Ashes of Time (The After Cilmeri Series)

by Sarah Woodbury

  Chapter Twenty-one

  November 1291

  Callum

  While the bus had been crossing that black expanse, Callum had spared a single moment for regret. But almost immediately his sense of responsibility had kicked in, along with an unexpected wild and irrepressible joy. The feeling had startled him with its intensity and left no time for fear. He hadn’t admitted until the bus crashed into the battlefield how very much he’d missed the Middle Ages.

  He wasn’t much pleased about arriving in a bus full of modern people, however. The others were trying to be matter-of-fact about it, but that was going to take them only so far. There were elderly people on the bus, college students, and obnoxious Americans. Callum counted six kids ranging in age from three to fifteen. Anna and Bronwen, wherever she was at the moment, were going to have their hands full dealing with whatever medical issues they’d brought with them.

  And they had just given David yet another headache he didn’t need.

  Callum hadn’t even begun to think about what he’d left behind in Cardiff: a destroyed courthouse and City Hall; MI-5 and the Project in disarray; and a world blown all to hell. He had meant to leave it behind, but not like this. He’d meant to say goodbye.

  With the help of Samuel, who was larger even than Mike, Jeffries and Cobb dragged the ugly American out of the bus. The dead men who lay not only under the bus but all around it had the desired effect of shutting Mike up the instant he saw them.

  As they hauled him across the field to where Ieuan and some of his men had corralled those of Madog’s men who weren’t overtly injured, Callum took the opportunity to quiz Cobb about his credentials. As it turned out, he’d served in Callum’s former unit and was coming off a stint in the Middle East. He peripherally knew Jeffries. That shouldn’t have been surprising since the community of veterans in Cardiff was small.

  Madog’s men sat in rows with their hands on their heads. The fog that had covered everything twenty minutes ago was burning off, leaving mist behind. Heedless of the wet grass, they plunked Mike down at the end of one row. Samuel stood over him. He’d taken up his role as Callum’s lieutenant without missing a beat, though his eyes had a wild look to them that belied his calm exterior.

  “Who’s this?” Ieuan gestured to Mike. He hadn’t blinked at the appearance of Cobb or Jeffries. Callum wouldn’t have blamed Ieuan if he’d at least wondered more about Jeffries, whose coloring was rare indeed in medieval Wales.

  “His name is Mike,” Callum said, clasping Ieuan’s proffered forearm and clapping him on the shoulder with his other hand.

  Ieuan raised his eyebrows.

  “That’s all I know about him except that he spoke insultingly to Anna and Meg and implied that he might hit them.”

  That prompted a growl of anger from Ieuan, as Callum knew it would.

  In the past, Ieuan and Callum had communicated in a hodgepodge of English and Welsh but, in Callum’s absence, Ieuan’s Middle English had become a thousand times better than Callum’s Welsh. Now, for the benefit of Jeffries and Cobb, Callum switched temporarily to modern English. “Lord Ieuan is one of King David’s chief advisors and his wife’s brother.”

  “What language were you speaking with him?” Cobb said.

  “That’s 1291 English,” Callum said.

  Cobb’s face blanched, but then he got his expression under control. His hands went behind his back. Callum recognized the stance immediately. Cobb had just put on his mission face.

  Callum nodded his understanding. “This is just another mission. Treat it as such.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cobb said.

  Though Callum had harbored doubts about Jeffries, his fellow agent had been in the game from the moment he and Callum had abandoned his car, so Callum kept his gaze on Cobb. “You could return to the bus now if you like, or you could stay with me. I myself am an advisor to the king and must speak to him now that we’ve dealt with Mike.”

  “Was King David the kid who got on the bus right after it crashed?” Cobb said.

  “Yes,” Callum said, “and he hasn’t been a kid for a long time.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cobb said. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll stick.”

  Before turning away, Callum lifted a hand to Ieuan. “I can’t tell you how good it is to see you.”

