He knew the answer to that. He knew, because JB had told them, that the time experts had run computer projections checking out every possible scenario. The only way Chip and Alex could survive the fifteenth century was if Jonah and Katherine saved them.
It didn’t make Jonah feel any better to know that he and his sister were Chip and Alex’s only hope.
“Well, let’s go, then,” Jonah said gruffly.
“Wait! Just make sure that …” JB broke off. A rueful grin spread over his face. “Oh, never mind. What I was about to say—you already know that, too. Just … be careful, all right?”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Katherine said, rolling her eyes.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” JB asked, hesitating, with his fingers poised on the Elucidator.
Jonah nodded so vigorously that his armor rattled.
“Send us already!” Katherine demanded. “Now!”
Everything vanished from before Jonah’s eyes.
Traveling back into the fifteenth century was not quite so distressing this time. There was the nothingness again—Yeah, yeah, seen that before—and then the distant lights far below, zooming closer. Once again Jonah felt as though his whole body was being tugged apart during his reentry into time. But maybe the armor helped; maybe he was protected because he’d been in the fifteenth century before. He didn’t feel quite so miserable and disoriented when he landed.
Darkness? Check.
Spinning head? Not really.
Churning stomach? Nope. If anything, it was more like his stomach had just awakened and was crying out, FEED ME!
He’d forgotten how hungry he’d been when he left 1483. His stomach almost felt like he’d lived through an entire two years without food.
“Katherine?” Jonah whispered. “How’s your timesickness?”
“It’s …” She hesitated. “Not too bad. Not bad at all.” She sounded surprised.
“Good,” Jonah whispered back. “I’m going to go look for some food.”
He scrambled up, swaying only slightly.
“Jonah!” Katherine whispered. “Are you crazy?”
Jonah shrugged, which wasn’t the easiest thing to do while wearing armor and dealing with even a mild case of timesickness.
“The battle’s not until dawn, remember?” Jonah asked.
JB had sent them back early so they’d have some time to adjust, in case their timesickness was extreme. Also, the battle they were about to witness had always been something of a historical mystery, so many, many time travelers had watched it over the years. That made travel in and out during the battle difficult—there was always the danger of running into someone from another time, someone equally out of place.
“JB said to hide,” Katherine reminded him. “That’s the safest thing to do.”
“I can’t hide when I’m starving,” Jonah said. “My stomach will growl.”
He half expected JB to start yelling at him too, but they hadn’t brought the Elucidator this time around. That would have been too dangerous, too potentially anachronistic. Half of the time projections of them bringing the Elucidator showed that it would lead to a curious wave of English peasants turning invisible during the 1500s. Somehow that completely messed up the Protestant Reformation, changed the outcome of dozens of witchcraft trials, and, strangest of all, led to an invisible ship crashing into the Massachusetts coastline in the early 1600s.
So—no Elucidator. This meant that Jonah and Katherine had had to get “translation shots,” a sort of vaccination against the problems they would have had understanding Middle English on their own. (Jonah wished this alternative was possible in the twenty-first century—it would make Spanish class so much easier.) But not having the Elucidator also meant that they had no way of communicating with JB or anyone else outside of 1485.
Right now that was a good thing.
“Look,” Jonah said. “It’s the middle of the night. Everyone’s asleep. We’re already invisible—and in a tent. Nobody’s even going to know if I creep around a little looking for something to eat.”
“Fine,” Katherine said. “I’m hungry too.”
She stood gingerly. Through the armor Jonah felt a jerk on his arm, as if she’d needed to hold on to him to pull herself up. It was just like being back in elementary school, Katherine always wanting to tag along with whatever Jonah was doing. Her armor clanked softly against his.
“Katherine!” Jonah scolded. “We’ve got to be quiet, remember?”
“Then, quit running into me,” Katherine retorted.
“I didn’t run into you. You grabbed my arm,” Jonah accused.
