Outpost in Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  If this were a movie, the three of them would have been exchanging witty banter between slashes at enemy soldiers, but the only thing Christopher could think about was what he was doing with his sword and his absolute desperation to keep them all upright and alive.

  Then a roar came from somewhere in the distance, the kind of sound made when a stadium full of people open their throats and yell. Whatever they said was beyond Christopher, but William gave a cheer of his own, and behind him Felimid interrupted his singing to whoop exultantly. “MacMurrough comes!”

  It was as if a wind had swept across the battlefield, and instead of being in the center of the fighting, Christopher suddenly found himself on the edge of it. At last, he had more friends around him than enemies.

  “He’s fallen! He’s fallen!” These words came in French. For a terrified second, Christopher thought whoever had cried out meant David, but William elbowed Christopher in the back and told him to look. Cusack’s banner had been planted a hundred feet away near a stone wall that separated this pasture from an adjacent field to the west. As Christopher watched, it wavered and then fell to the ground.

  And all of a sudden, men were flowing past him, many moving at a dead run if they could manage it, with real panic in their faces as opposed to what the foot soldiers had shown a lifetime ago when the battle began. Two minutes later, Christopher, William, and Felimid were alone, standing upright amidst corpses.

  Christopher couldn’t breathe. He tugged on his collar, trying to loosen it so it didn’t press on his throat. He weaved on his feet for a few seconds, looking at Felimid, who had a huge smile on his face. “My father was right to trust you!”

  Christopher didn’t have the wherewithal to respond. Then, still grinning, Felimid dropped with a plop to the ground. Christopher and William joined him. Maybe that was stupid, and in a second somebody was going to come along and stick his sword in them, but Christopher was too tired to care.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Near Tara

  David

  David flung himself off his horse after Robbie. Since David had been focused on his own battle, it had taken him a second to realize what Robbie’s purpose was. David rolled underneath the blade of an oncoming cavalryman and left him for Theobald Verdun to take out. Which he did. The rest of David’s guard formed a circle around him, though the battle was winding down now that MacMurrough had joined the fray, and most of Cusack’s and Comyn’s men were surrendering rather than fighting.

  Robbie, meanwhile, sat astride the body of Red Comyn and was choking the life out of him. David could understand why he wanted to, but he couldn’t let him.

  “Stop.” He scooped his arms underneath Robbie’s armpits and hauled him backwards.

  “No! He deserves to die!” Robbie fought his forced retreat, to the point that he lifted Red’s head off the ground rather than let go of him. Then Comyn swung an arm at Robbie’s wrists and forced his hands away.

  James had arrived by that time, and he grasped Red by the shoulders and pulled him out from underneath Robbie’s legs.

  David held onto Robbie until Comyn was clear and then shoved him to one side. Robbie fell to his knees, gasping for breath, a match to Red, who’d been genuinely desperate.

  “You should have let me kill him,” Robbie said.

  “That may be.” David went to crouch in front of Red, who’d managed to get himself into a sitting position. James had already relieved him of his knives and now picked up his sword, which had been flung from his hand when Robbie had thrown himself at him. “What am I going to do with you?”

  Red spat on the ground. “Like he said, you should have let him kill me.”

  David tsked through his teeth. “You don’t mean that. You’re a survivor.”

  Red turned his head to look directly at David. It was probably the first time that the two men had ever exchanged an honest look. David didn’t know what Red saw in David’s eyes, though what David felt within himself was sadness at the waste of human life and regret at what could have been. He had a sick sense too that somehow in saving Comyn, he’d subverted Robbie’s fate. He’d never felt that kind of fatalism before and hoped he never would again.

  Red, by contrast, displayed disdain, wearing a sneer that implied that David couldn’t possibly understand him or know what was going on inside his head. Any fool, however, could see that what Red really was feeling was anger, a not uncommon go-to emotion for any man, even those who hadn’t spent their life fighting.

