Chapter 11

The rain gods were displeased.

Or maybe they WERE pleased. Rain could be how they showed their happiness, showering, so to speak, worshipers with their blessing. Shanna wasn't up on the theology of this world. Sufficed to say, the humans weren't enjoying this blessing from above.

The column trudged forward, wooden wheels and shod and unshod feet struggling down the mud and stone road. The stones did make things better, Shanna for the first time approving of the actual work put into the construction of the roadway. Most of the water drained off, running down into the green grass on either side. Still, it pooled in ruts and depressions, as well as falling on and soaking already exhausted Poles.

All in all, a shitty day.

They were walking their mounts again, resting the poor beasts. In a way, Shanna preferred walking at that moment. Being down between the horses and the wagons offered some small shelter from the elements, much more than being mounted. She also, well, felt less guilty. Her feet trudged through puddles alongside all the others. No special treatment for her.

James, too, walked. She liked that about him. A rain poncho of some sort had appeared out of the aether, or the Royal Wagon, as soon as sprinkles had begun to fall. He gave it to Ewa, the girl holding the baby under its semi-waterproof protection. When her turn came to ride in the wagon, under its canvas top, he gave it to another woman with a child. The look in that woman's eyes, in the eyes of all around them, said all.

Would she have done the same? Possibly. Shanna was awesome, after all.

"Lady Shanna?"

Shanna let out a quiet sigh. The girl Anelie had improved as the day went on, as she came to understand her constant stream of consciousness conversation truly did annoy the woman she wanted to impress. So, too, Shanna had gotten used to the red haired girl. After a day on the road, the person beside you became someone who had always been a part of your life. There had been quiet for the past mile, so she accepted that conversation was not now an unreasonable thing.

"What?"

"Do you know any songs?"

"Songs?" That had been a random question. She looked at the girl beside her. Her braid looked like a shipboard rope, water soaked and heavy. Her shoulders slumped under the weight of her pack. At camp, Shanna would have to go through it, see what could be divided among the others for the next day's travel. There was no reason for the teen to kill herself trying to impress.

"Yeah, a song. A song from your world. I love songs. I always sing them when I'm walking alone, and we've sung them before as we walked." Shanna had heard singing, from ahead and behind, and from other camps. This group was a bit uptight in that regard. Maybe a song would help.

Her eyes went to the river, now swollen, still flowing parallel to the road.

"Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. Row, row, row your boat..."

"Row, row, row your boat..." James' deeper voice came in, unexpectedly fitting well with her softer tones. Shanna wondered what the others were hearing, English, or Polish? She didn't think the song would work in that language. Rhymes never translated.

"Row ... row..." Anelie's voice, uncertain, joined in at just the right place. Shanna smiled at the girl. Encouraged, her voice strengthened, pronunciation improved. A fourth joined them. Male. Piotr.

Shanna felt tears on her cheeks. Imagine. Crying over "Row Your Boat". She was pitiful.

Maybe they could do "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" next. She always cried during that one.

"Yankee Doodle keep it up, Yankee Doodle dandy, mind the music and the step, and with the girls be handy!"

Shanna was cold, soaked, and tired, yet happy. Singing did sooth the grumpy woman. The King's hands before her signaled the end of the song, cheers erupting around them. The people, too, where cheerful. Which made sense, as they had to be full of cheer for cheers to be able to erupt out of them, and oh, god, was she cold and tired. She wanted to stop. Why couldn't they stop...

"Make camp! Make camp!" The rider tore down the side of the road towards them, seeming to understand the people were too tired to move out of the way on the road proper. A wave of cheering, muted as it was, followed him, passing over Shanna and the King's party as he passed.

"Thank God," she moaned. Anelie let out a similar moan beside her.

"This is the worst day ever."

"And it's not over yet." Shanna moved her mount off the road, giving the wagons more room as they began to maneuver off onto the wet grass. "Please, Jesus in heaven above, don't let any wagons get stuck. I don't want to have to push them now..."

"Why would you have to?" Anelie's face looked confused through the suddenly heavier downpour. "You're with the King! Important!"

"So?" She was too tired to offer a better rebuttal than that. Let the girl think about it for awhile. She looked around as Piotr led the Hussar guard off. It took a few moments for Shanna to locate James. He was with his unmounted guards, the men as always suddenly there when it was their turn to shield their King. The men were at attention, James serious as he talked.

She frowned. He was demanding loyalty, most likely. What would he do, if one refused? Even the knowledge that James was doing this could have horrible repercussions. Imagine if the US President asked those around him to follow him, ignoring the law and Constitution if his orders defied those? That was grounds for impeachment, it was. Here, she suspected unwanted Kings were not left around to cause trouble. That said, she agreed with what he was doing. A King NEEDED a loyal core. A buffer between himself, and those whose loyalty might be to some other noble, or general.

Or Captain.

"So, this is our mystery book."

Shanna dried her hands some more on the towel, the rest of her nowhere near dry as she sat in the desk chair. She could still smell the sweet, warm scent of their evening dinner, now cooking outside the tent under mostly rainproof tarps. She needed food, rest, warmth. However, now was the time she and James had a moment alone, the rest of the camp busy working to provide those needs. The last rope had barely been tied, the tent's contents just hurried in, when he had ordered everyone out except her.

If this wasn't important, she was going to be very annoyed.

His own hands freshly dried, James opened the book on the desk before her. He said nothing, wanting her untainted opinion. Leaning forward, she looked at the first page.

Shanna frowned.

"You're fucking me."

"That's probably what they think we're doing," James replied with a chuckle.

"No, I mean..." Reaching out, she flipped the page. She couldn't be seeing...

"What is it?" he asked.

"I KNOW this book!" She looked up at him. The black haired King looked at her with open disbelief. He frowned.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously! You've never seen it?"

"No." He flipped a few more pages. "What the hell is it?"

"It's ... give me a moment." Her eyes closed. Shanna knew the name of the thing, but had never heard it pronounced. Voy ... Voy something... "Ah!" Her eyes opened, looking back up at James. "It's the Voynich Manuscript!"

"Voynich..."

"Yup! I'm sure of it!" She grabbed a hundred of the pages, flipping through them. She stopped on a page of text, illustrations of nude women in water tubs grown from plants on the top and sides of the page. "I've looked through it before. It's famous."

"Never heard of it."

"Uneducated heathen." Almost reverently, she touched the page. "It's a mystery book."

"Obviously."

"No, I mean, in our world nobody knows what it is. It turned up in some bookstore a century or so ago, and is around five hundred years old. Nobody can read it, nobody knows what language it is, or even if it is a language. It could be a code, or just gibberish. It could be a magic book, written by or for someone like John Dee, or it could be a hoax someone made up to sell to someone like that. Nobody knows!"

"But it's here."

"Yeah! Well, probably not the same one. Another copy. Just because the one on Earth is five hundred years old doesn't mean it wasn't copied from an older version. Wow."

"But what is it?"

"I just said, we don't know."

"SOMEONE here knows."

That was right. The book was real. Not a hoax. It had meaning.

"There are recipes in it," she told him, flipping through to show him. "At least, they could be. And astronomical charts. And the plants."