Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) (13 page)

Anna stared at her friend, a bit stunned at
the calm way she had delivered that news. “Does David know?”

“Sure. Why do you think he decided that he
had to deal with Valence
now
?”

“Do you know which barons are at risk?”

“Not Edmund, thankfully, not even a rumor of
that. Not Bigod, even with the war in the Severn Estuary and the
bad blood it created between his family and ours. Not the Bohuns,
despite all expectations to the contrary. David was most worried
about the Burnells and the remaining Giffards.”

“What about the Percys?” Anna said.

“Henry Percy is the only male left in that
line and he, like William de Bohun, worships the ground David walks
on,” Bronwen said. “Percy arrived this morning, by the way. He
fancies himself a scholar. Have you seen him yet?”

Anna shook her head.

“I told him to introduce himself to you, but
with all that’s been happening, I can see why he hasn’t yet managed
it. I put him in the guest quarters in the lower bailey.”

“He may end up regretting that he threw in
his lot with us,” Anna said with a laugh, though it wasn’t really
funny, given the war they were facing.

“Bronwen!” Lili’s voice carried up the
stairwell, and while Bronwen took a quick glance into her bedroom
to make sure Lili’s call hadn’t woken Catrin, Anna hurried towards
the stairs.

She leaned into the stairwell, searching for
her sister-in-law. “What is it?”

“Valence has come!”

“What?”

“What was that?” Bronwen arrived at Anna’s
side at the same instant Lili appeared at the top of the stairs. It
was first time Anna had seen Lili wear breeches in a long
while.

“Ieuan has sent word back,” Lili said.
“Valence didn’t stop at Winchester. He’s by-passed it completely
and has almost reached Windsor.”

“Four hours ago, all he’d done was land at
Portsmouth!” Bronwen said. “How did he get from there to here in so
short a time?”

“Either our scouts were bought off or
totally misled. Valence landed late yesterday afternoon and has
force-marched his men across country with little rest since they
disembarked from the boats. They are within striking distance of
Windsor town,” Lili said.

Bronwen turned to Anna. “Fifty miles in
twenty-four hours is just barely possible.”

“He hasn’t quite come fifty,” Lili said.
“Not yet. While our muster was to be at Basingstoke, it’s too late
for that. The few men Ieuan had already gathered are defending the
bridge across Bourne Creek for now, but we don’t have the men to
keep it. Ieuan hopes he can hold it long enough to allow a full
retreat into Windsor.”

“How many fighting men do we have here?”
Anna asked. Math hadn’t said.

“Not even a hundred,” Lili said, “including
the archers.”

Bronwen’s brow furrowed as she looked at
Lili. “Why don’t we have more men?”

“Ieuan and Edmund Mortimer left Windsor with
their men-at-arms and knights,” Lili said. “All that’s left to us
are the usual fifty who live at Windsor plus the personal guards of
the various noblemen who have come.”

“And we lost twenty of those to William de
Bohun’s departure.” Anna’s throat closed over the horrible odds
they were facing.

“We’ll need every one of our scholars,”
Bronwen said, “Henry Percy included.”

“We’ll make them see the need,” Anna said.
“We can appeal to their romanticism. They’re young. They won’t have
learned to fear war yet, most of them.”

“Windsor town has a defense force too,
doesn’t it?” Bronwen said.

Lili nodded. “Ieuan’s been teaching everyone
over the age of ten to shoot.”

“Will Ieuan be among those who retreat into
Windsor?” Bronwen said, and Anna could see her holding her breath
in hope.

Lili shook her head. “Both he and Edmund
Mortimer are riding with the few who can be spared to reconnoiter
Valence’s lines and to gather all the men they can from the
villages and towns around Windsor, particularly along the Thames
River. Valence won’t have run through them on the way here.”

“That leaves Math to defend Windsor,” Anna
said.

Lili nodded again. A hollow space opened up
inside Anna’s belly, which was then filled instantly with fear.

“Why isn’t Valence marching on London?”
Bronwen said. “I would have thought that Westminster would be his
goal if he is to take the kingship from David.”

