The Clocks

Emil awoke to the sound of rain hitting the canvas of what his lord, Baron Childers, called a tent. It was old and rotting, with patches on patches, but somehow it was still intact -- at least mostly. The tent had originally held four men, but the interminable skirmishes with Baron Jeffries' troops had left only the two of them. Their gear appeared to be scattered haphazardly, but, as in almost all things, looks were deceiving. Their things sat on the semi-dry spots furthest from the leaks.

He could hear a few people muttering soft curses as they moved around the camp, so it must be morning, or at least close to it. Truth be told, he felt like cursing along with the others. Well, that and beating Baron Childers to a pulp, but that wasn't going to happen no matter how satisfying it was to think about it. He had no idea as to what time it was, but it was still nearly pitch dark inside. There were no lanterns for the conscripts. Only the nobles and the few professional guardsmen had those. There was nothing for it but to do as he always did: Fumble around in the dark and hope that he remembered well enough where the puddles usually were.

Soon thereafter he could hear Anselmo moving about as well. They didn't say anything to each other. There was nothing new that could be said. They'd already spent a month cursing Baron Childers for his folly of fighting his life-long rival Baron Jeffries in March instead of waiting till after the crops had been planted. As it was, even if they eventually "won" after another two or three months, there was a good chance that they'd all starve the following winter. The women and children of their village would do what they could, but almost none of them knew how to use a plough. Of those, hardly one or two had the physical strength needed to handle one and the team of mules needed to pull it.

Still, there was nothing Emil could do about it. He might be a blacksmith, but even such as he, who ranked high in the hierarchy of the village, was as nothing to the noblemen and professional soldiers. Emil was convinced that the only reason they'd all been conscripted was so that they could do all the dying while each of the barons jockeyed for a position that would give him some sort of advantage that would let him wring concessions from his rival. Heaven forbid that one of them might be injured!

With those gloomy thoughts running through his mind, Emil threw back the tent flap and beheld...nothing. The cursing was louder, but he couldn't see who it was coming from. There was no sign of the lantern that was always on a pole in the middle of the camp. For that matter, the entire camp was invisible. For a moment he thought he'd been struck blind, but, when he turned to the side, he could dimly see the tent flap he was holding.

Once his eyes had somewhat adjusted to the near total lack of light, he woke enough to realize that he felt wet, not because of leaks, but because of heavy fog obscuring his sight. He slogged his way toward where the cook-fires should be. At least the baron made sure that they had hot meals. Not that he cared about their well-being per se, but, if they died from lack of decent food, he'd have fewer warm bodies to throw into the fight.

About an hour later, everyone had eaten, sorted out their kits, and they were marching, in ragged order, toward the battlefield for the day. Emil would have had no idea of what direction they were going if it weren't that the fog above their heads was thinning out, and a few of the brightest stars could be seen now and then. It was probable that the baron was navigating by their light, as he stopped the column frequently, presumably to make sure of their direction.

After an indeterminate time, the ground beneath their feet began to slope gently upwards and shortly thereafter became somewhat less soggy. Emil could see clearly for about eight or nine yards now, though there was still nothing to see but fog and the backs of the people in front of him. He glanced upward and noted that the sky had begun to lighten somewhat, likely as true dawn was drawing near.

When about another 20 minutes had passed, the slope of the ground hadn't worsened, but the light and the distance he could see had both increased somewhat. Although...odd.... Emil looked around with some degree of alarm. He was sure that they'd been marching in something fairly close to a straight line. He looked up at the stars and, sure enough, they were as they should be with him facing to the south. So, if that were true, what was the sun doing coming up from behind him, in the north?

He spun around and, as he did so, noticed that others were doing likewise, with some of them shouting and pointing upward. By then nobody needed to point, because all of them could see the brilliant light streaking across the sky. It wasn't as if he'd never seen falling stars. Who hadn't? Almost any night you could see one or two if you looked long enough, and some nights there would be dozens or even a hundred or more. The few priests and monks that passed through the village all had an explanation that invoked some sort of divine intervention. None of their stories agreed with each other though, and it was crystal clear that they were guessing and had no more idea of what was going on than the people of the village did.

Emil shook his head. What was it about having a position higher than someone else that made people act as if they always had to be right? What was wrong with admitting that you didn't know everything about everything?

