“Guys?” I said, to their backs. “What’s going on?”
“We’re near Offa’s Dyke,” David said.
I squealed. “Offa’s Dyke?” I clamored up next to Ieuan.
Offa’s Dyke was a turf wall that ran the full length of the border between the present-day England and Wales, or at least it did in the Middle Ages. Over the centuries, many English rulers had feared the Welsh and felt the need to contain them. The commonly held belief was that the Dyke was built in the eighth century by Offa, the Saxon King of Mercia—before England was England.
The Dyke consisted of a rampart twenty-four feet high and twenty feet across, which towered over a ditch on the Welsh side of the border and allowed the English to gaze into Wales from a great height. I followed David’s pointing finger, and there it was, less than a mile away.
“We’re in the no-man’s land between England and Wales,” I said.
“And there lies Huntington Castle,” David said, pointing northeast.
Ieuan spit on the ground. “Hereford. Again.”
“Tell me about Hereford,” I said. “Now that we’re really here, I need to hear it one more time.” I looked from one to the other.
“Huntington belongs to Humphrey de Bohun, the third Earl of Hereford,” Ieuan said. “We spoke of him earlier. It could easily be Bohun’s heir who leads here, while his sire has bigger fish to fry.”
“His heir is only ten, Ieuan, but the wife could command in her husband’s absence,” David said. “I would like to avoid them all, if possible. Despite my father’s recent victories, the Bohuns are lords in this land. Only last month they laid siege to Buellt Castle. My father and the men of Powys drove them away. Bohun also controls Brecon castle, a stronghold in Wales to the west of here, and Caldicot Castle to the south, among others.”
“They control all the lands in this region,” Ieuan said.
I saw the problem. “Hereford is more than a place and a man,” I said. “He’s an institution.”
“More importantly,” Ieuan said. “He’ll have patrols throughout the countryside.”
David nodded. “I’d say that’s one there.”
To the east of where we stood, a road ran from Huntington Castle heading south, and on it were more than a dozen riders, fortunately not looking our way. David jumped to the ground and trotted back to the car. He popped the trunk, removed his backpack so he could rummage through it. He took out a small, black box. Then, he climbed onto the wall again with a small pair of binoculars in his hand.
“Where did you get those?”
“Uncle Ted,” he said.
“Uncle Ted didn’t care?” I asked.
David took the binoculars from his eyes and looked at me, his brow furrowed. “Uncle Ted believed my story after a five minute summary over the phone from Aunt Elisa,” David said. “I think he would have come with us, if I’d asked.”
“Somehow I don’t think that Aunt Elisa would have been in favor of that,” I said.
David laughed. “No, she sees him little enough as it is. He’s a political analyst of some sort and is never home. Quite frankly, the only time I’ve ever seen him take a day off is on Christmas, and that’s only because nobody else is working so he can’t talk about work. He bought these, Aunt Elisa said, because he lists his hobby as ‘bird-watching,’ but he has two more expensive pairs that he uses if he ever goes out. Which is rarely.”
“What do you see in these ‘binoculars’?” a clearly impatient Ieuan asked.
“Riders. They wear Hereford’s colors, about twenty of them.” David swung his binoculars further south.
“And there are another ten, belonging to the Tosnys.”
“The Tosnys hold Castell Paun, or Painscastle as the English called it, which lies on the main road into Wales. The road we can see here leads into it,” Ieuan explained.
“Then we’ll have to avoid all of them, won’t we?” David said. He jumped off the wall. “Okay. Let’s move. We need to hide the car and get out of here.”
“You would be quite a prize, my lord,” Ieuan said, joining David beside the car. “What the English wouldn’t give for a chance to get their hands on you, roaming around free in their country.”
“I don’t know of any Englishmen who will recognize me on sight, not even Hereford. Until our trip to England, I’d never left Wales. Still, as in Scotland, patrols abound. I’m loath to be caught up in one again.” David stowed the binoculars and reached in through the open window of the car to release the brake.
