Title: "Her White Knight," (8/?)
Author: TheQueenly1
Pairing: Giles and Buffy!
Rating: PG

Disclaimer: As far as I know, all the characters of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" are owned by their creator, Joss Whedon. No infringement of copyright is intended or should be inferred. The original characters in this story are mine, however.

Summary: Buffy and Giles are sent back to the thirteenth century, and in the trials and travails they experience, they discover their love for each other.

Spoilers: At least up to "After Life." It is AU after that. Buffy never became sexually involved with Spike--and aren't you glad?

Notes: This story was written in response to Challenge # 4 here at ODD. [Brackets] are used to indicate unvoiced thoughts. *Asterisks* are used for emphasis.

Feedback: Would be *enormously* appreciated!

"You mean you know where your Slayer is?" Buffy asked.

"Please, lady, modulate thy voice," Sir Geoffrey hissed. He was walking so fast down the corridor that he was almost running. Buffy and Giles followed, Buffy having a more difficult time keeping pace with the men's longer strides. Sir Geoffrey did not seem inclined to slow down long enough to let anyone play catch-up, but he did go so far as to bring them up to date on current events.

After Giles and Buffy had been locked up, he had returned to find that even more vampires, dozens of them, had come out of the woods and were standing outside the castle gates, yelling insults and obscenities, making threats about the horrible things they would do to everyone, especially Lady Eleanor, if the Duke persisted in defying their Master. This had lasted until Sir Geoffrey assembled some archers and fired flaming arrows down into the vampires. Only after a few of them had become undead torches had they backed off, with promises of how they would be back to rip everyone's throats out if Duke Edward did not surrender.

"I don't get it," Buffy said, when the Steward finally paused for breath. "We're in a castle with stone walls that are twelve feet thick, and vampires can't come in unless they're invited, anyway. So unless the Duke is stupid enough to surrender and invite all the vampires in, how can they do anything to us?"

"My Slayer hath been gone for some time," Sir Geoffrey explained. "As a result, the vampire population hath grown greatly, especially since the arrival of this Master. He be a Master of dark magicks and wert an evil man even while he lived; so evil, it be said, that he became a vampire *willingly.* In his undead state he keeps his sorcerous powers still, and hath the powers of a vampire as well. He hath sent many evil things against us, of which the dragon slain by you and Sir Giles wert but the latest. This Master holds many men in thrall, and he and his minions hath prowled the night for so long that Christian folk now fear to travel this way after dark. If we leave the castle, even during the day, he will doubtless order his enthralled peasants to attack us--and I be reluctant to kill them, as it be not their fault that they be under the spell of this Master. In time, he shall starve us out, if he be not stopped."

"How can we stop him?" Giles asked quietly.

"We must free my Slayer, Sir Geoffrey responded. "With her help and thine, we can defeat this Master. Only if he be destroyed or banished from this place wilt the ranks of the undead cease to grow, and the peasants be freed of his thrall." They had reached the stables by now. A nervous-looking groom stood there, holding the reins of three horses, one for each of them. Buffy noticed the man wore a large wooden cross around his neck.

Sir Geoffrey lifted some large objects wrapped in burlap and opened the wrapping to reveal Buffy's and Giles' swords in their scabbards. He held them out reverently to the blonde Slayer and her Watcher, who took the weapons and buckled them onto their belts. The horses whinnied and stamped their hooves a little; the groom moved to calm them.

"How can he keep your Slayer a prisoner?" Buffy asked. "I mean, Slayer-strength and all--"

"He captured her," Sir Geoffrey said shortly. "I know not the details. He doubtless keepeth her prisoner in ensorcelled chains perhaps, or by some other use of dark magick. He hath the power to do such a thing. That be why I need the strength and skill of a another Slayer to rescue my Slayer."

"Uh--" Buffy did not know how to begin what she was going to say. Sir Geoffrey looked at her inquiringly. "If she was captured by this Master Vampire, how do you know she's, um--still alive?"

"She be not dead. I would know," Sir Geoffreys said flatly.

"How can you be sure?"

"He would know," Giles said quietly. "He is her Watcher." Buffy turned to look at him. Giles met her gaze steadily--kindness, pain, tenderness, knowing, and love, all in one look, and Buffy realized that if she were to die--again--Giles would know, too. She also realized at that moment that her death had been harder on him than on anyone else.

"And what doth he know of Lady Eleanor?" an angry, pain-filled voice demanded roughly. They all whipped around to see Sir James, clad as if for battle, emerge from the shadows of one of the stalls. "What of her? Doth no one care that this evil Master will surely kill her, if she be not saved?"

"Of course we care," Sir Geoffrey snapped. "We be going about such business now. Hinder us not, and waste not our time!"

"I shall go too," Sir James said.

Buffy rolled her eyes slightly and started to say something pointed on that topic, although she refrained from doing so when she saw Giles silently shake his head at her. Sir Geoffrey took a deep breath, speaking as if this took the last of his patience. "Sir James, we hath no time for this. You know not how to fight the undead."

"I can use a sword well enough," the younger knight snapped back. "I can cleave a vampire's head from his shoulders as well as any man, and I shall do so, to anyone or anything that stands between me and Lady Eleanor! If I stay at home abed while others go to rescue her, then I be no true man.

