“Does she know about me?” Vera asked.
“No,” Merlin said sternly. “Matilda, like all others, believed you to be away at a monastery the past year recovering from an accident. In any case, she will help with your duties as you get readjusted.” They wove through a maze of corridors with wall sconces that lit as they passed and dimmed in their wake until they reached an open doorway leading to a spiral staircase up one of the stone towers Vera had seen from outside.
The tower was so large that the stairs wound their own hallway up through it. Every story they ascended had a landing with a corridor cutting across the width of the tower. They stopped at the top, the fourth landing, where a lovely woman stood waiting.
Her wildly curly hair was a shade of red that reminded Vera of maple leaves in autumn. It was mostly tamed in a low twist at the back of her head save a few coiled strands that escaped and framed her forehead. Her simple, indigo-blue apron dress over an ankle-length white tunic complemented everything from her skin to her hair to her eyes. Vera guessed this was Matilda, though she didn’t recognize her. She must have been in her early forties, and she was also one of the most effortlessly beautiful women Vera had ever seen.
Matilda’s brow drew together with concern, and her disbelieving eyes were trained on Vera. “Your Majesty, I can’t believe you’re …” She trailed off. Her arms flinched upward as if to hug Vera. Instead, she stiffly clasped her hands together in front of her. “Well, I’m so happy that you’re home.”
“Thank you,” Vera said, unable to stifle a dull pang at the word home.
“I trust you have things well in hand from here?” Merlin asked.
Matilda nodded, and the mage bid them goodnight before he disappeared down the stairs. Silence fell. Matilda’s eyes searched Vera for a moment before she led her down the corridor to a door on the left. She unlocked it with a key that she fished from her smock’s pocket.
Vera stepped into the room behind her. It was clean and well-lit by a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, speckled with tiny, glowing orbs. Centered against the wall on Vera’s left was a large four-post bed with thick, navy-blue curtains hung from each post. On the wall to her right, next to another door, was a dark wooden desk.
The sound of a slam, wood against stone, pulled Vera’s attention to the wall opposite, the curved wall of the tower’s exterior. She saw the sound’s source almost instantly: a window, taller than her, carved up into the wall. Three stone stairs led up to it, where there was a blue cushion on a bench in what she thought would be a quaint reading nook. The window had no glass pane. Instead, wooden dowels crisscrossed one another to make a trellis of diamonds, each the size of Vera’s face. A gust of wind whistled through them, and again, the window’s unsecured wooden shutter crashed against the wall.
Vera started toward the window, but Matilda cut in front of her. She hurried up the steps to snap the shutter closed and secured it with a metal pin at the top. Matilda’s anxious eyes flashed to Vera as she descended the stone stairs. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. That should have been closed. Would you like a fire to take the chill from the air?”
There was a great hearth next to the window. Vera was as enamored by the inviting fireplace as she was by the window seat. Poofy cushions surrounded a short wooden table in the middle of a lush fur rug.
“No, thank you,” Vera said when she realized that she’d been gaping with wonder at a space that Guinevere would have known well.
When Matilda offered to help her change into the nightgown that sat folded on the bed, Vera frantically said no, remembering her out-of-place undergarments. Matilda was rightfully confused when Vera backtracked and asked her to loosen her gown’s laces. Matilda stared at her with a keen eye before unconvincingly brushing it off as traveling weariness.
“I’ve laid some things out if you’d like to clean up after your journey,” she said, fingers working swiftly at the woven cords of Vera’s gown. She gestured to the corner nearest the door where they’d entered. There was a square wooden pedestal that looked bewilderingly like a tap.
“Are you certain I can’t help with anything else?” Matilda asked more slowly.
Vera shook her head, and Matilda did nothing to hide her disapproval.
“All right,” she relented with a sigh, hands on her hips. “My quarters have been moved up here until you feel more settled. I’ll be right across the hall.”
“Thank you,” said Vera.
Matilda stood in front of her for a few seconds longer, waiting—for what, Vera couldn’t say. Then she shook her head and left.
Vera waited, holding her breath, until she felt confident Matilda wouldn’t return. She first dropped her bag on the bed and changed into the bedclothes laid out. She was accustomed to a T-shirt and leggings, but the white tunic, not so different from what Matilda wore under her blue apron dress, came down to her shins. It was soft and thick enough to keep her warm.
Then she began exploring the room in earnest. She opened the wardrobe next to the bed to find gowns in gorgeous jewel tones with elaborate embroidery. Vera traced the intricate threadwork on the sleeve of one, took the fabric between her fingers, and held it to her face, breathing in the scent, searching for any hint of familiarity, and finding nothing.
This seemed as good a place as any to tuck away her discarded sports bra and the bag she’d commandeered from Merlin containing her other contraband. She shoved them behind the gowns, hoping no one would care to dig back there. Not sure what else to do with it, she hung the circlet crown unceremoniously from the knob on the wardrobe’s door.
Next, Vera investigated the pedestal. Sure enough, what she’d thought was a tap was indeed so, albeit a rudimentary one. The handle reminded her of a pump at an outdoor campground spigot. When Vera tentatively lifted it, a steady stream of cool water flowed from its mouth and into the smooth basin, where it swirled down through a drain at the bottom. Her mouth went dry as she let the water stream through her fingers. She was desperately thirsty. She grabbed the cup conveniently sitting next to the tap and filled it up but hesitated before she brought it to her lips. Was it even safe to drink?
Thirst nearly won out over caution, but Vera sighed and set the cup down. She distracted herself from her thirst by wandering over to the desk.
Wedged between a round rock on one end and a brass candlestick on the other was a neat row of leather-covered tomes lining the back of the desk. Books. She tried to remember when writing made the leap from papyrus and scrolls to books before it occurred to her that any information she could recall from what she’d been taught in history class was likely wrong anyway. After all, she was almost positive a sink and tap with plumbing didn’t belong in the seventh century. Yet the clothing had no elastic, and the window didn’t have clear glass. In fact, the only glass she’d seen was the stained window in the chapel. She couldn’t pin down when things were as they should be and when they diverted riotously.
Vera pulled a book from the middle, one with a mossy green cover. She flipped it open and choked on her breath as she took in two significant things. First, the words on the title page were typed, and second, the font at the center read The Hobbit. As if she needed more confirmation of the impossible before her, she read the following line in a smaller type: Or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien.
She laughed in disbelief as she snapped it closed and examined it again. The leather book cover felt right in this time period, but The Hobbit was over a thousand years out of place, much like herself. Vera pulled another book from the dozen or so and opened it. Hamlet by William Shakespeare.