“I did not!” Katherine said.
“She’s right,” another voice said. “She did not. It was I.”
TWENTY-NINE
The voice was deep and adult, and for one long moment Jonah dared to hope that it was only Chip, with a two-years-older grown-up voice to match his grown-up muscles and facial hair. But then there was a scratching sound in the darkness, and a candle sprang to life.
Jonah found himself staring directly into the face of the king, Richard III.
“Ahh! JB!” Jonah cried, forgetting in his surprise that they’d left the Elucidator behind. Jonah wanted to talk to JB now. No—Jonah wanted to yell at him.
How’d JB mess up so badly? Jonah wondered. I thought we were landing somewhere safe and quiet and out of the way. Not in the king’s tent!
Now that it was too late, Jonah noticed a ghostly shape—the king’s tracer—glowing softly on a bed at the far end of the tent. The king’s tracer tossed and turned, his expression anguished.
“What’s that?” the real Richard said, leaning closer. He was blinking in the sudden light, and swinging his hands out before him. Jonah barely managed to jump out of the way of the candle.
At least it’s only a candle, not a torch, Jonah told himself.
Katherine was making a similar dodging maneuver to avoid Richard’s other hand. In her haste to get away she threw back her arms and hit her own chest, the armor ringing loudly this time.
King Richard’s eyes stayed wide and awed and unseeing.
“You will not show yourselves to me this time?” he asked sadly. “But I know you are there. I hear you moving. I heard your voices. I touched you. I know who you are.”
Somehow it seemed wrong not to answer. The king just looked so desperate. And … hopeful.
“Who do you think we are?” Jonah whispered.
The king’s face was amazingly calm.
“You are the angels who appeared to me at Westminster,” he said. “The ones who carried my poor nephews off to heaven.” He hesitated. “The ones who said I would never see heaven myself because of what I’d done.” A sob seemed to catch in his throat. “My wife and precious son are in heaven.”
“Uh, yeah,” Jonah said. “We know.”
Katherine glared at him, her face all but see-through in the candlelight. Jonah held up his hands helplessly in a What was I supposed to say? gesture.
“You’ve seen them, then?” Richard said eagerly. He reached out like he wanted to clutch Jonah’s arm again, but Jonah edged backward just in time. “Are they well? Are they happy? Have they been blessed by God?”
“That’s what heaven’s all about,” Katherine said softly. She shrugged at Jonah, as if to say, Okay, you’re right—it’s hard not to answer back.
Richard’s shoulders sagged.
“But I will never see them there,” he said. “I can never enter heaven myself.”
Katherine leaned over and whispered in Jonah’s ear. “What kind of religion do these people have?” she asked. “Don’t they believe in forgiveness or anything?”
Richard must have heard at least the word “forgiveness,” because suddenly he fell to his knees and clasped his hands together, the candle clutched between his fingers.
“Oh, please,” he begged. “I could do penance, I could offer indulgences. …”
Katherine snorted.
“Ri
ght,” she said. “That’s easy for you to say now. Now that you’re wearing the crown. Now that you think—I mean, now that you know your nephews are dead.”
Richard peered up earnestly toward her, even though he still couldn’t see her.
“I had to take the throne, for the good of England,” he said. “You are heavenly creatures, you may not know the evil deeds of men. A boy king is an invitation for rogues and thieves and usurpers—”
“And you were the first in line,” Katherine muttered.
“No, no!” Richard cried, shaking his head violently. “It was the Woodvilles, the mother’s family. They were grasping and greedy, and had I not stepped in, they would have stolen everything. …”
“You were the one who hired murderers,” Katherine said scornfully. “How many people have you had killed?”
“A king must show strength,” Richard pleaded. “I know it must seem strange to a heavenly being like yourself, but that’s how these things are done on earth.”
“But to want to kill boys,” Katherine said. “Boys. Innocent children.”
Tears began streaming down Richard’s face.
