Guardians of Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  “I spoke with the physician who admitted him,” Abraham said. “He took one look at Shane and called in a pediatric oncologist—a good man whom I’ve had dinner with a number of times. He left his home for the hospital immediately. They’re in good hands.”

  “What about the diagnosis?” David said.

  “The tests were ongoing, but yes, Rachel is right that it is probably leukemia,” Abraham said. “The admitting physician was disturbed that Shane had been allowed to reach this point without treatment.”

  David sank lower in his seat, his hand to his head. “That’s my fault.”

  Abraham lifted a hand. “You didn’t cause the cancer, nor are you responsible for the bombing in Cardiff that brought Shane to the medieval world.”

  “I’ve told him that at least twenty-six times,” Rachel said. “He doesn’t listen.”

  “Jane told him that they’d returned to this country today specifically because Shane was ill. I supported her story,” Abraham said.

  “Will he live?” David said.

  “Childhood leukemia is eminently treatable, even in later stages,” Abraham said, “though it is too early to say one way or the other in Shane’s case, and it would be wrong of me to do so.” He eyed David for a moment. “The first thing you learn as a doctor is that you can’t save everyone.”

  “You can try,” David said.

  “Absolutely,” Abraham said, “and I would not argue that you shouldn’t.”

  “We’re entering Caernarfon,” Mark said from the front seat.

  “This is easily the most confusing town I’ve ever driven in,” Cassie said, as she followed an off ramp and then did a loop-de-loop under the motorway to get into the city proper. Christmas lights were strung across narrow alleys, some of which they couldn’t have gone down even if they wanted to, given the size of the van. The really old part of the city was surrounded by a medieval town wall, which had fewer than a half-dozen entrances. They turned onto a road that took them along the east side of the city.

  “The inn is through that gateway.” Mark indicated an archway to the left.

  Cassie slowed, but then Mark threw out a hand before she had completed the turn.

  “No, no! Don’t go in there. The road doesn’t go through!”

  “Sheesh!” Cassie swung the wheel back to the right, narrowly missing a car parked with its rear angling into the street. “How can it not go through?”

  Mark peered at his phone. “It’s blocked by a pedestrian-only walkway.”

  For David’s part, he was perfectly glad not to enter there, since they might have had to pull in the mirrors on either side of the van in order to get through the archway.

  “It was better not to get so close to the inn anyway,” Darren said from the back. “I saw several vans like ours parked along the road.”

  Cassie crept along at less than ten miles an hour, a perfectly reasonable speed given the falling snow and the four or five inches on the ground. They passed yet another one-way entrance fifty yards on, before finally reaching one that they could enter.

  Cassie slowed, the blinker ticking, but then turned it off and continued driving straight ahead.

  “Good choice, Cassie.” Like Mark, Callum was splitting his attention between the road and his phone, which showed a map of Caernarfon. “I didn’t like the look of that road either. Caernarfon has too many one-way streets inside the city walls. We could get boxed in and not be able to get out.”

  “That was my thought,” Cassie said. “The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up.”

  “Let’s go around again,” David said.

  “Nope. Can’t go around. I have to turn around instead,” Cassie said, and then grumbled under her breath, “I hate Caernarfon already.”

  David peered out the window as she executed a perfect three-point turn and drove back the way they’d come. He looked at his mother. “How about you call Uncle Ted and tell him we’re here.”

  “Doing it now.” Mom pulled out her phone, dialed, and then turned on the speaker as she waited for Uncle Ted to pick up.

  His voice bellowed out of the phone before Mom hastily turned down the volume. “Where are you?”

  “We’re here. Sort of.” Mom peered out the window as Cassie slowed the van and took a narrow street to the right. “We tried to reach the inn, but ended up going all the way back out to the main street. We’re parking next to the castle in a big square with a ton of shops. Do you know it? Can you meet us here?”

  “We’re on our way.”

