Champions of Time (The After Cilmeri Series, #13)

by Sarah Woodbury

Matha was still shaking his head as he walked to his horse. “The king sent you north for a reason. If I learned anything from how things fell out in Ireland, it’s that he, of all people, knows what he is doing.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  2 April 2022

  William

  “I have to tell you the truth, William. I have no idea what I’m doing.” David stood looking down at William, blocking his view of the television set. William clicked it off, pleased to already be proficient at the use of that particular technology. “It’s utterly terrifying.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you deserve to know the truth. Back home, I speak it only to my closest family. But we aren’t there, and here in Avalon, you and I are technically equals. The more I think about my conversation with Chad, the more I’ve come to understand that there is a lot going on under the surface that I don’t know anything about, and nobody is willing to tell me.”

  William studied his lord, feeling in that moment as if something again had changed inside him. In defiance of everything he’d ever been raised to do or believe, he and the King of England were equals here. It gave him the confidence to ask, “What do you fear most?”

  David pressed his lips together for so long that William thought he wasn’t going to answer, but it was only that he was thinking. “Every day, a thousand worries cross my desk, but I have learned that if you make a list, and stick to it, you can tick off what needs to be done one item at a time. Often it’s better not to look at the big picture. But I can’t do that with what is happening here, and you need to know that every second we remain in Avalon, I am in genuine danger, far more than I’ve ever been in before.” He then explained about the men from ‘America’ who wanted to ride David back and forth from Avalon like a horse.

  Using his good hand, William adjusted his position in his chair, mostly to give himself time to think. He was glad David trusted him enough to tell him of his fears. William had found that speaking them out loud sometimes made them more real, but it also made them something that could be tackled. “We should just go home.”

  David sighed. “Believe me, I want to. But I’ve been convinced that it isn’t that simple.”

  “Tell me why not. We can climb to the roof of this hospital and jump off.”

  “Regardless of the intrigue that is swirling around us, I have a duty at a minimum to see this interview through tomorrow. I want to be able to come back to Avalon in the future without being put in prison, and for that to happen, I feel like I have to generate some goodwill—not only on the part of Chad Treadman’s organization or MI-5, but from the people of Britain.”

  William grunted. That was something he understood. “Just like at home.”

  “I don’t rule anyone here, and I have no intention of doing so. But yes, just like at home.” David pulled a low table closer to William and sat on it. “I know I talk a lot, and over the years I’ve lectured you about all sorts of things, but this lesson is one that I really want you to learn. Someday, God willing, you’ll be the Earl of Hereford, and things go better when the people you’re ruling have bought into being ruled by you.”

  “My ancestors conquered England just fine.” William didn’t mean to argue necessarily. He was just pointing out an obvious counterpoint.

  “Yeah, they did. And they eliminated virtually the entire Saxon ruling class in order to do so. That’s certainly one way to go about conquest.” He canted his head. “That isn’t what happened in Wales, however. Instead, the English nobility—and royalty—married into Welsh noble and royal families.”

  “That’s how we won Ireland too.”

  “That’s right. It’s a tried and true way to co-opt the native establishment and make them think your priorities are their priorities. Blood relationships are a good start.” At the sound of heels tapping in the hospital corridor, David looked towards the door to the lounge, which remained open. “I can’t do that here, obviously. So I have to use words instead.”

  “All the more reason to get me out of here. I can’t help you if I’m stuck in a flimsy gown.” William pointed towards the door, through which they could see Michael, propped as usual against the far wall. Then Livia stopped in front of him.

  “You won’t be here for much longer. They’re letting you leave.”

  William’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  David laughed. “Don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind and want to stay?”

  “Of course not. Didn’t I just say so?” Then William bit his lip, finding himself fearful again. He fought down the urge to stand and pace, not wanting to open up his wound. “Where are we going? Is Alex going to be there?”

  David’s brow furrowed.

  “She’s the girl who stayed with me last night.”

  “I know who she is. Fickle, thy name is William, is it?”

  William didn’t even feel abashed. “I liked her.”

  “You like all girls,” David said.

  “That’s true. I do.” He paused. David’s voice had been matter-of-fact and without criticism. “You don’t mind?”

  “Just because I myself fell in love with Lili at sixteen and married her three years later doesn’t mean something similar is the right course for you. I like Aine fine, but love born out of crisis doesn’t necessarily last, and it’s better to find that out sooner rather than later.”

  “I still want to see Aine again.” William answered without thinking, but as he said the words, he realized he spoke the truth. It would be all right if he didn’t marry Aine, or if she didn’t want to marry him, but he was learning that the type of girl he wanted to be with for the rest of his life needed to be along her lines.

  David leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “We need to talk.”

  “Haven’t we just been doing that?” Then, noticing David’s intensity, William put on his studious face. “What about?”

  “About what you did on the battlement that got you here.”

  William tried not to look mutinous. “I’m not going to apologize for attempting to save your life. Turnabout’s fair play and all that.”

  David’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “Didn’t you take an arrow for me five years ago at my non-wedding?”

