Refuge in Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  To Michael’s mind, it was a convenient delay, because it meant he and Livia were on their own with Cadell and Sophie. They needed to decide fairly quickly if they trusted Chad enough to return to him—or if they were better off running. If that was the case, they needed to bin their phones and find another vehicle. Perhaps not an easy task at ten o’clock on a Sunday night.

  Both Livia and Michael were out of the car and up the steps to the restaurant within seconds of turning off the engine. Livia was no longer in the pink raincoat, which she’d left in the car. Thankfully, the restaurant was empty but for an apron-wearing young woman, who was wiping down the table coverings, and two people who had to be Sophie and Cadell. They were dressed in clothing that would have been perfectly in place at the medieval tournament at Beaumaris that had brought Michael into David’s circle in the first place.

  Michael wondered what the woman who worked in the restaurant thought of Sophie’s and Cadell’s wool cloaks, both of which were hung on hooks on the wall next to where they were sitting. Maybe she was used to that sort of thing here. Anna’s plane had flown into Snowdon on the spring equinox. If that day had been rainy, perhaps everything would have turned out differently, but the skies had been clear, a rare event for Wales in March, and all of the new age believers and tourists who’d flocked to Snowdon to celebrate the new year had witnessed the entire event.

  Michael hadn’t been there, of course. He’d been blessedly asleep in his flat in Manchester, but he’d seen enough video by now to have the image of the two fighter jets bearing down on a little white airplane with funny wings burned into his memory. On the video, the plane looked more like a bird than a plane, and no matter how many times Michael watched it, he could never get over the moment it seemed to have a mind of its own and dove straight for Snowdon’s peak.

  On the video, the mountain started out covered in wispy clouds, but as the plane came into view, they dissipated or were blown away, providing a blue-pink sky as a backdrop. With the sun rising, the light reflected off both Snowdon’s peak and the white metal of the plane. Michael wasn’t an artist, but even he could tell it had been an epic cinematic moment, which of course everyone on the ground realized instantly. As had Chad Treadman as soon as he’d seen it.

  It was perfectly possible—and, in fact, likely—that Snowdon, and this restaurant, had been inundated with tourists over the last two weeks on a quest to absorb a little of the magic. By those lights, a couple of people in wool cloaks were nothing.

  Cadell set down his empty cup, having drunk it to the dregs. He had a ring of chocolate around his mouth and, if Michael wasn’t mistaken, also sported a dot of whipped cream on the end of his nose. It looked as if he’d also indulged in a meal composed of Michael’s own personal favorites: pizza and chips. It wasn’t something he told the uncle who owned a restaurant.

  Livia advanced first and crouched next to Cadell’s chair, her head about at his level. “Hi, I’m Livia.”

  “I’m Cadell,” he said, speaking his name with the unreproducible ll sound, so it sounded something like cah-desh.

  Livia held out her hand. “Do you mind if I call you ‘Cade’? It would be easier for me to say.”

  Cadell lifted one shoulder. “Sure.” And then he repeated the name to himself. It sounded like something that should be on the cover of a heroic adventure or romance novel, and Cade seemed to know it because it had him squaring his shoulders.

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” Sophie said, also under her breath. She had risen to her feet and stuck out her hand to Michael, who shook. “I’m Sophie. We haven’t met.”

  “Michael.” He looked past Sophie to the young woman who worked in the restaurant. “Thank you for waiting. We’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”

  “No problem. Take your time. I have a few things to finish up in the back.” She had the Welsh lilt too.

  As he watched her disappear through the doorway, it occurred to him for the first time that David hadn’t actually spoken Welsh during his interview with Owain. He certainly could have. He was fluent and had chatted away in Welsh with the hospital staff.

  Maybe having a Welsh interviewer in Owain Williams and a location in Wales sent enough of a message to the people of Wales that he was a Welsh King of England. Maybe David hadn’t wanted to rub everybody else’s noses in it. If so, it was a subtle piece of political strategy, and it made Michael think back to his suspicions of Chad and MI-5. He knew he was out of his depth with the complexity of what might be going on here, and it made him glad to have Livia with him. He could be the brawn while she was the brain, a distribution of labor that suited him just fine.

