Masters of Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  He might have been king for only five years, but he hadn’t kept himself locked away in a tower. He’d walked the streets; he’d given speeches; he’d stood before Parliament and pledged to serve England. These were Londoners—and whether of Norman or Saxon origin, they knew him.

  Silence fell in the courtyard with a rippling effect, spreading throughout the onlookers, hundreds of them, most gaping, all staring, some even crying. Thus, Lili’s final words rang out into near total silence:

  David has said many times that he would not be king if you—the people of England—had not chosen him. He still believes you have that right, and he offers you that choice again. You have only to raise your voices and ask.

  Before, the people at the portcullis had wanted to batter it down. Now, the iron bars rattled in time to their words. “King David! King David! Long live the king! Long live the king!”

  The chant spread within seconds to the men on the battlements. Walter was among them, and he was literally jumping up and down with excitement. The nobility in the courtyard were perhaps least happy to see David in their midst, but even they got on board quickly. Geoffrey de Geneville, who held the chest in which the king’s crown was kept, was beaming.

  Clare, however, though he’d initially risen to his feet, now knelt before David with the rest. “Please know, sire, that I had nothing to do with the attempt on your life. It was France.” It was what Lili had told him Clare would say and what he’d been telling Parliament.

  David had a bone-aching need to be horizontal right now, but instead had to muster up the intellect to counter Clare. He stepped closer, since his words were for Clare and the Archbishop alone, and he didn’t want to argue with Clare in front of everyone. “Your men attacked mine, killed mine. It seems they also sent you the news that I was dead.”

  Clare pushed to his feet and grasped David by the shoulders, a huge grin on his face. “I am so glad to see you alive!” He pulled him into a hug.

  David winced in pain and tried to pull away, but Clare held him for another second before releasing him. “This is a great day!” He held up a hand to the crowd and spun on one heel, as David had done a moment ago. “Our king has returned. Let us begin the celebrations!” He got the people cheering, and then he began moving through the crowd, heading for the rear gate through which David had entered the castle.

  David would have cursed if he hadn’t been in public. This was ridiculous, and he felt tongue-tied. It was exactly what Lili had feared Clare would say, and all David could do was stammer. Proof of Clare’s misdeeds remained in Aquitaine. David could arrest Clare and refuse to play this game, but Lili was right that his people would have niggling questions as a result. Clare couldn’t be crowned king now, but he could walk out of here as if he had committed no crime.

  His expression grave, Archbishop Winchelsey approached David. “What proof do you have of your accusation against Gilbert de Clare? He has done nothing to deserve your ire, sire. He stepped in to aid England in your absence.”

  David could hardly bear to look at him. “I have proof enough.”

  “I am so pleased to see you alive, sire,” Geoffrey de Geneville said.

  David held out his hand to him. “I know what you did. Thank you.”

  Geoffrey grasped David’s forearm. “I feared for your family.”

  Archbishop Winchelsey wasn’t done. “You’re exhausted, sire. We can all see it.” He leaned in. “You are wise to let Clare go for now.”

  Clare had reached a point perhaps a hundred feet from David.

  “Am I?” David drew in a breath. “Gilbert de Clare!”

  Clare stopped, hesitated, and then turned around.

  “Come here.” David motioned with a hand.

  Not daring to disobey, but with stiff legs and spine, Clare began walking back towards him.

  The people around both men scurried to get out of the way, drawing back until they had formed a large circle around Clare and David and reminding David horribly of the lead up to a middle school fight.

  When Clare had crossed half the distance and was approximately fifty feet away, he stopped. His chin was up, and his eyes blazed. He had the look of a man who’d already won the day. As David stared at Clare’s mask of innocence, anger rose in him of such intensity that his hands shook with it. This man had tried to kill him. He would have killed David’s wife and sons in time. He didn’t deserve to walk away. He didn’t deserve to live.

