Chapter 27

York, Great Britain. December 1068

Luke stood in his window, wearing his dress uniform, and watched the snowfall. It was a white Christmas, and he was waiting for someone. As Luke waited, he petted his pet cat, Salem. Salem was a jet-black cat that Luke kept as a pet, which was another source of friction between Luke and the church. Luke encouraged people to keep cats as pets to help control pests and as loyal companions. While Luke was a cat person, Marion loved dogs and kept several for security and hunting.

Hearing the door open, Luke looked over his shoulder, saw Pollyanna walk in wearing her uniform, and smiled. She walked over to him and leaned against him as he put his arm around her. Pollyanna was, without a doubt, his best friend and one of his closest advisers. Pollyanna was flying solo because Matt had the flu and was confined to bed or the bathroom.

The other door in the room opened, and Marion, Alice, and Gabriella walked out. Gabriella wore her dress uniform without her green leather coat concealing her weapons, while Marion wore an evening gown for the banquet and ball. Her dress was made of silk and held up by spaghetti straps that crossed over her bare back. If it had been summer, there would have been a parade, but with winter starting, Marion didn’t want people to be out in the cold any longer than they had to be. Alice wore regular clothes; she wasn’t going to the celebration because her ankles hurt. Her pregnancy was playing hell with her body.

Although Luke had seen Marion in her evening gown before, his eyes widened as Little Luke strongly reacted to Marion, making his pants tighter. Pollyanna noticed Luke’s problem and giggled as she rubbed her hand over Luke’s bulge, which didn’t help him. The only thing that surprised Pollyanna was Luke hadn’t cum yet. When Marion saw what Pollyanna was doing, she smiled and joined her in rubbing Luke’s cock while Alice came up behind Luke and whispered naughty things in his ear.

His hormones went into overdrive when Marion pulled his cock out and sucked on the tip while Pollyanna jacked him off. It was too much for any mortal man, and Luke groaned and arched his back as he released a giant load directly into Marion’s mouth. Being a kind person, Marion shared with Alice and Gabriella before swallowing. All Luke could do was sit on the chair he landed on and watch with glazed eyes. Luke saw what was happening, but it wasn’t registering in his brain.

By the time Marion had finished sharing and cleaned up, Luke was recovering, although he was still somewhat lightheaded. He would have loved to service Marion and Alice, but they had celebrations to get to. They were celebrating Marion’s coronation two years ago. Alice kissed Luke and Marion before going to the library to read. As they left the room, Luke held out one arm for Pollyanna and the other for Marion while Gabriella led. When they left, four guards fell in around the group. Gabriella wasn’t taking any chances and had positioned guards in the kitchen to monitor the food preparation. Other guards roamed the halls in pairs while others watched from secret hiding spots.

When the group entered the Great Hall, everyone stopped and looked at them. The light from the skylights caused the lady’s jewelry to shimmer as the light reflected off their hair. As Marion and Luke walked down the stairs into the hall, the first person Luke noticed was Major Madeline Baker, escorted by a young navy lieutenant with wide eyes.

Her lieutenant, like many young British officers, was from common stock. In his case, his father was a fisherman working out of Kent. Now he stood beside the lady he was dating and watched as the Queen of Great Britain stopped before them.

“Major Baker, I’m glad you decided to attend,” Marion said after saluting her.

“Your Majesty, General,” Madeline nodded at Marion and Luke. “I would like to introduce my escort for the evening, Lieutenant Tostig. He’s assigned to engineering on the HMS Guinevere.”

“Lieutenant, it’s good to meet you,” Luke said over a handshake before he pulled the lieutenant’s ear close. “That young woman is very special to me. If you don’t treat her right, I will hear about it, and your life won’t be worth a penny. Understand?”

“Y ... Y ... Yes, sir.”

“Good,” Luke chirped as he clapped Tostig on the shoulder.

Tostig was still in a state of shock as Marion greeted him. After Marion’s group left, Madeline noticed Tostig was paler than usual.

“Tostig, is something wrong? What did the general tell you?”

“No,” he croaked. Luke had done an excellent job of scaring him. “The general was just giving me some advice.”

Before Madeline could ask what advice, the start of dinner was announced. As head of the elite troops of the British Army, Major Baker had a seat at the same table as Marion and Luke. Sitting with the Queen of Britain, Tostig was nervous; he had never been exposed to royalty. On the other hand, Madeline was comfortable with Luke, making Marion much less intimidating.

