Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series)

by Sarah Woodbury

  “Which is why, up until an hour ago, we thought they hadn’t yet passed Winchester?” Bacon said.

  “Exactly,” Lili said. “Math’s concern is Valence’s penchant for constructing plans within plans. Who’s to say that he didn’t send a contingent of men to block the road to London in the hope that he could capture me as I fled the city with Dafydd’s heir? If Valence does, in fact, believe Dafydd is here, he might even be hoping that Dafydd himself would retreat to Westminster.”

  “Even Valence can’t imagine that King David would abandon his people,” Bacon said.

  “I didn’t say so, sir,” Lili said. “I merely suggested that Dafydd might have left his men to defend the town until he could marshal an army to come to their relief.”

  “Ah, that is a good thought,” Bacon said. “Did you know that I have made a particular study of battle tactics employed by the Greeks and Romans and am writing a definitive work on the strategy of war? Depending upon how this ends, Valence’s maneuvers might be worthy of a mention.”

  “Is that admiration I hear in your voice?” Lili said, bemusement in hers.

  “I would prefer that the only mention of Valence is in defeat,” Anna said. “We all might be more interested today in what the ancients said about defending a besieged position.”

  “They spoke of it often, of course.” Bacon bent his head to look at Anna over the top of his glasses (a gift from David). “It would have been better if we hadn’t found ourselves on the defensive in the first place.”

  “Obviously,” Bronwen said under her breath from the far side of Lili.

  Bacon didn’t seem to have heard her. “I may have a few suggestions for our commander.” He tapped a finger musingly to his lips, unaware that Bronwen was about to throttle him.

  “It may be that my husband would be happy to hear them,” Anna said, with a grin at Bronwen, who rolled her eyes. “I will take you to him.”

  Anna gestured Bacon down the stairs to the lower bailey, but while Lili followed, Bronwen caught Anna’s sleeve. “You can’t be serious?”

  “Maybe he can be of help,” Anna said. “Math is overseeing the destruction of the bridge across the moat. Perhaps he’ll find Bacon as amusing as I do.”

  Below them, Bacon stood talking to Lili, her quiver on her back and her bow in her hand. A half dozen other archers clustered around them. Bacon appeared to be pontificating yet again on military strategy.

  Anna bit her lip, fighting back a smile, but when she caught sight of Bronwen’s face, she sobered. Bronwen said, “I’m sorry that I argued with you about moving the patients in the infirmary. It was wrong of me.”

  Anna put a hand to Bronwen’s cheek. “I understand why you did. I know you are worried about them. And about all of us. I am too.”

  “It’s times like these I hate the Middle Ages.”

  “Ieuan will gather the necessary men and return at the front of an army,” Anna said. “Valence will find that he cannot maintain a siege when he faces opposition from the castle and his flank.”

  Bronwen took in a deep breath and let it out. “I asked earlier why Valence had chosen to march on Windsor instead of going directly to London. Now that I’ve had time to think about it, either scenario—that he thinks David is here or that he knows he isn’t—presents us with a problem. If Valence knows David left for Ireland, then someone informed him of that fact and made quite an effort to do so, given the distance between Windsor and Ireland. As Lili pointed out, Valence would believe that we’re less well-protected with the king gone, and since David wouldn’t have taken the treasury with him, it is now exposed. Capture that, and he goes a long way to putting the crown of England on his own head.”

  “And if he doesn’t know that David has left for Ireland?” Anna said.

  “Then he seeks to challenge David outright,” Bronwen said. “I can’t decide which is worse.”

  “How can he think to challenge David with only two thousand men?” Anna said.

  “Either he has more allies than we thought, and thus more men, or he has something he believes will call into question David’s right to the throne.”

  Anna shook her head. “That, at least, is unlikely. David rules because the people chose him and the barons called for it, not because of his bloodline, whatever people think that may be.”

