Shades of Time kobo

by Sarah Woodbury

  They ended up side by side against the wall. They kept their hands behind their backs with the ropes held loosely in their fingers. It wouldn’t pay to be complacent now, not when they’d come this far towards freedom in so short a time. They didn’t address their ankles because loosened ropes there would be impossible to hide. If they were to have a chance at escape, it would be only after the cell door was opened and they were moved somewhere else in the castle. In that case, someone would have to cut the ropes around their ankles for them.

  Ieuan used his bent knee to brush away a piece of straw that had caught in his hair and was hanging in front of his face. “I don’t see the play here. I understand Balliol wants to rule Scotland without fear of English interference. But Warenne? What’s he reaching for?”

  Before Math could answer—if he had an answer—the door to the outside swung open, and Warenne himself appeared. He laughed out loud when he saw them. “It isn’t often I win a wager with my garrison captain. I assured him you would not still be wearing those sacks.”

  Math found himself even more irritated, but Ieuan repeated the question he’d asked Math, this time for Warenne’s reply.

  “The throne, of course.” Warenne’s boots scraped on the stone floor as he approached the cell. He was warmly dressed to ward off the damp Math was trying not to think about, since then he’d start shivering.

  “You lured us here with false promises,” Math said.

  “I did not lie outright.”

  “It seems an odd thing to care about,” Math said, “given that you’ve betrayed the king.”

  “There is no king to betray. King David is dead.”

  “You lie.” Math licked his lips. He was already very thirsty, and he tasted ash at Warenne’s assertion. He should have known the plan involved an attack on Dafydd, and in the face of Warenne’s certainty, Math needed to be on his feet. He scooted up the wall to a standing position so he could look Warenne in the eye. He wasn’t sure why Warenne was bothering to speak to them at all, but he’d always struck Math as an intelligent man, so he had to be keeping them alive for a reason.

  Warenne raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. “Time will tell. If David isn’t dead already, then he soon will be. Balliol sent his nephew to Ireland, and the countryside has risen in rebellion.”

  “Balliol sent Red Comyn? The Irish follow him?”

  Warenne scoffed. “The Irish barons follow whoever offers them wealth and power, which King David did not.”

  Math couldn’t deny Dafydd hadn’t done much to woo the Norman barons in Ireland. To him, the warfare in Ireland had been a sticky problem that had dogged him throughout his short reign. If what Warenne said was true, then Dafydd’s attempt to deal with the problem was too little too late.

  Ieuan had stayed on the floor, and he looked up at Warenne. “I gather you’re reaching for the throne yourself? You have no royal blood.”

  “Since when does that matter?” Warenne clenched his right hand into a fist. “King David has none by his own admission. The one who rules is the one who is strong enough to take the throne and hold it against all comers.”

  “If the plan is to divide the world between you,” Ieuan said, still from the floor, “Comyn gets Ireland, Balliol Scotland, and you England, that doesn’t leave much room for men like FitzWalter.”

  “FitzWalter does as he is bid. As you should.”

  Math and Ieuan exchanged a glance. Now they were getting to the meat of the matter and why they were here—and also why they weren’t confined to the damp dungeon below their feet. Or dead.

  “You want us to walk away.” Ieuan spoke with a kind of awe in his voice, as if he couldn’t believe Warenne’s audacity.

  “King Llywelyn is dead alongside his son. Wales is yours now, but only if you don’t fight me.”

  Math laughed, though with an aching bitterness. The scope of Warenne’s plan made William de Valence’s and Gilbert de Clare’s schemes look paltry and under-reaching by comparison. His gut twisted at the thought that even now Dinas Bran could be under siege as Bevyn had feared. Lili and Arthur, the heir to the English crown, plus the twins, the heirs to the throne of Wales, were there, not to mention his own children, who had claim through Anna. He swallowed hard. That was the reason Bevyn had stayed behind, of course, and Math had to believe the old warrior knew what he was doing and would protect them.

  “I’ll have you know that going after Anna was foolhardy and not my idea,” Warenne added, oddly continuing the conversation and offering unrequested information. “You two are the far bigger prize. FitzWalter and Mortimer tried to take Anna because they thought to use her as leverage against you, but imagine my pleasure when you walked right into my arms. In a few days, all of Britain will fall in line behind us.”

