Ashes of Time (The After Cilmeri Series)

by Sarah Woodbury

  With a nod from David, Ieuan left to take charge of the men who’d gathered here at Rhuddlan. He remained David’s right hand man among the troops the way Goronwy had been Dad’s before he’d become less able to ride. Dad filled the gap Goronwy had left with Cadwallon and others, like Carew and David, even if their counsel was available only occasionally. Dad had yet to find another companion as capable and trusted as Goronwy, and at this stage in his life, David didn’t expect him ever to do so.

  “Any who are able to ready themselves for battle within two hours should come with us. Those who come late can make their way to the muster at Maentwrog,” Dad said.

  “I’ll send out riders.” Cadwallon bowed and departed too, taking the wayward messenger with him.

  Cadwallon meant that he would be sending word to all the commotes in Gwynedd and Anglesey; the messengers would be shouting something akin to ‘the British are coming!’ in order to roust the common men and send them marching to Maentwrog. This ancient village was located at a ford of a river, far enough from Harlech that the troops could marshal there without being detected by those besieging the castle, but close enough that the march to Harlech wouldn’t exhaust them.

  Then Dad looked hard at David. “You will come to Harlech by way of Criccieth.” Criccieth was Dad’s castle on the southern Lleyn Peninsula, situated on a promontory at the seaside. It also happened to be where Mom had come through from the modern world the first time, and where she and Dad had met.

  Math rubbed at his chin. “You want him to arrive by sea?”

  “That doesn’t make sense.” David shook his head. “You need me and my men at Maentwrog—”

  Dad put up his hand. “Your safety is paramount, son. You are the King of England and upon you all our hopes rest. It is gratifying to know that were any danger to befall you on your journey across the sea, you would be kept safe.”

  Safe in the modern world, he meant. David ground his teeth and tried again. “I can bring the full force of England to bear against Madog. Surely—”

  “I am not in my dotage yet!”

  David put both hands up, palms out. “I didn’t say it. I didn’t even think it.”

  “Madog and Rhys challenge me now because they are thinking it,” Dad said. “My son may be the King of England, but if I run to you whenever I am challenged, from where does my authority arise?”

  David wasn’t going there, not in a million years. “I don’t see how sending me to Criccieth is going to help. It’s farther away. It will take longer.”

  “You will relieve Harlech with men and supplies from the sea,” Dad said.

  David stared at him. “You want me to handle the baggage? Not even to fight?”

  “There will be plenty of fighting to go around before the end, and you know it,” Dad said.

  Goronwy was glancing worriedly from David to his father. He cleared his throat and changed course. “We don’t know the full extent of Madog’s plan, sire. It might be to draw you from your seats of power, leaving Rhuddlan, Aber, and Dolwyddelan vulnerable.”

  “We will ride through Gwynedd, and anyone who opposes us will be swept away,” Dad said. “I’ve done it before.”

  “I know,” David said, and then shut his mouth on the rest of what he wanted to say before the conversation turned into a real argument. He would use the time between here and Caernarfon, where their forces would have to part, to dig a little deeper. David had fought in plenty of battles—with his father and without him. David sensed there was more to this decision than his father’s worry about his dotage or David’s safety.

  Dad nodded and turned to look at the map tacked to the wall. Math had opened his mouth to speak or argue, but David shook his head to stop him. “I’m just visiting, and for all that I am a prince of Wales, I know Gwynedd far less well than he. We’ll let it go for now.”

  Math chewed on his lower lip, clearly wanting to continue the conversation, but then he nodded. He and Goronwy stepped to Dad’s side to look at the map with him. Carew, Justin, and Samuel remained behind. Both Samuel and Justin spoke and understood Welsh, but David could hear them analyzing the plan in English.

  Carew spoke low to David. “It isn’t the best use of you. Anyone could sail from Criccieth to Harlech.”

  “I know that.”

  “For us to have just heard of Madog’s coming today, he must have force-marched his men through night and day,” Carew said. “With two castles already taken and Harlech under siege, Madog will have had to split his force. And his men will be tired.”

