Refuge in Time

by Sarah Woodbury

“Where are Lord Pilkington and his wife?” Venny asked.

  “Dead.”

  It was a lie, of course, and she looked for some way she could get on the wall and tell them.

  “Where is Livia?” By the London accent, Livia guessed this was Andre speaking.

  “I don’t know,” Michael said, also in modern English. “They separated us.”

  At the exchange, Aymer began sputtering in French. “What did he say!” Elbowing his own man out of the way, he grabbed Michael’s curly hair at the back of his head to shake him. “Tell me!”

  Andre had been right to think Aymer would speak no English at all, and certainly not the modern English he’d used.

  “He said your mother lay with the town drunk, and you are a bastard,” Michael said, with utter calm, back to French.

  Aymer cursed and then raised his sword towards Michael’s throat. “Watch your friend die!”

  Livia shot Valence in the back of the head.

  The bullet was not high caliber, but Livia’s aim was excellent, and it killed him instantly. As Aymer collapsed, his hand released Michael’s hair, but Michael went with the body anyway, descending below the level of the wall just as the sound of another bullet split the air, this one coming from the other side of the wall and aimed at one of Michael’s captors.

  Michael rolled towards the parapet wall, his hands questing for his weapon. By then, Livia had found cover in the bed of a wagon in the yard and was searching for more targets.

  “Kill the archers first,” Michael called to Livia. His gun was out, and he himself fired in rapid succession at two of them from a crouch.

  “Crossbowman, you mean,” Livia said, focusing on correcting him rather than on the man she’d just shot through the heart. She shot two more in the space of time George and Andre killed or injured a half dozen more of Aymer’s men who’d remained on the battlement. Likely, none of them had ever seen a gun before, and they were slow to realize what it was that was killing them.

  Then Andre shouted from below. “Hold fire! Hold fire!”

  Livia was happy to stop shooting. The last man she’d killed had been running at her with a sword, and she’d cut him down from five feet away. Slowly Livia and Michael rose to their feet, weapons still at the ready. Livia was down to one bullet, and she thought Michael might be out entirely, depending on how many he’d had to start with.

  “Are you injured?” Venny’s voice floated over the wall.

  “We’re good!” Michael took a hand away from his gun to raise it in the air. Then he switched to French and put force into his words, these directed at the remaining men inside the castle, not that there were very many. Of the twenty men Aymer had brought, at least twelve were dead. “Lay down your arms. Now. Nobody else needs to die.”

  “Your leader is dead,” Livia said from her position in the wagon. “We serve King David, who lives. If you surrender right now, he will accept you were only following your lord’s orders and pardon your treason.”

  “This is a one-time offer you won’t get again,” Michael added.

  A large man, one who’d been late to the action because he’d been trying to get at Amery in the house, edged between two of his men, who’d already lowered their weapons. He looked at Michael, and then at Aymer’s body where it lay on the wall-walk at Michael’s feet, and then at Livia. “How do we know you speak the truth?”

  “You don’t,” Livia said. “But I could kill you from here, as I did these others, and I have not. Lay down your arms and open the gate for Lord Venables.”

  The man gazed at her for a count of three, not knowing Livia’s hands had started to tremble, and she wasn’t sure she could shoot him if she had to.

  But then he put his hands up, his sword pointed at the sky, and then bent down to lay the weapon flat on the ground. “We’re done here, boys. Lay down your arms. I’ll open the gate.”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  4 April 1294

  Michael

  Michael settled himself next to Livia where she sat on a bench outside the rear entrance to the main hall and put his arm around her. With the waning of the day, the sun was casting long shadows and soon would fall below the level of the battlement, but for now, it shone fully on Livia’s face.

  Up until a quarter of an hour ago, she’d been in the thick of the cleanup work. That didn’t mean dealing with the dead, so much as assisting Amery Pilkington in whatever way she could, including sitting beside Roger, who seemed to be suffering from a significant concussion.

  They sat together in silence for more than a minute before Livia laid her head on Michael’s shoulder.

  It was enough that Michael felt he could speak. “They’re bringing the dead to the graveyard. The funeral will be at sunset.”

  Livia smoothed the cloth of her skirt over her thighs. “At least you’re still dressed for it.”

  Still with his arm around her, Michael settled their backs against the wall of the hall. The high of victory was ebbing for both of them, leaving them exhausted. “It isn’t our funeral. We can be grateful for that.”

  Livia lifted her head, and their eyes met. The regret he saw in hers matched his own. Then she gave an odd shake of her head. “Are we expected to be there?”

  “Do you want to be?”

  “No.” She sighed and looked down at her hands. “But maybe I should be.”

  “It’s up to you. Nobody will say anything if you don’t go.”

  Livia shifted slightly so she was more turned towards Michael and could look him directly in the face. “I can see why Sophie wanted to go home. She arrived and was almost immediately thrown into a battle, just as we were. I keep thinking there was something we should have done differently.”

  Michael took in a breath. “I don’t know, Livia. Like you, I am playing the events of the day over and over in my mind. Maybe we could have followed Cade over the wall and remained unseen, but who’s to say that wouldn’t have led to a similar outcome in the end. Or even to the capture of Cade as well as us?”

