Champions of Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  “Roger bet everything on a single throw of the dice.” Humphrey de Bohun shook himself, as if trying to reorient his mind to the task at hand rather than what it had been stuck on, which was William’s welfare. “Scotland is his only hope.”

  Ieuan gestured to the mountain before them. “It must be as we guessed. Mortimer is waiting for Balliol to come to his rescue.” He pinned Humphrey and Edmund with his gaze. “He still hasn’t left Barnard Castle?”

  “No,” Edmund said.

  “Why not?” Ieuan folded his arms across his chest. “What is he waiting for?”

  “David’s death?” Edmund said. “Perhaps the assassin was given a fortnight to accomplish his deed, on the chance that it would be all they needed, and they’d be back to where they’d hoped to be after Ireland: David gone and them in control of all Britain.”

  “David’s quick arrival in the plane undoubtedly caught Balliol on the hop as well,” Callum pointed out. “He was hoping he had weeks, and he’s had only days.”

  “All the more reason to leave Mortimer to stew in his own juices,” Humphrey said. “We can starve him, and he will eventually surrender.”

  “Not before we succumb to dysentery,” Ieuan said.

  “This was Plan A, which has not worked,” Callum added. “Besides, Balliol will eventually get off his duff and march to his rescue.”

  Ieuan looked to the castle. “David isn’t here, but we must remember his reasoning: Roger has hostages, and he will hang them from the battlement before he surrenders.”

  “So what are we going to do?” Humphrey asked.

  Ieuan explained about the elimination of not only Plan A but Plan B as well, since that had involved David’s personal appearance at Beeston—not to beg, but to put forth an ultimatum. When he finished, Humphrey looked disgruntled. “I don’t see how this Plan C can ever work. You’re relying on a woman.”

  Ieuan laughed. “Haven’t you noticed by now that these women from Avalon are cut from a different cloth than most women of your acquaintance?”

  Bohun’s frown deepened. “They seem the same to me. Headstrong. Willful.”

  “And courageous,” Edmund added lightly.

  Bohun relented. “I’ll give you that. But they’re newcomers. Inexperienced. Because she’s a woman, Sophie would never have fought, but George is green too.”

  “Why do you say that?” Callum said.

  “I asked if he’d ever wielded a sword in battle. He told me no.”

  Callum gave a low laugh. “You phrased the question in such a way that he could not answer yes.”

  Ieuan himself didn’t understand what exactly being a cop in Chicago meant, but Callum had said the words with respect and with the implication that George knew how to handle himself under difficult circumstances. Chad Treadman might not be a man to trust, but according to Ted, Meg’s brother-in-law, he sought out the best and the most competent to work for him. That would be David’s saving grace in Avalon as well as theirs here.

  Leaving the binoculars with the man who’d taken up the post of watching the castle, they made their way to the large pavilion Ieuan’s men had set up some distance from the main army. Roger Mortimer couldn’t mistake the army around his castle. He even knew that it was his brother who led it. Their plan, however, was predicated on the fact that he would be distracted by this sibling rivalry and so focused on the enemy at his front gate that he would not be paying attention to the one at his back.

  That was where Sophie, George, and a handful of warriors, Constance, Ieuan, and Samuel among them, came in. Bohun wasn’t wrong to worry that so much was riding on the newcomer twenty-firsters, but in a way that was their strength too. Ieuan could think of a hundred things that could go wrong with their plan, but Sophie didn’t know about any of them firsthand. That was why she would have people with her who did know.

  Ieuan pulled aside the tent flap and gestured Humphrey and Edmund inside. Most of the Avalonian equipment was displayed openly in the back of a cart, around which the tent had been put up, and she, George, and Mark were bent over what Mark called ‘an electronic tablet’. The presence of the equipment was the reason for the pavilion’s more distant location and its closed flaps. The fewer people who knew about the strange devices, the better.