  But Red’s anger wasn’t driven by remorse or fear or physical pain. His eyes weren’t looking at the dead men and horses around him and feeling regret. He was mad because he’d taken a chance and chosen the wrong side. He was angry at himself for almost dying at Robbie’s hands and that he was going to have to face his wife and his uncle with the utter failure of the Irish venture.

  Red was embarrassed.

  Knowing now that he would have to think long and hard about what to do with him, David got to his feet and turned away. Red was the kind of medieval man who could no more understand David’s purpose or the reasoning behind his actions than he could fly. And if Red ever did understand David, he would mock him for his naiveté. David could spend his life trying to make the world a better place, and the moment his back was turned or he died, men like Red would be there to put everything back the way it had been.

  Men like Red made David despair … and feel very, very tired.

  * * * * *

  He found Christopher sitting between William de Bohun and Felimid O’Connor, dead men all around them. The fact that they weren’t lying flat on the ground told him that they were alive, but that didn’t mean they were whole.

  He knelt in front of his cousin. “Are you wounded?”

  David still didn’t know how the hell Cusack’s cavalry had managed to roll over the O’Neill rearguard so easily, but he cursed the carnage it had caused. Twenty minutes earlier, Cian O’Neill, who’d survived after putting up a better fight than his elders, had come to him on bended knee and apologized. It was more than his rivals had done. David didn’t think he’d been complacent, but it revealed a weakness in his plan. At the very least, it showed him the stupidity of asking men to fight after marching through the night.

  Christopher looked up blearily. “My head hurts.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Huw loped over and came to a halt in front of the trio, looking down at them with his hands on his hips. “You live, then.”

  “It seems so.” William reached up a hand so Huw could pull him to his feet. They lifted Christopher next, and with Christopher’s arms around their shoulders, the three of them limped from the field. Two dozen paces on, they encountered Aine, who was among the women who’d come to look for loved ones. She shook her head at the sight of them, and then ducked under William’s free arm to walk with her new friends to the medical tent.

  David watched them go, breathing a little easier. He wasn’t ready to talk to anyone else yet, however, or make any of the decisions that everyone was waiting for him to make—the first of which had to be what they were going to do with all the prisoners, not just Red Comyn.

  The system of ransoms was long established by now. Men of wealth and power who were captured in battle were ransomed back to their families for whatever the captor could get out of them. David found the whole enterprise distasteful, but the alternative was either keeping the man in prison for some length of time or killing him.

  It was the problem Henry V had faced after Agincourt: his prisoners had outnumbered his army—and he feared that if the French realized it, they would overwhelm his men. So he’d ordered all but the wealthiest killed. History reported that many of his own men refused the order and, in the end, ‘only’ several hundred were killed instead of several thousand. Regardless, it wasn’t a path David was willing to go down.

  But as many of the men they’d captured were genuinely dangerous, they remained a problem. He didn’t want to just let them go back to their
families only to wreak the same havoc on Ireland the moment David’s back was turned. He’d already arranged for Comyn to be marched to Skryne Castle where Maud de Geneville could look after him. Cusack’s death had broken the back of much of the resistance, but, unfortunately, Valence was missing—as were Auliffe O’Rourke and Thomas de Clare, both of whom had somehow escaped Hugh O’Connor’s net.

  Meanwhile, David had death and destruction on his hands the likes of which he’d never seen. The main battlefield was churned up from thousands of men’s feet and horses’ hooves, littered with discarded armor and weapons, and the bodies of the dead were only now starting to be distinguished from the wounded. Not far from where David stood lay a discarded helmet, blood marring the interior and just starting to run from the rain that had started falling. Again.

  When David had conceived the battle plan with the help of his mother and Callum, he’d believed in what he was doing. It had been this or surrender.

  But he hadn’t understood. God forgive him, he hadn’t known.