“How is it that Hereford thinks you’re dead if he doesn’t know what you look like?” I asked.
David grunted, the muscles in his arms bulging as he and Ieuan pushed the car into some bushes. “In my fight with Edward, he tore my surcoat from me. My colors are the red dragon of Wales on white.”
“The Welsh flag,” I said.
“Close to it, yes,” he said, “but not in the Middle Ages. In this time, that flag hasn’t been seen since the mid-7th century when Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon was high king.”
That’s a little strange.
“What?” David asked, noticing my furrowed brow.
“Do you know how it became the Welsh flag?”
“No.”
“Henry Tudor—Henry VII—flew it when he marched across Wales to Bosworth Field to unseat Richard III from the throne of England,” I said. “And do you know why?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “Because Welsh legend says that the man who carries that flag is the redeemer of the Welsh people who will lead them to victory against their enemies. He has a name, too.”
“Arthur,” Ieuan said.
“Yes indeed,” I said. “Arthur.”
“You’re kidding me,” David said.
“You didn’t know?” Ieuan asked.
“Of course I didn’t know,” David said. “You’re telling me that since I began flying that banner, everyone has looked at me as if I am the return of this Cadwaladr? Of Arthur?”
Ieuan studied David through a couple of heartbeats. “Yes.”
“That’s just what I need,” David mumbled under his breath. He tossed each of us a sandwich, made sure the rest of the food was in his pack, and then locked the car. He tossed me the keys.
David continued to mutter while he and Ieuan pulled their swords from their sheaths and hacked at some of the nearby branches. “The green blends in well,” Ieuan said. “At least in the summer.”
Then Ieuan noticed how stiff I was and came over to me. He put his hands on my shoulders and bent down to look in my face. “I don’t know what the next hours will bring,” he said. “From this moment on, you need to follow my direction. Your ability to do so might save your life.”
“Obey you,” I said.
“Yup.” That was David, shooting me an I told you so grin.
“Can you?” Ieuan asked, still looking into my eyes.
“Like you obey David?”
The corners of Ieuan’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. “Well, maybe not exactly like that.” He threaded his hand through the hair at the back of my head and kissed me.
When he let go, I staggered back, a little shocked. “Okay. Fine. I’ll obey you,” I said.
“Good.” Ieuan took my hand and nodded at David. They checked their weapons, and Ieuan slung his great bow on his back. David wore the twenty-first century backpack. We climbed over the turf wall and began to walk.
“Do you have any water in that pack?” I asked.
David pulled a water bottled from a side pocket. “Here,” he said.
“What else do you have in there besides my coffee and the food?” I asked.
“Lots of stuff,” he said, shouldering the pack once again. “Some things I’ve missed that I think we can duplicate pretty well, like a good pair of scissors, and some things we can’t, like medicines. Aunt Elisa and I went to a drugstore after you were in bed. I couldn’t sleep and neither could she. We filled the cart with everything I thought might come in handy, including fifteen tubes of antibioti
c ointment—we bought out their entire supply, in every brand they had available.”
“You have your papers, don’t you?” I said.
“Yes, along with some maps of Wales I downloaded from the internet and a detailed geological survey. Wales is rich in minerals; we just have to know where to find them.”
David really did have plans for Wales, just as he’d said. “Can I ask where we’re going?” I asked.
“You can ask,” David said.
“But you’re not going to tell me.”
“I actually don’t know where we’re going. My intent is to find a holding where I can buy clothes for all of us. You need a dress, and Ieuan and I need some plainer clothes. Then, we must find some way to cross the border into Wales without the English capturing us.”
If I weren’t walking across this grass, hand-in-hand with Ieuan, under sunny skies without a power line, airplane, or automobile in sight, I wouldn’t have believed it. I stopped. Ieuan, who’d been striding forward, tried to tug me with him, but I dug in my heels.
“This is just so not okay, David,” I said. “This can’t be real. I can’t be in the Middle Ages.”
