After the Storm (36 page)

Medieval World," she told him. "How many people have you seen die since you got here? Are you enjoying the mud? The accommodations? You look like you've lost a few pounds, so the cuisine must agree with you." His eyes narrowed dangerously. Libby figured she was about to get hit again, but she couldn't stop needling him. This was the man responsible for putting Sebastian through hell. She wished she had something more lethal than words to use on him. "How about the lawlessness, Hemmons? No, you probably do enjoy that part."

He didn't hit her. He smiled, and that was worse. "What are you babbling about, woman?"

"You're the one who wanted to turn the past into a theme park. You've been living here for the last six months, haven't you? Has it been fun?"

The smile turned nasty. "Some of it has. Especially the lawlessness." Now he hit her. "There's a certain satisfaction in being as unpleasant as I like to anyone I like."

"Anyone smaller and weaker than he is," Sikes interjected. "He's a nasty little rat, my lady," the outlaw went on while Hemmons glared at him. "You better learn to mind your manners with him."

Libby was actually rather appreciative of the man's advice. She didn't suppose he'd interfere in anything Hemmons might do, but he was thoughtful enough to give her the warning. "Do you work for him?" she asked Sikes.

"As long as he has gold to pay me," was the answer. "And he always seems to have more gold."

Berthild returned then, with a loaf of dark bread and a wooden cup filled with ale. She shook her head sadly when she saw the marks on Libby's face, but she didn't protest. Instead the older woman helped her sit on the tapestry-covered Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

lump and handed her the cup. Libby drained it quickly, before she could actually taste it, and then took the bread. Libby stuffed the food down, since she was ravenous. She would have begged for more, but Hemmons was pacing agitatedly in front of her and she thought it was best to get her attention back on her captor.

"What?" she asked as he scowled down at her.

"Aren't you going to ask? Aren't you interested in how I outsmarted your old man? Don't you want to know why?"

Libby had some pretty good ideas about how Hemmons had gotten into the past.

She already knew why, but he seemed to crave an audience. He wanted to brag about the brilliance that was Elliot Hemmons. He was acting like a bad movie villain, the kind that gloated over their victims just long enough for them to work free of their bonds and take the villain captive in turn. She'd always hated that sort of plot! device. Resides, she wasn't getting out of these manacles anytime soon. The best she could hope for at the moment was for Bas to show up and save the day. Personally, she had infinite confidence that he could prevail against an entire camp full of bad guys. Sebastian, however, was sensible to his core, and did not share her taste in movies. Oh, well, he'd think of something.

Meanwhile, she gazed steadily at Hemmons and said, "I'd very much like to know how you got yourself stranded in the past." Since she and Hemmons were speaking English she didn't think anything he told her would mean anything to Sikes and Berthild. So at least she wouldn't be breaking any non-disclosure rules.

"Wouldn't you like to know how many people I've got on your father's staff?"

"None anymore," she answered. "Or you could have gotten back through the Downs timegate."

He laughed. "That's where you're wrong. I didn't go back because I didn't want to. Not yet. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. I was sick of all the legal Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

maneuverings to get at the technology your father developed. How he got the government to agree to letting him own his own patents I'll never understand.

Suffice it to say, David Wolfe has Time Search too neatly locked up for me to take over."

"Not that you haven't tried."

He ignored her. "So I was very interested when Mark Warin came to me with information about the Bailey TDD. He said it would open up all of time instead of the puny two hundred-year window Wolfe's device can cover." He made an expansive gesture. "All of time. The possibilities are endless. The profits will be staggering. I knew I had to control the TDD, so I bought it from Warin."

"You bought—" Libby's indignation was boundless, as much as Hemmons's greed and stupidity. "It wasn't exactly Warin's to sell."

"But he got it for me." Hemmons patted the tapestry-draped object she was perched on. "He contacted Sikes and arranged the diversion. He brought me through the Lilydrake timegate while the rest of you were drugged."

"Why risk coming back yourself?"

He laughed. "I'd been wanting to time travel for the last twenty years. I wasn't going to miss the chance to be in on this."

"And you didn't completely trust Mark Warin," she guessed.

"Warin's an eggheaded, netsurfing computer dweeb. He means well, but his mind's not in the real world."

"Neither is the rest of him," Libby said. "Not anymore. He's dead."

Hemmons did not look grieved, he looked angry. "Damn. I needed that fool.

What I really needed was Bailey. We should have just killed the others in their sleep and taken you and Bailey hostage, but Warin told me that wouldn't be necessary. Warin said he could complete the work without Bailey."

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

"Apparently, he was wrong."

"That's for damn sure. The plan was to make it look like an outlaw attack, and that the injuries from Warin's sabotage would make it look like the effects of the TDD were too dangerous to continue its development. Bailey was not supposed to get out alive. The 'accident' was supposed to give me the ammunition to get the project scrapped by Time Search while I went ahead with the real thing."

"So what you did to Joe and Ed and Bas and me was just a policy decision?"

Her words had been seething with anger and sarcasm, but he took no notice of either. "Essentially," He cast a glare at the indifferent Sikes. "The locals destroyed the timegate when they plundered the hall. Warin wasn't as clever with Bailey's machine as he thought."

