Unbroken in Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  And really, the beauty of representative government was the way it empowered the populace and stabilized bureaucracy. A king could die, but the government would live on. David had real hope it was too late to stop the Confederated States of Britain from continuing, with or without him.

  At the moment, Bishop Mornay’s smug expression was extremely irritating—but informative for all that. It told David that his was one of the hands that had guided the proceedings.

  “You will be staying as King Philippe’s guest. As you no longer have any lands on the Continent, any incursion by you or your men will be viewed as an act of war. That includes any defense of Aquitaine. You will write a letter to the commander of your forces there telling him to stand down immediately.”

  David stared into Mornay’s craggy face, and then transferred his gaze to the other advisers. All of them appeared pleased by the proceedings. But then Nogaret, perhaps the sharpest mind among them, began to look thoughtful. David quickly looked away, unwilling to reveal to him anything of what he was thinking and afraid that, if he met Nogaret’s gaze, he would.

  Perhaps David should have protested more, to better convey to everyone that Philippe’s decree was unexpected. Protesting wasn’t in character for him, however, and he decided stoicism could be an equally valid response. To that end, he turned on his heel and marched down the aisle towards his family. When he reached Lili, she fell into step beside him, entirely ignoring the men who were supposed to be encircling them, and went with him to the door.

  David took her hand in his, realizing as he did so that it was more for his sake than for hers. The truth was, he couldn’t have done this without her—not only her consent but her willing support—and her utter faith in him to get them out of this mess in one piece. It occurred to him only now that she was no more accustomed to being helpless than he was.

  Philippe’s steward hastened to keep pace. “If you would come this way.”

  “And if King David were to decline King Philippe’s hospitality?” This came from Archbishop Romeyn, who looked as if he’d aged ten years in the last ten minutes. He had been party to certain aspects of the plan, but since he’d been posted in Paris and was always watched, David hadn’t spoken to him in two months. It looked as if Philippe’s actions had engendered genuine shock.

  So David put a hand on his arm, as a way to settle him, and turned to look directly at the steward. Perhaps he himself wouldn’t have asked the question so forthrightly, but now that Romeyn had, David really did want to know how far Philippe was willing to go to detain him. No English king, no matter how weak, would go meekly where he was told, especially not after giving up an entire duchy.

  Looking worried, the steward glanced back towards the dais, but whatever signal he received alleviated his anxiety because he straightened his spine and said, “I would have to insist, my lord. I hope you will comply.”

  David could have told him that hope was not a plan.

  Fortunately, David had one of those too.

  Chapter Four

  Day One

  Christopher

  Christopher had watched from beside his friends, Thomas Hartley and William de Bohun, as his cousin had been humiliated by the French king. He himself was fuming, and it was only William’s steadying hand on his arm and the presence of Henri, a knight of the Templar order, in front of him that stopped him from barreling through the crowd and punching Philippe in the nose.

  Henri was a familiar sight in the palace, being one of the higher ranked Templars (even though, ostensibly, there was no rank among them) and had done much of the reconnaissance, since a Templar could get away with wandering about at will and was never questioned. Everybody was even supposed to get out of the road when a Templar rode by, as Christopher had experienced himself recently hanging out so much with Thomas.

  “We are here for support, nothing else,” Henri said. “Nobody knows who you are, and it needs to stay that way.”

  “I can’t believe it’s already over.” Christopher bent his head, knowing Henri was right but hating the fact anyway.

  Given that Christopher was one man in a much larger conspiracy they were currently running underneath the noses of King Philippe and his advisers, it wouldn’t do at all for him to start complaining about the role he was playing in it, when he’d campaigned to be included in the first place.

  William was looking pensive as he gazed towards the throne. “What does King Philippe think he’s doing?”

  That was the question of the hour and had been asked by more people than just William. Christopher had been part of the conspiracy from the beginning, so he had known what might happen, but he still thought it was stupid of Philippe to treat David the way he had. David was willing to believe that Philippe’s advisers had led him astray, which was too bad if true. But if that was what had happened, then Philippe had given them too much power in the first place.

  Christopher was all for democracy almost all the time, but in the couple of years he’d been in Earth Two, he’d come to appreciate every now and then the benefits of having a king in charge, especially when that king was David. The problem, of course, as in the case of Philippe, was when the king not only allowed his power to go to his head, but when he and his advisers were more interested in advancing their own power than in the wellbeing of the people they governed.

  “It’s already late, and he hasn’t even started hearing petitions!” Thomas stood for a moment on the tips of his toes, looking over the heads of those closest to them.

  He was speaking from experience, since this wasn’t the first audience they’d attended. They all had spent the last several weeks becoming familiar sights in and around the palace, under the patronage of Livia and Michael, who’d been welcomed as visiting nobility from Sicily. Their acceptance had provided an umbrella over everybody else. Christopher himself had formed acquaintances with several of the lower level nobility, who now nodded to him with recognition whenever they saw him.

  “Go, Thomas.” Christopher spoke under his breath, for their ears alone. “You too William. My mom needs to know what’s happening.”