He stopped too and met my eyes, and I could see something in his face that looked like pity. “We can only go forward now, Bronwen. It’s too late to turn back. Believe me when I tell you that it’s best not to think about it. When we’re safe, I’ll get you to my mother and sister who can talk you through this. Right now, I need you to walk.”
Looking down, I brushed tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. I’d thought Tillman had blown my world apart when he denied me a stipend to continue graduate school. What a laugh. This time, I’ve blown my own world apart. I’ve nothing left—no family, no friends, no career, no possessions—beyond these two men and the clothes on my back. Hiding my face and the tears with my hair, I walked.
Chapter Fifteen
David
“There, my lord,” Ieuan said.
I nodded. We’d been walking for forty minutes, heading south, away from Huntington. The countryside was relatively flat, with meadows and fields to cross and copses of trees here and there. The hills of Wales rose up to our right and I was impatient to lose myself in them.
We crossed a creek, leaping from rock to rock without getting wet, and came through a stand of trees. Then Ieuan spied a small farmhouse, inhabited, as smoke rose through the center of the roof.
“Okay,” I said. “You two stay here and I’ll attempt to negotiate with whoever is at home.”
“Will they speak Welsh?” Bronwen asked.
“Maybe, maybe not. And even if they did I wouldn’t risk using it in England. Aye speeke Englisch,” I said.
“Is that Middle English?” Bronwen asked.
“Historically, we are in a time of transition,” I said, shrugging. “You’ll have to ask my mother if you get a chance. She knows stuff like that.”
“How are you going to pay them?” Bronwen said, hitting upon a key point.
“With this,” I said, pulling the small sack from my waist in which I stored my coins.
Bronwen looked at me. Her expression clearly said: idiot! “Why didn’t you produce that gold back at Penn State?”
“I thought the knife more valuable in your world, but the gold more valuable in mine,” I said. Bronwen opened her mouth to speak, but I forestalled her. “I knew we’d make it back and then I would need the coins.”
Ieuan tugged at her and she allowed herself to be dragged away. It was becoming a trend—Ieuan didn’t like her to question me and tried to protect her from me and me from her. I needed to let him know when I got a chance that his concern was needless. I reached the door of the hut, and knocked. A moment later, the door opened.
“What do you want?” The woman who answered asked, looking at me with suspicion. She looked old, though in this era it was often hard to tell how old a person was. Living the kind of life this woman must have led, she could’ve been forty or sixty. Either way, the lines on her face were pronounced, her hair was grey, and her shoulders hunched, whether permanently, or out of fear of me, I didn’t know.
I could understand her apprehension. Her farm wasn’t exactly located in an auspicious spot. The land was beautiful, but comprised some of the most fought over territory in England, if not the world. American law, even if imperfectly applied, protected both high and low alike. That wasn’t true in the Middle Ages. The common folk were always the ones who got caught in the middle in war. At the same time, they didn’t always care who won, as long as they didn’t lose their livelihood—or their lives—in the process.
“Madam,” I said. “My horse went lame some distance from here. If you have a horse and wagon to sell me, I have gold in exchange.”
“Gold! Aren’t you fine?” Then her eyes narrowed. “Let me see it.”
I showed her one gold coin but didn’t let her touch it. It could have been the first coin she’d ever seen. In time of war, gold is the most portable and useful of goods. She weighed her options. I could have taken from her what I wanted by force and she knew it, so I wasn’t surprised when she grunted, “I’ve a cart and a horse.”
“I need also need clothes for me and my companions.”
“I have few to spare,” she said.
“Perhaps you’ve a neighbor who’d like my money instead,” I said. I took a step back from the door.
“No, no!” she stopped me. “I’ll take the coin.”
I handed it to her and she brought me inside. The hut was as I expected, furnished with a table and two stools, with a cooking pot centered over the fire in the middle of the room. It was hot and stuffy, as she had no windows. She went to an alcove in one corner of the room and dragged a wooden box from the end of the sleeping pallet. Opening it, she removed a small stack of clothes and gave them to me.