  David glanced to where his father was discussing the disposition of men with Math and Goronwy. “I won’t say you’re wrong.”

  Carew pressed his lips together as if he, too, wanted to discuss this more, but then he tipped his head towards the map, silently suggesting that they look at it with the others.

  David decided to pretend that their disagreement hadn’t happened. “Tudur, Clare, and Wynod should see about putting pressure on Rhys from the south.” Tudur was all the way in the southeast corner of Wales at Chepstow, but if Rhys took a few more castles, Tudur might find his lands threatened too. “If Rhys thinks he can send his sons up here to help Madog take what isn’t his, then he should face some of the consequences of his actions at Dryslwyn.”

  “I should have deprived Rhys of all his lands long ago,” Dad said.

  “You were making peace out of war at a time you could afford to be magnanimous,” Goronwy said. “You gave Dinefwr and Carreg Cennan to Wynod, a gift for which Rhys has never forgiven you. That, however, is his problem, not yours.”

  Dad growled, “It’s my problem now.”

  Math, meanwhile, traced the road leading to Harlech with one finger. “If I ride south from here, through the standing stones at Bwlch y Ddeufaen, and swing west to Dolwyddelan, gathering men to me as I come, I can meet you at Maentwrog in two days’ time.”

  “I will count on your coming.” Dad waved a dismissive hand, which all of the others took to indicate that they should depart, leaving David alone with his father. Dad moved to sit behind the table. Maybe he had meant to dismiss David too, but David didn’t go.

  And then David laughed inwardly. Nobody dismissed him anymore. He left only when he wanted to. He didn’t share the thought with his father, who was in a foul mood.

  David pulled one of the chairs beside Dad’s desk closer and sat in it, his elbows on his thighs and his head down. He was suddenly exhausted, which wouldn’t do at all. They had a long way still to go tonight.

  “Son.”

  The word was heavy with meaning. Maybe even with a bit of an apology on Dad’s part. David sat back in the chair with his elbows on the arms and his hands folded in front of his lips, looking at his father over them.

  “You look just like me when you sit like that,” Dad said.

  David didn’t move, glad to hear the affection in his father’s voice. “I’m concerned that Madog’s plan is about more than the taking of a few castles. You are concerned about it too.”

  “Valence haunts you still, two years on. Not everybody is as intelligent as he was.” Dad tucked his cloak closer around himself. The fire was dying, but no servant would dare to enter to stoke it if it meant interrupting this meeting.

  “I don’t deny it.” David rose to his feet and tossed a few more logs on the fire.

  “Valence was in a class above Madog, who is ten years older than you and still untested.” Dad looked David up and down. “Scrawny too, in comparison.”

  “It is my experience that intelligence and size can be inversely proportional.”

  Dad chuckled. “I have no idea what you just said. I can tell you that Madog has had to borrow men from Rhys. He’s a tool, nothing more, getting his hands dirty so Rhys doesn’t have to.”

  “What about Rhys?” David said.

  Dad made a face that said maybe. “We can guess what else might happen tomorrow or next week, but we must address what faces us today. Quickly. I told the hall that we were prepared
for this war and had a plan, but the truth is that Madog has caught us on the hop.”

  “You only half lied,” David said. “We do have a plan. We just hadn’t come up with it yet.”

  Dad tipped back his head and laughed. “Oh, how I’ve missed you, son.” Then he sobered. “I still think what I said earlier today is true: this war could be a blessing in disguise.”

  “You mean my plan to create a united Britain?” David said.

  “It begins here,” Dad said. “When we crush Madog and Rhys, we show every lord in England and Wales that what happened to Valence was not a one-time thing—that you and I are willing to do whatever it takes to keep the peace and maintain the unity of our country.” He gazed at David through a count of ten. “And then, if all goes well, we give our power away.”