  “Christopher’s right.” Henri herded them in the general direction of the door. “Take your opportunity before the king resumes the audience, and those around become bored enough to look elsewhere for entertainment instead of towards the king. We don’t want anyone wondering about the handsome young Templar and his friend.”

  “We’ll be waiting at the tavern on the bridge,” William said to Christopher as Henri shooed them away, “even if it’s two in the morning.”

  Thomas and William pushed through the crowd, just two more onlookers among hundreds.

  Back in Avalon, Christopher hadn’t really known what his mother did. She was a marketer, whatever that was. It had always seemed to him a catchall term encompassing everything from graphic design to writing catchy phrases. He wasn’t wrong, necessarily, but directors of marketing, which his mother had risen to become, recently for the US Embassy in London, had to be experts in strategy and planning—and leading a team of people towards a common goal. Management, it turned out, wasn’t simply a matter of ordering people around. In the case of his mother, she’d learned to dissect a problem, determine who among her staff were best suited to accomplish it, and coordinate the team’s efforts.

  The campaign they were waging in Paris required all the same skills, with the benefit, as his mom had said, of being carried out under the table, so she didn’t have to care what any of her bosses thought. It was a weird feeling to be proud of his mother, like she was a real person instead of just his mom. It occurred to him that at some point he ought to tell her.

  What was really clever too, though he hadn’t realized it until they’d arrived in Paris and saw it happening, was the way her design background came into it. Back in London, during the initial planning stages, Elisa had told David that Livia and Michael made great tentpoles. At the time, Christopher hadn’t known what that meant and had needed it explained to hi
m.

  Tonight, Henri served the same purpose. Although he wasn’t as beautiful and distinctive in his personal appearance as Livia and Michael, he was impossible to miss in his white surcoat with the large red cross on the chest. Elisa had insisted his cloak and surcoat be particularly gleaming, and from the moment Henri had arrived, all eyes had gone to him, whether in the street, in the courtyard, or in the audience hall. She’d intended that to happen and had known it would. It was the reason Christopher and William had dressed as blandly foppish as possible.

  His mother, it seemed, thought of everything.

  “Our initial plan for rescuing David isn’t going to work now.” Henri didn’t use David’s title. It had started with the Irish, who referred to him by his given name. It wasn’t out of disrespect but because there could be only one David, and the subject of this conversation.

  “So we move on to Plan B,” Christopher said.

  Henri scoffed under his breath. “I don’t understand this labeling of plans A, B, C. Why not 1, 2, 3?”

  Christopher stared at him for a second, and then he laughed. “I have no idea. Maybe because Plan A sounds better in English than Plan One?”

  “One of those plans included a long incarceration, if necessary,” Henri said, as yet another petitioner came before the king, explained what he wanted, and was granted it. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the king was granting every petition. Christopher didn’t know if it was to make up for what he’d done to David or to highlight it.

  “I didn’t like that plan,” Christopher said. “I’m pretty sure a full-on assault of the palace is ranked above that.”

  They’d had Plan A in place, of course, literally for weeks. But they hadn’t known until his arrival that David was going to be forced to give up Aquitaine this quickly, and thus the steps involved needed to be reworked and the proper people put in place.

  Making David and his family Philippe’s guests indefinitely was certainly a bold move for Philippe—almost bolder than not giving back Aquitaine. It was tantamount, in fact, to abducting him, and if Philippe followed through with it, even for the amount of time it took to take Aquitaine from Callum, no king would ever trust him again.

  What Christopher didn’t at all understand was how Philippe thought he was going to actually wrest Aquitaine away from David’s control. Surely he had to know the forces there, both English and those native to Aquitaine, wouldn’t be giving up their country without a fight. Even if David was forced to write a letter telling Callum and his other commanders to give way to Philippe’s army, they would know not to do it and that the letter had been written under duress.

  Philippe’s decree had only the power people chose to give it. In the same way, a rebellion became lawful when the rebels won. Even Christopher knew that. Any American knew that. Why didn’t Philippe?

  What did he know that they didn’t?

  Chapter Five

  Day One

  Rachel

  “Qui va là?” Who goes there? If being hailed by a guard before they’d even reached the city gates hadn’t been exactly what they expected to happen, Rachel might have laughed at how stereotypical the man sounded. It was as if he was following a movie script.

  This was no movie, though, and the script they were following was one they’d written themselves. So far, the French were playing their part, but she reminded herself to remain alert. It would be easy for the opposition to slip in changes at the last minute.

  Samuel slowed his horse while Aaron pulled back on the carthorse’s reins, and they all came to a halt in the middle of the road, ten paces from the guard post set a further twenty paces ahead of the actual city gate. They had managed to avoid being stopped up until now by taking minor lanes and byways. She supposed if they were just going to get arrested before they got to the city gates, they might as well not have bothered.

