Refuge in Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  “Sophie?” Ted said.

  Anna bit her lip. “I haven’t seen her. She wasn’t in the girls’ room.”

  Mom looked pensive. “I haven’t seen her in a while.”

  “I spoke with her earlier when Gwenllian was reading to the kids,” Anna said.

  “We need to find her, even if she is simply in the latrine. She’s been gone too long. She knows not to wander the bailey alone, doesn’t she?” It was in part fear that Sophie had been accosted by a member of the garrison, not time travel, that had Mom rounding the table and approaching.

  Anna herself had no memory of her mother being accosted by her Uncle Dafydd when she’d first arrived in Earth Two twenty-five years ago, but she’d heard the story.

  “What exactly do we know?” Mom said.

  Bevyn related the bit of his story Mom hadn’t been able to hear fully from where she’d been sitting. When he finished speaking, they stood silent a moment, before Anna’s hand went to her mother’s, gripping tightly. “I need to talk to that guard.”

  “I will find him,” Bevyn said.

  Ten minutes later, he returned, followed by a young man, who looked barely a man, even by medieval standards, with red hair and freckles, and clearly would have preferred to be anywhere else other than standing in front of Anna. His tunic showed the colors of the Earldom of Chester, three yellow wheat sheaves on a blue background, indicating he wasn’t a member of David’s personal guard but stationed permanently at Chester Castle.

  At Bevyn’s prompting, the boy recited what he knew in a blur of words, as if he felt the need to do so as quickly as humanly possible. “I was standing guard on the top of the southwestern tower. It’s the lowest one, but the captain said I could be there because it had the best view of the Dee and had a cover that gave me shelter from the rain, which by then was really coming down. I heard a sound on the opposite tower, the tallest one, above the royal apartments. It sounded like shouting, but the voices were high, like might belong to women.”

  “Or to a child?” Anna said.

  A stricken look crossed the boy’s face. “I-I-I didn’t think of that at the time. I ran along the battlement and had passed through the southwestern tower when a proper scream came, immediately cut off. I feared someone had fallen off the tower, but when I looked to the ground, there was nothing. I couldn’t see the tower platform from down below, so I climbed it, and nobody was there, and then I rousted some of my fellows, and we made a search outside.”

  “Didn’t you think to tell your captain before now?” Anna was struggling to keep the bite out of her words.

  “Well, I did, my lady. Of course, I did, seeing as how our king has gone to Avalon, and I hear it happened in much the same way though I wasn’t on duty then. But I felt I had to search first and see if there was anything at all to show.” He stopped abruptly.

  Bevyn prodded him. “Go on.”

  “Sometimes I’ve been accused of making up stories and seeing things that aren’t there. But I didn’t! I didn’t! But that’s—that’s why I didn’t say anything until now.”

  Mom moved closer to the boy. “What other things have you been accused of making up?”

  He looked as if he was about to shrug but stopped himself when he remembered he was talking to the Queen of Wales. “Sometimes, on a night like tonight, with such rain and wind, when I stand in it, sometimes I see—” now he did shrug, “—places I’ve never been to and people I’ve never seen.”

  “So you have the sight?” Mom said.

  The boy’s expression turned stricken. “No, my lady! I’m a God-fearing Englishman!”

  “I believe what you saw tonight is real.” Anna turned despairingly to her father, who enveloped her in his arms.

  Bevyn had been looking down at his feet while Mom talked to the boy, but now he looked up. “I’ve sent men to search again, but if it’s Cadell and Sophie who fell, we aren’t going to find any trace of them. And that’s a good thing.”

  Anna burst into tears.

  Chapter Fourteen

  3 April 1294

  Llywelyn

  The guard, who hadn’t been dismissed, remained frozen a few feet away, his expression one of horror, and Bevyn’s look wasn’t far behind. With a gesture, Llywelyn sent both to roust the garrison for a second, thorough search, though in Llywelyn’s heart of hearts, he knew what had happened, and they wouldn’t find Cadell or Sophie. With his daughter sobbing into his chest, Llywelyn felt tears pricking at the corners of his own eyes. Every adult in the room knew exactly what Anna was experiencing in this moment, and the memory of the events of all those years ago, when Llywelyn had ransacked Brecon Castle, looking for Meg and Anna herself, came flooding back.