Be that as it may, now wasn't the best time for philosophical musings, seeing as the light was getting a lot brighter. That wasn't a problem in and of itself, but it seemed to be getting awfully close too. He'd never see a falling star that lasted more than a few seconds before, and this one had been there for a lot longer than that.

There was only one thing he was entirely sure of. He didn't know what a falling star really was, but he definitely didn't want whatever it was to fall on him. For some reason something that fell a ways before it hit you hurt a lot more than if it'd fallen only a short distance, and this looked to have been falling for a long, long way.

He locked his eyes on it, figuring that maybe he could dodge to one side or the other before it hit. Luck was with him though, as it soon became clear that it was going to miss him, and likely his entire group. It also looked like whoever was on the other side of the hill, and he had no doubt that Baron Jeffries' troops were there somewhere, was probably going to have a very bad day, or so he hoped. It wasn't that he was a vicious man, or even a mean one. It was just that, well, if someone had to die today, he'd rather it wasn't him.

The oddest thing about the falling star was that it wasn't making any noise. You'd think that with it getting so close you'd hear something, especially as it was moving so fast. The faster a horse ran, the more noise it made, so why was there no sound at all with this moving at such an incredible speed?

His thoughts stopped as whatever it was zoomed over their heads, seemingly directly at the hilltop whose lip could now be seen no more than 40 yards ahead of them. It continued shooting toward the far side of the hill when it suddenly stopped, directly over the top of the hill. The light from it became so bright that Emil threw himself on the ground with his arm across his eyes. Around him he could hear others doing the same. He also heard cursing from the baron and his toadys as they tried to control their horses.

Then something exploded. There was an incredible noise that went on and on and on until Emil was sure that the world was ending. The ground shook continuously beneath him, even to the point that he bounced up into the air a short distance.

What followed was absolute silence. Emil sat up and checked himself over. No obvious wounds. Good. Then he looked around and saw others likewise sitting up and checking themselves and whoever was close by. Some of them seemed to be shouting, but he heard nothing. Ah, right, now it made sense. It wasn't that there wasn't any sound, it was that he couldn't hear anything. Sometimes when he spent too long hammering in the forge, he'd have trouble hearing things for a while afterwards. This noise had been much louder, so, maybe, his hearing would come back after a while. All he had to do was wait...probably.

In the meantime, he'd see what he could do about getting things organized. He'd noticed that all of those who had been riding horses had been thrown off, and none of them were moving, which wasn't good, at least for them. For the rest of their group though...it looked like there wasn't going to be a battle today, and maybe not later either. Too soon to tell about that for sure though.

As the only surviving village "elder," he automatically assumed that he was in charge, and, by the reactions of those around him, so did the rest of those who were left. It didn't matter that he was only 22 years old. What mattered was that he was the smith, which made him in some ways the most important man in town. Even if someone was disinclined to follow his directions, nobody would object. By the time he was 17 he'd proven that the rumor that smiths were all extraordinarily strong was no rumor at all. From then on nobody ever thought about solving a problem by fighting him. Besides, Anselmo had an uncanny knack of calming down arguments and sorting things out so everyone was at least somewhat satisfied. When the two of them were agreed, things almost never got past the arguing stage.

After a few minutes more, Emil noted that his hearing was returning. Shortly after that, he heard soft moaning from the direction of the bodies in armor. As he walked toward the sound, someone next to them slowly pushed himself into a sitting position and then stayed there, half upright, leaning on his arms and carefully shaking his head. He was wearing leather armor with chain covering his chest and shoulders. It wasn't all that useful, but it was better than leather alone. What was of import was that even that little bit of chain was extremely expensive and was worn by only two people in their small force. One was the sergeant of the guard, and the other was William, Baron Childers' son.

As he approached, Emil continued gesturing and shouting at various people, giving instructions when he could and pointing for those whose hearing still hadn't recovered. Emil felt some trepidation as he drew closer to William, as it wasn't entirely impossible that he'd be executed on the spot for "rising above himself" and presuming to give commands to the others.

Fortunately that worry was quickly dispelled as William lifted his right arm and waved to Emil with a "go ahead" gesture, after which he resumed contemplating the ground and occasionally gently shaking his head.

