Footsteps in Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  Nonetheless, even David was grateful when the time came to head north. Ragged and in need of rest, he reached Buellt in the second week of July. Laborers crawled all over the castle, working as quickly as possible to fix the damage done by the English. David could laugh at the irony of his men spending the last week doing the same thing—except they had repaired the damage that they themselves had done.

  In the courtyard of Buellt, David dismounted and left Bevyn in charge of the welfare of the men. David’s only thought was to see his father and let go of his responsibilities. When he entered the great hall, however, Llywelyn had company: Lord Nicholas de Carew. At David’s approach, Carew stood and bowed.

  “I’m pleased that you have survived the last few weeks unscathed,” he said.

  “Are you?” David walked the last few paces to the table where his father sat and collapsed into a chair.

  “Dafydd.” His father’s tone was admonishing, but when David met his gaze, his father’s look softened. “I’m glad to see you, son.”

  Carew very politely ignored the exchange. “My lord, Dafydd. I am here to request permission that, instead of Goronwy, I come with you to Lancaster.”

  David froze, a water goblet half-way to his lips, so surprised he didn’t know what to say. “What of Pembroke?” he said finally, setting down the cup.

  “I have left the siege in capable hands,” Carew said. “This is more important.”

  Father fingered the stem of his goblet but didn’t respond.

  David sighed, recognizing that his father was leaving the conversation to him. “Why?”

  “Because I’m a powerful ally for you, and it will give weight to your negotiations with Edward.”

  That sounded just about as arrogant as one might expect from Carew. Though that didn’t make it less true. David dropped his head into his hands and dug his fingers into his hair. All he really wanted was a bath, a change of clothes, and a long sleep in a bed.

  Carew sat down again and picked up his wine. “You don’t trust me.”

  David turned his head to the side and met Carew’s eyes. Carew was tall, with almost white blond hair, of an age almost equidistant between Llywelyn and David. In truth, David liked Carew, as did Llywelyn.

  “No,” David said. “I trust half a dozen people and you are not one of them. I would like to trust you. I’m willing to work with you, but I don’t understand your motives.”

  Carew laughed. “My motives are clear. I’m interested in power.”

  “Edward can give you more of it than we can,” David said.

  “But Edward is interested in only power too. That means we don’t work well together. You, on the other hand, care so little about power it’s hard to believe you are a prince. I understand you not at all, but I do trust you. That makes the difference.”

  David raised his head to look at his father, who lifted his eyebrows and gave him a small smile.

  “Fine,” David said. “You can come.”

  “Good,” Carew said. “You won’t regret it.”

  * * * * *

  David found his father in the stables the next morning, standing in one of the stalls with his back to the door, brushing his horse, Teyrngar, in the dim light. David walked past him to the next stall and picked up a brush so he could work on Taranis. They were alone in the stables. That happened so rarely, Father could only have sent everyone away to make it possible.

  “Do you miss where you came from?” He rested his arm across Teyrngar’s back and looked at his son over the horse.

  “Yes,” David said.

  “There are many wondrous things in your world,” Father said.

  David studied him, wondering what this was really about, and then shook his head. “It’s not the things that I miss, or the people, which is kind of sad if you think about it. I missed Mom before she came, and I miss knowing what’s happening with everyone there. Sure, I would prefer to have books, telephones, good roads, food, central heating, and hot showers available. I could go on and on about the ‘things’. The twenty-first century has a lot of ... well ... stuff, that makes life a lot easier.”

  “But you just said that’s not what you miss,” Father said.

  “No,” David said. “That’s not what I miss.”

  He waited, forcing David to go on.

  “What I miss most is the knowledge that it is here where reality exists; here is where I stand and you can’t move me from it. That may sound very strange to you, but when I crossed into this world, everything I thought I believed in was blown apart. I have had to figure out how the world works and what my purpose in it is, but without any of the guideposts that are a normal part of my old world.”

  “So you would return to your time if you could?” Father said.

  Ah, the real question. “I can’t get certainty back by returning to the 21st century and pretending this never happened. How would that work? No. Even if I could cross through the barrier between our worlds, I would spend the rest of my life looking for a way back. My place is here.”

  Llywelyn didn’t speak for a long minute and he used that time to carefully brush out Teyrngar’s mane. “I can’t feel guilty for wanting to keep you here. Wales needs you. I need you.”

  “I know,” David said. “If Edward captures and kills me like he did Uncle Dafydd in the old world, then I might be sorry. But for now, I see what you see.”

  Father opened his mouth to speak again. David knew he was going to say something about how he didn’t have long to live. David didn’t want to hear it. To forestall him, David changed the subject. “Want to go for a ride in my car?”

  Llywelyn’s eyes brightened. “Bevyn will want to come.”

  “And Ieuan!” David said. “We probably need a few more men, just to be safe.”

  Llywelyn nodded and David left him so he could round up the men. David found Ieuan first. He was very pleased, as David knew he would be. Fifteen minutes later everyone gathered in the courtyard, ready to ride.

  “Let’s hope there are no English about today,” David said. “You’re not superstitious are you? Our stays in Buellt are never uneventful.”

