Daughter of Time: A Time Travel Romance

by Sarah Woodbury

  “Humphrey is a small problem,” Hywel said. “I’m most concerned about Edward.”

  “That rutting son of a goat!” Goronwy said, his color rising again.

  I allowed myself a smile, as the goat to whom he referred was the king of England himself.

  “I’ve never met the man and I already hate him,” Hywel said. “If we’d been at Evesham, we could have defeated him.”

  “We would not have won,” I said. “I couldn’t afford to risk my throne for a lost cause, not with all England and half the Marche arrayed against Montfort. He couldn’t see it, but I didn’t need Meg’s soothsaying to know what would happen.”

  Goronwy harrumphed again. It was an old argument. Simon de Montfort, married to King Henry’s sister, had brought the English crown to its knees, ruling for a time in Henry’s stead. A parliament of barons, Humphrey’s father and grandfather among them, who resented Henry for his capriciousness, mismanagement of the realm and favoritism towards his French relatives who’d aided him. Montfort had recognized me as the Prince of Wales in 1265 and I’d held him a friend, but he’d been unlucky in battle, and in the end, the rising star of Prince Edward could not be stopped.

  It had become clear to me before that final battle at Evesham that the tide had turned on Montfort. Bad luck was partly to blame for bringing him down, but also his own arrogance. He’d believed himself invincible. He thought that God rode at his side, an ancient failing for rulers of every stripe.

  More immediately, as had happened to me more times than I could count, the allies who had supported him—Marcher lords and English barons—had switched sides, as inconstant as the wind in their allegiances. Edward had taken advantage of their weakness and pugnacity, and had known the exact moment when their desire for personal power trumped their sworn loyalties. At that moment he’d struck, convincing all but a very few to come over to his side, whether with cajolery, righteous anger, or outright bribes.

  Edward was unlike his father, Henry, in every way imaginable. His power grew with every passing month. Humphrey’s father had died at the head of the foot soldiers he commanded and refused to abandon. But honor meant something different to him than to Edward. To Edward, power was the only thing that mattered.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Meg

  I was glad Elisa wasn’t with me. She would have had dark words for me about being with Llywelyn. Mom, on the other hand, once she got over the existence of time travel and all that, would have been just as starry-eyed over Llywelyn as I was. He’s the Prince of Wales! Our beloved, lost Llywelyn!

  Elisa thought I should have gotten therapy after I left Trev. The idea that I’d married Llywelyn—at least in our own eyes—would have sent her running for the phone book. I could hear her in my head: “You’ve known him for how long?” or “You’re on the rebound” or “He’s too old for you. You’re still trying to replace Dad.” She was probably right. I didn’t have any answers for her, other than that I loved Llywelyn. Back in Radnor that might not have been enough. Here in Wales, it most definitely was.

  Nobody treated me any differently than before, but I felt different about myself. By the first week in March, I’d been with Llywelyn for over a month. Each day we woke, traveled a little further on our journey to Brecon, and went to bed at night, whether that was in a castle, a manor, or one time in a tent on the ground. None of this was worthy of notice or comment by anyone other than me. I was surprised, even, by how easily Llywelyn’s men accepted me. I was Llywelyn’s woman, always there, and that was enough to be going on with.

  The difference was how I treated myself. I knew what it was to be Trev’s wife, but it was a very different thing to be Llywelyn’s wife. Llywelyn’s wife was competent, thoughtful, and treated well by all. I never had to worry about Llywelyn hitting me, even when something happened over the course of the day to make him lose his temper. I didn’t have to manage him—to walk on eggshells half the time and avoid him the other half. Llywelyn told me what he was thinking, and why, and what made him angry was that I hadn’t expected it.

  “I thought you told me that men and women were equal in your world,” he said.

  “They . . . are,” I said. “They can be—even supposed to be, I guess. It’s just that I wasn’t when I was with Trev.”

  “Humph,” Llywelyn said. That was generally his response every time Trev came into the conversation, which fortunately wasn’t often. “Well, it’s time you started being as equal as a thirteenth century woman, then. I don’t have much patience for the twentieth century if there are still men like Trev in it. We have enough of his kind here.”

  By sheer necessity, I began to fit in.

  I hadn’t worn a watch the day I’d come to Wales, and I realized that I didn’t miss it. I loved how time moved, slowly or quickly, but without being marked in small increments. There was more time for Anna. Each day had a natural rhythm. Things happened, and if something didn’t get finished, tomorrow would come soon enough. In winter in particular, the days weren’t very long, and people thought nothing of sitting over dinner for hours in the evening after a long day or riding or walking, because there was nowhere else to go and nothing better to do but listen to a forty-five minute tale sung by a bard.

  One of the few nights we tented in the middle of a forest, I found myself sitting on a log, sandwiched between Goronwy and Llywelyn, with Anna curled onto my lap, dozing in the warmth of the fire. I’d put away my guitar for the evening, once my fingers got too cold to play. Marshmallows and hot chocolate would have made the moment perfect.

  “You’re happy here, aren’t you?” Goronwy said.

