“We are all spoiled, Bronwen,” Anna said. “Compared to the Middle Ages, the twenty-first century spoiled us rotten, and it has continued here, though admittedly, the standard for what constitutes ‘spoiled’ is a lot lower.”
“Which, to steal an already overused cliché, is why our responsibilities are even greater,” Bronwen said. “I know. I’m honestly grateful to you for putting me to work, even if now I have too much to do.”
“Yeah, well, guess what I just did?” Anna said, and then continued without waiting for a response. “I told Math that I would take it upon myself to weasel my way into the confidences of various noblewomen, trying to gauge if their husbands will continue to support David despite Valence’s pleading.”
“Despite Valence’s outright bribes, you mean?” Bronwen said, thinking like Math.
“You’d go that far?” Anna said.
“What would you call promises of land, even in Wales, after he defeats David and then your father?” Bronwen said.
“Is that a fact or a guess?” Anna said.
“A fact,” Bronwen said. “Everyone thinks they’re keeping secrets, but nobody really can. Not at Windsor, and certainly not at Westminster.”
Anna stared at her friend, a bit stunned at the calm way she had delivered that news. “Does David know?”
“Sure. Why do you think he decided that he had to deal with Valence now?”
“Do you know which barons are at risk?”
“Not Edmund, thankfully, not even a rumor of that. Not Bigod, even with the war in the Severn Estuary and the bad blood it created between his family and ours. Not the Bohuns, despite all expectations to the contrary. David was most worried about the Burnells and the remaining Giffards.”
“What about the Percys?” Anna said.
“Henry Percy is the only male left in that line and he, like William de Bohun, worships the ground David walks on,” Bronwen said. “Percy arrived this morning, by the way. He fancies himself a scholar. Have you seen him yet?”
Anna shook her head.
“I told him to introduce himself to you, but with all that’s been happening, I can see why he hasn’t yet managed it. I put him in the guest quarters in the lower bailey.”
“He may end up regretting that he threw in his lot with us,” Anna said with a laugh, though it wasn’t really funny, given the war they were facing.
“Bronwen!” Lili’s voice carried up the stairwell, and while Bronwen took a quick glance into her bedroom to make sure Lili’s call hadn’t woken Catrin, Anna hurried towards the stairs.
She leaned into the stairwell, searching for her sister-in-law. “What is it?”
“Valence has come!”
“What?”
“What was that?” Bronwen arrived at Anna’s side at the same instant Lili appeared at the top of the stairs. It was first time Anna had seen Lili wear breeches in a long while.
“Ieuan has sent word back,” Lili said. “Valence didn’t stop at Winchester. He’s by-passed it completely and has almost reached Windsor.”
“Four hours ago, all he’d done was land at Portsmouth!” Bronwen said. “How did he get from there to here in so short a time?”
“Either our scouts were bought off or totally misled. Valence landed late yesterday afternoon and has force-marched his men across country with little rest since they disembarked from the boats. They are within striking distance of Windsor town,” Lili said.
Bronwen turned to Anna. “Fifty miles in twenty-four hours is just barely possible.”
“He hasn’t quite come fifty,” Lili said. “Not yet. While our muster was to be at Basingstoke, it’s too late for that. The few men Ieuan had already gathered are defending the bridge across Bourne Creek for now, but we don’t have the men to keep it. Ieuan hopes he can hold it long enough to allow a full retreat into Windsor.”
“How many fighting men do we have here?” Anna asked. Math hadn’t said.
“Not even a hundred,” Lili said, “including the archers.”
Bronwen’s brow furrowed as she looked at Lili. “Why don’t we have more men?”
“Ieuan and Edmund Mortimer left Windsor with their men-at-arms and knights,” Lili said. “All that’s left to us are the usual fifty who live at Windsor plus the personal guards of the various noblemen who have come.”
“And we lost twenty of those to William de Bohun’s departure.” Anna’s throat closed over the horrible odds they were facing.