  David could hear activity from the other end of the phone, and then Aunt Elisa’s voice came on. “This is crazy, Meg.”

  “I know,” she said. “The good news is that the lump in my breast isn’t cancer.”

  “Good God!” That was from Uncle Ted, who’d overheard. “Is that why you’re here?”

  “One of the reasons.” Mom put the phone back on normal and stuck it up to her ear so the conversation became private.

  Fortunately, as it was Christmas Eve, they had their choice of parking, and Cassie pulled into an empty space that had plenty of room around it, in case they needed to make a quick getaway.

  “When we want to leave, all we have to do is go around the square, end up over there, and take a left,” Mark said, looking up from his map. “I think.”

  They piled out of the van, and once they were outside David elbowed Anna. “That’s a Subway.”

  She laughed. “You’re thinking with your stomach again. Mom says Uncle Ted is bringing us food.”

  “There they are!” Mom ran forward to greet the four people who’d just emerged from a side alley, coming from the town. All four were carrying big white takeout bags.

  She and Aunt Elisa embraced, tipping back and forth from side-to-side as they hugged each other. “Wow,” Aunt Elisa said as she stepped back from Mom. “You look great.”

  “You do too.” Mom gestured Dad forward. “This is my husband, Llywelyn.”

  Aunt Elisa shook his hand, and then Dad went on to Uncle Ted, who wrung his hand hard. “Very good to see you again, my lord.”

  “We are brothers,” Dad said, in his pretty good English. “There’s no need to speak formally.”

  David, meanwhile, grasped Christopher’s shoulders and spoke at the same time as Christopher. “I never thought I’d see you again.” And then they both laughed.

  After everybody was introduced to everyone else, Callum began herding them back to the van. “I don’t think we should spend any more time out in the open than we absolutely have to.” He looked at Uncle Ted. “I need to know everything about what was going on in the hotel, but don’t tell me out here.’’

  David didn’t even give the Subway a second glance, since he’d already opened the food bag Uncle Ted had given him and broken off a big piece of fried fish to eat. Once at the van, Mom sat next to Aunt Elisa and Elen, who seemed to be absorbing everything with big eyes. Christopher and Uncle Ted crowded in behind David, and then Darren closed the door behind them.

  “Does driving away now mean we are abandoning the bus passengers?” David licked his fingers and spoke into the general chatter that had been ongoing.

  Mom picked at her lower lip with her pinky finger. “I can’t decide what our responsibilities are.”

  “I overheard two of them talking to a reporter,” Christopher said.

  “They were all talking about the bus,” Uncle Ted said. “To go back would mean we would spend the night being questioned by MI-5. They’re all over the inn. You can’t go back.”

  Rachel nodded. “David, the passengers can take care of themselves. You brought them home. They were going to have to deal with the authorities eventually no matter how well you eased them back into their old lives.”

  “And we aren’t finished with what we set out to do,” Anna said.

  “I agree with the general sentiment,” Callum said. “Going back, exposing yourself to my former colleagues, isn’t going to help anyone.”

  Davi
d gave way. “Okay. Let’s get out of here for now, Cassie. If for some reason it seems we need to come back here, at least we don’t have to jeopardize everyone.”

  Cassie didn’t even wait for David to finish speaking before she shifted into drive, and once again with Mark navigating, wended her way out of Caernarfon. Silence had descended upon the van as if nobody could think of anything to say.

  Then Christopher broke the silence. “Hey! Did Dad tell you the news?”

  Uncle Ted made a slashing motion with his hand. “Not now, Christopher.”

  “What news?” David said.

  “You know how you’re the King of England, right?” Christopher said.

  David laughed. “Usually.”

  “Well, Dad’s spent hours doing our genealogy over the last couple of years. He’s obsessed—”

  Uncle Ted put out a hand to his son, trying again to stop him from talking, but Christopher was on a roll.

  “It turns out that all of us are royal too!”

  David’s eyes narrowed. “How so?”

