Every Never After

  In that instant, the fish and chips Milo had so thoughtfully provided rolled over violently in Clare’s stomach and she bolted for the shop’s back entrance, took a hard left in the alleyway, and threw up in the bushes.

  15

  Marcus stared at Allie, and she could see the implications of what she’d just said sinking in. He turned and sat down heavily on a folding stool. “A … quarter of a century?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Give or take.”

  “My friends. My … family …” His mouth twisted in a bitter grimace and he shook his head slowly. “They must think I’m dead. Disappeared. Some of them are probably dead …”

  “I’m really sorry.” Allie didn’t know what else to say.

  “And you …” His gaze, full of dawning realization and dull hurt, drifted back to her face. “Who are you? And after all this time, why have you come only now to find me?”

  “If you want the honest truth, I didn’t come here for you. I didn’t actually mean to come here at all.” She shrugged apologetically and the manacles around her wrists clanked. “It was an accident. I hadn’t meant to find you. But … now that I have … maybe together we can find a way to go back.”

  “Back? Back to what?” he scoffed. “To a world I never really fit into in the first place and probably wouldn’t even recognize—let alone find a place for myself in—now? I’d be a walking anachronism. Obsolete. At least here, I belong. I have a place here. For as long as I’m likely to stay alive, that is. Which—with the way things have been going lately—should be another few weeks at least …”

  Allie felt her lower lip start to tremble again and, as hard as she tried, she couldn’t seem to keep the tears from welling in her eyes. Suddenly it hit her: she really hadn’t wanted this. And all that time she’d spent thinking she might be a tiny bit jealous of Clare and her adventures in the past …

  How stupid was that?

  The past was cold. It was uncomfortable. It was very possibly lethal. And all Allie wanted in that moment was to be home. Seeing how Marcus had reacted made her want it more than anything. She wanted to get the hell back to her own time and she didn’t care how she had to do it. She didn’t care if it meant leaving Mark O’Donnell behind.

  I don’t know him. I don’t owe him anything.

  He seemed perfectly, grimly happy to stay right where and when he was. If there was some way she could convince him to come along if—no, when—she made her return, then fine. Otherwise, Legionnaire Donatus was on his own. Of course, she wasn’t at all sure how it would come to pass. Especially since Marcus Donatus didn’t even seem particularly inclined to unchain her from the tent pole. Allie would have to play to his sympathetic side. Win him over. She decided to gamble on a tactic she thought might work.

  “You know … you wouldn’t be totally alone if you went back,” she said. “I mean … Maggie’s there. And she will totally lose her mind when she finds out you’re still alive—”

  His head snapped back as if she’d just slapped him.

  “Maggie …” he said, his mouth moving around the word as if he found it almost impossible to say. “Do you mean … Magda? Magda Wallace?”

  “Yes!” Allie nodded excitedly. “She’s … well, she’s been really upset about it. For years. She … um …”

  Allie stammered to a halt as she watched Mark/Marcus’s expression turn hard and cold. And angry. Then she remembered that Maggie and Stuart Morholt had been some kind of an item back in the day. It was entirely possible that Mark held her partly responsible for what had happened to him—

  “That bitch.”

  Okaaay … maybe not possible. Maybe definite.

  “Um,” Allie said again and swallowed nervously.

  As he glared at her, she found herself asking—out loud—just what the hell had happened to him to change him so much. To make him so cold. When he turned away from her she knew she’d pushed him one step too far. The question was barely out of Allie’s mouth before he was across the tent’s dirt floor and almost nose to nose with her. His teeth were bared again in that frightening grimace and the breath heaved in his lungs.

  “What happened to me?” he snarled between clenched teeth. “What happened to me? Look around you. This war happened to me. In this time, in this place. Those … things—demons—out there happened to me. I was fifteen years old. A child. I was ripped from my world, thrown into this one, and I almost died. I found myself in a place of savagery and sorcery and I. Almost. Died.” He spat the words. “And Magda Wallace stood by and let it happen and did nothing.”

