Outpost in Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  “Why did you offer me my life?”

  “Where were you born?” Gilla said.

  The guard hesitated, clearly wondering why Gilla was asking. “In a hamlet near Dublin.”

  “I was born thirty miles away,” Gilla said. “Why do I have more right to be here than you?”

  “You sound like David,” the guard blurted out.

  William was also shocked to hear an Irishman saying such a thing. It would be like a Welshman welcoming a Norman to Wales. Or a Jew. Then he paused and took a breath, realizing that’s exactly what King Llywelyn had done. And King David too. And they’d done it over and over again until people had started to believe that they actually meant what they said.

  “Do I?” Gilla said. “Good. I meant to.”

  Could that be what Gilla and Huw had been trying to tell him? Gilla had said that he was afraid, and yet he’d entered the guardroom with casual aplomb, accepting the death of one enemy at the hands of his son and offering another his life despite fear of failure, of losing his family’s lands and honors, of making the wrong choices. For the first time, William saw his father’s act of giving him up to David in a new light.

  It might actually mean that his father loved him.

  Chapter Thirty

  Roscommon Castle

  Christopher

  What Christopher had neglected to mention to anyone before hiding in this closet was that he was not extraordinarily fond of tight spaces. Maybe he hadn’t really known it until now. David had once told him about fitting his entire guard, full armor and all, into Christopher’s mom’s minivan. David had laughed as he’d told the story, but Christopher couldn’t think about his mom’s minivan without feeling ill at the memory of that awful day when David and Anna had disappeared.

  Everyone was uncomfortable here too—and they’d been so for the last six hours, ever since the castle had surrendered at sunset, making it now nearly midnight. Clare and O’Rourke hadn’t liked waiting all day for the castle, but the deal was so good, they’d agreed. The castellan had arranged for the delay out of fear that the men with Christopher wouldn’t be able to bear being in the cupboard for longer than six hours. They’d been unable to see anything in the near total darkness, and were forbidden to speak, cough, or eat for fear of being found out. They dared to drink only enough water to wet the tongue out of fear of needing to pee. At times they’d managed to shift position—moving from a standing position to a crouch—but the closet was all of three feet deep, which didn’t leave a lot of room for stretching. Mostly, they sweated.

  The stakes were as high today as they’d been for David in his minivan too. Then, he’d been moments away from being caught by the English. David had been younger that day than Christopher was now, though more experienced in war. As Christopher eased out a breath and put an ear to the wall in front of him to listen for footfalls, he acknowledged that he was gaining experience by the second.

  Felimid touched Christopher’s arm. They were pressed so close together that he’d needed to move his fingers less than an inch to reach him. “My lord, it’s time.”

  “Thank God.” Christopher tapped the shoulder of the man next to him, who was crouched in front of the entrance to the hiding place. In order to get in here, they’d had to crawl through a cupboard, part of a ten-foot-wide and eight-foot-tall wardrobe that took up the side wall of the vestry. It was like one of those do-it-yourself closets you could buy from Ikea, except this one had been built by hand in solid oak instead of pressboard.

  The man slid aside the back panel of the cupboard. Though Christopher couldn’t see them from where he was standing, altar cloths were stacked in the opening, put there to convince Clare’s men that nothing untoward was going on behind the back wall. As it turned out, they’d been in little danger of discovery except for one minute when a guard had desultorily opened the cupboards only to anticlimactically close them again. That had been hours ago.

  The first man crawled through the hole, followed by two more, before Christopher could sidle sideways and get on his hands and knees himself. Once in the vestry, he wiped the sweat from his brow. Six armored men in a closet heated things up pretty quickly, and it was a relief to breathe the cool, fresh air of the church.

  “This way. Let’s hope everyone’s drunk like they’re supposed to be.” Felimid opened the vestry door, which led directly into the priest’s house, a one-room affair that was as empty as the church. If only everything else about the night went as well. The priest himself had argued that, even with the changing ownership of the castle, he should stay behind, but Hugh had convinced him that nothing could be more foolish. Clare and O’Rourke would expect him to go, and the last thing they wanted to do was anything unexpected.

  Aine had suggested that they poison the food and drink before they left. It was a good idea, but Hugh had decided that it posed too much risk. Those who didn’t partake would notice that something was wrong with their companions, and Clare would realize that there was treachery afoot. For that same reason, they hadn’t left two parties of men behind, even though, despite Christopher’s warnings, Hugh had thought the latrine idea was an excellent one. Their sole mission was to open the main gate. Six men would have to be enough.

  Unfortunately, the chapel was located on the exact opposite side of the bailey from the front gate, which meant they had to cross the inner ward to get there. At least it was still raining, so they didn’t have to watch every step. With no cameras to avoid, their primary concern was evading the guards. The first test came at the approach to the rear gate, which led to the dock by which the majority of the castle’s inhabitants had escaped the previous night.

  They’d gone over their plan a dozen times before entering the cupboard, but for some reason it hadn’t occurred to Felimid or his father that the door to the guardroom at the base of the tower might be left open. A square of light shone on the ground at the base of the steps. Felimid and Christopher looked at each other, debating whether to go ahead and kill the guards or to attempt to evade detection.