  Uncle Ted groaned. “He’s exaggerating.”

  “I’m not!” Christopher said. “It turns out that one of our ancestors was an illegitimate daughter of one of the King Henrys from the Middle Ages.”

  “Our Middle Ages?” David’s voice came out slightly strangled.

  Mom, who was sitting in the seat in front of Uncle Ted, broke off her conversation with Aunt Elisa and turned to look at him. “Which King Henry?”

  “Mid-thirteenth century, so before your time, David.” Uncle Ted made a dismissive motion with his hand. “It was rumored that he had a liaison with a daughter of King Alexander II. Caitir, I think her name was. It was never proven, but I traced your father’s ancestry, Meg, to a daughter they were supposed to have had.”

  It was only when he finished speaking that Ted realized everyone in the van was staring at him in shock. Pleased with the reaction he’d gotten, Christopher added, “We’re all descended from the kings of Deheubarth too, so you’re a Prince of Wales like eight times over, but by now so is everybody with Welsh ancestry.”

  Dad started to laugh, and soon not only was it rolling out of him in giant guffaws, but most everyone else in the van was laughing too.

  Christopher, Aunt Elisa, and Uncle Ted looked from one person to another, bewildered more than anything else. “Why is this funny?” Uncle Ted said.

  “I’m descended from King Henry!” Mom was laughing so hard tears streamed down her cheeks, and she wiped them away with her fingers.

  David had to hold his stomach because it hurt so much. “I don’t believe it.”

  Finally, Mom calmed down enough to explain that most of England believed she really was King Henry’s illegitimate daughter, though she denied it, of course. In the run up to David’s crowning, papers had surfaced that proved it.

  Uncle Ted looked from one to the other. “Seriously?”

  “Coincidence ‘R’ Us,” Mom said.

  Mom’s words caused David to sober. “Lee.”

  Callum shook his head. “Lee can wait. Right now, we need food, sleep, and, quite frankly, neutral ground.”

  “Neutral ground.” Anna frowned. “Why?”

  Callum sighed. “I don’t think any of you should have anything to do with the Security Service, but if we are truly to find out what has happened to Lee, and—as a side note—rescue the bus passengers from whatever scrutiny they are under, one of us should speak to Director Tate.”

  Silence greeted that statement until David said, not as a question, “And you think that person should be you.”

  “Do you disagree?” Callum’s eyes stayed fixed on David’s.

  “Strategically, no.” His chin resting in one hand, David studied his friend. “We have to think carefully about how you do it, though.”

  “Agreed,” Callum said.

  “Come to my house.” Abraham spoke up from the back. “It’s the safest place.”

  “There’s fifteen of us,” David said.

  “You haven’t seen my house.”

  Rachel frowned. “Did you move, Dad?”

  He smiled. “I bought that old farmhouse we’ve been looking at for years. The one with the medieval tower that’s supposed to be—” He broke off as everyone in the van except Cassie, who couldn’t turn around, gaped at him.

  “Dad, don’t tell me you bought Aber!” Rachel said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  David

  That was exactly what Abraham had done. When Dad got out of the van, he stood with his hands on his hips, staring up at the tower, which was all that was left of the expansive royal llys (palace) that had once occupied this space. The curtain wall was gone too, as were the tunnels. Mom said the driveway had nearly collapsed sometime last century, so the tunnels had been filled in.

  “I can’t say I think very much of what time and English owners have done to the place,” Dad said.

  Mom laughed and took his arm. “Your people remember you, my love. You really can’t ask for more than that.”

  While the others followed Abraham into the house, Callum raised a hand to catch David’s attention, and the two of them hung back in the darkness of the stoop, David still half-in and half-out of the open door.

  “On second thought,” Callum said, “staying here isn’t really a good idea. The bus passengers can name Rachel. A search on her name could bring up her father’s address here pretty quickly.”

  Abraham Wolff pulled the door all the way open. “No, Callum, it won’t. Not unless they’re looking very hard.”

