Everyone found themselves in a living room kind of room, with comfortable chairs, tables, lamps with warm lights, and no more bugs.  They had a door that said bathroom in three languages just in case anyone did not get it.  They even had a big picture window, though presently all it showed was the dark, the stars, and the moon much closer than it should be.

Lincoln pointed.  “I can practically count the boulders in that crater.”

“The moon?”  Brianna, Father Aden, Jennifer, and Elsbeth all pressed up against the glass, which Katie at least assumed was not honestly glass.

“The moon,” Lockhart assured them.  Nanette pushed up to the glass as well, but the others were not so fascinated.  All but Katie had been in space before, and they all saw plenty of films and close-up pictures of the moon before.

A woman with long green hair appeared behind them, and the travelers responded.

“Thank you for taking us out of a bad situation” Katie said.

“I assume we are on a different ship,” Lincoln had to make sure.

“Did the Kairos send you?” Lockhart asked.  He temporarily blanked out on the name of the Kairos in that time period even if it had been said and told to him a billion times.

“The Kairos asked, time traveler,” Sheen said.  “But if you will excuse me.”  A spaceship came into view in the glass.  It exploded, and people saw the pieces fall toward the moon, including all that water.  “In the future, when your people go exploring, don’t blame me if you find water on the moon.”  The woman with the green hair smiled and vanished.

People blinked and the view of the moon from space became replaced with a view of the earth from space.  Only Brianna said, “It’s lovely.,” though Jennifer nodded in agreement.  Elsbeth never closed her mouth.

Another blink, and everyone found themselves back on the ground outside the manor house.  Margueritte came racing outside and hugged her mother.  She hugged Jennifer, and Elsbeth, and then her mother again, and she began to cry.

Lord Barth stood in the doorway, but Owien ran to Elsbeth.  They hugged before they awkwardly separated and looked at the ground and elsewhere.

Elder Stow grumbled about his scanner, though it was fixable.  Sukki and Tony followed Boston around while she hugged all of the travelers except Nanette, who ran to Decker as he ran to her.  They stopped and faced each other inches apart, not moving, like two statues.  They kissed, and at least Jennifer said, “Aww…”

Lord Barth and Father Aden got everyone to come inside.  They left the lovers kissing on the front lawn where no one disturbed them.

###

The next day, everyone arrived.  The travelers already had their tents up on the ground beside the chapel, the ground that Katie and Alexis agreed might one day be a small cemetery ground.  The Breton, including the king camped on the farm field that started just down the small hill from the barn and the triangle.  Sir Thomas of Evandell, the king’s bard, brought Crown Prince Judon to the house right away.  Clearly, the bard was an old family friend.

Lord Charles and Sir Roland, the groom with several officers of the Franks set up their tents on the other side of the church.  Tomberlain, Margueritte’s older brother, shared his old room in the manor house with Owien.  The whole Frankish army camped down the hill from the church off what they called the Paris Road.  The long, flat field that sat on both sides of the road was more than big enough, and the woods beyond the field offered plenty of wood for the hundreds of cooking fires and hundreds of men camped there.  Most of the army went home after the action in Aquitaine and Vascony ended.  Even so, Lord Barth worried about having enough beef for everyone.

Sadly, Roland’s family lived on the Saxon March, all the way on the other side of Francia.  No way they could make such a long journey to attend the wedding.  Fortunately, he had plenty of support from Charles and the Franks, and Margueritte’s parents and family who apparently already accepted him as a son and brother.

The travelers stayed good.  They encouraged Margueritte when they saw her, but otherwise did not get into the middle of everything.  Margueritte had enough to worry about.  She fretted, cried, got deliriously happy, and cried some more, while her mother, Jennifer, and Elsbeth helped her with her dress, hair, make-up, and everything else, including the crying.

The local fairy troop supplied an abundance of flowers, Goldenrod right there in the midst of them.  Several gnomes, with Sir Thomas, took over the barn to practice the music.  Lolly, the dwarf cook enlisted several other dwarf wives to help cook for so many.  And between the two servants in the house, Marta fretted, and Maven snuck off to catch the occasional nap.  All felt right with the world, even if nothing went exactly right.

The following day, early in the morning, it turned bright and sunny.  People crowded into the church or stood outside, and Father Aden performed a wonderful ceremony.  They had a big mid-day meal on the outside table under the awning, and then Roland and Margueritte disappeared while everyone else celebrated with music and dancing into the night.

The following morning, the travelers went with Lord Charles and the Franks to Paris.  Roland and Margueritte with a small troop of men would follow in two weeks.  Roland had apartments in Paris, but Charles said they might not get much time.  He was not happy with the reports he got from the Bavarian-Burgundian border.

The time gate sat before the city, and just a bit south off the road to Orleans.  It was just a well Charles and his men did not see the travelers disappear.  Charles’ father, the Mayor of the Palace was not well and the political wrangling about who would succeed him did not bode well for the future.

“714,” Lincoln reported the year.  “Margueritte was born in 697, and she married at seventeen, so it must be 714.  Charles’ father will die this year, in December.  There will be civil war.”

Katie nodded.  “And I was so proud to have fine conversations with Charles all this week, and never once called him Charles Martel.”

“Tony did once, but I think if was by accident,” Lockhart said.

Katie waved it off.  “The two knight-captains that heard him simply laughed and nodded, like they thought maybe that was a good name for the man.”

“He is a hard man,” Lockhart admitted.  “A no nonsense kind of guy.”

“What are you looking at?” Lincoln interrupted the conversation to ask Alexis.  She kept looking back.  Sukki rode quietly beside Elder Stow.  Tony drove the wagon.  Nanette and Decker rode side by side in the rear, occasionally talked, but mostly Nanette smiled, and Decker looked stoic.

“I was thinking we might have our own wedding soon,” she said, and Katie grinned, but the men did not want to touch that topic.  Fortunately, Boston came back from the front.

“The time gate is just ahead of us, right beside the road,” Boston reported.  “It is eight in the morning. I vote we go through.”

They did.

************************

MONDAY

Another Wedding.  This time, Mistress Genevieve in the days of Charlemagne will be given to the March Lord of Provence, an old man with an eight-year-old son.  Well, the aliens won’t interfere, though the Masters might.

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