  Chapter Seven

  November 2019

  Anna

  While Mom seemed so calm and matter-of-fact about the time traveling thing and Anna was trying to follow her lead, it wasn’t really working. Her initial adrenaline had carried her through their arrival and down the hill to the road. It had been cold outside, but Anna hadn’t realized that she was frozen all the way through until Star handed her a blanket and Jim turned the heater on high.

  She’d sat in the back of Jim’s truck and shivered—with fear and anticipation and the shock at having survived the bout with time travel at all. The whole day kept playing like a movie reel in her mind. She still hadn’t come to terms with Marty’s betrayal, much less their arrival in Oregon, followed by the sudden appearance of Cassie and Callum.

  Anna wanted Math. She wanted her boys. For the first time, Anna truly understood what it must have been like for Mom when Aunt Elisa called to tell her that Anna and David were missing. It was as if fate had ripped out Mom’s heart, thrown it onto the floor, and stomped on it. Mom had been forced to live alone for a year and a half. It must have been unbearable. And yet, she’d had to bear it. Anna wanted to be as strong as her mother, but she didn’t know that she could be.

  Anna looked to the front of the truck where Mom had found a seat between Art and Callum. Anna was in the back with Cassie, who’d given Anna her gloves, but Anna’s hands still weren’t warm, and she tucked them between her thighs. Art started the truck and drove away from the store—in total silence. After the initial rush of joy at being reunited, none of them knew what to say to each other. Anna certainly didn’t.

  Cassie and Anna hadn’t spent as much time together as Anna would have liked. Callum was the Earl of Shrewsbury and David’s advisor, which meant that he traveled a lot. Because Cassie was married to Callum, she traveled with him. It had been more than two years since David had returned to the Middle Ages without them, and Anna was a little worried that Cassie might have become a different person.

  But then Cassie glanced at Anna, her eyes bright, and Anna knew it was going to be okay. “How have you been?” the two women said together.

  Everyone laughed, and the tension evaporated. Anna rested her head back against the seat.

  “Tell us how you got here,” Cassie said.

  Art drove down a long, straight road while Mom related the events of the afternoon so far.

  Cassie squeezed Anna’s hand. “You must have been terrified!”

  “I was,” Anna said. “Even so, I’m sorry Marty died. If he’d been able to hold on to me, he would have come with us.”

  “You’re a very nice person, Anna,” Mom said. “I would never have wished him dead, but I’m still too angry at him to mourn him.”

  “From your description of what he did to you, Meg,” Callum said, “he’d become a better man in Scotland than he’d ever been before.”

  “Maybe he’s not dead,” Cassie said.

  “He fell from the top of a tower at Rhuddlan,” Mom said. “I can’t see anyone surviving the fall.”

  “And then there was that scream he let out,” Anna said. “Do you think one of the archers got him, Mom?”

  Mom shrugged, but she turned in her seat and caught Anna’s eye. Yeah, she thought so too.

  “Happy Thanksgiving,” Cassie said, deadpan.

  Mom turned back to face the front. “Is that what brought you two to Oregon?”

  “We’ve come every year since we came back to this world,” Cassie said. “Given what’s going on with our jobs, it seemed especially important to be here this year.”

  “Your jobs?” Mom said. “David is going to want to know all about what happened after he left.”

  “Good things happened at first,” Callum said. “If you’d arrived a year ago, you would have found a very different situation from what faced you and Llywelyn—and David too. Unfortunately, with recent budget cuts—

  “—my job ends December 1st,” Cassie put in.

  “—we’ve been trying to come up with a way to still be here for you when you needed us even if we’ve been sacked,” Callum finished.

  Anna leaned forward. “What exactly are you talking about? What do budget cuts have to do with our traveling?”

  Callum shifted in his seat so he could look at Mom and Anna at the same time and gave a two minute summary of what had happened to him and Cassie after David returned to the medieval world.

  “You wouldn’t believe what it took to bring me to life again, legally speaking. It was only all resolved—” Cassie glanced at Callum, “—what, nine months ago?”

  Callum nodded.

  Art hadn’t said a word the whole drive, but he spoke now. “Now that your friends are here, if you disappear again, I won’t let anyone declare you dead.”

