Page 45 of Wolf's Keep

“I have many ideas about Langeais based on the things I have learned about your time, though I could not attest to their accuracy.” Changes in language over the centuries had resulted in some very unusual phrases. He had come to understand many of them were not meant to be taken in a literal sense, but he could never be certain which ones. “Tell me of some of these changes?”

“Well,” she said, “for starters, there’s a substantial bridge crossing the Loire River, and there’s the fifteenth-century château. It’s huge, in a way that you couldn’t possibly comprehend. The ruins of Langeais Keep are a pimple on a pumpkin by comparison.”

He frowned. “A pimple on a pumpkin?” What an absurd expression. He waited for her explanation.

“It means tiny, hardly noticeable.”

Langeais Keep towered over the village of Langeais. How it could behardly noticeablebeside this château, he struggled to imagine. Perhaps he did have ‘no idea’. “I see. What else?”

“It’s a town full of really old buildings—houses, churches, the château—still standing after all those centuries. Being there, it’s easy to imagine you’re back in the past. Not as far back as this, but it’s like a slice of history preserved, and yet amongst it all is evidence of modern living. Houses with pitched roofs and gable windows lining streets where cars and trucks—those liquid powered vehicles I told you about—drive past their front doors. People exploring rooms of the château with its fifteenth-century furniture, wearing clothes like the ones I wore when I came here. Every morning, walking from my hotel to the keep, I would take a different path, exploring the streets. Where I come from, we have nothing quite like it. It’s a history lover’s dream.” She chuckled. “At least for me, anyway.”

“Each day you would leave this ‘hotel’ and go to Langeais Keep and dig in the dirt looking for things from the past to study?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“You enjoy this work?”

Her face took on a wistful cast. “Yeah, I do. Finding something, an artifact, a piece of history preserved, puzzling out what it means, how it fits into the lives of the people who owned it, I love it. It’s a snapshot of how they lived. For a brief moment, I’m transported back to their time, able to see, feel, touch their lives.”

She didn’t look at him as she spoke, staring out at the trees. He kept quiet, not willing to break the spell, lest she stop talking, stop sharing.

“I once thought I’d study art, but one day I skipped school and ended up at the museum. They had this visiting exhibition of medieval warfare, and I walked in there and saw swords, crossbows, chain mail all from the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It astonished me that something from so long ago had survived and had stood the test of time, as real and as solid as they were back then. I spent hours in there that day, totally absorbed in it, forgetting everything else, learning all I could about the pieces in the exhibit. I went back the next few days, too. The rest, as they say, is history.”

“And now you dig up pieces to go into collections such as these.”

“Exactly. Of course, I had to study a lot before I could do that, but I’ve worked on quite a few excavations since I graduated.”

“None of them quite like this one.”

She gave a rueful laugh. “No. No artifact has ever transported me back in time before. If I’d have known that would happen, I might’ve left the amulet where I found it.”

“Then you would never have experienced what you have.” And he would never have met her.

“No, I wouldn’t have.”

They rode along in companionable silence—the brook leading them out into a grassy meadow.

“Where did you find the amulet again?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Nice try, Gaharet. If I tell you everything you want to know, what reason would you have to disclose the information I need?”

“Mmm.” Intelligent woman. “Very well. Ask a question and I will answer it.” And he would, within reason.

The little line appeared between her eyebrows as she thought about it, chewing on her thumbnail. Would she ask about the amulet or something else? If she had read any of his ancestor’s journal, even those first few lines, she might have other questions. She could have made connections he was not ready for her to make. He wouldn’t lie to her, but he may need to be a little creative with the truth.

“What do you do with the amulet when you go out into the forest every night? Is there some ritual? Are you part of a sect, or a coven of witches? Do you follow the old religion?”

He suppressed a smile. She certainly had persistence. “I do nothing with the amulet. It has no ritual attached to it, save for the inscription that brought you here. I do not worship any of the old gods, nor do I belong to a coven.”

“You don’t deny that you go out into the forest every night?”

“Not at all. I do go into the forest every night. I like to go for a run. It’s peaceful at night and it helps me clear my mind.”

“Really? Naked?” She glanced up at him, color creeping up her neck to her cheeks. Giving in to her demand for reciprocal information was a small price to pay to see her like this. Her face was flushed and her green eyes glazed, that she recalled their first encounter written clear across her face.

He arched his eyebrows. “Have you ever tried running in armor?”

“No.” She laughed. “But one would assume you would at least wear clothes.”

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