  Sophie then stuck out her hand to Livia, and for a moment the two women might have bristled at each other.

  But then Livia threw her arms around Sophie, forgoing what had up to now been a markedly reserved personality. “Welcome home! It’s incredible you made it safely.” She stepped back and held Sophie by both arms. “I want to hear all about what it was like, though I realize now is probably not the time.” She looked her up and down. “You’re not injured? Either of you?”

  “We are fine, really,” Sophie said, warming up, and really, it would have been impossible to remain stiff after such a warm welcome. “It all happened so fast, I almost don’t know what to think.”

  While the women continued to talk to each other, Michael pulled out the chair opposite Cade’s at the table. He also wanted to hear about what it had been like to cross the void between the two universes, but he had a bigger task before him first. “Hi, Cade. I’m Michael. I know your uncle.”

  Cade’s eyes lit. “Do you? I was hoping he would come too.” He looked past Michael towards the door, as if expecting David to walk through it at any moment.

  Michael grimaced. “I’m sorry, Cade. I don’t know quite how to tell you this, but David left already, at the same instant you arrived, actually.”

  Cade gazed at Michael for a full five seconds, and Michael was suddenly uncertain if Cade had understood him. The boy spoke fluent American English, but that didn’t mean he knew every word Michael had said and could make sense of them.

  Then, as the news sank in, Cade’s eyes watered, and a single tear rolled down his cheek. “But—” He swallowed hard, fighting his tears. Michael didn’t say anything to tip the balance one way or the other. Finally, Cade managed to beat back his emotion. “I came here for nothing. I’d better go back right now, before they realize I’m gone.” He pushed to his feet.

  Surprised at the sudden movement, Michael put out a hand to him. “Steady, Cade. You can’t just leave.”

  “Sure I can.” The phrase and accent made him sound very American, a miniature version of David, in fact. “There’s still castles, right? Dolbadarn is ruined, but it still has a tower I could climb. We can go back there.” Then he paused. “I would need someone to let me in to the keep. Who holds the castle now?”

  Still with his hand out, Michael rose to his feet too, his realization of how much Cade didn’t understand washing over him like the waves of rain outside. “I think we had better take this conversation on the road. Livia?”

  “Sorry. You’re right. On it.” She held out her hand to Cade. “Let’s get you in the car, shall we?”

  Cade’s eyes tracked to their vehicle, parked outside the door. “Sure!”

  That left Michael with Sophie. “Are you really okay?”

  She nodded. “A bit shocked. Happy to be alive.”

  “Go on with them. I’ll pay and say goodbye.”

  Sophie followed Livia, who was already helping Cade with his seatbelt.

  The girl in the apron appeared around a corner, and Michael had the sudden fear that she’d been out of sight, listening the whole time, which turned out to be the case, since she gazed at Michael with something like awe in her face. “I know who you are! She called Chad Treadman, didn’t she? You guys are part of this, aren’t you? You work for him, right? You know David!”

  “I’m not sure—�
�

  She cut him off, too excited to let him get more than a few words in edgewise. “I saw what happened tonight. We had a party here so we could all watch the interview together.” She gestured towards the four-foot screen, now darkened, set up on a table in the corner. “Is that why Sophie didn’t know about the interview? I knew they were fans of David and Anna because they were dressed in medieval clothing. We’ve had people like them coming through here every day for a fortnight. I’m confused about the boy, though—” Her voice broke off.

  Inwardly cursing Chad Treadman and his quest for transparency, Michael spread his hands wide. “This is a matter of national security. An officer will come by in the morning to debrief you.” He was making it up, of course, but he thought he could also be right. Then he took out his wallet. “What do I owe you for the hot chocolate and the pizza?”