As the evening progressed, Tostig began to loosen up as Marion did her best to bring him into their conversations. Unlike other medieval banquets, nobody ate until they were stuffed before vomiting to eat some more. When someone was done eating, they got up, and someone else took their place.

After the first group ate, the music started playing; typically, the music would have started earlier, but the musicians were eating. As the music drifted through the halls, Marion stood up with Luke and went to the dance floor. They took their positions and started dancing in front of everyone; this was the situation that gave Gabriella nightmares. Marion was utterly unprotected and in front of a crowd. It could be a disaster if any of them had guns or were good with a knife. For Marion and Luke, however, the world around them had disappeared as they focused on each other.

To Gabriella’s relief, Marion and Luke finished their dance without incident. Once they were done, others began dancing, and Luke grabbed Pollyanna while Marion grabbed Gabriella. Ever since Gabriella had been injured, she had become more paranoid about any possible threat to Marion. It annoyed Marion, but Luke didn’t mind; he knew many people in Britain wanted Marion dead.

Tostig was fully relaxed until Marion swept into the space in front of him:

“Care to dance, lieutenant?”

“Ah ... ah”

“Come on. I don’t bite ... much.” Marion said with a warm smile.

Luke stood on the sidelines watching Marion when he felt someone walk up beside him; it was Gretchen wearing a standard dress for the time. She gave birth to a healthy boy, Otto, in September and was enjoying the evening, being she had Marion’s governess to watch over Otto.

“Hello, Gretchen,” Luke said in German. Until this moment, he hadn’t let on that he spoke German.

“You speak German?” She recognized that Luke spoke German even though she couldn’t understand him.

“I do, and before you ask me, yes, I can understand your version of German.”

“How did you know I was going to ask?”

“Please, give me some credit. The first time I let you know I speak German but not the same dialect you speak, you can’t help but be curious.”

“Yes, I was curious. I’m more curious to find out what other languages you speak.”

“That is a conversation for another time. I believe when you walked up, you were wondering if I have a problem with Marion dancing with other men, and the answer is I don’t.”

“This conversation is too weird for me to handle right now.”

“Emperor Henry still after you to go back to help him?”

“Yes.” Luke looked at her sideways. “No, I’m not going back. I love my work here and wouldn’t trade it for anything. If I were to go back, I would always have to be looking over my shoulder, always worrying that Henry would eventually throw me in prison. Here I don’t have to worry about any of that. I only became his mistress to survive, and the advice I gave him he could get from most commoners if he would only open his mind and ask. I have a question for you; you have known what I was saying for months, but you never told me. Why?”

“Just checking. Marion doesn’t let many people close to her, and I am worse. The last thing I want to do is let the wrong person close.”

“Why?”

Luke’s eyes hardened, and Gretchen got the message. That line of questions was off-limits, confirming something she had suspected; Luke had some very dark secrets. As Gretchen walked off, Madeline came to stand next to the general.

“She fishing?”

“Yes, she knows I have a secret but can’t figure out what it is.”

“You ever going to let her in on your secret?”

“Don’t plan to. The more people who know a secret, the harder it is to keep the secret a secret. So, how do you feel about your date dancing with Marion?”

“I think it’s funny. He looks like he’s about to pee his pants and suck his thumb. I don’t know if I have ever seen someone so nervous.”

Luke chuckled before asking Madeline to dance. Pollyanna and Gabby giggled when they saw the size difference and thought she could give Luke a blowjob without bending over. Madeline was off-limits for Marion’s inner circle, but the ladies still had the odd fantasy or two.

The party went to the small hours of the morning, and when Marion returned to her quarters, she was exhausted. To her amusement, so were Gabby and Luke. That night, it was strip to skin and fall into bed as they were all too tired for horizontal dancing. Alice was already sleeping and was cranky when she woke up.

The morning sun streamed into the room much too quickly for anyone but the children, who were thrilled to find mommy and daddy still in bed. Luke grunted when Mackenzie landed on him, and Marion was hurt when one of the kids, she didn’t know which one, kneed her in the ribs. Eventually, Luke rolled out of bed and held Carl up by one foot,

“What should I do with this?” he asked Marion.

“Ummm. Throw it back; too small.”