  Christopher made a circling motion with his hand and whispered in Felimid’s ear: “They have no night vision.” It would be stupid to try to kill every guard on duty. Better to simply pass on by.

  Felimid nodded and set off first, avoiding the square of light and the puddle it illumined. Christopher took up the rear. Taking a cue from Callum, with whom he’d trained for a time, he kept his focus behind him, walking backwards every few yards to make sure that they weren’t spotted.

  They skirted the craft halls and stables on the inside perimeter of the curtain wall, all the while blessing the smothering darkness outside the circle of the torchlights on the walls and the rain that was keeping everyone inside.

  Ten yards from the gatehouse, their luck ran out. Christopher heard a man say in English, “Who are—”

  Being in the rear, Christopher could see very little, but he couldn’t miss the indrawn breath of recognition on the part of the two soldiers who’d come out of the barracks. The first died on Felimid’s blade, and the second was brought to the stones of the bailey with a thud and a crunch, underneath the weight of one of Hugh’s men-at-arms, a man named Sean. They’d considered not including him tonight because of his bulk and the tight conditions of the hidden closet, but Hugh had insisted that he was his best man in a fight. After that display, Christopher had no cause to doubt.

  For all that Felimid appeared to be an accomplished warrior, he still hadn’t moved from his position above the body of the man he’d killed. Christopher bent to grab the dead man’s ankles. “It’s okay, Felimid,” he said, though it really wasn’t and never could be. “We need to move the body.”

  After another moment’s hesitation, Felimid came to his senses, reaching down to lift the man by the arms, and two more men came to help. They dumped the body between two nearby huts. If Hugh had still been in residence, the huts would have held sleeping craft workers, but they’d all gone, either in the first wave or (to bolster the authentic
ity of the deception) that evening when the castle had surrendered to Clare, the entirety of which Christopher had missed, since he’d been hidden in the closet.

  Christopher couldn’t believe that Felimid had never killed a man before, but he still seemed to be catching his breath, so Christopher clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Come on.”

  He took the front position now and led the way towards the front of the castle, keeping as close to the shadows as he could until they were actually approaching the gatehouse of the inner ward. Squatting to stay out of anyone’s line of sight, he peeked around the corner. It was after midnight, but the portcullis was up and the door open, undoubtedly to facilitate movement within the confines of the castle itself. Beyond the inner gatehouse lay the outer ward and the gatehouse that fronted the moat. Unlike when Christopher and Aine had arrived, that portcullis there was down and the great wooden door closed, just as they’d expected them to be.

  Two men stood together twenty yards away in the gatehouse archway.

  Christopher pulled back his head, muttering, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”

  “What?” Felimid asked under his breath.

  “Just something someone said.” Christopher leaned his head back against the wall. They were slightly sheltered from the rain here, and all five of Hugh’s men were lined up beside Christopher to his left. An ache in Christopher’s belly told him that a lot more than five men were going to die before they were done, and he prayed that they wouldn’t be his five. But he couldn’t change the plan now, and if they failed to open the main gate and the portcullis, they were all dead anyway.

  “Remember that the armory is on the right, the guardroom on the left,” Felimid said. “We’ll need to take out those guards first so they can’t lock us out of the inner ward.”

  Christopher nodded. “Some of the men who took the castle should be Englishmen, right?”

  “Should be.”

  It was bad to make assumptions, especially today when they had no idea who was really allied with whom, but sometimes you had to. “Okay. I’m going to pretend to be drunk and walk right up to them. I’ll distract them while a couple of you get to this guardroom. Once the men in there are down, we’ll need to take care of the guards at the outer gatehouse. You’re just going to have to kill everyone.”

  “I know.” Felimid’s grip tightened on the sword in his hand.

  “And you have to put that away for the moment, or you’ll give the game away,” Christopher said.

  “They’re going to know you’re not one of them,” Felimid said.

  “Probably, but it’s dark, and hopefully I won’t have to fool them for more than a few seconds.” Seconds wasn’t a word used in English much yet, though the twenty-firsters used it all the time. Christopher thought Felimid could figure out what he meant.

  While Felimid dried his sword on his cloak and sheathed it, Christopher checked around the corner again. The second soldier had gone back inside, leaving just one still in the gateway. A huge relief. Thankful that in real life, a sword or knife made no sound when it was drawn, he pulled his belt knife from the sheath at his waist and stood. Taking a breath, he stepped into the archway—and immediately lost his footing because he’d stepped on an uneven stone he couldn’t see in the dark.

  Christopher staggered to the left, throwing out a hand for balance, and though he righted himself, he couldn’t have looked more drunk. Taking courage from the fortuitous mistake, he continued to weave towards the guard, adding to the deception by launching into a sea shanty he’d learned from some of the men in David’s company. He found it easier to mimic the medieval English accent when he was singing—because he was just parroting the song—than when he was talking.

  Go to the helm!

  What ho! no near!

  Steward, fellow! a pot of beer!

  Ye shall have, Sir, with good cheer,

  Anon all of the best.