Anna shook her head, pushing down her
anxiety so she could think. “Valence knows that the Londoners won’t
willingly support him. He’ll need to show them proof of his power
before they let him in the city.”

“Besides, last Valence knew, Dafydd was
here, and thus his treasury is here,” Lili said. “The path to the
crown goes through Windsor, not Westminster.”

“Or maybe he knows that David has gone to
Ireland,” Anna said. “Valence may hope to stage a coup. David could
return to find his castle held against him, and Valence seated on
his throne.”

“That cannot happen,” Lili said darkly.

“Regardless, Lili, why are you dressed like
that?” Anna said.

Lili looked down at her breeches and then
back up at Anna. “What do you mean?”

“Do you really intend to fight?” Anna
said.

“Of course I intend to fight,” Lili said.
“Math will need every archer. He will need me.”

“But—”

“How can you even ask if I’m going to fight?
You of all people?” Lili said.

“What do you mean
me of all people?”
Anna said. “If my brother were here, he would question you
too.”

“He wouldn’t stop me,” Lili said. “And
that’s not what I meant. Am I any less of a queen than Matilda, who
led King’s Stephen’s forces after Empress Maud imprisoned him? Am I
any less of a woman than Queen Gwenllian of Ceredigion, who led the
fight against the Normans while her husband was away?”

“I’ve heard you tell that last story before,
and you always leave off the ending where the Normans win and they
hang her from the battlements,” Anna said.

“Still, my point stands,” Lili said.

“You have a three-month-old son to care
for!” Tears pricked at the corners of Anna’s eyes, but she fought
them back. She couldn’t believe how unreasonable Lili was being.
“Even after all this time, you still feel as if you need to prove
yourself?”

“What are you talking about—prove myself?
That’s not it at all.” Lili was now standing right at the top of
the stairs with Anna, their noses only six inches apart. “Math
needs every archer on the battlement, and I am an archer. You—you
and Bronwen—have spent the last six years fighting for the right to
live your life here on your own terms, to use the gifts God has
given you even though you were born a woman, and yet you deny the
same right to me?”

Anna stared at Lili for a second, swallowed
hard, and then brought the volume of her voice down a dozen
notches. “You think that I don’t want you to fight because you’re a
woman?”

Lili looked nonplussed. “Isn’t that it?”

“No, you little fool! I don’t want you to
fight because I love you!” Anna’s throat closed over the terror
that welled up inside her. “You could die!”

Instantly, Lili’s expression softened,
changing from one of defiance to understanding. She stepped closer,
first putting a hand on each of Anna’s arms, and then pulling her
into a tight embrace. “You can’t keep everyone wrapped in padding,
Anna. You have to let us live.
You
have to live.”

Anna buried her face in her hands, realizing
she had been feeling the same as Bronwen, like she was wrapped in
Styrofoam, and hadn’t known it. Either that or it was just the
opposite: she felt too much. “Sometimes the fear of losing any of
you overwhelms me to such a degree that I can’t breathe. I can’t
handle another loss like Llelo. I don’t want to ever feel that kind
of pain again.”

Lili rubbed her back, and then Bronwen,
who’d been standing to one side and not interfering in Anna’s
argument with Lili, wrapped her arms around them both. “The
twenty-first century has all the same problems, Anna. You just
didn’t know it at the time because you hadn’t experienced a loss
like Llelo. It hurts, and then it hurts a little less. We pretend
that death doesn’t walk with us there, but when we do that, we are
lying to ourselves.”

“You know that you’ll see your Llelo again,
don’t you?” Lili said. “He’s in heaven, waiting for you.”

Anna sobbed and laughed at the same time.
Such surety of faith hadn’t been hers since Llelo died, and maybe
long before that.

Lili swept aside Anna’s tears with her
thumbs. “Come. We have work to do.”

September, 2017

Cassie

S
even in the
morning was long past her grandfather’s usual waking time, since he
would have seen to his horses at five, so Cassie dialed his number
without a qualm. The fact that her hands were shaking had more to
do with the emotions welling up inside her than what she feared
might be her grandfather’s reaction to her call.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Granddad. It’s Cassie.”