  Bevyn rolled his eyes. “Lead on, my lord. We’ll follow you.”

  When they reached the meadow, Father dismounted and paced around the spot where he’d almost died. The men fell silent as he began to describe what had happened that night in December when Anna and David first appeared.

  “I’d had close calls before in my younger years,” Llywelyn said, “as some of you witnessed, but nothing like this. All my companions were dead, ambushed by the English who poured out of those trees.” He pointed up the hill where David had parked the van.

  “We were supposed to be meeting the Mortimer boys, but they sent their men against us instead. All my men had fallen in my defense, and I had my back against a tree. In fact, I had lost my footing in the snow and landed on my hip when Dafydd and his sister drove into the meadow in their chariot.

  “I can still see it in my mind. Falling and knowing that my life was over, only to have my attackers turn away and themselves fall under the wheels of that incredible machine. One moment I was about to die, and the next, my son and daughter had swept away my enemies.”

  “God’s will,” Bevyn said gruffly.

  “It was God’s will,” Father said firmly. “And thus, our responsibilities to Wales are all the greater.”

  Father clapped his hand on David’s shoulder. “Now, I would like a ride in your chariot. I understand from Ieuan that it’s the experience of a lifetime.”

  David led the way up the hill to the spot where the van still sat, undisturbed since their last visit here. He unlocked it and opened the sliding door. As before, everyone piled in, except this time, David had an idea. Witchcraft couldn’t help but haunt them. Maybe there was a way to defuse it.

  “Here.” David handed his father the keys. “You drive.”

  Llywelyn took them from David, hesitantly, reminding David of Anna. “Are you certain?” />
  “Sure,” David said, figuring the worst he could do was wreck it permanently.

  They climbed in. David showed his father how to insert the key and twist it so the van would start. This time the engine caught right away. David explained how to press the brake with his foot and shift into drive.

  “Now, press that right lever gently with your foot.”

  “Like this?” Llywelyn said, and the van jerked forwards a few feet. Fortunately, Llywelyn removed his foot before the vehicle crashed into a tree.

  David had him experiment with the brake and showed him how to steer. After a few more jerks, Llywelyn got the van moving forward. He turned the steering wheel to the right and headed down the hill. As it picked up speed entering the meadow, David glanced back at the men and had to laugh at the looks of utter horror on their faces. Little did they know that when David had driven the van a few weeks ago, it had been his first time too.

  “The brake, Dad, the brake!” David said as they got near the far side of the meadow.

  Llywelyn found it and managed to stop the van about two feet from the edge. The breath eased out of everyone in the van.

  “Maybe you should drive, son.” Father took a deep breath himself.

  The pair got out of the van, and as they passed each other in front of it Llywelyn put his hand on David’s arm. “What’s this word, ‘Dad’?”

  David laughed, surprised. He’d never called his father that before. In Welsh, ‘father’ is ‘tad’, and he’d been comfortable with it, given the similarity in pronunciation.

  “It means ‘Father’, but more familiar. Like Anna’s ‘papa’.”

  His father smiled and David could see that he was pleased. They got back in the van. This time, David eased the van down the hill, back through the brambles, into its little clearing and then turned off the engine.

  At this point, Ieuan could stand it no longer. “May I sit there?”

  “Absolutely.” David opened the door and climbed out to make room for Ieuan, who scrambled between the front seats and sat down in David’s spot. He surveyed the instrument panel, and the other men leaned forward to listen to the subsequent conversation.

  “What is that?” Ieuan pointed to the speedometer.

  “That tells you how many miles the chariot can go in one hour,” David said.

  Ieuan studied the panel. “And how fast is that? I can’t make out the script.”

  “Those are Arabic numerals—numbers. They read zero on one end, and one hundred and ten on the other.”

  “How is that possible?” Ieuan said.

  David hesitated. “Well, you would need a very straight and flat road.”

  “Like the roads the Romans built?” Cadwallon said from the back. David had included him in the party because he thought the van might lose some of the aura of magic if Cadwallon rode in it. David was probably wrong.

  “Yes, exactly like that,” David said.

  “And what is this?” Ieuan said.

  “The—” David searched for the proper word. “The fuel gauge. It tells how much fuel the van carries and thus the driver knows how many miles he can go before he needs more fuel.”

  “So what is this fuel?” Dad said.

  “Um—” Once again David struggled to explain. “The van contains an engine that runs on burning naphtha.”

  “Oh, naphtha.” Dad nodded. ‘Naphtha’ was a Greek word for petroleum, which was also used in the weapon ‘Greek fire’. It was something they had never seen, but many had heard of.

  “It really isn’t witchcraft,” Cadwallon said.

  “Of course not,” Gruffydd said. “Did you not hear the prince say it was God’s will?”

  “So,” Ieuan said, having thought hard throughout their extraneous conversation, “who built the chariot?”

  Oh yeah. That little detail. Silence filled the van. Ieuan looked up, realizing that nobody was answering. David racked his brains for something to say and came up with nothing, but Llywelyn hit upon the answer. And it wasn’t even a lie.

  “You know of the great Welsh hero, Madoc ap Owain Gwynedd, who sailed west across the sea to a land full of strange peoples, previously unknown to us?”