"Why didn't you use the Downs gate? You'd have been retrieved if you'd used the emergency signal."

Hemmons's laughter filled the cave for a long time. When he stopped, he wiped moisture from his eyes and looked at her as though she was the stupidest thing he'd ever seen. "Warin suggested that a few times. I vetoed it. I wasn't going to go begging to David Wolfe. A little inconvenience back here is worth more than spoiling all my plans."

"Not to mention the jail term all those plans would get you back in our time." He nodded. So, he'd lied about having people on Time Search staff that would sneak him back to the future. She smiled, but didn't point out the man's prevarication to him. "I see your point in not using the authorized channels to go home. But how were you hoping to get back?"

"This."

He twitched back the covering. Libby scooted off from where she was sitting.

The device looked to be imbedded in a solid rock casing, but she recognized Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

some of the indicators and circuitry and bells and whistles of Sebastian's time machine. This contraption looked like a high-tech gargoyle.

"Very nice. Blends in with the decor."

"Warin's been working on it for months," Hemmons went on. "Made progress, too, with what little he's been able to worm out of Bailey. If Bailey didn't think he was Robin Hood the work would go even faster." He gave her a very nasty sneer. "Too bad your husband's completely insane."

"He's not," Libby said hotly. "He's got his memory back." She could tell her hasty defense of Bas had been a mistake the moment she spoke.

Hemmons's eyes lit up with a very feral glow. "Oh, really?" he asked, and grabbed hold of the chain that bound her.

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

Chapter 20

"By
Saint Thomas
, Bas, you gave me a fright!"

Bas had climbed a tree when he'd heard the three men coming, and dropped out of it behind them as they'd passed. They'd whirled at the sound of him landing and stiffened with alarm at the sight of the arrow he had aimed at them. Cynric had recognized him within a heartbeat, and very nearly shouted the words he'd just spoken.

Odda and Harald relaxed visibly, but Cynric remained alert. "You can lower that arrow, lad."

His aim didn't waver. "Whose men are you? Mine or Sikes's?"

Cynric laughed, the others joined him. "Whose do you think?"

"Thai's no answer."

"We follow you, Bas. None of us have women or babes to worry about," Cynric told him. "So we had no reason to turn to him for protection when you sent the others."

"Then what are you doing patrolling the perimeter of his campsite?"

"Looking for you," Odda spoke up. He gave a gap-toothed grin. "But you found us first."

"That's why he's the leader," Cynric told the others. They nodded in agreement.

"Now that we know where he dwells, what do we do about him, Bastien?"

Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

Bas slowly relaxed the tension on the bowstring, then put the arrow back in his quiver. He flexed his left arm, glad to know that he could shoot with it if he must, and equally glad he wouldn't have to use it yet.

"Sikes has Lady Isabeau," he told his men. "I've come to get her back." No need to try to explain the truth of the situation.

The men looked at each other, then back at him. Cynric spoke for them, "You plan to rescue her?"

"I do."

Cynric looked thoughtful. "For ransom? Or do you plan to marry her?"

Bas didn't know if the old outlaw was more interested in matchmaking, or if Cynric was longing to rest his old bones around the winter fire at Lilydrake. Not that it mattered. "We're already married," Bas answered.

Cynric gave a cackling laugh. He clapped Bas on the shoulder. "Well, you've had a busy few days, haven't you, lad? Then it's a proper rescue we need to plan.

What do we do, Bas?"

"Can four men take Sikes's camp?"

Cynric laughed. "No."

"I didn't think so." He shrugged. "I suppose I'll just have to walk in and claim my property back from the old bandit."

"Aye, you can walk in. But will he let you walk out?"

Sebastian walked into Sikes's camp alone. Sentries had tried to stop him, but without success, and without having time to shout out any warnings. He came under cover of darkness with a load of firewood in his arms and a hood pulled up to shield his face. He walked stooped over like any tired peasant eager for his meal and a place at the fire. That his bow and quiver were slung on his back was Sizemore, Susan - After the Storm

no different from any other man in the outlaw camp, either. Sikes had many men, and they all went armed. He'd left his quarterstaff with Cynric to mind for he couldn't manage it and the wood, but he still had the dagger at his belt. He reasoned that his best weapon was the cover of night.

No one took notice of him when he left his load of sticks at the first fire he reached and moved deeper into the campsite. The place was more like a bustling village than the temporary, easily abandoned sites of hovels and firepits where he'd lived with his own band. Sikes's village covered much of a clearing between a small stream and a rise of low hills. There were cattle pens, vegetable patches, a smithy and storage sheds; rows of tents and huts were intersected by well-worn paths. It looked like Sikes had built himself quite a prosperous little fief in the hardest-to-reach stretch of the king's forest.

Bas moved cautiously through it, intent on finding where his wife was being held and trying not to attract any attention. The darkness and the hood and the dinner hour helped. People glanced his way as he moved from one patch of firelight to the next, but no one stopped him. Gradually he moved out of the main part of the camp and toward the path that led up the hill.

When he looked up and saw the cave mouth that made a gash in the side of the chalky slope he decided he'd found the right spot. A fire was lit outside the mouth of the cave, and two men armed with spears stood before the blaze. It was the presence of the guards that told him there was something valuable inside.