  Though Michael wouldn’t have said he believed in fate, from where he sat now, he could see that going to the Middle Ages had been inevitable from the moment he skidded on his knees beside William as he lay injured from that medieval crossbow bolt.

  “It’s actually good you are feeling this way.” Before coming over, he had watched her for a long minute. He’d hesitated to touch her, but thought it was necessary for her to feel human contact, which could be the difference between sanity and despair. Now, he rubbed her shoulder, feeling the rough wool of her borrowed overdress.

  She didn’t push him away and even went so far as to cover his hand with hers. “I don’t know what to feel. I’m not sorry I killed him. Shouldn’t I feel worse than I do?”

  “Killing should never be easy. The army knows that, which is why they treat new recruits fairly brutally after they initially enlist. Every commander faces the modern problem of taking young people who’ve been taught to love their neighbors and turning them into soldiers who will shoot when commanded to do so or when they or their team is in danger. Whatever you’re feeling is okay. Tonight, I may be weeping, but I can’t let myself yet.”

  Now Livia moved her other hand so both of hers were clutching his free one. “I couldn’t let Aymer kill you.”

  “No.”

  She turned her head to watch the activity in the courtyard. “It was as if I could see the future. Shooting Aymer was the only thing to do. All paths led to it. I knew it at the time, and I did it. I acted.”

  “Like you acted when you told Amery to lock herself and her people in her house.” He gave her hand a little squeeze, realizing where he needed to go with this. “You couldn’t save your team in the Balkans, but you saved us here. You saved me. We’re all alive because of you.”

  She turned back to him and gave him a smile that started slow but grew over a few seconds. “Yes. You are.”

  And then she put her hand to his cheek and leaned forward, her lips an inch away fr
om his. “I would like to kiss you, but I’m thinking now isn’t the time.”

  After a moment, they both pulled back, just far enough so they could look into each other’s eyes. She was warm against him, and he wanted to wrap her up in his arms and never let her go. But as she’d said, now wasn’t the time, and he also knew, as likely she did, that intense experiences could create a false intimacy, and he already cared enough for her that he wanted what they felt for each other to be real. So he said instead, “How about dinner and a movie?”

  “That sounds perfect.” And then, still with a bit of a smile on her lips, she added, “By the way, George came to see me. I sent him away.” Michael had noticed them talking during one of his passes through the great hall. “He tried to say the same comforting things you have, just not as well.”

  “I hope he didn’t ask you to a movie.”

  She smiled more broadly now. “No.”

  “I’m sure he meant to be comforting, as I do.”

  “It’s different coming from you. There’s something about him that makes me uncomfortable.”

  “He’s a player.”

  She frowned. “More than that. It’s in his eyes.”

  Michael didn’t know about that, but he had recognized George for who he was from the moment he shook his hand. He hadn’t liked him talking to Livia, but at the time she hadn’t been his to protect. Now, he settled back against the wall again, his right arm around her shoulders, and their left hands clasped. He would sit here with her as long as she wanted to, funeral or no funeral.

  Venny approached, buttressed by Rhys and Cade. The Welshman had appointed himself Cade’s personal guard—though, at this point, the boy had a hundred guards, since every soldier in the manor would have laid down his life for him. Michael had seen more than one soldier ruffle Cade’s hair and say brave lad.

  It could have gone to his head. Instead, he had been nothing but helpful, running errands like a servant boy instead of the prince he was.

  “My lord. My lady. It is time,” Venny said with a slight bow.

  Livia lifted her free hand. “We’ll be there in a moment.”

  “Of course.” They moved on.

  Livia turned her head to look at Michael. “You don’t have to come.”

  “Are you going?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like me to come with you?”

  She gave him that slow smile again. “Yes.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  10 April 1294

  Anna

  Anna could see the company’s banners and the dust in the air created by the horses’ hooves long before the riders themselves came into view.

  She had believed the news from Manchester. And, of course, she’d heard the full story from Lili, who’d ridden in four days ago, having participated in the victory at Skipton Castle. With Aymer de Valence dead, John Balliol and Roger Mortimer in chains, and David victorious, Cadell was safe. Besides which, he had an army of men around him to protect him.

  Even so, she couldn’t really breathe easy until she had him in her own two hands.

  “Come on,” Papa said. “We can meet him at the gate house.”

  She looked up at her father. “I thought you said I should wait for him to come to me.”

  He laughed. “Is that what you really want?”

  “No.” She started down the steps from the wall-walk. “He can know his mother loves him.”

  She could hear Papa snorting laughter behind her. “I’m pretty sure he’s already very clear on that point.”

  The whole family, in fact, was in the bailey of the castle to greet Cadell as he rode through the gatehouse and into the sunlight. Gwenllian caught his horse’s bridle, which meant when he dismounted, he hugged her first. “You should have seen it, Gwen. You should have been with me!”

  “You scared us, you know! But I hear you did just fine without me.”

  “Yeah.” Then he was mobbed by his brother and little cousins, none of whom had any sense of propriety. Then his grandmother loved him up, and his grandfather got down on one knee to wrap him up in a bear hug.