  “Glad to have you back where you belong,” Ieuan said. “Where’s my pizza?”

  Callum laughed. “We didn’t bring any with us, but we did bring the next best thing: ingredients. By next year, you might be able to make your own.”

  Ieuan smiled. “I’ll hold you to that.”

  Callum stepped close to Samuel. “While I confer with the king, could you go back to the bus? Cassie is there with Queen Meg and Princess Anna. I’d like someone I can trust protecting them. With all this—” he gestured to the chaos of the battlefield, “—anything could happen.”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  Callum gripped Samuel’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you, Samuel.”

  Samuel brought his hand up and gripped Callum’s upper arm, neither man finding it possible to speak.

  Callum cleared his throat and turned back to Cobb and Jeffries, who’d been following their conversation without comprehension. “Come with me, both of you.”

  Mike had been watching them too, though they’d all moved too far away for him to hear what they’d been saying. Now, he called out, “What about me? You can’t leave me here!”

  Callum looked back at him. “Before long, you will be given the opportunity to rejoin your companions from the bus. In the meantime, I suggest you consider your behavior and modify it to reflect your current circumstances.”

  Mike’s expression grew confused.

  Jeffries leaned in. “I’m not sure he understood what you said, sir.”

  “He’ll learn, or he won’t,” Callum said.

  Cobb, Jeffries, and Callum strode across the stubble field towards David, who was meeting with Carew and Math. David saw him coming, and even though they’d greeted each other earlier, David took two steps towards Callum and then embraced him, lifting him off his feet in the process, which was no small feat.

  Carew and Math came after him, grinning too.

  “I hadn’t realized what a calming influence on our young king you’d had until you’d gone,” Carew said, clasping Callum’s forearm in greeting. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “It’s good to be back.” As Callum spoke to Carew, he glanced out of the corner of his eye at David. Math, of course, knew that David was from the twenty-first century. Ieuan had been there. But Carew wasn’t yet party to that level of truth. And then Callum decided that it didn’t matter that he wasn’t. Whether they called the place they’d come from the twenty-first century or Avalon, it was a different world. It might as well be Avalon. The double-decker bus sitting in the middle of the field was proof enough of that. Callum could feel it rising up behind him, drawing everyone’s eyes, even as they directed them away again, as if they were having trouble looking directly at it.

  Putting a brave face on what had to pass for the truth, Callum looked at it with Carew. David, however, was looking at Cobb and Jeffries. Callum had forgotten them in the few moments it had taken to greet David.

  He gestured with one hand. “Sire, may I introduce you to Peter Cobb and Darren Jeffries.”

  David stuck out his hand to each man in turn, and they shook. “Sir,” they both said.

  “Sire,” Callum corrected them. “‘My lord’ in a pinch.”

  They bowed their heads and repeated in unison, “Sire.”

  David smirked and clapped each man on the shoulder. “You’ll do just fine.” He looked past them to the bus. “I can’t say the same about everyone else.”

  “We put one of the Americans—Mike—with Madog’ defeated soldiers,” Callum said. “I’m hoping it will force some sense into him.”

  “What about those guys?” David pointed to where Anna, wearing jeans and the purple parka she’d bor
rowed from Cassie’s aunt, was conferring with three modern people and three medieval people.

  “Those are medical people.” Callum decided not to worry about what people might think about the oddity of Anna’s clothing.

  And then he had more important concerns.

  Three riders appeared from over a rise at the south end of the field. David wasn’t wearing his helmet with its red plume, but the lead rider must have recognized him even from that distance because he made a beeline towards him. “What’s this?” Callum stepped in front of David, automatically resuming his role of protector.

  David put a hand on his shoulder. “Harlech, I hope.”

  Callum gave him a questioning look. He hadn’t known there was a problem with Harlech, but the messenger soon answered his unspoken question before David had to.

