Refuge in Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  It appeared shapeless at first, anyway. Once the woman helped Livia into it and cinched the strings that held the fabric together at the back, it was revealed to be adjustable to her form, with interlocking strings that tightened the cloth over Livia’s belly and loosened it around her breasts. The dress was more comfortable than she would ever have expected a medieval dress could be, though clearly not something she could have put on by herself.

  It was plain wool, not that finely woven, but it went over Livia’s modern dress just fine. The woman might have been remarking on the shortness of Livia’s dress, but since Livia was only catching one word in three, she couldn’t let it bother her.

  When Livia was put together, she turned around to look at Michael, whose eyes smiled. With Cade’s cloak around her shoulders, she could pass now for a medieval woman.

  Though the woman had no clothing for Michael, not even an overtunic, she did have a thick wool cloak, for which Cade paid one of his precious shillings. The woman bit it to make sure it was real. The cloak was an unrelieved black, and when Michael put it on, the woman looked him up and down approvingly. She’d been smiling, but then her eyes sobered. Without explaining what she was doing, she went into her hut and came out again with a knife in a leather sheath, which she thrust at Michael’s chest.

  He clutched it to him. “What’s this?”

  Cade asked the same question in a Saxon accent, to which the woman replied at length. Cade then gave her two more shillings and turned to Michael. “Her son found it in the field after the army left. I think it may be worth more than I gave her, but I don’t dare give her more of my money.”

  “Why isn’t she keeping the knife?” Michael asked.

  “If anyone finds it in her house, or she tries to sell it, she’s afraid her son will be accused of stealing it.”

  Michael expressed his thanks and tucked the knife into the belt he already wore at his waist. Though he didn’t have a sword, with the cloak and knife, he was looking a bit more medieval—or at least what Livia perceived to be medieval—in his unrelieved black.

  “Did they say where the army was going?” Livia said to Cade.

  “The boy didn’t know. Only that Lord Pilkington had given them permission to camp in a fallow field, east of Bury.” Cade gestured south. “It’s the Pilkingtons who own the castle we saw from the hill.”

  “Are they loyal to David?” Livia said.

  “Yes.”

  Michael looked at Livia. “Then I guess that’s where we need to go.”

  “And that’s maybe why we’re really here,” Cade said. “We were brought some place we’d be safe.”

  Livia thought that made good sense on the surface, except that, if the point had been for them to be safe, the powers-that-be should have brought Cade home to Chester.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  4 April 2022

  Sophie

  Detective-Inspector Fleming had implied it would be a relatively simple matter to sort out the mistaken raid on their compound, but in reality, they were still sitting in the den, as Fleming had called it, three hours later.

  The lounge might have been the more natural choice as a place to keep them, but the picture window was destroyed, letting in the chill spring air. At least Fleming had the decency to order his people to put plastic over it. It would be up to Chad, later, to arrange for the installation of new glass.

  Chad and Candy had worked furiously at their computers initially, but after Michael’s final text, Chad had stood up and walked out of the room. Sophie found herself staring at her shoes, her emotions a shameful mixture of relief and grief. She’d told Michael he had to be the one to return Cade to Earth Two, and he’d done it.

  Terrifyingly, both he and Livia had done it.

  A few minutes later, Chad returned and went to the bar. He poured a drink, carried it to where Sophie was sitting, and gently placed it in front of her. “You did your part, Sophie. You don’t have to feel bad you didn’t go back with him.”

  “I do feel bad, though.” She swirled the honey-colored liquid around and around in the glass. Then she glanced up at him, surprised to see him smiling. “What?”

  Chad plopped himself down on the sofa and put both feet on the coffee table. “They got away.”

  “Or they’re dead.”

  “Unlikely.”

  “They drove over a cliff, Chad.”

  “The phone and the GPS in the car are nearly indestructible and would still be blinking. They’re made that way in case the vehicle is in an accident or stolen.” He shook his head. “No. They’re gone.”

  Sophie finally took a sip of the drink, feeling the scotch burn down her throat. She didn’t much like hard liquor, but it felt like a deserved punishment today, even as she was unsurprised to find it was the good stuff, probably Laphroaig. “What is Candy working on now?”

  “Tracking the vehicles. The DMV is unhackable from here, sadly, so she can’t trace who owned or rented them, and if they were rentals, rather than stolen, I don’t have access to that data either.” Fleming’s business card appeared in Chad’s hand. “That said, I don’t think we’ll be waiting here much longer.”

  “You’re assuming the person who ordered the raid wanted Cade, not you or Livia?”

  “We’re calling him or her the EM, and yes, I’m assuming it.”

  “But Fleming has no interest in Cade. He probably doesn’t even know he exists.”

  “He does now.”

  “How?”

  “I just told him.” He reached over, took the drink from her hand, and took a sip. “I also gave him the texts Michael sent us, and Livia’s suspicion that Grant Dempsey is the man behind this, so now he knows where to look.”

  “Yesterday, I might have suspected the person who supplied the NCA with false information was you.”

  Chad grinned. “That’s pretty unlikely, even for someone as devious as I am.”

