Unbroken in Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  The small company sauntered slowly down the road from the gate, giving the French plenty of time to see who was coming. Nobody wanted any surprises, least of all Callum and Hugh.

  “My lords!” The captain drew their attention to the enemy line, visible through the drizzling rain.

  Callum couldn’t use the binoculars while wearing a helmet—and anyway, the falling rain would soon spot the lenses. But now they were closer, he could see more clearly with his bare eyes as to what was transpiring.

  In their initial descent from the gate, it seemed little had changed, but now men were readying themselves for battle, forming up into rows of pikemen. Some bore crossbows.

  “Careful,” Hugh said, though he appeared to be squinting through the rain, more hampered by not being able to use the binoculars than Callum. They remained out of accurate archery range, though not by much.

  “This is not a good sign.” Hugh’s captain slowed his horse.

  Hugh glared at the French lines as his horse danced him around in a circle. “We ride under a white flag!”

  “They do not appear to care,” Callum said. “Whether by their own choice or because they are following orders, this is a new kind of war—one with no rules.”

  In marching out, Callum had accepted the possibility of being attacked. What Callum didn’t understand, however, is why George hadn’t explained to the French what faced them.

  Maybe he had, and they hadn’t believed him.

  Maybe George had given them the weapon and walked away. It would be in the best interests of whoever was George’s employer to have both French and English tear each other to shreds, weakening both armies and making the kingdoms that much easier to conquer.

  Then three men broke for a covered wagon, exactly like the one from last night, set a ten yards in front of the line of men, with the bed facing the city. When they reached it, the lead man threw the tarp aside, revealing another LMG, and a second man vaulted into the bed in order to take position behind it.

  “Halt.” Callum put up his fist and was obeyed by all the men.

  Hugh glanced at Callum. “What’s happening? I can’t see what you do.”

  “It’s a second gun.” He didn’t bother calling it by its rightful name, since it wouldn’t mean anything to Hugh.

  Hugh’s mouth opened, but no words came out.

  Callum understood now why George had asked Flote if he was satisfied with the weapons. Plural. And cursed his own complacency.

  It was a disaster, plainly.

  As the man behind the LMG made a motion that indicated he’d taken off the safety—a motion Callum had seen a thousand times before today and never expected to or wished to see in Earth Two—he launched himself at Hugh while shouting to everyone else. “Get down!”

  They landed hard on the other side of Hugh’s horse, Callum rolling over the top of Hugh, who was left breathless, flat on his back.

  “Merde!” Hugh struggled to rise.

  Barely rising above the ground himself, Callum put a hand on Hugh’s chest to keep him down and looked back at the uncomprehending guardsmen, most of whom remained on their horses a few yards away. They were focused not on the enemy but on Callum’s abuse of their lord. They had no idea what was about to happen to them. Truthfully, they could never understand until they saw for themselves.

  “Everybody off! Go! Move!” So slow. Too slow. Callum despaired.

  And then the gunner opened fire.

  Callum wouldn’t have cared if he hadn’t. He could have apologized to Hugh for nearly breaking his back and making all them look like fools.

  It was as if Callum was watching the events unfold in slow motion, but the unfolding of it was still too fast for him to do anything about it. While the shooter was inexperienced, likely having never fired the weapon at living people before, and most of his first shots were wild, one volley did rip through the captain’s horse, killing it instantly. The captain barely managed to clear his feet from the stirrups before it went down. Wisely, at long last, he followed the horse to the ground and ended up cowering behind it with Callum and Hugh.

  Only seconds had passed, but the delay between starting to shoot and finding the weapon’s range was enough to get the rest of their men off their horses. Most of them died anyway. The bullets swept across the field, killing men and horses with equal efficiency. One man tried to retreat on horseback instead of throwing himself to the earth, and he ended up on the ground near Callum, moaning in pain.

  At least he was still alive. That could not be said of the others. Callum felt himself flashing back to Afghanistan, and he dug his fingers into the wet dirt of the road as a tangible reminder of where he was and what he was doing.

  The LMG made mockery of the standard three hundred yard range of a bow, instead being perfectly capable of reaching all the way to the battlements and clearing it of defenders in a few seconds.

  Which it proceeded to do.

  Callum kept his head down and, for the first time in far too long, prayed.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Day Two

  Christopher

  Thomas planted himself in front of Christopher, hands on his hips and his chin jutting out. “I need to know what’s going on.”

  Christopher ran a hand through his hair, trying to orient his thoughts. He’d just woken up from another too brief nap. “What time is it?”

  “Just past noon.”

  “Where’s the king?”

  “Gone to the synagogue to speak to the rabbis.”

  Christopher felt a momentary outrage rising in his chest that he’d been left behind, until he remembered he had other tasks today. Neither talking to the rabbis, which he honestly had no interest in, nor being part of the assault on Vincennes to rescue Philippe’s family, were one of them. “Did he sleep?”

  “He claimed so.”

  “Did you sleep?” Christopher narrowed his eyes at his friend. They were friends too, even if at the moment Thomas was looking belligerent. Christopher had successfully managed to distract him from his initial question. He knew how to answer it, but he wasn’t certain that he should.