  One of the stranger twists of fate had been the falsification of David’s family tree. Bishop Kirby had forged a paper which ‘proved’ that Anna’s mother was the illegitimate daughter of the old King Henry (and thus King Edward’s half-sister). He’d done this in the hope that David would take the throne under false pretenses, at which point Kirby could show proof that the document had been forged. David, for his part, had strenuously denied any such claim, burned the paper in front of half the nobility of England, and been crowned king anyway. By now, most of England believed him to be Henry’s grandson, and this, along with the Arthurian mythologizing, had been ultimately impossible for David to refute.

  “Then it’s something else,” Bronwen said, “and the traitors are among those barons who we believe to be unswervingly loyal. Math needs to watch his back.”

  “I will tell him,” Anna said.

  “I will see to moving the children to the northwest tower.”

  Anna let Bronwen go, collected Lili and Roger Bacon, and then made her way through the unusually empty streets to the city gate. Normally at the close of the day, people would be coming home from a day of work in craft hall or field. Church bells tolled for vespers, but a glance down a side street showed her that the only parishioners hurrying to evening devotions were elderly. Tonight, the obligations of Windsor’s people would be of a different sort entirely.

  Anna found Math conferring with his captains in a house adjacent to the city gate. The house belonged to one of the aldermen and like most structures in Windsor had a thatched roof. It would burn if Valence shot fire arrows over the walls.

  At the same time, the house was more substantial than the typical dwelling, with a complete second floor and an interior stairway running up a side wall of the house. Opposite the main door to the street was another doorway, which opened onto a courtyard behind house, revealing the house’s kitchen and washing areas. A woman in a faded dress, with two children under five playing at her heels, unpinned laundry from a clothesline near a well.

  The men stood in the main room of the house, gathered around a table upon which a map of the city of Windsor had been laid flat with weights at the corners. Anna recognized most of the men surrounding Math. Many were of noble birth, but some had been given a place because Math, or more likely, Ieuan, believed them to be worthy of it, regardless of their birth.

  Anna looked from one face to the next, wondering who among them she needed to fear or David, in the end, would need to call out as a traitor. Her brother had drawn the best of the English nobility to him, many of them men as young as he or younger, with the cast of hero-worship in their eyes and without a shred of cynicism. In David, they’d found the intersection of life and legend. The adulation was annoying at times, and Anna made a point to tease her brother as much as she could about it. Fortunately, he (mostly) hadn’t allowed it to go to his head and found it more of a burden than a benefit of being King of England.

  Math looked up at their approach. His eyes narrowed at the bow in Lili’s hand, and she raised it in salute. With a nod at his men, who continued to talk around the table, Math came to where Anna, Lili, and Roger Bacon stood to one side of the main doorway. “What are you doing here?” Math put his arm around Anna’s shoulders and kissed her temple.

  “I have some words of wisdom for you, young man,” Bacon said, without waiting for Anna to answer.

  Bacon sounded so much like a pompous professor that Anna couldn’t help smiling.

  Math gestured towards the table and the map of Windsor that took up three-quarters of it. “I would be pleased to hear you out if you will give me a moment with my wife and sister-in-law.”

  Bacon put
his heels together and bowed, and was soon absorbed in conversation with Sir George, the steward of Windsor Castle, who was among the men looking at the map. Anna’s first impression of George had been that his personality consisted of bluster and little else, but he seemed to know how to talk to Bacon, which was more than she did.

  “So.” Math looked from Anna to Lili. “Tell me what you’re doing here.”

  “I brought you Roger Bacon,” Anna said.

  A smile twitched in the corner of Math’s mouth. “Am I supposed to thank you?”

  “You can thank me,” Lili said. “I brought you archers. Where do you want us?”

  “Us?” Math ran a hand through his hair. He had the look of a man about to argue.

  “Yes,” Lili said.

  “I’d tell you ‘no’, but the truth is, I need you. It’s tragic how few Englishmen know how to shoot, even after working with Ieuan for three months.”

