Gallie and I return to the grove of trees under which we’d appeared. “So, on a positive note,” she says, “we achieved our mission.” Her smile isn’t real.
“They were pretty useless,” I say. “They don’t have a clue what’s going on.”
“Yup. I did expect more.”
“And they’re free to roam. Didn’t you think they’d be confined somehow?”
“They are. A time prison is pretty airtight. And if they do summon the guts to wander off, they can only screw up the timeline even more. A good strategy for a time vandal, right?” We look at the mansion and the gaggle of guards surrounding it.
“I think the answers are in there,” I say. Gallie pulls off her ribboned hat, her hair falls onto her shoulders, and she scratches her forehead.
“Even if the answers aren’t in there,” she says, “I’ll be willing to bet that our accelerators are.”
“I’m not a violent man,” I say, “but what I’d give for one of those handguns right now.”
“You’d go in blazing?” She’s smirking. I motion you have a better plan?
“The town. Maybe we can learn something about who’s in the house.”
“Did you see Andersen?”
“He walked into eighteenth century Leatown wearing twenty-first century clothing, talking with a weird accent and saying God knows what. Hell, I’d beat him up.” Gallie lifts her skirt, rips something, and coins fall to the ground. I raise my eyebrows.
“What else do you have in there?”
“You’ll find out,” she replies.
TWENTY-SEVEN
After sunset Gallie and I walk down the wagon-rutted track toward Leatown. Looking around us at the meadows and trees in the twilight we could be in any era, any year. A few buildings–maybe farmhouses–come into view. We walk on, cross a ridge and Leatown comes into view. It’s a disappointment. Maybe I was expecting historic Williamsburg, but what I got was a ramshackle collection of small, slapdash buildings, positioned without logic and composed mainly of vertical wooden planks. There’s one brick building that may be a church and there’s no outside lighting other than what spills from windows onto the uneven, dusty ground. There are people walking between buildings, stopping to talk, laughing. A knot of soldiers in bright red uniforms and carrying muskets are standing around a water pump as one of them stoops to drink from it. The red makes them British if the movies are accurate. We pause to take a breath, then with the agreement of a glance, we descend the slope to the town. The details of our plan stop here, except for finding someone who can inform us and doing it without being maimed or killed.
A woman in a billowing, dirty white dress and tight bodice approaches us. “Hello darlin’. Haven’t seen you before,” she says to me through speckled teeth, ignoring Gallie. “You look like someone who could ‘andle two of us, me cocksparrer.” Gallie pulls me away.
“She did have a solid point,” I say.
“Maybe you two can hook up later,” she says and then nods toward one of buildings. There are men gathered outside its open door, smoke is billowing from its windows, and it’s where the singing is coming from. “An ale house? Looks to me like a good start. You ready for this?”
We walk over and slip sideways past the men in the doorway, smelling their beery breath and feeling their eyes burning laser-like into me. Inside it’s a riot of smoke, smells, noise and sardine-packed humanity. Woman are circulating, squeezing through the throng to pour ale from stoneware pitchers into the awaiting tankards. The tables are packed with men shouting, laughing, puffing on pipes, breaking into song, and stopping only to guzzle. In the corner there’s a table of British soldiers, of low rank I’d guess seeing their disheveled uniforms, who are laughing and shouting no less loudly than anyone else. Other than the servers, I can see maybe a handful of women in the entire place, probably colleagues of the lady we had just encountered. We find the one empty table and sit. A beer maiden walks up and surveys us with some suspicion. Are we doing something wrong?
“Two ales,” I say and put coins on the table. She stares. We’re already busted, I think. I guess no one says ‘two ales’ and puts coins on a table. That’s a clear sign of a twenty-first century visitor is it? But then she picks up two of the coins, briefly disappears and returns to slam down two tankards in front of us. I take a mouthful and wince. Gallie is scanning the place and I look behind me. We’re next to a table of rowdy young guys, each outshouting the other. Then the shouting mutates seamlessly into song.
A lusty young smith at his vice stood afilling
His hammer laid by but his forge still aglow
When to him a buxom young damsel came smiling ...
I don’t know this song but I swing my tankard and mouth random words as if I do. Gallie grins. After a couple of verses, I feel I’m fitting in. I laugh when they laugh. I shout when they shout. I disapprove when they disapprove. Then in a moment of relative quiet the reveler closest to me leans in. This is it, I think.
“Ain’t seen you before,” he says. His skin is sun-browned and pocked, and his eyes are cold blue.
“No, visiting from Philadelphia,” I reply. I try to affect a strange accent but this logic is flawed as there are many varieties of strange, and all probably strange to each other. Yet my answer seems to satisfy him.
“Ain’t seen ‘er neither,” he says, looking at Gallie. I look at her as if that’ll help prompt my memory. By then he has turned back to his mates to answer an insult. The singing starts again
