thought it would be nice to hear a voice from home, from his world and his time, but the computer voice sounding softly into the sixteenth century night filled him with an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Feeling as if he were drowning, Ashur thumbed off the device and tossed it away from him, back into the dark ship. Hugging his knees to his chest, Ashur stared, unseeing, out into the blackness and wished he knew how to cry.

"I have something."

"What is it?" the voice was eager in a way that would make any normal man cringe as from the growl of a dangerous carnivore.

"A power signature." He bent closer to his screens, working the controls rapidly. The ship in its polar, ‘orange slice’ orbit came up into sunlight as it neared the north pole. "Blast it," he said. "I had it for just a moment, somewhere in the nightside. Northwestern Europe it looks like. Either it went off or we went out of range. Lost the signal."

"Any chance it was a naturally occurring event… or one the natives could have produced?"

He shook his head savagely. "No. Not a chance. It was a power type centuries beyond anything this era’s technology could produce. It’s him. It’s Ashur. It has to be."

"Change our orbit. Put us over Europe. We’ll get him. We’ll get the bastard."