Chapter 28

It was fun while it lasted, but when time was up we took our leave. I guess it was just as well. Two men were riding up at a gallop when we pulled out of the gate. I stopped long enough to let Jaycee shoot their horses. We probably should have shot the men but it was a judgment call.

Things had gone much too smoothly to be natural, at least I thought they had. Then again, there was nothing natural about it. I was back here from the best part of four hundred years in the future. Men with swords and muzzleloaders were going to find me hard to deal with, unless they did exactly what I wanted them to.

We were back to the small valley, had the Hum-V parked, and everyone was in the house less than three hours after we'd left that morning.

It was a good worry, but I wondered what we'd do for the rest of the day. I didn't think we should take a sightseeing trip around historical France, and even though the pool had come with us, an afternoon swim didn't feel right.

Meka, Tutsie, Delphine, and Adèle were happy to see us and then they picked up the mood from Cécile and Jaycee. It was a little subdued. We had Fawne with us now, physically at least, but she was not in good shape.

Jaycee led everyone but Meka, Tutsie, and me to the clinic end of the house. I took Meka and Tutsie outside so he could take a leak. Strangely he seemed more relaxed this time and he did quite a bit of sniffing before performing his doggy duties, then he did a little of his stiff legged scratching.

We sat on a couch when we got back inside, Meka in my lap and Tutsie in hers.

"What we now, Daddy?" Meka asked, after a few minutes.

"Whatever we want," I said, and she gave me such a look.

"We've done what we came to do, at least I think we have. We'll have to stay in the house until it leaves. It isn't safe to go exploring, or I don't think it is," I told her.

I'm not sure how much she understood but it seemed to satisfy her. When she spoke up again I was happy that she wasn't moping about being stuck here.

"Tutsie need stool your house too," she said, and she was right.

Tutsie needed a seat at the table here like the one he had at George and Ethel's house. Her announcement made me remember something though. Even sitting in her lap for breakfast, Tutsie had displayed amazing manners.

He hadn't tried to gobble up Meka's food right away. He'd waited patiently for her to feed him. That didn't mean he didn't give her some big sad-eyed looks along the way, but he hadn't been grabby. Of course I wondered if he'd been influenced by They, but even if he had it didn't seem to hurt anything. I was beginning to think that They could do good work when they wanted to.

This trip for instance. Fawne had been pretty much an innocent bystander when greedy bastards hiding under priestly robes had decided they needed her assets, or Alphonse's assets anyway.

One of them who was more perverted than usual wasn't content to just torture and kill her, he decided he'd rape her too. In the long run that probably wasn't much more to add to his list of crimes, but in the short term it had been hard on Fawne, and what had she done to deserve it. Not one damned thing.

My next thought was to get Jaycee, a mortar, and get back in the hummer. We could get in range of the "holy facility" with no trouble and level it without them even knowing what happened. I crossed that thought off my list though.

Some of the people there probably didn't deserve that, either. I'd already settled the hash of the main instigators and there was no sense in trying to start a reverse Crusade. I couldn't kill everyone that was an asshole, there wasn't time.

Meka brought me out of my thoughts then, asking for coffee. I didn't mind if I had a couple of cups myself so we got up to make another pot. While we were at it, I poked around in the freezer and found a frozen coffee cake with a computer label that had instructions for cooking it. God bless Ethel.

The coffee cake took thirty minutes and Meka, Tutsie, and I had just started on our treat when Jaycee came in from the clinic.

"How's she doing," I asked, as she poured a cup of coffee for herself.

"Better than you'd think. In fact, her physical injuries are fairly trivial. I'm sure they weren't fun to come by, but they aren't dangerous. It was fairly gentle as far as rapes go," Jaycee said.

Now there was an odd thought, a gentle rape. No doubt Jaycee was talking in relative terms. Fawne was still breathing and compared to some rapes I guess that was gentle.

"You said she was ok physically, but do you have any idea about her mental state?" I asked.

"Oh, it's bad of course, but she'll probably get over that pretty well too. Remember that rape isn't such a bug-a-boo in this time. Rich men rape poor women and girls with impunity here. Fawne wasn't a poor woman but I'm sure that she isn't shocked out of her wits that it happened to her.

"In fact, I think that your treatment of her abuser went a long way to helping. Fawne seemed to have revenge on her mind more than being completely devastated. Different women have different reactions to rape," Jaycee said.

"Still, even here and now it can't be something she just shrugs off," I said.

"It might be easier than you think for her. They don't know anything about women's rights here. It isn't even a concept. Even rich girls are often traded off by their families as if they were chattel. Fawne is tougher than you might think. She'll be a lot better tomorrow or the next day.

"Right now, she's sleeping it off. Valium can be very powerful when it needs to be. I started an IV for her dehydration and there are three good nurses in training watching her sleep," Jaycee said, and then laughed.

"We're probably set then. All we have to do is wait until night so we can get out of here," I said.

"Have you looked outside, to see if anyone followed us?"

"No, but I guess I could. They can't do anything to the buildings in the length of time they'll have. Still, I don't want them scaring the horses and mules. I'll take a look around I guess."

"Give me a minute to get a launcher and a few grenades and I'll go with you," Jaycee said.

We went to the armory and Jaycee put Big Boy's equivalent of an M203 on her carbine. She took a few minutes looking around in the stack of grenades and then loaded a knapsack with several different types.

"I'm almost hoping we find someone outside. There are some flash bangs for this thing and some of the canister rounds. I'm sure they'll be a big surprise," she said.

