Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series)

by Sarah Woodbury

  “Let me get this straight,” Cassie said. “You really do have scarlet fever, but you made it seem like you were sicker than you were to get them to take you to a hospital. They gave you a huge shot of antibiotics—”

  “—it was a big one. Hurt like nobody’s business.” David knew he was interrupting, but he couldn’t seem to control either his brain or his mouth, which kept firing off at random.

  “I’m really glad they did that,” Callum said, “even if it hurt.”

  “How would you know how to treat scarlet fever?” David said. “It isn’t common in the modern world any more.”

  “All agents know about contagious diseases,” Callum said. “Besides, if I didn’t know from my work, we were given a lecture on them when I was in Afghanistan, where scarlet fever and many other infections like it are still common. The cure is one shot. You should be on the mend.”

  “I hope so,” David said. “I feel like crap.”

  “You have strep throat, too. I had it once, and I remember it.” Cassie, very kindly, didn’t smack either of them for interrupting her, but now that they’d covered his illness, she picked up the thread of what she’d been saying. “To continue, on the way to the hospital, your ambulance is hijacked by rogue agents in MI-5 or a third party. Either way, the culprits had maybe half an hour to implement this plan.”

  “Half an hour, tops,” David said.

  “Thank God for that,” Callum said. “It’s why we were able to rescue you so easily.”

  “That was easy?” Cassie said.

  David liked listening to his friends’ banter. When Callum had first arrived in the Middle Ages, David had seen him as stiff and sober, which wasn’t his true personality at all. In retrospect, it would have been hard for Callum to have been anything but awkward and uncomfortable, given that he’d been thrown into the deep end of the proverbial pool, what with the various murders, weddings, and coronations going on at the time and the fact that he didn’t speak any language that anyone but a handful of people understood. Callum had also been suffering from PTSD, which had initially been made worse by suddenly finding himself in 1288 Britain.

  “Suppose the man—the American—really is CIA or NSA or even Homeland Security,” Callum said. “Suppose he convinced Natasha to work with him. Just because we arrived in the twenty-first century today doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been planning how to get his hands on David, or whoever came here next, for months.”

  “Point taken.” David rubbed both eyes with the heels of his hands. Callum’s obvious concern was causing his own heart to beat faster. “Isn’t that what you said MI-5 had done, Callum? That they’ve been working on how to deal with one of us ever since Mom and Dad returned home with you?”

  “Yes,” Callum said.

  “I like the Americans for your abduction, though,” Cassie said.

  “You’ve watched too many movies,” David said. “Governments, especially the American one, are rarely shown in a positive light.”

  “True. But that doesn’t mean the CIA isn’t involved,” Cassie said.

  “Why would Natasha betray her country to the CIA?” Callum said. “What could they possibly offer her?”

  “A lot of money,” Cassie said.

  “It would have to be walking-away money,” David said. “Not impossible, I suppose.”

  “We’re talking about time travel,” Cassie said, “so already you know that we’re in the realm of the impossible. And Jones did say that the Americans weren’t happy with MI-5 for not sharing.”

  “MI-5 is starting to seem like the lesser of two evils,” David said.

  “Evil is right,” Cassie said, though only to David and not loud enough for Callum to hear over the engine noise and the pattering of the rain.

  David touched her arm. Given that all of her suspicions had so far proved right, it was hard to fault her cynicism. Then he spoke louder so as not to keep Callum out of their conversation. “Don’t forget that we still have the small matter of my illness to deal with and perhaps some kind of antidote to whatever that American gave me.” David checked the IV drip to make sure it hadn’t spontaneously turned itself on again. “Whatever they gave me is making me feel even sicker than when I just had scarlet fever. If I didn’t before, I think now that I really do need a hospital. And probably one with good security. Maybe some big bodyguards you can trust, Callum.”

  Cassie leaned across David and tried to read the writing on the IV drip bag. “It says Rohypnol and then in parentheses, flunitrazepam, whatever that is.”