“If I could, I would atone for that,” he said. “I know that is why my son died—a child for a child, a son for a son. That is no more than I deserved, but much worse than my son deserved. And yet … and yet …” He raised his tearstained face toward Katherine, toward heaven. “I swear to you, upon my dead son’s soul, if my nephew Edward could be resurrected, I would put the crown upon his head myself. I would give everything back.”
Jonah tugged on his sister’s arm.
“Katherine!” he whispered. “We’re not trying to get the Crown back for Chip. We’re trying to get him out of here!”
“I know!” Katherine whispered. “But—just look at that face!”
Richard’s countenance was twisted now, drowning in anguish and grief and guilt.
“Oh, please,” he cried. “Pray do not fall silent now!”
“Uh,” Jonah said. “Uh … I’m sure, if you are sincere, there is a way for your sins to be forgiven.”
“And what is that way?” Richard asked eagerly. “Tell me!”
Jonah tried to think about what he’d heard in church. Then he tried to think about whether what he’d heard in church would be the right thing to say in 1485, or if it’d ruin time forever. Was this maybe why “theological arguments” was one of the choices on the Elucidator? Was this maybe why they should have begged to bring the Elucidator with them, no matter what?
“We can’t tell you everything,” Katherine finally said. “Some things you have to figure out for yourself.”
Richard nodded slowly.
“I see,” he whispered. “I will think. I will pray. I am sincere. …”
Jonah pulled Katherine away. He noticed for the first time that the flap of the tent was pulled back, open to the outdoors.
“This way,” he whispered in his sister’s ear.
They wove their way out the door, past the king’s guards, past knights and soldiers sleeping on the ground. And then, under a bright, starry sky, Jonah collapsed against the thick trunk of a widespread tree.
Katherine collapsed at his feet.
“Oh. My. Gosh,” she moaned.
Jonah peered down at her.
“What did we just do?” he asked.
THIRTY
“Maybe it doesn’t matter,” Katherine said.
Jonah frowned at his sister.
“Katherine, I think, from what JB said, Richard’s probably going to die tomorrow. What if we just changed whether or not he goes to heaven?”
“Well, what if we did?” Katherine asked fiercely, glaring up at him. “Wouldn’t it be a good thing if Richard got to see his wife and son again?”
Jonah didn’t answer. He tilted his head back, leaning it against the tree trunk so he could stare up at the stars. He thought about saying, But maybe that’s not what is supposed to happen. Maybe that’s not what happened the first time around. But that seemed heartless, almost, much too cruel. And what did he know? He wasn’t used to worrying about who was going to get into heaven and who wasn’t. At his church back home there was a lot more talk about who was going to collect for the food pantry, who was going to volunteer to help out with games at Bible School.
“What if Richard does something different tomorrow before he dies?” Jonah finally said. “What if he acts so differently, because of talking to us, that he doesn’t die at all?”
“You want me to feel bad for trying to help?” Katherine demanded. “What were we supposed to do—just let him keep crying?”
Jonah looked back down at his sister. The moonlight shone through her. For the first time in his life Jonah could see how she could be mistaken for an angel.
Jonah swallowed hard.
“What if what we said changes things so much that we can’t rescue Chip and Alex?” he asked.
“JB would have yanked us out of time,” Katherine said confidently. “He wouldn’t have let us talk to Richard if it was going to ruin everything. Remember? All the projections show us saving Chip and Alex.”
Jonah decided not to remind her what else JB had said: that sometimes the projections were wrong.
Katherine rolled over.
“Hey, what’s this?” she muttered, feeling around on the ground. She scooped something up, holding it toward the dim moonlight. “Look—pears! This is a pear tree!”
“Food!” Jonah said, remembering his empty stomach.
It wasn’t pizza, but at least it was something to eat. He began pulling down pears from the lowest branches.
