"Earth, please," said Bishop.
"Specifications?"
"England," said Bishop. "October 14, 1066. A place called Senlac."
And he was there.
He was no longer in the room with its single chair and its four bare walls, but he stood upon a hill in sunny autumn weather with the gold and red of trees and the blueness of the haze and the shouts of men.
He stood rooted in the grass that blew upon the hillside and saw that the grass had turned to hay with its age and sunshine - and out beyond the grass and hill, grouped down on the plain, was a ragged line of horsemen, with the sun upon their helmets and flashing on their shields, with the leopard banners curling in the wind.
It was October 14th and it was Saturday and on the hill stood Harold's hosts behind their locked shield wall and before the sun had set new forces would have been put in motion to shape the course of empire.
Taillefer, he thought. Taillefer will ride in the fore of William's charge, singing the Chanson de Roland and wheeling his sword into the air so that it became a wheel of fire to lead the others on.
The Normans charged and there was no Taillefer. There was no one who wheeled his sword into the air, there was no singing. There was merely shouting and the hoarse crying of men riding to their death.
The horsemen were charging directly at him and he wheeled and tried to run, but he could not outrun them and they were upon him. He saw the flash of polished hoofs and the cruel steel of the shoes upon the hoofs, the glinting lance point, the swaying, jouncing scabbard, the red and green and yellow of the cloaks, the dullness of the armor, the open roaring mouths of men - and they were upon him. And passing through him and over him as if he were not there.