  “Sweet girl, it’s going to be all right.”

  His words made Anna sob all the harder, and Llywelyn looked apologetically at his wife.

  Twenty-five years ago, Meg and Anna had just been gone, and it hadn’t been until David and Anna had saved Llywelyn’s life that day at Cilmeri fourteen years later that he had known the truth for certain.

  One fear had been that Meg had been abducted by Llywelyn’s brother Dafydd, or even Roger Mortimer, both of whom were always concocting plots to get the better of him and had both known by then that the best way to do so was through those Llywelyn loved. King Edward had implemented a similar strategy years later when he’d imprisoned Elinor de Montfort, to whom Llywelyn was betrothed, refusing to give her up until Llywelyn went before him on bended knee.

  Ted turned the rocking chair towards Anna, but it was as if the real Anna had been replaced by a puddle of emotion, and Llywelyn had to half-carry her to it. Having seated her in the chair, he crouched in front his daughter, trying to find the words to comfort her.

  But Anna merely leaned forward and sobbed into his shoulder. “Daddy, I don’t know what to do!”

  The use of the word daddy showed her distress. She never called him daddy, that supreme Americanism. It was what Elen called Ted. Llywelyn was Papa. Not today.

  “It’s going to be okay.” Meg smoothed Anna’s hair, though when she met Llywelyn’s eyes over the top of their daughter’s head, Meg’s tears matched Anna’s.

  “I can’t lose them all,” Anna sobbed. “I need to go after him, but—”

  “But you can’t.” Llywelyn said flatly. “We can’t have the five of you wandering about in Avalon. Bad enough to have Sophie, Cadell, Dafydd, and William.”

  Elisa dragged a bench away from a table, and Llywelyn gave Anna up to her mother, who took his place. With the bench, both Elisa and Meg had something to sit on, and the three women sat in a close triangle, their knees touching.

  Elisa rubbed Anna’s shoulder. “Cadell went with Sophie, Anna. She isn’t you, but she’ll take good care of him.”

  This assertion only seemed to make Anna cry all the harder. Ted, with the instincts of wanting to help but not knowing how, poured a cup of wine and put it in front of Anna. “Drink.”

  Instead, Anna recoiled. “I can’t.”

  Elisa frowned, but Meg handed the cup up to Llywelyn, who was tempted to drain the wine himself in one go. He resisted, however, in large part because he’d been raised in a household in which wild emotion, accompanied often by wild drunkenness (or perhaps vice versa), occurred on a regular basis. His mother, Senana, had been a woman of fiery temper, equally matched by Llywelyn’s father, Gruffydd. It had been one of the reasons Gruffydd had been deprived of his inheritance, since a ruler who couldn’t control himself was a danger to his people.

  While growing up in that long-ago household had turned Llywelyn’s younger brother Dafydd devious and manipulative, Llywelyn’s response had been to become impassive and unflappable. And observant, as he understood (from Meg) was common for abused children. When either of his parents were in a temper, he endeavored to escape rather than confront them, which was the reason, on the day of his family’s departure to England unknowingly to be imprisoned in the Tower of London, he hadn’t been available to be found. By
then, Llywelyn had developed plenty of hiding places to run away to. He never saw his father again.

  Dafydd had accused Llywelyn of abandoning him, but Llywelyn himself at the time had been a man by law but really no more than a boy. In those days, he could save only himself. And on the day his parents left, he’d sworn if he ever had a wife and children of his own, his household would be different.

  Thus, with thoughts of his own childhood horrors swirling in his head, he left the goblet on the high table, and came back with water. Remembering that Anna hadn’t drunk wine at dinner either, he crouched beside the rocking chair. “You’re with child, aren’t you?”

