Masters of Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  Back in the corridor, now booted and cloaked because even if it was June the castle was cold, Callum followed Samuel down the stairs to the great hall, which was brightly lit. If the lord was up, the castle was awake too. Breakfast would be served at any moment.

  Bridget and Peter were already there. Their dripping cloaks had been hung on a rack before a blazing fire. Callum had slept through the storm, but now that he was upright, he noted the wind howling outside and the rat-a-tat-tat of rain on the glass windows on the west side of the hall.

  As he’d come through the doorway, Bridget was bent over at the waist, working her hands through her wet curls to untangle them, and Peter was removing his boots in order to shake water out of them. They’d been talking quietly with Jeffries, whom Samuel must have roused before coming to see Callum. Jeffries had stopped by for a visit on his way south to collect Rachel from Buellt, where she’d gone to see Bronwen and her new baby. He would be bringing her back to Shrewsbury, where they’d stay until the birth of Cassie’s baby.

  All three stopped what they were doing when Callum approached and came to a halt in front of them.

  “What’s going on?”

  Bridget and Peter looked at each other, revealing uncharacteristic uncertainty, and Callum felt a tinge of exasperation. They’d arrived in the middle of the night, so it had to be important. He took a step closer and softened his voice. “Just tell me.”

  “Carew believes that the rumors from six months ago that Clare was plotting against the king have merit,” Peter said. “In fact, he and Lili believe that Clare has made an attempt on David’s life at Chateau Niort in Aquitaine.”

  “They believe? What does that mean?”

  Again Peter and Bridget exchanged a glance before Bridget took in a breath and said, “Lili had a dream of him being pierced by two arrows and falling from the battlement in the company of the King of France. Because of David’s Kevlar, he was not hurt, though King Philip took an arrow in his shoulder.”

  Callum rubbed his face with both hands. Probably because of the hour, his brain wasn’t working properly, and he hadn’t heard correctly. “Lili had a dream?”

  “A seeing,” Bridget said.

  Callum glanced at Jeffries, who raised his eyebrows and shrugged.

  “You rode all the way here because Lili had a vision?” Callum rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet.

  “Yes.” Though a moment ago Bridget had seemed nervous about telling him what was going on, in the face of Callum’s skepticism she was perfectly calm. “We couldn’t trust the radio because we don’t know how many men Clare has bought.”

  The communication network David had established throughout the country had two aspects. The radio stations operated as one-way broadcasts, which were relayed around the country through antennas built on the highest hills in England. A village could receive that broadcast as long as it was within line of sight of an antenna and provided it had a working radio. By now, at least one village in every district had one. Westminster Castle itself had been fitted out with the speaker scavenged from the bus, from which the news of the day blared out every evening.

  The second component to the network was two-way communication, and it also worked through the antennas, but required that both parties were tuned to the same frequency and had hand-held radios or walkie-talkies, much like lorry drivers used for decades before the advent of the mobile phone. Its existence was almost wholly attributable to the gifts from MI-5. And because they were government issue for military purposes, they weren’t subject to the artificial wattage limits of civilian CB networks of the twentieth century.

  “Has he taken over the stations?” Callum said.

  “Not yet,” Peter said, “not that we know, but if he owns the men who run them, we could hardly speak openly about his treachery.”

  “I realize that what Bridget and Peter are saying doesn’t make sense, Callum,” Cassie’s voice came from behind him, and he turned to see her enter the room with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, “but we should listen to them anyway.”

  Bridget shot Cassie a grateful look, and the two women embraced.

  “You were supposed to be trying to sleep,” Callum said.

  “Emphasis on trying. I gave up.” She released Bridget and moved closer to Callum in order to put her hand on his arm. “We should know by now that there is more in the universe than we can understand with our five senses. We were worried about Clare last year, and we dismissed our worries. Maybe we should reexamine the evidence.”