  “Yes, of course, Sire,” Ieuan said. This was one of the stories every Welsh child knew from birth.

  “Before Dafydd was born,” Dad said, “I sent Marged and the children away for their safekeeping. It is from that country that they have come and it is Madoc’s descendents who built this chariot.”

  Ieuan sighed. “I would like to see that land someday.”

  “God willing, Ieuan, someday you may.” But even as David spoke, he thought, God willing, I won’t—ever again.

  Chapter Eleven

  Anna

  The battlements of every castle Anna had lived in since she came to Wales were her favorite places. She could stand on them and see for miles in four directions, feel the wind and the weather, and be alone with her thoughts. Looking down, she had a bird’s eye view of the activity in the courtyards, and a detachment from her surroundings that she treasured. With Math beside her being protective, Anna climbed the battlements of Dinas Bran once again to watch David and his company wind their way up the long road to the castle gate. They always had warning when visitors were arriving, which was a good thing when David and his men came. They’d be hungry.

  “I don’t see Papa’s banners,” Anna said. “Mom will be disappointed.”

  “Dafydd doesn’t ride Taranis,” Math said. “What other changes are in the wind?” They walked down the stairs to greet the riders as they crossed under the gatehouse.

  “Oh, don’t look at me that way,” Anna said.

  “You’re huge! Amazingly huge!” David said before he’d even dismounted, open-mouthed with astonishment.

  “I’m not that fat.”

  “I didn’t say you were fat!” He hugged Anna from a distance, given the size of her belly.

  Math and Bevyn consulted about the disposition of David’s men, while Anna brought David inside, pleased that he was here again after the upheaval of his last visit. It didn’t take long, though, to learn what ‘changes’ Math was talking about.

  “I’ll be meeting Edward without Dad.”

  “Why?” Mom said. “Surely this will make Edward more angry than he already is.”

  “The prince talked with his lords,” Carew said. “They agreed that they couldn’t risk both the father and the son. The journey is too far into English territory for safety. It’s one thing for King Alexander to go—Edward has acknowledged him as king long since. It’s quite another for Prince Llywelyn to make that journey. Edward sees him as an upstart.”

  Mom was appalled. “So Llywelyn thinks to sacrifice David instead?”

  Aaron turned to her, his expression gentle. “He does no such thing. One of them must attend, but I think David will be the first to admit that he’s not yet ready to assume the responsibilities of rule if something were to happen to his father.”

  “Absolutely.” David nodded. “I’m happy to go. If we take the sea route, we can’t be ambushed on the road.”

  Mom didn’t appear convinced. “It was bad enough when you were gallivanting about the countryside these last few weeks. At least you were in Wales, among your fellow countrymen, with access to aid and comfort if need be. In England you’ll be dependent entirely on your own resources.”

  “That’s the way it has to be,” David said.

  Mom ground her teeth and muttered under her breath.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Anna said, in an aside to her. “He’s done well so far.”

  “I want to put my foot down and say he can’t go,” Mom said, “but I don’t think I can tell him what he can or cannot do, anymore.”

  And I suspect that’s a painful thing for a mother to admit. Anna touched her belly, feeling the baby move and wondering if it was a boy or a girl. Mom still tells me what to do. It was curious that she didn’t feel as able to tell David.

  David wasn’t listening
to either of them, having turned to Aaron to find out what he’d been up to.

  “I know little of what went on in the conference,” Aaron said. “Word spread throughout the city, however, of King Edward’s anger at your father. Given your successes in the past few weeks, Edward’s Marcher lords will be calling for your blood.”

  “They were doing that before,” Math said, “though I agree with Aaron’s conclusions. All is not well with England.”

  “Hereford will not easily forgive his defeat at Buellt,” Carew said. “When we meet with Edward, we must take care. Even if Edward seeks an honest exchange, you can be sure that many of his barons do not.”

  * * * * *

  They had a quiet few weeks at Dinas Bran. With each passing day, Anna became more uncomfortable. Unlike in the old world, there were no ultrasounds to perform or exams to make. The midwife’s attitude was ‘the baby will come when it comes,’ and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Mom kept busy by overseeing the boiling of everything in sight. Anything she couldn’t boil, she sterilized through fire or by dipping in an alcohol concoction that was so strong, even Math’s men wouldn’t touch it.

  She had explained to Aaron long since, and to the midwife more recently, what her standards for cleanliness were. If someone couldn’t get with the program, she was out. In the Middle Ages, most women didn’t actually die in childbirth. They died later, from childbed fever caused by unclean conditions and dirty hands during labor. That will not be me! Dear God, that will not be me!

  Math made himself scarce for the last weeks before Anna’s due date—and then during the long two weeks after her due date. He and his men patrolled the Welsh border with England, keeping an eye out for any incursions across the border or a massing of men where there should be none. He didn’t want a repeat of what had happened at Castell y Bere. He rode out of the castle daily to return at dusk, sweaty and hungry, and too tired to worry much about Anna. She understood him well enough by now to realize that he was suppressing his worry for her by ignoring it, and keeping himself so busy that he had no time to think.