  But then Papa said, “What you may not know is word of your return came only just in time to stop Grandma and me from following you to Avalon.”

  Cadell pulled slightly away. “That would have been bad.”

  “Bad isn’t really a strong enough word, Cadell.”

  Cadell glanced at Anna over his grandfather’s shoulder. In that brief look, she saw suffering mixed amongst the joy. Papa had said what was necessary, but it also broke her heart, and she opened her arms to her son. As he came into them, she sat down on the third step up to the great hall to better take his weight, her arms fully around him and his around her neck. “My sweet boy. I love you so much.”

  “I love you too, Mom. I’m sorry.”

  “I know.”

  But if Cadell had already learned that rash actions can have terrible consequences, Anna couldn’t be sorry. The look in his eyes really had been enough. She didn’t need to ask what he’d been thinking. His letter had been very clear on that. She didn’t need to chastise him for scaring her half to death. His grandfather and Math, who’d ridden in behind Cadell, had made sure he understood the gravity of what he’d done.

  So she held him a little bit away from her and looked him in the eyes. “I want you to know I am very proud of you.”

  Cadell blinked. “Really? I thought you’d be angry with me.”

  “Oh I was. And worried. Terrified, actually. And you’d better not ever do anything like that to me again.” Anna kissed his nose before rising to her feet. “But you went to Avalon to save your uncle. And then you rode to find help for Michael and Livia. How can I be angry at you for that?”

  Papa came over and ruffled Cadell’s hair. “There are far worse things in this life than to be willing to sacrifice oneself for one’s family and friends. In fact, I can’t imagine anything better.”

  The End

  Thank you for reading Refuge in Time. I feel grateful and blessed every day that readers continue to enjoy my books. If you want to be notified the moment the next adventure for David and his family and friends is released, please see my web page to sign up for my newsletter:

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  The After Cilmeri Series Companion is here!

  Open a door to the world of the After Cilmeri series! With chapters on historical context, the Welsh language, characters, places in the books, and the writing process, and including hundreds of photographs, maps, timelines, and family trees, This Small Corner of Time: The After Cilmeri Series Companion highlights the characters, places, and worlds brought to life by the series’ first fifteen novels.

  For links:

  http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/the-after-cilmeri-series/the-after-cilmeri-series-companion/

  Read on for the beginning of The Viking Prince, the latest Gareth & Gwen Medieval Mystery available at all retailers!

  www.books2read.com/thevikingprince

  Sample: The Viking Prince

  Dublin, Ireland

  May 1148

  Day One

  Godfrid

  “I want every street, every house, every boat searched for the culprit. Question everyone! We must find out what happened here. With a wound this grave, Rikard can’t have gone far. I want him found! And if he went not of his own free will, someone will have seen something. Find that person!” Sturla, King Ottar’s steward, scribe, and skald, stood in the center of the floor near a broken loom, giving instructions and emphasizing every point with a stabbing finger. At the sight of Godfrid entering the warehouse, however, he arrested his arm in mid-stab—and held the position long enough for everyone present to understand that he was surprised and disappointed at Godfrid’s arrival.

  Godfrid wasn’t exactly happy to see Sturla either, but he was even more displeased by the condition of the warehouse: trading
items had been pulled from their shelves and scattered across the floor. Almost worse, two of the three looms, at which the weaver women should have been working, were upended, the racks, battens, and treadles broken into pieces. It was very much what he imagined a village would have looked like after his ancestors had sacked it.

  Godfrid had included Rikard in the dangerous game he was playing against King Ottar, and now Rikard had been murdered and his possessions destroyed. Godfrid couldn’t help but think this was all his fault.

  “My lord. What brings you here?” Sturla’s lips twisted, as if it irked him to have to use the honorific, and he very belatedly sketched a bow. His gray curly hair stuck up all over his head, adding height to his already lanky body, which appeared thinner than usual this morning. Sturla’s face also had a pallor that implied he was unwell.

  In reply, Godfrid chose to call Sturla by his first name rather than use his title. “Hello, Sturla. King Ottar sent me.” It was a petty battle to fight, and Godfrid immediately modified his expression to something more accommodating. He could throw Ottar’s name around when it suited him to do so, and he knew better than to reveal in word or deed how much he despised the king. He’d been hiding his animosity for five long years—for so long, in fact, that his polite exterior had become something of a second nature to him.

  In this instance, though, his words were actually the truth: he’d been woken by a messenger from the king, telling him of a pool of blood and a missing merchant—and giving him the commission to assist in the investigation.

  It might even be that his obsequiousness was finally paying off, and Ottar was beginning to trust him.

  “Of course. I give way to the king’s greater wisdom.” Sturla nodded sharply, and then turned to the man next to him. “I’m sure you and Holm can sort out an appropriate division of labor.”

  Holm was the newly appointed Sheriff of Dublin and, at twenty-five, far too young for his exalted position. “Of course, my lord.” He bowed, but his eyes were on Godfrid, and they weren’t happy. “What did he hope for from you? Why exactly did he send you?”