  Unfortunately, Thomas wasn’t one to be entirely put off. “I slept a little.” He made a slashing motion with his hand. “Tell me.”

  They’d been standing in the corridor on the second floor of the Templar guest house, and now Christopher nudged Thomas towards the far end where stairs would take them up to the top of the closest tower in the curtain wall. Like everyone else, he found battlements great places to talk without being overheard.

  “You need to ask me something more specific,” Christopher said once they were through the door.

  This particular tower overlooked the southern side of the commandery and thus gave them a good view of the closest gate into the city wall. Christopher had never been to Paris in Avalon, so he couldn’t have said how what was here was different, but his mother had said, after the fall of the Templars in 1307, that the Paris Temple had been turned first into a royal prison and then torn down. By the twenty-first century, it was nothing more than a subway stop.

  “Why are we doing what we’re doing?” Thomas said.

  “Isn’t it enough that David asks it?” Christopher said, still feigning innocence.

  “I trust King David. Of course, I do. But Master Norris has suspended the rule that we must always wear the cross, with the blessing of the Grand Master, and I need to know why.”

  Christopher thought back to something David had said to him: that at times it felt as if every interaction with someone who wasn’t from Avalon was a test. In David’s case, his subjects, co-conspirators, and allies constantly pushed at him, looking for weaknesses, for chinks in his armor, and for a reason not to have faith in him. It was exhausting. Christopher hadn’t considered that he might experience something similar from his friends as well.

  “Master Norris told you why: because the mission takes precedence, and it behooves some of you to assist in the work.” Christopher spoke ve
ry formally, using the words Master Norris had said to the conclave earlier.

  “We swore oaths,” Thomas said. “If we break them at our convenience, what are they worth?”

  “From what I understand, you took vows requiring you to be serious, to take care of the sick and the poor, and to avoid women.”

  Christopher knew the Templar vows only because he’d looked into becoming a Templar himself—for about ten seconds—before deciding he wanted to have a wife and kids one day. He could be a knight without being a Templar.

  “But you know all that, because one of your brothers asked about it, and Norris replied the way I have. Jacques de Molay himself sent a letter saying it was okay. So why isn’t it for you?”

  Thomas clenched his hands briefly into fists. “I ask because these oaths were hard for me to pledge and hard for me to keep. I want to speak during mealtimes. I want to run and laugh. I want to be with a woman, and I never will be.”

  “So why become a Templar in the first place?”

  Thomas’s expression turned even more fierce. “Because to be of service all my life is the highest calling I can imagine. I can serve God, my country, my king, and my family. I am amongst brothers.”

  “But nowhere did they say you have to look like a Templar all the time. That’s tradition, not set in stone. What good does it do to follow tradition at the expense of an entire people? I wonder who came up with the idea to wear the red cross all the time in the first place. It means a Templar is recognized wherever he goes, which is all very well and good on the surface. On one hand, good for you for living your calling. On the other hand, it means that you, as an order, can never do anything the world doesn’t know about. That means you are trusted—but what happens when that honor and nobility is turned against you? What happens when people you trust kill you for wearing it?”

  “We die,” Thomas said simply. “Better to live honorably and die for it than be dishonored.” He tugged at the white surcoat emblazoned with a red cross he wore, like all Templar knights. “This is not to be lightly cast off.”

  “I agree. David agrees. And I must point out that the Grand Master is not asking you to put it entirely aside. It’s just for this mission.” He paused. “Though I can see why you’d say spies are, by definition, dishonorable.”

  Thomas threw out a hand. “I didn’t mean you!”

  “But you do mean me, and that’s okay. I spy for David because, if I don’t, then someone is going to try to kill him again, and it’s worth it to me to pretend to be someone I’m not so that doesn’t happen. It’s the end justifying the means, and I understand that’s the slipperiest slope there is.”

  “Sometimes I have no idea where you come up with some of the phrases you use, but I understand what you mean in this case.” Thomas seemed calmer now, and he rested his hands on the stones of a nearby crenel. “The Grand Master is enlisting us in a deception to protect the Jewish community of Paris. If we do not help, they could even be slaughtered.”

  “Yes.”

  “So it is a question of the greater good. We put off our robes and help them, or we keep them on and let them die.” He nodded. “I see now.”

  “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” Christopher said, finding the quote from Spock appropriate, even though it was hard to imagine a fictional character farther removed from medieval Paris, “or the one.”

  Thomas’s mouth curved up, and Christopher heaved a sigh of relief that the conversation was over, and he hadn’t bungled it too badly.

  But then Thomas’s eyes narrowed again. “Wait a moment. That we are to escort Jews out of the city was a plan conceived only today after you went to the palace. You always intended to help them leave the city, however, and the more I’ve spoken to David’s men, the more I’ve come to realize that he expected them to be evicted, if not today, then soon. He expected Philippe not to return Aquitaine to him, though it never occurred to anyone else. He must have said something extraordinary to Grand Master Molay to have him go along with this before anything untoward had actually happened. There’s more you’re not telling me. What does he know that I don’t? What did King David say to Molay?”