  A quick glance at Llywelyn showed him pretending to ignore us and focusing intently on a stick he’d stuck in the fire. “I am, Goronwy,” I said. Llywelyn eased a touch closer to me. I hid my smile and kept talking. “I miss my mother and my sister, but I do love it here, even if it’s not at all what I would have expected.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know if I can explain,” I said. “You know that the way we live in America is very different from Wales, right?”

  Goronwy shrugged. “Prince Llywelyn has spoken with me of this.”

  “We dress differently, most people know how to read, people die of fewer diseases, though we have different ones too, and as a rule, women have a better lot in life. But people who live in that world don’t realize what they’ve lost along the way.”

  “And that is?” Llywelyn said, proving his ears were as wide open as I’d suspected.

  “People are more aware of how others feel and what they think. Everyone is adept at reading everyone else, and genuinely interested in figuring them out.”

  Neither man was impressed. “Of course,” Llywelyn said. “We have to live together, don’t we? That’s not the case in your world?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head at how obvious it was to him. “As a rule, you’d never look at or talk to a person you didn’t already know—whether on the street, at a meal, or in a shop. Everybody behaves as if they are completely alone, even when—or especially when—surrounded by a crowd.”

  Both men gaped at me. Even in the flickering firelight, I was good enough now at reading people myself to see the disbelief reflected plainly in their faces. “Why?” Goronwy said. “How could that be?”

  “Because chances are, you’ll never see any of those people again. It isn’t worth the time and effort invested.” And then the real reason struck me. “It’s because we don’t depend on each other anymore.”

  Goronwy shook his head. “Every man depends on every other, from the lowliest serf who hoes the field, to the knight who rides into battle, to the monk who prays for our souls.”

  “And when a man dies, he has companions to remember and celebrate his life, and to mourn him,” Llywelyn said. “I don’t see how your people could imagine otherwise.”

  “Yes, well,” I said, “that’s another difference. People in my time don’t think about death.”

&nb
sp; “That’s just foolish,” Llywelyn said. “People don’t die in your time? You yourself said that your father and husband died.”

  I pulled the blanket tighter around myself and snuggled closer to Llywelyn. “They die but nobody talks about it. Death here is part of daily life in a way it isn’t in the twentieth century, at least in America. Here, it’s always at the table with you, like an uninvited guest who insists on staying for dinner. It doesn’t matter if people die from disease, battle, or childbirth—death is always with us.”

  “Of course,” Llywelyn said.

  “You say ‘of course’,” I said, “but it’s not ‘of course’ where I come from! Here, people don’t shy away from talking about it and they don’t pretty it up with phrases like ‘He’s moved on’ or ‘She passed away’ which everyone in my town uses. For you, it’s ‘He’s dead and I’m sorry (or not sorry) for it,’ or ‘Me mam died last winter. I miss her.’ You just say it straight out.”

  I was unusual for a young woman in the twentieth century in that I had seen death, in both my husband and father. I didn’t know a single classmate whose parent had died, or if they had, they didn’t talk to me about it. Death was swept under the rug and you were supposed to get over it in whatever fashion you were able and get on with your life.

  Here they did all get on with their lives, but nobody forgot. In fact, everything important to the Welsh I lived with revolved around people who’d died: they wove tapestries and rugs depicting past battles; most of the songs were about famous, dead people; and most of their mythological stories ended badly. You couldn’t pay me to read a book that ended with the hero dying, but the people around me assumed that he would—and yet, they went about their lives with the quiet hope that this time, just once, he wouldn’t. The entire country was full of optimistic pessimists.

  * * * * *

  We turned our horses off the road, following the men ahead for a brief stop. “Where are we?” I gazed at the fallen stones.

  “This?” Llywelyn said. “It’s a Roman fort. We often rest here.” He lifted me from the saddle.

  “Yes, but . . .” I stopped, trying to take it in. The fort had lost its roof, but the walls still stood fifteen feet high and each at least fifty feet wide, built in a square. I walked across the grass in the clearing and through the open front door, vacant now, and into the cavernous space on the other side, with trees and bushes growing where once a legion had lived. A shiver went down my spine as I touched the stones that men—born two thousand years before I—had chosen, and crafted, and placed here.

  Lost in thought, I walked from room to room. I loved everything about history, and the best part was walking in the steps of people who’d come before me—which was good, given that I’d been living history these last months. I came out of my reverie, however, when I entered a small room, nestled in a building along the eastern wall. An altar sat in the center of the room, with words carved into the stone and a picture of a bull.

  “What happened here?” I asked Llywelyn, who came to stand beside me.

  “It’s a chapel, though not to our God. Soldiers worshipped Mithras here. None of the men like to come this way.”

  I stood uncertainly in the doorway. “I won’t either, then. Pagan gods or not, I’m a Welshwoman now. I can respect what they feel.”

  Llywelyn put his arm around my shoulder and turned me back the way we had come. “Goronwy told me when you first arrived here that he thought he’d call you ‘Morgane’—that you saw the future not because you lived it, but in a scrying bowl.”

  “He didn’t!” I said. “Besides, Morgane was Arthur’s sister. I don’t even have a brother.”

  Llywelyn laughed and pulled me to him. “You’ve bewitched me. I suppose that’s all that matters.”

