Masters of Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  Callum’s arm came around his wife’s shoulders to pull her to him. “There could be no greater legacy of his rule than what you propose, Cassie. If we offer an alternative to Clare, many barons in England might come over to us.”

  “It was the people of London who chose David to be their king,” Jeffries said.

  Cassie nodded. “None of us here have David’s power, but we can give the people and the other barons the opportunity to make his vision a reality. We can tell them they don’t have to follow Clare, and we can not only tell them—we can show them.”

  “Our first step must be to gather whatever information we can about what Clare is planning.” Peter moved out of the shadows. “Torold, here, can tell us what the message to Valles from Clare said.”

  Torold was looking distinctly worse for wear, tousled with a bruise on one cheek. He wasn’t otherwise injured, however, and at Peter’s urging, he dropped to his knees on the stones of the courtyard.

  “The message said: King David dead. Proceed as planned.”

  Callum took in a deep breath through his nose. The pieces of this plot were starting to fall together for him, even this far away from the center of the action. “Your words imply that Clare was waiting for the news of the king’s death.”

  “I have reported what I heard, as I was bid,” Torold said.

  During the brief exchange with the prisoner, Bohun had been muttering to himself under his breath, and now Callum turned to him. “What?”

  “It’s obvious that Clare had David murdered,” Bohun said.

  Callum gestured to Peter. “We weren’t caught as much on the hop as you supposed. Peter and his wife brought warning from London that Clare hoped to take the throne over David’s dead body, and now he appears to be implementing a plan to do exactly that, one that might have been brewing for years.”

  “His discontent began the very moment he threw in his lot with David,” Bohun said. “Clare has always been an opportunist, but murdering the king in order to take his place is another matter entirely!”

  “The outcome is the same,” Callum said, in his most calming voice, “and my concern for the safety of Lili and the children is the same.” He turned back to the prisoner. “Where are you from, Torold?”

  “I hail from Tewkesbury.” He’d gone very pale.

  “Well, Torold from Tewkesbury, you are faced with a choice,” Callum said. “You can stay in a cell here at Shrewsbury or you can deliver a message for me to Clare.”

  Torold looked even more stricken. “I’d rather rot in a cell, my lord, than go back to Lord Clare.”

  Callum frowned, feeling that he was missing the man’s meaning. “Why is that?”

  “We—” he made a gesture with his head, which was all he could do since his hands were tied, “—are loyal men of England. We support King David, if he is alive.” His eyes went to Cassie. “I would never have wanted to see you harmed, my lady, and I certainly couldn’t support any plan of Lord Clare’s to murder the king!”

  Callum studied Torold, whose expression had turned defiant, as if daring Callum to question his loyalty again. “How many of the men we now hold in our cells share your opinion?”

  “All of them!” Then he calmed and amended his assurance, “Except for Valles, of course. I can’t speak for him.”

  Callum raised his head to meet Peter’s eyes, as if to say, what do you think?

  Peter shrugged. “We weren’t going to kill them, were we? They can stay here for now.” He prodded Torold in the back so that he rose to his feet. “We’ll make sure they’re fed and put to work.”

  Callum laughed. This was a better ending to the events of the day than he’d had any right to hope. With a gesture he indicated that Peter should take Torold away. But then, behind him, the guard closed the wooden gate with an ominous thud, reminding Callum that a democratic Britain was still a long way off. For now, Shrewsbury was an island unto itself.

  Chapter Seventeen

  14 June 1293

  David

  By three in the afternoon, David was decked out from head to toe as a Templar knight, wearing dry padding (thank God), new mail armor that actually fit, a borrowed Templar sword, white tunic, and mantle. The clothing wasn’t any different in basic shape from what he wore every day as King of England.

  But it still wasn’t what he normally wore.

  To everyone’s eyes but his own, he was now a Templar, and that meant something very specific that David wasn’t entirely comfortable impersonating. Still, he went along with it, in large part because he didn’t have a better idea about how to get to England quickly, and at this late hour he couldn’t turn down Pierre’s very generous offer to help him.

  While the drawbacks to the lack of a good communication system had been staring him in the face for the last two days, there were benefits too. Once he was on the road, riding as fast and as furiously as he could, he would be impossible for Clare’s minions to track.

  As the company rode from the commanderie, rather than the panicked fear of a few hours before, David found himself with only a feeling of a mild anxiety. In every way the experience was a far cry from the way he’d come into La Rochelle. The men of Vauclair Castle no longer milled about in the street outside the gate of the commanderie, though David felt their sharp eyes staring down at him from the top of the battlement.

  Their castellan had already met with Pierre, and by the time David was dressed and ready to ride from the commanderie, the Templar master had showed Beloit the two fake murderers, both looking suitably chastened and ill in their dark and dingy cell. Pierre hadn’t promised to give them up to Beloit just yet—not until evidence could be brought against them—but since they were safe in Templar hands, Beloit had gone away satisfied.

