“You have my word.” Chad rocked back in his chair. “For now.”
Fleming looked around at the rest of Chad’s people. Most of their expressions were hard and unforgiving. He had the authority to prevent them from using their devices. Chad would have resisted giving up his phone, of course, but that wasn’t to say he would have won. But Fleming merely pressed his lips together and left the room.
Two of Fleming’s agents brought the breakfast dishes from the sideboard, along with a stack of plates and utensils. Chad had been almost finished eating anyway and just took coffee. He wanted to stay awake and remain alert, though the all-nighter he and Candy had pulled was starting to wear on him.
Initially, he and Candy were reluctant to test Fleming’s flexibility on their use of the computers, but after the last agent was called away, a text came in from Michael on Candy’s phone, which had Chad sitting bolt upright at the sight of what was on the screen.
And, as the messages continued to come in, he and Candy set to work on their respective computers. The phone belonged to Treadman Global, and it was a matter of five seconds work for Candy to have the map up and running, showing where Livia and Michael were and what they were doing.
“I’ll get the highway cameras. You see about the license plates of those following cars,” Chad said.
Fingers flying furiously, Chad didn’t care anymore if Fleming’s people came in and saw them working. Candy was focused more on the phone than her computer, responding to Michael’s texts and photographs, which she sent to Chad’s screen as they came in.
But then Candy gasped, and he didn’t wait for her to send him what Michael had written, instead leaning over to look at her phone. Chad read the text, and then looked at Candy. “Tell them—”
But Candy shook her head. “Look at the map. It’s already too late.”
Michael’s last text had left no confusion about his meaning: “We’re going. Take care of our families. Good luck.”
And the blinking dot that had been his phone vanished from Chad’s screen.
Chapter Twenty-four
4 April 1294
Michael
One ... two ... three ...
Michael had never time traveled before. As it turned out, it made him feel like throwing up, worse than the flashbang had. He’d spent the three seconds of blackness with his hands pressed flat on the dashboard, and then they came out of it to find themselves jouncing down a dirt road. Livia immediately slammed on the brakes, seconds before the car crashed into a stone wall directly ahead of them. The road curved to the right, and she managed to slide the vehicle sideways so it came to rest alongside the wall, in what in Avalon would have been a perfectly executed parallel parking job.
“Signal lost,” proclaimed the disembodied voice of the GPS.
Livia and Michael found themselves staring out the front windscreen, both short of breath and in shock.
Cade, however, whooped from the back seat. “We’re here!” He fumbled with his seatbelt and then with the door handle, before remembering his manners. He leaned forward. “Thank you! I thought you said you weren’t going to do it!”
Then he pulled on the door handle and hopped out of the car.
It had rained recently, but it wasn’t raining now. In fact, the skies were mostly clear. The sun had risen here too and was bathing the fields and trees around them in a golden light.
Michael and Livia continued to sit unmoving, until finally—after maybe another fifteen seconds—they said at the exact same moment: “We’re in the Middle Ages.”
Then they moved towards one another, and Livia threw her arms around Michael’s neck. “We’re in the Middle Ages!”
“Holy crap!” Michael held Livia to him for a few more seconds, feeling her breathing and the vanilla-scented shampoo she’d used in her hair, and then he released her and made a shooing motion towards her door. “I’m too close to the wall to open my door, so we need to get out your side.”
Livia did as he bid and then held her door wide while Michael crawled over the gearbox before extricating himself from the car. A few yards away, Cade had been galloping about with pent-up energy, and then he scrambled onto the stone wall Livia had almost hit.
“Do you know where we are?” she asked, looking up at him, since his feet were more than four feet off the ground.
“No.” He turned a full circle, taking in the landscape. “But we are where we’re supposed to be.” Now that they were back in Earth Two, his confidence had returned. Here, he was again a prince.
“Not Chester, then?” Michael himself surveyed the fields, stone walls, and cloud-covered hills in the distance. By the location of the sun, he knew the mountains lay to the north. He frowned, thinking he recognized those peaks, if not his immediate terrain, which was hilly. He knew enough of geography to think they were on the eastern slopes of a floodplain. “I’m pretty sure we’re still in the UK.”
“I think we’re in England,” Cade crouched down in preparation for jumping off the wall. “We have to be. No place in Wales looks like this.”
Livia looked archly at him. “And you’ve been everywhere in Wales, have you?”
“Yup.” Then he faltered slightly. “We need to let my mom know I’m home, and we need to figure out why we’re here.” He took in a breath, and a somewhat more mature expression crossed his face. “And we need to not be stupid so I don’t get sent back to Avalon.”
“Did you enjoy your time there?” Michael reached out a hand, surprised Cade was actually accepting help getting down.
Landing solidly on two feet, Cade said, “I hardly saw it, and what I did see of it—” He shook his head. “My mom told me King Edward had won, but I didn’t understand what that meant. I spent all of last year wishing I could go, and then when I got there, I spent the whole time wishing I was home. That was dumb.” But then he waggled his head in a way Michael had seen David do. “I guess Mom was right that what’s important isn’t where you are but who you’re with.”