  The girl was only half-listening, as her attention was still on Cade in the car. “He said his name was Cadell. Is that—is that—” she stuttered before completing her thought, “—Anna’s son?”

  Michael gritted his teeth and stepped closer to the young woman. He could have been threatening but decided instead to coopt her into their conspiracy. “Please, you cannot tell anyone he’s here. We’ve had death threats. Powerful people would do anything and everything to get their hands on him. We cannot let that happen.”

  If possible, her eyes went a little wider, and then she looked again to the car. Both women and Cade were now inside, out of the rain. “I won’t tell anyone.” Her chin firmed. “David is a Welsh King of England and Prince of Wales. His secrets are safe with me.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  3 April 1294

  Anna

  Anna poked her nose into the boys’ room and whispered, “Have you seen your brother?” to Bran, her youngest, because David and Lili’s son Arthur was asleep on his pallet on the floor.

  David’s younger boy, Alexander, was asleep on Anna’s own bed, since Bronwen had her hands full with Cadwaladr; and Padrig, the boy half of her parents’ twin set, couldn’t be trusted not to keep his cousins awake and was banished to his parents’ room.

  Bran looked up. “No.”

  Anna’s eyes narrowed. “When did you last see him?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe when Gwenllian was reading to us.” Bran rolled onto his back on his bed, two carved knights in his fists. At five years old, he was an unreliable witness anyway, and Anna didn’t read too much into his ignorance.

  Lately, Cadell had been sneaking out of bed to sit up late in the hall when there was a crowd there, or worse, in the barracks, where he knew the men wouldn’t betray him to his parents. He had always been sensitive to the emotions of everyone around him, and she didn’t quite understand his current love of horror and gore. He was intelligent and precocious, but the talk among the men was not for his ears, especially since she knew he had tossed and turned the last two nights, unsettled by the fact that they’d arrived in Chester to find David gone to Avalon.

  David’s absence had been preoccupying all of them. Anna still had a constant sick pit in her stomach about her own trip—and it was over.

  There was plain fear there, of course, for herself and for her family, were any of them to travel again, as David apparently had. Then came the guilt, as she’d said to Sophie, for bringing Sophie, Andre, and George to Earth Two with her. In the heat of the moment, they had agreed to come, but on a certain level, they hadn’t had a lot of choices. It was either fly into the mountain and time travel or allow Anna to be captured by MI-5. They’d had faith enough in Anna to choose the former, which was humbling in and of itself.

  And then there was the outright anxiety that was part and parcel of being a parent. She couldn’t care for or protect her children when she was in an alternate universe. One day, they would be grown and gone from her, as she was from her own mother (some of the time anyway). She had a feeling that wasn’t going to lessen her anxiety in the least.

  Anna moved into the room, kissed her son on the forehead, and doused the lantern beside his bed. “I’ll find him. Love you. See you in the morning.”

  “Night, Mama.” Unlike his older brother, Bran was for the most part entirely unconcerned about any events outside his immediate surroundings, and even those could pass him by if he was absorbed in imaginative play. He was an introvert as well, which meant he could go hours without paying attention to anyone else. The general exception to this rule was when his same-age cousins were present, which was why they weren’t all sleeping together in the same room. If that had been the case, sleep would not be happening.

  As she reached the door, however, Bran threw an arm above his head and pointed towards the side table next to Cadell’s bed. “He was writing something earlier. He wouldn’t tell me what it was. Maybe it’s over there. He had a backpack too. I asked him what was in it, but he wouldn’t tell me.”

  These sentences were spoken casually and immediately followed by fighting noises as his knights succumbed to their wounds.

  That Cadell wouldn’t tell his younger brother what he was doing was entirely in character. The boys were four years apart in age, which lessened the sibling rivalry, but those years put Cadell light years ahead of Bran academically, and the difference was too great for them to consistently play well together. Cadell wouldn’t have told Bran what he was doing out of habit, if nothing else.

