A noise jolted me awake. Slowly consciousness, along with a shooting pain, crept back into my mind. As I blinked the sleep from my eyes I looked around haphazardly in confusion. The sensation of waking up in a strange place disoriented me.
Slowly, the fog of sleep drifted away and I was able to remember where I was. Or at least where I should be.
I looked down at the blanket wrapped around me only to realize that it was actually an animal hide. I threw it off in surprise and felt a jolt as cold air hit what I discovered to be my half naked body. The cold was so intense my teeth started chattering uncontrollably.
I looked around frantically for my clothes. The “house” I was in was little more than a handmade shack. The roof was a mixture of straw and mud supported by rough cut logs. All the “furniture” in the room looked like it was made by the Swiss Family Robinson and made of little more than sticks and rough cut lumber.
“Where the hell am I?” I asked out loud to no one, having the nervous habit of talking to myself. “This place even has dirt floors. These guys have got to be Hippies.”
When I rose up there was an immediate and sharp pain in my side and my head started swimming. I looked down at the side of my stomach and noticed a deep purple bruise the size of a melon. Then running my hand through my hair I found there was a lump. I removed my hand from my hair and was relieved to find there was no blood.
After looking around for a few seconds I saw my missing clothes on a chair at the far end of the room beside a fireplace. A better word for it would be firepit as it lay in the middle of the room with no chimney. There was a fire going through it and the smoke rose up and went through a simple opening in the ceiling.
I got up and went to retrieve my clothes. Once I had my pants on I fished my smartphone out of my pocket and turned it on. I discovered that there was no signal at all. I put on the pants and t-shirt and looked around for the boots.
“Is anyone there?” I shouted but got no reply.
I saw an opening that appeared to be an exit as I could see light leaking around it. Next to it on the floor I saw my steel-toed work boots. The “Door” was another animal skin and I discovered as I neared it smelled like roadkill.
I pushed the hide aside and stepped outside and was greeted by the most bizarre scene. It was a village complete with livestock and peasants. In fact I almost ran into a woman guiding a heifer as I left the shack.
She was wearing what could best be described as a woolen dress but that was giving it too much credit. It had more in common with a potato sack then a dress. Her hair was greasy, unkempt, and had mud caked in it from days or weeks of neglect. At least I hoped that was mud.
“Morning mam. Where exactly am I? I seem to be…..”
I didn’t even finish before she ran away as fast as she could dropping the rope and leaving the cow behind in her wake.
“What did I say?”
Not wanting the cow to get away, I grabbed the rope she had dropped. Having spent my summers on a farm I knew just how hard it could be to catch a cow that didn’t want to be caught. No one wants to spend a couple frustrating hours doing that.
“I must be in one of those historic tourist traps. I’ll be damned.” I said to himself as he tied the rope to the corner post of the shack he had just left.
As I started looking around a gust of wind cut right through him chilling me to the bone. This caused the shivering to return in full force and I didn’t have a jacket as it had been in the 60’s even in the morning the whole week since I arrived in London. I was convinced this was the strangest weather I had ever seen.
I looked up at the dark grey sky and saw a few snowflakes drifting lazily in the wind.
“Snow? In mid May? What the hell?” I said as I wrapped my arms around my body tightly to try and stay warm.
The village I was in was made up of a number of shacks and what appeared to be a small barn that was taller. They all were built using the same materials and other than a slight difference in size I couldn't tell any difference between one and another. As i passed through the open i was forced to bend over as the opening was a full half a foot too short for my head to clear.
As I looked around I couldn’t help but hold my nose as the stench of the village was awful. Speaking of smelling ripe, I stopped one of the wannabe peasants passing by and the smell almost knocked me down.
I spotted another peasant and was about to ask him, when a scream went out across the village. I ran to where it originated. As it turned out, it was the shack next door to where I awoke.
As I approached, a half naked girl ran out being pursued by what appeared to be a Knight. The girl couldn’t have been more than 16 or 17. Her dress or whatever that tattered rag had been wasn’t covering up anything. It hung onto her by only a few threads as it had been ripped to shreds.