  “To use the American term, you’ve been roofied,” Callum said.

  “Great.” David rested his head back against the pillow. “And to think all I got out of it was a headache. Though …” He shifted uncomfortably. “Does it change anything that I can’t feel my feet very well?”

  “What was that?” Callum swerved the SUV, almost running it into a parked car on the side of the road before correcting the steering.

  “He said he can’t feel his feet,” Cassie said. “He doesn’t look good either; he’s a little green around the gills.”

  “Roofies shouldn’t be doing this,” Callum said. “What else did they give you, David?”

  “I don’t remember.” David rubbed his forehead. He was feeling hot again. “I think back in the ambulance someone mentioned Roxanol.”

  “Bloody hell.” Callum executed a U-turn, causing Cassie to lose her balance and fall on top of David’s chest. He put up a hand to contain her, but he was weak and could do little more than push at her arm. She reached for the handle above the window to right herself. Callum flipped on the vehicle’s siren and screamed down the road.

  Little bits of scenery flew by the windows above David’s head: trees and the tops of houses and apartment buildings, lit by streetlights and distorted by the raindrops on the window. He couldn’t see much out the rear window besides the headlights of other cars receding into the distance. He didn’t know in which direction Callum had been driving, and thus didn’t know where they were going now.

  Cassie cupped her hands around her mouth and called up to Callum: “What’s going on?” The sirens even drowned out the sound of the rain.

  “Roxanol is an opiate,” Callum said.

  “And that’s bad?” Cassie said.

  David twitched his legs, grateful that he wasn’t paralyzed from the waist down, and concentrated really hard on wiggling his toes.

  “It’s reacting with the flunitrazepam.” Callum swerved through traffic, which was thinner than before. “Together, they can suppress respiration.”

  “So he stops breathing?” Cassie said.

  David looked up at the ceiling. As soon as Cassie spoke, he found he was having trouble filling his lungs. He wanted to say something, but nothing came out.

  Cassie gripped his hand. “Don’t try to talk. Just keep breathing.”

  Several tense minutes passed before a red ‘emergency unit’ sign appeared in the back window, indicating a hospital entrance. Callum braked with a jerk, scrambled out of his seat, and darted around to the rear of the SUV, by which time Cassie had the door open. Medical personnel flocked to them, and a minute later David was being wheeled into the hospital. He was really getting tired of this stretcher. It felt like his back had been glued to it.

  “You saved my life,” David said to Callum as he jogged beside the stretcher down a long corridor.

  “I’m just glad we got to you in time,” Callum said. “Despite the planning involved in your abduction, they could have killed you.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  September, 1289

  Lili

  Valence had been just as tricky as they should have expected, which was to say, he’d outdone himself this time. Over the last few months, he’d made a habit of concocting more and more elaborate plans and ruses; the most dangerous ones—the ones that they knew about—had ended by tripping him up badly and tangling him in his own net. Lili prayed that the same would be true this time, but right no
w, with five hundred men racing towards her, she didn’t feel very hopeful.

  “Dear God. Here they come.” Carew held his sword at his side, ready to defend the town. He wasn’t needed yet, not on the wall-walk. Soon enough, if the defenders were routed, Valence’s men would be able to bring their ladders to bear on the walls, and then he would have more than enough to occupy him. Lili had an arrow resting in her bow, ready for the moment Bevyn told her to release it.

  Valence’s men surged onto the bridge across the Thames. The town’s defenders had begun by standing at the far end, but faced with the rush and heavy press of Valence’s men, the foremost defenders fell back, pushing at those behind them to make room for their retreat. As the leaders of the enemy force gained ground, those in the rear of Valence’s army cheered and pushed forward with more force.

  Meanwhile, the defenders screeched at one another and gave way, at first step-by-step, and then all at once. The defense of the bridge, and effectively, the north gate, collapsed completely, and the men came racing back to the Windsor side of the bridge in a panic. Bevyn’s cries of ‘Steady! Steady!’ fell on deaf ears.