  Callum squared his shoulders. The traditions of Cassie’s people and Lili’s people, though separated by five thousand miles and a thousand years, weren’t far off from one another and, in fact, were far closer in spirit than the English customs in either era. At the very least, the accusation that Clare had arranged for an attempt on David’s life was too serious to ignore just because he didn’t like the way the information had been acquired.

  The Templars had warned them about Clare late last autumn, and that warning had been augmented by chatter from Callum’s spy network. He could admit a mistake when he made one: he had allowed himself to become distracted by the machinations of Valence and Comyn. In his defense, they’d been quite a distraction.

  “You are saying that David is alive, though. Right, Bridget?” Cassie said.

  Bridget nodded. “Lili said he was uninjured, and he landed in the river that runs by the chateau.”

  Cassie bit her lip before speaking again. Callum knew what question was coming next because it was on the tip of his tongue too. “He didn’t go to Avalon?”

  “No,” Peter said shortly. “At least Lili doesn’t think so.”

  Cassie nodded and returned her gaze to Callum. “We have to hold Shrewsbury.”

  A hundred and fifty years ago, Shrewsbury Castle had surrendered to King Stephen during the civil war between him and his cousin, Empress Maud. Stephen had besieged the castle for several days before it fell, after which he’d tarnished his honor by executing the entire garrison, a total of ninety-three men.

  Callum hoped that Gilbert de Clare wouldn’t want to invest the resources in bringing an army to bear on Shrewsbury, since it was only one English town. At the same time, if Clare thought David was dead, he would move quickly to consolidate his power, and in so doing, eliminate or co-opt everyone who’d ever stood for David, including Callum, Humphrey de Bohun, and Edmund Mortimer, all high-ranking barons in David’s kingdom and rulers of extensive lands, with power bases in western England and the March.

  That meant that Bohun and Mortimer were Callum’s natural allies. Callum couldn’t judge right now whether or not David was alive, or even if Clare was a traitor, but he could remain true to David’s cause. With the aid of the other barons, Callum could have a genuine chance to hold a swath of territory from Chester to Hay-on-Wye. And yet, if Callum chose to hold Shrewsbury against Clare, he would be risking the lives of every citizen he was supposed to protect.

  “Say any of this is true,” Callum said. “How does Clare hope to rule in David’s stead, since if David dies, Arthur is the rightful King of England.”

  “I don’t know,” Peter said. “Maybe Clare and the Archbishop of Canterbury have done a deal.”

  Callum grimaced at the likelihood of that. David hadn’t exactly gone out of his way to placate the Church and Pope Boniface recently, so Callum didn’t know that Arthur could, in fact, count on the Church’s support.

  He let out a breath. “We have to act on the information as if it’s true. The consequences of learning of danger to David—and all of us—and not acting are too dire.”

  “That’s what we thought too,” Peter said. “That’s why we rode all this way.”

  “What do we think Clare’s next move will be?” Jeffries said. “And what can we do about it this far from London or Aquitaine?”

  “Maybe nothing for Lili or David, not right now,” Callum said. “But we can be ready if Clare comes for us.”

  Chapt
er Eleven

  14 June 1293

  Gwenllian

  As she peered between the slits in the golden fabric in front of her, Gwenllian decided that one of the good things about being eleven was that she was still young enough to be overlooked, but she was finally old enough to understand her elders’ conversations without having to ask what they were talking about and give away the fact that she’d been eavesdropping.

  And Gwenllian was very good at eavesdropping.

  Today, before Gilbert de Clare had arrived with his news that Dafydd was dead, killed in Aquitaine by the French, she and Arthur had stationed themselves underneath Lili’s throne, hiding behind its wide, golden skirt, not realizing when they’d chosen their hiding spot what horrible news they would soon be hearing.

  Not that Lili hadn’t warned Gwenllian about what Clare might be planning and what he might say if he ever did arrive at Westminster. Lili would have liked to prevent him from entering the castle at all, but it was a public space. Parliament met in the hall adjacent to the receiving room in which they were sitting. Since Clare was a member of Parliament, it would have been difficult to keep him and his men out.

