Warden of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book 8) (13 page)

“Two minutes, thirty-eight seconds,” he said.

I glanced up at the keep. “I want this to be a hoax. I would give anything for it to be a hoax.”

“That C-4 in the toilet chute was real. So is this timer,” Callum said. “I count us lucky that the bombs are on a timer and not activated remotely. If they had been, we would have been dead the moment he realized we knew about the bombs and were evacuating the castle.”

“I tried to keep it quiet for that reason,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter now,” Callum said. “We’ll see in two minutes if this was real or all for nothing.”

“Not nothing, regardless,” I said. “Canterbury Castle was unprepared to evacuate in an orderly fashion. Can you imagine what this would have been like if we were in London? On a typical day, Winchester Palace houses three times this many people.”

“Something else to put on your to-do list,” Callum said.

And then we were through the gate and across the drawbridge that protected it. Most of the people veered to the left towards the town gate that lay to the north along the town wall, but I turned my horse’s head to race along the road that followed the castle moat and the curtain wall. Only as we passed by the keep did I realize the danger—that I’d inadvertently brought us closer to the keep than we’d been at the gate. My heart caught in my throat, praying I hadn’t misjudged the time.

But then we were past the corner of the wall and racing for the little chapel, which lay the length of a football field away, where I’d sent Lili and Arthur. Now that it came to it, I had a bad feeling the chapel wasn’t quite far enough from the castle for real safety, but there was nothing I could do about it now. At least a hundred people milled about under the trees, with more moving in and out of the church. The men of my guard—men-at-arms and archers alike—had formed a perimeter, standing shoulder to shoulder to protect the people in the little chapel and its grounds.

Several men moved aside to let our company through, of course, and I pulled up to shouts of, “The king!”

Lili flew from the chapel entrance, Arthur in her arms. She’d been waiting for me. I passed the girl I’d rescued to someone else, dismounted, and then caught Lili and Arthur in an embrace. Even as I did so, I turned my head to look back the way we’d come. The keep loomed up on the other side of the field, a dark bulk against the sky. Clouds covered the sky from horizon to horizon, indicating more rain in our future, so the castle was lit only by the torches that had been left burning on the wall-walk.

My companions had reined in with me, along with several dozen others who’d decided to come this way instead of entering the town with the rest of the refugees. As Ieuan had promised, my
teulu
had obeyed him and evacuated quickly. I traveled with fifty knights and men-at-arms, just as my personal guard, plus two hundred Welsh archers. Nearly two-thirds of these stood nearby, and I hoped the rest were on duty as they should have been on the wall-walk of the town. If any men had slept through the alarm and remained in the barracks, it might be too late for them, and I spared a thought for the latrines in the smaller buildings in the bailey, realizing only at this late moment that the C-4 could have been placed there as well.

William de Bohun loped towards me, and it was with real relief that I saw my sword in his hand. As the King of England, I had many swords, but I wore by preference the one my father had made for me after my crowning. Callum had kept it safe for me for the two years he’d spent in the modern world and returned it last year.

“Thank you for staying with my family,” I said to William.

He swallowed. “I feared for you—”

“You did your duty,” I said.

“Did we get everyone out?” Lili said.

“We think so.” My arms were still wrapped around her and Arthur, though he was wiggling to get down. I wasn’t prepared to put him down, however, and whispered in his ear, the words coming as quickly as my heart was beating, “Stay still. This is important.”

Arthur clung to my neck as he hitched himself higher in my arms. Not for the first time I marveled at his child’s awareness of his surroundings. He had no idea what was going on, but the adults were tense, and he had made my life easier by choosing not to disobey.

“Callum,” I said.

“Twenty seconds,” he said.

Bevyn and Huw came puffing up, and Bevyn answered my raised eyebrows with a nod of his head. He, too, thought we’d succeeded in rescuing everyone we could.

I counted silently. Others did the same. Then, before our staring eyes, a wave of dust engulfed the castle and obscured our view at the same moment as a percussive
BOOM
rang out across the fields. I instinctively ducked, clutching Arthur and Lili to me and shielding them with my body. I hadn’t been in Cardiff during the bombing that had sent the bus to the Middle Ages with my mom and sister in it, but I had to think it must have been like this. The noise of the explosion was far louder than I’d expected it to be.

