He was silent. What in the world was he going to do about her? She would probably wait here for him until she starved to death or, equally as distressing, until she was apprehended. Abruptly he shrugged his shoulders—to the extent that his pauldrons permitted—and remounted the rohorse. Why should it matter to him what became of her? He'd returned to the Age of Chivalry to steal the Sangraal, not to play nursemaid to damosels in distress. "Don't take any wooden nickels now," he said.
Two tiny stars appeared in the pale regions of her eyes and twinkled down her cheeks. "May the good Lord speed ye upon thy quest, fair knight, and may He guard ye well."
"Oh, for Pete's sake!" Mallory said, and reaching down, pulled her up onto Easy Money's croup. "I have a castle not far from here. I'll drop you off, then I'll go after the Sangraal."
Her breath was warm little wind seeping through the crevices of his gorget. "Oh, fair sir, ye be the noblest of all the knights in all the land, and I shall serve thee faithfully for the rest of my days!"
The rohorse whinnied. Giddy-ap, Easy Money, Mallory encephalopathed, and they started out.
III
Rowena fell for the Yore hook, line, and sinker. Not even the modern interior gave her pause. Those objects which happened to be beyond her ken—and there were many of them—she interpreted as "appointments befitting a noble knight," and as for the rooms themselves, she merely identified them with the rooms out of her own experience that they most closely resembled. Thus the rec-hall became "the banquet hall," the supply room became "the kitchen," the control room became "the sorcerer's tower," the tourist compartments became "the sleeping tower," Mallory's bedroom-office became "the lord's quarters," the lavatory became "the chapel," and the generator room became "the dungeon." Only two things disconcerted her: the absence of servants and the fact that Easy Money was stabled in the banquet hall. Mallory got around the first by telling her that he had given the servants a leave of absence, and she herself got around the second by declaring it to be no more than fitting for such a splendid steed to be accorded special treatment. Certainly, Mallory reflected, she was nothing if she was not co-operative.
After showing her around he wasted no time in getting down to the business on hand, and stepping into the control room, he punched out the data necessary to take the Yore back to 7:15 p.m. of the same day, and to re-materialize it one half mile west of its present position, as an overlap was bound to occur. There was a barely noticeable tremor as the transition took place, and simultaneously the darkness showing on the control-room telewindow transmuted to dusk.
Turning away from the jump board, he saw Rowena regarding him with large eyes from the doorway. "We're now back to a point in time that precedes the theft of the Sangraal," he told her, "and we're relocated farther down the valley. But don't let it throw you. None other than Merlin himself built the magic apparatus you see before you in this room, and you know yourself that once he makes up his mind to it, Merlin can do anything."
She blinked once, but evinced no other signs of surprise. "Yea, fair sir," she said, "I am ware of the magic of Merlin."