Crossroads in Time (The After Cilmeri Series)

by Sarah Woodbury

  Humphrey twitched, pain written in his face. William helped him to the remaining chair, with the Welsh soldiers moving aside in cordial silence. David didn’t know if they would have been quite as respectful if they knew Humphrey’s name. Humphrey let out a sigh as he sat. “Llelo was chained to me, up in the keep. The English commander found it amusing to put us together. I expect Llelo didn’t get the treatment he thought he deserved.”

  “We thought our captain was the traitor,” Madoc said.

  Another sigh from Humphrey. “Llelo killed your captain before he opened the gate.”

  “But you’re a Norman,” Madoc said. “We can’t trust you.”

  Humphrey pointed with his chin to David, who had returned to Lili’s side, his shoulder to hers and his arms folded across his chest. “You trust him, do you not?” Bohun said.

  Madoc eyed David, who returned his gaze with a mild one of his own. “And who are you?” Madoc said.

  “Dafydd ap Llywelyn, the Prince of Wales.” Clare stood at the bottom of the stairs again, one eye on the door above them. “And I suggest you do exactly as he says.”

  A wave of surprise coursed around the room. Men who’d been leaning against the wall straightened, and the two who’d found seats on the bench by the table stood.

  “My lord!” several of the men said, in unison. Everyone bowed, whether it was a quick nod of the head or a complete bend at the waist.

  David raised a hand in acknowledgement, not sure, even after all these years, that he would ever get used to men’s obeisance.

  Clare nodded, viewing their behavior as normal and expected. “We’re running out of time, my lord.”

  “At once.” David leaned in to Lili one more time. “Will you be okay if I leave you for a few minutes?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  David still hesitated, but as he looked at her, Lili’s eyes cleared. “Go. Do what you must. I will be waiting for you when you’re done.”

  David looked to Madoc. “Twenty-two able-bodied men can take back this castle, can they not?”

  The man’s shoulders went back. “Yes, my lord! The only reason those English bastards took it from us in the first place was because of the traitor, and a potion in our mead. The key is to get into the keep before they can hold it against us.”

  “And how would you do that?” David said.

  “If we clear out the barracks first, since we outnumber them and have the element of surprise, we can then make a run at the keep.”

  “We don’t need the keep,” David said. “We just need to contain those within it.”

  “True. But we should try,” Clare said. “I have a plan.”

  David swiveled on one heel to look into Clare’s determined face, and then back to Madoc. “Leave the keep to Clare and me.”

  “Some of us should go with you, surely,” Madoc said.

  “You’re supposed to be in a cell,” David said. “If you come, we lose that very element of surprise which will aid us. The English soldiers don’t know that Lord Clare is on our side or we wouldn’t be here.”

  “Is he on our side, my lord?” Madoc lowered his voice so it didn’t carry to the Norman lord.

  “He is today,” David said.

  “I suppose that’s what counts,” Madoc said. “I will do whatever you ask.”

  David turned to Lili. “Please stay here with William and Humphrey. Will you, for me?”

  “Yes, Dafydd,” she said.

  And David thought she really might.

  Clare waved a hand to David, indicating that he should come with him.

  “Give us a short head start,” David said to the men.

  David and Clare trotted up the stairs, followed immediately by the freed Welshmen. These men would wait until David and Clare had left the barracks, and then ambush the guards whom Clare would order to return to the guardroom. David and Clare took long strides down the short hallway that led to the mess hall, which still contained half a dozen soldiers. The front door to the barracks stood open.

  “They’re all yours,” Clare said as he headed for the door.

  “Yes, my lord,” one of the guards said. He tapped one of his fellow soldiers on the shoulder and they started down the hall towards the stairs.

  David assumed Madoc would do what needed doing and turned his attention to the keep. When he and Clare reached the porch of the barracks, they pulled up short. The bailey was completely deserted. “This can’t be right,” David said.

  “God smiles upon us,” Clare said. “Don’t question His blessings and follow my lead.”

  “You said you had a plan?” David said. Their boots sounded hollowly as they loped along the stone pathway through the bailey, across the bridge, and up the stairway to the keep.

  “No time to explain,” Clare said.

  Reluctantly, David gave way and pushed open the big double doors to the great hall, acting as Clare’s second-in-command. Clare nodded loftily at David’s gesture that Clare should precede him, and stepped first through the door.

  “Come with me now.” Clare’s voice echoed around the room. “I need to speak to you all together.”

  The man who’d greeted them in the bailey when they first arrived straightened from where he’d been leaning on the mantle by the fire, talking to another guardsman. “Everyone, my lord?”

  “Yes,” Clare said. “Now.”

  His voice held a timbre that men obeyed. The soldier shrugged and waved at the other three men in the room that they should accompany Clare.

  “Is anyone else in the keep?” Clare said.

  “No, my lord. We’re spread thin, as I said. The rest of my men are on the wall-walk or in the barracks.”

  “I will speak to them separately.” Clare urged the men to take the stairs ahead of him, with David bringing up the rear. They entered the second floor corridor and Clare pointed them to a room at the far end. “Go on inside.”

