Into Another Time

The Big City

The carriage- well not a proper carriage per say, more like a suspension on chains- took forever to trudge along. It took two-three hours for me to reach London. The weather was on my side, fortunately, otherwise I would be stuck in the rain for hours. The day was cloudy but thankfully there were no signs of rain. My carriage driver was a quiet old bearded fellow who didn't interact with me much except when necessary. When I had approached him, he had eyed me up and down curiously, but he didn't think of the situation of me travelling all alone all that odd, given that he thought I was married. After that I had to haggle with him over the cost of a ticket to London- a quarter of my coins went into buying one!- and then unsurprisingly he wasn't keen on holding a conversation with the stingy woman boarding his carriage. The silence left me with my own disturbed and nervous thoughts for the next 2-3 hours. I was still reeling from the shock of what had occurred in the last 24 hours, it was unbelievable. By now the lord's toadies would be all over the town, searching for a redhead girl. I didn't know if the gatekeepers had found out that I was the woman in question or not, for my own sake I hoped not!. My trademark reddish-brown hair ( or brownish red head, whatever you want to call it. I had undertones of both, so you could call me a dark redhead or reddish brunette. Most people prefer redhead as the red flares out more) had become a danger to me, and it was imperative for me to keep the headdress on for now to hide my hair.

Lots of villages, farms and tiny towns later we arrived in London. London, my London, my city!. But this London didn't look like my city at all: an array of medieval folk going to and fro about the city, a ton of local markets and slightly bigger dwellings than in Windsor. The only thing that was the same was that it was much more densely populated than Windsor or any other town, almost like a proper city than a town. That lord probably won't be able to find me here if I played it smart!. However, first I had to locate Amelia and Barrett in this town/ city. I hopped down from the carriage and nodded at the old man in the driver seat, who cracked the whip and went away with his carriage into London. OK, first things first, I had to find a certain- what was he called again?- ah, yes, John. One of the most common english names and I had to find a 'John' in a sea of people. Scre-wed. Wait, but John is Barrett's cousin, so there might be a chance he is a Walter too or related to Barrett Walter. Okay, John Walter, at least it narrows down the search. I didn't even know what work this John guy did, but I could assume that since Barrett belongs to more of a lower middle class strata, his cousin wouldn't be a rich merchant either. So, I would be looking at a trader at the most here. So I was going to have to go around and ask people if they knew a trader called John Walter.I sighed. I didn't want to undertake this ordeal but what choice did I have?.

And so I began.

I went door to door, asking residents if they knew a trader called John Walter there. It was a long shot, but I had to do it. I encountered confused men, bewildered wives and on occasions teenage children of the house, but all had the same response. No. Where could this John Walter live!?. I continued to walk through the streets of London, without knowing the particular district, in search of this Walter guy. I recognized nothing of the 21st century London in this medieval London. Where would Chelsea be in this city?. I knew that even in this day it would be south of Thames and since I came from Windsor and the carriage driver dropped me off at the westernmost point of London, so I was probably around the Heathrow area. Damn, it would probably take a day or half to get there by carriage. Anyway, I could not think of Chelsea right now. My mission was to find John Walter, and through him Amelia and Barrett. Making sure my headgear was securely a place without a single strand of hair showing through, I marched to find an accommodation first as I was sure I was going to be stuck in here for a while searching for them. I had limited money though, even if I spent it only on food and rent, but my only hope now was that I could find them before that pervert found me.