Rain fell hard upon the city of Pozsony that day.

  From the window of his room on the inn’s second floor, Remy watched the world dissolve in grey. The rain drummed endlessly against the eaves, washing the dust from the rooftops and turning the gravel and cobbled roads below into a shallow, murky flood. Water pooled in the gutters, spilling down the hill like small, desperate rivers.

  Below, the innkeeper shouted orders at his servants, his voice rising above the storm. The men worked with buckets and pails, scooping water from the doorway in a hopeless effort to keep the flood at bay. Their boots splashed in the mud, faces glistening with both rain and sweat.

  From beyond the walls came the muffled sounds of the city, the neigh of a horse, the clatter of a falling crate, the distant toll of a church bell swallowed by thunder. Inside, travelers spoke in hushed tones, their voices carrying through the thin wood of the corridor.

  Some muttered darkly about the Danube, swearing that if the waters rose higher, the river would swallow the whole of Pozsony before dawn. Others simply laughed and rolled dice, trying to gamble away their unease.

  Remy stood silently by the window, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword. The storm’s rhythm soothed him in a strange way like the heartbeat of a restless earth.

  Jehan had gone out earlier, against his advice, to fetch the horses from the riverboat before the worst of the rain began. He had watched her from the same window, a small figure beneath the deluge, cloak drawn tight, hair clinging to her face. She moved with purpose, her determination almost childlike in its purity.

  It still fascinated him how easily his destrier obeyed her. The horse tolerated no one else’s touch, not even the Captain’s, but Jehan, somehow, could whisper it calm.

  Two hours later, she returned soaked to the bone, leading both mounts to the stables. She hitched them under the eaves, brushing down their flanks despite her trembling fingers. Her mare, smaller and gentler, pressed against her arm, while Remy’s destrier stood proud and unyielding, as if defying the storm itself.

  The Slovak Captain found Remy soon after, water dripping from his hat brim. His face was red from the cold, his voice gruff. “Sir,” he began in halting French, “the river’s no good. Danube’s stirring too strong. We stay till storm passes. Two days, maybe.”

  Remy nodded. It was no surprise. Ferries laden with iron and pots had no business testing a river in flood.

  The Captain hesitated, then added, “Would it be possible, my lord, to get some… coins?”

  Remy almost smiled. The man had audacity, and audacity deserved acknowledgment. He tossed him two groschen.

  The Captain caught them with a grin, bowed, and departed, his boots leaving wet prints along the hall.

  Two days, Remy thought. Two days confined to this sodden town. He could live with that.

  When Jehan learned they would remain, she had merely nodded and said she would pray. For once, Remy joined her.

  The day became one of rhythm and ritual. The storm outside fell in cadence with the rhythm of prayer, each hour marked by devotion, each pause a moment to breathe amid the chaos.

  At Matins, before dawn, he listened to her soft voice rise in the darkness, steady and clear, as though calling to something beyond hearing. At Lauds, as the sky began to brighten behind the storm clouds, he joined her in words of praise, though his voice was lower, measured, like a man unsure whether he still belonged to the faith he spoke.

  By Prime, he had returned to the window, watching the rain’s persistence as Jehan prayed beside him. Her face glowed faintly in the dim light, serene despite the thunder. He found a certain peace in the ritual, not in the words, but in the steadiness of their pattern.

  The hours passed from Terce, Sext, None. He prayed until Sext, then stopped. His faith could only stretch so far before his thoughts began to wander elsewhere, toward the world he had left behind, the one that still haunted him.

  He told Jehan to continue in peace, and she did, her lips moving soundlessly over the Psalms. Remy returned to his chamber and lit a candle, the wax softening beneath the heat. He set out his journal, with pages bound in leather, edges worn smooth, and began to write.

  Each word was deliberately written so only the moderns would understand.