  He started down the slope, which wasn’t steep, though it had felt like it was as steep as Mt. Hood a few hours ago as he’d charged up it towards Comyn’s cavalry.

  Callum arrived at his right shoulder. “My lord.”

  David shook his head. “What a terrible, bloody waste.”

  “Comyn and Cusack should have known better.”

  Unable to speak for the rage that consumed him, David clenched his fists and bent back his head to look up at the sky. Raindrops pelted onto his face, and he let them for a moment before dropping his chin again. “You were right.”

  David could feel the wariness emanating from Callum. “What was I right about?”

  “That everyone came here to fight for himself. Nobody cares about Ireland. They care about power and wealth. That’s what this was about.” He kicked at a clod of earth and it exploded like a mini bomb in front of him, reminding him again of the extent to which he’d neglected his responsibilities to Ireland. This battle had been entirely devoid of the technologies that David had brought to England. There’d been no cannon. No early warning systems. No guns.

  “They’re men, David. That’s what men care about.”

  “Well it’s about time they stopped!”

  Callum’s laugh was immediate and genuine. “That isn’t going to happen, David. Not now. Not a thousand years from now.” David looked morosely at his friend, who added, “You’re going to have to give Leinster to MacMurrough.”

  “And Breifne to O’Reilly, and Ulster to the O’Neills and the Burghs, who will have to be convinced to accept my decision and not duke it out among themselves when they think I’m not looking. Believe me, I know.”

  “You can’t expect to change Ireland overnight.”

  “Maybe not, but I can wish for it. At least half of the new justiciars I’m going to appoint are going to be women,” David said. “I’m not going to screw around with anyone’s sensibilities this time.”

  “I agree, though Maud de Geneville may be no less prideful or cutthroat than Geoffrey was.”

  “I don’t care. If there’s even a slight chance that appointing women will mean less of this—” He broke off, gesturing to the carnage in front of him. He counted fourteen dead horses within a hundred feet of where he stood. Thankfully, the men had already been moved, “—then I’ll consider it a win.”

  Callum’s hands were on his hips as he surveyed the field. It was clear he wanted to say something else, but he wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.

  “Spit it out, Callum. Let’s have it.”

  “Scotland.”

  David scoffed. “I am well aware that Comyn and Valence weren’t here entirely on their own behalf. Balliol had to have had something to do with it. On top of which, Clare and Valence are in the wind. That’s not going to turn out well.”

  “I can’t disagree.” Callum hesitated again, but before David could snap a What! at him, he added, “Back in Avalon, Balliol was viewed as a somewhat ineffective king, not helped by the fact that Edward constantly undermined him.”

  “You’re implying that I have not done that—and now look where it’s got me?”

  “I didn’t say that. It’s just that history might be repeating itself here, though not on the same timeline as in Avalon, or the same in all particulars.”

  David had been thinking exactly the same thing for days, not just when he’d hauled Robbie off Red Comyn. Red might come to regret the favor, seeing how he was facing a long prison sentence. David couldn’t ransom him back to his family. He had forgiven him once. He couldn’t again.

  “And one more thing,” Callum said, “which I can’t believe I’m suggesting, but I think might be the end game here, and you’re really going to like it.”

  “That would be a switch.”

  Callum snorted laughter before saying, “What if you suggest, or speak to some like-minded people who could suggest to your new Parliament, that they make a rule that to own lands in Ireland requires giving up all lands in any other country. A man—or woman—would have to choose one or the other.”

  David gaped at him. “I would too.”

  “Yes, you would. You couldn’t be High King of Ireland and King of England.”

  David let out a burst of air that became a laugh, and then he clapped Callum on the shoulder. “You, my friend, are a genius.”

  “But only when you deem the country ready,” Callum hastened to add. “Let’s not be hasty.”

