Free Chris Karlsen - Knights in Time by Knight Blindness Page B

believed Karen stood waiting.
    “I’ll have a beer, milady. I am certain of its taste.”
    He had no idea what the food dishes she spoke of were, but he was hungry. “I don’t know
    any of these foodstuffs she mentioned. What do you suggest?” he whispered to Alex.
    “Omelet is French for eggs with bits of this and that tossed inside and folded over. You’ve
    eaten eggs like that a hundred times. Try the cheeseburger. It’s minced beef meat with cheese
    piled on top. They’re pretty tasty if done right.”
    “Milady Karen, I’ll have the burger. If it’s all right, don’t be sparing with the cheese. And,
    I’ll have the largest tankard of beer you have.”
    “What kind?”
    “Kind?”
    “Brand. What brand do you prefer?”
    “Bring him a Guinness,” Ian injected. “I’d like a Johnnie Walker Blue on the rocks.”
    “Make that two,” Alex said.
    “I’ll bring your drinks right away. The cheeseburger I’ll prepare after we’re in flight.”
    “I’ll take the beer and my food now, if you please, milady.”
    When he heard her step away, Stephen turned to Alex. “What does she mean ‘after
    we’re in flight?’”
    “First, there are rules that require her to be strapped into a seat when we take-off. She
    can’t be in the galley cooking.”
    “I still get the beer though?”
    “Yes. As to what she means by ‘in flight,’ we’re traveling in a plane. Picture a huge, steel
    bird the size of the barracks that flies at a speed a hundred times faster than the car we rode in here.”
    “Wonders seem to abound here.”
    “That they do,” Alex confirmed.
    “Like Karen, the three of us need to be belted to our seats. You’ll find the receiver and
    locking piece on each side of you,” Ian added.
    Stephen found the two belt pieces and linked them with ease. “Do we ride in the belly of
    this bird?”
    Alex chuckled. “More like the butt of the beast. Don’t be frightened or worried. We’ll be
    fine.”
    Afraid? Since leaving the hospital, only the thought of existing as a ghost had alarmed him.
    “I’m not the least afraid. I’m baffled that men have created such marvels since my time...our
    time.”
    “The vast majority of them have come to us in the last two-hundred years.”
    “Your drinks,” Karen said.
    A gentle rustle from her clothing and a hint of floral perfume drifted over to Stephen as
    she leaned in and set the drinks onto the table. The combination tempted him to reach out and run his hand along her arm. He imagined her with fair hair, sun kissed to the palest of yellows, and large blue eyes, blue as the morning glories that grew wild in the shire. His Karen had a blush to her cheeks, full lips and a dimple in her chin. Plump as ripe pears, her breasts fit perfect in his palm. In the vision, she wore red silk, the fiery color bright against her pale body.
    The slide of silk on a woman’s skin always made his blood rush. He’d often brought a
    length of silk to a lady he favored just to watch her toy with it, dragging and draping it across her naked flesh. The lusty memory sent his blood rushing this time too. He shifted to a more
    comfortable position and turned his attention to his newly arrived drink.
    Something clinked inside Alex and Ian’s glasses when she placed them onto the table. Ian
    and Alex both asked for their drinks on the rocks . Surely they didn’t require real rocks, or did they? To what purpose?
    “Are there truly rocks in your drink?” he asked and carefully patted the table feeling for
    his beer.
    “No. When you ask for a drink on the rocks it means with only ice,” Alex said.
    The day was warm and the air around them comfortable. How did Karen manage to
    preserve chips of ice?
    Then the plane roared to life and they began rolling forward. They bounced as they
    traveled on this paving.
    “Here,” Alex touched the cold beer to his fingers.
    Stephen wrapped his hand around a tall, smooth cup. Glass. He’d never drank beer from a
    glass cup, only