  “Why is that?” Callum said.

  “My corporation bought the house. It isn’t technically in my name at all.” Abraham made a rueful face. “Call it a tax dodge if you like, but I’m the only physician in this village, and I see patients in the coach house, which I converted into an office.”

  “Thank you for taking us in,” David said.

  “Anything for the kings of England and Wales.” Abraham winked and pulled back inside the house to be replaced instantly by Mark.

  “Too bad Aaron isn’t here,” Mark said. “I know it’s impossible, but I feel like Abraham is his direct descendent.”

  “If Abraham has his way,” David said, “you’ll be able to introduce them.”

  Callum indicated that they should move away from the doorway and into the darkness of the driveway. “We need to talk about MI-5, David.”

  “About you exposing yourself, you mean?” David shook his head. “If it weren’t for Lee and the fact that my family is here, we’d be gone already. I would really prefer to keep this whole trip under the radar.”

  Mark sucked on his upper teeth for a second. “It’s really too late for that, isn’t it?”

  Callum nodded. “We bought extra phones. Perhaps it’s time to use one.”

  David released a breath in tacit agreement and walked with them down the driveway until Mark indicated he had good reception on his phone. Every now and then, the glare of headlights from passing cars shone on the motorway that ran in front of the village below them. Beyond that lay the Menai Strait and Anglesey, also lit by tiny lights from the villages built along the shore.

  Back in the Middle Ages, David hadn’t visited Aber Castle in at least a year, but at one time he’d considered it home. In that universe, the setting was as peaceful as they come. The mountains and the sea had formed a nearly unbreachable barrier that had kept out the English invaders for centuries.

  In this world, it was only after David’s father’s death that Edward had captured Aber. David glanced up at the tower. He agreed with his father: what had been done to it was unconscionable.

  The three of them stood together a hundred feet from the house. Mark had his laptop open and was using the mobile phone as a wifi hotspot so that Callum could run the call through the internet instead of the phone service, thus masking the GPS of the phone. David didn’t pretend to understand exactly how that might work, but he trusted that it would seem like Callum was maki
ng the call from somewhere in Oregon.

  “This is the Cardiff number for agents in trouble—not the public number.” Mark tapped into his keyboard.

  “This late on Christmas Eve, we’re sure to get the lowest-ranking flunky in the building,” Callum said to David, as an aside. “This is a good thing.”

  The phone rang twice, and a woman answered. “Box 500.”

  Callum bent to speak into the laptop’s microphone. Mark had had the foresight to turn off the camera. “I need to speak to Director Tate. This is Alexander Callum.”

  David smirked at the mention of Callum’s first name, which he never used if he could help it. David didn’t know why, since Alexander was a perfectly respectable Scottish name.

  There was a distinct pause on the other end of the line, and then the woman said, “Did you say, Alexander Callum? Director Alexander Callum?”

  “Yes.” Callum drew out the ‘s’ in a hiss.

  “Do you need immediate assistance?”

  “I am not in danger currently,” Callum said, “but that could change at any time.”

  “Right. Director Tate is on another line. Can he ring you back?”

  “Certainly.” Callum rattled off the number the computer gave him.

  This time it was Mark who whispered to David. “It’s a randomized number that will cease to be valid after twenty minutes.”

  David shook his head at all that he didn’t understand. If he’d spent the last ten years in the modern world, he surely would have been a computer geek, but as it was, his knowledge of computers was ten years out of date. Back at Bangor University, when he’d opened the laptop to try to surf the internet, Darren had had to come over and open the browser because the interface was dramatically different from what he remembered, even from three years ago when he’d come to Wales with Callum and Cassie and surfed the internet from the confines of an MI-5 interrogation room.

  David found it frustrating to be nearly as out of his element here as Dad and Math. At the same time, he found himself constantly reaching for his new phone to Google a question that just occurred to him. If he lived here for real, he’d never stop.