It took little time to ascertain that all the nobles other than William had died, presumably from breaking their necks when they fell off their horses. Though, from the amount of blood leaking out from under the helm of one of them, Emil was fairly certain that someone had managed to cut the captain's throat. Regardless of what had happened, he didn't plan on exploring that question, now or ever. The captain was one of the meanest men who had ever walked the Earth, so it wasn't entirely unlikely that someone had taken the chance to murder him or at least make sure that he was really dead. Then again it was always possible that it had been a mercy killing after whoever it was who'd killed him had discovered that he'd broken his back or some such. Either way Emil didn't care enough to waste any effort trying to find out.

After what seemed like forever but was probably less than 10 minutes, Emil found himself back at William's side. His hearing had recovered and he was in close conversation with one of the surviving soldiers, a sergeant named Schultz. William gestured for Emil to approach.

"Right then. We're pretty much done as a fighting force, but that's hardly relevant as I have no intention of continuing this insane 'war' my father got us involved in. What I DO intend to do is head on up to the top of the hill to see if there is someone from Baron Jeffries' side there, and if whoever it is will agree to a cessation of hostilities, or at least a temporary truce. I can't imagine that they're in much better condition than we are. If we're in luck, there won't be anyone there who wants to keep fighting."

He stood and gestured for Emil to come along with him.

"Uh, sir, wouldn't you rather have the sergeant with you? I'm a smith and not much of a fighter."

William nodded. "Yes, I know, and that is exactly the reason I want you with me. You'll be less threatening, and I hope that a show of good intentions will be appreciated by the other side. If not, it'll be up to the sergeant here to do whatever needs to be done to minimize casualties during the retreat."

The sergeant gave a weary salute. "Yessir. Ordinarily I guess a career soldier like me should be encouraging you to carry on the fight or some such, but, to be honest, all of us would rather be at home and starting families, if you take my meaning Sir."

The men standing around who were able to hear either nodded or murmured their agreement with the sergeant's words.

"That's that then. Let's go Emil."

Turning to the sergeant, William said, "Give us a couple of hours or so. We may have to do some negotiating even if they don't want to fight. If you hear any yelling, get away as fast as you can. The rest of you, well, wish us luck if you will."

Sergeant Schultz nodded, "Luck sir." Then he began to issue orders in a soft voice. A number of the men began to head back down the hill a ways with the wounded, while the able-bodied dispiritedly readied their weapons. To a man they had come to hate fighting, but push come to shove, if there were a fight, they'd prefer to survive it, so fight they would.

William was obviously in no hurry to top the hill. He ambled along, watching his feet more than anything else, as the long grass was still wet. Emil did slip, and fell on his backside. As he was reaching up for William's offered hand, a gasp of surprise escaped him.

"William, the sky! Look at the sky!"

William looked up and then, carefully, lowered himself to a sitting position, his neck craned back as he gazed in wonder at the sky above him. Somehow, as they'd trudged upward, the fog had cleared completely. The sky was so clear that it almost looked as if one could reach out and touch the stars. As he looked about, William wondered at the juxtaposition of the horror of war and the beauty of the firmament.

But they had a task to perform, and stargazing wouldn't get it done. He stood then pulled Emil up by his outstretched hand. "Let's go my friend. Hopefully our counterparts have also noticed and been awed by this wondrous clearing of the celestial sphere."

Emil stared at him as if he were speaking gibberish.

"Oh, sorry Emil. Of late my father has had a rather awful poet performing in the keep and I'm afraid it rubbed off on me. Let's go shall we?"

"Right William. Let us essay to proceed in a timely manner lest our arrival at the top of yon hill be unduly delayed."

Emil smiled back as William gaped at him. "I think that the same poet passed the night at the inn in the village about a fortnight ago when we went back to resupply. I have to agree with you. He was awful!"

That set both of them to laughing, after which they proceeded from there to meet their destiny, each with an arm about the other's shoulder in friendly camaraderie.

"Oh ye gods! Now I'm doing it. Sorry Sara, Paolo."

When they finally reached the top of the hill, false dawn had almost given way to true dawn, and the sun was about to rise above the mountains to the east. However, they didn't casually stroll up the last few feet but rather crept on their hands and knees, just in case.

It was still almost dark, and the top of the hill was probably around 200 rods across, so what they saw was still mostly nothing. Taking the lack of visible humans as a good sign, they got back on their feet and began to walk toward what sounded like either a small river or large creek, which made no sense at all.

