Champions of Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  He hadn’t had any idea. Bewildered was the best word he knew to describe himself, and he didn’t like the feeling at all. This world was a blur of machines and sound. And odd smells that he couldn’t place but closed his throat. Earlier, one of the smells had been from ‘gasoline’, the fuel that ran the vehicles. The wet grass and fresh earth had reminded him of home, but the black stony ground had a burned essence to it, and the interior of the hospital smelled both sweet and sickly. None of the doctors smelled of anything at all, which was so unusual he was tempted to touch their skins to see if they were flesh and bone.

  He wasn’t displeased at the rushing of people around him, but it was making his heart race, and someone beside him mentioned that he was bleeding again. Then a man wearing a blue gown and more blue gloves approached with another clear bag, which he hooked next to the one currently dripping fluid into William. He bore another needle, the point of which he stuck into the tube attached to William’s arm.

  “I want you to count backwards from ten to one for me.”

  David, who was standing in the corner where a curtain met the wall, translated into French, though William had understood the simple English well enough. It was only when people started talking fast or in long sentences that he found himself in trouble.

  He started counting, “Ten, nine, eight—” and then he remembered nothing more.

  Chapter Eight

  1 April 1294

  Christopher

  “What do you want us to do?” Christopher and Huw planted themselves in front of Callum. Between the two of them, they had deliberated briefly but heatedly as to which of the commanders would be least likely to dismiss them, and by extension most likely to do what they wanted. “David told us he was sending us north, but that was when he was sending us with William.”

  Christopher was really glad his mom and dad were back in Wales with Aunt Meg and Uncle Llywelyn. They’d had a lively debate about that too, but Christopher had argued successfully that if he’d been in Avalon, he wouldn’t have lived at home anymore either. Earth Two wasn’t exactly college, but they couldn’t argue that he wasn’t learning a lot—and that it was his job to serve David. Just because his parents were here now too didn’t mean that he was going to change who he was and who he was becoming.

  For sure, Sir Christopher had a really nice ring to it, and the longer he stayed here, the more reasons he had to stay, and the more he understood why David did too. Whatever happened in the future, Christopher was determined not to go back to being a twenty-first century kid. In Avalon, men his age had three more years of sitting around in classrooms all day to look forward to, and he didn’t know a single person—the smart ones included—who wouldn’t have done something different if they’d had another real way other than going to college to get ahead in life.

  In prior arguments, Callum had usually supported Christopher’s quest for independence, if quietly, and now he looked unseeingly towards the battlement from which David and William had disappeared.

  “It’s what the king wanted,” Huw said helpfully.

  “I know what David wanted better than you two, I think.” He gave them the beady eye. “But you’re in luck in that we already resolved not to second guess David’s plans nor try to imagine what he would do if he were in our shoes and faced with new information. As it is, in your case we know what he had planned because he’d already told you about it. So I’m not going to change it.”

  “Yes!” Christopher went to punch the air, but Callum’s hard look arrested the movement, and he lowered his hand. “Sorry.”

  Callum bobbed his head. “You don’t have to be sorry. I’m glad you’re excited about this commission David has given you. Though—” the stern look was back, “—would it make you feel better or worse if you knew how important it was? David was hoping to hear back by now from the scouts we sent north ten days ago, but they have not returned. We can’t wait another day for information.”

  “I know,” Christopher said. “Plus, we need the Stewarts and the Bruces, and they need to know what we’re doing—and what has happened to David.”

  James Stewart had been needed as one of the few elder statesmen of his adopted Irish clan who’d survived the carnage in Ireland, but his Scottish estates had always been the most important. He’d resolved to sail for Scotland within a day or two of David’s own departure for Wales. Robbie himself was a Bruce and had felt an urgent need to warn his grandfather of Balliol’s treachery, if he didn’t already know of it—and to stand at his side when he faced it. Even now, the Stewarts and the Bruces were supposed to be riding out of Carlisle Castle, a royal stronghold, to hem in Balliol’s forces from the north.

  “I’d go myself if I wasn’t needed with the main army. I’d love to send Cassie, but Gareth is too young to travel into a war zone, or to be without his mother, were she to go alone for as long as this might take.”

  “We’ll manage,” Christopher said staunchly.

  Callum rolled his eyes. “Like you did in Ireland.” He laughed. “You must have something of your cousin in you to pull off a stunt like that.”

  Christopher tried ineffectively to look modest.

  Undoubtedly Callum wasn’t fooled. He had the ability to see through everyone. “For that reason, I think I’ll send Matha O’Reilly with you too. He’s recovered, for the most part, from the airplane ride, and with David gone, he’s going to be a bit at loose ends. It will give him something to do.”

  Christopher nodded. He understood all too well the need to have something to do. And he liked Matha well enough. “His English is improving. He ought to do fine.”

  Huw looked somewhat more askance. “I haven’t forgiven him for forcing William and me to run across Ireland.”

  “He was doing the job his father set him with admirable single-mindedness,” Callum said.