  “Wait. Did you say Mortimer?” Ieuan said. “Are we speaking of Edmund?”

  “Roger.”

  Math let out a breath. “Roger Mortimer allies with you? That must not have come cheap. Who else?”

  Warenne’s expression soured slightly. “Humphrey de Bohun.”

  “You have competition for the throne then,” Math said. “How are you getting around that?”

  Warenne gave him a hint of a smile, though it lacked humor—or perhaps conviction. “I don’t have to. They have all pledged to support my grandson’s claim.”

  “Why would they do that?” Ieuan said. “Henry has no more royal blood than you do.”

  “Because Henry is betrothed to Elizabeth, King Edward’s youngest daughter.”

  Math gazed at Warenne. His words were completely believable, and for the first time in many years, despair entered Math’s heart. They would need a true miracle to get out of this one.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  20 March 2022

  Anna

  “Wake up, Anna. It’s time to go.”

  Anna came out of a deep sleep, a product of the pain pill she’d taken so she could fall asleep in the first place, to find Aunt Elisa shaking her awake. She looked into her aunt’s troubled face. “What is it?”

  Elisa put a hand to her heart. “You were so deeply asleep, I was afraid something had happened to you in the night.” She was dressed for the road in jeans, boots, and a weatherproof jacket.

  Anna rubbed the last of the sleep from her eyes and swung her feet out of bed. “I’m fine.”

  “MI-5 is coming.”

  Rather than panic, which by rights she should, Anna’s eyes went briefly to the ceiling before she headed to the bathroom. “I don’t know what they’re so afraid of.”

  She stripped off her pajama shirt, a new one brought to her last night by one of Chad’s assistants, since she’d left the previous night’s outfit at Callum’s apartment. Her modern clothes were piled on the counter, and she started pulling them on. “At this point, it would be way better to let the world know what we can do, even if it means everyone thinks I’m crazy.”

  “That would put you in danger, Anna,” Elisa said, with evident patience in her voice. “Not all countries are friendly, you know.”

  Anna laughed, her voice muffled by her sweater as she pulled it down over her head. “As compared to the governments ostensibly on our side?”

  Elisa gave her a rueful smile, acknowledging the irony.

  “Where’s Mark?” Anna said. “When I fell asleep he hadn’t yet reached London.”

  “He turned around and came back.”

  That was a relief—to Anna if not to Mark. “Why?”

  “Livia got in touch with him again and made him see that no amount of explanation was going to make this right.” Elisa took in a breath. “Chad’s been on the phone to his contacts in the government, but there’s nothing the commerce department can do, and the CIA is involved, so—”

  “So they don’t want to help, or they can’t.” Anna checked the clock on the bedside table. It said five in the morning. Dawn was in an hour or so, provided the UK hadn’t gone to daylight savings time yet. Earth Two, as Chad called her world and Anna ha
d grown used to hearing over dinner last night, had no use for such a thing, thank goodness. Its absence was a blessing to all mothers everywhere, even if they didn’t know it. “How are we getting out of here?”

  “Chad has a plane. He has the pilot preparing to leave now.”

  “I saw a plane parked on the grass below this hill yesterday. I didn’t see an airstrip though.” Anna pulled on her boots. The leather was soft as butter and hand-stitched, as it would have had to be since they’d been made by a craftsman in Llangollen. When Mark had given her a pair of shoes yesterday, she’d opted to keep her own, since the lamb’s wool insoles were so nicely molded to her feet.

  “Apparently it doesn’t need one.”

  “So it’s more like a helicopter?”

  Elisa shrugged. “I don’t know how these things work, and I’ve given up asking. Chad just needs us down there when the plane is ready.”

  Anna and Elisa met everyone else in the corridor, shivering a bit at the early hour, despite the central heating. They all had bags on their shoulders, not dissimilar to the go bag Anna carried, the same one she’d brought from Callum’s apartment. Sophie was there too. As before, she herded them onto the elevator, but this time, they went down.

  “I am so glad to see you,” Anna said in an undertone to Mark as the doors closed. “Did you return because you knew we had to run? I thought I was safe here.”

  “I told you about the CCTV cameras, right?” Mark said. “It took them most of the night, but they found us.”

  “Why do they care so much?” Anna swallowed down the wail that rose up in her throat, since she didn’t want to upset Elen more than she already was. “Will they never leave us alone?”