  Now that the assault had come, there was no point in keeping the lights doused; men with torches ran back and forth below Lili in front of the gate, shouting at each other. Lili couldn’t make out most of their words, and it seemed that half the men in their army had lost their senses.

  Hardly ten heartbeats later, the last of the defenders reached the near end of the bridge. At that point, they calmed, most appearing to return to their right minds. With a few barked orders, the company regrouped and formed their lines again. Behind them, the city gate, which had opened to admit a few men as they retreated, closed and remained closed.

  Bevyn exhorted his men, calling to them to be men, to uphold their honor and their duty. Honor, as he well knew, would do none of them any good if they were dead, but his words seemed to achieve their goal. Before Valence’s men were halfway across the bridge, the defenders had created a solid wall of shields in front of the city gate, leaving forty feet of open space between them and the bridge for Valence’s men to fill.

  “That’s more like it,” Rhodri said, under his breath. “I’ve never seen my men run like that.”

  “They are outnumbered,” Lili said, though she wasn’t sure why she was defending them. She’d been surprised by their panic too.

  Valence’s men slowed as they approached the end of the bridge, those in the lead showing concern at the sudden discipline in their opponents and their near total silence. The press of men behind the leaders was too great, however—and victory too near—for them to stop. Gathering themselves again, they poured off the bridge in a rush, swords and axes raised high and faces contorted as they screamed their war cries to the skies.

  Bevyn’s men held their ground. They didn’t race to meet the oncoming soldiers, even though (as Lili thought about it) that might have been a better plan. A few men posted at the end of the bridge could have held it for a while, since Valence’s men couldn’t outflank them in so small a space. By that measure, Bevyn’s force outnumbered Valence’s three to one. But that hadn’t been Bevyn’s choice, and Lili shrugged her criticisms away. She raised her bow and aimed her first arrow at the foremost of Valence’s men, determined to take down the leader if she could. She took in a breath and held it. For a moment, battle—or at least the idea of it—held the two sides suspended, and then—

  Kaboom!

  Between one breath and the next, the bridge across the Thames River disintegrated, along with the two hundred men who’d been on it. Although Lili wasn’t close enough to the blast to be knocked flat, it shocked her enough that she might have fallen off the wall-walk if Carew hadn’t grabbed her around the waist and spun her back to safety. No wonder Bevyn had looked so confident, even triumphant, when she’d last looked into his face. She was annoyed that he hadn’t warned her about what he and Math had planned. She eyed Carew, who looked self-satisfied himself. “You knew? Why didn’t anyone tell me!”

  Rhodri was standing on the wall-walk with his mouth open.

  Carew glanced at him, and then at Lili. “I thought Math had told you.”

  She would take up her grievance with Math later, though it may well have been that each of the three men—Math, Carew, and Bevyn—had assumed that one of the others had revealed the plan to her. Lili shook her head to stop her ears from ringing and gazed at the carnage before her. Those of Valence’s men who’d crossed the bridge now found themselves caught between the city gate and the Thames, outnumbered, their hearing ruined by the blast, and pieces of the wooden bridge (and, horrifyingly, their companions too) falling from the sky.

  Bevyn’s men had known what was going to happen, even if Lili hadn’t, and in retrospect, their acting had been worthy of Easter mummers. They’d convinced Lili of their fear and equally of their change of heart, and though they must have been shocked by the force of the blast, their foreknowledge allowed them to recover more quickly than their enemy could. With a command from Bevyn, Windsor’s defenders attacked with a roar to match the confident one Valence’s men had cried when they’d seen the city before them and thought it lightly defended.

  Lili’s vantage point allowed her to look right down on the men as they fought She’d seen men and boys spar with wooden swords in courtyards of castles from here to Dolwyddelan, she’d fought at Painscastle, and been in skirmishes since, but she’d never seen hand-to-hand like this. It was a slaughter. Bevyn called up to her from below, but she was so focused on what she was seeing that she didn’t hear him until Carew touched her shoulder. “Lili, it’s time.”