  Clare bowed. “I have always been a faithful servant, and I am hurt that you would think otherwise, even for a moment. I have done nothing wrong.”

  David pulled his sword from his sheath. “Five days ago, your men tried to murder me and King Philip at Chateau Niort in Aquitaine.” He took a step forward, and his expression must have been menacing enough to give even Clare pause, because he swallowed hard and some of the surety left him.

  “No, my lord. Those weren’t my men.”

  “My new Templar friend Henri and I journeyed three hundred miles from La Rochelle in two days, crossed the Channel overnight, and rode here from Portsmouth this morning to prevent the grave mistake that almost took place a moment ago in this courtyard.”

  Even the Archbishop’s jaw dropped. Geoffrey managed in French, “C’est impossible!”

  David laughed, though his laughter was entirely mocking and without a trace of humor. “Yeah. That’s me. Always doing the impossible.”

  “Again, I say, you have the wrong man,” Clare said. “It was Charles of France who sought your death. He wants Philip’s throne.”

  “Even as you want mine.”

  Clare shook his head. “I did not ask for the throne yesterday. It was offered to me, and I accepted it because England must remain strong and united to counter the French threat.”

  “There is no French threat except of your own making. Together Philip and I escaped the Chateau by falling from the battlement into the river. But when we sought refuge in a nearby village, your men were searching for us. They told the villagers that Philip and I were dead and to be on the lookout for two assassins. Your men put the whole countryside on alert so nobody would aid us.”

  As Clare had been talking, the circle around him had widened even more. People were afraid to get too close to someone accused of treason, so now the closest person was over ten yards away. A chant of “kill him, kill him,” had started among some of the onlookers. David looked down at his sword, the baring of which had given them the idea that Clare’s death was imminent, and he threw out a hand to silence the chant. The people did as he bid.

  Clare put his hand to his heart. “That was not my doing, sire. My captain must have been bought by Charles.” He went down on one knee again. This time he raised his hand to the sky, and his voice rang out so everyone in the courtyard and at the portcullis could hear him. “I swear to you I am telling the truth. If I speak falsely, I beg that God strike me down right here and now!”

  David was still vibrating with hatred, but he couldn’t ignore the voice of reason at the back of his mind. “That isn’t the way the world works, Clare. That isn’t the way I work.”

  Henri stepped to David’s side. “You should kill him now, my lord.”

  “No.” David had spoken louder than he intended, and the no reverberated around the courtyard, echoing off the stones. Even he could hear the iron in his voice.

  Henri bowed, more deeply than anyone had so far. “I ask your pardon, my lord. I mistook your intent.”

  A shiver went through David. Killing Clare would be fair retribution for the loss of Justin and all David’s men. But then the face of the man David had killed rose before his eyes for the second time since his arrival at Westminster—or maybe it had been coloring his vision this whole time. When he’d stabbed the man, blood had sprayed from his throat, covering not only the man’s gear but David too. David’s hands had dripped with blood because of Clare.

  Henri was right. He should kill Clare now. Clare deserved death for what he’d done, and nobody would b
egrudge David taking his life once they knew the whole truth. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t violate everything he believed in, everything he’d worked so hard to achieve as King of England, because he was angry. His barons needed to fear the consequences of betraying David, not fear him as a capricious king who changed the rules when he was angry enough or when it pleased him. Even as he gazed down at Clare’s upturned face, he knew that taking Clare’s life wouldn’t remove the stain of blood on his own hands.

  With a silent curse, David thrust his sword back into its sheath. “Understand, Henri, that it isn’t resolve I lack, or the courage to do what is necessary. I choose not to sully my soul again as he has tarnished his. As he has tarnished mine.”

  David addressed Clare again. “Your fate isn’t going to be decided in this courtyard by a lightning strike from heaven. It will be decided in a court of law, by a jury of your peers, and I will bring all the evidence necessary to prove your guilt.”