  He wrote not only of the rain or the journey, but of thoughts he could share with no one but himself, of reflections, fears, memories that stretched across centuries. He addressed them all to Kale Morgan, the name he would one day take, or had already taken, depending on how one measured time and space.

  To write to himself across the ages was both an act of faith and despair.

  He paused once, pen hovering over the page, listening to the storm’s distant growl. The thought of the future always carried a strange ache within him, half longing, half mourning.

  He missed its conveniences, its certainties, its hum of light and metal. He missed a world that no longer required horses to bridge distance. And yet, in the quiet of that candlelit room, he also knew that maybe he would never see it again.

  There were nights when he thought of altering history of bending events just slightly, enough to make a mark. But each time, fear stayed in his hand. To change the past was to unmake the world he remembered.

  And though he had no proof that the future still existed, he could not bear the thought of destroying it.

  He set the pen down and closed his journal. The ink was still wet, glistening like blood beneath the flickering flame.

  Outside, thunder rolled again.

  Jehan’s voice could be faintly heard from the adjoining room, reciting her final prayers of the evening. Her tone carried a calm faith that Remy could neither share nor deny.

  He leaned back in his chair, eyes closed, and let the sound of rain and prayer merge into one.

  For the briefest moment, he imagined that the storm outside and the turmoil within were the same thing, both relentless, both searching for release.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  The rain passed at last.

  By morning, the city of Pozsony lay buried in deep mud, its streets glistening under the faint light that broke through the receding clouds. The air smelled of damp stone, horses, and churned earth. Water still ran in narrow streams between the cobbles, and each step gave a squelch like the breath of a drowned thing.

  Remy stood at the doorway of the inn, cloak over his shoulders, and surveyed the aftermath. The sky had the color of pewter. Merchants were already sweeping their thresholds, and townsfolk dragged barrels and broken crates from the river’s edge.

  He silently thanked Jehan for her quick thinking the day before. If she hadn’t pulled the horses from the riverboat before the storm worsened, they’d have been lost or maimed by now. Of course, Remy was confident his destrier would have swam out of the boat.

  Down by the docks, the Slovak Captain was shouting at his men, his voice cutting through the cold air. They were inspecting the hull of the boat for damage, scraping mud off ropes and drying the sails that had been soaked through. Two hours passed before the Captain finally sent word for his passengers to return.

  Most of them had been staying at the same inn, and when Remy made his way to the docks, they followed him in a kind of silent procession. The people gave him space without needing to be told. He boarded first. The deck creaked beneath his boots, slick but sound. The air still carried the sharp tang of the river, swollen from the rains.

  As the boat pushed off, the current took them gently, carrying them eastward again.

  Remy wrapped his blue cloak tighter, standing at the rail while Jehan came to his side. Her hood was drawn, a few loose strands of hair clinging to her cheek. She studied the rippling water with the same curiosity she gave to books or scripture earnest, unguarded, almost reverent.

  After a long silence, she spoke. “Sir Remy, may I ask something?”

  He turned slightly toward her. “What?”

  “Where were you born?”

  Remy studied her face, unsure what prompted the question. Jehan’s tone was soft, her eyes lowered, but there was a weight behind the words, as if she wanted to know the man she followed, not merely the knight she served.

  “Just humor me,” she said when he hesitated.

  He sighed, then answered, “I was born in Normandy, in the lands of Alen?on. A branch of the House of Valois–Alen?on, descended, distantly, from Charles of Valois, son of King Philip the Third. My father, Henri Valois, holds a fief under the Duke of Alen?on. My mother, Marguerite de Rieux, is pious, she taught me my letters, and my reverence for the Church.”

  Jehan blinked. “You were born in Normandy?”

  “That I was.”

  “You must have studied a lot,” she said.

  “I did,” Remy replied. “At nine, I was sent to study with the Benedictines. Latin, logic, scripture, and medicine. At sixteen, I was sent to serve as page to a Valois cousin under John the Second of Alen?on. There, I learned arms and horsemanship. I fought a few skirmishes along the Loire, though most of the time I copied inventories translating Italian ledgers for the quartermasters.”

