Masters of Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  “We’ve been over this. Clare’s men are telling everyone I’m dead, which means nobody is going to believe me when I tell them who I am. And with the death of my men at Chateau Niort, I don’t know a single soul in Aquitaine I can trust. Anyway, splitting up is not the answer. I’d be leaving you to your death.”

  Philip made a disgusted noise. “You are too noble for your own good.”

  “I have heard that before.” David spoke absently, since he’d walked ahead to push open the gate. The structure was more of a shelter than a barn, with what country people in Oregon called a split rail fence instead of walls, thus allowing the free flow of air through the building. The thatch was thick enough that the roof wasn’t leaking, and now that David breathed in the smell of the hay, he realized that it was fresh. The shelter wasn’t abandoned after all. But as it was empty of enemies at the moment, David couldn’t ask for anything more.

  He went back into the rain. “We passed a village a quarter-mile back. Maybe they have a healer. At the very least, food would be good. You need something better than dry bread if you are going to maintain your strength.”

  “If you ask for bandages and food, they’ll wonder why you didn’t just bring your wounded friend to the village.”

  “I’ll tell them my friend could go no farther, so I found a dry spot in which to leave him,” David said. “It is the truth, after all.”

  Philip cleared his throat. “I could go farther.”

  David didn’t dignify that statement by responding to it. They still had a good way to go too. From the trail where David had killed that man to the southern approach to La Rochelle had to be a distance of at least thirty miles. The twenty they’d covered since then had been the longest miles of David’s life, full of constant anxiety and fear of discovery. Had Philip been healthy, they could have reached safety by now—if the Templar commanderie was, in fact, a safe place. But even with a horse, Philip wasn’t doing very well. On top of everything else, he’d developed a fever. The last thing he needed was more travel.

  David had spent enough time around wounded men to know that some bruising and swelling was normal with an arrow wound, but Philip’s wound was inflamed, puffy, and looking far worse than it should. David feared that dirt had gotten into it. Worse would be if David had left a grain of metal or a fragment of bone behind. If Philip was to survive, the wound would have to be probed again, but David had neither the skill nor the tools to do so. Philip needed a healer.

  If they were very lucky, the Templar healer at La Rochelle had done a stint at the hospital in London and learned some of the new methods. Philip hadn’t wanted to call upon the Templar commanderie in La Rochelle for aid, but if they’d ever had a choice about it, they didn’t now.

  “We’re going in there?” Even exhaustion couldn’t diminish the sneer that formed on Philip’s lips.

  “A man’s home is his castle, be he peasant or king,” David said, badly mangling the quote, not that Philip knew it or cared.

  Philip snorted, but when David helped him from the horse, he staggered willingly enough into the barn and collapsed onto a mound of hay with a sigh. When he was settled somewhat comfortably, David untied the bandage around Philip’s shoulder to reveal a wound far more inflamed than when he’d last seen it. In a way, David was glad the night was coming on because his stomach turned at the sight of what he could see.

  “I’m going to die, aren’t I?” Philip’s eyes were fixed on David’s face.

  “You are not going to die, not if I have any say in the matter.”

  “Your eyes say different.”

  “The Templars have been given the remedies for infection discovered by healers in England. By tomorrow, you’ll be on the road to health.”

  “You gave my ambassador the knowledge too.” Philip had closed his eyes against the pain, and David couldn’t blame him. He was trying to be gentle, but every touch must have been excruciating. “Why?”

  David was focusing so hard that at first he didn’t understand the question. Then he paused, his brow furrowed. “You’re asking me why I didn’t withhold what we know? Why would I do that?”

  “Every dead Frenchman is one fewer soldier to fight,” Philip said.

  David shook his head, not mystified so much as saddened by the cynicism. He didn’t really know how to answer Philip without becoming angry, so he took one of the last scraps of cloth, this from a spare shirt in the saddle bag taken from the dead man, and went back outside for a minute to let the rain soak it. Then he returned so he could clean Philip’s wound.

  Either Philip had grown accustomed to the pain, or he had a better handle on it, because he didn’t even wince. Despite—or maybe because of—David’s anger, David was working extra hard not to hurt him.

  After five silent minutes, Philip said, “You are not as I imagined you to be.”

  “How is that?” David said.

  “Before Hythe, I was led to believe that your compassion for your people was a weakness that I could exploit. I was told that you cared so much for them that you neglected to do what was necessary to maintain power. But then we were defeated at Hythe by a motley army of peasants. Until today, I didn’t understand how such a thing could be possible. Now I see that my advisers misunderstood you completely.”

  Everybody liked to hear nice things about themselves, and David was no exception. He warmed a bit at Philip’s assessment, not disagreeing because Philip was absolutely right, at least about the motley army composed of the citizenry of Hythe.

  “I see how you worry for your family. You care that people will take the news of your death hard, and it eats away at you. You are unlike any lord within my experience.”

  “I’ve heard that before too,” David said.