  “Sire!” The lead rider threw himself off his horse and went down on one knee before David. “I bring word from Harlech. We are besieged by—” His mouth dropped open as he finally noticed the great looming bus behind the king.

  “By Madog ap Llywelyn,” Carew said dryly. “We know.”

  “Did Sir Evan send you?” David said.

  The man managed to get his expression under control, though his eyes kept straying towards the bus. “Yes, my lord. He requests aid to relieve the siege.”

  David frowned. “Has there been no sign of the messengers we sent to you?”

  “I left Harlech by sea in the night,” the man said. “We had not received word from you by then.”

  “That’s no surprise, I suppose.” Math bent his head to the man, who remained kneeling because David hadn’t given him leave to rise. “Are our men mustering at Maentwrog?”

  “Yes, my lord. We rested briefly there. They are waiting for the king.”

  By ‘king’, he meant Llywelyn, not David. Callum felt the medieval world settling in around him once again. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been gone for two years, but more that he’d put on an old shirt that he’d unearthed from the bottom of a trunk. It was foreign and familiar at the same time.

  David surveyed the field. “It might feel like this war is over, but it isn’t. We need to gather every man capable of riding.”

  Nobody questioned that decision, even with the long night they must already have had to have fought a battle here at dawn.

  Carew dismissed the messenger and his companions with a wave of his hand.

  They bowed and headed for the river where horses had been picketed. While the companions had been talking, Llywelyn’s men had swung into action like a well-oiled machine—not to prepare for battle, but to manage the aftermath. Cooking fires were already burning. Men were hauling water from the river, and those who were healthy were moving among the fallen, bending to aid those who could be saved. Villagers from Beddgelert and Aberglaslyn were present too. At times like this, the Welsh were one big family, and if Callum knew David at all, Madog’s injured men would be receiving the same care as Llywelyn’s own.

  “If I am to serve you, my lord, I need armor and a horse,” Callum said.

  David’s expression turned grave. “Sadly, neither should be difficult to acquire, even in your size. I need you to stay here, though.”

  “Stay here?” Callum said.

  “You made one kind of example of Mike, Callum. Cobb and Jeffries will be of another kind.” David stepped closer. “This is a nightmare. These people are stuck here forever. Every member of our family is finally here by choice. Every one. But we have to acclimate forty people who aren’t here by choice and can never, ever return to what they knew.”

  “Conscripting them might not be the best idea we’ve ever had,” Callum said.

  David’s eyes went to Cobb and Jeffries, who were standing side by side like cardboard cutouts, with their feet spread and their hands behind their backs. “Can either of you ride?”

  “Yes, sire.” They spoke together, but Callum saw a flicker of unease in Jeffries’ eyes that might indicate he wasn’t telling the exact truth.

  “This is the deep end of the pool,” David said.

  “Sink or swim, sir,” Cobb said.

  Callum nodded, understanding as few could.

  David spun around and headed back to Math and Carew, moving with them to mount his horse in preparation for the next stage of the war. Callum didn’t feel dismissed. David was telling him that he believed him competent to whatever task faced him, and he needed to be getting on with it.

  Callum looked towards the ad-hoc camp where he, Jeffries, and Cobb would find ownerless horses and armor salvaged from men who would never need them again. If they could find nothing in their sizes, they could scavenge from among Madog’s men, though the noblest among them were still underneath the bus. Callum canted his head towards Cobb and Jeffries. “Until further notice, you two should consider yourselves my lieutenants.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jeffries snapped off a salute.

  Cobb followed Jeffries’ example. “It’s an honor, sir.” His shoulders, if possible, got even straighter. “You have been an inspiration, sir.”

  Callum narrowed his eyes at him. He was the Earl of Shrewsbury and had been the director of the Project, so he was used to some admiration. But the inspiration part was new to him. “In what way?”

  Cobb cleared his throat. “You traveled here three years ago and returned. You completed the mission, no matter how long it took.”