  Ieuan knew what electricity was by now, though he wasn’t so comfortable with what he was seeing that he could take it for granted like these twenty-firsters did. Still, he tried to be nonchalant and asked as he approached the trio, “Do you have what you need?”

  Sophie made room for Ieuan, while Callum peered over Mark’s shoulder. The image on the screen in front of him showed Beeston Castle, and Mark was alternating between a picture of what it looked like now with what it looked like in Avalon, where it was a ruin of its proper self. The perspective was unique and startling, in that they were looking at it from somewhere above. With a swipe of his finger, Mark could spin the image to view it from all sides, like a cook walking around a tiered cake.

  Ieuan looked away before the spinning image made him queasy.

  “We’re just confirming the best path to take. If there are differences between what’s out there now and Avalon’s version, we want to know about them.” Sophie looked over at Humphrey. “What we do here can’t be accomplished without your part of the plan.”

  Humphrey had barely glanced at the screen. Perhaps from his angle, it had been distorted or too dark to make anything out. Ieuan had noticed that many of his peers simply didn’t want to know what the twenty-firsters were up to. Warenne, in his refusal to accept a radio, had been that way. Bohun had adapted to the sophisticated communication equipment well enough, but electronic tablets were apparently a bridge too far.

  Instead, Humphrey turned entirely away in order to clap Ieuan on the shoulder. “Edmund and I will leave you to it. We must get back to the lines and prepare the men for what we do tonight.”

  Sophie took a step away from the table and engaged Humphrey again. “I am very sorry about William, but I truly believe he will be fine. He’s in the best of hands where he’s gone.”

  Humphrey paused a pace from the door and turned back. “I appreciate your sympathy and you confidence.” He bent his head in a slight bow. “Godspeed.”

  “To you as well.” Sophie’s curtsey was somewhat stilted, but in the last two weeks she’d learned to accomplish it with little fuss.

  Mark and George bowed as well, though the blank expressions on their faces were a clear sign that they didn’t believe in bowing.

  Ieuan, who didn’t have to bow to Humphrey, walked him to the door. His ten men were waiting by their horses.

  “Can they really do it?” Humphrey said.

  “You saw them, Humphrey.” Edmund’s tone was dry as he hauled himself into his saddle.

  Ieuan nodded. “I gather you are ready too?”

  “Of course. We’ve been ready.” Humphrey paused, as if debating whether or not to say what he was really thinking. Most of the time Humphrey was as forthright as any man, and this time turned out to be no different. “You do realize that nobody has ever entered Beeston except through the main gate.”

  “We do.” Ieuan opted not to tell him that Beeston had been taken by this method, just not for another four hundred years and during another civil war against a different king. Humphrey knew about Avalon, but they still didn’t talk about time travel in his presence. That really might be a bridge too far. Ieuan didn’t think William had known the truth either before today.

  Bohun shook his head. “You are mad, all of you.” He was still shaking his head as he rode away, but Ieuan saw also that he was grinning.

  Chapter Thirteen

  1 April 2022

  David

  David’s arms were folded across his chest as he stared at the crowd of reporters. It was a mob, really. He was standing with Michael on the top floor of the hospital at a corner window above the main entrance. The reporters had gathered on the sidewalk, spilling onto the adjacent grassy area and into the
road. A hospital administrator was trying to talk to them, but they were shouting questions that he appeared not to be able to answer. David feared it was only a matter of time before the man threw David himself to the wolves.

  “You should step back before they see you, sir,” Michael said.

  “They can’t tell who I am from here.” Then he looked at his new companion. “Please call me David.”

  “You have to assume they have someone scanning each and every window and running any person they see through facial rec.”

  David had never heard of ‘facial rec’, but he could guess what it meant and stepped back. Without his asking for it or in any way conveying that he wanted that kind of relationship with Michael, his new friend had fallen into a pattern of behavior very much like the way Callum was with David, acting, along with the triplets, like a security detail. Michael appeared to see it as his job to run interference for David and repeatedly made suggestions that fell just short of telling him what to do. David was listening, for the very good reason that Michael was making sense, pretty much from the first moment he realized who David was.