  David leaned back a little. “Oh, that.”

  “Yes, that. You could perhaps be forgiven since you weren’t king at the time, but you were the Prince of Wales and your father’s heir.”

  “Like you are now. You at that time were destined for the throne.”

  “See.” William rested his shoulders more comfortably against the cushion. “Exactly my point.”

  “Okay, okay.” David laughed. “It seems to me I got the better end of the deal. The arrow only grazed my ribs. You got punctured.” He paused and studied William somewhat pensively. It seemed that what he wanted to talk about next needed to be broached carefully.

  William had known David for a long time, however, and his eyes narrowed. “What?”

  “What I’m about to say, you need to take in the best possible way. This isn’t about me. It’s about you.”

  “O-kay.” William drew out the syllables.

  “Now that I know you’re not only going to live but heal, and can heal with the medical care back home, I’ve started thinking about how to get there. But I need to ask you first ... are you certain that you want to come?”

  “Of course I want to c—”

  David held up a hand, cutting him off. “This question isn’t just a formality. You have a genuine choice before you. You could stay here. Learn. Grow. Work for Chad Treadman. Attend university. Do whatever you please, really.”

  “You have that choice too.”

  “No, I don’t.” David shook his head. “I might have had it once, but I travel when my life is in danger, whether or not I want to. You, however, do not have to go.” He gave a little laugh. “This is all predicated on the assumption that I will have a choice this time, because if I don’t, I mi
ght well be forced to leave you behind. Has that yet occurred to you?”

  “I-I hadn’t considered that.” Then William cursed inwardly. When he started to stutter, like when he was fifteen, it gave away the fact that he was unhappy.

  “And before you decide, there is something about Avalon that I have never told you, something that might either make everything make sense or make you hate me.”

  “Never, my lord.”

  “Yeah, well—” David looked down at his hands. “It is time to tell you the truth, and it’s astounding to me that I have never done so. The myth of Avalon is just so easy to perpetuate.” He took in a breath, his eyes back on William’s face. “Avalon is just a word we use to describe this place. I am not King Arthur, returned or otherwise. This is the future, though I’m going to confuse you further by adding that it isn’t your future world so much as a future world.”

  William was staring at him. “You sound so serious, but I have no notion as to what you just confessed, my lord.”

  “I will tell you what I once told Ieuan, when I took him to Avalon for the first time. I was born in the year of our Lord, one thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-six.”

  William pinched his lips together and didn’t speak, trying to make sense of what David had just told him. “That isn’t possible. Your father is King Llywelyn.”

  “It is possible because my mother traveled from this world, what we call Avalon, to him, in January of 1268. Then, on the day of my birth, she traveled back here, just as we did, so that I was born in Avalon. When Anna and I saved my father’s life at Cilmeri, we drove the vehicle that you’ve seen in the bus barn from the year 2010 to 1282.”

  William found that he couldn’t look at David. What he was saying was completely absurd. And yet, it had to be true. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you were going to start asking questions soon, and I wasn’t going to have answers to give you that were truthful. For example, have you noticed that Wales, the country, has no king?”

  William licked his lips. “I guess I did. It was just one more thing I didn’t understand.”

  David nodded. “In this world, my father died at Cilmeri, and I was never there. Edward lived.”

  “So—” William hitched himself in the chair again, “—if I understand you correctly, someone with my name and my father’s name are part of this world’s past?”

  “You have always been a quick study. Yes, that’s exactly right. You see the implications.”

  “I want to know everything about him. About who he was and what happened to him.”

  “Of course, with the caveat that you remember that your life has followed a very different trajectory.”

  “Thanks to you.” William knew he sounded almost hostile.

  David didn’t take offense. “Yes. Thanks to me. We’ll see which version of yourself you like better, but I’ve told you all this in part because I like my odds.” He tipped his head towards the door. “Come in, Alex.”

  The girl entered carrying an electronic tablet.

  “I’ve told her to read you everything and anything you want to know about.” Then, at a signal from Michael, he got to his feet and strode to the door where Livia was waiting for him. The action spared William having to answer. “What’s up?”

  William couldn’t make heads or tails of the subsequent conversation, but afterwards, David returned. “The director of MI-5 has arrived in Gwynedd, and he is willing to meet me.”

  Earlier, David had told William something of MI-5. While David hadn’t really believed the Director-General would deign to travel to Wales to see him, to William’s mind, if he really was in league with these Americans—or being used by them—he would want to put his best foot forward.

  “Alone?”

  “We are meeting at six this evening in a local market next to the vegetables.”

  William knew something about markets. “It will be impossible for either you or MI-5 to control the space. At that hour, there might be a hundred witnesses.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yup.”

  William looked down at his lap to hide his grin. Whatever craziness was going on here—whether in ‘Avalon’ or this apparent alternate future world—David was still his liege lord, and he had to admire his confidence.

  Behind David, Livia said, “Whatever you want,” into her phone, and then her heels clicked as she walked away, the device still pressed to her ear.