“We’ll need every one of our scholars,” Bronwen said, “Henry Percy included.”
“We’ll make them see the need,” Anna said. “We can appeal to their romanticism. They’re young. They won’t have learned to fear war yet, most of them.”
“Windsor town has a defense force too, doesn’t it?” Bronwen said.
Lili nodded. “Ieuan’s been teaching everyone over the age of ten to shoot.”
“Will Ieuan be among those who retreat into Windsor?” Bronwen said, and Anna could see her holding her breath in hope.
Lili shook her head. “Both he and Edmund Mortimer are riding with the few who can be spared to reconnoiter Valence’s lines and to gather all the men they can from the villages and towns around Windsor, particularly along the Thames River. Valence won’t have run through them on the way here.”
“That leaves Math to defend Windsor,” Anna said.
Lili nodded again. A hollow space opened up inside Anna’s belly, which was then filled instantly with fear.
“Why isn’t Valence marching on London?” Bronwen said. “I would have thought that Westminster would be his goal if he is to take the kingship from David.”
Anna shook her head, pushing down her anxiety so she could think. “Valence knows that the Londoners won’t willingly support him. He’ll need to show them proof of his power before they let him in the city.”
“Besides, last Valence knew, Dafydd was here, and thus his treasury is here,” Lili said. “The path to the crown goes through Windsor, not Westminster.”
“Or maybe he knows that David has gone to Ireland,” Anna said. “Valence may hope to stage a coup. David could return to find his castle held against him, and Valence seated on his throne.”
“That cannot happen,” Lili said darkly.
“Regardless, Lili, why are you dressed like that?” Anna said.
Lili looked down at her breeches and then back up at Anna. “What do you mean?”
“Do you really intend to fight?” Anna said.
“Of course I intend to fight,” Lili said. “Math will need every archer. He will need me.”
“But—”
“How can you even ask if I’m going to fight? You of all people?” Lili said.
“What do you mean me of all people?” Anna said. “If my brother were here, he would question you too.”
“He wouldn’t stop me,” Lili said. “And that’s not what I meant. Am I any less of a queen than Matilda, who led King’s Stephen’s forces after Empress Maud imprisoned him? Am I any less of a woman than Queen Gwenllian of Ceredigion, who led the fight against the Normans while her husband was away?”
“I’ve heard you tell that last story before, and you always leave off the ending where the Normans win and they hang her from the battlements,” Anna said.
“Still, my point stands,” Lili said.
“You have a three-month-old son to care for!” Tears pricked at the corners of Anna’s eyes, but she fought them back. She couldn’t believe how unreasonable Lili was being. “Even after all this time, you still feel as if you need to prove yourself?”
“What are you talking about—prove myself? That’s not it at all.” Lili was now standing right at the top of the stairs with Anna, their noses only six inches apart. “Math needs every archer on the battlement, and I am an archer. You—you and Bronwen—have spent the last six years fighting for the right to live your life here on your own terms, to use the gifts God has given you even though you were born a woman, and yet you deny the same right to
me?”
Anna stared at Lili for a second, swallowed hard, and then brought the volume of her voice down a dozen notches. “You think that I don’t want you to fight because you’re a woman?”
Lili looked nonplussed. “Isn’t that it?”
“No, you little fool! I don’t want you to fight because I love you!” Anna’s throat closed over the terror that welled up inside her. “You could die!”
Instantly, Lili’s expression softened, changing from one of defiance to understanding. She stepped closer, first putting a hand on each of Anna’s arms, and then pulling her into a tight embrace. “You can’t keep everyone wrapped in padding, Anna. You have to let us live. You have to live.”
Anna buried her face in her hands, realizing she had been feeling the same as Bronwen, like she was wrapped in Styrofoam, and hadn’t known it. Either that or it was just the opposite: she felt too much. “Sometimes the fear of losing any of you overwhelms me to such a degree that I can’t breathe. I can’t handle another loss like Llelo. I don’t want to ever feel that kind of pain again.”