  Meg gasped, but Anna took the water from him and, after a trembling breath, managed to gulp some of it down. After a few more deep breaths, she wasn’t recovered, but she could actually open her eyes and look at her parents. “Yes.”

  “Does Math know?” Meg asked.

  “No.” Anna shook her head. “It would have made it harder for him to march away.”

  Becoming a father had turned Llywelyn’s entire world upside down, even when David was still in the womb. Over the last twenty-five years, his children’s existence had kept him going. And now with grandchildren, his happiness couldn’t be more complete. But still, as a grandfather, he perhaps had a little more distance on the situation than Cadell’s mother.

  So he stroked away the tears on Anna’s cheek with his forefinger and said, “Cry all you need to. You should have seen me when you and your mother left all those years ago. I hid my despair and channeled my grief towards things I could control. I wore myself to exhaustion. Don’t doubt that everyone here understands exactly what you’re going through.”

  Anna’s face crumpled again.

  “Hey! Hey! It’s going to be okay.” Meg squeezed Llywelyn’s hand, letting him know that she, at least, appreciated his words.

  “Is it?” Anna’s shoulders shook. “I can’t—I can’t deal with this.”

  “I’m not dismissing your emotions. They are real and justified,” Meg said in her rational mother voice, “but that’s your pregnancy brain talking.”

  Anna continued to cry.

  Meg looked regretfully up at Llywelyn, who had straightened from his crouch. These days, his knees couldn’t stay in that position for very long. He tipped his head towards the fire, silently asking Meg to come with him. Anna was going to have to come to terms with Cadell’s disappearance and get a grip on herself, and none of them could do it for her.

  Meg released Anna to Elisa, who remained on the bench, and moved to wrap her arms around Llywelyn’s waist. “I’m obviously saying all the wrongs things.”

  “I am too.” He patted her back. “I don’t know that anything you could say would be the right thing.”

  Ted had been hovering on the margins, but now he stepped in. “Anna, I know you’re upset. As your father said, we’ve all been there. But we also all know that Cadell, of all our family, is going to be fine, don’t we?”

  “Do we?” Anna asked through her tears.

  “Yes, we do.” Meg loosened her arms enough to turn to look at her brother-in-law. “He really is going to be fine, isn’t he?”

  Llywelyn had long since accepted the time traveling miracle as something beyond anyone’s ability to understand. It was its own thing, and it was a useless endeavor to attempt to explain it. Any fool could see that the world was a far bigger place than a puny human could imagine or control.

  “How can you say that?” Anna’s question came out a wail.

  “I know it’s terrifying to think of Cadell in Avalon, but he isn’t alone, and your son is the most capable child I’ve ever seen. If anyone can survive this, he can.”

  At long last, Anna had started to think, and she stared down at her hands, still weeping, but no longer gasping.

  Llywelyn said in an undertone to Ted, not wanting Anna to overhear. “I agree. This could even be good for him. It’s hard to raise a prince who isn’t arrogant and entitled.”

  “You did,” Ted said.

  Llywelyn tsked. “That was Meg.”

  After some more hugs and soft words from Elisa, Anna was able to look up at her.

  “Let’s figure out what you’re most worried about,” Elisa said. “I assume that’s what Cadell faces in Avalon?”

  Her cheeks wet with tears, Anna nodded.

  Elisa looked intently at her niece. “As Ted just said, Cadell is the last person you need to worry about. One, he’s with Sophie, and she will take good care of him. You know she will. She has Chad’s phone numbers memorized. She has family and friends she can call upon. She’s been gone from Avalon only two weeks. From what you yourself reported, once Sophie finds a phone and calls him, Chad Treadman will move heaven and earth to keep them safe. And on top of all that, David is there.”

  “I know—”

  Elisa spoke over any objections. “But better. Cadell traveled! Do you realize what that means? He also has it—whatever it is. Which means he’ll shift worlds when his life is in danger. Worry about Math or the baby if you must, but Cadell, out of all of us, is protected!”

  The idea that her son couldn’t be killed hadn’t yet occurred to Anna, and the shock of the realization had her catching her breath.

