Lora of Two Worlds

The first dawn of her new life fell on the window-paper patched up in haste the night before; the moving light-shapes danced, leaping and laughing on the yellowed paper as the bay-tree outside waved in the wind.

Lora fixed her eyes on the patches of light and laid two fingers on her own pulse, counting the beats in her head:

One-two-three-four, two-two-three-four...

With no clock to read, she used the old pulse-count her grandfather had taught her, one breath in, one breath out, four beats to a turn.

Counting pulse and breath at once was awkward, so Lora fell back on the cadence of a workout drill, fewer than four beats to a breath was slow, more than four was fast.

The fast grades went: five beats to a breath was a strained pulse; six was a racing pulse; seven was a faltering pulse. All of it was out of the old Pulse Codex, which in her own time was still some seven hundred years in the future.

After several countings, Lora was certain, her body was well, her reactions normal; she was, in good earnest, alive in the Lohenheim of King Edmond IV’s reign, in the Odenheim house.

She let go of her wrist and stretched, easy and pleased: no office to go to, how fine!

Then she remembered, and quickly turned over and fished from under her pillow a kerchief bundle. She opened it: rose ring, medallion, both there.

She let out her breath: She couldn’t lose these, one was Grandpa’s treasure, the other her rescuer’s, and she still had to find a way to give it back.

Then a small bright spot of red, vivid, easy to miss, caught her eye. Lora brought the rose ring up close.

That faint touch of red sat on a single stamen of the silver-white rose.

Had it been there yesterday? Lora couldn’t say. She counted, the rose had nine stamens, and only I bore red at the tip.

Was it because the needle had been used once?

Lora slipped the ring onto her finger with care; she could even feel the Rose Needle’s gladness upon her hand.

She let out her breath, relieved. Perhaps it was no bad thing.

”My lady, you’re awake?” Margaret lifted the curtain and came in.

”Margaret?”

”Yes, my lady, I’m Margaret; the Countess put me to wait on you yesterday. If there’s anything you’d like to know, ask me.”

”Anything?”

”As long as I knows it, I’ll tell my lady.”

”Then... how old are you?”

Margaret couldn’t help laughing, what a question! She handed Lora the hot cloth and said, smiling: ”I is twenty-seven.”

Oh, same age as my modern self! Good, at least I won’t feel like a fool.

Lora blinked and went on: ”Then how many years younger am I than you?”

”Oh, so that’s what you wanted! You’re twelve years younger than I’m; you’ll only turn fifteen this autumn!”

Even Hilda and Anne, standing by, laughed, Anne especially, as if she had been walking down the road, stepped in dung, looked down, and found a gold florin lying right next to it.

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She hadn’t had a chance yesterday to ask after her own age; now she knew she wasn’t yet fifteen, and Lora nearly threw back her head and laughed aloud:

Come on, live it up, there’s all the time in the world...

”We’ll dress you, and then you can walk a bit in the grounds; the carpenters are coming to mend your window.”

Lora wiped her face and asked: ”Hasn’t Father confined me to the house? How am I to walk outside?”

”The house is large, my lady! This was once a princess’s mansion; when the Countess married the Count, Prince Jasper asked the King for the house and gave it to her for a wedding gift. If you truly walked the whole circuit, you might not be back by dinner.”

Margaret gathered Lora’s waist-length hair up, tried it at several points on her head, and began to dress it; she went on:

”Lord Carl copied the scriptures all night in the outer hall, and at dawn took it to the abbey for the altar, you’ve had a narrow escape; you must thank the saints for it. Lord Carl said you weren’t to take breakfast; he’ll bring something back from outside when he returns.”

”Doesn’t he go to the garrison today?”

”The Countess says my lady remembers nothing now, and doesn’t know what should or shouldn’t be done, she’s let Lord Carl have a few days with you, until after midmonth, when he’s on leave.”

”Then he owes me a big dinner, breakfast is nothing. I got him a few days off, didn’t I?” Lora played with a hair ornament in her hand.

What fun, this age had this kind of craft. The pendant’s pin and its beaded flower were joined by a tiny spring of twisted gold wire, so that at the slightest move the beads trembled and shook.

Who said the spring was a Western invention? They’d had it here long ago, only, they used it for jewelry.

Margaret dressed Lora’s hair in a half-loosed hanging coil; the young ladies not yet of age liked their hair down, it gave Lora a playful, pretty air.

Looking at herself in the glass, Lora went blank: the looking glass wasn’t very clear, but this Lora was the very face of herself at ten or so in the modern world.

What a piece of luck!

Could this have been her own past life?

She touched her face, the skin fine and soft, the very feel of it known to her, and a self-loving smile came over her face.

The discovery put her wholly at ease; the notions of ”borrowing a body” and ”usurping a soul” that had flickered through her head yesterday were tossed aside at once:

I’m not living another life; I have only come back, to let the self that died too soon in that life go on living.

For her, this reckoning mattered greatly, it shortened, at a stroke, her coming-to-terms with the age; in a day she had the confidence of being ”herself” again.

”My lady, should we wait for Lord Carl at the Brightwater gazebo?” asked Anne.

Margaret gave her a look. ”Wait by water again? Better the little study, I’ve already had it swept. That’s where my lady, very small, had her first lessons with the two young lords.

”When the young lords turned seven they went to the royal academy; the little study became my lady’s own room. When Lord Carl is back, we’ll send him there to find you.”

Lora was eager to see her old kindergarten. She gathered her skirt and skipped out the door.

Walking along the wall between the two houses, Lora soon came in sight of the old apple tree.

”Isn’t this an apple tree? It’s the season, how’s it there’s not one apple?”

”It used to bear; these last two years it’s only leaves, no blossom, likely too old; twenty years, perhaps.”

Lora loved apples; she pitied it, and ran a hand over its mottled trunk. Looking up, she pointed at a broken branch dangling there:

”Who’d be so mean? Snapped the branch right off.”

Margaret pressed her lips to keep from smiling. ”Who else? The only one who still climbs this tree is Lord Roland, it’s his short cut between the two houses. We’ll just have someone saw the broken branch off later.”

”Bring a ladder, I’ll go up and look.”

The leaves on the broken branch were still green, Lora thought it could be saved.

That was her besetting fault, dead thing or live, if she saw it broken, she wanted to mend it.

”To saw a branch you don’t need to do it yourself, my lady, climbing is dangerous ”

”I’ll go up, see if it can be saved.”

At Lora’s unarguable look, Margaret gave over; she sent the page behind them for a ladder.

The wooden ladder was soon brought. Lora climbed slowly and inspected; the branch wasn’t wholly snapped, a little bark and some of the wood still held, the break was fresh, and the limb might grow back together, only the break was awkwardly placed for tying a splint.

”Well? Can it be saved?” Margaret asked idly, and was surprised when Lora nodded:

”It can. Find me two stout sticks, a strip of cloth and some cord, and a bowl of salted pepper water.”

Margaret hurried to have these fetched. Lora had the page also dig up some clay from the ground and knead it with water into a paste.

When all was ready she climbed the ladder again.

Up there alone, the work was awkward. She had to brace the broken branch with her shoulder to free both hands, and that was easier.

”Margaret, hand up the sticks.”

”Coming, coming!”

”The clay, pass up the clay.”

”Ale, quick, take it up.”

”Not enough, knead some more.”

Mistress above, maids below, chattering and busy.