“The dress was my daughter’s,” she said, with a sniff. “She died last year. The others belong to my husband. He won’t miss them either.”
The woman threw some food in a sack, even though I hadn’t asked for it, and gave me a blanket as well. She did have a horse, surprising really, given her poverty, but he was a sad fellow who couldn’t be ridden. He came with saddle bags, though no saddle, and was capable of pulling the cart. I thanked the woman, placed the sack in the cart, and clip clopped my way back to where I’d left Ieuan and Bronwen.
Bronwen wrinkled her nose at the clothes and I opted not to tell her that the previous owner had died. “Leave on your t-shirt and jeans,” I said. “They’re cleaner than these and you might want them for warmth tonight. Put the dress over the top.”
Bronwen did and transformed herself into a medieval woman, except for her shoes.
I turned to Ieuan. “She should be barefoot.”
“She can’t,” he said. “She’d never make it.”
Bronwen lifted the hem of her dress and all three of us inspected her feet. She wore brown leather slides and matching socks. Anna would have swooned over them.
“All right,” I said. Bronwen let go of her hem. “If we see anyone, keep your feet under your skirt and we should be okay.”
I shared Bronwen’s aversion to the smell of the clothes. We wrapped our weapons and my backpack in the blankets, rolled the fine clothes into a ball, and piled everything in the back of the cart. I rummaged in the pack of food the woman had given me and pulled out a small loaf of bread. Medieval food didn’t have preservatives in it and we should eat it before the chips from Aunt Elisa. Ieuan and Bronwen climbed to the seat and I broke the bread and handed Bronwen two-thirds of it. I would walk beside the horse. It was little matter to me, but social strata in England was rigid. Nobody would suspect that I was more than I claimed to be.
* * * * *
We followed a trail south, hoping all the while to find a track leading west into Wales. I wanted to put Huntington Castle behind us as quickly as possible, but the Dyke was a formidable obstacle in this area of Herefordshire, and we couldn’t take the cart across it unless there
was a road that cut through it. We could have easily walked along the top, but that might call too much attention to us.
My intent was to head directly for Aberedw, my father’s castle south of Buellt. He’d held it for many years and Ieuan’s holdings were close by. The road rose steadily ahead of us and for a mile was free from soldiers. That didn’t last long, however. Our track intersected a larger one, coming southwest from Huntington, just short of the Dyke.
“You there!”
Ieuan stopped the horse and allowed the English soldiers to overtake us. I didn’t have to tell Ieuan what to do. His bright eyes watched me for a moment before he looked down in feigned submission. I followed suit, waiting for the soldiers to canter up to us.
“You there!” the lead soldier of four said again. “Out of the way!”
Ieuan obeyed. He twitched the reins and encouraged the horse to pull the cart as far off the road as it could. We held still after that, heads bowed. I kept mine down until the soldier poked me with his lance.
“What say you?” he asked. “Don’t you know trouble’s coming?”
“My mum is sick,” I replied. “We’re for Hay-on-Wye.”
The soldier grunted. “Mind the river, then,” he said. “If you cross it, you may find yourself on the wrong side of a good fight!” Then he laughed and spurred his horse forward, with the rest of the troop of twenty men following.
“Those were Hereford’s men,” Ieuan said, as the last of the riders passed us.
“Yup,” I said. “They were pretty cheerful about the possibility of war, too. What does that tell us?”
Ieuan shrugged. “Nothing good. But nothing we didn’t already know.”
Chapter Sixteen
Bronwen
I exhaled a held breath, my shoulders sagging. I’d never been so scared in my life as when that soldier spoke to David. My heart had thumped so loudly I was afraid everyone could hear it. Ieuan had placed a hand on my thigh, trying to make sure I knew to be quiet. He needn’t have worried. I understood only one word in three that the man had said, but was too scared to talk anyway.
Prince of Time (Book Two in the After Cilmeri series) Page 13