The rushes on the floor were exactly the sort described in household accounts I’d catalogued, layered with dried herbs worked through them and smelled like they’d been recently changed. The iron sconces were hand-forged. The tapestrieshanging on the walls held colors so vivid they made my fingers itch with the desperate urge to examine them properly. The trestle tables showed the grain of oak polished smooth by generations of use.
I wanted my cotton gloves, my camera, and eight uninterrupted hours and permission to lose my mind over the fact that I was standing inside a genuine thirteenth-century great hall.
Focus, Harper.
You are about to be interrogated by men who can legally kill you.
This is not the time to admire the ceiling joists.
Geoffrey stood near one of the windows, positioned just slightly apart from the others in a way that suggested he didn’t entirely want to be counted among my interrogators. I held onto the sight of him with an embarrassing intensity. He was the only person in this castle who’d shown anything approaching uncertainty about whether I deserved immediate execution.
The Baron smiled at me like he was about to explain a joke I wouldn’t enjoy.
“Tell us,” he said, “what you know about the charter.”
My mind, which had spent the last four days constructing possible explanations for my presence in 1215, hit a wall.
“The charter?” I repeated.
“The Great Charter,” one of the other men said. Younger than the Baron, cold-eyed, with the careful voice of someone who probably enjoyed causing pain. “The one the barons are drafting at Runnymede. The one that will bind the king.”
My mouth went dry.
So this really was 1215. Not simply 1215 in some vague historical sense, but close to Runnymede. Before the Magna Carta. Before King John would be forced to sign it. The reality ofmy situation, hit me like a wrecking ball, to quote a singer from my own time.
I was standing in a room full of medieval men who were about to participate in one of the single most important political moments in English history.
“I don’t know anything about a charter,” I said carefully. “I’m not local so I don’t follow politics.”
“You’re from somewhere,” the Baron said, leaning forward. “Somewhere you possess knowledge of things that have not yet happened. Someone who claims to have traveled over eight hundred years through time should be expected to have opinions on what was happening at her moment of arrival.”
I thought about this very carefully, wishing I’d kept my big mouth shut, and had come up with some story about being a widow set upon by bandits. But no, I had to go and tell the truth.
They were right that I had knowledge. I could probably recite large sections of the Magna Carta from memory. I could explain how the charter would evolve through later reissues, which clauses survived, which vanished, how the entire arc of constitutional law stretched outward from this exact historical moment.
I could also absolutely get myself executed for witchcraft if I sounded too much like a medieval fortune-teller.
“The charter will succeed,” I heard myself say.
Immediately, every survival instinct in my body screamed.
No. Bad. Stop talking.
“I mean,” I continued quickly, “political movements generally have outcomes. That’s not prophecy. That’s just understanding cause and effect.”
“But you know about this one specifically,” the Baron pressed. “How?”
“I don’t,” I said, then immediately ruined everything. “I know about Runnymede because every student of history knows aboutRunnymede. I know that in mid June the king will be forced to accept a charter limiting his power. I know it becomes one of the most important political documents in human history.”
Silence spread across the hall.
The sort of silence that made the back of my neck prickle.
The Baron rose slowly from his chair.
“You know the exact date,” he said. “The exact location. You know what will happen and when. You know the king will surrender.”
“I—”