Unbroken in Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  Something along those lines may have been the ultimate plan for the imprisoned Jews but, if so, Nogaret was taking his own sweet time giving them the opportunity to free themselves.

  Though Philippe didn’t know it, he was lucky David was avoiding going to war with him because, in Avalon, the cost of Philippe’s ten-year war with Edward had prompted Philippe to reduce the silver content in his coins and debase his own currency, with devastating economic and social consequences.

  “Rachel! Is that you?” The call came in English and echoed throughout the dungeon.

  In some stone-built fortresses, room size and thick stones dampened all sound, but here they created echoes, and it had been quite noisy in the dungeon since they’d arrived. In their cell, it was because of joyful greetings between Aaron and the others imprisoned with them. Elsewhere, the moans, groans, and insane ramblings of people starved too long for sun and food punctuated every conversation they’d been having. It was distracting, and had been exacerbating the way Rachel’s head had started pounding.

  But now Rachel immediately went to the bars that separated the cell from the corridor and did her best to make her voice carry. “Venny?”

  “Yes! We’re all here: Matha, Mathew, and Rhys.” Venny rattled off the names.

  This was a bit of luck they hadn’t been able to count on, since David’s companions could have been put anywhere, including the Louvre, which, while on the right bank too, was a different prison entirely. Some things David just hadn’t been able to control—though, of course, being David, he’d had a plan for those circumstances too.

  Samuel stepped to the bars so he could be heard without shouting, not that the guards upstairs or outside could have heard anything through the thick stone walls—or understood him if they could hear. “We’re in the first cell on the right as we entered. Where are you?”

  The answer came immediately. “Two down from you.”

  Rhys, Venny, and Mathew had been captives together in Beeston Castle and were leaders within David’s royal guard. Matha was the son of an Irish lord instrumental in David’s triumph a year and a half ago in Ireland, and himself had been crucial to the victory at Skipton. It was all hands on deck for this initiative.

  “What about David?” Rachel asked.

  “It went pretty much as we suspected it would.” Venny still continued to reply in that dry tone he often used. Having had an emotionally abusive father, emotion wasn’t his strong suit, though in this instance his ability to control himself would serve him well. He probably wasn’t afraid of the dark.

  “But already?” Rachel said. “It wasn’t supposed to be until tomorrow night, as a distraction from what we were doing here.”

  “It can’t be helped now, because it’s done. They brought us to the hall first thing. David swore obeisance, gave up Aquitaine, and Philippe kept it.” Matha wasn’t one for using formal titles, though in the case of Philippe, she couldn’t blame him. “Once he’d been sufficiently humiliated, they separated us, sending David and his family to be locked up somewhere in the palace, while we were brought here.”

  “And a good thing you were.” Samuel leaned against the side wall, his arms folded across his chest, in a pose she’d seen Darren assume a thousand times. Weirdly, he even sounded like Darren tonight. Truthfully, that could only be a good thing. “I like our enemies predictable.”

  Then one of the younger women moaned. Holding her belly, she crawled forward and vomited near the bars.

  The three conspirators looked at each other. It was all very well and good to be happy that things had gone well so far. But for the rest—they were running out of time.

  Chapter Eight

  Day One

  Michael

  “Dressed as a nobleman today, I see.”

  Michael fetched up beside another friend, this one standing next to the entrance to a brothel, eating a bun, dressed as a down-on-his-luck grifter. Michael’s watchers moved from one position to another throughout the city, so as not to become overly bored or call attention to themselves. Surveillance duty was boring, there was no doubt, and Michael himself had done plenty of it, so he understood what needed to be done to keep awake. This was a less privileged area of the city, however, with many brothels and taverns, giving Michael’s watchers background into which to blend.

  Michael grinned. “Rank has its privileges.”

  The man snorted laughter. As he was of higher rank than Michael—much higher—the joke was well-placed. Like many of David’s barons, James Stewart held estates in Aquitaine. Even if he hadn’t been loyal to David, he might have supported this endeavor to hold on to what he had. This was one part of Philippe’s plan Michael didn’t understand: it wasn’t just David who was losing his lands, but all the English barons. Unless Philippe overcame them too, he could never hope to retain Aquitaine.

  “You are very convincing,” Michael said, not looking at him. “One would never know you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth.”

  “Hardly. That’s Robbie.” James tipped his head to indicate his young friend, who was barely visible two blocks away also eating, though in his case it was an enormous sandwich made of bread and roasted meat he’d bought on the street. James’s bun was gone, but Robbie’s sandwich would take some getting through. He was an heir to the throne of Scotland—or would have been an heir, if Scotland still had a throne. Robbie didn’t seem to mind his consolation prize, which was a seat in Scotland’s House of Lords next to James.

  “I still can’t believe you gave up the chance to be Prime Minister for this,” Michael said.

  James had unexpectedly given way in the race to Andrew Moray. “I wanted some part of my life that was my own, and to be able to go on adventures such as this one.”

