Old Sarum was originally built around an ancient Iron-Age hillfort, but it got too crowded, and they moved the city about a thousand years before I got there. The original site was a tourist attraction, and the Knights had left it alone. But the farmlands around it had been developed and built up over time, and then the Knights appropriated the entire area as their English headquarters.
I played tourist and visited the old fort. After wandering around for an hour or so, I went looking for the building where Oriel was supposed to be.
A receptionist told me that the meeting was still in session, but that it would be letting out shortly. I went outside and lurked in an alley. Oriel came out about twenty minutes later.
I didn’t expect him to go to the bus stop, and I was correct. He hated public transportation. So, I followed him until he traveled beyond the buildings, crossed a road, and hopped over a fence. He obviously planned to walk across the fields and through nature as much as possible rather than going through the city.
I circled around, jogging for the most part, trying to reach a line of trees bordering the field before he did. When I got there, I slipped between the trees and hid, waiting for him.
Just as I was gathering myself to ambush him, a voice from behind me—close enough to touch—said, “Do you really think you can hide from a Fae in a woodland?”
I about jumped out of my skin, whirling around, and found him an arm’s length away, grinning at me.
Looking over my shoulder, I saw the other Oriel, who had been walking toward me, fade away.
“Even mages can be fooled by illusions,” he said, pulling me into his arms and kissing me.
After spending half an hour or so saying hello, we adjusted our clothing and resumed our walk into Salisbury.
“So, you have three days of leave?”
“Yeah. This is day one. Three days, two nights, since I have to catch the bus back and go on duty at sunrise the next morning.”
“Where are you staying?”
“No idea. My chevalier gave me the names of a couple of hotels.” I told him what they were.
“The first one is cheap, but the second one is nicer,” he said, “and larger. Easier for me to slip in and out discreetly.”
“Karl said for us to be very discreet. He told me to maintain a parishioner-to-priest relationship.”
“Oh, I agree.” Oriel changed his glamour, morphing into a Knight in a chevalier’s uniform. “I think this would probably be more appropriate for taking you to dinner.”
“What about my reputation?”
“Honey, this place isn’t much different from any other military town. The debauching is just a little quieter. I’ll bet my corvette that virginity is as common as teetotaling among the young Knights in Salisbury.”
Considering how full the pubs were that evening, it didn’t appear that too many of the Knights were abstaining from drink. Oriel had chosen his glamour well. I saw a lot of chevaliers and standard-bearers dining with young female Knights.
After dinner, we went back to my hotel, entered through a side door and climbed the back stairs to my room. It was almost dawn before he left and I finally got some sleep.
Chapter 19
By mutual agreement, Oriel and I didn’t plan to see each other during the rest of my leave. He had things to do, both for the resistance and to maintain his priestly disguise. And I wanted to get a better picture of what was considered normal for a Knight sergeant on leave.
Due to my late start on the day, I was lucky to find a pub that was still serving a full English breakfast at noon. I hadn’t considered that a young female Knight dining alone would be noticeable. But when I did attract the attention of several tables of young men, I looked around and saw that I was the only woman sitting alone. All the others were either with men or with at least one other woman.
I still didn’t think much about it until I paid my bill and left, only to find that I was followed by three Knights—a sergeant and two corporals. A couple of catcalls made it clear that it wasn’t coincidence and that they had started drinking early. I ignored them.
A tour through the market square followed by a trip to view the inside of the cathedral didn’t shake them. One corporal even tailed me into the church, and when I exited through a side door, they soon picked up my trail again.
Not knowing the city well, I made the mistake of going west past the museum and away from the center of town. The next thing I knew, I found myself facing the Avon River, with trees behind me blocking the view from the street a couple of hundred feet away. I turned and saw the three young Knights spread out to corral me.
“May I help you, boys?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” the sergeant said. “I think you can help an itch I have.”
I put my hand on my sword. “You really don’t want to do this.”
One of the corporals licked his lips. “Yeah, I really do. Now, just be a good girl. We’re not going to hurt you.”
My sword cleared its sheath, and the sergeant laughed. As they drew closer, I could tell, both from the insignia on their uniforms and by my senses, that they were mages. Obviously, they thought they would shield and easily take me down.
