“What are the odds their captains learned that SOS code like I instructed and will respond?” David said.
“I spoke with them all before we departed. They know SOS, if no other Morse code, but—” Callum peered into the distance. “I do believe one them is signaling to us!”
David turned back to the captain. “Send out our own signal. We can’t help them and can only hope that they have contact with another ship further to the south. Perhaps they can pass on our distress call.”
“Yes, my lord,” said the captain.
“Is there anything else we can do?” Callum said.
“No, my lord,” the captain said.
“I suggest pray,” Cassie said.
The captain genuinely laughed before returning to the stern of the ship, passing among the horses which were tied to the deck, heads down. He began shouting orders at his men.
Callum watched for a moment and then staggered towards David’s cabin. David and Cassie had already gone inside. They’d pulled the curtain that acted as a door across the opening, but right in front of Callum, the wind half tore it off and whipped it up so it lay in a sodden mass on the roof, the ends flapping every now and then in a stronger gust. Inside the cabin, Callum found Cassie sitting on the end of David’s bunk and David gripping the beam that ran a few inches above his head for the length of the cabin. His jaw was set.
Callum lunged for an iron ring on the wall to hold onto as the ship rocked, creaked, and suddenly tipped sideways such that they all slid along the deck.
“The captain said she was sturdy!” Cassie said.
“Like he would have told us otherwise,” David said.
“Man overboard! Man overboard!” Through the open doorway, Callum could see the first mate slide down the deck towards the tiller, or what remained of it. “It’s the captain!” Shouts and calls intermingled with the horses’ whinnies as everyone on board strived to stay upright and alive. The cog fell down into a trough that Callum feared they’d never come out of, but then it struggled upwards once again.
“I suppose we’re a little early in time for rubberized lifeboats,” Cassie said.
Callum thought she was being remarkably calm. On the next plunge downward, he released the ring he’d been holding and slid across the floor to her. He caught a post with one arm and put the other around her.
David was braced in the doorway, observing the activity outside the cabin without speaking.
“My lord!” The first mate wove back and forth like he was drunk, fighting the wind and trying not to knock into the horses. At the last second, the deck heaved, and he stumbled into David, who caught him by the arms.
“See to your crew, Captain,” David said. “Their safety is paramount.”
“That’s what I came to tell you, my lord,” the first mate-turned-captain said. “The rope that attached the dinghy to the ship broke in the last wave. It’s already too far away to haul back.”
David gave a brief shake of his head. “I’m sorry.”
“My lord!” The man was practically in tears, wringing his hands. “I wish there was more I could do. I trusted the captain with my life, but I’ve already lost him and two more over the side!”
“Tie everyone and everything down,” David said. “We can ride her out.”
The first mate gave David a wide-eyed look and turned away, responding to a shout from a crewman near the tiller. David continued to gaze stoically, though Callum didn’t see how he could see much of anything through the driving rain. Then David released his hold on the frame of the door and strode away, following the first mate.
“My lord, don’t!” Callum shouted as loud as he could, but the storm whipped away the sound of his voice, and David didn’t turn back.
“We should go after him!” Cassie said. “We could lose him overboard as easily as the captain.”
Callum and Cassie let go of their post at the same time and in two steps were able to clutch the door frame as David had been doing. The crew had pulled down the sail, since it would only capsize the boat in a storm like this. The horses whinnied and tried to rear, though they were tied down so tightly they couldn’t. Callum was glad only five had been staked to the deck. If even one worked free, it could maim everyone on the ship in its panic before escaping into the sea. At the other end of the cog, the first mate was trying to hold the ship together by sheer willpower. Callum could see him gesticulating and urging his men on. Through the rain and the wind, Callum couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it looked as if they were trying to fix the tiller.
Callum peered through the rain and was about to set off towards the stern of the ship after David, when he reappeared, bringing with him a thick rope. Like everything else on the ship, it was waterlogged, but he managed to tie it around Cassie’s waist anyway.
“Get your men out of the hold if they will come,” David said.
Callum went to the trap door and lifted it up. At the start of the journey, his men had insisted on staying in the hold, but now a tall Saxon named John scrambled up the ladder. “The hull is breached! We’ll drown if we stay down there.”
“Unfortunately, we’re already drowning up here,” Callum said.
Several more soldiers came out of the hold, though not all of them. Callum stuck his head through the trap door. “Come on, men!”
“We’re going to die!”
“I can’t swim!”
Callum reached a hand down and hauled two more men out before another huge wave swamped the cog and poured water into the hold. Those he’d rescued scuttled to the stern and huddled there with the crew.
David, meanwhile, had pulled out his belt knife and begun working at the ropes that bound the horses.
“What are you doing?” Callum said.
“I’m turning the horses loose. They should have a better chance of surviving out there than on the ship.”