Cassie had expected the complete silence on
the other end of the line, and it didn’t bother her. In her mind’s
eye, she could see her grandfather gathering himself together,
processing those few simple words she’d just said, and reconciling
himself with the five years they’d been apart.

“Cassie. It’s good to hear from you.”

A sob rose in Cassie’s throat, but she
swallowed it back. “I never thought I’d hear your voice again.”

“I missed you.” He paused, again with a
silence that Cassie didn’t fill. She waited ten seconds, which was
a long space of silence over the phone, and then he said, “What
happened to you, granddaughter?”

“I don’t know if I can even tell you,
Granddad,” Cassie said.

“Cassiopeia—” It was her grandfather’s
nickname for her because he had never liked ‘Cassandra’. “I saw the
plane come in. I saw the hole in the ground it didn’t create when
it didn’t hit that mountain. I mourned for you, but we had no body
to bury and no story to tell. You were simply gone from this
world.”

Her grandfather often spoke this way when he
was being formal and serious, and this time his words gave Cassie
the opening she needed. “That’s exactly it, Granddad. I’ve been in
a different world. The plane took me to the Middle Ages. To
Scotland.” Cassie held her breath, and this time the silence
stretched on so long that she did start to grow concerned.

“Is that so, Cassie?”

“Yes, Granddad.” Cassie had been so intent
on her grandfather’s reaction to her phone call that she’d barely
looked up from the desk that held the phone. The door to the room
was closed, but a prickling at the back of her neck told her she
was being watched. She glanced up to the ceiling and then around
the room. She couldn’t spot a camera, but now that she was calmer,
she acknowledged the high likelihood that her conversation was
being monitored.

“Where are you now? How are you speaking to
me?” her grandfather said.

“We came back today, Granddad. To Wales,”
Cassie said.

Her grandfather made a
tsking
sound
through his teeth. “The phone cut out for a second. Did you say
you’re with whales?”

“No, Granddad. I’m in Cardiff, Wales. The
country. It’s part of Great Britain.”

She could feel her grandfather nodding at
the end of the line. “I know Wales, granddaughter. My father was a
mechanic at an airstrip during the war.”

Her grandfather meant World War Two. She
hadn’t known her great-grandfather well, since he died when she was
six, but she remembered the stories he told. At times, it seemed
like he lived more in 1944 than the present. It put a momentary
smile on her face to think that she wasn’t the only one with a
penchant for time travel.

“How did you end up there?”

“Well—” Cassie fought for what to say, how
to explain. “It’s too long a story, and I know someone is listening
on this line. We were sailing to Ireland in a cog—a medieval
ship—when we were caught in a storm like the one on the mountain
five years ago. I’m with—” she stopped and thought again,
“—we’re-we’re in the custody of MI-5, which is like the FBI for
England.” She’d stuttered because she didn’t know how to begin
explaining about David and his family and how they’d changed
history, not to mention that she was married to Callum, a white
Englishman. Though as a veteran himself, her grandfather might have
more in common with Callum than they might think at first.

“I thought you said you were in Wales?”

“England owns Wales—” Cassie shook her head,
even though her grandfather couldn’t see it. “Listen, Granddad, I
will tell you all about how and why, but right now I just wanted to
say that I love you, and I missed you, and I would never have left
if I could have helped it.”

“I know that,” her grandfather said. “I’ve
always known that.”

“It’s because of everything you taught me
that I survived the last five years on my own.”

“Will I see you, granddaughter?”

“I-I-I don’t know. If I don’t call again,
please don’t worry. I’ll come to Oregon when I can.” Cassie paused.
“How’s mama?”

“She’s fine, as far as I know.”

Cassie didn’t want to delve further into
that comment and chastised herself for being such a bad daughter.
But
as far as I know
could mean a lot of things, including
that her mother wasn’t at all fine and had fallen back into her
addictive behaviors. “And how are you, Granddad?”

“I had this thing with my heart two years
back,” he said. “I’m fine now, just slower than before.”

“Oh, Granddad.” Cassie’s heart ached at the
thought of all the time they’d been apart, and at all that they no
longer knew about each other. “What thing?”

“They called it a
heart event
.” She
could feel the shrug, even six thousand miles away. “It comes with
growing old.”