  “Oh no, you don’t.” David laughed again. “You’ve got me thinking now—”

  He broke off as Callum nudged him with his elbow. David looked over to see a mixed delegation of Irish and English approaching him. When David had gone to the battlefield looking for Christopher, he’d semi-deliberately given them the slip, but they couldn’t be avoided any longer. Rather than speak amongst the dead and wounded, he headed over to meet them.

  “A better life is what they want, David,” Callum said, keeping pace with him. “Maybe I was right back at Trim when I said nobody would fight for Ireland, but you were wrong when you said that they hadn’t. You’ve shown them what is possible. You have made them believe.”

  Comyn’s disdainful expression rose before David’s eyes. “You really think so?”

  “I do.” And then he grunted an amendment. “We all do.”

  “My lord.” Hugh O’Connor came to a halt in front of David. “We were hoping to discuss the arrangements for your crowning at Tara tomorrow.”

  From slightly behind him, Callum added in a whisper, “See. Told you so.”

  David had to admit that the lords of whatever background who faced him were looking remarkably contented. Niall MacMurrough might have his arms folded across his chest, but the pose didn’t imply defiance so much as self-satisfaction. Gilla O’Reilly, suddenly vaulted to prominence with the leadership vacuum created by Trim, was nodding to himself. Magnus Godfridson, whom David was already seeing as a staunch ally, was standing shoulder to shoulder with James Stewart, now suddenly vaulted to the ranking member of the Ulster contingent.

  David squared his shoulders. As when he’d taken the throne of England, it would be unconscionable—and unfair—to doubt the people’s belief in him, or worse, to mock it. He’d asked for not only their armies and their lives, but their faith—and they’d given it. Comyn was free to nourish his anger, cynicism, and resentment. That didn’t mean David had to.

  “I’m ready if you are.” He gestured towards his personal tent, which was doubling as the command center since the larger pavilion had been taken over by wounded men. “If you will,” he took a stride in that direction, “follow me.”

  The End

  Author’s Note

  Ten years ago when I wrote Footsteps in Time, before any of my books were published, I was fully aware of the difficulty Welsh names would present to readers. I spoke no Welsh at the time and merrily pronounced everything incorrectly. Nonetheless, I decided, given Wales’s history of oppression and rebellion
against the English, that anglicizing Welsh names would be the wrong thing to do. I still feel that way.

  That said, I could not, in good conscience, use the unanglicized Gaelic names in Outpost in Time. While I mean no disrespect to Gaelic speakers and people of Irish descent (me included!), the names were so different and spelled in such a way that I felt they would be a barrier to enjoyment of the story.

  For example, rather than Hugh O’Connor, a Gaelic version would read Aodh Ó Conchobair, while the ruler after him would be Ruaidri mac Cathal Ua Conchobair. Auliffe O’Rourke would be Amhlaoibh O Ruairc.

  Yeah, I couldn’t do it.

  I would also like to make note for clarification of my use of the ethnicities, Norman and English, in Outpost in Time. To recap, in 1066 the Normans, led by William the Conqueror, crossed the English Channel from Normandy (which his ancestors had conquered) to conquer England, defeating the Saxon King Harold at Hastings. With that conquest, Norman rule replaced Saxon rule, and few Saxon nobles were allowed to maintain their lands and power. These Normans spoke French, first and foremost, and few initially bothered to learn English or anything at all, for that matter, about the people they’d conquered. But as much as Normans liked to conquer, they also were culturally predisposed to intermarriage and assimilation. They’d done it in Normandy. They did it in England and Wales. And when the time came, they did it in Ireland too.

  Thus, as the decades passed, rather than transforming the Irish, who enormously outnumbered their Norman overlords, into Normans, the Normans became more Irish than the Irish themselves (which is an actual saying in Ireland today), and many lords cared more about their lands in Ireland than those belonging to their families in France or England. As when William the Conqueror had sailed to England, when Strongbow sailed to conquer Ireland, many of the men who sailed with him were landless younger sons. Their destiny became Ireland’s destiny.