  “I’m sorry …”

  “No more sorry than I am,” he said in a voice rough with emotion. “If she’s the kind of company you keep in your own time, then I don’t know that I want anything to do with you in mine.” He spun around and headed toward the tent flap.

  “Wait!” Allie couldn’t handle being left alone again, regardless of how terrible the present company was. “Maggie’s sorry, too. I know she’s sorry.”

  Marcus uttered a short, brutal laugh. “I’m sure she is. Did Stuart make her run all his errands for him after I disappeared? It must have been a great hardship.”

  “That’s not fair. I mean, yeah, Morholt’s like a complete tool, but it was Dr. Jenkins that set the whole thing up.”

  “Doctor …?”

  “Mags was just kind of along for the ride.” Allie kept talking, kept trying to explain. “And Stu is way too much of a doofus to actually make anything happen. Really. I mean, the guy’s a lame ass. And Maggie was devastated when you disappeared. She’s come back to Glastonbury every year. Just to mark the occasion. Even after all this time. She hasn’t forgotten you and—”

  Marcus silenced her with a smouldering glare. She was about to tell him he was more than welcome to take it out on Morholt— who was in the tent just down the way—but then she wondered if he even knew that. It didn’t seem as if he did. Allie’s brain whirled furiously, stacking up the pros and cons of telling Marcus that his hated former classman, the one he obviously blamed for his temporal misfortunes (no doubt rightfully so), was sitting in a filthy huddle not fifty yards away.

  But then a commotion erupted outside the tent. Allie could hear soldiers running and yelling and the centurion’s voice, braying like a mule, above it all.

  Suddenly the tent flap flew wide and the centurion’s helmeted head appeared in the opening. “He’s back,” he said to Marcus. “Postumus is awake! The wily old bastard is alive and well and back on his feet again.”

  The relief on Marcus’s face was palpable. And as the tension seemed to flow like water from him, Allie realized that it wasn’t just her presence in the camp that had set the young soldier’s nerves jangling. It was everything else that was happening, too. She could hardly blame him for being on hair-trigger response. The fact that he’d been only fifteen when he was thrust back in time—and an awkward, sheltered bookworm, by all accounts— was part of it too, but as he stood there beside the centurion, all leather and armour and hardened muscle, she could barely imagine him as that boy.

  Marcus grinned widely at the other man. “An hour ago you were calling him a coward.”

  The centurion grinned back. “An hour ago I thought he was as good as dead!”

  Marcus crossed to the wooden stand and reached for his helmet and sword belt. “Where is he?”

  “Headed straight for the mess tent. It’s nothing short of amazing—he’s full of fire. Wants to address the troops, assure the men, all that. And the cooks are setting a welcome table for him. You coming?”

  Marcus glanced back at Allie. “Go on. I’ll follow you shortly. I want to get cleaned up before I face the praefect again.”

  “Well. Don’t dawdle. You’ll miss all the best inspirational speeches.” Junius rolled his eyes and ducked back out of the tent.

  Marcus stalked back over to Allie and gazed at her intently, a wealth of unspoken emotions swimming behind his eyes. His gaze fixed upon the manacles circling her slende
r wrists. Allie had to bite her tongue from mentioning that she was only two years older than the “boy” he’d been when he’d gotten stuck back in this awful place …

  Girls mature faster than boys, she thought sourly. Just don’t tell him that …

  When he finally spoke again, the sharpness was gone from his tone.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “The praefect will want to question you at some point.”

  “You mean interrogate me.”

  Marcus hesitated. “Just … remember what I told you. He’ll need me to interpret for you, and I’ll try to help you as much as I can. But for heaven’s sake, don’t let on that you can understand him. Or that you can speak his language. All right? It’s the only way I’ll be able to keep you safe.”

  Allie nodded and kept her expression as neutral as possible. Like you actually care about my safety …

  “I’ll return soon.”

  Good for you, she thought. I won’t be here when you get back.