  Philip continued as if David hadn’t spoken. “From across the Channel, one might make the mistake of concluding that a man who has done nothing but gain more and more power since he was fourteen years old would be driven to upend Clare’s plans because he treasures his throne as his God-given right. That would be natural. In our fraternity of kings, we all think this way. But it seems to me that you want power in order to keep it out of the hands of less able men and because you know that only with power can you improve the lives of your people.

  “You despair that Clare will overturn all the good you’ve done in England during your reign. You hate the idea of Clare’s rule because you believe his vision for England is colored by self-interest. As far as I can see, you have no self-interest.”

  “I have no interest in dying,” David said dryly.

  “But you could live without being king.”

  David ducked his head in acknowledgement of the truth of Philip’s words. “I would never have chosen to be King of England for myself. It was my father’s dream. In fact, we fought about it more than once. When I first considered accepting the crown, it was because doing so would mean that Wales was finally free of England. And then I began to care about the English people too. In the end, I took the throne because the barons and the people asked it of me. I couldn’t turn my back on their need.”

  “And, again, you mean what you say.” Philip snorted and shook his head, even though it clearly pained him. “My priests tell me you’re barely a Christian, and yet God favors you. How is that? From where does your strength come?”

  “I am a Christian,” David said, slightly offended. At the same time, he knew the source of Philip’s query. God wills it! was a common cry at the beginning of battle, as if God would ever favor a leader who went to war as easily as European Christians did. Then he added, knowing that his words would make no sense to Philip but not caring, “I’m also an American, and we tend to be absurdly—and perhaps stupidly—confident that we know best.”

  “Sometimes when you speak, I have no notion of what you’re saying.” Philip’s eyes remained fixed on David’s face. “As I said, you are like no king I have ever known.”

  David finished bandaging Philip, uncertain what to say or if he needed to say
anything at all. He could hardly return the compliment Philip had paid him because Philip was exactly like most lords David knew. Up until today, which admittedly had been humbling for them both, Philip had simply been fortunate enough to be born to a higher station than anyone else in his country and had been more ruthless in holding onto what he had.

  Then again, Philip might not see his analysis of David’s character as positive, and Philip hadn’t mentioned the related reason why David had no intention of giving up his throne to someone like Clare: he’d become a control freak. Maybe he’d always been one, but there hadn’t been as much scope for the tendency when he was a fourteen-year-old freshman in high school.

  Because the mail and padding underneath would never dry while he wore them, David stood and began to strip off his borrowed weaponry and armor, biting back a moan as he worked his way out of the padding. His chest hurt from the arrows and from whatever further damage he’d caused himself by falling on top of the man he’d killed. He was glad to leave the Kevlar vest on, per Lili’s instructions, so he wouldn’t have to see what he’d done to himself.

  Fortunately, the dead man’s change of clothes, which David had found in his saddle bags, fit well enough for one evening. He put them on. Only after he was dressed did he finish his conversation with Philip.

  “You make me sound like a better man than I am.” David gestured to his transformed appearance. “I go to the village dressed like a common man, to be treated like one, because I don’t dare go as myself. In just this last day I have learned how accustomed to power and my ability to wield it I have become. Out here, I have none, and I hate it.”

  Without waiting for Philip’s response, if he meant to make one, David bent to tuck the dead man’s blanket around Philip’s shoulders. “I will return as soon as I can. I swear it.” Then he threw his newly acquired cloak over his shoulders, pulled up the hood, and went out into the rain.

  David approached the village, which was larger than the one they’d first tried, with some trepidation. He watched the outside of the inn for fifteen minutes before deciding he couldn’t wait any longer and pushed through the door. He would have preferred to look like a knight, but the dead man’s tunic, declaring his loyalty to an unknown lord, was covered in blood. This was the best way David knew to change his appearance, since Clare’s men would never believe that a king would dress like a commoner.

  “Evening.” While the tavern keeper’s greeting was civil enough, his look said otherwise, and several other inhabitants of the common room glared balefully at David before looking away. That wasn’t quite the reception David was used to, but it was how he should have expected them to treat a stranger.

  “I need food.” David put a single coin, taken from the dead man’s purse, on the bar. “Enough for several meals.” He decided in that instant that he didn’t dare ask for bandages or a healer.

  “What are you doing out in this weather?”

  “My mother’s sick and can’t cook.”

  “Haven’t you heard the news?”

  “No.”

  “The Duke is dead! The countryside has been roused in search of the two assassins who escaped. I’ve been kept hopping all evening.”

  That was disappointing but not surprising. Clare’s men were bound to have made better time than David and Philip. But as the tavern keeper wrapped up the food, David grumbled to himself about his decision not to push on, fearing the price they might pay for losing so much time in sleep. And yet, Philip truly could go no farther today. Despite the manhunt, David still couldn’t take the horse and leave Philip, not even on the promise of sending help, since he couldn’t guarantee that help would ever come.