  And believed it, crazy as that sounded to David.

  In the car on the way to the hospital, David and Michael had chatted casually, with David managing to defer Michael’s probing questions by asking some of his own. The last of five children, which was an unusual number of children to have in Britain in this day and age, Michael had laughed to say he’d been horribly spoiled by his four older sisters. After his mother died of lung cancer ten years ago, he’d joined the army out of grief and sheer stubbornness, to prove something to himself and those around him. He’d stayed ten years, rising to sergeant, and left six months ago, during another drawdown that gave him a small pension.

  He was now a medical reservist and otherwise unemployed. He picked up part time work here and there, which was why he’d been at the archery contest. The drive hadn’t been long enough to find out anything else about him, though David had learned enough in that short time to suggest that Michael wasn’t someone to avoid.

  “I’m glad you were there,” David said. “You saved my friend’s life.”

  “It’s what a bloke like me lives for.”

  That was about as honest a statement as David could have asked for. Michael had been remarkably open for an Englishman. He made a note to mention to Chad, if he had a chance, that he would do well to find a place for Michael in his organization. Though on second thought, David didn’t know if the request would put both men in an uncomfortable position: Chad because David would basically be asking him to hire Michael, and Michael for feeling like the job offer was coerced. Would Chad view suggestions from David as commands—and more to the point, obey them?

  These kinds of issues were meat and drink to David back on Earth Two, but they’d never been relevant here before because David’s interactions with people in Avalon had been limited. Every time but the first time, when David had met Bronwen, Callum had run interference for him. There had been no reason not to let him do that, and every reason to do exactly what he said. According to Darren Jeffries, Callum was renowned throughout the Security Service for being the kind of agent anyone would want to have beside him in a tight place. David had been in many tight places with Callum over the years, and he couldn’t agree more.

  But he was on his own this time, and whether because he was on his own, or simply because he was older now, he was willing to project himself a bit more than he ever had before. At home he did it all the time, to the point that it was a way of life. He was the King of England there! But here he was an American twenty-something with no ID, no money, and no perceivable status.

  If it had been just him alone, maybe he wouldn’t even have called Chad Treadman, but William was depending on him, and that made David’s decision to act instead of react an obvious one. If an army of reporters was waiting to hear from him, then hear from him they would. He wasn’t going to play the kid anymore, or hide, or pretend to be anything other than he was. He couldn’t now, anyway, since Chad had blown his cover wide open.

  He set off for the elevator.

  Michael hustled after him. “Where are you going?”

  “Out front. I’m going to take control of the narrative, as my mother might say.”

  Michael scoffed. “I didn’t go to Cambridge. I have no idea what that means.”

  “Is that a dig at me?” He stopped abruptly to look at Michael.

  Michael’s eyes widened. “No! I just meant—” he broke off and took a moment before gathering his thoughts and explaining: “In the army, there’s a clear division between enlisted men and those who come in as officers. For those of us who were enlisted, it was something we used to say among ourselves. I’m sorry. It just slipped out.”

  David laughed. “I barely went to high school, so don’t worry. I have nothing on you.”

  They reached the elevator. The security triplets had been patrolling the halls, but at David’s sudden change of direction, they’d followed him and now crowded into the elevator too. Two more of their compatriots were standing outside William’s door one floor below.

  So far, none of Chad’s people had said anything beyond conveying words from Chad Treadman, as if they were his puppets. At this point, David wouldn’t have been surprised to learn Chad was in the process of buying the hospital—or, since it was part of the National Health Service, donating a wing. What he wasn’t doing was coming to the hospital himself, having decided—with David’s agreement—that his arrival would only serve to create even more of a media circus. As long as William needed hospitalization, they were in a holding pattern.