  Christopher’s voice was nothing like David’s, which was perhaps one of the reasons the guard waved his hand, trying to get him to stop. Belatedly, Christopher realized that it might not have been wise to sing, even in such a mumbling tone, since his voice echoed around the stones of the gatehouse. He could only hope that he was also distracting the guard from the movement of his companions towards the guardroom.

  Whatever the guard’s objection, he hastened forward, making shushing sounds. As he approached, Christopher put a hand out to his shoulder, implying that he needed to steady himself, and then he drove the knife he held in his right hand into the guard’s chest. He died right there at Christopher’s feet, just as the man at Drumconrath had done.

  There couldn’t have been many guards in the guardroom, because Felimid’s men were inside for only thirty seconds before three of them were back, passing Christopher and heading for the outer gatehouse. Christopher dragged the dead man into the shadow of a side wall, and then he followed, not to the other guardroom but to the winch that controlled the portcullis. Breathlessly, he began winding it up. Hugh had assured him that it was well balanced and that one man could do it alone.

  Once it was up, he wound the rope tightly around the grommet, knotted it, and yanked on it so it would stay. All someone would have to do to drop it again was untie it or cut the rope. That was why the men in the guardrooms had to be taken care of as quickly as possible, to prevent them from sounding the alarm or dropping the defenses again.

  Next Christopher ran to the gate, which was blocked by a wooden bar the width of his thigh. Again, this defense needed only one man to open it, but a second later there were two, because Sean, the big man-at-arms, was beside him, and he lifted the bar out of its cradle as if it were a twig. While Sean pushed the door open, Christopher grabbed a torch from a sconce on the wall and ran out the gate with it into the wind and rain. The drawbridge, the last defense of the castle, was still down. Christopher stood in the center of the bridge and waved the torch above his head.

  He didn’t know how Hugh had gotten his men so close without anyone on the battlements knowing, but all of a sudden there they were—and included more than the hundred or so fighting men he’d had when Christopher had last seen him. Hugh had called the men of the countryside to him, and they had come.

  They filed past Christopher, their boots thudding on the wood of the drawbridge but otherwise making no other sound—or not one that could be heard over the rain. Once inside, they split into pre-arranged companies. Christopher had turned his head to watch them enter the castle, so he didn’t realize Hugh was beside him until he felt the king’s hand on his shoulder.

  “Thank you, Hero of Connaught.”

  And then he was past, and the fight was truly on.

  Christopher stayed where he was. The rain drummed on his head, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want to fight anymore, and, in that moment, he didn’t see why he should. All of Hugh’s men were inside the castle. Christopher’s inexperienced sword wouldn’t make any difference at all. He heard the moment Clare’s men raised the alarm, however, and realized that he needed to do something other than stand on the drawbridge. Someone could drop the portcullis and lock him out.

  He hurried back the way he’d come, but instead of entering the inner ward, he decided to see what had become of Felimid, whom he hadn’t seen leave that first guardroom. He was anxious all of a sudden about the fate of the man with whom he’d spent the last six hours.

  Only two remained inside: Felimid and Padric, the youngest of the five. Felimid’s right arm hung uselessly at his side, and he was sitting on the edge of a table, cursing the wound while Padric tried to bandage it.

  At the scrape of Christopher’s boot on the threshold, both men turned to look, weapons at the ready, though Felimid’s sword was in his left hand. Christopher waved, and Felimid sat back down on the table. His face was incredibly pale, but he jerked his chin at Padric. “Find out what’s happening, will you?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Sword in hand, Padric left the guardroo
m, and Christopher closed the door behind him, not wanting to be surprised by a stray soldier from Clare’s army. “Let me get that.” He continued where Padric had left off, wrapping the bandage twice more around Felimid’s upper arm and then tying it off.

  Felimid grimaced, but accepted the help from Christopher with more patience than he’d been showing Padric. “You’ve put my father in quite a bind.”

  Christopher stepped back, surveying his handiwork and only half listening. “How is that?”

  “He’s going to have to fight for your David now.”

  That got Christopher’s attention. “He already said he would.”

  A look of surprise crossed Felimid’s face before his eyes narrowed. “You can’t be that naïve.”

  Christopher looked down at his hands. They were covered in blood, as much from Felimid’s wound as from the man he’d killed. Felimid was right that he was naïve. He had taken Hugh at face value. He’d killed for him—and for David—because of it.

  Then the door to the guardroom swung open, revealing the King of Connaught himself. “Where’s Thomas de Clare?”

  Christopher spread his hands wide. “I haven’t seen him.”

  “Nobody has.” Hugh swore loud and long. “His men are dead, but somehow he got away.”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  South of Dublin

  15 March 1294

  Callum

  “This is a trick!” Aymer de Valence’s face was red with fury as he shouted at Niall MacMurrough.

  A guard shoved Callum from behind so he landed on his knees and almost fell forward onto his face. Since his hands were tied behind his back, he couldn’t catch himself.

  Aymer was still in full spate. “David is unworthy to lick my boots! He murdered my father! If we march to Tara, his armies will turn on us!” He swore and kicked a camp stool so it soared across the tent and hit a side wall.