Luke smiled as he swung a giggling Carl on the bed before going to find some pants. Finding pants, Luke sat on the floor and played with his children until lunch. Whenever he played with his children, Luke was in a good mood afterward. With all the stress in his life, he found the simplicity of playing with children to be one of his greatest joys. Eventually, he had to return to the cloak-and-dagger reality of the real world.

As had happened the year before, after Christmas, Luke had to pull double duty for a couple of weeks while Bard was on vacation. Thankfully for Luke, there were good subordinates in both the army and his business empire. He could have never imagined the size his business empire had grown to if he wasn’t looking at the numbers. By one measure, Luke’s business was responsible for a quarter of the British GDP, and since he paid taxes like every other business, his tax bill was huge.

A week after the party, Gretchen walked into Marion’s office with some disturbing reports from France.

“Marion,” she looked up from her paperwork, “I have a potentially bad report from France.” Marion looked at Gretchen and signaled for her to continue. “The French are preparing an invasion force that could include up to two thousand Breton musketeers.”

“Where is Hawise getting the money to have that many soldiers?”

“We don’t know yet. But there are only two real possibilities, France or the Pope. I know Henry wouldn’t fund Brittany, not against you anyway. Against France, though, would be a possibility, but as far as I know, he’s not looking to expand westward. His long-term goals lay to the east.”

Marion leaned back in her chair and looked at the ceiling. Where some people liked to look at moving water to think, Marion leaned her head back to look at whatever was overhead. Everyone who worked with her routinely knew not to interrupt her when she looked up.

“The money didn’t come from France. Guiscard will need all the money he can get to build his army and navy if he wants to invade us. The pope is a possibility, although even he doesn’t have that much money.” Marion started speaking to herself, “So Hawise, where did you get the money to rebuild? I cleaned you out and am forcing you to pay a yearly tribute.” As Marion stared at the ceiling, she went through intel reports for the past year in her head. “Pirates.”

“What was that, Marion?”

Marion had spoken the word so quietly that Gretchen couldn’t hear what she said.

“Piracy, that’s where Hawise got her money. I bet she was leasing them basing rights in ports that don’t see merchant traffic. She doesn’t care if some of them sink because they didn’t cost her anything, and she wasn’t paying them.”

“So, when we sank all those pirate ships, we didn’t hurt her at all?”

“We did hurt her, Gretchen. Pirates are driven by profits and losses, just like a business. By sinking them, we increased the loss side of the equation, and it will cost Hawise dearly to tip the balance back the other way, especially when the pirates can hunt almost anywhere else safely.”

“How do you know about business? I did a lot of research about you before I came over, and you don’t own a business. As far as I could find, you never have. Cecilia was the business owner of your family, even if her businesses were sickening.”

“You’re right; I have never owned or worked in a business. Let me ask you something, in all your research, what did you learn about Luke?”

“Luke? General MacDougall?” Marion nodded. “I know he saved you and your sister from an ambush several years ago. Since then, he’s been the driving force behind your army and has created many of the machines that give you power. He’s also reported to be a sorcerer.”

“He’s not a sorcerer. Sorcery doesn’t exist. I bet no one can repeat anything you have ever heard a sorcerer doing. What Luke does is chemistry. Chemistry has laws, and anyone can recreate the results with the proper training and tools. Something you don’t know about him is he is the leading industrialist in the nation. The steel mill we took you to, he owns it; the trains you ride, he owns them. He also owns textile mills, farms, mines, and some other stuff.”

“WHAT?!?! How?”

Gretchen’s mind was now working at warp speed as she tried to process this new information. She never thought Luke would own a good-sized piece of the British economy, but it would explain how Marion could gain and hold onto power. Then the obvious question hit her, ‘how?’ How could Luke think up all those machines and be able to speak a version of German that she had never heard before? Marion’s face didn’t give her any clues, nor did Gabriella’s. When the solution hit her, Gretchen found her knees too weak to stand and had to take a seat. Just as she was going to speak, Marion held up her hand;

“Colonel Smiten, can you step out and tell my secretary I don’t want any interruptions unless it’s Luke until further notice? Then come back in and lock the door.” Gabriella nodded and did as she was asked. When she returned, she sat on a corner of Marion’s desk. “Ok, Gretchen. How does Luke do it?”

“He hasn’t traveled widely; he’s from another time, and if I had to bet, he came from the future Holy Roman Empire.”