Then he growled under his breath, sounding much more like himself. “Bran better not have ruined any of my stuff while I’ve been gone!”
Michael grinned. “Well at least you have your priorities straight.”
He was fairly sure, as soon as the shock of their arrival wore off, he would regret coming here, but for now, he couldn’t. He’d spent years in foreign countries and knew the first two weeks in-country involved a honeymoon period before hatred of everything in the new place set in. Sophie had been fully in the latter zone when she’d returned to Avalon. Perhaps she would have grown out of it, but now she would never know.
“We should move the car off the road, if only so somebody else can get by,” Michael said to Livia.
She handed him the key. “You drive. Cade and I will walk ahead and find a break in the wall.” She waved a hand. “I grew up in the countryside. This isn’t Kent, but it isn’t so different.”
Cade and Livia had to walk a good hundred yards, Michael driving slowly behind them, before they found a gap in the stone wall. The fields were overgrown and apparently unused on this side of the road. Once Livia and Cade lugged several fallen stones out of the way, Michael was able to drive the Citroen into the field, turning left immediately to park it just along the inside of the wall that lined the road.
The road was higher than the field, which sloped away west, making the top of the wall a good foot above the roof of the car. A tree overhung the wall as well, which gave it further cover. It wasn’t a completely secret hiding place, but the casual passerby wouldn’t see the vehicle unless he was looking for it.
Michael remained in the seat and spoke to Livia through the open door. “We should hide everything we don’t want someone to find.” He opened the glove box and, with regret, dropped the mobile phone inside. He added his watch and wallet. Turning, he looked at Livia. “Do you have anything?”
She took her discreet gold loops out of her pierced ears and then patted herself down. “No pockets. I just ha
ve my gun.”
“You should keep that. I’ll keep mine too.” Getting out of the car, he pressed the button on the key fob to lock it and then tucked the fob under the edge of the rear fender.
Livia watched him, chewing on her lower lip. “We really are in the Middle Ages, aren’t we?”
“It seems so.” He brushed off his right knee, which was wet from kneeling in the grass. “The landscape looks the same everywhere to me. Just a lot of green fields and stone walls.”
“And sheep.” Livia gestured to a field of them, the majority of which were black, rather than white. They dotted the landscape all around, interspersed with cattle and plowed fields, ready for the spring planting.
“I wish we could get higher so we could see where we are.”
“There’s plenty of hills to choose from, but let’s start walking and see where this road takes us.” Livia held out her hand to him. “Shall we?”
The gesture looked impulsive, but he took her hand without hesitation. “I suppose so.”
What he didn’t voice, though he’d alluded to it earlier when they’d talked about which one of them would take Cade home to Earth Two, was that she was a woman in the Middle Ages. He had no doubt she could take care of herself, but only up to a point. Even in David’s world, women had few rights and needed protection. It felt sexist to even think it, though admitting reality shouldn’t be sexist. That Livia wouldn’t like to be reminded of that fact was why he didn’t mention it.
“You guys need something better to wear,” Cade said matter-of-factly. “Especially Livia.” He looked her up and down and then unhooked his cloak from around his neck. “You should wear this for now.”
Michael could tell Livia was touched by Cade’s concern. “Thank you. What about you?”
“I’m not cold.” He scampered ahead.
Michael helped Livia with the brooch at her throat and then adjusted the cloak around her shoulders. “It’s too short, of course, but it isn’t bad.” He stepped back to look at her with a critical expression. “He’s right, though. We’re wrong. I’m wrong.”
“We can’t worry about it.” Then Livia wrinkled her nose at him. “I know what you’re not saying.”
“Do you?”
“You and I need to ... well ... pretend we’re together.”
“We should say we’re married, actually, and Cade is our son.” Michael kept his voice matter-of-fact, as Cade had earlier.
Livia made a disgusted sound at the back of her throat. “There’s really no time in history, outside of our own, that I don’t find appalling.”
“And even then—” Michael was making a joke, but he was starting to feel bad. Or rather, worse. Maybe it showed on his face, because Livia softened her expression and squeezed his hand. “I would be pleased to become your wife, good sir.”
Michael grinned and bowed flamboyantly. “You do me a great honor.”
They’d been in relatively good spirits initially, which might have been simply the rush of adrenaline at their escape and time traveling, but now they strode cheerfully after Cade, heading south for no reason other than London, if they were in England, lay that way. Then they came up a rise and finally were permitted a view of the countryside, prompting Michael to come to a dead halt. “My God!”
Livia stopped too. “What is it?”
“I knew those mountains were familiar! I just couldn’t believe we’d get dropped here!” He turned to look the other way, back to the mountains he’d mentioned, and then releasing Livia’s hand, he leapt the wall to the east of the road and loped up the field to an even higher spot not covered in trees. It afforded him a view of the surrounding countryside.
Cade was always up for adventure, so he followed immediately and then, after a moment, Livia did too. While he waited for them, Michael gazed down the long slope to the village below. A river curved around it to the west. The settlement was a mile and a half away, but in the clear morning air, a castle with a tall tower and a moat around it in the center of the village was clearly visible. There was a church next to the castle, some squat buildings, and an expanding ring of huts, though he was too far away to make each out individually.