  Sophie canted her head. “I could turn what happened this morning into a bluff within a bluff. You arranged for them to attack your house to make it look like you are innocent. You wanted Livia and Michael to take Cade home.” She paused. “Though I can’t work out why that might be. He’s no good to you there, and David just time traveled last night for the entire world to see.”

  “As I said, devious, even for me, but since I didn’t, and Cade got away, I can tolerate sitting here all morning while they dig deeper into this mess and find the culprit for me.”

  Sophie took a breath. “Right. Roping in another agency this way was the stupidest thing Dempsey—or whoever this is—could have done.”

  “Now, not only have they exposed themselves, they missed their prize.” Chad’s voice contained unmistakable satisfaction, and he rested the scotch on his belly with both hands clasped around it. “I’ve had just enough Scotch to be mellow, so tell me about your journey. What was it like? Did you enjoy it? I want to know the worst and the best things that happened. Don’t pretty it up for me. I want you to tell me the truth.”

  Sophie reached for the drink and took another sip. Then, cradling the glass to her own chest, she settled in beside him. “I can tell you the best and the worst at the same time. Because of me, we took the keep at Beeston Castle and rescued Henry Percy ...”

  The more she talked, the more she felt like a weight was lifting off her shoulders. Chad wasn’t her parents, but she had spoken to them last night. While she still felt guilty about leaving Livia and Michael to time travel on their own, her life was slowly coming back into focus.

  She wasn’t sorry she could look forward again to living it.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  4 April 1294

  Michael

  They returned to the road, walking purposefully along it as it descended steadily downwards to the village. The River Irwell, which also ran through Manchester itself, was five hundred yards to their right. Michael had it in the back of his mind that the road upon which they were walking would one day be much larger. Back in Avalon, the
re would have been a Tesco and a McDonald’s off to the right.

  The castle was located on rising ground—the highest point in the floodplain—on the north side of the town, right above the river. Michael was also pretty sure a) no castle existed in Bury today, and b) the river itself was farther from the town in Avalon than it was here. That made sense. If rivers aren’t dammed, channelized, or diked, they will move back and forth across a river valley in seven hundred years. Back in the day, early industrialists had also built a network of canals around Manchester, so they’d engineered many changes to the water system that wouldn’t have existed yet in Earth Two.

  As they approached the town, Cade suddenly came to a complete halt. “Maybe he lied or was misinformed.”

  “Maybe he lied about what?” Livia said. “And who is he? The boy we just spoke to?”

  “Maybe Roger Pilkington supports Balliol and Roger Mortimer,” Cade said. “I would make a good hostage.”

  Michael had spent the last twelve hours worrying about the kind of hostage Cade would make in Avalon. It hadn’t occurred to him he had to be afraid of that here too. “I won’t let that happen.”

  “How could you stop it?” Cade said. “You only have a knife!”

  Michael crouched in front of him. “I could do quite a lot with a knife. I’m a soldier, like your father. Like David. I’ve fought in battles, though admittedly with guns, not swords. I won’t go down easy, no matter who tries to take you from us.”

  Michael hadn’t known if Cade would really understand—or believe him—but the pinched look on his face eased slightly. “I didn’t know.”

  “No reason you should. Maybe I don’t look it.”

  “No,” Cade said. “You look it, especially dressed all in black like you are. Peasants like bright colors. You could be highborn. It’s just that we aren’t riding, and you don’t have a sword. You should, no matter what else you’re wearing. As a knight, you would never go anywhere without it, except in your own hall, and sometimes not even then.”

  “I thought maybe you wouldn’t think I was trained because of the color of my skin.”

  Cade frowned. “Why would you think that? Everybody I know who looks even a little like you is either a doctor or a knight. Everybody in England knows that. That’s why the peasant woman gave you the knife in the first place.”

  Michael laughed. “Well, I’m not a doctor.”

  “I didn’t figure.”

  Michael straightened. “Okay, so what do we do? We have to get help. We can’t walk all the way to Chester.”

  “Well, we could,” Livia said, “but it would take a long time, and we might run out of Cade’s shillings before then.”

  Michael gazed towards the town, a few hundred yards away. It still gave him a tug of familiarity, even if it made no sense that it should. It looked nothing like the Bury he knew, except, of course, for the shape of the land around it. What he had thought was a castle from a distance turned out to be more of a manor house in that it had a thatched roof and was built in wood, not stone. He was right that it was moated, however, with a stone wall, though not one with a system of crenels and merlons, but merely level all the way around. Still, it was grand enough to imply its owner was a lord.

  “What does everyone always say? We end up where we’re supposed to. Maybe we don’t have to go straight to the manor. Isn’t that an inn right there?” Michael pointed ahead. As was common in every English village, in whatever era, inns clustered either in the center of the town near the green or as the last building on one of the roads leading out, to take advantage of the weary traveler who didn’t care to explore further.

  This one was called The Old Oak. It looked to be about the size of his flat in Manchester, if his flat had been a house standing on its own. It had two rooms at most, though a fence extended around the back of the house, allowing access to where Michael supposed horses might be stabled.