  Anna picked through the detritus on Cadell’s desk and bedside table, and looked all over his bed, but she didn’t find anything that could tell her where he’d gone. So she gave up searching in favor of actually corralling the miscreant. She poked her nose again into the girls’ room, finding Gwenllian and Elen reading, and Catrin, Bronwen’s five-year-old daughter, asleep. The fourth bed in the room was for Sophie, who was not in evidence. That wasn’t unusual, since as an adult she wouldn’t be particularly interested in spending her evening with two girls on the cusp of womanhood.

  Anna sketched a wave to the girls, who barely looked up from their engrossing books, and made her way to the castle’s private hall. David had built a grand hall in the outer courtyard for public dinners and meetings, but this room was for family and friends only. On one hand, to have such a retreat just for them in a crowded castle was elitist. On the other, David was the King of England. Even with no social media, his life was led in public. Chester was his castle, and he needed space to breathe in it.

  “Have any of you seen Cadell?” she said to the room in general as she entered.

  The main table, which at times sat thirty or more, today was occupied by the parental units of Anna’s family, meaning her mother and father and Elisa and Ted. All of them shook their heads. When Anna had departed on her quest to find Cadell, Bronwen had been sitting in the rocking chair set close to the fire, nursing Cadwaladr, but she had left to put him to bed.

  Bevyn would have been welcome, but he wasn’t present either. Likely, he was overseeing the members of the garrison, who’d taken their late-night drinking to the barracks common room. Anna sighed to realize she would have to send someone across the bailey to the barracks. Princess of Wales she might be, as well as a determined promoter of the equality of men and women, but that still didn’t mean she could—or should—enter such an all-male domain any time she wanted to.

  She was eyeing her father, who definitely had the requisite authority to corral her son, when Bevyn appeared in the entrance to the hall. Raindrops glistened on the shoulders of his leather coat, and she put up a hand, thinking he was just the person she had wanted to see.

  But before she could speak, he plowed across the room, urgency clear in every line of his body.

  Thinking he had news of the war, her heart skipped a beat. “What is it?”

  At the sight of Bevyn marching towards Anna, Papa surged to his feet and came around the table in order to stand beside her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  Bevyn himself put out a reassuring hand before he halted in front of her. “I have no news of your husband
or the war. This is something different. Something strange.” He barked an unamused laugh. “Stranger, rather. An hour ago, one of the men heard shouting from the top of the king’s tower, high voices, which he interpreted to belong to women. With the rain, he couldn’t see clearly, and the torch on that tower had gone out. He was moving to look when he thought he saw something—or someone—fall from the battlement, but a subsequent search of the tower and the ground outside revealed nothing. He was afraid he would be ridiculed for seeing things and almost didn’t mention it to his commander—” Bevyn swallowed at the look on Anna’s face. “What is it?”

  “Have you seen Cadell this evening? He has been known to sneak out of our quarters to sit with the men in the barracks.”

  “I am aware,” Bevyn said.

  “Was he there just now?” Anna’s heart was in her throat.

  “No.” Bevyn looked at her with steady concern. “Are you afraid it was he on that tower? Why would he be?” He broke off, now showing genuine alarm. “He wouldn’t have—”

  “He might have,” Papa said heavily from beside Anna.

  Bevyn made a sweeping gesture with one hand. “This happened nearly an hour ago apparently. I’m telling you about it only now because the captain of the garrison just came to me and reported on what his guard had seen.”

  Noting the intensity of the conversation with Bevyn, the others at the high table had stopped talking. Papa turned to look at Mom. “Are we missing anyone else?”

  “Gwenllian?” Mom rose to her feet.

  “She’s with Elen,” Anna said. “They were reading in their room.”

  Elisa blew out a breath. The previous year during the insurrection led by Gilbert de Clare, Gwenllian had traveled to Avalon with Arthur. Since Elen’s arrival, she and Elen had become inseparable friends, and it wouldn’t have been outside the realm of possibility that either could have hatched a plot to return. Though it was Elen, of all the twenty-firsters who’d come on the plane, who appeared to be enjoying life in Earth Two the most.