  Bevyn waved at her. “Put the men to work, Lili.”

  Shaking her head to clear it, she raised her bow to draw the attention of the dozen archers along the wall-walk. “Pick your targets carefully! They’re packed in close down there, and we don’t want to hit our own men!”

  The archers nodded. They had heard Bevyn too, and were already getting ready. Taking Lili’s warning to heart, within a few moments they had begun loosing their arrows at soldiers coming out of the water on the other side of the Thames, as well as at the remainder of Valence’s army, still some two hundred at least, milling about on the far bank. Lili herself was picking her targets carefully on this side of the Thames, trying to relieve the pressure on the men defending the gate, which still needed defending.

  In order to achieve the maximum effect of the explosion, Bevyn had allowed fifty enemy soldiers to reach their side of the bridge before he blew it. Their swords and axes hadn’t dulled just because they were alone. If anything, they fought with greater ferocity.

  Lili focused on one large man with a thick beard and black hair. He seemed to have unusual strength and had cut down three of Bevyn’s men before they had time to raise their own axes. At the moment, he was fighting a man who’d lost his helmet. Lili stared at the soldier, recognizing the blonde head and fine features of Henry Percy. The boy had traded his pen for a sword, though Lili was stunned to find him fighting here and now, a novice among more experienced men.

  Before she could bring her bow to bear, the enemy fighter drove his axe at Henry with such force that he lost his sword. As Henry scrambled back, Lili loosed an arrow that missed the attacker’s head by inches, the arrow flying past him and landing in the mud of the riverbank.

  “No!” Lili hadn’t realized she had shouted until Carew’s voice came softly in her ear.

  “Focus, Lili. You have time.”

  She loosed a second arrow that took the man in the center of his mass. He fell, but as he did so, she caught sight of Percy on the ground nearby. She couldn’t tell in the torchlight if the blood on his tunic was his own or another’s. She leaned far over the edge of the battlement, her eyes searching, but then Carew hauled her back. “Keep shooting. Lord Rhodri and I will see to the boy.”

  “What? Yes, of course.” Rhodri followed Carew down the steps.

  Lili nodded, knowing—and maybe for the first time
believing—that her place was not in the press of men below. She forced the death before her out of her mind, along with her fear for Bevyn and Percy and Carew— and all the men whose wives and daughters would miss them if they didn’t return tonight—and returned her attention to picking off the last of Valence’s fighters. It had been only a quarter of an hour since the bridge had exploded, and the battle had become a rout. The few remaining of Valence’s company battling before the gate decided all at once that retreat was wiser than fighting and chose a quick dive in the Thames over death. Some of them could even swim.

  Another quarter of an hour and Lili was out of arrows. She turned away to search for the cart that held the extras when she was stopped in her tracks by Anna, who looked up at her from the bottom step, a grave expression on her face.

  “What is it? Does Henry Percy live?”

  “Carew and Rhodri got him out in time,” Anna said. “He lost blood, but we’ve sewn up his arm. He should be fine, particularly if the penicillin paste that I made to smear on wounds works. That’s not it.”

  “Then—” Lili’s almost stumbled down the steps in her haste, her heart leaping into her throat at the thought that something was wrong with Arthur.

  Anna caught Lili’s arms, holding on firmly. “Papa sent a pigeon from Cardiff. There was a storm in the Irish Sea. Humphrey de Bohun’s ship was driven back to Wales, but he fears that David’s ship went down.”

  Lili hands clenched around her bow. “It’s not true. It can’t be.”

  Anna moved in closer, holding onto Lili as if she would run away screaming if she didn’t. “Papa wouldn’t have sent the message if he didn’t think it could be true. We all know that anything can happen at night in a storm. David could arrive in Ireland in two days, safe. We’ll need to hear from Clare before we really worry.”