Footsteps in Time (27 page)

David tried not to laugh.

“
We’re grateful to you,
Rhodri. Please accept the hospitality of my hall,” Gruffydd
said.

Rhodri bowed and turned
away.

Gruffydd stayed on his feet
and called one of his captains to him. “Send out scouts. I want to
know the moment Hereford crosses the Dyke.” He meant Offa’s Dyke, a
system of ditches and ramparts that ran the entire north/south
length of Wales and was the traditional boundary between England
and Wales. Gruffydd turned to David. “Rest easy, my lord. With King
Edward and his lords in Chester, little will come of
this.”

Again, David didn’t share
Gruffydd’s confidence, but didn’t have an alternative suggestion.
After the meal, however, David retired early, uneasy; Buellt made
him uneasy, not only because of the imminent threat of Hereford.
David couldn’t forget that this was where his father had almost
died and it felt uncomfortably coincidental that danger loomed here
again.

The next morning David lay in bed,
wide awake after a restless night, staring up at the ceiling. Smoke
had darkened it, although someone had recently white-washed the
walls underneath the tapestries. Sparks smoldered in the fireplace,
giving off almost no heat, but as it was June, the room wasn’t
cold. David debated with himself, trying to rationalize what he
wanted to do, and finally succumbed to temptation.

Bevyn was finishing his
breakfast when David sat beside him. “You have always been a most
faithful companion, Bevyn.”

Bevyn wiped his mouth, checking his
mustaches at the same time to ensure they were immaculate, and
swallowed. “I have always endeavored to be of service, my
lord.”

“
Then if you can bear with
me,” David said, “I ask that you ride out with me this morning and
ask me no questions.”

Bevyn gave David a hard
look, but nodded. David led him to the stables. However, when Bevyn
realized that he intended to leave the castle on horseback with
only Bevyn himself as a guard, he stopped.

“
It’s not possible, my
lord.”

“
What isn’t
possible?”

“
I won’t allow you to ride
without a proper escort. You can’t go, not with the English so
close.”

“
Fine,” David said, “but
the men must stay well back when I tell them to let me
be.”

Bevyn bowed. “Of course, my
lord.”

David was sure he was smirking beneath
his mustaches.

They rode out: Bevyn,
seven men, and David. As they trotted across the drawbridge, David
looked back, thinking of the Welsh in his old world who’d lost
their lives trying to take this castle. It was strongly situated
atop a motte,
with two Norman baileys
defended by six towers and a curtain wall. The twin-towered
gatehouse was similar to the gatehouse that guarded Rhuddlan
Castle.
David turned back to the road and
followed it down the hill. They didn’t cross the bridge over the
river Wye to the north of the castle, but continued west along the
Irfon.

They rode perhaps two miles, with
David looking from one side to the other all the while. Finally, he
stopped, uncertain. Bevyn moved up beside him.

“
I can find it for you, my
lord,” he said.

“
What?”

“
There’s a turn a hundred
yards back, if you will permit me to show you.”

David studied him. “Please,” he
said.

David turned around and followed Bevyn
to a turn-off David hadn’t seen. Taking a left, he led David
through a small copse of trees and into a clearing at the base of a
small hill. Wild flowers covered it. Spurring his horse forward,
David passed Bevyn and raced to the top and then across the meadow
to the other side, where the terrain sloped upwards again. Leaves
covered the trees. It looked very different, but David knew he was
in the right place. The men all followed him, milling around
uncertainly when David stopped half-way up the higher hill to look
back. David dismounted and handed the reins to Cadwallon, the
youngest and least experienced of his men.

“
My lord?” said Ieuan ap
Cynan, a knight in his twenties.

“
Hush, man.” Bevyn shushed
him. “He said ‘no questions’.”

David squatted in the
middle of the slope, trying to find the remains of the minivan’s
tire tracks. It was ridiculous to think they’d still be there after
all this time, but Anna
had
skidded.

“
It’s all right, Bevyn,”
David said. “Do you know where it is now?”

Bevyn didn’t pretend to
misunderstand him. He gestured with his head towards the way they’d
come in. “Hidden in a thicket, down below.”

“
Well, let’s see
it.”

They left the horses with Cadwallon,
who stared forlornly after them. David led the way back down the
hill, walking this time. From the lower meadow, the trees hid all
of Cadwallon but his white face. David turned to the spot Bevyn
indicated. He didn’t know what his men would think, but a twisted
part of David looked forward to seeing their faces when they looked
at his aunt’s van.

Behind the tree Anna had hit were more
trees and a thick screen of bushes. Bevyn pushed his way through
them, with the rest following, and into a small clearing, maybe the
size of a tennis court, with the van smack in the middle of
it.

It didn’t look too bad, under the
circumstances. It was filthy from two years of accumulated dirt,
and bigger than David remembered. They stood in a semi-circle
around it, and the looks on the men’s faces varied from
bewilderment (Trahearn) to excited interest (Ieuan) to grim
satisfaction (Bevyn).

David walked around
the van. The tires had gone soft, but not completely flat. The
windscreen had a spider web of cracks across it, but it hadn’t
fallen out. The airbags rested on the front seats, sadly deflated.
David opened the driver-side door and stuck in his head. Anna had
left the key in the ignition.
Hmmm.

Behind David, Bevyn said, “It’s a
chariot, Trahearn. There’s no witchcraft here.”

“
No, my lord,” Trahearn
said. “I didn’t say there was.”

Then Ieuan spoke from his position at
the rear of the van. “My lord?” he said. “How is it that a tree
fell on it in such a way?”

“
We were sliding backwards
down the hill when we hit the tree,” David said, impressed that he
could tell which was the front and which the back.