As they moved toward the sound, a confused Emil asked, "William, have you ever heard of a river flowing out of the top of a flat hill? I mean, if it truly is water that we're hearing, where's it coming from? From what I saw last evening it looked as if the hill pretty much sloped down on all sides. Or did I miss something?"

William ran his hand across the top of his head. "Can't say as I've ever heard of such a thing either Emil. I guess we're about to find out though. It seems rather close now."

It was only about two minutes later that they could see the vague outline of what looked at first like an upside-down waterfall. Water seemed to be flowing up toward the sky for about a full rod and a half, in a narrow stream -- maybe 2 feet wide -- before crashing back down to earth.

The two men looked at it, then looked at each other, then looked back at the waterfall again. As the sun's leading edge crept over the mountain and cast its first rays slanting downward, they beheld a sight that seemed as if it belonged in a fairyland. The light flashed through and about the waterfall as if it were playing with it.

"Oh darn! I'm doing it again."

At any rate, they were standing there, bemused, when Emil murmured, "It's a wonder to see no matter how it happens that it's there."

From about two or three rods off to his right a voice, and it was definitely a female voice, answered, "I agree wholeheartedly. It is indeed amazing."

William and Emil spun in the direction of the voice and beheld another sight nearly as amazing as that of water trying to flow uphill. In front of them were two women, trailed by a single man who was wearing a uniform with the crest of Baron Jeffries on the left breast. In all honesty, they immediately discounted him, seeing as his sword was in its scabbard, and he was pointedly looking at the water and not them.

While having two women in the forefront, so to speak, was of itself astonishing, what they were wearing was even more so. The one on the right, facing Emil, was rather slim, a bit on the short side, and was wearing a loose shirt and trousers that seemed be be a mix of various colors. She had dark, short cut hair like a man, and had a longbow over her shoulder. The other woman was facing William and was, in a way, even more odd. She was wearing a dress that one might see on a lady in her family's keep, but she had a sword belt around her waist. Not only that, the way her right hand was resting on the hilt of the sword indicated some experience with its use. Unlike the speaker she was rather remarkably full figured and and had long hair that was definitely some shade of blonde.

It was Emil who first managed to speak, "May I assume that, like us, you have no intention of pursuing the hostilities begun by our deceased Baron Childers and the presumably deceased Baron Jeffries?"

As he had spoken, Emil had gradually found it more and more difficult to force out the words. For some reason his attention was being drawn away from what he was saying and toward the lovely green eyes of the young woman standing in front of him.

She seemed likewise somewhat tongue-tied as her mouth could be seen moving, but no words passed her lips. Shortly the woman to her right replied, "You have the right of it milord. We came hither to essay the possibility of putting an end to this farce, or at least to secure a truce so that we might withdraw in peace."

"It wasn't me this time. She really talks, talked, like that."

William answered, "Well said milady. We are of like mind then. Let us gather some quantity of wood and light a fire that we may avoid taking a chill while we converse."

"Yes I know Sara. He said that it was the influence of a bad poet, but that one was incredibly fond of what passed for romance stories in those days. He was already gobsmacked by having met a woman who obviously felt the same as he did about language and how it should be spoken."

Emil and the the girl with the bow nodded in unison then walked off together to hunt for wood. Seeing that William and Emil meant his charges no harm, the soldier, who could now be seen to be getting on in years, wandered off to find wood as well.

William and the lady stayed behind and reveled in the simple act of speaking to each other and in trying to outdo each other in composing extravagant sentences.

Surprisingly it took only a few minutes to find sufficient dry wood to build a small fire. It didn't warm them much, but it was better than nothing.

For a time they huddled around it until Emil noticed something. Now that the sun was almost fully up above the nearby mountain peak, he could see that there was a pool that extended a good 10 or so yards away from the 'waterfall' and that the surface was steaming.

He walked over to the edge and gingerly stuck a finger in the water. Pulling his hand back in surprise, he repeated the motion, this time submerging his entire hand. He stood and turned to the others. "The water! It's warm. In fact it's about the same temperature as a bath before the first person uses it."

The women stood together as if they were puppets controlled by the same master and dreamily approached the edge. "A bath." "It's been weeks since I've had a bath." "Our clothes are filthy too. I wonder if we could wash them along with ourselves." They approached and stopped right by the edge and stared at the pool hungrily.