  The Templar commandery, known as The Paris Temple, rose out of the darkness only a hundred yards from where they stood. Located on the northern edge of the city on the right bank, the commandery extended over more than six hectares, was surrounded by its own crenellated wall thirty feet high, and was further protected by fifteen watch towers. The commandery’s southern gate led directly into the city, while a northern gate gave access to the countryside.

  The Templars had also built two secret tunnels, one that led to the basement of a building inside the city, which housed a very successful metalworking shop that provided cover for visitors going in and out, and a second that led to an outpost three hundred yards beyond the commandery’s walls. But the grand accomplishment of the century was a new five-story main tower, with a terrace and battlement, from which to keep an eye on the comings and goings at the city gate—and to watch for enemies, of course.

  It was achingly close—and yet so far away.

  Rachel thought she could make out men standing on the battlement. One might even be her husband, if the occasional glint she’d noted came from binoculars. David had thought it best if the Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, with whom he’d become well acquainted in the last year, was absent from Paris during their operation, in case Philippe had a thought to implicate him in what eventually played out. Thus, command in Paris fell to Matthew Norris, who was actually an Englishman.

  Then she looked away, since the rain chose that moment to come down harder, and she needed to pull her hood farther forward to protect her face from the drops.

  “We are simple travelers,” Samuel said, lying boldly, as he had to, also apparently quoting a movie script. He was a soldier and the Sheriff of Shrewsbury, which would have qualified him for the job of spokesperson even if he wasn’t the obvious leader of the group. Initially, Darren had campaigned to go in his stead, since Jews came in every color, and nobody would ever admit to being a Jew if he wasn’t one. He’d been overruled on the principle that anything that made their little group different or stand out was to be avoided. “I am Samuel. This is my father, Aaron, and my sister, Rachel. I have all the correct papers.”

  All three were dressed in the traditional clothing of French Jews, including the yellow oval badges King Philippe had decreed all Jews must display on the outside of their clothing. The rule was an early sumptuary law, one in which the government dictated who could wear what clothing when. Of the three of them, Aaron seemed the most philosophical about the need to wear the badge—and the crippling fine he would face if he didn’t. Samuel’s lip had curled as Rachel had pinned his on. In truth, Rachel had gone from apprehensive to angry the longer she wore it. Perhaps angry was better.

  Aaron had suggested she think of it as a badge of honor, and she was trying to. She had relatives who’d died in Nazi gas chambers, however, and she couldn’t get past the association. That said, Aaron had relations who’d been murdered in pogroms in both France and England—and survived them himself—so she could hardly say she had greater wisdom on the matter than he did.

  From within his pocket, Samuel drew out a document and handed it to the guard. With curling lip, the guard unfolded the parchment and studied what was written there: I grant permission to travel to Aaron ben Simon, physician, and family. Signed Amaury de Montfort, Canon, Rouen Cathedral, the first of August in the year of our lord one thousand, twelve hundred and ninety-five.

  “As you can see, everything is in order,” Samuel said.

  “Who is it you intend to visit?”

  “My father’s cousin, Benjamin ben Isaac. He lives on la Rue des Juifs.” That was French for the street of the Jews. Not all Jews in Paris lived in the same quarter, but most did. It was better to keep their explanations simple and give the guard less to think about.

  In the time they’d spent together, Rachel had noticed that Samuel was one of those people who, as a situation became more chaotic, grew more relaxed. It was one of the things that had allowed him to survive in the English army for so long even though he was a Jew. Despite the fact that Rachel’s heart was pounding out of her ears at being questioned by an
authority figure, Samuel stood calmly before the guard, holding the reins of both his steed and the carthorse, as if nothing was amiss and he wasn’t lying through his teeth about pretty much everything except for the fact that Aaron was his father. Like a good medieval sister, Rachel herself was well wrapped and attempting to keep her eyes demurely downcast.

  The guard maintained something of an ominous frown on his face as he held the letter up to the light from the torch his fellow guard carried, studying first the lettering and then the seal—and then the three of them. Meanwhile, rain dripped off the paper. In a moment, it would be saturated and the ink illegible. Maybe that was the point.

  “The guard can’t read,” Aaron said in an undertone.

  “Maybe he’ll be too embarrassed to admit it and let us go.”

  “Ahh, but that would be unfortunate.”

  For a moment, it seemed Rachel might have read the guard right, because he motioned for his companion to pull aside the sawhorse that blocked the road. But then he said, “You must come with me.”

  Samuel didn’t move, feigning reluctance. “Where are we going?”

  “King Philippe has decreed that every Jew who comes to Paris must go before Lord Nogaret before they will be accepted into the city.”

  That sounded as ominous as they already knew it to be. Samuel kept his voice even. “Why would that be? Our permit is in order.”

  “The city is already full of Jews.” The guard’s mouth spread wide in a sneer. “If Lord Nogaret finds your case compelling, you may be admitted into the city, though you will be restricted to the Jewish quarter,” (or as he said it, la Cour de la Juiverie). “Follow me.”

  “Where are you taking us to wait?”

  “You will see.”

  Rachel very much didn’t want to go with him but, of course, this was the reason they’d come.