As the noise faded, I raised my head and strained my eyes towards the castle. Smoke puffed out all around the keep. If we’d been any closer, the dust would have been choking. While no rain fell, the wind was blowing strongly from the southwest, as it usually did, serving to send the smoke and dust over the town of Canterbury which lay to the northeast of the castle.

Gradually, the debris in the air cleared. Part of one tower still showed above the wall, but most of the keep was just … gone. The curtain wall on our side had also been demolished, turned in an instant from solid stone to dust.

Nobody screamed. Perhaps everyone was too shocked. Men and women stood with their hands to their mouths, staring in the direction of the castle.

Callum cleared his throat and spoke into the silence. “It is my guess that the  explosives were placed in the latrines on the middle floors. The explosion blew out the walls, causing the stones of the top two floors to simply drop onto the basement since there was no longer anything to hold them up.”

Nobody had an answer to that or any reason to question Callum’s evaluation. I was as shocked as everyone else, never mind that I was from Avalon. The destruction was mind-boggling, no less to me for having some idea in advance of what it might look like.

Then Arthur wiggled in my arms. “You’re squeezing me, Daddy!”

I lowered Arthur to the ground, and he plopped in the grass at my feet to dig with a stick he found.

“Nobody could have survived that, my lord.” Ieuan’s voice came low in my ear.

“No,” I said.

“He meant to kill us all,” Lili said.

Her daughter, Catrin, on her hip, Bronwen stood with Ieuan, and he held her as I held Lili—tightly. I didn’t want to let my wife go. I didn’t want time to start up again because the world was looking like a much scarier place than it had a half-hour ago—and it had been frightening enough. Whatever I chose to do next, I couldn’t do it with Lili. I needed to lead, now, from the front as always. It would be her job to protect Arthur and our unborn child.

So I took in a breath and said what needed to be said: “We have to move. We have to get the women and children out of Canterbury, preferably to a fortress with a sizable garrison. It wasn’t just me who was meant to die, but my family too—all of our families. My son.”

I was having trouble speaking coherently, but the rage building inside me had me trembling more than the earlier fear. We all knew who
he
was, and we’d so far avoided saying his name out loud. That time had passed.

Lee.

He’d meant to kill us all. Destroying Canterbury Castle had been a personal attack. I’d spent three months with the man. He’d eaten my food and accepted the hospitality I offered him—and then he’d tried to kill me, my family, and hundreds of other people. I’d known he was intelligent, but it was terrifying to have his mind directed towards something so villainous I could barely get my head around the magnitude of the crime.

I didn’t know why Lee had done it. I didn’t know what he hoped to gain from my death and the loss of Canterbury Castle. I didn’t know where he’d gotten the C-4 either, but I pictured Lee’s duffel bag, which had always gone everywhere with him. It hadn’t been in his room when we’d searched it. He had it with him, along with God knows how many more bricks of explosive.

We had to find him, and we had to find him fast.

Chapter Twelve

“
T
he question we are all asking ourselves, and I guess I can be the first to say it, is
how
Lee knew we were on to him such that he planted those bombs and set the timer before he left.” Callum looked at Darren and Peter, who had just joined our little group.

Rachel was moving among the evacuees, speaking to one after the other to gauge if anyone was injured. Justin was evaluating the condition of the men. We were safe at the chapel for now. I wanted to wait for the dust to settle before returning to the castle, as well as ensure that no more bombs had been set to go off on a delayed timer. We had a few minutes to think before we made our next move.

“I have no answers.” Darren said. While Huw and Bevyn had been in charge of the town gate, Peter and Darren had been the last ones through the back gate, taking upon themselves the job of ensuring everyone got out.

“That may be the question you’re asking, Callum, but I want to know what Lee hoped to gain from David’s death,” Cassie said. “All I can see is chaos.”

“He wanted chaos. He had to have,” I said. “What I don’t understand is why he didn’t kill me himself, or arrange for it to happen in a way that could be more controlled. Poison, for instance.”

“Because he wanted all of us dead. Arthur too.” Lili had given Arthur to his nanny to hold and returned to wrap her arms around my waist.