  “I’ll be on my way then. Thank you.” David stuffed the food into his pack, realizing as he did so that the tavern keeper had wrapped the bread and cheese in a rough cloth. It wasn’t suitable for a bandage, but he could put it to use as a sling. Then, as David turned towards the door, it opened to reveal two men in Clare’s colors, dripping water everywhere.

  “What can I get you?” The tavern keeper raised his hand to the newcomers, welcoming them to the bar.

  David hastily threw the hood from his borrowed cloak over his head and sidled to the side, his eyes averted. Both the tavern keeper’s behavior and David’s were in keeping with how men of their respective stations would treat two men-at-arms: welcome, even obsequiousness in the tavern keeper’s case and wariness in his.

  The men-at-arms walked to the bar, and David edged his way among the tables before slipping out the door into the darkened street. Several other armed men were just leading their horses through the inn’s gate towards its stable yard. They glanced at David, but he simply raised a hand and said, “Ugly night,” in French.

  It was enough to cause a snort of laughter and a passing, “God go with you,” from their leader.

  Ten seconds later, David was loping his way past the borders of the village and onto the road that would take him back to where he’d left Philip. He had deliberately not ridden the horse because he didn’t think a commoner such as he appeared to be would have one.

  When he reached the hut, after a bit of frightening stumbling about, Philip was awake, his eyes agleam in the dark. David settled in front of him to help him drink and provide him with some of the food he’d brought.

  “My first concern,” Philip said, “after I remove my brother’s head from his body, must be retribution against the men who plotted with him, else my ability to maintain power will forever remain a question.”

  When David didn’t answer immediately, Philip added, “Do you disagree? Tell me, David, what payment for what he has done will you exact from Clare when you return to London?”

  “You think I will hesitate to hang him because of a misguided love of all humanity?” David said. “You misunderstand me again. Love, compassion, and fairmindedness are important in a king, but they are not enough—not nearly enough—for him to rule effectively.”

  “If not these three, then what?”

  It never ceased to amaze David how few lords truly understood leadership. His father understood it, of course, and it was his father’s words to him ten years ago that he echoed yet again. “Justice, Philip. It has always been about justice.”

  But then he looked away and didn’t say the rest of what he was thinking. Regardless of what he outwardly confessed to Philip, his gut was telling him that hanging was too good an end for Clare. And it scared him that he couldn’t tell if he thought that because of his professed desire for justice or because of the boiling anger inside him.

  Chapter Ten

  After Midnight

  14 June 1293

  Callum

  “What are we going to name the baby if it’s a girl?” Callum smoothed the blanket over Cassie’s belly. At eight months pregnant, she couldn’t sleep enough, but sometimes she couldn’t sleep at all either, and he’d woken a few moments ago to find her staring up at the ceiling.

  “Something everyone can pronounce,” Cassie said, “including my grandfather.” If the baby was a boy, they planned to name him Gareth, meaning gentle spirit, after Cassie’s grandfather’s Indian name.

  “I suppose I’d be in trouble if I suggested Addfwyn or Mwyndeg.” Callum laughed and clasped his wife’s hand.

  They’d waited a long time for a baby, first because it seemed smart not to have kids when they were in Avalon and looking to return to this world, and then once back, the timing had seemed all wrong. Eventually, they’d come to the conclusion that the timing was always going to be wrong, in which case, there was no time like the present.

  “Women have been doing this childbirth thing since the beginning of the beginning, you know.” Cassie took his face in both hands and kissed him. “I’m going to be fine.”

  “You’re going to be especially fine because Rachel arrives early next week.” The baby wasn’t due for four weeks, but Callum believed in being prepared.

  “My lord!”

  Callum frowned, and Cass
ie released him. “You’d better go. It sounds urgent.”

  Callum swung his legs out of bed and reached the door in two strides, anxious to find out what had Samuel, Shrewsbury’s sheriff and Callum’s right-hand man, waking them up in the middle of the night.

  Callum pulled open the door, and Samuel almost fell into the room, since he’d swung his arm to knock again only to find the door was no longer in his way.

  “Sorry.” Samuel’s voice dropped to a normal volume. “Peter and Bridget have returned.”

  “That can’t be good,” Cassie said from the bed, though she made no move to leave it.

  “Give me a moment, Samuel.” Callum shut the door and gathered up his clothing.

  “You don’t know what this is about?” Cassie said.

  “Not yet.” He tugged on his boots.

  She flopped back onto the pillow and flung an arm over her eyes. “It has to be bad if Samuel is banging on the door at three in the morning.”

  It probably was three in the morning too. Cassie tended to be unerring in her estimation of time.

  “I will find out and let you know.”

  “Okay.” Cassie rolled onto her side and repositioned the pillow more comfortably under her head. There was a time when she would have been right there beside him to find out what was the matter. She liked being in the thick of things. But pregnancy had taught them both detachment, and in this case it was for the better. Like any good soldier, Cassie would sleep when she could, and she trusted that Callum would let her know if she was needed.