  Though he didn’t seem to be there now, Rupert Jones had his news office down the corridor. Had Lili barred Clare from the castle, the snub would have been all over England in a hot minute (to use a phrase Gwenllian had learned from the twenty-firsters).

  Gwenllian didn’t believe Dafydd was dead any more than Lili did. Next to her own papa, he was the bravest, smartest man in the world. In a hoarse whisper, she told Arthur as much. He might be only four years old, but he wasn’t stupid. Arthur hadn’t even been listening when Clare had started talking, but the hubbub in the room had caught his attention, and he had stared at Gwenllian with wide blue eyes and trembling lips.

  She shushed him and told him that of course his father wasn’t dead. He hadn’t gone to Avalon like he always did whenever he was in danger because he hadn’t been in that much danger. Gwenllian hugged him and reminded him about his mother’s seeing, without telling Arthur that she was having a hard time holding onto hope too. Clare seemed so certain.

  When she peered again through the slit in the fabric, Clare’s face was drawn and white, and he looked like he hadn’t slept. In fact, he seemed nearly as unhappy as Lili with the news. Clare even wiped a tear from the corner of his eye, but then he blinked and straightened. As a great lord, he wouldn’t want to be caught weeping. Gwenllian had seen it though, and she suspected that Lili, sitting above her, had too. Not much got past Dafydd’s wife, particularly when it came to what other people were thinking or feeling.

  Apart from Lili—and Gwenllian’s own mother, of course—it was Gwenllian’s experience that adults were often wrong about what was really going on at any castle. They would assume that orders were obeyed, for instance, or that all the people who worked in the kitchen or the stable didn’t know everything there was to know about their secrets. Dafydd wasn’t as bad as some adults. He talked to her like he talked to everyone—with big words and ideas she didn’t understand most of the time. That was okay with Gwenllian. There were worse things than being the sister of the King of England.

  The other good thing about being almost eleven instead of an all-grown-up thirteen was that she wasn’t expected to prance around in a dress that prevented her from running, and now that Lili was so preoccupied with Alexander, it meant that if Gwenllian and Arthur gave their nurse the slip, they had the whole of Westminster Castle at their disposal.

  Which was how they’d ended up beneath Lili’s chair for Clare’s audience.

  “How did he die?” That was Sir Nicholas de Carew, standing to the right of Lili’s chair. His voice was deceptively level. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew without looking that his jaw was like a block of stone and his eyes had narrowed to blue chips under his blond eyebrows.

  “His castle was infiltrated by men from France at the behest of King Philip’s brother, Charles. King Philip is also dead.” Clare bent slightly at the waist. “I am so sorry, my queen.”

  Again, Gwenllian was confused about what was happening because Clare really did sound sorry, and his voice had a hitch in it when he said Dafydd’s name. Gwenllian bit her lip. Could Clare be right, and Lili wrong?

  Clare continued speaking. “I fear I have more bad news. We have indications of a credible threat against you and the boys as well, and we fear that the French have bought someone—one of your men or a trusted ally—inside Westminster.”

  “Where did that news come from?” Carew said.

  “I have spies of my own, Nicholas,” Clare said wryly. That tone was more normal than not for him. Then Clare turned back to Lili, his amusement gone. “I have taken the precaution of reassigning your guards and much of the garrison. Westminster will be guarded by my men for the time being.”

  Lili’s voice was thick with tears, but she spoke through them. “Lord Clare, really that isn’t necessary—”

  “I believe it is. My queen, I beg you to take steps to protect yourself. I must speak with Parliament, to inform them of David’s death, and then we must decide how we are to counter this threat from France. It would greatly ease my heart if you would confine yourself to the Tower until such a time as I can either apprehend the traitors or ensure your safety elsewhere.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be safe—”

  “Please, Lili,” Clare said, using her given name as if she was a beloved niece. “For me.”