  Michael chuckled. “Point taken.” He wouldn’t have gladly exchanged the opportunity to take part in David’s missions for endless council meetings either, no matter how important. When he wasn’t a nobleman from Sicily, Michael himself had spent most of the last few weeks dressed as a dock worker. As many employed on the Seine were from countries around the Mediterranean, he was one of the few among David’s people who could pass as one of them.

  James shifted, brushing the breadcrumbs from his hands. “So that’s it. They’re in prison. I still think David has gone mad.”

  “But you’re here to help us anyway?”

  “Somebody has to keep a good head on his shoulders.”

  Talking to James always put Michael in a good mood. “How much longer are you on duty?”

  “Another hour or so.” James put a hand on Michael’s arm, to stop him from moving on. “What about the king? We heard he’s imprisoned too.”

  “You heard right. Mark is the next stop on my list.”

  The Paris Temple lay on the right bank, as did the prison, so Michael went first to the safe house across from the palace. The second safe house was located on the left bank, almost directly across the Seine, and Michael could see it from where he stood. Light leaked through the shutters on the ground floor, but the floor above, where a man should be standing with binoculars, watching, was dark—as it should have been.

  Michael knocked shave and a haircut, heard two bits in reply, and then walked around to the side door where he was admitted. This safe house had three levels, and he climbed the stairs to find Mark set up on the middle floor.

  “Samuel, Aaron, and Rachel are in?” Mark asked without turning around.

  The shutters of the window in front of him were open to the night air, and his gaze was fixed on the water below them. Lights shone from the windows of the palace across the way.

  No candle burned in the room for the same reason that none shone from the safe house on the other bank: they were working in secret. The French court would call them spies. They were spies, in truth, and if they were caught, the punishment would fit the crime. In other words, death.

  Like the watchers in the streets, those who manned the safehouses were working in shifts, except Mark had been
sleeping in the house and hadn’t left it in three days except to use the loo in the back. He was paranoid about being followed, and he didn’t want to be the one to connect their operation with the Paris Temple. Mark wasn’t normally one to exercise anyway, but Michael had convinced him he at least ought to be doing calisthenics every hour.

  “They are in, for better or for worse,” Michael said. “James Stewart thinks for worse.”

  “As he would. It’s always been his job to be the one speaking sense in any proceedings.” Mark shot Michael a quick glance. “I can respect that. This is just a bit on the edge for me too. There’s too much we can’t control and don’t control.”

  “But like him, you’re here.” Michael came to a halt beside him to look out the window too. The wind, which had been coming from the southwest up until an hour ago, had shifted, now arising strongly from the southeast. That was a less usual direction, either in England or in France. But it had also been promised by those who knew something about the weather, which even after a year in Earth Two, with no BBC weather app to call upon, Michael didn’t.

  “Wouldn’t miss it.” Mark had one of the two-way radios, and he checked the channel before putting it to his lips. “Operation Exodus is a go. I repeat, Exodus is a go.”

  “Understood.” The voice on the other end was that of Ted Shepherd, who’d volunteered to man the second safe house and, like Mark, would be standing before an open window, watching the palace.

  “Status?”

  “Quiet.”

  “Here too.” Mark set down the receiver and began doing something fiddly with his gear. He was the clearing house for information for anyone operating on the right bank. Because the two-way radios had a range of twenty miles, William and Thomas had only to report here in order for Elisa to learn what had transpired in the audience chamber. Chad Treadman’s plane was a gift that kept on giving.

  Mark gestured to the palace. “Word from inside is they are on the top floor there in the corner suite.”

  Michael grimaced as he found the window Mark meant. “How about Operation Get-the-King-the-Hell-Out-of-Paris?”

  “That’s called Operation Iron Throne, as you well know, and it’s going fine, if no activity implies fine.”

  “He had to give up Aquitaine,” Michael said softly.

  Mark scoffed. “If Philippe thinks David’s going to take that lying down, he’s deluded. James Stewart isn’t going to take it lying down, never mind the Bohuns, Mortimers, or any of those lords in England who still have estates in France. Philippe has no idea what he’s gotten himself into. Paris has the best food on the planet if you know where to get it, but I do not understand the French court at all.” The binoculars were back to Mark’s eyes.

  Michael stared across the river at the palace, watching the lights flickering in many rooms. He thought he could make out figures in several as well. “They’re just people.”

  “You know that saying from Churchill, how the English and Americans are two people separated by a common language? That’s the French and the Normans times ten. They both speak French, but that’s about it. Talk about divergent evolution.”

  Mark had a habit of jumping all over the map with his references, but Michael had grown used to it and thought he understood what he meant. “The Normans adopted French after they invaded Normandy five hundred years ago. They’re really Vikings and not French at all.”

  “What’s that about Vikings?” This information was enough of a surprise that Mark brought down his binoculars long enough to glance at Michael.

  “William the Conqueror was descended from a long line of Vikings, one of whom sacked Paris in the 800s. His ancestors had names like Richard the Fearless and Robert the Magnificent.” Michael made a gesture with one hand. “I sat next to Meg at dinner one day.”

