Angel Time (The Songs of the Seraphim 1)

All around I could see the tough young men and, again, women and children in the crowd, and torches began to appear, to fight the gloom of the late winter afternoon.

I struggled to be free, and this only incited others to lay hold of me. Someone ripped the leather bag from my shoulder. "Let's see what letters of introduction you carry," demanded one of the priests, and then he emptied out the bag and all that fell from it was silver and gold coins rolling everywhere.

The crowd gave a loud roar.

"No answer?" demanded Fr. Antoine. "You admit that you are nothing but an impostor? We have been worried about the wrong impostor all this time? Is that what we are given to know now? You are no Dominican friar!"

I furiously kicked at him, and pushed him back, and I turned around to face the doors of the cathedral. I made a dash for it, when suddenly one of the young men caught me in his grip and slammed me back against the stone wall of the church so that everything went black for me for an instant.

Oh, that it had been forever. But I couldn't wish for that. I opened my eyes to see the priests trying to hold back the furious crowd. Fr. Antoine cried out that this wastheir matter and they would settle it. But the crowd was having none of it.

People were pulling at my mantle, at last tearing it off. Someone else yanked my right arm and I felt a riot of pain move through my shoulder. Once again I was slammed against the wall.

In flickers, I saw the crowd as if the light of consciousness in me were going on and off, on and off, and slowly a dreadful sight materialized.

The priests had all been pushed to the rear. Only the tough young men of the town and the rougher women now surrounded me. "Not a priest, not a friar, not a brother, impostor!" came the cries.

And as they struck me and kicked me and tore at my robes, it seemed that all through the shifting mass, I made out other figures. These figures were all known to me. These figures were the men I'd murdered. And there very near me, wrapped in silence, as though he was not part of the melee at all, but invisible to the ruffians who worked their fury on me, stood the man I'd lately killed at the Mission Inn, and right beside him the young blond-haired girl I'd shot so many long years ago in Alonso's brothel. All looked on, and in their faces I saw not judgment, not glee, but only something faintly sad and wondering.

Someone had ahold of my head. They were beating my head against the stones, and I could feel the blood running down my neck and down my back. For a moment I saw nothing.

I thought in the strangest most detached way of my question to Malchiah, which he had never answered. "Could I die in this time? Was that possible?" But I didn't call out for him now.

As I went down in a torrent of blows, as I felt the leather shoes kicking at my ribs and at my stomach, as the breath went out of me, as the sight left my eyes, as the pain shot through my head and limbs, I said only one prayer.

Dear Lord, forgive me that I ever separated myself from You.

Chapter Sixteen - World Enough and Time

DREAMING. HEARING THAT SINGING AGAIN THAT SOUNDEDlike the reverberation of a gong. But it was slipping away as I came to myself. The stars were slipping away, and the vast dark sky was fading.

I slowly opened my eyes.

No pain anywhere.

I was lying in the half tester bed at the Mission Inn. All the familiar furnishings of the suite were around me.

For a long moment I stared up at the checkered silk tester, and I realized, made myself realize, that I was back, in my own time, and there was no pain anywhere in my body.

Slowly I sat up.

"Malchiah?" I called out.

No answer.

"Malchiah, where are you?" Silence.

I felt something in me was about to break loose and I was terrified of it. I whispered his name once more but it didn't surprise me that there was no answer.

One thing I did know, however. I knew that Meir, Fluria, Eli, Rosa, Godwin, and the Earl had all safely left Norwich. I knew it. Somewhere deep inside my clouded mind was a vision of that cart, surrounded by soldiers, safely away, on the road to London.

That seemed as real as anything in this room, and this room seemed completely real, and reliably solid.

I looked down at myself. I was a bit of a wrinkled mess.

But I was wearing one of my own suits, a khaki jacket and pants with a khaki vest, and a white shirt open at the neck. Just usual clothes for me.

I reached into my pocket and discovered I had the identification that I used when I came here, as myself. Not Toby O'Dare, of course, but the name I used for walking around without a disguise.

I shoved the driver's license back in my pocket and I climbed off the bed and went into the bathroom and stared into the mirror. No bruises, no marks.

But I think I actually looked at my own face for the first time in years. I saw Toby O'Dare, aged twenty-eight, staring back at me.

Why did I think there would be any bruises and marks?

The fact was, I couldn't believe I was still alive, couldn't believe I'd survived what had surely seemed to be the death I'd deserved outside the cathedral.

And if this world had not seemed as vivid as that world, I would have thought I was dreaming.

I walked around the room in a daze. I saw my usual leather bag there, and realized how much it resembled the bag I'd been toting all through the thirteenth century. My computer was there, too, the laptop I used only for research.

How did these things get here? How did I get here? The computer, a Macintosh laptop, was open and plugged in, just the way I might have left it after using it.

For the first time, it occurred to me that everything that had happened was a dream, was something that I'd imagined. Only trouble was I could never have imagined it. I could never have imagined Fluria or Godwin, or the old man, Eli, and the way he had turned the trial at the pivotal moment.

I opened the door and I went out onto the tiled veranda. The sky was clear blue and the sun was warm on my skin, and after the muddy snowy skies I'd known for the last few weeks, it felt absolutely caressing. I sat down at the iron table, and I felt the breeze passing over me, keeping the heat of the sun from building up on me--that old familiar coolness that always seems at work in the air of southern California.

I put my elbows on the table and bowed my head, resting it on my hands. And I cried. I cried so hard that I was sobbing.

The pain I felt was so awful that I couldn't describe it even to myself.

I knew people were passing me, and I didn't care what they saw or what they felt. At one point, a woman came up to me and put her hand on my shoulder.

"Can I do anything?" she whispered.

"No," I said. "Nobody can. It's all over."