  “Ieuan has shot a bow nearly every day since he was nine years old,” Lili said. “It’s going to take time to train the English.” And then she laughed. “I can’t believe I just said that. Who would ever have thought we would have wanted them trained.”

  “The Welshmen we brought should help,” Anna said.

  “That’s certain. Ieuan left me the best archers among them,” Math said. “But fifty archers can hardly cover the entire circumference of the city and the castle. We’re going to be spread thin.”

  “Our chances improve if Valence didn’t bring many archers with him,” Lili said.

  “Right now, I can think of few things that would please me more,” Math said. “But you know as well as I do that if Valence pays them enough, he can find Welshmen to fight for him.”

  Anna made a face. “I hate that.”

  “It’s the way of the world.” Math still hadn’t let go of Anna, and now he moved his arm to her waist. “Why is Roger Bacon here, really?”

  “For exactly the reasons he said. He wants to bring you the wisdom of the Romans and Greeks,” Anna said.

  “What is the phrase you all use?” Math said. “You’ve got to be kidding me?”

  Anna couldn’t help smiling. “Give him two minutes of your time, that’s all. David thinks he needs him, and I don’t want to be responsible for driving him away. How soon will Valence reach us?”

  “It won’t be long now,” Math said. “By nightfall, he’ll surround us. We don’t have enough men to stop him from doing whatever he wants outside the walls.”

  “Send the wounded to the middle bailey,” Anna said. “Bronwen and I will see to their care.”

  “Any chance the penicillin will be ready by midnight?” Math said.

  Anna raised a shoulder in a half-shrug. “I guess it will have to be.”

  Chapter Twelve

  September, 2017

  Callum

  Without asking any questions, Cassie took the hand Callum offered and departed with him, not out the door they’d come in or in the direction Driscoll had gone, but through the French doors that opened into a courtyard adjacent to the cafeteria. Enclosed on all four sides, it had been intended to provide a moment of greenery and peace to the often-harried Security Service personnel, though Callum had never seen anyone sitting on the benches set there for that purpose. Senior staff ate lunch elsewhere, and any underling with a desire for promotion ate at his desk. The rest of the time, as this was Wales, it rained.

  Callum and Cassie walked casually in the late-afternoon sunshine along the grass-lined concrete pathway, heading for a door that would take them back into the building, except on the opposite side of the courtyard. They reached it just as someone came through it.

  “Ta,” the man said as he held the door for them.

  Callum knew him. He was one of the technicians in the research library, but for the life of him, Callum couldn’t remember his name now, so he just said, “Thanks,” and gave the man a quick smile.

  There was an awkward moment as Callum urged Cassie past him and into the building, and then as Callum turned away, the man said, “How are you?”

  “Good. Very good,” Callum said.

  “What are you—?”

  But Callum didn’t want to take the time to field questions he couldn’t answer, and strode away down the corridor, Cassie at his side. As he led her up flights of stairs through the levels of the building, picturing the floor plan in his head and seeking privacy, he was strongly aware of the badge in his pocket, next to his mobile phone. He forced his brain to work like an agent instead of the Earl of Shrewsbury. David’s future might depend on it.

  Walking through the Office, he felt almost like a ghost of his former self. He’d been the commander here, and whether or not that might be his job again, for now others had taken over. That ass, Thomas Smythe, who’d bungled the initial pick-up of Meg and Llywelyn, had somehow been promoted to Lady Jane’s second-in-command. The promotion stank of corruption, and Lady Jane’s words implied that other things had changed as well for the agency in his absence, and not for the better. He knew he had changed, as Lady Jane had noted, and he hoped that distance would allow him to see clearly. It was what she wanted. Callum just hadn’t yet figured out what he was supposed to be looking at.

  “That was a very strange conversation we just had with Driscoll,” Cassie said. “Are you wondering what’s really going on?”