  Henri rode with the company, keeping just to David’s left, almost like one of David’s own companions would have. The man who led them was a Templar knight. Yet again, he sported a full gray beard, indicating that he was at least twenty years older than David. When they’d first set out from the commanderie, David had tried to talk to the man, but he had barely acknowledged David’s existence. David had tried not to be offended and, once they’d started riding, his irritation at the snub had turned to pity. The captain rode with a stiffness that told David he wasn’t sitting comfortably in the saddle. Perhaps he had hemorrhoids like Goronwy (whose were much better these days). It looked to David like the captain was doing everything in his power just to remain seated.

  Throughout their journey from Chateau Niort, David had kept his grief at the loss of Justin and the rest of his men in a box on a shelf in his mind. He couldn’t grieve them properly and at the same time get himself and Philip to safety. But now, in the momentary lull of leaving the town, he allowed himself to open the box and peer into it. A potent mix of grief and rage flooded through him. Some of those men had served David since before he’d become King of England. Others had been English, but David didn’t regret their loss any less. Things had changed in the ten years since David had come to Wales—quite honestly for the better. He didn’t want to go back to the days when England was the enemy. They’d all come too far to give up on the dream of peace just because Clare wanted a throne.

  His hands trembled on the reins as his emotions consumed him. He fought the anger, just as he’d fought it earlier, and it took him the full three miles from La Rochelle to the crossroads, where the captain ordered his men to peel off onto a side road and stop, to conquer himself.

  Pierre had warned David that he would be accompanied for only a short distance before the company would leave him to his own devices. They were a disguise to get him out of La Rochelle, but then they had their own duties—and they certainly couldn’t ride the three hundred miles with him to Le Havre. The captain watched his men stop in the center of a little glade of trees. Then he turned to David. With a gruffness that perhaps couldn’t entirely be attributed to pain, he said, “Who are you, and what right do you have to wear the cross?”

  David b
linked at the abruptness of the question and struggled for an appropriate answer that wasn’t rude and wouldn’t just encourage the captain to question him more. “Your master trusts me, and I suggest you speak to him. Once you do, you may think better of me and of your master’s choices. That he made the choice, I would hope, would be enough for you.” That was a longer speech than David meant to give, but he couldn’t help caring what people thought about him. He’d grown used to being the King of England and the respect it immediately afforded him. It was an awkward feeling to have to earn it.

  The captain gave David another long look. Then he clicked his tongue at his horse, threaded his way through his men to take his place at the front, and jerked his head to indicate it was time to go. The men fell into formation behind him, and within five seconds, they were off, heading southeast from the crossroads. It was only as the last man took up his position that David realized Henri wasn’t leaving with them. He too watched them go and then trotted his horse over to where David waited.

  “I’m with you,” Henri said before David could demand what he thought he was doing.

  “It was my understanding that I was to go alone.”

  “Master Pierre thought better of that plan and asked me to attend you.” While Henri didn’t have the earnestness of a younger man like William de Bohun, he spoke with utter sincerity.

  David took in a breath. “Why didn’t he tell me himself?”

  “He was busy with Sir Beloit, so he left it to me to tell you.”

  Had Henri known that David was the Duke of Aquitaine and King of England, he might not have been so forthright, even rude, but David had accepted the deception, so he could hardly complain about the result. “It might be dangerous.”

  Henri looked affronted. “I am a Templar knight.”

  David’s lips twitched. Henri had a point. He was in his middle thirties and may well have seen more battle than David, since his entire way of life was focused on the crusade. He had probably spent more time in the saddle too. Although David made sure to keep himself always in fighting shape, likely Henri was going to handle a three-hundred mile ride better than David was.

  “Do you understand what I’m trying to do?”

  “You seek to bring word to the queen that the king is not dead and to prevent the Archbishop of Canterbury from crowning Gilbert de Clare in the king’s place.”

  David eyed him. Pierre had told him that much, it seemed, which was good. Henri needed to know that they faced a powerful adversary, and he’d described the barebones of the mission, even if there was a bit more to it than that.

  Henri was holding himself very stiffly as he waited for David’s reply. Frenchmen had a way about them that made David feel they were always on the verge of sneering. Given that Henri wanted to come with him, David had to assume that the knight’s austere expression, rather than indicating disdain, meant that he was anxious about whether or not David would accept him.

  Pierre too had seemed entirely truthful in his wish to aid David. The Templar master could have turned him over to Clare’s men at any time rather than sending him to Le Havre. David wasn’t questioning the aid he received, but he was struggling with the different customs and culture that Pierre and Henri might assume he understood when he didn’t. For all that he’d lived in this world for ten years, he was an American man in Templar guise, and it was times like these when the discrepancy between who he was and who he was expected to be was most glaring.

  When David still didn’t acquiesce, Henri added, “My presence could mean the difference between success and failure. You’re wounded—we can all see it, even if you will take no rest.”

  David frowned. “I’m fine.”

  “You breathe shallowly at times, and your left side is weak. Besides, Templar knights never travel alone. We should have at least two sergeants and possibly a clerk with us too, but their absence can be explained away by the urgency of our mission.”