The Knight was wielding a sword and wore chainmail. Or at least the top half did anyway. I seemed to have caught him with his pants down quite literally. He was so intent on catching his prey he didn’t notice me standing with my jaw dropped not 10 feet from him.
I started to get pissed. You don’t want to get me pissed.
“Stop it dammit.” I shouted out with a tone of voice that would make dad proud.
The Knight did stop and turned to me with a look that would melt concrete. But on seeing my size he visibly whitened. He was probably only 5’9” at best so I was at least a half foot taller than him.
He began just staring at me. At first I thought he was intimidated by my size but I soon realized he was staring at my T-shirt.
I had bought it at a souvenir shop on my first day in London. It was supposed to be the coat of arms of my Surname, Collins, but I figured it was just tourist crap. What can I say the girl who worked there was flirting with me and said I looked good in it.
He must have recognized it for he threw down his gauntlet. Then threw me his sword seeing that I was unarmed. Everyone knew what that meant and I suddenly felt nervous.
“Ah well it must be a show or something. Probably a fake battle to please the tourists.”
Though I was growing more confused by the second as to where those tourists were hiding.
I picked up the sword and he went back into the shack. Soon he returned with another sword. He could take the time to do this but still not put his pants on, talk about commitment.
After seeing that I had picked up the sword he didn’t waste time talking. Instead he lunged at me swinging his sword like a madman.
I trained for over a decade in multiple different fighting styles in my younger days but unfortunately sword fighting wasn’t one of them. Other than two meetings with the fencing club (cute girl I liked was a member) I had never even held a sword. All I could do was do my best to block his attacks.
He was swinging away like mad and I couldn’t find an opening at all.
“Screw this” I said as I blocked an attack. Then I just went MMA on his ass.
I did a leg sweep causing him to lose his balance and fall over. When he was down I jumped on top of him. As I had him pinned down I pried the sword from his hand. Then I punched him repeatedly, until he quit wiggling, as gramps used to say. In doing so I probably broke his nose but he would be fine otherwise.
“That will teach you.” I said getting up and dusting myself off.
At least that's what I wanted everyone to think I was doing. Honestly I had been checking to see if I was cut anywhere. One of those swings caught some t-shirt and ripped a tear a few inches long. Luckily it hadn’t hit me.
As I looked around I couldn’t see the girl anywhere. She must have taken the opportunity to beat it into the next county. The peasants had stopped what they were doing to watch the fight. Some even cracked a smile but they all returned working after watching the fight and none of them helped the Knight.
I knew at this point something was off.
If this were a historical reenactment surely they would have stopped the act if one of their friends was knocked out. Then there was that attempted Rape. What asshole would think up something that authentic.
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Then there was the obvious problem, where were the Tourists?
Or maybe it's me, have I lost it? I thought but dismissed it almost immediately as unproductive. If I was crazy, me worrying about it wasn’t going to help. The only other option seemed even more ridiculous. I really was in the past.
If that is the case I’m screwed. Hitting a Knight was kind of frowned on since last time I checked I wasn’t a Noble. It could mean death if I was caught.
I decided I better get the hell out of there before anyone came to check on the Knight.
If I found a cell signal it would mean I was wrong and I would call an ambulance (and the cops). If I didn’t, well I just tried not to think about it.
I decided to take his armor just in case. About the time I got the chainmail over his head he started to thrash around. On instinct I kneed him in what I presumed to be his nose and he crumpled again.
After I had gotten the under-padding off I found he was as broad shouldered as I was. His upper body was heavily scarred and muscular and he definitely had a few extra pounds on him but we were close enough size for chainmail to fit. Even though the Knight was much shorter than me it fit, albeit a tad snug.
That had surprised me as I had based his size off those chicken legs he had.
He also was older at least in his 50’s. His scalp was completely bald except for the base of his skull. His face was weathered with a scar running from cheek to ear and one from his neck to his other ear.
This guy had definitely been cut a few times by something sharp.
As I got done removing the last of the man’s armor I realized I had now left an aging man almost naked and it’s snowing. I couldn’t do that, as he would freeze to death in this weather.
I dragged him into the shack the Knight and girl came from.
