A California Girl in Nottingham's Court

Chapter One

"Tell me, Doctor, Where are we going this time? Is it the 50's or '2099'?'

From Song by Huey Lewis and the News

Chapter One

I was conscious of the ground beneath me. It was bumpy, smelled of dirt and I could feel leaves, some soft, some dry. They were the same colors as my hair, gold, brown, red and I could not tell where my hair ended and the leaves began. Kneeling beside me were two men.

The younger one was smiling . Sandy colored hair and a partially grown in beard gave him a boyish appearance. The other man was sterner; handsome and dark in that "Heathcliff"' sort of way. He had long, almost black unruly hair. As I looked into his eyes, I saw impatience, but something more. I thought to myself 'what sorrows lay beneath those icy blue eyes?' They both wore leather armor but 'Dark's' was black and ornate as the kind a noble would have worn. 'Sandy Hair's' was brown with intricate stitching that must have taken months to make. I couldn't guess what century this was, 13th, 14th? 'Dark' spoke first, but not to me.

"What manner of creature canst this be?" The boyish one pursed his lips and shook his head.

"Me thinks it be a woman." he said, "but she be attired strangely."

The dark man said."Leave us go. Time is passing."

"Sandy Hair' said, "Thou wouldst abandon her to the wild or to the sheriff? Nay, pray let us take her back to camp."

At this point I decided it was time to join the conversation.

"Where am I?"

"Dost thou not know?" 'Dark' asked with impatience. "Thou must be addle-brained!"

Speaking as they did, I replied.

"Aye, I hath fallen from my horse. My head be quite rattled." It didn't seem appropriate for me to tell them I had traveled in time.

I am a Time Traveler from the year 2020. My name is Aylaina MacLeod. The discovery of traveling in time was made by my father, Ian McLeod, a quantum physicist. My brothers and I all had degrees in computer science and physics and we had been working on time travel for several years when we made the discovery of transporting a person or thing from one point to another within the same time. We knew if we could do that then we could bend time and travel forward or backward. In the past, time had always been considered to run in a straight line, beginning at one point and ending at another but we had discovered that time was always in flux, continuous. Like a circle it was always running, forward and backward, hence the phrase Space-Time continuum. Many such discoveries were made as a result of forward thinking 20th century Science Fiction authors such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark and Robert A. Heinlein.

It would appear that I had traveled backward in time.

'Sandy Hair' answered my question. "Thou be in Sherwood Forest. Dost thee be of mind now?"

Sitting up and rubbing my head for affect I replied, "I dost have mind of traveling here, aye." How was I going to pull this one off? Think fast Aylaina, but before I could say anything else 'Dark' urged, "Leave us be going. Take the creature if thee must!" and started walking away.

'Sandy Hair' helped me up.

"I am called Robin Hood." He exclaimed proudly. Ah, the end of the 12th century.

"Then he must be Little John." said I, pointing to 'Dark'.

"Nay!" the other barked. "I am Guy of Gisborne."

This was going to be interesting considering that I had an ancestor who knew both of these men in her youth. If I told them my name they would claim to know me as I was named after that very ancestor. I decided I would go with it and see what would happen.