  Then a thunderous sound came from behind them, and he spun around.

  “Horses!” Cade tugged on his arm. “Get off the road!”

  “Wait. What?”

  Cade was already in the process of scrambling over a stone wall, not unlike the one he’d climbed when they’d first arrived.

  Then his head popped up from the other side of the wall. “We don’t know who this is! You have to hide!”

  “We should listen to him.” Livia took Michael’s hand, and they edged backwards towards the wall, trying to look inconspicuous. The horses were almost upon them, and Michael couldn’t see following Cade over the wall, especially not with Livia wearing a long dress.

  They did end up with their backs to the wall, however, and since they were also within the shelter of an oak tree, perhaps the one for which the pub was named, Michael hoped they were reasonably well hidden, a thought which was confirmed when the first three or four riders rode right past them. These men were obviously warriors—mounted knights and men-at-arms. Every man was dressed in armor with weapons attached to his belt.

  But then one of the leaders slowed and turned back, and the rider beside him gave a piercing whistle. Those who’d ridden past turned back too. Michael couldn’t believe they would waste a moment of time on him and Livia, but then he remembered his modern clothes and skin color and had a moment of despair.

  Between the two of them, if they pulled out their guns and started firing, they could escape temporarily, but he and Livia didn’t have twenty bullets between them, so someone would be left alive to chase them. And that someone might find himself more men for an old-fashioned manhunt. He didn’t think murder in a village street would be taken any less lightly in Earth Two than in Avalon, even if they were in the middle of a war.

  “What do we do?” Livia kept a tight hold on his hand.

  “Wait and see. Whatever happens, we’re in this together.” Then Michael turned his head slightly, pretending to talk to Livia but really speaking to Cade, who was behind the wall. “Stay hidden. Livia and I are expendable. You are not.”

  Cade didn’t make a sound.

  The man who’d stopped first approached and motioned with one hand. “Come here.”

  To Michael’s relief, he spoke in French. Middle French was different from modern French, but over the centuries the French had worked hard to keep their language ‘pure’ and had borrowed less from other languages than English had done. Michael had been listening to William talk for the last few days and had what he thought might be a handle on the way he spoke.

  Michael and Livia obeyed, stepping forward away from the wall and out from under the tree.

  “What’s your name?” The man said, speaking to Michael, as he would.

  “Michael.”

  The man snorted. “Michael who?”

  “Say you’re from Sicily.” Livia looked down and spoke in English, in hopes the man would miss her meaning.

  “Michael de Palermo,” he said loudly, coming up with the first Sicilian city that popped into his head.

  “I don’t recognize you. What are you doing here?”

  “Just bring them. We can’t kill them out here in the street. Pilkington will never countenance it.” Another man urged his horse through the twenty riders who’d stopped on the road. It was hard to tell how old he was. He had the round face of youth, but his dark hair was receding and his skin was weathered, probably from spending so much of his life in the saddle. Many of the men in the party were considerably older, but the fact that this man was the one speaking indicated he had the highest rank. That made him, mostly likely, a lord. “You serve King David, I presume.”

  “Oui, mon seigneur,” Michael said. It was impossible to lie about this. Yes, my lord.

  “See,” the man said to his companion. “All you had to do was ask.”

  “Of course, my lord.” The lieutenant jerked his head at several of the riders. “You heard Lord Valence. Bring them.”

  Four of the soldiers dismounted and, forming a guard around Livia and Michael, urged them towards the drawbridge across t
he moat.

  Neither Michael nor Livia looked back to the wall behind which Cade crouched.

  “How did this go so badly so quickly?” Livia said, still looking down at her feet and affecting a submissive attitude. “This is everything I feared the Middle Ages could be.”

  Michael gripped her hand, worst case scenarios cascading through his head. “I’m afraid it might only get worse from here.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  4 April 1294

  Cade

  Cade stayed where he was, huddled behind the wall, feeling himself a coward, but also knowing it would serve nobody except Aymer de Valence if he came out. He had no real idea what to do next, other than the fact that he had to do something.

  Gwenllian, if she were here, would have a plan. She wasn’t very much older than he was, but she came up with ideas all the time. He’d mocked her plenty for it, but secretly it was because he was jealous. Lately she’d spent all her time with Elen instead of playing with Cade. He could admit to himself he missed her.

  But thinking about Gwenllian helped him to think about his situation and tamp down his fear. He was worried his clothing would set him apart as a nobleman’s son, though it was unlikely, even if anyone did think he was noble, they would realize he was the son of Lord Mathonwy, the king’s brother-in-law. His father had marched away with his men yesterday at dawn. If they traveled through the night, they could have journeyed fifty miles by now, so there was no point in Cade attempting to catch up, especially on foot.

  He couldn’t go home either. Bury was fifty miles from Chester and even farther from Dinas Bran. He had no knowledge of the area around Bury, not being one to memorize maps, despite the fact that it was one of the things his father insisted on him learning. He’d resisted, thinking it was stupid.

  Now, he closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against them, trying to picture the region around Manchester. He’d seen the map before they’d ridden to Chester. He needed a castle with a castellan loyal to David or ...