In the fifth year of King Edmond IV, late spring.
Augustburg, the Western Capital, hadn't yet recovered from the latest storm at court, but Lohenheim, the Eastern Capital, basked in soft spring sun and easy music, untouched by any of it.
On the day of the parish Rogation procession, after the icons had been carried round the fields to bless the harvest, every house in the city did as it always did and threw a feast. The Salt family, the biggest tax-farmers under the Crown's salt monopoly in Lohenheim, was no exception.
Their double-decked river barge was crowded just now, but the mood on board was anything but festive. There was no lute, no pipe, no dancing. Just one young woman wailing her lungs out:
"Stop asking. I can't remember any of it. All I know is somebody pushed me into the river."
"Lora, please, stop crying. Seeing you like this, your brother wants to hit somebody."
Carl wasn't yet seventeen, but he drove his fist into the table beside him hard enough to make the whole thing jump. The table was bare, since they'd cleared it earlier to make room for the barber-surgeon, but that thud landed squarely in everyone's chest.
Who would be so bold? To play a trick on a daughter of House Odenheim! The Count's house had five young lords, all of them wearing the city garrison's collar. If they lost their tempers and came to blows, no sheriff in the realm would lay a finger on them, kin to the Crown as they were. Carl ground out, jaw tight:
"Whoever pushed my sister off this boat knows exactly who they're. Play dumb if you like. The Sheriff will be here soon enough, and then we'll see. I'll have your bones for it then."
With her brother backing her, Lora von Odenheim let herself cry in earnest. She'd just been fished out of the river, and apart from her name, she'd only that moment learned who she was in this strange world.
The body belonged to the daughter of the Count of Odenheim, Lord Warden of Lohenheim's defenses. The soul inside it, however, belonged to Lora Summers, twenty-seven, single, hedge-fund investment manager, twenty-first century.
The catch was, she had none of the girl's memories. The only thing she could call up was the image of the woman who'd pushed her in: green bodice, white skirt.
Good thing she was a woman. A woman could cry and pass it off as shock, play it by ear, buy herself a little time. Surrounded by all these people, with her head spinning, Lora couldn't think of a better move just yet.
Still, in the few minutes she'd been crying, she'd quietly sized up most of the crowd from the snatches of conversation around her.
Brendan, who'd gone to fetch the Sheriff, and Carl, hovering at her elbow, those were two of her brothers. The tall, thin man who kept stepping in to smooth things over was Simon Salt, the second son of the Salt house and master of today's banquet. The overdressed young lords lounging about were the sons and grandsons of office-holders in Lohenheim, full of swagger, all of them mad for a backroom rumor and quick to flatter one another.
What she cared about, of course, was the girl in the green bodice and white skirt. By the unwritten rule of these things, even if the body lived, the girl who'd owned it was already dead. A score like that had to be settled.
But she counted heads and found six young ladies dressed exactly like that in the crowd, herself included. Which made no sense at all.
From the chatter around her, Lora pieced together roughly what had happened.
Most of those young lords were brothers to the young ladies, so the girls had been invited to dance a piece they'd been practicing at the convent school. The green-and-white was their matching dance costume. So the one who pushed her could be any one of the other five.
Tricky. She didn't yet have a firm grip on the situation. If she blurted out her one clue now, she wouldn't be able to point to the right girl, and worse, she'd spook the bird in the bush.
Lora had lost the girl's memories, but her own mind worked just fine. Newly arrived and treading carefully, she stuck to one line: she couldn't remember anything from before. She didn't breathe a word about the green bodice and white skirt.
Just now, Lora's right thumb was rubbing absently at a small embossed gold medallion, as if the motion alone might calm her. The medallion wasn't hers. She'd torn it from the white-robed man who pulled her out of the river, and now it sat clutched in her palm, smooth and warm under her thumb, something to do with her hands.
When she'd first crossed over into Lora von Odenheim's body, it was already at the bottom of the river, the last breath nearly gone, revival slipping away. Then that man had come down through the water like some old river-god out of a pagan tale. Through the blur she'd seen a wide hand pass across her eyes, telling her to close them, or maybe just not wanting her to see his face.
He'd caught her against him and kicked them both up through the current, fighting hard until he broke the surface with her.
The men who'd jumped in to find her spotted her flailing in the water a little way downstream. The moment he saw she was safe, the man slipped back under without a word and was gone.
When he let go of her, she'd had nothing to hold onto. Panic seized her, her hands clawed at the water, and somehow she'd caught his medallion and torn it free. By the time she realized what she'd done and tried to give it back, the man was nowhere to be seen.
Apart from the medallion, Lora realized she'd come up out of the river with one other thing on her hand.
She knew I. It was her modern grandfather's surgical silver needle, the kind with a five-petaled silver rose cast onto the tail, stamens and all. Just now the needle was wound in nine neat loops, tight as a ring, and the little rose sat blooming quietly on her right index finger.
Pulled straight, the Rose Needle was far longer than any ordinary probe. The old medical texts spoke of a seven-inch needle, but no technique for wielding it had ever come down. Anyone who could use one was rare as a griffin, and her grandfather, it so happened, was just such a one.
And yet he'd hoarded the Rose Needle like a treasure and never let her touch it. How had it turned up here, on her hand? And wrapped so neatly into the shape of a ring? It made no sense.