  “Sure never learned that in school. All I learned was 1066 and something about King Harold getting shot in the eye with an arrow. No wonder the French are confused.”

  Michael laughed, but then his expression turned a bit grimmer as he studied the walls of the palace. Nothing had changed in the last five minutes, and he couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. “David’s got that same ancestry, even if it was a lot longer ago than these people think. He doesn’t want to sack the city, but part of me is all for calling up that Viking heritage right about now.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mark said, equally grimly. “When he does, we’re going to be right there with him.”

  Chapter Nine

  Day One

  Bronwen

  As the door closed behind Nogaret, finally leaving them alone, a bubble of hysterical laughter rose in Bronwen’s throat. “Can I finally say it? We’re a long way from Kansas, Toto.”

  David blinked at her and then let out a genuine laugh.

  She grinned back at him. They were still twenty-firsters, and the fact that they were here at all, in medieval France, imprisoned by the King of France, was as absurd as the idea of Oz.

  Once ensconced in their quarters—their very nicely decorated prison if she was being honest—the children had been settled eventually in one room and fallen asleep. The four children had rarely been separated. Though cousins, they had the attachment (and sometimes the conflict) of siblings. Meanwhile, the men had been stripped of their weapons, as they’d assumed they would be. Because of that, none of them had brought any they cared about.

  While they waited for Nogaret (though they hadn’t known that’s what they were doing until he arrived), they’d been watched by two guards, who’d remained inside the room. It had prevented any of them from speaking to one another about anything important, and mostly they’d sat in silence. While they could have talked in Welsh, it was just possible Nogaret had thought of that, so they had chosen not to risk it. The surreal experience had been capped off a quarter of an hour earlier by Nogaret’s arrival. He'd brought a rolled parchment for David to sign, by which he would formally give up Aquitaine to Philippe.

  David had refused.

  Nogaret had sneered at David repeatedly, but in the end had given him until morning to change his tune. Then he’d left, finally, taking the guards with him.

  Since then, Lili had found a seat on a cushioned settee before the fire, Ieuan was perched on a stool nearby, poking at the cinders with a piece of kindling, and David, typically, was pacing.

  “Sit down, darling.” Lili patted the seat next to her. “I myself can’t imagine sleeping tonight, but as we may be spending a great deal of time in this room over the next few days, if you spend the whole time wearing a path across the floor, you will drive me mad.”

  David blew out a breath. As always, he was a bundle of energy, made all the more so by his recent humiliation. “I suppose, from a certain point of view, all really is well.”

  “What did Archbishop Romeyn say to you on the walk from the dock?” Bronwen asked.

  “That he’d been graciously received this morning, to be told of our arrival, which, of course, he knew. But otherwise, he hasn’t been called to the king’s presence for some weeks.”

  “Oh boy. That’s not concerning,” Bronwen said, deadpan.

  Like their children, the two couples had spent most of the last few years in each other’s company and knew each other well enough to be highly tolerant, as well as exasperatedly mocking, of each other’s habits.

  Ieuan barked a laugh. “It wasn’t as if we didn’t know this was a trap.”

  Suddenly unable to sit still herself, Bronwen went to the nearest window and flung open the shutter. It banged against the paneling that lined the interior walls throughout the palace. Bronwen put out a hand to stop the shutter from bouncing back. Stone buildings were second nature to her by now, and even the plainest castle was a far cry more comfortable than some of the concrete cell block housing at Penn State—or the huts with dirt floors her parents had gravitated to last she knew. Back in Avalon, it was hard to look at the gray stone walls of a castle like Caernarfon or Harlech, for example, and see what it had bee
n like when it was occupied.

  Philippe’s palace, by contrast, was an order of magnitude more ornate than anything Bronwen had ever seen before, with intricate stonework on every joist and pillar, and many windows, both stained and plain, letting in light. Norman castles were designed to intimidate with size. But the French went in for size and ornateness, which made a palace like London’s Westminster, not to mention a fortress like Kenilworth or even Trim, seem austere by comparison.

  The centerpiece of the whole place was Sainte-Chapelle, a church built by Philippe’s grandfather to house the relics he’d acquired from the Holy Land, in particular, the crown of thorns Jesus wore at the crucifixion. Or that was the story he’d been sold. Just the reliquary that housed it cost a hundred thousand livres, money the crown could ill afford to spend. The crown of thorns’ real value, however, lay in the spiritual power King Philippe perceived possessing it gave him. In Philippe’s mind, it put him on par with the pope as God’s chosen representative amongst his servants and made Paris equivalent to Rome as a spiritual seat on earth. Given that Pope Boniface also saw himself as having spiritual and temporal authority, it was no wonder that, in Avalon, Philippe and Boniface grew to be at odds.

  Whoever had decorated this particular room had softened the cold stones with dark wooden beams and paneling, green fabric pillows, and burgundy drapery, all of which added warmth and reduced echoes in a way that tapestries alone could not. The wooden floor was covered with a finely woven wool carpeting that looked Persian more than French. Overall, the impression given was a cross between an English country gentleman’s study and a desert-dweller’s tent.