"No doubt they will be. You realize that you're holding the most powerful weapon on earth right now don't you?"

"Naw, they've got cannons that are more powerful, even now," she said.

"Maybe, but you could take one out with one grenade," I said.

"That's not because this is more powerful, it's because it's more mobile," she said.

"Ok, ok. I don't want to get into semantics. I do feel a lot safer with you carrying it though, and I don't have to pack the weight," I said.

"What, you didn't know you were going to carry the knapsack?"

What the hell, things can't be perfect every time. I picked up the bag and we went upstairs and outside.

We made a circuit around the house and I'll be damned if we didn't see some mounted men, probably twenty or thirty, coming toward the house from the cart path we'd used earlier. They were still probably five hundred yards away.

"Some people just can't take a hint," I said.

"We did cause quite a commotion and it isn't like they'd have a hard time following our trail. Hummers aren't known for hiding their tracks."

"Well miss military, what are you going to do about it?" I asked.

"I'm going to let them get within three hundred yards and see how their mounts like the flash bangs I found," she said.

While we waited I wished for a lawn chair again. Of course I had some now but we hadn't brought any outside with us. I wished I could remember them, at least a time or two.

Our prey had slowed when they saw us, being careful no doubt. No telling what type of wild tales they'd been told. They kept coming though and soon enough Jaycee gave them a sample.

The mounts did not like the flash bangs at all. I noticed that some of the men who fell off were wearing armor and I wondered if they'd be able to get back up by themselves. Of course that all depended on whether they could catch the horses in the first place. Some of them were still galloping away, riderless.

Strangely the man in the lead maintained his seat. His horse was probably better trained than some of the others. After a few minutes he seemed to have things settled down. He started toward us alone this time and, wonder of wonders; he had a white pennant flying from the tip of his lance.

Wasn't that a hoot? An armored man was approaching me, on horseback, and he had a real live lance. It was a history lesson in the making, that's what it was for sure.

Since he came alone and the others didn't appear to be up to anything sinister, Jaycee didn't fire again. He came up to within twenty feet and then rattled off what must have been his name, and titles too no doubt.

"If you can't speak English, turn around and send someone who can," I said.

He could speak English and he did. He started in with his name and title again but I cut him off right after Pierre.

"I don't care who you are. What do you want?" I said.

"We have come to recapture Fawne and to take the criminals that released her into custody," he said, and he must have thought he sounded important.

"I'm the criminal who released her and I'm not going to let you take her back."

"I have thirty men with me that will take care of that," he said.

"I don't care if you bring a thousand. How many do we need to kill before you understand that there is nothing you can do?" I asked.

"I have come to you under a flag of truce," he said, and he sounded so indignant.

"Yes, you did, but I don't see one waving over the thirty men you were bragging about. Jaycee, let them see what a real one is like," I said.

She did, and I'm sure the ones that lived wished she hadn't done that. I'll have to say that Jaycee was an excellent shot with an M203. The round hit near the center of the group and it took down every horse they had left.

"You should probably go see if you can help any of them. There might be a chance some of them will live," I said.

He was stunned and rightly so. He didn't move for a few seconds.

"Who are you?' he asked, clearly shaken.

I couldn't help myself, I had to do it. I know it's older than the hills and it's a cliché a hundred times over, but I couldn't resist.

"I'm your worst nightmare."

Jaycee sniggered at me but didn't say anything. Pierre turned around and headed back toward his thirty men. Mostly they were just bodies now.

We got a surprise a few minutes later when people on foot started coming into sight. They had been hiding behind a hill near the cart path but they were coming up now.

"Who are they?" Jaycee asked, as if I knew, then I thought I might.

"Camp followers I guess."

"For only thirty men?" she asked.

"Someone has to come along to keep telling you how important you are, even if there are only a few of you," I said.

"You know we're going to have to stay out here and keep an eye out for others, don't you?" Jaycee asked.

"Yeh, I know. I also know I'm going into the house to get us some lawn chairs. I'm not going to stand around all day."

"We'll both go. It'll take a while for them to figure out their next move," she said.

We'd no sooner turned around than I saw Meka, Tutsie in her arms, Adèle, and Delphine headed toward us. We walked toward them.

"Daddy, we come see big boom," Meka said, when we got to them.

"Ok, just don't get too close while the booming is going on."

"What men want?" she asked.

"They wanted Fawne back and they wanted to arrest me," I told her, wondering if she had any idea what I'd meant.

She might have, since she gave me a look and then laughed.

"No can arrest Daddy," she said, and then laughed again.

"What we now?" she asked, when her giggling died down.

"We were going to get some lawn chairs to sit in while we watched," I said.

"We get," Meka said, and the three of them turned around.

With our trip preempted, Jaycee and I turned back around just in time to see good old Pierre coming toward us at a gallop, with his genuine lance lowered.

"Can I have this one too?" Jaycee asked, pulling her Glock.

"Sure, I'll share. Try for another gut shot though. I think a long slow death would look better on him," I said, I was getting a little tired of snooty Frenchmen.

She made an excellent shot. Hitting a man on a galloping horse at a hundred yards with a handgun is no mean feat. Pierre did an excellent imitation of dead as he tumbled off his mount, but when we got to him, he wasn't.

Strangely his horse hadn't run off. I was more interested in it than I was in Pierre. It was an outstanding animal, more impressive since it was from this day and age, and it was obviously well trained. Finally I got done looking it over and went to stand by Jaycee who was holding her Glock on Pierre even though he wasn't going anywhere.