Sir John

The morning sun shed its warm and peaceful rays in through the window, stroking John’s face like tender hands, while John was still sleeping soundly.

After some time, someone knocked on the bedroom door and a short while later, the door knob was turned and a man walked into the room.

"Sir! Sir! Sir John ..." The voice was clear but not too sharp. John opened his eyes, but he still felt sleepy. He vaguely saw a white man in his forties standing in front of him. The white man looked very serious because of his thin face, and the perfect hooknose and blue eyes on his expressionless face made him staid and unapproachable. What was weirdest about him was his wig with a white rim which was like those worn by attorneys in Britain and Hong Kong. Seeing him, John wondered if he was still dreaming or if he was acting in a play set in the American War of Independence.

"Who are you? Why are you here?" John asked in English casually, rubbing his head that was still swirling. He felt a headache and was certain that it was the result of the hangover last night… Damn it! He really wished he had not had that much.

"I am Jonathan, your butler, Sir John. I came to wake you up, as it is time for you to get up." The white man replied softly, with no slightest change on his face. He nodded a greeting as if he were not a bit surprised at John’s questions.

“…Jonathan?" John subconsciously repeated the name of the white man. He knew several guys named Jonathan… After all, this name was common in the United States. It was heard at a frequency only a bit lower than his name John and, maybe Tom as well. But none of those name Jonathan matched this white man.

"Yes, Sir John, I am your butler." The white man replied, still appearing expressionless.

"Sir!? Butler!?" John felt really puzzled. He did not mistake the two words, but just couldn’t understand why the white man called himself his butler. He was not economically better off to afford a butler like the rich. And, he did not really remember when he was dubbed a knight. He was in America, not in Britain. How come he was honored with such a title?

Did he really get drunk and run into a play? John flew up and looked around and found himself in a very luxurious room. It was definitely not the three—star hotel where he stayed. What shocked him most was the layout and decoration of the room which equipped with European—style solid wood furniture inlaid with gold and silver lines. There was a lamp holder seemingly to be gold—plated and some porcelain and handicrafts looked very good on the table. The walls were painted with some mediocre paints, but you could roughly estimate the true value of them through several large oil paintings on them. The floor was covered with ordinary solid wood processed without much sophistication, but the cashmere carpet looked noble... They were real luxuries. In the modern even those who love the classical style would not decorate their own house in this way, because all this seemed to completely come to hundreds of years ago…

"Yes, Sir! I am your butler. Are you clear—headed now? As I mentioned to you last night, I'd like to report to you on our financial situation." Jonathan felt relaxed when he noticed John rolling his eyes, so he continued speaking in a low voice.

“Wait, wait! It must be a joke. Let me collect myself first! Uh…to tell the truth, I wonder what time it is now. What year? Where am I now? What place?" John was now widely awake. He noted that the room was strange and so was himself. The fingers covered with golden hair and the blue veins on his white skin were definitely not his own.

"..." A hardly unnoticeable stunned expression came across Jonathan’s expressionless face.

In spite of his professional training, Jonathan couldn’t help feeling shocked because of those strange questions asked by John. Even his face paled with fright. Then, just a few seconds later, Jonathan collected himself with a few deep breathes and his face again looked expressionless.

The training Jonathan had received told him not to question or puzzle about the questions your master might come up with. You should answer it as a matter of fact. So Jonathan bowed a little and replied: "As you please, Sir, it is February 14 of the year 1776 of the Jesus era. We are now in Pittsburgh, or Duquesne as it is called in French. If King George's glory could shine on this land again, we are in Ohio, but presently we are in Pennsylvania and subject to the jurisdiction of the Congress in Philadelphia, which is struggling to break away. And this is your home, Crimson Manor, 30 miles away from Pittsburgh fortress. And you..." Jonathan bowed again, "You are John, son of York Lee Sr. whose full name is York Rival Göllfer Lee. And you are the nobility of His Majesty the King, the owner of this crimson manor."

"You said … 1776 ..." John muttered to himself. As a modern man, John could not believe that time travel would happen to him. What he did first was to rise up and walked across the soft carpet to the window without shoes, which made Jonathan shocked. Yet John had no effort to read Jonathan's mind. He looked out and saw a vast piece of leveled land and the black man called john working on wheat seedlings. He now believed what Jonathan said just now.

He was just a reception desk manager of an international travel agency, and, as far as he remembered, he was sleeping in a hotel in America after a drink.

Sounding weird as it was, he knew nobody would have taken so much trouble to play a trick on him. It seemed that time travel which he had read about in those novels had really happened to him. He was amazed that time had brought him to this era and transformed him into a son of a noble... Anyway, it was not so bad. John felt he was lucky. If he had been transformed into a black slave working in the field, he would kill himself right away. It was an era when black slaves were not accorded with any human rights, and they were much beyond the imagination of modern people... Slaves! Everything in their possession, even their lives, belonged to their master instead of themselves. For slave owners, the only differences between slaves and other animals were that they were capable of speaking and walking on their two feet and working. John just could not imagine how cruel it would be if he had been transformed into a slave.

But the next second, reflecting over the time background summed up by Jonathan, John felt depressed. Damn it! Isn’t 1776 the year of when the American War of Independence broke out? My goodness! America was absolutely one of the most dangerous places in the world at that time. Conflicts between the Royalist Party and the Independent Party had come to the point that they had to be settled by assassination and with blood. Both parties sought to defeat each other by killing. Political chaos brought on military actions and social chaos. At this time, even as aristocrats, John was definitely at risks. The Independent Party might want to see him dead, as in their eyes, nobles were absolute royalists.

"Hey you, Jonathan! How is the War of Independence going?" John asked, deciding to learn about the situation before choosing which party to join. He had learnt from movies that wars were terrible and he had to make a choice. If he stood in between, he might be attacked by both parties. He did not want to die before he made out what was really going on. Anyway, the first thing he had to do was to survive the war.

"The War of Independence?" Jonathan frowned; he was apparently not quite clear about the term. He simply replied as a matter of fact, “They were fighting there, but I am not quite clear what is really going. I only heard that Boston is still besieged by Washington and the peasants and there is no further news about it. But as the royal army did not take any military action and the Independent Party were actively playing tricks, many people have joined the rebelling organizations. The majority of Pennsylvania is now seized by the rebels... Things are not so good so far."

John sensed that his butler wearing a wig but no facial expression was resentful of the Americans at war, because he always called them rebels or peasants. Jonathan's attitude dawned on John and set him wondering whether he had been labeled as a royalist. That's nothing good... It would not be a bad thing to be a royalist if he were anywhere else outside the USA. John had traveled across time and he knew that Washington and the peasants and the rebels in Jonathan's eyes were those who won the war in the end and the war was the starting point for America to set out on the journey to be the number one in the world... If he was a royalist now, then he must do something about it. Now, there was one question he had to make out first, even if he had to expose his real identity.