Lili rubbed her back, and then Bronwen, who’d been standing to one side and not interfering in Anna’s argument with Lili, wrapped her arms around them both. “The twenty-first century has all the same problems, Anna. You just didn’t know it at the time because you hadn’t experienced a loss like Llelo. It hurts, and then it hurts a little less. We pretend that death doesn’t walk with us there, but when we do that, we are lying to ourselves.”
“You know that you’ll see your Llelo again, don’t you?” Lili said. “He’s in heaven, waiting for you.”
Anna sobbed and laughed at the same time. Such surety of faith hadn’t been hers since Llelo died, and maybe long before that.
Lili swept aside Anna’s tears with her thumbs. “Come. We have work to do.”
Chapter Ten
September, 2017
Cassie
Seven in the morning was long past her grandfather’s usual waking time, since he would have seen to his horses at five, so Cassie dialed his number without a qualm. The fact that her hands were shaking had more to do with the emotions welling up inside her than what she feared might be her grandfather’s reaction to her call.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Granddad. It’s Cassie.”
Cassie had expected the complete silence on the other end of the line, and it didn’t bother her. In her mind’s eye, she could see her grandfather gathering himself together, processing those few simple words she’d just said, and reconciling himself with the five years they’d been apart.
“Cassie. It’s good to hear from you.”
A sob rose in Cassie’s throat, but she swallowed it back. “I never thought I’d hear your voice again.”
“I missed you.” He paused, again with a silence that Cassie didn’t fill. She waited ten seconds, which was a long space of silence over the phone, and then he said, “What happened to you, granddaughter?”
“I don’t know if I can even tell you, Granddad,” Cassie said.
“Cassiopeia—” It was her grandfather’s nickname for her because he had never liked ‘Cassandra’. “I saw the plane come in. I saw the hole in the ground it didn’t create when it didn’t hit that mountain. I mourned for you, but we had no body to bury and no story to tell. You were simply gone from this world.”
Her grandfather often spoke this way when he was being formal and serious, and this time his words gave Cassie the opening she needed. “That’s exactly it, Granddad. I’ve been in a different world. The plane took me to the Middle Ages. To Scotland.” Cassie held her breath, and this time the silence stretched on so long that she did start to grow concerned.
“Is that so, Cassie?”
“Yes, Granddad.” Cassie had been so intent on her grandfather’s reaction to her phone call that she’d barely looked up from the desk that held the phone. The door to the room was closed, but a prickling at the back of her neck told her she was being watched. She glanced up to the ceiling and then around the room. She couldn’t spot a camera, but now that she was calmer, she acknowledged the high likelihood that her conversation was being monitored.
“Where are you now? How are you speaking to me?” her grandfather said.
“We came back today, Granddad. To Wales,” Cassie said.
Her grandfather made a tsking sound through his teeth. “The phone cut out for a second. Did you say you’re with whales?”
“No, Granddad. I’m in Cardiff, Wales. The country. It’s part of Great Britain.”
She could feel her grandfather nodding at the end of the line. “I know Wales, granddaughter. My father was a mechanic at an airstrip during the war.”
Her grandfather meant World War Two. She hadn’t known her great-grandfather well, since he died when she was six, but she remembered the stories he told. At times, it seemed like he lived more in 1944 than the present. It put a momentary smile on her face to think that she wasn’t the only one with a penchant for time travel.
“How did you end up there?”
“Well—” Cassie fought for what to say, how to explain. “It’s too long a story, and I know someone is listening on this line. We were sailing to Ireland in a cog—a medieval ship—when we were caught in a storm like the one on the mountain five years ago. I’m with—” she stopped and thought again, “—we’re-we’re in the custody of MI-5, which is like the FBI for England.” She’d stuttered because she didn’t know how to begin explaining about David and his family and how they’d changed history, not to mention that she was married to Callum, a white Englishman. Though as a veteran himself, her grandfather might have more in common with Callum than they might think at first.