Callum would have helped him, but at that moment Cassie screamed and clung to the rail as the plummeting ship swept her off her feet. Callum leapt towards her, catching her around the waist with one arm and gripping the rail with the other. As the ship climbed back up out of the trough, he tied the other end of Cassie’s rope around his own waist to link himself to her. If a wave sent them overboard, they could more easily find each other—and save each other—if they were attached together. Callum continued to keep her between him and the rail, both of them hanging on for dear life.
The first mate joined David with the horses, cursing as one of them reared and flailed his hooves. Callum glanced down the deck to his men and was horrified to see fewer of them than before. With the horses finally gone, David returned to where Cassie and Callum cowered by the rail. He grabbed the end of their rope, wound it around his own waist, and then urged them towards the mast.
“David, what exactly are you doing?” Cassie said.
“Saving us, I hope!”
“How is tying us to the mast saving us. The ship is sinking!” Cassie was soaked from head to foot. Rain streamed down her face, and she swept a sodden lock out of her eyes.
“What about everybody else?” Callum said.
“I don’t think they want to go where we’re going,” David said, “and I couldn’t ask it of them, even if I could control what happens next.”
“What happens next—” Cassie stopped speaking at the look David gave her.
David remained focused on tying the rope to the mast, and then he cinched it tight one last time. “If this turns out like I fear it might, it would be better if we took the ship with us.”
“With us?” The words caught in Callum’s throat. For months, up until the day he and Cassie met, in fact, he’d longed for this moment. Now that it might finally be here, however, he was terrified. He pulled Cassie close, wrapped his arms tightly around her, and managed a few words. “Hang on to me.”
The three of them huddled together on the deck. With each wave the ship dove and came up like it was climbing a mountain. Cassie peered past Callum to shout at Dav
id one more time. “Do you really think that we’ll return—”
That was all she got out, because David suddenly stood and faced north, taking the full weight of the storm in his face. To Callum, he had the look of Odysseus, tied to the mast lest he follow the siren song to his death.
“Is this really happening?” Cassie’s voice caught on the last word.
“Yes,” David said.
The ocean seemed to open up in front of them; they fell into yet another giant trough, and as they came up the other side, the water rose with them. Callum curled himself around Cassie’s head and shoulders. But even as he tried to protect her, he was in the water—and then he was water. He couldn’t breathe; the world went black all around him for a long count of three, and then—
With a thud, he landed flat on his back on the deck, with Cassie on top of him and all of the air gone from his lungs. Callum gasped for breath and then ran his hands up and down Cassie’s back, willing her to be unhurt. He breathed easier when she opened her eyes. Her wet hair had come loose from her braid and formed a veil over his face. He swept a length of it aside. The sun was a bright circle overhead in a nearly cloudless sky.
Had they really—?
Someone sputtered beside him and Callum turned his head to see David sprawled beneath the mast, shaking with laughter.
Chapter Four
September, 2017
David
David pushed up onto his elbows and looked over at Callum and Cassie. They were both conscious, thank God, though Callum was staring at him as if by laughing he proved he’d lost his mind. Given that they’d just time-traveled from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, he didn’t think anyone should blame him for being a little punchy. Nonetheless, he quit laughing. His stomach clenched at the magnitude of the distance that now lay between him and Lili and Arthur, but as soon as the thought of them came into his head, he brutally crushed it. The only thing that would return him to them was to face full on the reality of his present circumstance.
His immediate concern, beyond the fact of their location, was the precarious condition of the ship. Looking down the deck, it appeared that they no longer had a stern at all, which would explain why none of his men or the ship’s crew had time-traveled with them. The cog must have split in two on its way to sinking.
The loss of half the cog was daunting, and David hoped they weren’t going to sink to the bottom just yet. The cog was riding relatively flat, though with a definite (and disconcerting) tilt downward from where they lay to the water, which lapped ominously at the ragged boards twenty feet away. He was pleased to see that the storm had never happened in this world—or if it had happened in 1289, it didn’t matter in the slightest to the sunny morning in 2017 they were currently experiencing.
“I’d ask what happened, but—” Cassie rolled off Callum and sat up, allowing him to pop up between her and David. Neither man said anything, and Cassie finished her thought, “—I guess at this point it’s pretty clear.” She looked over at David. “You could have been a little less opaque.”
“Time travel is still hard for me to say out loud, even after all the times it’s happened,” David said. “And I could have been wrong. We could have just drowned.”
Even as he spoke, the cog tipped a bit more towards the stern. Instinctively, the three of them scurried backwards like crabs, trying to bring the damaged ship back into balance.
“I can’t believe you brought us back,” Cassie said.
“Not on purpose, I assure you,” David said. “If prior experience is anything to go by, this is September 2017, but I don’t recognize our location. What do you think?” He studied the stretch of land half a mile away and wondered if they could swim the distance if the cog decided within the next minute or two to sink to the bottom. “At least it’s green.”
“I know where we are. That’s the Pennarth head, near Cardiff.” Callum made this comment without any inflection in his voice.