“
Oh,” Ieuan said, still
thinking hard. “Then why was the chariot not splintered into
pieces?”

“
Because the people who
built it designed the back to crush on impact, to protect the
people inside,” David said, only listening with half an ear because
he was still thinking about the keys.

Ieuan was opening his mouth to ask
another question, when Bevyn raised his hand for silence. David
froze. He heard ... nothing. And then, more than heard, he felt the
thudding of horses’ hooves. As one, the company dropped to their
haunches and David scuttled to Bevyn’s position. A dozen English
cavalry rode across their field of vision, to all appearances
preparing to make camp in the meadow, on the other side of the thin
screen of bushes.

“
Whose men are they?”
David silently cursed himself for carelessness, and Gruffydd ap
Gwenwynwyn for being incompetent—or a traitor.

“
They wear the Earl of
Hereford’s colors,” Bevyn said. “Bohun’s men.”

David did a quick survey of his men.
Ieuan peered through the bushes a few paces away. David sidled over
to see what he was looking at. More English. These were hunkered
down over something on the ground that David couldn’t see from
where he crouched.

“
Tracks.”
Ieuan mouthed the words at David.
Our
tracks.

Then Ieuan said, “Cadwaladr
ap Seisyll was my great-great-uncle.”

“
Um.” David knew all about
Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon because he’d flown the dragon banner in the
Dark Ages, but David hadn’t heard of this Cadwaladr
before.

Taking pity on
David’s ignorance, Ieuan said, “A hundred years ago, the Marcher
lord William de Braose, this Earl of Hereford’s ancestor,
murdered
Seisyll ap Dyfnwal. Braose invited
Seisyll to his castle for dinner and then killed him in cold blood.
At the same time, he sent men to kill Cadwaladr, Seisyll’s son.
Fortunately, Cadwaladr had been out hunting and escaped capture,
though they killed his wife. Cadwaladr took to the hills and
harassed the Braose lands until Braose captured and executed him
two years later.”

David gazed at him, still not
understanding.

He tipped his head at the
English knights. “If one man can do so much, what can nine of us
do?”

David had never heard
of this Welsh Robin Hood, but Ieuan had a point and it was better
than hiding here. The van caught David’s attention again.
Ha! I’m sixteen now. I’m legal.

David scurried to the
driver’s side door, which he’d left open. He pulled out his belt
knife to cut away the airbag; then hopped into the front seat. He
turned the key. Nothing happened. Was the battery dead? Even a new
one might not last this long unused. David looked at the controls
and realized Anna had left it in ‘drive’.
Of course she had.
David put his foot
on the brake and shifted into park. He turned the key again. It
coughed, coughed again, and then started.

David laughed. The miracles of modern
science and a Toyota engine. He leaped out of the van and pulled at
the sliding door, wanting to hurry because the English could hear
the engine. David hoped its unfamiliarity would delay the English
response and give them time to get away.

“
Get in!” David spoke in
the quietest whisper he could manage that still carried. Everyone
had backed away when David had started the engine, but now Ieuan
didn’t need a second invitation. He climbed inside while Bevyn
herded the others in behind him. Everyone should try to fit nine
men wearing mail hauberks into a minivan before they die.
Fortunately, plate had yet to be invented so the men didn’t clank
against each other and no one impaled anyone else.

With three across the back, one in the
trunk, one in each of the captain’s chairs in the second row, Ieuan
kneeling between the two front seats, and Bevyn and David in the
front, they ‘fit’. Once everyone was inside, David eased the
sliding door closed and had Bevyn gently latch his door. David
climbed back into the driver’s seat, shifted into drive, and
pressed the gas pedal.

The van rolled across the grass a few
feet before David stepped on the brake and shifted into reverse. He
backed the van all the way to the rear of the enclosure, and then
shifted into drive again.

“
Ready?” he
said.

Bevyn’s smile had a wicked
look to it. He nodded.

Someone shouted from the back, “Ieuan!
Move your head, man. We can’t see!”

Ieuan ducked his head, but not so far
that he couldn’t see himself.

“
Okay.” David floored
it.

The van sped across the grass. David
aimed for the branch-covered gap through which Bevyn (and others)
had pushed the van to hide it. The van burst through the bushes,
already going forty, and rocketed across the clearing, scattering
the English and their horses. Thanking his aunt in her absence for
buying all-wheel-drive, and glad the van didn’t actually hit anyone
to slow its momentum, David steadied the wheel. They picked up
speed, careened up the incline (which Anna had slid down
backwards), kept on across the meadow, and up the higher hill,
towards where they’d left the horses.

Near the top, David braked and backed
the van between two trees, out of sight of the English.

“
Out! Out!” David would
have liked to drive all the way back to the castle, but he couldn’t
leave Cadwallon and the horses where they were, and it wasn’t as if
there was a road suitable for driving on anyway. His company was
more flexible on horseback.

David threw himself onto Taranis, took
the reins, and then looked back down the hill to where the English
cavalry stood unmoving, staring after them. David saluted with a
grin, then led his men further up the hill and into the trees until
the English were out of sight. None dared follow.

David was prepared to
charge off to the castle, but Bevyn stopped him. “My lord! Wait! We
don’t know if the English have surrounded Buellt, or if this is
only a small advance party. We need care, not speed.”

He was right.

“
Lead on,” David
said.

The company circled to the north of
the castle without encountering anyone, but a quick foray out from
under cover showed that Hereford had indeed surrounded
Buellt.

“
At least the drawbridge is
up,” Bevyn said.

“
If Gruffydd ap Gwenwynwyn
wasn’t on our side, we’d have lost the castle already,” Ieuan
said.

“
Who shall we send to my
father?” David was liking Ieuan’s idea of Robin Hood more and
more.