  Cassie froze, and Anna took a moment to absorb that comment. It meant that Callum and Cassie might want to return to the Middle Ages with them when they went.

  “Thank you, Grandfather,” Cassie said softly. Callum’s arm had been lying along the top edge of the front seat behind Mom’s head, and he moved his hand so he could grasp Cassie’s hand.

  “I’m sorry your jobs haven’t worked out,” Mom said.

  Cassie shrugged. “Your appearance today may change everything.”

  Mom frowned. “Are we going to find MI-5 agents beating down the door?”

  “At the moment, Mark Jones is the only agent who knows you’re here,” Callum said.

  “We’re hoping it stays that way,” Cassie said.

  “But how long we can keep it a secret, I don’t know,” Callum said. “Our colleagues in the CIA pulled out a year ago. They may have their own people on this, but if they continued the Project, they did it without telling us.”

  “The CIA can’t work inside the United States,” Anna said.

  Callum gave her a completely blank look.

  “That’s—that’s the law, right?” Anna said.

  Cassie gave a brief laugh that was more of a scoff. “I’m not sure we can count on strict adherence to the law. Your arrival here would be counted as one of those ‘drop everything’ events if Callum’s office had anything to drop.”

  “But you’re right,” Callum said. “Neither the CIA, MI-5, nor my office have jurisdiction inside the United States. I have no authority to act, either to take you in or to let you go.”

  “That’s convenient,” said Mom.

  “It is, isn’t it?” Cassie grinned. “It means we are currently acting as concerned citizens only, helping friends in need. Whether Callum would be remiss in not reporting your presence is something that he can debate with his boss when we get back to Wales.”

  “Who’s your boss?” Anna said to Callum.

  “It was the Prime Minister himself,” he said. “Unfortunately, the man now in office is not the same one who was in power two years ago, which is largely the reason for our budget cuts. He has different priorities. That and the worldwide economic downturn.”

  In medieval Wales, Anna gave zero thought to how this world was turning out, beyond hoping Cassie and Callum were okay. A ‘worldwide economic downturn’ and its consequences just wasn’t something she had ever felt the need to think about.


  “But he’s not your boss now?” Mom said.

  “We are being reincorporated back into MI-5,” Callum said. “A man named Tate is the new director.”

  “So you’re not going to tell either of them that we’re here?” Mom said.

  “Not yet,” Callum said. “For two reasons, and the first has nothing to do with you at all. The British government has been facing a series of internal crises since Cassie and I returned. Over the last six months, the problems have escalated. There have been bombings, protests, and general unrest, culminating in the destruction of the GCHQ about an hour ago. It’s—” He broke off and shook his head.

  “It’s a mess, is what it is,” Cassie said. “This may be only the beginning too.”

  Anna looked from Cassie to Callum. “Did people die?”

  Callum nodded, his face drawn. “I don’t know what we’re going to find when we get back.”

  “I’m sorry,” Anna said.

  Mom made a sympathetic noise too. “And the second reason?”

  Callum took in a deep breath. “Well, it’s past one in the morning in England, and since we’re all here in Oregon, it isn’t as if I can bring you into the Prime Minister’s office as proof that time travel really exists.”

  “Oh, I get it now,” Anna said. “He doesn’t believe what we can do is real.”

  “He does not,” Cassie said.

  “Well, good for us,” Mom said. “That leaves only our own government to worry about.”

  “And it just so happens that it’s Thanksgiving,” Cassie said, beaming. “Nobody’s watching.”

  That made Anna feel a little bit better about being here. Mom and Dad’s journey across Wales and David’s imprisonment the following year had been haunting Anna from the moment she opened her eyes to find she and Mom were in the modern world. Anna had grown up in Portland, but even at the oblivious age of seventeen, she’d known how neglected these small communities were, with little in the way of infrastructure, including poor to nonexistent cell phone coverage or internet. While a big city might provide anonymity, a small, friendly town might close ranks around them. Plus, it had less surveillance.