  Jehan’s brow furrowed. “Where were you during the sieges?”

  “Of Orléans?”

  She nodded.

  “I was on a mission to Spain.” His tone was distant, half in memory. “Clerical sponsors chose me to deliver letters to Toledo.”

  It was mostly to get away from his wary cousins.

  It was there he learned the strange of Christian, Muslim, and Jew studying beneath the same roofs. A strange peace, but one that worked.

  Her curiosity sharpened. “And after that?”

  He narrowed his eyes slightly. “Why do you need to know all this, Jehan?”

  She smiled faintly. “Curious, that’s all. It’s strange to me, a man of your education, your skills, was not in the Dauphin’s service.”

  “Because the Dauphin’s court was a mess,” he said flatly. “I was born a Valois, under the Capetian House. The throne was unstable, rotten with politics. I had no wish to drown in it.”

  “So where did your road take you?”

  “From Spain to Rome,” Remy said quietly. “There, I was named Miles Christi.”

  Jehan tilted her head. “A Soldier of Christ?”

  He nodded.

  “It was during the reign of Pope Martin the Fifth. I carried letters from French clerics to Rome, mundane work, but I made an impression on a papal secretary. My discipline, my Latin, my calm temper… it pleased them. I received a papal bull naming me a Miles Christi, a Soldier of Christ. A title granting me both legal and spiritual protection as a wandering knight in papal service.”

  When Martin died, Eugenius the Fourth took his place. He was still in Rome then. The new pope confirmed his title and gave him a pilgrim’s badge.

  “After Rome, I traveled north through the Alps and back into France where I met you.”

  Jehan listened intently. “And what do you think of the Pope?”

  Remy gave a short laugh. “That depends on which one you mean. What about you?”

  She looked away, hesitant. “For myself,” she said softly, “I believe we should obey our Lord the Pope in Rome. Even if men fail, the chair of Peter must stand.”

  He studied her for a long moment. “That’s your stance then?”

  “It is,” she said simply.

  Remy nodded, as though filing away her answer for later. “Tell me about your home, Jehan.”

  She hesitated, the question catching her off guard. “My home?”

  “Yes. Where you were born. It is only fair.”

  Jehan bit her lip, unsure if she wanted to speak. Her hands tightened around her cloak. “Not far from my home, there is a tree called the Fairies’ Tree. Near a spring. People sick with fever go there to drink, to seek healing from its waters.”

  Remy’s brow arched. “Did it work?”

  “I do not know,” she said. “But I’ve heard that those who are healed come back to hang garlands from its branches.”

  “Must be quite a tree,” he murmured, watching the river’s shimmer.

  “It is,” Jehan said softly. “A great beech tree. The ‘beau mai,’ they call it. It belongs to Seigneur Pierre de Bourlement, a knight. When I was a girl, we made garlands there with the other children.”

  Remy turned his gaze to her. “You sound hesitant when you say this. I’m not forcing you.”

  “I am,” she admitted. “I won’t lie to you, Monsieur. But I am afraid.”

  He nodded slowly. “Then we’ll not speak of it. I’ve already said more than I should about myself.”

  He looked back toward the horizon. The river was calmer now, the water glinting under weak sunlight. The boat creaked gently as it moved with the current.

  Jehan lowered her gaze. “I cannot thank you enough, Sir Remy.”

  He reached out, gave her shoulder a brief pat, an awkward gesture, but sincere. “You’ve done well enough, Jehan. Keep your prayers close.”

  Her lips curved faintly, though her eyes stayed on the water.

  Remy turned his focus back to the river, the current carrying them onward. Behind them, Pozsony grew smaller, its rooftops fading into the mist.

  I told her a lot. Well… other than being a man out of time and place, Remy thought, his thoughts already on Esztergom.