  Clare hesitated for a second, at first disbelieving that David really was going to let him live. Then he rose to his feet. As he turned away, David saw the glint of triumph in his eye and the momentary sneer that crossed his lips. Like many others, Philip included, he saw David’s refusal to act as a sign of weakness.

  David and Philip had discussed power and its uses at length. David had the power to kill Clare here and now. But how much more powerful did it make him not to kill Clare in cold blood? To unsheathe his sword but not use it? To refuse to mar his legacy in an act of justifiable revenge. David found genuine laughter—almost joy—rising to his lips.

  Clare’s prison was of his own making.

  David himself was free.

  And with that, suddenly, all the air was sucked from the atmosphere, and a blue car fell out of the sky and hurtled into the middle of the courtyard. Spinning, it skidded across the paving stones. If Clare had been prepared for it or moving to get out of the way, the car might have struck him only a glancing blow. But he was standing as immobile as everyone else. The car’s front end hit him on the shins, and the force of the blow flipped him over the hood. He landed on the roof with a sickening thud, and then slid off the back end as the car came to a halt a few feet from the curtain wall.

  The silence in the courtyard was absolute.

  David limped forward and pulled open the passenger door of the car. Gwenllian and Arthur gaped at him from the front seat. Christopher was looking at him too from the driver’s seat, open-mouthed.

  “Thank God you’re all safe.” David scooped up Arthur from Gwenllian’s lap and straightened, wincing again at the ache in his chest. No hug had ever felt as good as this, especially when his small son put his arms around his father’s neck and held on.

  The courtyard had been plunged into shocked silence by the arrival of Christopher’s car, an event that the people couldn’t possibly understand. But an embrace between a father and son was as familiar as the sun rising in the east. A few people applauded. Then David reached down to help Gwenllian out of the car and pulled her into a hug too. “I am so proud of you, sis.”

  “I was so scared.” She hugged him tightly, her arms half around him and half around Arthur.

  “But you acted anyway, didn’t you?”

  She nodded into chest.

  Christopher had climbed out by then too, and David met his eyes over the top of the car. “Thanks for bringing them home, Christopher.”

  Christopher’s shocked look turned into a grin, and then a laugh. David found himself snorting laughter, and the noise level around them rose as the crowd in the courtyard and the street outside began to stomp and cheer.

  David spared a glance towards the back of the car where Clare lay on the ground, unmoving. David didn’t need to look more closely to know that Clare was dead, since his neck was bent at a disconcerting angle from his body.

  Only the people in the courtyard and those pressed up against the portcullis could have had any kind of view of what had happened, but everyone had heard Lili’s broadcast. Now Walter climbed into the crenel between two merlons on the curtain wall, somehow having gotten himself the flag of the King of England on a pole, and began to call in an amazingly loud voice. “Long live King David! Long live the king!”

  The people in the courtyard and the street took up the call. With Arthur’s arms around his neck and Gwenllian’s hand gripped tightly in his own, David headed to the gatehouse. Reaching it, he motioned with two fingers to indicate that the guard should wind up the portcullis. The man shook his head, not in disobedience but in what looked more like terror. Thomas took over the portcullis mechanism and began to crank up the iron bars.

  Geoffrey de Geneville fell into step beside David. “If you don’t mind my saying so, sire, opening this gate is completely mad.”

  “That may be,” David said. “But it’s been a mad kind of day.”

  Geoffrey actually laughed—and then walked with David outside the gatehouse and into the jubilant embrace of his people.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Calais, France

  Christopher

  ─Eight weeks later

  Christopher paced behind David and Humphrey de Bohun towards the practice arena at the Templar commanderie. He’d met a handful of Templars that first day after he’d driven the car into the courtyard at Westminster and killed Clare, but a Templar commanderie was a new experience for him. Pretty much like everything else had been during the last two months.