  “What exactly are we doing?” Reg said as the doors opened onto the ground floor.

  David set off towards the main door to the hospital. “I believe it’s called a press conference.”

  Reg, still the triplet in charge, immediately hustled around David to fill the corridor and block his way. “You can’t.”

  “I think I can.” David made to cut around him, but now the other security guards planted themselves between him and the front door. Through the tall glass windows, he could see the administrator still appealing to the press, but David couldn’t get past the security detail without making a scene.

  “Mr. Treadman wouldn’t like it,” Reg continued. “Please talk to him before you do anything rash.”

  David pressed two fingers to his forehead, taking a breath and trying to put his thoughts in order. He still felt in his gut that being upfront with the press was the right and sensible thing to do, but in the face of a wall of people telling him it was a dumb move, he was reconsidering.

  Mali had been speaking urgently into her phone, and now she held it out to David, who put it reluctantly to his ear.

  “Don’t,” was Chad’s first word.

  “Why not? You yourself told everyone who I am, so you can hardly be surprised that the press is here. I’d rather talk openly to them than have them digging around for dirt themselves.”

  “They’re doing that anyway.” Chad laughed somewhat mockingly. “It isn’t as if they’re alone in that. What do you think I’ve been doing for the last six months?”

  David’s jaw clenched. “What’s the worst thing that could happen if I talk to them?”

  “You really have no idea how bad it could be,” Chad said with equanimity. “I have a different idea, one that will serve you, them, and us much better. Why don’t I arrange for a sit-down with someone who will be respectful, who will listen to what you have to say in a place that can be controlled. You’ll be able to consider questions and answers without being thrown into the deep end with no prep.” Then more faintly, he said, “Amelia, how far out are you?”

  “Two minutes.”

  “Who’s Amelia?” David said, realizing that Chad wasn’t talking to him but had interrupted their conversation to speak to someone else.

  “Amelia is my press secretary, in charge of media relations, and I’ve asked her to personally take char
ge of your situation. She will talk to the press, and tomorrow or the next day, you can have that interview.”

  Michael had been standing close enough so that he could hear the conversation and said, “Tell him you want someone Welsh.”

  David narrowed his eyes at Michael, but repeated what he’d said to Chad.

  “Done. I’ve also arranged for you to stay in a house not far from the hospital. It’s gated. My people are already there setting it up.”

  “I can’t leave William.”

  “You need to sleep,” Chad said in a flat voice that was hard to argue with.

  David did anyway. “William is not Ieuan. He’s a kid from the Middle Ages. He doesn’t even know this is the future. I can’t leave him alone. Bad enough I’m wandering the corridors while he sleeps.”

  Chad paused, and his next words showed that he wasn’t irritated by the pushback but had genuinely listened. “Let me arrange for someone to sit with him tonight. Someone his own age.”

  David managed to laugh. “If it’s a she, and she’s smart and pretty, I’ll guarantee he’ll like her. She has to speak French.”

  “I’m on it. She’ll be there by eight tonight.”

  So far, Chad had given David no reason to doubt how far his reach could extend, so he didn’t inquire further. Either Chad had someone on staff already who fit the bill, or he was going to call in a girl from Cambridge he’d had an eye on already who was majoring in medieval studies and fly her over.

  “What about Peter, Paul, and Mary?” David said, referring to Reg, Mali, and Joe.

  “Their relief will come at the same time.”

  David took in a breath through his nose. “This is crazy.”

  “Tell me about it.” But then Chad’s tone went up a notch. “I’m going to figure out how to get there—or get you here. Give me some time to work out the kinks.”

  The staccato sound of heels on the tile floor behind him told David someone was coming before he turned to see a woman with dark brown hair and brown eyes, wearing a deep red pantsuit, heading towards him. She reached David and stuck out her hand. “Amelia Hopkins.” She glanced towards the front door. “I’m here to deal with them.” She paused. “Your majesty.”