I backed up until I felt a tree trunk at my back, then drew a rune in the air and said a Word. A witch might not be able to shield, but she could ward. The tree provided both the magic and the anchor for the ward.
“Sorry, boys, but you’re going to have to find your sport elsewhere. And I suggest that you should sober up first, unless you want a trip to the brig.”
The sergeant—a large, blonde man—laughed. “No one is going to take your word against three of us. Everyone knows that descendants of Eve are temptresses.”
He threw a blast of energy at my ward, attempting to take it down. When it held, the other two sent balls of white energy at me. In response, I drew ley line energy and strengthened the ward. I figured that as long as I didn’t do anything offensive, they wouldn’t be able to tell I was tapping the ley line.
They tried another assault that I withstood. Then a man walked out of the trees behind them and yelled. My attackers turned and saw him. After a few moments, they took off running away.
The man who had interrupted their fun approached me. He was wearing a Knight’s uniform, and as he drew closer, I saw that he was considerably older than the other men. His hair was graying at the temples, and making an adjustment for him being a mage, I estimated he must be well past a hundred years old. The rank insignia on his shoulders identified him as an Under-Marshal.
“What is going on here?” he asked in German-accented English.
“Some of your men have a hard time taking no for an answer,” I replied. I dissolved the ward and sheathed my sword.
He turned to look in the direction my assailants had fled, then back to me. “Do you know them?”
“Never saw them before. They followed me from the pub where I had breakfast. All I know is one was a sergeant, the other two corporals, and they all were mages.”
He took in the witch symbol interwoven with the cross on my chest.
“It is disgraceful. May I escort you back to a safer area?”
“Thank you.”
Reinhard Muller turned out to be the under-marshal in charge of security of the Salisbury region, including the Sarum area where I was stationed. In our conversation, I mentioned that I was new to my posting and that the only person I really knew was Chaplain Conway.
He brightened. “I have met the chaplain and find him delightful, a fellow student of history. We have dined together and I enjoy our discussions. I shall mention that we met.”
Along the way, he gave me a mild lecture on keeping safe and outlined the layout of the city—areas I should stick to and those I should avoid.
“Unfortunately,” he said as he dropped me off at the market square, “our Order shares some of the problems of other militaries. Young men will be young men. You really shouldn’t be out alone, especially at night.”
“Yes, I see that. I’ll try to be careful, but being new here, I don’t have any friends to go out with.”
He bowed slightly. “Then, in that case, I cannot, in all honor, allow you to go out unaccompanied. Where are you staying?”
“The Wayfarer’s Inn,” I said. “It looks more like a chain hotel than an inn, though.”
He chuckled. “I shall call for you for dinner at seven this evening.” He walked away, and I stood staring after him with my mouth hanging open.
I found a phone box and called Karl.
“What’s up?” he said after I identified myself.
“I had a problem today with some drunk young Knights who thought I might offer them a bit of sport.”
“Oh, God, you didn’t kill them, did you?”
I chuckled. How does a girl clean up her reputation when so many idiots are running around loose in the world?
“No, they aren’t even mildly traumatized. But I did meet Under-Marshal Reinhard Muller, and he asked me to dinner. He said he knows you.”
“Yes, he does. Charming gentleman, rather old school. He could be an excellent source, since he’s one of the top security officers in the country. But be careful, Erin. He does have a reputation as a ladies’ man.”
“What do you know about his magic?”
“An aeromancer. He’s also an experienced combat commander. I think he was involved with that fiasco in Germany last winter. The one near Munich. I know that he fought the Nazis in the Balkans during World War II.”
I thought about what else I might ask. “Do you think he’ll try to come back to my hotel room?”
“I doubt it. He has a house in a neighborhood north of the cathedral. From what I’ve seen, high-ranking officers prefer the comforts of their own quarters.”
I thanked him and hung up. If I had still been working for the Illuminati, I wouldn’t have thought twice about seducing Muller. Men often talked more than they should to the women they bedded, and what I could learn from him was tempting. Oriel wouldn’t even blink. He had the Fae’s contempt for what he called ‘the human conceit of sexual fidelity,’ which he had expounded on more than one occasion.