  Christopher found himself gaping at Thomas, without a single useful thought in his head.

  Then Bronwen pushed open the door to the tower and looked at Christopher. “Do you want me to leave?”

  Christopher’s mouth opened, closed, and then opened again. “By all means, answer him! I have no idea what to say.” And then he amended. “Well, I know what I want to say, but I don’t know if I should.” He made a flourishing gesture, relieved that help had arrived.

  Bronwen wrinkled her nose. “Me neither.”

  The two of them looked at each other, and then over to Thomas, who was swiveling his head back and forth from one to the other. “What is so terrible that you can’t tell me?”

  “It isn’t terrible so much as complicated,” Bronwen said.

  “I hate that word. That’s what people say when they don’t want to tell you the truth but don’t want to lie either. Just say it!” And when neither Bronwen nor Christopher still answered, he added, “Did David threaten to confiscate all Templar property in England if Grand Master Molay didn’t do what he wanted?”

  Christopher was so surprised at the guess that he took an involuntary step backwards. “No! Is that what you think?”

  “No,” Thomas said. “It was just the worst thing I could think of that would be so bad and dishonorable you couldn’t tell me about it.”

  Bronwen glanced at Christopher again. He shrugged and made a go ahead gesture.

  “That isn’t it. In fact, David is trying to prevent exactly what you describe from happening in France.”

  Thomas’s brow furrowed. “Why would it happen in France? King Philippe respects the Templars—as well as owes us money. Until recently, we protected his treasury. Many times, Master Norris has been summoned to council at the palace. Until recently—” he broke off, his skin paling under his tan.

  “Until recently,” Christopher said.

  Bronwen tipped her head. “Do you know what changed?”

  “My home temple is in London,” Thomas said. “I wouldn’t know if anything has changed here.”

  “It’s like in the boiling frog story,” Christopher said.

  Thomas was surprised enough at Christopher’s choice of words he laughed out loud. “What story is that?”

  “When you put a frog in a pot of hot water, he will jump out instantly. But if you put him in a pot of cold water, he’ll stay in it far longer than he should after you start heating it up, and sometimes too long, so he dies, never realizing his surroundings had changed.”

  “Experiments have shown the frog hops out of both,” Bronwen said dryly. But then she made a dismissive motion with her hand. “Regardless, the point stands.”

  Thomas merely looked bewildered, so Christopher took it upon himself to explain further. “The Templars are the frog. If King Philippe had done something dramatic to you, of course you would have noticed, but because the change in attitude is so gradual, you haven’t.”

  “And you’re saying if we stay where we are, as we are, we will die? That’s what David fears?”

  “Yes,” Christopher said. There didn’t seem to be any point anymore in pretending.

  “Why would King David even conceive such an idea? We aren’t Jews.”

  “King Philippe owes you money,” Bronwen said gently.

  “Just as he owes Jews money,” Christopher said.

  Thomas looked from one to the other. “You’re saying he is evicting Jews from Paris because he doesn’t want to pay them back?”

  “Plus, their possessions are worth a pretty penny,” she said.

  Thomas appeared thunderstruck by this notion.

  Christopher was equally surprised at Thomas’s surprise. “Didn’t you realize that’s why Jews have been persecuted all this time?”

  “They killed Christ—”

  Bron
wen cut him off with a raspberry sound. “Follow the money, Thomas. In 1277, King Edward hanged two hundred Jewish merchants for coin clipping. The money he took from them and their families was the same amount he’d spent on the war against Llywelyn.”

  “How very convenient,” Christopher said dryly.

  Thomas looked as if his entire world had been rocked to the core, reminding Christopher yet again how basic realities he took for granted could be revelations to someone from the thirteenth century. “So we evict Jews on Philippe’s orders and then ... what? He evicts us?”

  Christopher lifted one shoulder. To do so would be moving up Avalon’s timeline quite a bit, but likely it was the reason Nogaret had leapt at Christopher’s suggestion of using the Templars in the first place. “Is that so crazy, really? In the end, he has more men than you do, and if Nogaret is preparing a force to descend on the refugees once they are out of the city, that same force would be equally capable of descending on you.”

  “He’s the King of France, the seat of all spiritual and temporal power,” Bronwen said.

  “Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Christopher said.

  “Actually,” Bronwen looked at him, “the man who said that retracted it later. It isn’t so much that absolute power corrupts absolutely but that it reveals a person’s true character. If someone with totalitarian tendencies rises to power, with absolute power he gives that tendency free rein. But a good person might become better.”

  Christopher brightened. “I like that idea so much more. It always felt like people were just waiting for David to go insane.”

  Bronwen grinned and then turned back to Thomas, who, for the first time, was looking thoughtful rather than anxious. “I think I understand what you’re saying, but you still haven’t answered the second part of my question. I see now what David fears, but why does he know to fear it?”

  Bronwen studied Thomas over clasped hands. “I suppose we haven’t yet said, have we? David told Grand Master Molay what he feared would happen, and Molay was concerned enough about it to give him virtually free rein in France. Can you trust both of them enough to accept that they are acting on information that is clear and pressing?”