  Now Elisa took Anna’s hand. “Like you, as a mother, my capacity for worry knows no bounds, but this is one of those times when events are out of our control. You have to let it go.”

  “He’s so little—”

  “Arthur went with Gwenllian when he was only three, and look how well he was taken care of,” Elisa said. “Christopher was there within minutes of their arrival.”

  Anna had both hands to her chest, and she was breathing deeply. She bent back her head, eyes closed, and Llywelyn saw the moment the worst of the tension left her body.

  “You’re right. You’re right.” Then Anna turned her head to look at Llywelyn and Meg. “A moment ago, I was mad at you for not offering to go yourselves. I’m sorry. I was wrong to think it.”

  “Don’t even suggest it!” Elisa’s eyes widened in alarm as she looked at Meg. “You can’t go after him any more than Anna can.”

  “Think what MI-5 would do if they got their hands on the Queen of Wales,” Ted said darkly. “They almost did once, thanks to me. Thank God you were smarter than I was.”

  Anna managed another deep breath, rocking back in the chair. She even shot a smile at her parents. Then Bronwen appeared in the doorway to the hall, a folded piece of paper in her hand. She stood hesitating, taking in the scene. She couldn’t miss the fact that they were all huddled around Anna, who was clearly distraught. “What’s happened?” She started forward. “Not Math—”

  “No,” Llywelyn put out a hand. “Not that.” He looked around at the rest of his family, uncertain how to begin.

  Meg sighed. “Cadell is missing, and we fear he’s gone to Avalon.”

  Rather than express shock or horror, Bronwen smiled sorrowfully and held up the paper in her hand. “I have here a note he left in my room. I think he left it on my pillow, but it fell to the floor, and I found it after putting Cadwaladr to sleep.” She bit her lip.

  “Just read it,” Llywelyn said. “We’re pretty sure we know what it says.”

  Bronwen opened the paper and began to read:

  Dear Mama,

  If you’re reading this now then you know I’m not in my bed, and something maybe went a little wrong with my plan. Sorry about that. I decided that I would go to Avalon to get Uncle David back. You can’t go because of the baby, Grandma is too old, and Arthur already went, and he’s too young anyway. So it’s up to me.

  Don’t worry about me. I’ll be back soon. I took my coins and things to sell, so I should have plenty of money. I hope you don’t mind.

  Love

  Cadell

  p.s. No offense to Bran, but I think you ought to have a girl this time.

  Anna’s hands were to her mouth. “How did he know?”

  Ted scoffed. “That’s totally C
adell. No offense to Bran.” He snorted again.

  Llywelyn had to turn away because he found himself laughing. He couldn’t be angry at his grandson for being so completely himself. He had to run his hand through his hair and take some deep breaths before he could turn back.

  Tears threatened again for Anna, but she managed to swallow them down and say, “He has to live.”

  “They all do,” Elisa said.

  Llywelyn was glad to see that his daughter had regained control of her emotions, but as soon as it was reasonable to excuse himself, he made his way out of the hall, fetching up in the doorway of the keep to look out at the night and the rain making puddles in the bailey. And he hadn’t stood there very long before he found arms coming around his waist and his wife ducking under his arm so she could stand beside him.

  “Everything we said to Anna was true. Now that she’s pregnant, she really shouldn’t be time traveling. Just because she did it before doesn’t make it safe or sensible.”

  “No.”

  “But I could go.”

  He stood silent without answering. He had been thinking the same thing, of course, weighing the options and the risks.

  Then he turned to face his wife and wrapped her up more fully in his arms. “I wouldn’t let you go alone.”

  “You can’t go yourself, Llywelyn. You’re the King of Wales.”

  “That’s why I can go, as you well know.”

  They stood in silence for another minute, listening to the rain, on the same page or wavelength or whatever modern expression conveyed that they understood each other and agreed. What Llywelyn didn’t want to happen was to have Meg sneaking off to the tower on her own like Cadell had done. Not for the first time, he acknowledged that some members of his family were too noble for their own good.

  “I know well what it is like to have my son ripped away from me,” he said finally.