  “It was almost as if he was trying to trap me in a lie, or get me to admit that I’m considering breaking David out of here.” Callum went over their conversation word for word in his mind. As far as he could tell, he hadn’t admitted to anything Driscoll didn’t already know. On impulse, he felt in his pocket for his mobile phone and powered it off.

  Don’t trust Driscoll. Don’t trust anyone.

  “Up until three minutes ago, I thought Lady Jane meant for me to work within the parameters of the Security Service,” Callum said, “which is why I remained so open and civil with Driscoll. But if David is being moved to London tonight, we’re going to lose him. He’ll be out of Cardiff and possibly out of the Security Service’s jurisdiction. The Home Office is a black hole that not even David, with all his gifts, can climb out of.”

  “Maybe Lady Jane has already fallen in,” Cassie said.

  “There are enough cameras in this building to ensure that we’ve been watched everywhere we’ve gone,” Callum said. “Plus, technology has improved in the five years since you were here last. Some of what you may have seen in movies has become real. All anyone would have had to do to tag us was to pat my shoulder. The tracking device is the size of a tick. It doesn’t give out as strong a signal as for a mobile phone, but if we stay in range, we’re an open book. Did anyone touch your skin? Did someone pat you on the back or on the hand?”

  “I definitely shook hands with several people, including Natasha and Driscoll, who also clapped you on the shoulder.”

  Callum pulled up, cursing. “We’re wearing clothing acquired for us here. I’m an idiot.” He’d halted in the middle of the corridor and now stepped to one side to allow several people to pass them, briefcases in hand and jackets slung over their arms or shoulders. The end of the working day had come. Callum let several more people who’d come out of nearby offices disappear around a corner, and then he tugged Cassie into the loo. He locked the door behind them.

  “I suppose it was too much to ask that you’d choose the women’s bathroom for this?” Cassie said.

  Callum was glad to see the amusement in her eyes. “I was convinced at one time that IT had put cameras in here, but I’m taking it on faith today that they haven’t.” Callum slipped his arms out of his suit jacket and shook it out.

  Cassie unhooked her cloak at the throat, and they took turns inspecting each other’s clothing. Neither found anything that raised their suspicions, not even a slight discoloration indicating they’d been sprayed with an ultraviolet tag.

  Cassie set her folded cloak on the counter and studied Callum. “You look very dashing. I’ve always loved a man in a suit.”r />
  Callum looked down at himself. He’d grown used to medieval clothing, but this suit fit him like no clothing had in a long while. The coat was a little tighter in the shoulders and arms than he remembered, and the trousers were looser in the waist. He had to admit, too, that it felt odd not to have his sword resting on his left hip.

  “Let’s wash our hands,” he said.

  “Why?” Cassie said, going to the sink and turning on the water.

  “I haven’t worked here for ten months,” Callum said. “But I know what my colleagues are capable of. I’m being paranoid on purpose.”

  “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you,” Cassie said, laughing.

  Callum laughed too and dried off, marveling to himself at how far he’d come from the man who’d returned from Afghanistan with an obsessive need to wash his hands. Then he went to the door, unlocked it, and peered into the corridor. It was empty. He’d chosen a loo on the top floor on purpose, assuming that as the offices emptied, this corridor would have the least amount of traffic. It might be all hands on deck for a certain percentage of agents involved in the time travel project, but most of the secretarial staff would still have been given leave to go home on time.

  He looked back at Cassie. She hadn’t put her cloak back on, and with regret in her face, she shoved it in a corner underneath the sink counter. She then joined him in the corridor. “I really love that cloak, but I’m too noticeable when I wear it here.”

  “We’ll come back for it,” he said, knowing even as he spoke that they might not get the chance, and that Cassie was noticeable here no matter what she did or did not wear. She was stunningly beautiful, and not for the first time he found himself marveling that she’d agreed to become his wife.