  When David had left Philip at La Rochelle in June, the French king had been at death’s door. Two months on, he was capable of winning a mock battle with the newly knighted William de Bohun, David’s former squire. Both kings and their retinues were guests of the Templars this week, since their commanderie was neutral ground for all parties. In a few minutes, the kings would be on their way to the hearing that would decide the fate of Philip’s brother, Charles, who’d been part of the conspiracy with Clare.

  David had turned out to have a cracked rib, and it had taken seven weeks for both David and Philip to be healed, which was one reason David hadn’t come to France again until now. The other reason was that he’d spent that time sorting out the mess Clare had made of his country. Clare had been David’s richest baron, with extensive lands in England, Ireland, and Aquitaine, all of which had now fallen to David. All of the barons—Bohun among them—were clamoring for pieces of it. While David had occupied Clare’s lands with the men Bohun, Mortimer, and Callum had mobilized, he was determined not to make the mistake he’d made with Clare: no one man should be entrusted with that much power. He was drafting a new policy on land reform that would give the people of England the opportunity to own land in a way they never had before.

  And that was already way more politics than Christopher had ever thought he’d have to know.

  “Psst! Christopher!”

  Christopher looked to his left. Rupert was signaling to him from a little alcove off the corridor. Christopher glanced at David and Bohun, who were now several paces ahead of him and entering the arena. “What do you want?”

  Rupert looked affronted. “Is that any way to talk to the foremost newsman in the world?”

  Christopher grinned. He and Rupert had developed an understanding over the last two months. Though thirty years apart in age, they were both fish out of water here. Much like Gwenllian had said back in Radnor about the twenty-first century, the Middle Ages was exactly like and nothing like Christopher thought it would be. For starters, he’d killed a guy on his first day—his first minute—in the Middle Ages, and he really wished he could talk to his dad about it. David had understood the weird mix of emotions he’d felt as a result—like really nobody else could—but he was Christopher’s cousin, not his dad.

  At one point Christopher had taken Rupert aside and asked if it was theoretically possible to communicate with Avalon by radio if the frequencies were just right.

  “I’ve tried it,” Rupert told him flatly. “At the moment, the answer is an unequivocal no.”


  Christopher wasn’t ready to give up on the idea, but in the meantime, he was doing his best to acclimate to the Middle Ages and make the most of the time he did have here. Though he missed his parents and sister, Christopher was treating the whole experience like the first year of college—moving away, making his own decisions—except for the fact that he couldn’t even call his parents.

  Just because David hadn’t time traveled when he’d fallen from the balcony in Aquitaine didn’t mean he never would again—and Christopher figured there was no reason he couldn’t go back and forth with him, just like everyone else had at one time or another.

  “I need an interview with King Philip when this is over,” Rupert said.

  “And you think because I’m David’s squire that I can get you one?” Christopher said incredulously. “I’ve been learning French for only two months! Why don’t you ask Dr. Abraham?” David had sent three doctors to Philip immediately after the events at Westminster, Abraham among them. To nobody’s surprise, Abraham spoke fluent French. Christopher had learned Spanish in school, which might prove useful if he ever met a Spaniard, provided the man understood Christopher’s American accent.

  “I tried. He refused.”

  “You’ll just have to make something up, then,” Christopher said. “I’m sure there will be no shortage of material.”

  Rupert had set up France’s first radio station on a bluff above the town of Calais. Though fifty miles from Dover, the antenna had line-of-sight across the English Channel and plenty of wattage from the windmill that powered it.

  “What about Queen Lili?” Rupert said. “She and Philip’s queen get along well.”

  Christopher rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to ask her for you either.” Lili and the boys had come with David to France this time, since she swore that David got into far too much trouble when they were apart. She’d arrived at Westminster Castle, having crossed the water from Lambeth station, only a few minutes after Christopher had appeared in his car. She’d kissed his cheek, thanked him for taking care of Gwenllian and Arthur, and immediately taken him under her wing.