  * * * * *

  The night before we reached Brecon, we stayed at a castle set at the junction of the Usk and the Senni Rivers. It was a castle built by Llywelyn and one which he oversaw directly, through his castellan, Einion Sais. Einion had his own castles too, but this was one of the largest in the area, next to Brecon. It was also the most modern, since Llywelyn built it himself. I had to like that.

  What I didn’t like was the tension among Llywelyn’s men. That first evening after dinner, as I rocked Anna to sleep in her cradle, Llywelyn explained.

  “The closer we get to England, the worse it will get. Ten miles? Twenty miles? It’s hard to know where Wales ends and the Marche begins. We’ve fought over this land for centuries, and we all can feel it.”

  No, I didn’t really understand. Llywelyn shifted in his seat to lean forward, his words earnest and heartfelt, and elaborated further. “We’ve hallowed this ground with the blood of our ancestors. They lived here, plowed these fields, hunted in these mountains, all the way back to the time before the Romans came. Their remains are spread over every inch of this land, and for me to give that up, to negate their sacrifice because of some neglect on my part, means that I give up the very part of myself that is Welsh. It is impossible and unfathomable.”

  “The English don’t understand this at all.”

  “Don’t understand and don’t care,” Llywelyn said. “They themselves are newcomers to our shores. They conquered the Saxons, who came after Rome fell, but only after we’d already lost all but our small corner of this island. The English kings only care for the land because of the power and wealth it gives them, not because it gives them life.”

  “I’m English too, in that sense,” I said. But I recognized the fervor in Llywelyn’s voice and respected it, even if I couldn’t share it. “That’s what you’re most afraid of, isn’t it? Not dying for your own sake, but because of what Wales will lose if you do.”

  “Yes,” Llywelyn said. “I don’t want to die, of course, but you tell me that when I do die, Wales ceases to exist and that my people are subject to seven hundred years of English oppression. I can’t comprehend that. I told Goronwy that you were from the future and he still doesn’t believe me, but even he can see that the future you foretell is so frightening and devastating that it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. What matters is that you’ve presented it as a possibility, and now that I’ve heard it, I must do everything in my power to ensure that it doesn’t come to pass.”

  “I hope that you can, Llywelyn,” I said. I rested a hand on his knee. “I hope that I haven’t just given you foreknowledge of a future that you can’t change.”

  “I think we’ve already changed your future, haven’t we, Meg? If you were to return to your time, you wouldn’t be the same woman who left.”

  “No,” I said. “I wouldn’t, but neither is Wales the same place with me in it. I still don’t understand how so little of your daily life got written down.”

  “Didn’t you tell me that history was written by the victors?” Llywelyn said. “Who wrote our history?”

  “The English,” I said. “I know. It would be helpful if more of your people were literate, because it’s a lot harder to suppress a people when they have their own voice to pass on through the ages in books.”

  Llywelyn stared into the fire. “Your world is so far away, Meg. I can’t comprehend the enormity of those years. I can’t even begin to imagine the changes that have occurred.” He transferred his gaze to me. “But then again, you’re here, a young woman of Welsh descent who only invites comment because your Welsh is accented strangely. How is it that the world has changed, but the people in it have not?”

  I shook my head. “I think the changes are mostly on the inside,” I said, “just like we talked about before. Those changes don’t show.”

  Llywelyn was right too, that fourteen years from now seemed a long way off—I’d be not quite thirty-five. Would I still be with him? Would he send me away like the other women who couldn’t give him a child? Would I even be alive? Thirty-five was nothing to a twentieth century woman—I’d barely have started living. At thirty-five, women were often grandmothers, perhaps not ready for the grave, but old. I didn’t want that to be
me either.

  * * * * *

  “You rutting bastard!”

  I stopped short. My hand was out, ready to push open the door onto the battlements, Anna on my left hip.

  After my conversation with Llywelyn the night before, I wanted to see the countryside, to feel what he felt. Too often these last weeks, my focus had been on keeping Anna happy or how sore my back and rear were, not on the land through which I was riding. It was always beautiful, but so densely packed with trees on every side that you couldn’t see more than the road in front of you and occasionally a hill rising up ahead or behind.

  Instead of going through it, I backed away from the door, uncertain if I should listen in case it was important, or leave because it was merely two men fighting over a woman.

  “If our lord discovers your failure, he’ll have both of our heads!”

  “Then don’t tell him,” the second man said.

  “You were supposed to have finished this already.” It was the first man again.

  “Well I haven’t!”

  “Young Humphrey . . .” the first man began, but his partner cut him off.

  “Humphrey de Bohun is a bloody traitor! He turned his back on me. He had the nerve to say that though I’d been loyal through many battles, it was only because of that loyalty that he would pretend he hadn’t heard my plea. He’ll have none of this. I’m lucky he didn’t turn me in to Prince Llywelyn.”

  Now I knew who the second man was at least: Humphrey’s companion, John de Lacey, the man sent by Humphrey’s grandfather. Then heavy footsteps sounded on the other side of the door, pounding along the battlements. Hywel’s voice penetrated the stairwell. “You there!”