  The men obeyed, but Clare and David stopped in the doorway. The room held a bed with a plain, brown blanket and a trunk set under a thin slit of a window in the far wall. The captain’s face flashed concern when the knowledge that something wasn’t right hit him full force—before Clare slammed the door closed and dropped the bar. It was the only room in the hallway that locked from the outside. David wondered how Clare had known about it.

  “My lord!” The four men hammered on the other side of the door. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking over the castle,” Clare said, through the door. “Best make yourselves comfortable.”

  “We can’t watch the door,” David said. “And they’ll get through it eventually. One of them left his sword leaning against the table downstairs, but the others have their weapons on them.” David didn’t say what he was really thinking: that Clare’s plan was hardly a plan at all. He didn’t know that he’d have gone along with it if he’d known what it entailed.

  “I admit this is sloppy,” Clare said. “But we don’t need them contained long—just for the time it takes to subdue the rest of the garrison.”

  “We’d better split up,” David said. “I’ll have a look in the kitchen. I hope none of the servants are spies for the English. Perhaps you can make sure the captain didn’t count wrong and leave someone lurking at the top of the keep.”

  “Done.” Clare headed towards the ladder that jutted down from a trap door in the ceiling above their heads.

  David took the stairs at a fast trot, passed through the great hall, and then continued down a second flight of stairs into the kitchen. It took up the first floor of the keep and had its own doorway out the back.

  David caught the door jam to stop himself from hurtling into the room. Three servants and a cook looked up from their food preparation. “You are Welsh?” he said, without preamble.

  “Yes,” the cook said.

  “All of you?”

  “Yes.” The cook’s chin firmed. “And what are you doing with that Norman lord if you speak our tongue so well?”

  “H
e is with me,” David said, “not the other way around, and we are taking the castle back.” The cook’s mouth dropped open. David didn’t care to explain further, so he dashed past the cook to the rear door. He poked out his head and saw no one.

  “Wh-who are you?” the cook said.

  “Never mind that.” David drew back his head, blinking away the transition from bright sunshine to darker interior. “The English captain and three of his men are locked in a room on the upper floor, but the bar on the door won’t hold them long.”

  “There’s another solid door that separates the kitchen from the great hall,” the cook said.

  “That will keep you safe for a while. Bar it after me.” David threw the words over his shoulder as he took the stairs back up to the hall two at a time. When he reached the stairs to the upper floors, the door to the kitchen closed behind him and he heard the bar drop into place. Just then, a shout and a clash of swords came from above. The door had obviously not held the English soldiers for as long as Clare had hoped.

  David continued up the stairs, pulling out his sword as he hit the top step. The English soldiers had backed Clare into a corner, behind the ladder to the battlements. Clare held them off only because the space was so small only one man at a time could reach him.

  David’s feet pounded along the corridor. He reached the closest Englishman before the man realized he was coming and could marshal an effective counter. David skewered him through the gut. One down. The next soldier David confronted was the one without a sword, though he held a wicked-looking dagger.

  He edged away from David, which allowed one of his companions to turn from Clare, who had his hands full with the English captain. The two Englishmen closed in on David together, forcing him to back up. He pointed his sword from one to another, trying to look at both men at the same time. In unison, they pounced.

  David parried the sword of the first man, who swung so wildly he didn’t allow his companion to get the edge of his blade near David. Feeling he had very little time before this turned bad, David switched his sword to his left hand. Continuing to direct it at the first soldier, he rushed the one with the dagger. David’s armor deflected a poorly aimed blow as David hit the man with the heel of his right hand directly on the bridge of his nose.

  The man screamed and dropped his dagger, both hands over his face. He fell to the floor and onto his side, blood gushing from between his fingers. The move could have driven a bone into his brain and killed him. David had known that when he’d hit him, and had hit him anyway.

  The hallway was still too crowded, even if the sides were now even. Clare countered the English captain blow for blow. David faced the fourth English soldier, whose wide eyes flicked from David, to the exit at the end of the hallway, to the open door of the room behind him, which lay opposite the room with the splintered door that he and his companions had destroyed. It looked like one of the soldiers had put his boot through it.

  David stepped towards the man-at-arms, who took that instant to make up his mind. “No!” His voice hit a note David’s hadn’t reached in four years. The man leapt towards the room behind him and slammed the door shut. This door didn’t have a bar. David could have broken the latch with a hard thrust from his shoulder, but it was a better idea to take care of the English captain first.

  “Stand down!” David said, in English.

  The Englishman half-turned from Clare, his sword out to hold both Clare and David at bay. He backed towards the opposite corner.

  “Glad you could make it,” Clare said.

  “Glad you were still alive when I did,” David said.

  That was enough banter. “I was just coming down the ladder when they burst through the door,” Clare said. “I couldn’t get back up it and fight at the same time.”

  David lifted his chin to the Englishman. “Drop your weapon.”

  “No.”

  David sighed and flicked the point of his sword towards the trap door. “If you leave your sword here, I will not kill you. Take the steps up.”

  “What about my men?”

  “They will each make their own decision about whether to live or die,” David said. “They are no longer your responsibility.”

