THE BOOT

PART THREE:

Carolyn carried the cape with her as she walked back to the doorway. Still she saw no one anywhere about. Indeed, a vast quiet seemed to lie over everything and for the first time it dawned on her she'd seen nor heard any birds. Right beside the sea like this, there should at least be some gulls wheeling. Setting the folded cape on the block where she'd been seated earlier, she went to stand facing the portal, her hands on her hips, head tilted way back,

staring up  at it.  It towered 50  or more feet above her, white and glowing in the bright

sunshine.

"What in heavens' name ARE you?" she asked it aloud.

She touched the right-hand upright again. Though it looked smooth, when her hands were actually on it, she felt a certain roughness as though it had sat in the weather for countless

ages. But then the blue sky attracted her attention once more and she murmured, "What weather?"

She looked through the opening but saw nothing beyond the sky, the sea, and the rocky, slope

of hill. Sighing, she decided to study the reverse view and stepped up, walking through it. Instantly she was back in her kitchen, clutching the counter's edge, her head whirling. Her

legs didn't seem to want to support her and she slid slowly to her knees, her forehead pressed against a cabinet door. She remained like that several moments, breathing deeply through

her mouth, until she felt she could stand, then made her way to the couch.

"All right, Carolyn," she said to herself, "just what was that all about?"

Her mind felt very confused, very unsure, and the longer she sat there, the more removed from what had happened she felt, until a half hour later she decided she'd had some sort of 'incident' there in the kitchen, but had not really left it at all. In fact, the whole concept of leaving it
became quite ludicrous. She must have fainted, or at least partially fainted, just enough that she'd had the hallucination, the dream, whatever, and had imagined the General's face so close above hers. She smiled. If one were going to hallucinate, that was definitely the way to go with

it! It had even been accompanied by the scent of fur and leather.

She slipped the boot off, feeling too tired to watch the movie at the moment, and, instead, curled on her side on the couch and took a nap.

Maximus had not been able to find water though he searched much further than he'd intended. He hurried his steps back to where he'd left the woman, surprised to find that she was no longer there. A flash of deep red caught his eye and he walked to the portal, picking up his cape from the block of stone. The woman must have returned to her temple or whatever place she'd come from. Thank the gods she'd left his cape, though.

He staggered, a sudden blackness taking him, felt himself falling, landing hard, terribly hard, the breath knocked out of him. The total quiet had given way to an utter cacophony of sound, shouts, bellows, both men and horses screaming, the clanging of metal on metal. Somehow as

he landed, his sword was in his hand, not his cape, and when he opened his eyes, he raised his weapon immediately to ward off a down-coming blow. He was back again, in the very midst of the battle with the Marcomani, on his back in the black mud. There was no time to give to what had happened to him, he was surrounded by barbarians and must fight his way to his feet or

die.

Only much later, when the battle was over, when all he must attend to had been attended, only then as he bathed, did his mind return to the doorway. Before the portal, he'd been riding in

the cavalry charge down the steep slope, after, he'd been on his back in the mud. The only conclusion was that as he and his horse had fallen, he'd struck his head, had lost consciousness for a brief moment.

As he dressed in the golden glow of several candles, he paused, listening to the tent poles creak in the winter wind. Cicero came through the curtain, bringing him his robe. A sudden thought came to Maximus and he asked, "Is my cape in the tent?"  How strange it was that he remembered the feel of it in his hands as he'd fallen.

"Yes, General. It hangs in its accustomed place."  Cicero was silent a moment, wondering if he should mention something about it, then decided to continue. "But there was a time today, after you handed it to me atop the hill before the cavalry charged, when...." His voice faded out.

"When...?" Maximus urged.

"When I could not locate it, General. I had lain it over my saddle and turned to attend to another matter, and when I looked back it was gone. I searched everywhere for it, amazed that some soldier would dare lay hands on his General's cape."  He shrugged. "When I looked again at my horse, it was there. Whoever took it must have thought the better of what he had done and returned it. I shall watch over it more closely from now on."

When Carolyn awoke, the boot was sitting, its top flopped over, on the carpet near the couch. It was probably the arrival of the boot that had triggered the vision of Maximus during her blackout. Her sister would say she should get herself to a doctor, but she felt fine after her nap and had a lot of work to do on the computer. She left the boot where it lay and went back to her office, only realizing after she'd sat in her swivel chair that she'd never made her cup of tea.

ON TO PART 4

BACK TO LIBRISCROWE

BACK TO PART 2