  Carew cleared his throat. “I will stay with her.” He put his feet together, and though Gwenllian couldn’t see him bow, she knew he had.

  “Make sure to keep the children with you too,” Clare said. “Gwenllian and Arthur are under the throne.”

  At first, Gwenllian thought she’d misheard him, but when she looked towards him, he was peering at her with an amused expression. Angry because she’d been the one fooled instead of doing the fooling, she nudged Arthur. She didn’t want to be locked in the Tower of London, and for all Clare’s sweet words, she didn’t believe that any of this was for their own good. Lili couldn’t be wrong, and Dafydd couldn’t be dead.

  “It’s time to play hide and seek!” Gwenllian scooted out the back of the throne, pulling Arthur after her, and then ran with him for the rear door to the room.

  Arthur loved hide and seek, and he ran with her, his little legs and arms pumping enthusiastically. After months of exploration, Gwenllian knew all the back ways and passages at Westminster Castle far better than Clare or the men he sent to chase her. She spared a thought for little Alexander, wishing she could keep him safe too, but Alexander was still nursing, so taking care of him was something she couldn’t help with very much.

  They ran down a corridor, up a back stairwell, through a series of connecting rooms on the third floor of the keep, and then they were out the other side into another long corridor. Gwenllian heard pounding footsteps along the passage and said a bad word—one that she’d heard one of the guardsmen say but knew she wasn’t supposed to use. She said it again anyway and grabbed Arthur’s hand, tugging him into one of the stairwells. They went up the steps and came out on the floor above.

  “No, no, no!” The sight of men running towards her, this time from both directions, caused her heart to race even more than it already was. It was as if they knew where she was going to go before she went, and that thought made her even more angry. Arthur wasn’t having fun anymore either. His face was screwed up as if he was about to cry. He was too heavy for her to carry anymore, but she picked him up anyway and then struggled up the last few steps to the top of the tower.

  And that was when she realized she’d done exactly the wrong thing. She’d trapped herself and Arthur at the top of the keep.

  Gwenllian looked through a crenel to what lay below her. Clare had confronted Lili in the receiving room, which was adjacent to the outer courtyard. The moat that ran past the west tower didn’t extend around the whole castle, so only hard earth was below her. She thought about try
ing to travel to Avalon, but as she stared at the ground, she knew she couldn’t risk Arthur’s life on the chance that he had the same magic in him that his father had.

  One of Clare’s goons (Gwenllian loved the word goon. Her vocabulary had grown a lot since coming to live with Lili and Dafydd after Alexander’s birth) came out of the stairwell and stopped. Gwenllian had nowhere to go, so he didn’t even need to grab her. “This is for your own safety, princess.”

  Arthur, meanwhile, sobbed into her neck. When he was in full spate like this, it was best to let him cry it out, so what came next was up to Gwenllian. She gathered herself up and lifted her chin to project her voice in her best imitation of her mother. “You’re scaring him!”

  The man didn’t appear to be dissuaded, since he grasped her by her upper arm and urged her towards the stairwell door. “This way.”

  Gwenllian’s shoulders fell. There seemed no way for her to fight the soldier—or even to argue with him. He was as tall as Clare and wore mail armor. Punching him wouldn’t hurt him, and she’d left off her belt knife this morning in order to play with Arthur. Even if she did manage to poke him in the eye, she was still carrying Arthur and had nowhere to go but down the stairwell anyway.

  Despite the armor, the soldier moved so quickly down the stairs that she found herself struggling to stay upright as her boots slipped off the stone treads, especially with the Arthur’s weight throwing her off-balance. The soldier took them all the way back to the receiving room where she found Clare and a handful of men guarding Lili.

  Lili held Alexander in her arms. Neither his nanny nor his wet nurse had joined them. Maybe they were some of the people Clare didn’t trust. Lili held out her free arm at the sight of Gwenllian and Arthur and gestured them into the circle of it. Wrapping them up in a hug, she bent to whisper in Gwenllian’s ear. “It’s going to be okay.”