  Now David grinned at William and answered a question William hadn’t known enough to ask. “MI-5 will know that Treadman set up security at the market—it’s called the Tesco—hours ago and will be scrambling now. At the start of this, all I wanted was not to end up in a cell. Now, I want more than that, and Philips is either going to give it to me, or I’m going to walk away.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  2 April 1294

  Christopher

  Because they were trying to appear as normal as possible, the best plan that Christopher could see was to ride right up to the pickets and ask for entry. As the younger of the two of them, Christopher was going to act as Matha’s squire.

  Christopher was worried that Matha would need to brazen out whatever lack of confidence in the plan he had, and as they approached the first guard along the main road to Skipton, he urged his horse just a little ahead of Matha’s before coming to a halt. They’d waited until later in the afternoon to move in the hope that the guards would be thinking more of dinner than of them.

  The guard stepped into the road, backed up by two others with pikes. Christopher had a flashback to the battle at Tara but managed to shake it off.

  “We are here to join Balliol.” Christopher started off with English, thinking that, whoever these men were, they were low enough in the hierarchy that French wouldn’t be their language of choice.

  Luck was with them, and the man answered, albeit with a Scottish accent. “My lord.” He gave a quick bow in Matha’s direction and then turned back to Christopher. He’d guessed right that a lord might not necessarily condescend to speak to lowly soldiers, and it was acceptable that he’d taken on the task. “I must ask your names.”

  “I am Edward, squire to my lord Matha of Breifne.”

  “Irish, eh?” One of the guards to the rear looked them up and down with suspicion.

  “Indeed.” Christopher tried to maintain an air of earnest intent, but Matha simply looked bored, which on the whole was exactly the right approach to take.

  The guard didn’t ask for more information, and it wouldn’t have been his place to question a knight. He tipped his head to indicate the road behind him. “You’ll be stopped again a quarter-mile down the road where you’ll be asked your credentials by someone with higher rank than I.”

  “As I would expect.” Christopher urged his horse forward, and they clip-clopped down the road another quarter of a mile.

  “This was a mistake. We should have done this surreptitiously,” Matha said in an undertone. “We could have waited until nightfall and simply joined one of the companies.”

  “No.” Christopher shook his head. “For starters, we would have had to leave the horses and our gear behind, including our swords.”

  “We could have hidden them.”

  “You can’t just join a group—especially the two of us, who stand out in this crowd. Sneaking around would have drawn more questions than we’re going to get by being upfront.”

  “I don’t know.” Matha looked genuinely worried.

  “If you were so concerned, why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  “It’s different now that we’re here.”

  “You did great back there.” Christopher bit his lip as they approached the next layer of security. He was trying to project confidence, but Matha’s doubts had him wavering too. “Just do it again.”

  “Gilbert de Clare, eh?”

  “He’s dead. He can hardly argue.”

  “I suppose if a
nyone has a right to claim ownership of Clare it’s the man who killed him.” Matha straightened his shoulders and affected a haughty look. This time the man who stepped out to bar their way wore a sword.

  “We’re here to join Balliol,” Matha said, now in excellent French. “I’m Matha ap Gilla of Breifne.”

  It was only now that it occurred to Christopher that they should not be using Matha’s real name. Hopefully, nobody here would know the details of anything that had happened in Ireland, and certainly not the name of the son of a man who had been a minor lord of Breifne. In retrospect, it was also far better that Huw had gone to James Stewart. He had been David’s companion far longer than Christopher and might be more recognizable, especially with his great bow on his back.

  The man’s eyes narrowed, but he responded in the same language, indicating Matha had guessed right. “Where are your men?”

  “Since Clare was killed, I have none. I lost everything.”

  The man’s lip curled briefly, a reflection of an internal sneer at Matha’s obvious mercenary tendencies. But as Christopher had hoped, he didn’t hold them against him, simply lifted his chin in acknowledgment. “We can use your sword, my lord.” His eyes went to Christopher.

  Matha saw it and added, “My squire, Edward.”

  The man nodded. “Does King Balliol know you’re coming?”

  “No. We have never met.”

  “You can probably find billet in the town. The captains are meeting tonight at the castle to discuss the battle plan. We won’t be privy to that, but at least we can eat. Give the man at the castle gate my name, John Bulmer, and he’ll admit you.”

  Matha bent his head. “Thank you.”

  Christopher bowed his head too, and they rode into the camp. Again, Christopher had to blink away thoughts of Tara, and although he managed to clear his vision, sweat beaded on his forehead.

  “Are you okay?” Matha said.

  Christopher closed his eyes, breathing in and out until the anxiety passed. Callum had suggested some techniques for getting past the immediacy of post-traumatic reactions, and he’d been working on them. After Tara, he’d been fine initially, but it felt as if the more time passed the worse things got. When he’d confessed this to Callum, he’d laughed, though not in a mocking way, but with understanding. Christopher still thought one of the real reasons Callum had agreed to send him on this expedition was to give him something to do and take his mind off himself.