Still, seeing that familiar needle, like seeing Grandpa, who always met trouble with a chuckle and a shrug, gave her a sudden, solid courage, and the strange world around her settled into something she could bear.
"The Sheriff is here!"
"Make way! Make way!"
Voices rose from the bank, and every head on the barge turned.
Brendan came up the gangplank first, leading a young man in a purple velvet houppelande. The stranger's handsome face carried no smile, his thin mouth set in a hard line, a flash of anger slipping through despite himself. The rich purple robe gave him a weight you couldn't look straight at.
So young? Lora was surprised.
When her brother had said a moment ago that they were going to fetch the Sheriff, she'd half-thought they were bluffing, just trying to rattle the people on board.
From her old work on medieval economic history, she knew Lohenheim was a first-tier royal city, and the Sheriff of such a city was appointed directly by the King, a post of real weight. Even so, with both capitals, Augustburg and Lohenheim, thick with royal kin and great officers, the local men were usually outranked by birth. A Sheriff of twenty or so was well past anything she'd expected.
Best say as little as possible. Every word was a chance to put her foot in it. Lora decided to keep her mouth shut. She was a helpless little amnesiac anyway. She didn't even have to act the part.
Felix spotted Lora at once, pale and pitiful in her wrap, and gave her a small nod. He flicked his robe aside and took the chair set amidships. Jonan Carey, his bailiff, stepped up at his elbow, and a handful of serjeants lined up on either side with a clatter of staves. Only then did Felix look out over the barge and speak:
"Everyone on this barge, back to where you were standing when the Odenheim girl went into the water. Jonan, take down each name and house. Anyone who can't account for their whereabouts at the time goes back to the sheriff's hall for further questioning."
"Yes, my lord!"
The other men in town might not dare cross these young lordlings, but Felix didn't care a straw for them.
By rank, some of their fathers might outrank him. But his mother was Adelaide, the Grand Princess of Selwood, the King's own aunt and the one His Majesty trusted most. When Edmond IV had been hustled onto the throne with Valentin Voss's backing, her part in holding Lohenheim for him had been decisive.
That alone let Felix Fairfax, eldest son of the Grand Princess, a young man fresh out of the church university with first honors, take on any trouble Lohenheim could throw at him.
He watched the crowd shuffle obediently back to their places while the serjeants took down names. Only then did he turn his head and ask, lightly:
"How are you? Brendan tells me you had a bad fright."
Lora's eyes were still red. She dipped a curtsy and said, with creditable meekness, "My lord Sheriff, the barber-surgeon has already looked me over. My health is well enough. Only my head is humming, and the things from before, I can't call any of them back."
Felix visibly hesitated, thrown. The words "my lord Sheriff" landed strangely on his ear. He tried again, carefully: "Do you remember how you went into the river?"
Lora shook her head, blankly.
So this was the "fright-amnesia" Brendan had mentioned. Felix half-believed it now.
Their two town houses shared a wall. Lora's mother was the lawful eldest granddaughter of Prince Jasper, and Prince Jasper, hale at a great age, still lived in the Princes' Quarter at Augustburg, where even the King gave the old great-great-uncle three parts courtesy. So this branch of the line still had its spine.
He and Lora were second cousins.
The girl next door had never stood on ceremony with him. When had she ever called him "my lord Sheriff"? To see her so mild, so obedient, left Felix not knowing whether to laugh or sigh. He offered, gently:
"I'll take the suspicious ones back to the hall for questioning. Don't worry. I'll see you right."
"No, no, I want to hear what they all have to say. Maybe something they say will help me remember."
A sweet word opens more doors than a sharp one, and Lora had learned that the hard way. In her old life she'd been too independent by half. The cool, careful habit an investment manager needed had squeezed all the softness out of her, and at twenty-seven she'd still been alone, while her girlfriends, who knew how to pout, cycled through boyfriends like the seasons.
Here in this medieval world, her finance training seemed useless. But she'd been born into a count's house, with five brothers to shield her. This time, she planned to lean into every advantage a girl could have.
The soft voice and the trembling lip did the trick. Felix thought for a moment and said:
"You don't have to sit through the pointless questioning. If anything comes up that needs you, I'll send for you."
Depositions never caught the small things. Lora shook her head at once, keeping herself an escape route, whether she'd need it or not:
"It's about me. I'd rather be there."
"Are you sure you can stand it? Don't push yourself." Felix had already yielded. It wasn't strictly by the book, but as she said, if it shook her memory loose, there was something to it.
Several of the young ladies were still standing near them, since they'd just finished their dance and hadn't yet sat down.
Watching the handsome, brilliant Sheriff speak to Lora in that gentle tone, minds began to work.
Rosalind Ashby was standing closest to Lora. She'd caught every word. When she heard Felix ask if Lora could bear it, she smiled and took Lora's hand:
"The Sheriff is right, you know. You've only just come round. Don't fret so. Memory can wait. Once my questioning is done, I'll go back with you to your house and we can sit it out together. Wouldn't that be better?"
"Dramatic as ever!" snapped another voice. "The barber-surgeon said she's perfectly well, and still she's to play at amnesia. Did she meet a nixie down there that stole her wits? Or does she want the whole city weeping over her?"
Lora looked up. The speaker was a girl whose face curdled with displeasure, rolling her eyes so far back you could see the white, looking for all the world as if Lora owed her five hundred gold florins, overdue and unpaid.
What had Lora ever done to her?
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