The people were preparing for war. That was the part that ended the last of my film-set theory.
Nobody wandered around waiting for someone to shout action. Men tested bowstrings, checked spearheads, and carriedshields from one building to another. Two boys rolled barrels toward a larger timber hall. Women hurried between houses with sacks of grain, wrapped bundles, clay jars, and baskets of food.
An older man led three cows toward the trees while a girl drove geese after him with a stick and the expression of someone who’d already had quite enough of the invasion.
Children stayed close to the adults. I knew those looks. They were watching the grown-ups to decide how frightened they should be.
This wasn’t a village that had never seen danger. These people knew exactly what armed men could do. They were moving food, hiding livestock, gathering weapons, and watching the roads.
The realization settled cold in my stomach. They knew. They’d done this before. Perhaps not the Normans pouring out of the sea with enough horses and weapons to swallow a kingdom, but war wasn’t new to them. Raids weren’t new. Armed men turning up to take what they wanted certainly weren’t new.
And here I was, standing above them in a dark blue waterproof jacket, wet jeans, and rubber-soled boots.
Lovely.
I couldn’t have stood out more if I’d arrived carrying a flashing sign reading WOMAN FROM THE FUTURE. POSSIBLY CURSED.
A goat near the lane lifted its head and stared at me.
“Don’t start.”
“That is far enough.”
The voice came from behind me.
Slowly, I turned with my hands raised, palms out.
A boy stood several paces away with a spear pointed at my stomach.
He couldn’t have been more than seventeen, all wrists and elbows, with fair hair hacked roughly around his ears and a face still deciding whether it belonged to a boy or a man.
Behind him stood a broad-shouldered woman with red, work-roughened hands. A little girl clung to her brown wool skirts. The woman wore a faded green gown over a lighter underdress, with a linen cloth covering most of her hair, though damp brown strands had escaped around a face made stern by fear rather than age.
I used my calm voice. The one I saved for smoke-filled kitchens, trembling civilians, and men who insisted they were perfectly fine while bleeding on my boots.
“I’m not going to hurt anyone.”
The spear wobbled but didn’t lower.
“You came from the trees,” the boy said.
“I did.”
The woman eyed my jacket. “In devil’s cloth.”
I looked down at myself.
“It’s not devil’s cloth. It’s...”
Waterproof nylon didn’t seem likely to improve matters. “Foreign.”
“Norman?”
“No.”
That came out with enough feeling to make the woman blink.
“Definitely not Norman.”