Buffy looked at him, *really* looked at him, for the first time, and saw the fear and desperation mixed with angry determination in the young man's face. He was a very young man, perhaps even younger than she by a year or so, and at that moment she was reminded of Xander in the early days of their friendship--a boy-man desperately worried about someone he loved, and determined to prove himself.

"No, Sir James--" Sir Geoffrey began.

"He can come," she interrupted. "We need every warrior we can get."

Sir Geoffrey looked at her, his mouth falling open at being overruled. Something about that niggled at Buffy's memory, but before she could identify it, the groom cleared his throat and said respectfully; "Will thou be needin' another 'orse then, Sir?"

At the Slayer's words, Sir James' face lit up like a kid's at Christmas. "Stay with the hores, fellow. I can saddle my own steed," he told the groom, and quickly went toward a stall in the back.

Buffy turned back to Sir Geoffrey before the latter could protest. "Where is your Slayer, anyway? Where do we have to go?"

"To a place nearby in the king's forest," Sir Geoffrey replied. "After much questioning of the peasants, I hath learned from an ancient greybeard that there be a mine there, long abandoned. The old man's grandfather used to work there as a boy. The vampires must be there, as it be the only place close enough to provide shelter from the sun during the day, but still close enough to enthrall villagers and threaten the castle. No one hath worked in the mines for many years, and the forest hath grown up around it. It be from the forest that the vampires come."

Gile nodded. "Seems logical."

"No offense, but I still don't understand why if this Master Vamp was able to kidnap your Slayer, he wouldn't just kill her right away," Buffy said.

"I know why--now," Sir Geoffrey told them. "The blood of a Slayer be powerful, and there art many spells which call for it as an ingredient." Giles nodded in affirmation. Sir Geoffrey continued; "I hath consulted my books--"

Buffy glanced involuntarily at her own Watcher at that, and she and Giles shared at smile at the familiar statement. Sir Geoffrey went on; "I believe the Master wishes to use my Slayer's blood as part of a spell that, if allowed to be completed, will allow him to move about by day, unburned and unaffected by the light of the sun. If this be allowed to happen, then with that ability along with his sorcery and his vampiric powers, he be unassailable." Sir Geoffrey made the last statement quietly, but with a shudder. Buffy herself felt cold, and even Giles looked paler than usual.

"Then why didn't he do this as soon as he captured your Slayer?" Buffy asked.

"In truth, I believe he would have, 'twere possible," the other Watcher answered. "But if my research be true--and I believe it be-- then he must wait for a certain time. That time be this night. This be the eve of St. George's Day, a time when magick be most powerful, and the walls between the worlds be thinnest. Many dark things travel abroad on this night. We must save my Slayer and stop his evil spell before this time."

"We must save Lady Eleanor, too," Sir James said, returning with his own horse saddled and ready.

"Aye," Sir Geoffrey answered, "but stopping the Master must be our first duty, and the best way to do that be the rescue of Lady Genevieve, my Slayer." He glanced skyward. "Time be passing--we should mount our horses and go."

The groom ended up taking one of the horses back to the stall, because Buffy flatly refused to ride the beast. "There's no way," she told them. "These animals have more legs than I do. Giles, tell them-- I can barely drive a car."

The two knights started to argue with her, but Giles cut them off. "Lady Buffy rides with me." His Slayer smiled with relief and genuine appreciation at his words, and he smiled back, helping her onto his horse, and mounting the saddle before her. Buffy clung tightly to her Watcher's back. The groom retreated back into the stables with the unneeded horse.

No one said much until after they all left the castle. The guards at the gate did not seem inclined to question Sir Geoffrey--he was the castle Steward, after all. The oaken doors were opened, the iron portcullus was raised, and the four of them rode out of the castle without incident. Buffy wondered if Duke Edward had thought better of locking up her and Giles and decided to release them, or if they had just been let out on the authority of Sir Geoffrey. Then she remembered the task that lay before them, and decided she had other things to worry about.

"What be the plan?" Sir James asked excitedly.

"We go to the mine, enter therein, kill all vampires we encounter, and rescue my Slayer," Sir Geoffrey told him.

"Oh, terrific," Buffy said. "So the plan is, we don't have one, right?"

"Please, lady," Sir Geoffrey said, and she felt a little sorry for her flippancy as she saw how weary he looked. "I hath only recently learned of my Slayer's location. I hath learned all I can about this dread Master Vampire, but little be known about him, other than that he be deadlier than most. We must do the best we can."

Buffy felt guilty and decided to change the subject. "How about his name? You keep telling us he's a Master Vamp, but who exactly is he?"

"I know not," Sir Geoffrey replied over his shoulder as they started their horses at a trot. "His minions know him only as 'the Master.'"

Buffy's head snapped around, and she almost fell off the horse in shock. "Giles," she gasped, "No. It can't be--"

Her Watcher had long since reached the same conclusion. So he did not seem as shocked as she, but he looked every bit as worried. "Yes, Buffy," he said quietly, "I fear that this 'Master Vampire' is indeed the same 'Master' that you faced when you were sixteen."

"But Giles," she cried, "That means it's impossible for me to kill him!"

Sir James glanced at her sharply. "What say you, lady?"

"If that be true," Sir Geoffrey said hoarsely, "the we all be doomed."

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