Lady Robyn

Chapter 1 Tournament Day Saturday, 26 July 1460, Saint Anne's Day, Baynards Castle, London Morning, just before prime. Up and dressed ahead of the dawn, I hear cock crows from the city. Way too nervous to sleep. Tournament today in the Smithfield mud, the Middle Ages at its messiest. Collin will ride, maybe Edward. Scary when you think about, so I try not to. I must be the only woman in medieval England who craves a mocha in the morning. Happily, I still have some instant... Robyn stopped typinginto her journal, tearing open a foil packet lifted from a restaurant table on her last day in twenty-first-century London. Pouring dark crystals into a china cup, she added boiling water from a kettle, enjoying the warm feel of hand-beaten silver on a cold July morning, making modern magic on her medieval oak table. Coffee aroma filled the chill air of her tower bedroom, covering over the dank musty morning-in-a-castle smell while her toes dug for warmth in a carpet that came by caravan over the Roof of the World. This stormy summer of 1460 was the coldest and rainiest the locals could rememberas they said in Southwark, "Wetter than a bathhouse wedding." When witchcraft first brought her to medieval Englandmuch against her willRobyn would wake up wondering where she was, thinking she was back in modern Britain. Maybe some weird part of Wales. Or at home in California, waking in a strange bed after a wild Hollywood party. (Where am I? And whose bed am I in?) By now she was no longer shocked to awake in 1460half a millennium before her birthbut having her own bedroom was a pleasant novelty. Most medievals slept two or more to a bed. But not Lady Robyn Stafford of Holy Wood, the barefoot contessa from Roundup, Montanashe wiggled her toes in triumph. Lady Robyn had a room of her own, with a wood beam floor,Arabian Nightscarpets, a cozy fireplace, and three tall narrow views of medieval London, all in an honest-to-god castle, Baynards Castle: the white-towered keep set in the southwest corner of the city walls, London headquarters for the House of York. Edward had offered her any room in the family castle, and she picked this one for its fireplace and semiprivacyit had been a tower guardroom, but now it was all hers, complete with handwoven tapestries and a tall wooden bathtub. Unbelievablemagical, reallyespecially when her last address had a West Hollywood ZIP code. Three months in the Middle Ages, and she practically owned the place. So what use was worrying? She tried not to think about the tournamentwhile planning her Saturday around it. Actually, Saint Anne's Saturday. Happily, she had a head start on her morning, being up and looking like Lady Robyn, sitting at her carved oak table in a long red-gold gown with tight scarlet sleeves buttoned by gold wire studs tied in Stafford knots. Very medieval. Right now Robyn was only nominally a lady, and some had harsher names for her, since not everyone liked her having the most popular boyfriend in London. But one day she would be a countess, and eventually a duchess. "Robyn Plantagenet, Duchess of York," had a heady ring, even for a former Miss Rodeo Montana. Like a witch condemned to the water test, she was thrown into this wet summer of 1460 to sink or swim; three months later, she was doing quite well, thank you. Half a pound of gold went into her gown, and she had warm fresh milk for her coffee, brought to the castle gate that morning by a man with a cow. Saying a silent prayer to Aurora, goddess of dawn, and to Saint Anne, whose day it was, she took a first hot grateful sip. "Here's to tournament day, and hoping no one gets hurt. May Mary's mother save them from thRobertson, R. Garcia Y. is the author of 'Lady Robyn', published 2004 under ISBN 9780765345738 and ISBN 0765345730.