“You know where we are?” Livia said when she finally reached him. “Don’t keep us in suspense!”
Michael pointed. “That’s Bury!” He pronounced it the way his mates did, like ‘berry’, because he knew that would be more familiar to Livia. A certain sector of the population of the town pronounced it to rhyme with Murray, which he suspected was an older pronunciation. He supposed they would soon find out. “It’s a little town north of Manchester. In fact—” he spun on his heel one more time, trying to gauge the lay of the land, wanting to be sure he was right. “I think we’re standing where a golf course will one day be. I’ve played here with my uncle!”
“The one who owns the restaurant?” Livia asked.
Michael shook his head. “He doesn’t golf. He works. This uncle owns a car dealership.”
“You have a big family.” Livia bit her lip. “You shouldn’t have come. They’re going to miss you.”
“Oh sure.” Michael began to walk back down the hill. “Not too much, though. Not for a while. They’re used to me being gone.” He glanced at her. “What about your family?”
She shrugged, in what he hoped was a genuinely unconcerned way. “Sometimes we go weeks without talking. Last Christmas I apologized to my mom for that, and she laughed.”
Michael raised his eyebrows.
Livia tsked. “She said children were supposed to fly the nest. Some come home more than others, and she was there if I needed her.”
“She sounds like a great mom.”
Livia glanced at Michael. “Yours died, right?”
At first, Michael’s eyes found his feet, but then he looked up and met Livia’s gaze. “I miss her every day. She’d love to know I was here. She despaired that she couldn’t convince any of her kids to learn anything about history.” He made himself grin, knowing grief for her would be the last thing his mother would want him to be feeling right now. “Clearly it was a mistake not to listen to her.”
“My dad says so all the time,” Cade said.
“What does he say?” Michael asked.
Cade’s expression was very serious. “You should always listen to your mother.”
Chapter Twenty-five
4 April 1294
Livia
Cade thought acquiring proper clothing had to be their highest priority, since Livia, in particular, was wearing a dress that was far too exposing. Michael agreed on the clothing but was more interested in figuring out why they’d come to this particular spot. Livia distrusted her overall sense of wellbeing, thinking she might not ever have been in more danger in her entire life than she was right now, and she was glad of the comforting weight of her gun in its holster around her thigh.
She also thought they already knew why they’d arrived where they had. They were in the suburbs of Manchester, a place Michael knew well. Not that he knew this landscape well. Maybe mountains didn’t change all that much over the centuries, but the idea that the sleepy hamlet before them would one day become a suburb of one of the largest cities in England seemed impossible from where they stood.
Cade had elected himself leader, to the amusement of both Livia and Michael, though they did nothing to discourage him. After all, he was the medieval person. As he charged ahead towards the first farmhouse they came upon, it wasn’t all that hard to imagine him leading an army twenty years from now.
The house was circular with a thatched roof and a door but no windows. A fire burned in a firepit fifteen feet from the front door, and a woman was stirring food in a pot hanging on a tripod over the fire. The scene was right out of every historical fantasy novel Livia had ever read—and she’d read a lot of them.
A little bit closer to the road, a boy was chopping wood, and Cade marched right up to him and spoke words Livia thought were along the lines of we need food and clothing, and we can
pay. But the sentence sounded like it had been run through a Middle English translator, which Livia knew existed because she’d played with them online.
Her linguistics instructor at Cambridge had taught that English’s short, pithy words came from Saxon, while the fancy longer ones came from French. Thus, we need food and we can pay were perfectly recognizable English, albeit spoken with an accent unlike any Livia had ever heard in real life. Clothing sounded a bit different, if that was, in fact, what Cade was asking for.
Cade then patted his waist where his purse lay, spoke a few more sentences Livia didn’t catch, and both the boy and the mother looked harder at him.
Michael stepped closer and put a hand on Cade’s shoulder. “Please.”
Amazingly enough, they appeared to know that word too. After a moment of looking from Michael to Cade—and then to Livia—the woman beckoned to Livia to come with her. More hesitant than Livia had ever been in her life, she followed the woman around the back of her house to a clothesline.
On the way, Livia whispered to Cade. “Did you tell her who we are?”
“I told her Michael served King David, and you were his lady, but we’d been robbed on the road.”
As that was pretty much what Livia had agreed to, she could hardly argue, especially since it had apparently engendered goodwill. “What about you?”
“I told her I’m your nephew, which is how I speak Saxon, and you don’t.” He shrugged. “Better that nobody knows who my parents are. You never know whom she could tell, even if she means me no harm.” Then he tipped his head to the boy. “He says my father’s army left Bury yesterday morning marching north.”
“Your father!” Livia came to a sudden halt. “He was here?”
Cade looked up at her. “Didn’t you know? Because he marched to Beeston, Mom, Bran, and I came to Chester.”
Still reeling from this revelation, Livia presented herself to the woman. The family clearly had very little, but the woman had enough items, mostly bedding, to fill the line, including a shapeless green dress for Livia.
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