It turned out to be almost identical to the one I awoke in, right down to the straw mattress and hide blankets. Once inside I dragged the Knight to the bed. Then pulled back the hides and found my backpack under them which filled me with relief.
I had been afraid I had lost it and it had most of the things I own in it. I pulled the backpack out and put the Knight in the bed. As I started to pick up the pack, I noticed a large black singe mark on the back.
“Damn that was a close call. That could have killed me if my lucky pack hadn’t saved me again.”
After looking around a few seconds I found the rest of the Knights armor on a chair. The Knight was short so it still left a few inches on my legs dangerously exposed but fit otherwise. The trousers were much too small and they also wreaked so I put the greaves over my blue jeans.
Underneath it all I also found his coin purse. I looked in it to discover roughly a hundred silver pieces. They ranged from the size of a penny to that of a silver dollar. I would wager that there was close to 5 or 6 pounds all together.
They looked like they had been stamped instead of cast so they didn’t look like any silver pieces I ever had seen. Gramps was an avid collector so I have seen quite a few. Being stamped would make them at least several centuries old. They looked worn but nowhere near that old.
This really had me worried. Silver hasn’t been used as currency for over half a century. These had to be from far before then even and no one would go that far for a reenactment.
I put it out of my mind and continued looking for anything else of value I could find.
His boots were next to the chair but I decided against taking them. They looked uncomfortable and small. They were armored though and mine only armored in the toes being steel toed.
I was wearing my good work boots which were durable and comfortable so I decided to use them instead as the armored but tiny ones of the knight. There would be a lot of walking in my future if I was right and aching tired feet could get me killed.
When I collected myself and everything I now own, I left the shack. I started to leave the village when I decided I better take a sword as well. I judged them both and decided the Knight had shafted me so I took the one he had been using. It felt better in the hand and was better balanced not to mention it was better maintained.
I took the other and then threw it into the woods once I got to the trail. As I did I looked back at the village.
I still didn’t even know where I was, I thought as the sight of the village shocked me again. From this vantage point I got to see just how primitive it really was.
It was surrounded by acres of land where I assumed they harvested wheat. It was cut short so I assume it was before spring. On the hill overlooking the fields and village was a wood castle. There was a river running beside it but it was nowhere near the size of London’s most prominent natural feature, the Thames.
The village itself was nowhere near big enough. Even back in the middle ages it had been the largest city in the country. There were at most a dozen buildings, most of which were the same as the shack I awoke in.
This couldn’t be it and that meant I could be anywhere.
“I could be in Germany for all I know. If you can time travel what’s a little space displacement amongst friends?” I said to myself weakly.
After a coupled hours of walking I ran into an old man and his wife in a cart pulled by a mule.
As I approach you could see them visibly whiten as they saw my armor. I doubt many could afford armor like this so they probably assumed I was a Knight. My guess is most of their encounters with Knights probably left them the poorer afterwards.
As I approached I tried to figure out what to say. I was now pretty convinced I needed to find a church.
If I was right about when I was, the best chance I have to survive is to wait in one until I can speak the local language. I figured a priest might be willing to take in a wandering traveller. They might even be able to help me learn it.
Especially if I am willing to part with some of my ill-gotten booty for a donation, I thought to myself. I admittedly don’t have the fondest opinion of the Medieval Catholic Church.
As they got alongside me I noticed what was in the back, pigs. There were two sows and at least a dozen piglets. I used to raise piglets for butchering and they can be a real handful but are entertaining. At the moment they were fighting for their mother's teat.
They started speaking but I couldn’t understand them at all. There were a few words here and there I got but who knows if the meaning is the same. I just decided to try the most direct approach.
“Hello, my name is Arthur Collins and I am new to these parts. Can you by chance point me in the direction of the nearest city. One with a Church.”
They looked at each other in puzzlement. I knew it was a stretch that they would understand me but I had hoped.
It turned out they didn’t understand me but they did understand “Church”. They offered me a ride in the cart which I accepted with gratitude, even shaking the man's hand to show my thanks.
You could tell they had not expected that.
They also didn’t expect me to ride in the back with the pigs. The woman had started to get down before I realized what she was doing. Knowing I couldn’t speak their language enough to tell her I would ride in the back, I decided to just hop in before she could.