  The impromptu camp assembly was just the opportunity Allie had been waiting for. It had always kind of galled her that, despite a deeply female need to accessorize her techno-ninja style with black and silver bangles, her wrists were just way too skinny to accommodate that need. Clare could wear bracelets. She could stack them to her elbows. But everything just kind of slid off Allie’s hands. And yet that had proved quite useful growing up: every time her brothers would gang up on Allie and tie her to the apple tree in the backyard during one of their stupid games of cowboys and Indians, she’d let them lash her with their hemp rope, wait five minutes after they’d gone in search of more captives, and then wriggle her skinny little hands free and scamper away to Clare’s house three blocks over. It never mattered how tight the McAllister boys tied the knots; she’d always pull a daring escape, and her brothers could never figure out how she did it.

  And now, tied to a tent pole in the middle of a Roman army camp somewhere in the wilds of first-century Somerset, an overwhelming sense of déjà vu washed over her as she squished and squeezed the bones of her hands together, contorting in ways that would make Houdini proud.

  Once free, she glanced around the dim confines of the tent, taking thorough, analytical stock of her situation.

  There was only one entrance—the flap-covered doorway guarded by some poor schmuck sentry who’d have to hear about the praefect’s remarkable recovery secondhand. Allie could see his shadow as he paced back and forth, but he had yet to poke his head in to check on her. The other three sides of the square, spartan enclosure consisted of blank canvas walls stretched and pegged tight to the ground. Allie tried to remember what she’d learned about the configuration of a Roman marching camp from all she’d been reading. The thing about the Legions was that they were all about conformity. Everything they did, they did with as little deviation from established procedures as possible. They were a machine. Ruthlessly efficient. It was one of the reasons they’d been so successful in their military campaigns. They didn’t waste time screwing around trying new things like different camp layouts.

  Allie knew with certainty that this, the commanding officer’s tent, was usually situated somewhere close to the centre of the camp. She was pretty sure that the forward half of the camp quartered the elite soldiers—the best fighters—and that the rearward half quartered the auxiliaries, along with the supply tents and the cavalry if there was any. At least some horses were attached to the Second Augusta—there had been during the battle—so there’d have to be some kind of stabling or picket lines for them. Allie figured the tent opening faced forward, toward the enemy. So she turned now and tiptoed to the back wall.

  The thing about the terrain around Glastonbury was that, because the Somerset Levels had yet to be drained and converted into arable farmland, most of it was in a state of perpetual marshiness. The ground on which the camp stood was spongy. Spongy enough to let a slender, seventeen-year-old girl—wriggling like an eel and with a reasonably modest set of boobs mashed flat— squeeze herself under the edge of the heavy canvas and out into the narrow alleyway. She could smell meat cooking from somewhere north of her, wafted on a hint of a breeze. Okay, so … the mess tent was off to her left. She turned to her right.

  Allie knew that the camp would have two main “avenues” leading north-south and east-west, cutting the enclosed area into quarters. She’d have to avoid those. She edged her way to the corner of the tent. The coast was clear down a side alley between two rows of tents that looked as though they might be used for either storage or the infirmary—they didn’t have the same sort of inhabited air she’d seen when Marcus had led her to the praefect’s tent. She heard the soft whickering of a horse off in that direction. So she’d go south: it was her best bet to make it undetected to the bankand-ditch enclosure that surrounded the camp. Thank goodness for the kind of mind-numbing fear that drove her forward without hesitation—and that silenced the voice asking her what the hell she was going to do once she managed to get outside the walls. She had, frankly, no idea. But it couldn’t be any worse than being a prisoner. And if the Romans had captured Llassar the smith, it wasn’t entirely inconceivable that—scathach notwithstanding (Allie didn’t want to ponder what might happen if she ran into any of them)—other Clare-friendly Celts were roaming the moors nearby. And if Al could maybe get to them … or something …

  Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Anything has got to be better than chains.