“See, this could change time too,” Katherine said as they sat together chewing on the fruit, which was a little hard but still good. “What if this seed right here was supposed to drop to the ground right over there and then grow up to be a huge tree? And then someone built a road that curved, to go around the tree? And then, five hundred years from now, someone important misses the curve and crashes into the tree and dies? Only, none of that will happen now because I’m dropping the seed … right … here.” She made a dramatic show of lifting the seed high, then releasing it and letting it fall into the grass. “Or what if it’s the change that leads to people dying? What if the tree grows here, and here’s where the road curves, and then—”
“Katherine?” Jonah said. “Quit talking about people dying.”
He didn’t want to tell her yet, but he could see a thin line of pink on the western horizon. It was almost dawn, almost time for the battle. Their tree—and Richard’s tent—was on a bit of a hill, so as the sky brightened, he could see the whole landscape laid out before him. Were those banners off in the distance, announcing an army’s approach? That twang he just heard—was that the first bow sending the first arrow arcing through the sky?
“Should we go find Chip and Alex?” Katherine asked.
Jonah glanced to the right, where he knew Chip and Alex were hiding with other troops. Very few people knew they were there; the battle brewing before them was going to be between Richard III and Henry Tudor, his rival who had invaded from France. Chip and Alex were just waiting in the wings, waiting to see if they could take advantage of shifting loyalties or shifting fortunes on the battlefield.
“Nooo,” Jonah said slowly. “Not yet. Let’s go see what Richard’s up to first.”
Katherine shrugged, wiped her sticky hands on the grass, and stood up to follow him. In their noisy armor they had to be so careful walking past the knights and soldiers and guards, now that the men were all up and stirring about.
What are these men thinking, knowing any one of them might die in the battle today? Jonah wondered. How is it that they’re not turning around, running away?
He and Katherine dodged two guards and stepped back into Richard’s tent.
Richard was dressed in armor now, transformed from the sobbing, grief-stricken, guilt-ridden man of the night before into a cold, efficient military leader.
“We can certainly
count on Norfolk’s men,” he was telling a cluster of other men in armor. “What think ye of Lord Stanley?”
“Your Majesty!” A breathless page sped into the tent. “Lord Stanley’s reply!”
Jonah stepped back, out of the page’s way, as the young boy placed an envelope in the king’s hand.
Lord Stanley … Lord Stanley …, Jonah thought. JB had given him and Katherine a crash course in all the different noblemen leading men into the battle. Jonah had found it hard to keep track of them all. But Lord Stanley’s name stood out because of what Richard had done to him. Richard wasn’t sure he could trust Lord Stanley to fight on his side, so the king had kidnapped Stanley’s son Lord Strange and was holding him hostage. He’d threatened to kill Lord Strange if Lord Stanley’s men didn’t fight.
Richard was opening the letter. His eyes darted across it, then he let out a short, bitter laugh.
“Your Majesty?” one of the other armored men said.
Richard crumpled the letter in his hand.
“He says he doesn’t care—he has other sons,” Richard said in a dead voice. He let the letter drop to the ground.
“Shall I tell the guards you’ve ordered Lord Strange’s death?” one of the armored men asked, edging toward the tent opening. He sounded like he wanted to get away.
Richard turned and stared at the man.
“No,” he said, his voice still flat and emotionless. “I will not let another boy die because of who his father is.”
The man’s jaw dropped in astonishment. The other men in armor began whispering, “Another boy? Another?” Jonah could tell that they all thought he was referring to Edward V—to Chip. They acted like they thought Richard was confessing to his murder.
But Jonah saw the sorrow in Richard’s eyes.
He’s talking about his own son, Jonah thought. He thinks that his own son died because of him. Him and his sins.
The man who’d suggested ordering Lord Strange’s death shifted uncomfortably.
“Then … shall I have the guards set him free?” the man asked incredulously.
“Not now,” Richard said. “We’ve got a battle to fight.”