  “Okay,” David said simply. He couldn’t say no, especially since traveling with Henri would undoubtedly be safer, and it would also mean that if David rested during the journey, he wouldn’t have to do it with one eye open. Henri was right about his injury too. David didn’t know if his ribs were broken or bruised from the assassin’s arrows and his fight with the rider whose horse he’d taken, but they were definitely something.

  With a jerk of his head, in mimicry of the Templar captain, Henri pointed his horse’s nose north and clicked his tongue. David could do nothing else but follow. They’d hardly ridden any distance, however, before David came to see that the only danger he might face on the road would be from Clare’s men, were they to discover him. Nobody else would dare.

  Because David had headed out of the commanderie among an armed escort of knights and sergeants, he hadn’t noticed anything unusual about the way he was treated by the people of La Rochelle. Pierre had wanted the company to look like a regular patrol—and so it was in every respect except for the fact that David rode among them. Any company of soldiers invited deference on the part of the villagers they passed. David had always been treated well by his people: with adoration by some, obsequiousness by others, and genuine respect by many. He felt he’d earned that respect by matching his deeds to his words.

  Templars, by contrast, were treated like gods: peasants scurried out of the way as David and Henri passed through their villages. Some bowed from the roadside; some actually knelt. None would look at him. Finally, at the fourth village they entered where inhabitants hurried out of their houses to pay their respects, David asked Henri about their behavior.

  “I have been to Jerusalem. I have seen the Holy Sepulchre where Christ’s body was placed. My Order keeps Christendom safe from the Saracens.” His tone implied that the answer was self-evident, and David should have known it.

  It was yet another cultural chasm between David’s reality and that of the people he ruled and made David question what he was doing trying to rule them when sometimes he didn’t understand them at all.

  The patrol that had escorted David out of La Rochelle had put them on the road to the first station at Marans, followed by the second at Moreilles, which was associated with a Cistercian Abbey. David had a soft spot for the Cistercian order because they had supported his father against Edward and the pope, despite him being excommunicated. Henri had obviously been to this Templar station before because he led David unerringly to what amounted to no more than a barn, with living quarters for the station master on one side.

  “What brings you here, Henri?” The sergeant who manned the station came out of the barn to greet them as they rode up, wiping greasy hands on a cloth since they’d interrupted his meal. He had a thickness around his chest and shoulders that often came with age and enough to eat. His face was tanned and lined, by age and weather, and his shorn hair was completely gray, indicating that here was yet another older Templar.

  “We need a change of horses, and then we will ride onwards,” Henri said.

  David dismounted and began unbuckling the saddle strap. The man put out a hand to prevent him. “No need for that. I have two already saddled.” Then he looked curiously at David. “And who might you be?”

  “I’m bound to England with urgent news,” he said, aware again of his Welsh-accented French.

  “The Duke of Aquitaine is dead.” The man bobbed his head. “I heard.”

  “That’s just it. He isn’t dead,” David said, “and we’re at least a day behind in telling it.”

  The man’s eyes widened, and David was pretty sure that the next person who happened by would hear all about it, which is what David wanted. He wasn’t ready to proclaim himself, not with Clare’s and Charles’s men all around him, but he could sow doubt that what Clare’s men were telling the people was accurate.

  Henri regarded the man stoically, as if he expected no less of the man either, and the result was that he appeared to take David’s mission as a call to speed them on their way as quickly as possible. After a long drink of fre
sh water from the man’s well and a piece of cheese between two slices of bread (David had no qualms about introducing the sandwich to Aquitaine while he was at it), they were off again.

  They’d ridden a mile before Henri, who’d been in the lead, slowed slightly from a full gallop to allow David to come abreast. He called across the distance between them, both still riding hard. It was the only way they were going to travel three hundred and twenty miles in forty-eight hours. “My lord, how did you come by the news that the Duke is not dead?”

  That was the question David had been waiting for. “I witnessed his survival.” While he didn’t want to lie, it would be better for the time being if Henri didn’t know the truth either.

  “You were at Chateau Niort.” It wasn’t a question. Henri was sure of his conclusion.

  “I was.”

  “And the man you came in with. He was there also? He can testify to Clare’s duplicity?”

  “Yes, he can testify if he needs to. If he lives.”

  They rode another hundred yards before Henri asked another question. “I am to take it that you have standing in your king’s court?”

  David smiled grimly. “I do.” Though again, without tangible proof beyond a single arrow, specifically the testimony of one of Clare’s men, it would be David’s word against Clare’s. David was king, so he could do what he liked, but he didn’t like to rule that way—and he didn’t believe in ruling that way. If he was to expose Clare, he needed a lot of luck and more than his own words.

  “Will you not tell me your real name?”

  “It will be safer for both of us if I do not,” David said. “Master Villiers understood that, and believe me when I say that my word will carry weight in Parliament when I tell them that the king lives.”

  “But you would prefer not to tell me where he has gone.” That wasn’t a question either, and Henri nodded before David could answer him, apparently satisfied. “It was Master Villier’s intention, once we were safely away, to assemble the men of the commanderie and tell them of the plot against Duke David.”