The shape of the bluff, now that David had a chance to study it, was definitely familiar. They’d sailed out of Cardiff harbor not twelve hours ago, so David had seen it then. But the adjacent pier and the six-to-ten story buildings lining the esplanade were not familiar. There was no mistaking that they weren’t in the Middle Ages any more.
Now that his initial laughter had faded, a heavy weight came to rest on David’s heart. He glanced at his friends, sensing that they weren’t feeling exhilaration either. For all that both Cassie and Callum had confessed more than once the desire to return to the modern world, actually returning was something else entirely. Now that they were here, they seemed more stunned than anything, and neither smiled. For David’s part, he was disgusted. He really didn’t have time for this.
“I know that we’ve been here for two minutes, and it’s probably too early to make any decisions or even think about the logistics of getting back, but you have to know that I’m already thinking about it. I’m giving myself two days here, and then we’re gone—or I’m gone, if you don’t want to come. I don’t think I have to tell you that my preference would be for you to stay with me—to return with me—but you’ll have to make your own decision when the time comes.”
When neither Cassie nor Callum responded immediately, David added, “Not to be overly formal, Callum, but as of this moment, I release you from my service.”
“That’s not—” Callum cut himself off with a glance at Cassie, who swung her gaze away from the shoreline to look at David.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course we’re coming back with you.” Cassie brushed her hands together and stood up.
David pushed to his feet too, clutching at the mast as he found himself swaying—not from the motion of the cog, but from the lack of motion. His body had grown used to the rise and fall of the ship, and the current calmness of the Bristol Channel was confusing his inner ear. “I’m really sorry about this, guys.”
Cassie looked up at him. The sun was shining above his head, so she put up a hand to block the light. “What are you sorry for?”
“Not giving you fair warning,” David said. “I tied that rope around you and didn’t say I think we’re about to be transported to the modern world. Let me know if you don’t want to come. It was selfish of me, but I didn’t want to end up here alone. So I made it so you’d come with me if I did.”
“If the choice was between drowning and—” Cassie broke off again, swallowing hard.
“I can’t say I’m sorry either, given that alternative.” Callum took the hand Cassie offered him and got laboriously to his feet, rubbing at his right hip as if it hurt.
David gazed beyond the ship, which seemed to be making its slow way into shore on its own, since the pier looked a little bit closer than before. Perhaps the tide was going in. The three of them stood side-by-side on the slowly sinking cog and thought about what to do next.
“We’ll be all right, Callum,” Cassie said.
“I know we will.” Callum wrapped his arms around her, and they held on for a few seconds before parting with a kiss that David tried not to see. They continued to hold hands, and David felt awkward standing beside them during their marital moment. He cleared his throat, but Callum spoke before David could think of something to say. “Why do we have only two days?”
“Gilbert de Clare will know about the storm. Ships get blown off-course often in the Irish Sea, so he won’t think too hard about it if we’re late by a few hours or even a day,” David said. “But once the storm ends, he’ll want to see our ships sailing into port sooner rather than later. He won’t know if the reason for the wait is because we delayed our departure from Wales or because we drowned.”
Callum nodded. “Clare has the authority to hold the men together for a little while. But the longer you’re missing, the more the uncertainty. He and Humphrey de Bohun will consider the consequences of your death for two days. After that ...”
“After that, the race back to London begins. Before you know it, England will have a new king,” D
avid said.
“You’ve thought a lot about this,” Cassie said. “Do you have a plan for getting back?”
“Not yet.”
“Do you think you can get us back?” Cassie said.
“I brought you here, didn’t I? I’m willing to bet my own life on the assumption that I can,” David said. “It’s up to you to decide if you are willing to risk your life at the chance.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.” Callum didn’t look at him. “If you had to come here, through no fault of your own, I’m not sorry you brought us along, but I can’t think about going back just yet.”
“That’s okay,” David said. “I’m not going back right this second, and a lot depends on what Her Majesty’s Coastguard is planning to do with us.” David pointed towards a ship that had just rounded Pennarth Head, coming from Cardiff, and was cutting its way through the Bristol Channel towards them. Above it, a helicopter flew low, also headed in their direction.
“Already?” Cassie said.
“We are listing rather badly,” David said.
“I’ll handle this,” Callum said.
“How?” Cassie said. The cutter was coming on fast. The closer it got, the tinier the cog seemed in comparison.
“I’m still a member of the Security Service, aren’t I?” Callum said. The Security Service (known to Americans as MI-5) was the government agency for which Callum had been working ten months ago when he’d thrown his arms around Llywelyn’s knees and fallen from the balcony at Chepstow Castle, inadvertently hitching a ride to the Middle Ages.
Cassie blinked at Callum’s words, but David laughed and said, “I knew I brought you along for a reason.”
“We’d better get our stories straight,” Callum said.
“We should tell the truth,” David said.
“The truth? What do you mean the truth?” Cassie shook her head vehemently. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’m not.” David gestured to Callum. “Isn’t it the truth that you were following orders when you tried to apprehend my mother and father at Chepstow?”
Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) Page 3