  “I’ll go.” He dropped his sword and moved towards the ladder. Before he could reach it, David stepped in, grabbed his arm and twisted it up behind his back while at the same time, putting his knee into the back of the man’s knee. The captain’s leg collapsed. A second later, David had him on the floor.

  Seeing what David had done, Clare stepped into one of the rooms and grabbed the sheet from the bed. He tore off a strip with his teeth and tied the man’s wrists behind his back. While Clare finished, David took a page from the captain’s book and put his boot into the door behind which the last soldier had hidden himself.

  “Don’t hurt me!” The man cowered on the floor, his hands over his head.

  David didn’t like to see any soldier so unmanned, but it didn’t change what he had to do. David grabbed him, wrestled him out the door, and onto the floor beside his captain.

  Then Lili appeared at the top of the stairs. “A rider has come from the south. From your father.”

  Clare looked up. “I wouldn’t have thought the King knew you were here?”

  “He doesn’t,” David said. “He must have sent the message for the castellan of Painscastle.” David placed a foot between the second man’s shoulder blades to keep him down while Clare tied his wrists. “Tell me, Lili.”

  “The English are moving in the south. He expects them to come across the Severn Estuary tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow!” David focused on Clare. “Could you return to the barracks and oversee what’s happening there? We need to hurry. My father needs me.”

  Clare nodded. He nudged the downed Englishmen with the toe of his boot. “Get up.” Neither could manage it from their present position, so David and Clare had to help them to their feet. With his sword out and prodding them in the back, Clare urged them down the corridor past Lili, who moved off the stairs to let them go by.

  For the moment, David and Lili were alone, except for the dead, of course.

  “Are you okay?” David took a step towards her.

  “I’m fine,” Lili said.

  David kept asking her that and she continued to give him the same answer, but he wasn’t sure if it was a true one. He fixed his gaze on her and as she met his eyes, her face crumpled. She ran forward. He spread his arms wide and she fell into them, weeping. He caught her up, his hand brushing at her hair to soothe her. “You’re safe with me,” he said, though the truth was, he felt like weeping himself.

  Years ago, when he’d first come to Wales, Anna had spoken to him of how killing would change him. She’d been right. He was changed. He knew it. He didn’t want that for Lili, even if she’d thought she wanted it for herself.

  “I know, I am.” Lili dried her tears on David’s cloak. “I’m sorry.” She tried to step away but David kept his arms around her.

  “Talk to me, Lili. I can’t go on like we have been. I love you.”

  “I know that, too, but I don’t know why you care for me, Dafydd.”

  David eased up on his grip so he could look into her eyes. “What on earth do you mean by that?”

  “I sent you away because I was afraid of losing you! It’s easier not to love you than to care so much my heart breaks every time you leave me.” Lili gripped his shoulders. “What kind of person am I that I would treat you that way?”

  “Cariad, there’s nothing wrong with you. I have a hole in me, too, that only you can fill.” He swept a tear off her cheek with thumb. “That’s what loving someone is all about.”

  Lili took in a deep breath and let it out. She bent her neck and pressed her forehead into his chest while her arms came around his waist. “Are you sure?” The words came out muffled.

  “I’m sure,” David said.

  Lili didn’t answer for a long moment, to the point that David wasn’t sure if he shou
ld say something more or not. And then Lili’s shoulders rose and fell once. She turned her head and rested her cheek against his chest, such that the underside of his chin rested on the top of her head.

  “It is my turn, I think,” Lili said, “to ask you to marry me.”

  David’s heart skipped a beat. He opened his mouth to accept—or to laugh—or even to shout, but Lili barreled on before he could. “But I’m out of my depth with your father. You said before that you’d marry me without his permission, and if that’s what you want, I want it too. If you want to wait until he changes his mind, I’ll wait with you. I won’t send you away again. All I ask is that you speak to him about us one more time to see if he will bend.”

  “Ah, Lili.” David lifted her chin with one finger and bent his head to hers, touching her forehead with his. “I already have.”

  Chapter 19

  26 August 1288

  Near Montgomery Castle

  Anna

  Anna kilted her skirts to free her legs, swung Cadell onto her back, and ran. Beside her, Maud panted, still holding onto Hugh’s hand, while up ahead, Edmund Mortimer’s long strides soon outpaced them. Anna didn’t have the breath to shout to him that she and Maud were getting too far behind—and wouldn’t have wanted to shout if it meant calling attention to them anyway. Fortunately, when Edmund crested a rise, following a narrow path between two trees, he stopped and waited for them.

  “Let me take the boy,” Edmund said.

  “That’s oka—”

  Before she could finish her denial, Edmund had lifted Cadell from her back and swung him onto his own. “Hold on tight.”

  Cadell obeyed, clutching Edmund around the neck. Anna rubbed Cadell’s back. It was so dark, she couldn’t see his face and she hoped he really was okay. He had never been frightened of strangers, and Anna didn’t know that she would even put Edmund into that category anymore, Norman or not.

  “The stables are just ahead.” Edmund trotted forward, Cadell bouncing on his back and the two women redoubling their efforts to keep up. He turned into what Anna would have called a driveway in her old world, with rail fences on either side, and then into a clearing in front of a long low building that had to be the stables.