  Callum glanced at Jeffries, who shook his head as if to say, I didn’t tell him!

  “How do you know that, Cobb?”

  “Common knowledge in our unit, sir.”

  “My mission was classified.”

  “Not so much, sir.”

  Callum shook his head. The time travel miracle had not only brought them to the right place, but it looked like it had also brought at least some of the right people with them.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  November 1291

  Anna

  Anna watched David out of the corner of her eye as he personally eased the passing of two different men, clasping their hands in his and holding on until the light faded from their eyes.

  “It’s kind of him to take the time,” Math said, coming up behind Anna and circling her waist with his arms.

  She turned and put her arms around his neck, bending her wrists back so she wouldn’t get the blood that was on them in his hair. He kissed her hard, and then she pressed her face into the hollow of his neck. They stood together unspeaking because speaking wasn’t necessary.

  They stepped back from each other, not wanting to part but knowing they both had work to do. And then Math grinned—that wild, wicked, gorgeous grin he didn’t often show and usually only to her—and he wrapped her up in his arms again in order to swing her around. “Thanks be to God you returned safely.”

  “You knew I’d come back, right? That shouldn’t have been a question.”

  “The only question was when you’d return.” He set her down. “The bus is a nice touch, though your brother could have done without it.”

  “We can’t seem to avoid complications,” Anna said, her heart lighter than it had been in two days. A little balloon was trapped inside her chest, and she floated along with it.

  Then Math and Anna each took a breath, coming back to the reality of the field and the wounded men who lay around them in rows. One of the modern medical people, a twenty-something named Rachel, looked up from where she was wrapping a cloth around a man’s leg wound. She was one of the two medical personnel who spoke Welsh, and she seemed to be doing remarkably well for a woman so out of place and time.

  While Anna and Math had greeted each other, David’s head had remained bowed for a few more moments, and then he straightened and came over to them.

  “Every time,” he said. “Every time, I swear that I will find another way to solve our problems rather than lose men in battle.”

  “Avalon hasn’t done it,” Anna said, even as she was horrified at herself for implying Avalon was real. “Nobody could ever censur
e you for not caring about the men you lead.”

  David’s hands clenched into fists, and he tipped his head back to look up at the sky, breathing deeply and gathering himself for what lay ahead. Then he brought his head down again to look at Math. “It’s time to go.”

  Anna put an arm around David’s waist one more time and hugged him. “A king isn’t much good on the remains of a battlefield except to get in the way anyway.”

  He snorted. “You’re trying to get rid of me.”

  “I’m trying to make you feel better about doing what you have to,” she said.

  Math canted his head, indicating the southern side of the field where the soldiers were gathering yet again. It was a wonder that some of them weren’t falling off their horses from exhaustion. Nobody had slept; nobody was going to sleep for a good long while.

  So after one look back, which was all David allowed himself, he left. Duty warred with duty. Anna knew her brother well enough to know how hard it was for him to leave the wreckage of the battle behind him.

  Ieuan and Math went with him.

  But not Papa.

  When Anna didn’t see Papa’s red-plumed helmet—a match to David’s, though David’s feather had a black tip—poking up among the men as they rode away, she scanned the battlefield looking for Mom. Papa hadn’t been injured when they’d come in on the bus. Maybe he’d felt more of an obligation to stay than to go.

  Then Anna spied Mom, still in the wool coat she’d borrowed from Cassie’s aunt’s house. She blended in among the medieval people around her better than Anna did in this purple parka. Anna wasn’t regretting wearing it, however. The coat was filled with down and was really warm. It kept the winter chill away nicely.

  Mom was bent over someone on the ground, but as Anna watched her, she stood abruptly, looking this way and that. When she spied Anna looking at her, she waved her arms high above her head, calling Anna urgently to her. Anna’s heart rose into her throat. She grabbed Rachel’s arm. “Please come with me.”