  Huw still looked sullen, which prompted Callum to openly laugh. “Don’t let David hear about this. We’re friends with the Irish now, remember?” He put a hand on Christopher’s shoulder. “This doesn’t mean you have permission to take unnecessary risks.”

  “No, sir. Only necessary ones.”

  “Pshaw.” Callum scoffed. “Off with you. I’ve chosen three other men to go with you to keep you honest.”

  Huw and Christopher hastened away before Callum could change his mind. Christopher was glad to be going on the road, even if he was missing William’s company. Motion was better than no motion, as David often said.

  Thus, an hour later, fully armored and armed, he, Matha, and Huw rode out the castle gate, along with Jacob, John, and Cedric, each a seasoned English soldier. None had been at the Battle of Tara, but they’d heard about it. For that reason, Christopher thought that the eyes that looked back at him were more respectful than they might have been a month ago.

  It was a relief to have fought in a real battle and comported himself well. Up until now, it had been an awkward thing being the king’s cousin. Because of his blood, Christopher had been accorded a respect that he and everyone else had known he didn’t deserve. Not that it wasn’t still awkward sometimes, but maybe he deserved it now.

  And that was an awkward thing too. Ever since he was seven years old and David had come to Avalon, Christopher had dreamed of being a knight. Now he was a knight, and while he had no regrets on that score, in reality, it wasn’t as magnificent as he’d imagined. He didn’t dream of being a knight anymore—he dreamed of fighting and blood. His dreams drowned in it. It was worse than the times back home when his friends and he had stayed up late watching horror movies. At Tara, he’d lived a horror movie. It felt like the blood had soaked into his skin. And while it had washed off, the memory of it never would. Just because saying so was a meme didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

  He turned in the saddle, his eyes traveling over the faces of the men who rode behind him. “We ready for this?”

  To a man, they snorted their derision that he could even ask such a thing, and Jacob, their captain, said, “More than
ready.”

  Jacob was Jewish, no surprise given the name, and something of a friend to Christopher. Ten years ago, Jacob would never have been allowed to join the army, much less command men, but this was the world David had created, and Christopher was glad to have him. Even if Avalon was more foreign than the moon to a medieval person, Jacob understood what it meant to be different, and Christopher appreciated the resulting camaraderie between them.

  Now, Jacob urged his horse a little closer. They were almost through the town, at which point they would head northeast as directly as possible. They would change horses at Warrington, Rochdale, and Skipton Castle, before circling to the west around the Pennines. The only check on the distance they could travel was their own endurance. Barnard Castle, where John Balliol’s army was gathering, wasn’t in Scotland, but quite a ways south into what Christopher felt to be England.

  “My lord,” Jacob said, “I must ask why we are traveling so far east? Skipton is miles out of our way. Surely riding through Liverpool would make a faster journey to Carlisle. And if our intent is to go to Barnard, we should be riding more east around the Pennines.”

  “You are right on both counts,” Christopher said. “But Earl Callum wants to know who is moving in the north, and if any lord we don’t know about is allied with Balliol and Mortimer. Our men have to march past Skipton to get to Barnard. Better to know something of the journey before they get there. At each castle we pass through, we’ll have the castellan send a rider south, first to the main army, which will be following, if slowly, on our heels, and then to Earl Callum to tell him about the conditions.”

  Jacob thought about that for a moment. “That’s really why the king decided to send you, isn’t it?” He nodded thoughtfully. “You would be wasted at Beeston.”

  Christopher glanced at him, surprised by the idea, since he had just successfully navigated a battlefield at Tara. “Why is that?”

  “Anybody can wield a sword, but if reports are true—and I have been listening closely, so I believe them—you singlehandedly won over two great lords of Ireland. If not for your embassage to them, Ireland would have been lost.”

  “That’s right. Where William de Bohun and I managed almost instantly to get ourselves captured—”

  “By me,” Matha added with equanimity.

  Huw guffawed. “Christopher saved the kingdom. Dafydd said so.” He had taken up the Irish habit of referring to David when he wasn’t there only by his first name. Everyone did it now and again, but with the Irish, David’s name was like a title in and of itself.

  Jacob nodded sagely. “I heard him say that too.” Then he fell back to align his horse again with Cedric’s.

  That gave Christopher a chance to say in an undertone to Huw. “Do you really think Callum and David are expecting that much?”

  Huw shot him a surprised look. “Yes. Did you really not think so?”

  More than Callum’s words had done, Huw and Jacob’s certainty had Christopher reconsidering the tameness of this assignment. When David had explained what he wanted, he’d been pretty casual about it. Christopher had assumed that David was sending them because 1) Christopher was his cousin, which would garner the delegation instant respect from everyone they encountered on the journey; and 2) he wanted to keep Christopher out of harm’s way.

  Christopher would never forget the look on David’s face when he found him after the Battle of Tara. There had been genuine fear in his eyes—followed by utter relief when he’d seen Christopher sitting in the field, alive and uninjured. Now that Christopher’s mom was here, David would have her voice constantly in his ear, warning him not to let anything happen to her son. In the nine months they’d been apart, she may have mellowed in some respects, but not by that much.