  Allie ran from tent to tent. When she was close enough to see the defensive fortifications, she found a spot to hide in the shadows beneath a provisions wagon. She willed herself to be patient as a pair of soldiers passed by on patrol. Then she willed herself to be even more patient until they’d passed her for the second time, heading the other way. They were discussing the evening’s feast with anticipation. Apparently, with provisions growing thin thanks to the scathach siege, the cooks had been forced to ration things like seasoning and the better cuts of meat. From what Allie gathered, last night’s stew tasted as if it had been made from cavalry mounts fallen in battle (she thought she might barf on hearing that and really hoped they were joking). Finally the sentries moved on, muttering to each other about “just what in Hades the Second Augusta was doing in this gods-forsaken marsh-ridden demon-plagued land anyway, by Mars and Mithras …”

  Allie held her breath until she could no longer hear them, and counted to ten just to make sure. Then she wriggled out from under the cart, leaped to her feet, and made a run for it. Scrambling up the earthen bank that surrounded the camp was easier said than done. At least the sharpened stakes were on the other side, pointing out—the Romans hadn’t expected having to keep anyone in the camp—and so she didn’t have to worry about being impaled. But the dirt was only loosely packed, and it was hard to find handand footholds. Still, desperation gave Allie the determination she needed, and she reached the top of the bank, tumbled over it, and rolled all the way down the other side into the surrounding ditch, just as she heard the sentries returning.

  Her mouth and nose were filled with grit, her eyes stung, and her hair was a matted mess. Her clothes were a mass of grass stains, dirt, and ripped bits. It was not, sartorially speaking, her finest hour. Still, she was elated. Almost as elated as when she’d made another escape—in Stuart Morholt’s limited-edition Bentley, which she’d driven into a utility pole just to let him know that kidnapping two teenage girls wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had and he should think twice before doing it again. Ha.

  Okay, maybe Marcus hadn’t exactly kidnapped her. Maybe he’d saved her life. Maybe he’d continued to do so in weird, off-putting ways. Still. He’d left her tied to a tent pole. That—in the language of his eighties upbringing—was bogus. And Allie wasn’t about to hang around waiting for that Junius guy to decide that maybe she wasn’t so scary with her hands shackled and maybe his superiors wouldn’t mind so much if he did just run a sword through her guts. She was so getting out of there.

  Once outside the camp walls, Allie ran for all she
was worth. She headed west, not because she knew where she was going or what she’d do when she got there, but because that was, in some other world, where home was. Even if it was an ocean and a couple of thousand years away.

  It was probably, in retrospect, the exact wrong direction in which to head. As Allie soon discovered, and in such a way as to make her think some higher power with a really twisted sense of humour had broken out a big ol’ bucket of popcorn and was sitting on a couch somewhere just waiting and watching to see how she’d deal with this one.

  She had to stop running because there was a river in front of her.

  And there was someone in the river.

  And damn it all, that someone was Marcus.

  16

  Maybe Clare shouldn’t have had the fish and chips. But in retrospect it wouldn’t have made much difference, since it swas Nicholas Ashbourne gazing into the eye sockets of his own damned cranium that had flipped Clare’s stomach to the point of no return. Back inside the shop, she took a long swallow of water from the bottle Milo handed her and tried not to heave again.

  But … the thing was staring at her.

  She imagined a faintly amused expression on its grim, bony visage.

  “For crying out loud,” Clare muttered peevishly. She picked up a dust rag lying on the counter and tossed it over the skull.

  Nicholas Ashbourne emitted a small, mirthless laugh. Then he took another slug of brandy, sighed, and removed his ridiculous pith helmet for the first time since Clare had met him. She noticed that the professor’s demeanour had subtly changed. His posture seemed more relaxed. His gestures were less flamboyant. Even the goofball moustache seemed almost … dignified. Almost.

  Ashbourne ran a hand down his face, smoothing the bristles as if he were distantly longing for a straight razor.

  “I’m not exactly sure where to begin,” he said in a voice that was lower, more solemn. And apparently less inclined to add the word ‘marvellous’ to every utterance, although he did seem to have stocked up on a few other adjectives. “It’s a complicated story. Fantastical. Unbelievable …”