The idea of a bath more than appealed to Emil as well. A smith got excessively dirty in the course of his work, and bathing, or at least washing as much as he could, was part of his daily routine. As with the ladies, the idea of a bath was nearly overwhelming. It had been at least two weeks since he'd had a good cleanup. "You know, I saw some larger branches back a ways and I have some cord in my pocket. I think I could make something we could use by the fire to dry our clothes."

The others nodded, and this time all four of them went off to gather wood. Within less than 10 minutes Emil and William had constructed two fairly sturdy racks which they placed beside a new, larger fire that they built two yards from the edge of the pool.

The armsman stayed by the first fire after carefully positioning himself with his back to them.

Without saying a word the two couples each walked about 15 yards in opposite directions and, after taking off their boots, waded into the water. They discovered that there was some sort of ledge, apparently stone, a little shy of a yard below the surface of the water. It appeared to extend completely around the edge of the pool.

"Don't either of you say anything. Yes I put it there. If they'd slipped in the mud that had been there originally it would have spoiled the mood."

The spray from the "waterfall" and the steam from the water completely shrouded each couple from the view of the other although each could hear the faint sound of voices and some degree of vigorous splashing. A few minutes later William and Emil appeared back at the racks and carefully hung all their clothes to dry.

"Emil, what in the name of Heaven are we doing? This makes no sense at all. I can wrap my mind around the idea that we're not fighting, but the rest of this..." He gestured at their naked bodies.

"We're taking baths with women who aren't our wives and who we just met. It's more than crazy. Ah, I'm not imagining this, am I?"

"Well William, if you are, so am I. And whether I'm imagining it or not, I fully intend to get back over to Aradia as soon as possible. I'm clean and warm for the first time in weeks, and I am NOT going to come back here till I've had a good soak and our clothes are dry, which should be about an hour.

"And speaking of which, you do realize that we're going to have to marry them, don't you? Once word of this gets out, and you can be sure that it will somehow, no other man would ever have them."

He shrugged his shoulders and gave William a wry grin. "Besides, if your situation is anything at all like mine, you don't want any other man to have her, do you?"

William grinned back at Emil and shook his head. Then they turned and headed back to their ladies. As he did so, William realized that he hadn't even asked her name yet. Although he was still somewhat disoriented by everything that had happened, he was quite sure that one doesn't ask for a woman's hand in marriage if one doesn't know her name. He promised himself that he would rectify that in the near future, although perhaps not immediately. The idea of holding her hand and gazing into her eyes seemed more important at the moment.

As Emil returned and slipped into the water next to Aradia she smiled at him and asked, "Well my love, how was he? Is he as besotted with Philipa as we are with each other?"

"Probably more so. He's always been more of a dreamer than anything else. Right now though, that's going to be a good thing. We're going to need a dreamer if we're going to build something out of this mess."

He looked down at her. "I'm assuming that you're a lot more like me, or perhaps I should say that we're alike in being of a more practical bent. Am I right?"

"Indeed you are. I've ever wanted to know how to make things work more than why they do. I'm quite happy to let others figure out that part. Speaking of which, what is it that you do anyway?"

Emil laughed. "I guess we'll be asking each other a lot of questions like that for a while." He smiled and added, "But that's going to be a lot of the fun. I'm a smith, and just between us, I'm one of the best I know of. I also suspect that I'm not going to be without work for quite a long time to come."

Aradia laughed too. "I'm sure that you're right about that. As for me, I've been the best with a bow in my father's keep since I was nine years old, and I've continued to improve since then. So here I am at 20, the chief huntsman for my father Baron Jeffries. Not exactly what you'd expect from a noblewoman, eh?"

Emil started and exclaimed, "You? You're the baron's daughter? But...but I though that she..." He pointed in the general direction of the giggling they now heard. "I mean she was wearing a fancy dress and all, so I assumed..."

Aradia laid a hand on Emil's shoulder, then, thinking better of it, removed her hand and replaced it with her head. "She's my maid, and rather good at it too, though her first love is horses. She can get a horse to do anything for her. Now my love, I'm more than tired."

She slid herself sideways onto his lap and laid her head on his chest. "As long as I don't start to slip into the water, please let me sleep until you think that our clothes will be dry."

Emil nodded and soon Aradia's regular breathing declared that she was indeed sleeping though, oddly, for just a while as she was drifting off, he could have sworn that she was purring. As for himself, Emil stared into the glowing mist and let his mind wander, thinking about the future and what they might build as they moved into it.