I lifted my arm so she could duck under it. “You don’t need to be here.”

“You don’t have to protect me, Dafydd.” Then she looked at Callum. “Before we go any further, is there any doubt that it was he who did this?”

“I have no doubt, and nobody else should either,” Callum said. “The explosives came from Avalon. That is a fact. Lee murdered Noah and Mike. That is also a fact. I don’t see another explanation unless a different bus passenger is unaccounted for and has a vendetta we don’t know about.”

Lili bit her lip. “I don’t mean to confuse the issue, but is there any chance that someone else from Avalon could have come here without you knowing? Someone who doesn’t believe you should be king?”

Callum and I exchanged a swift look. “I—” I shook my head. “You mean someone like Cassie or Marty? Or are you wondering if someone else could have my family’s ability to travel here from Avalon?”

“Either. Both,” she said.

“I can’t speculate,” I said. “I have to believe not—until I have some indication otherwise. Furthermore, what are the chances that such a person would have brought C-4 to the Middle Ages?”

“Zero,” Cassie said.

“I would have to agree.” Callum said.

Cassie put her arm around Lili’s shoulder and squeezed. “We’re going to stop him, Lili. Nobody is going to get to David or Arthur.” Then she looked at Callum. “Have we decided, then, that Lee was part of this ELF group?”

“Elf?” Lili said.

“ELF is the acronym for the Economic Liberation Front, which claimed responsibility for the bombing at Cheltenham back in Avalon,” Callum said.

“What were the group’s aims?” I said.

“That wasn’t yet clear by the time we left,” Callum said. “Fostering chaos, certainly, but we had no manifesto from them. There was the usual talk about corruption at the highest levels of government. It was all in a file that crossed my desk a year ago. We flagged it and passed it on. Believe me, after the bombing of GCHQ, if I’d ever made it back to my office, I would have looked at it more closely.”

“As I recall, their aims were along the lines of ‘economic equality for all’,” Cassie said.

Peter leaned into the conversation. “Thinking about what Lili asked, I have a crazy idea: what if Lee somehow knew you were going to be on that bus?”

“That’s not possible.” Darren shook his head at his friend. “We didn’t even know we were going to be on that bus until twenty minutes before we boarded it.”

“Lee wanted to make a statement. Had I not woken, had George the soldier been less nosy, we would all be dead.” I shook my head. “It was like using a trebuchet to kill an ant.”

Bevyn cleared his throat. “You are no ant, sire.”

“That may be, but I would be surprised if Lee doesn’t see me that way. I am nothing to him,” I said.

Callum stood with his hand on the hilt of his sword, which he’d had the foresight to put on before he left his room, urgent summons or no urgent summons. “People become terrorists for different reasons. If Lee’s actions arise from a desire for disorder and anarchy—in other words, to disrupt the social order—then it’s easy to see why working against David and the monarchy would be a given for him. If he wants something else—power for himself, for example—then killing David should lead to him getting it. Given that he’s an outsider, though, I find it hard to see how.”

“Because he’s working for someone else,” Lili said.

“That’s another option,” Callum said. “He could be a hired gun.”

“Not with pounds and pounds of C-4 in his bag,” Cassie said. “He brought that with him. I think we have to conclude that he was at least partly responsible for the bombing in Cardiff.”

“And up until now, I have assumed that the Cardiff bombs and the ones that went off earlier at GCHQ in Cheltenham were connected,” Callum said. “I’m wondering now if that assumption was mistaken.”

“I’ll leave you to it.” Lili said abruptly, turning on her heel. She headed to where Bronwen knelt on the ground nearby, hovering over Catrin and Arthur.

My own stomach roiled as I watched her go, and I forced myself to damp down the anger that I wasn’t sure would ever go away, even if we caught Lee and hanged him from the nearest tower that was still standing.

I turned back to the others. “That leads to my next thought: yesterday, because of the fist he painted on the wall, we learned that Lee’s focus is on Ireland,” I said. “At the time, we didn’t discuss the IRA because we saw him as a murderer rather than a terrorist. I think we need to reexamine that assumption.” Back in Avalon, the Irish Republican Army, the military arm of the Irish resistance to English rule, had operated for most of the twentieth century but had disbanded during the peace accords in the late 1990s.