Hotter Than Hell

The guardsman did not wait for his Lord to speak. “Can we make this quick? With the crowds coming in—”

“We need a new war leader,” Lord Ched cut him off. He looked around the gathering, his expression hard, daring them to argue. “Right now. This very day would be good. Do you want the job?” he demanded of the guardsman.

A scar ran over the empty socket of the guard’s left eye. He glanced toward the courtyard with his one good eye. They all followed his gaze. The couple was still busy on the altar. Morga’s thighs were wrapped tightly around the Year King’s slender waist and the beautiful young man was pistoning away with hard, swift strokes. He was covered with a glowing sheen of sweat, his muscles bulging.

Damn, but that boy had stamina!

“He’s perfect,” the guard said. “How could I take his place?”

“He’s not perfect,” Lord Ched said. “He’s an idiot, a fool, and a braggart. He pleases my daughter and her belly’s already swelling with a second brat, but he’s useless for anything else.”

“In normal times that would be enough,” the steward spoke up. He rubbed his jaw, the tough stubble on his cheeks making scratching sounds. “I suppose we could go back to the old ways. We could sacrifice him come the Planting Ceremony instead of just letting the lads wrestle for rights to Morga this year. The gods might like that. The crowd certainly would.”

“Morga would not,” Ginger said.

“Nor would I,” added the bishop.

They were both ignored.

“Even if we return to the old ways,” the lord said. “We need someone to replace the Year King first. Someone who can fight. Someone who can lead. I’m too old. Morga’s son is still with the wetnurse. Tradition dictates that the Year King lead us into battle. A battle is coming, and that boy out there isn’t up to the job.”

All Ginger had wanted when she took on this role was a little peace and quiet while she tried to find a way home, but the invaders marching up from the coast weren’t likely to leave anyone in peace. Or even alive, if the rumors they’d been hearing proved to be true. The whole point of returning to the Dark Ages was to find out what happened, to fill in the holes left by Bede and Gildas. Her simple research project had instead left her stuck in the very Dark Ages where she didn’t know what happened.

At least on a grand, historical scale. Here and now, in this little corner of the world, she knew too much. She was a board-certified psychic. She knew trouble was coming soon, marching here as fast as the old Roman roads would allow. But her gift only went so far, in certain directions, and after that she was as on her own as anyone else here.

Her worried musings were interrupted by Lord Ched. “What shall we do, priestess? Look into the water and tell us what the gods say.”

So her Sight was supposed to save them.

As she had suspected would be the case. She always tried to tell the truth of what she saw in the water, but divination was one thing and politics was another.

What she Saw might not be enough to help them.

Ginger sighed, but didn’t argue about her duty. She owed the Lord of the manor her life, and she understood his concerns. His world was threatening to fall apart, and the people he was sworn to protect were in danger. As one of those people, she applauded his take-charge attitude.

She gestured for the men to stand back. They moved fast, obviously delighted the decision was in her hands and not theirs. If things turned out wrong later they could always claim that the priestess read the signs incorrectly.

Pin the blame on the psychic—it was a game that never went out of style. She had no doubt that back in the lab she’d come from in the distant future, they were playing it still. Somehow, they’d undoubtedly decided her team’s failure to return from the past was all her fault.

She knelt by the pool.

Ginger brushed away the bitterness she felt at their willingness to let her be the savior or the scapegoat. In fact, she put the men out of her mind altogether. She’d had years of practice honing her abilities, learning to ignore every possible kind of distraction. She looked into the crystal clear water, her awareness going far deeper than the eight-inch depth of the pool. As always, she was amazed at how quickly her perceptions attuned to the energies present at this energy nexus.

From a long way away she heard herself ask, “Question?”

From even farther away the Lord’s voice came to her in an echoing whisper, “Who shall lead my people to war?”

Almost instantly a face appeared on the surface of the pool, though Ginger was the only one who could see it. A pair of piercing green eyes caught hers and she gasped, for she was certain that he could see her as clearly as she saw him. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before.

“I see visions, I don’t make contact,” she told the face.

“That’s not my fault, is it?” His rough, deep voice answered. “Who are you? Where are you?” he demanded.

His gaze enveloped her, but all she could do was continue to stare. She wanted to fall into the vision, into him, wanted him to fall into her. She wanted him the way a woman wanted a man. That had never happened before, either.

She shook off the desire that threatened to swamp her and concentrated on the task at hand. He was as handsome as any Year King should be, but for a small scar on one cheek. He couldn’t be the man the lord wanted, then, for a Year King must be perfect.

A crowd of men suddenly appeared in the water behind the stranger’s wide shoulders. They were a rough and dangerous-looking lot, with travel-stained clothes and heavy packs.

“Mercenaries,” she said, understanding at last what they were. He had to be their leader, the alpha among a pack of hungry wolves.

“Wolves mate for life,” he said, clearly keying into her thoughts. He shook his head hard. It seemed his words made no more sense to him than they did to her.

“What do you see?” Ched’s anxious voice came to her.

The question drew her away from the vision, but a sense of urgency drew her to her feet. “He’s here,” she said. “Now. At the gate.”

“What did you say, sir?”

Bern felt the weight of Sergeant Kaye’s hand on his shoulder as the world came back into focus. “I hate when that happens,” he muttered. He frowned, and the sergeant stepped back. “Was I just talking to somebody, Kaye?”

“You spoke,” Kaye answered. He glanced at the rest of the team, who were spread out across the road. “But you weren’t talking to any of us.”

“I was afraid of that.”

Bern’s rating on the psychic scale was a lowly little three, enough to get him transferred into the TTP’s security force but not high enough to really interfere with his leading a normal, sane life. Except—sometimes he heard voices, or had a flash of intuition. He’d learned to listen to the voices and trust his gut feelings. He’d just had one of those flashes, though he couldn’t remember all the details. Of course, some details demanded he pay attention to them. He loosened his belt and adjusted his tunic.

“Something’s up,” he said. And in more ways than one.

He studied the lay of the land while he got his reaction to the woman he’d heard in his mind under control. It was spring, very close to the major seasonal fertility festival, and the road they were on led to one of the holy sites scattered all over the southern part of the island. This particular temple to the local mother goddess was located on private property, and the pilgrims were camping out in cow pastures on either side of the road. The manor at the top of the hill had been built by a wealthy Roman colonist, but the local chieftain had taken over after the Romans abandoned all their foreign outposts a generation ago. Bern didn’t care about the festival, but it made a good cover for checking out the place.