“Gretchen,” Marion’s voice was cold and full of warning, “what we are about to discuss cannot be repeated outside this room EVER. UNDERSTAND?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

The look on Marion’s face and the tone of her voice frightened Gretchen

“Good. Luke is from another time and another place. No, it’s not the Holy Roman Empire. He comes from a land to the west that, in his time, was called the United States of America, and it was one of the world’s most powerful nations, with a land mass that ranked it as one of the largest. He came from the western part of the country and enlisted in his nation’s Marine Corps. It was there where he gained most of the scars his body still carries. After getting out of the Corps, Luke became a chemical engineer and ran his own design firm that did jobs worldwide. Regarding another time, when he was sent to me, it was 2021 on his calendar.”

Gretchen’s eyes were bugged out of her head as she tried to process everything.

“I’m sorry, your majesty, no offense, but I just can’t believe you.”

Marion nodded and went to the safe, where she pulled Luke’s laptop out. She sat it up on her desk and had Gretchen move her chair to where she could see. Once she was in place, Marion booted up the laptop. As the machine came to life, Gretchen’s jaw hit the floor.

By this time, Marion was comfortable using Luke’s computer without him telling her what to do. The first thing Marion opened was Luke’s photos, and the first picture was one of Luke during his time in Iraq. When Gretchen saw the photo, it took her no time to recognize the uniformed man. Sure, the man in the photo was filthy and younger, but there was no mistaking him for anyone but Luke.

As the implications hit her, Gretchen looked at Marion and began hyperventilating. Before Gabby could get her to calm down, she passed out. Marion and Gabby looked at each other and shrugged. Marion returned the computer to the safe while Gabby opened the door to Marion’s private lounge. It took both of them, but they dragged Gretchen into the lounge, laid her on a couch, and covered her with a blanket before returning to their work.

Gretchen woke with a start, but it took a second to realize where she was. She felt like she had the strangest dream, but it made sense. Slowly she stood and fixed her clothing. There was no way Gretchen could discuss her dream with anyone; they would think she had gone crazy. When she exited the lounge, Gretchen found Luke sitting in a chair with Marion straddling his lap and his hands trying to make permanent marks on her arse.

When Gretchen cleared her throat, Marion’s head spun around, and her cheeks turned red. As she turned, Marion’s shirt fell open, giving Gretchen a view of the moisture around her nipples where Luke had been sucking on them. Gabriella was sitting in a nearby chair and burst out in laughter at Marion’s reaction to being caught making out with Luke, which only deepened the blush on her cheeks. Luke, in the meantime, had a shit-eating grin on his face.

“You’ll have to excuse the blushing beauty over there, Gretchen, but she forgot you were in there, and her sex drive got the better of her. How did you sleep?”

“I had the strangest dream.”

“That I’m from the future?” Luke asked, using his modern American English.

“Yes, how did you know?”

“Gretchen, I am from the future, almost a thousand years in the future, from a land called America.”

“YOUR MAJESTY! YOU COULD BE IN DANGER, FOR YOU MUST BE SITTING ON SATAN’S LAP!!”

“Quit worrying, Gretchen. The only thing I’m in danger of is this goofball giving me a hickey.” Luke bent his head down and tried to nibble her neck. “LUKE!!!” Marion squealed. “No marks!!” She tried to climb off his lap while he was laughing, but his strong hands kept her in place. Marion looked at him and nodded, so Luke let her get down. “Gretchen, I know this is hard for you to understand, but Luke is not the devil. He is a kind and gentle man who will do anything for me. He is also a man who has seen the worst that humanity can dish out, which has stripped him of any religious feelings he might have had.”

“But don’t you worry about your soul?”

“No, I do not, and you shouldn’t worry about it either.”

“How about the souls of your people?”

“Gretchen, the souls of the people who live in Britain, belong to those people, not me, you, or the church.”

“I don’t know if I can continue to work for you and remain a good Christian. Luke, by all accounts, should not be here; he should have been killed as soon as you found out who he really is.”

“How could I do that to him? He saved my life and the lives the thousands of people so far. For the first time in history, the people of this island are united and mostly safe from outside threats.”

“I really need to think about this.”

“I’m sorry, but due to your position, I must insist that you remain here until you make your decision. What happens after that will depend on your answer.”

Gretchen was stunned by Marion’s demands and stumbled back into a chair. Marion’s eyes were ice as she stared at Gretchen, giving her chills. The two stared at each other for what seemed like hours, but it was only a few minutes before Gretchen gave in.