Both their jaws hit the floor. A Knight would never ride in the back with the pigs so they were stunned to see one volunteer to do so. I just started petting them as I like pigs there like ugly dogs.
Gramps had a small farm in the Appalachian Mountains where I spent my summers growing up. He raised a piglet for butchering every year. One of my chores was to feed them but he would always catch me playing in the mud with them. He would always laugh and then hose me down with a cold water hose.
Good times. Good times.
Before long into the ride, the day's events started catching up on me. My eyelids started getting heavy and before long I drifted to sleep amidst the clunking of the mules feet, the creaking of a wood cart, and the smell of pigs.
I awoke at daybreak the next day. Apparently the couple had decided to continue their trip through the night because we were at the crest of a hill looking down on a large town. Or at least I thought it was a town as I could only see one building that was taller than two stories.
As we got closer to town I realized that it was a magnificent stone castle overlooking the river that ran through the city.
Even though it was an absolutely beautiful castle the sight of it left me heartbroken. Especially when I again checked my cellphone signal for the hundredth time.
“I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore” I said to myself causing the couple to turn to me.
It was the first tourist destination I had gone to after getting to London and probably the most famous building in England aside from Big Ben, the London Tower. There were no walls around it now but there was no mistaking it.
This proved without a doubt that I was in the past. No one could or would remove the Towers outer complex. It meant I couldn’t deny it anymore I was in the Dark Ages.
At least that narrowed down the year. The Tower was constructed when William the Conqueror was King in the late 11th century. The inner walls were constructed during the reign of Richard the Lionheart in the late 12th century. So I must be in a year somewhere between them.
Now I was really starting to feel like I was going nuts.
As we approached the city the smell got unbearable. I didn’t think it was possible but it was even worse than the village. Sewers must be a distant memory to these people. Romans had them but that must have been centuries ago. Their idea of proper waste disposal was looking before they dumped the chamber pot out the window.
When we got further in the village someone didn’t even go that far and almost dumped one right on us. It missed us by only feet.
“Watch where you’re throwing your shit lady” I yelled at her.
Although she couldn’t have understood what I said, the terror in her eyes let me know that she understood the meaning. She started bowing and pleading for her life almost to the point of tears.
I could understand a word here or there but most of them were unrecognizable. It was most likely English but it definitely wasn’t modern English. I couldn’t even begin to know what she was saying.
“It’s alright mam, no harm done.” I said trying to reassure her with body language that I wasn’t going to be yelling out “off with her head” or some foolishness.
She must have thought I was a Knight in this Armor. I doubt many peasants run around in gear like this. Peasants had it rough in the Middle Ages. Usually “Peasant” was just a euphemism for slave. The lords pretty much owned them; they just couldn’t sell them.
After close to an hour of reaching the city we found a church. This must not have been the only church in London of course as it was very modest. It was made of wood which made it virtually the same as all the other buildings in the city except for the steeple.
I thanked the couple again by shaking the man’s hand and tried to give them a few silver coins. They were completely surprised by the gesture but flat out refused them. I could tell that they felt compelled for whatever reason to refuse so I didn’t try again. I did however “accidentally” drop a few in one of the bags they had in the back.
As I walked in I spotted and then went towards the confessional. I was trying to find a priest and luckily one was there. I asked him in English if he could help me and teach me his language. I was just hoping the pleading in my voice would at least convey some meaning to him.
I don’t know how but after a few minutes of back and forth he finally began to understand. Or maybe he helped just so he could figure out what I was saying. He gave me a meal to eat which I tried to give him a few coins for. He refused of course so I would put it in the offering tray when he wasn’t around.
He brought me upstairs to a small room with a straw bed on the floor. When we entered the room he lit the sole candle in the room. I bowed to show my thanks and he closed the door as he left.
It had been a long day and even that excuse for a bed looked welcoming. I sat down on the floor next to the candle and wrote down all the day's events so I wouldn’t forget anything on a small notepad I kept for this reason in my pack. Once that was done I blew out the candle and fell onto the bed and was out like the candle.