“I thought you said you were in Wales?”
“England owns Wales—” Cassie shook her head, even though her grandfather couldn’t see it. “Listen, Granddad, I will tell you all about how and why, but right now I just wanted to say that I love you, and I missed you, and I would never have left if I could have helped it.”
“I know that,” her grandfather said. “I’ve always known that.”
“It’s because of everything you taught me that I survived the last five years on my own.”
“Will I see you, granddaughter?”
“I-I-I don’t know. If I don’t call again, please don’t worry. I’ll come to Oregon when I can.” Cassie paused. “How’s mama?”
“She’s fine, as far as I know.”
Cassie didn’t want to delve further into that comment and chastised herself for being such a bad daughter. But as far as I know could mean a lot of things, including that her mother wasn’t at all fine and had fallen back into her addictive behaviors. “And how are you, Granddad?”
“I had this thing with my heart two years back,” he said. “I’m fine now, just slower than before.”
“Oh, Granddad.” Cassie’s heart ached at the thought of all the time they’d been apart, and at all that they no longer knew about each other. “What thing?”
“They called it a heart event.” She could feel the shrug, even six thousand miles away. “It comes with growing old.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” Cassie said.
“You going to tell me about this Middle Ages thing?”
As his speech grew more casual, Cassie could tell that he was more at ease with her now, as if they were sitting on his porch on a hot August day, drinking lemonade and talking.
“Not right now, if that’s okay,” Cassie said. “I want to talk to you about it in person.”
“I’ll wait, then,” he said, leaving but don’t wait too long unsaid. Her grandfather was in his early seventies, and if he’d had one ‘heart event’, he could have another.
“Yes, Granddad.” Cassie teared up again. “I have to go.”
After they hung up, Cassie leaned both hands on the desk, collecting her thoughts and trying to bring her emotions under control. She’d needed to speak to her grandfather, just to hear his voice again, but now that s
he had, her old life and all that she’d left behind, and lost, came rushing back. She wished an ocean and a continent didn’t separate her from him.
It could be Callum was feeling the same. Cassie wasn’t worried that he missed his old girlfriend. He loved Cassie. But David had been right to question how they would each feel about returning to the Middle Ages with him. It wasn’t hot showers and coffee that would keep Cassie here. She’d learned to live without those things. But the people … to return to the Middle Ages would be to turn her back on her family, on her obligations, and to die to them all over again.
She took in a deep breath and let it out, trying to put the uncertainty aside for now, and went to the door. Callum opened it just as she reached it, and they stood looking at each other for a moment without speaking.
“Are you okay?” he said.
“I guess so. That was a difficult conversation.”
“Is your grandfather all right?”
Cassie nodded.
“I wish I could make it easier for you.” Callum reached for her hand. “Come on.”
Cassie strode down the hall with him, hustling to keep up with his longer legs. “What’s the hurry?”
“We are meeting Driscoll in ten minutes in the cafeteria but arriving from a different direction,” Callum said.
“You want to see how freely we can move about the building without an escort,” she said, not as a question.
“Yes.” Callum drew out the ‘s’ in a hissing sound. “I’d like to avoid Smythe or Lady Jane, if possible.”
Cassie could understand why Callum wouldn’t want to run into Smythe, but she had kind of liked Lady Jane. She reminded Cassie of her father’s mother, who’d died when she was fifteen. Cassie hadn’t been very close to her father’s side of the family—the white side—but she’d spent a little time with her grandmother. She’d been a smart, tough woman, who in a cultural opposite to the Indian side of Cassie’s family, was always happy to speak her mind and cared not at all that nobody wanted to hear it. Even so, one day after she’d lectured an uncle in no uncertain terms about the error of his current course of action, she’d put her arm around Cassie’s shoulder and whispered: always certain, sometimes right, mocking herself for her outspoken ways.
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