  Christopher led his friends in Ireland because leadership had been forced upon him. Now, it had been given to him, and for the first time, he was seeing this journey far less as an adventure for him and Huw—and a way to get them out of Callum’s hair—and much more as something that really was necessary. Truthfully, it was an added pressure he didn’t need right now. But they’d started, so he could hardly turn back and tell Callum that he wasn’t ready for this kind of responsibility.

  Christopher really wished William had been able to come along because he would have said exactly what Christopher was thinking: You’ve got to be kidding me!

  Chapter Nine

  1 April 2022

  David

  David stood in the corridor of the hospital, the door to William’s room open behind him, and looked right and left. Though he could see nothing untoward, the back of his neck was telling him that all was not entirely well. Or maybe it was that he’d been on edge for so long, he didn’t know how not to be.

  “What are you afraid of?”

  “What do you mean?”

  David focused on Michael, who leaned against the wall opposite, his arms folded across his chest. As promised, he’d driven David to the hospital, but then afterwards, he’d stayed with him in the emergency room and come with him to William’s room. Back when they’d first arrived, David had told him he could go at any time, just say the word, but Michael had said William was his patient, and he wanted to see his treatment through.

  David hadn’t argued then. But now he was concerned about what had to come next, and how to protect Michael from it.

  “I’m not blind. I served, and I recognize the signs. You’re jumpy. It’s like you think a firefight is just over the next hill.”

  David had put on the best face possible to William, because there was no point in railing against what couldn’t immediately be changed. He saw no reason to give William something more to worry about, but to say David was concerned about their situation was to woefully understate the case. Though William was recovering somewhat woozily in his private room, David’s concern had little to do with William himself. The doctors said he was doing well enough that, if things continued, he could be discharged tomorrow. Michael’s miracle gel had done its job, and a surgeon had cleaned out the damaged tissue and sewn him up front and back. Other than taking antibiotics and pain killers as needed, William would soon be good to go.

  It was the rest of everything that was the problem. David didn’t want to be in Avalon right now, not with so many people back home depending on him. It was just somehow typical that right at the point where he was going to be able to put down these constant rebellions—hopefully forever—he’d been transported away. Though the Ireland insurrection had been a long time coming, David was starting to think that it was a failure of leadership on his part that was at the root of Roger Mortimer’s and John Balliol’s plans. Somehow, despite everything he’d accomplished, he was still seen in certain quarters as weak.

  It was a condition that could not continue, not if he hoped to keep changing Earth Two for the better. Certainly, that was why Roger Mortimer had rejected his terms of surrender, declaring that if David wanted Beeston, he needed to ride there personally, hat in hand, to ask for it. David would have accepted a little humiliation for the sake of peace, but it would have diminished him in Roger’s eyes. That might have been an acceptable trade if this were just about David. But this was about England, and as the King of England, David wasn’t going to come running when anyone—particularly Roger Mortimer—called.

  Maybe at one time he could have walked away from the kingship, but he couldn’t anymore. Too much was riding on his leadership and too many people depended on him—not so much for their livelihood, though there was that, but for their way of life. Without him, without all the twenty-firsters, Earth Two could easily sink back into the bad old days of prejudice and brutality. If that was going to happen, it was going happen only over David’s dead body.

  None of that could he say to Michael, however. But he didn’t want to shut him out either. He felt he owed him more than silence. “It feels like a fight really might be.”

  Michael jerked his chin to point south, which from Bangor was the direction of the mounta
ins. “How long and where?” He was asking about David’s military service.

  David studied Michael while deliberating how to answer. He had rehearsed in his head possible scenarios for the next time he came to Avalon, but outright lies still didn’t come easily to his tongue. In the rush of dealing with William, he hadn’t done more than a cursory assessment of who Michael was, but more was needed now.

  He stood about 5’ 10” and had an athletic physique that in Earth Two would have meant he was used to hard labor—whether in the fields or with a sword—but here probably meant his workout included lifting weights. He had dark hair, eyes, and skin, but David couldn’t guess his ethnicity and was kind of pleased about that fact. England was becoming more diverse every year in a way that made him feel better about the way this world was going.

  More important than what Michael looked like, he appeared to take in the world with an accepting expression that implied he had seen it all and could no longer be surprised. But he wasn’t angry about his past either.

  Michael misread his silence. “Dude, you look like you’re going to eat me. You were special forces, weren’t you? That’s why you won’t talk about it.”

  “I’m sorry, Michael. You’re right. I can’t.”

  An elevator dinged in the distance. On instinct, David’s hand went to his waist, but he had no sword there. His calculations about what to be concerned about had been mostly focused on what was happening back home, but his jumpiness had to be attributed to the fact that the firefight in question would be in response to the arrival of MI-5, who were probably just around the corner waiting to pounce. David couldn’t understand why nobody had yet arrived. Chad Treadman was also a force to be reckoned with. And David had no doubt that there would be a reckoning. Anna had done her deal with Chad only two weeks ago. David’s sudden arrival in Avalon had left him a lot less time than he’d hoped to figure out what could be, and should be, expected of him.