  “Apparently not.” Mark shot her a look that was almost sad. “It’s all about control, Anna—control of information and people.”

  “And ideas,” Uncle Ted said from the far side of the elevator, apparently having overheard despite Anna’s and Mark’s efforts to speak quietly.

  “I get that, sort of,” Anna said. “I just don’t see why they’re so intent on me. I didn’t do anything.”

  “You appeared at Westminster Hall on a horse,” Mark said. “That was more than enough.”

  “You would think they’d be happy I’d disappeared, so they could sweep my existence under a rug. They’ve denied all knowledge of the Time Travel Initiative, right? Why dredge it all up again?”

  “Because the initiative isn’t dead so much as resurrected in its original form,” Mark said. “Pre-Callum.”

  “And around it goes again.” Ted gave Anna a sad smile. “I’m glad I’m smarter now. I just wish we had a Callum in charge at MI-5.”

  Mark grunted. “These days it’s politicians all the way down.”

  “What about Livia?” Anna said.

  Mark looked up at the numbers blinking by on the elevator, which seemed to be taking a long time to get them to where they were going. “She isn’t going in to work today, but all anyone knows is that she drove me to the hospital and dropped me off in the vicinity of Hyde Park. She was only following orders, and that’s the story she’s sticking to. I think she’ll be okay.”

  “I hope so. I hate to leave her out in the cold.”

  “She won’t be left out in the cold. She has a job with us, as soon as all this blows over.”

  Anna turned at George’s voice. She hadn’t noticed him in the corridor, and she realized he’d been in the elevator when they’d gotten on.

  “That’s only if Chad survives this,” Anna said.

  George scoffed. “Of all the things you need to worry about, Chad Treadman isn’t one of them. The security services will come to their senses sooner or later. Treadman Global designed half their tech.”

  “You should have left a back door into it,” Elen said, and when everyone looked at her, she added, “What? I’m not allowed to say what I think?”

  “You are allowed,” George said kindly, “and we would have if it wasn’t illegal and might cause more problems than it solved.”

  But Anna could see his eyes turning thoughtful. She was almost afraid to think what the consequences of today might be in the future.

  “We have to live in this world, Elen,” Ted said. “It’s a constant series of compromises to survive.”

  “I suppose it can be like that everywhere,” Anna said, realizing she hadn’t told her family yet what she’d agreed to last night with Chad. “Everyone makes compromises. The key is to keep them to ones you can live with.”

  The elevator dinged and dumped them out into a sub-sub-sub-basement. Chad Treadman was there to greet them, along with Andre, back again in his immaculate suit and tie. Chad, by contrast, wore khakis and a U Penn sweatshirt, implying he’d once lived in the same neck of the woods as Uncle Ted and Aunt Elisa.

  “Welcome to the bat cave!”

  The man clearly had been watching too many superhero movies. Anna hadn’t seen one of those in ages—only in passing that Christmas Eve at Aber, when David and Christopher had been multi-tasking, downloading stuff off the internet while watching videos. Anna frowned, regretting that she hadn’t yet gotten to a computer—or, more reasonably, had Mark do so. She could have added reams of paper to her backpack by now.

  Mark had his backpack slung over his shoulder, the larger of the two they’d brought to Chad’s castle, and Anna eyed it. Too bad it wasn’t possible to have internet on a plane, or she could have gotten to work once they were on board. Then she remembered the tablet with a library full of information on it. This world had moved on since she’d lived in it and didn’t use paper.

  They set off at a quick pace across the giant garage/warehouse/bat cave they’d entered. The reason for the sub-sub-sub-basement access was clear, as Chad really had carved himself a hangar out of the base of the hill upon which his castle perched. It occurred to Anna that perhaps he’d actually created the hill from scratch, which on the whole sounded more likely than getting a permit to hollow out an existing one.

  Anna jogged a few steps in order to come abreast of Chad. “Where are we going?”

  “I figured we’d start with my castle in Ireland. I have a bigger plane there we can take anywhere in the world if need be.” He glanced at her. “I’m sending you with George, Andre, and Sophie for now. I need to stay here and run interference.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise?” Mark said from behind them.

  Chad glanced over his shoulder. “I am as committed to Anna’s welfare as you. I consider it my job. I’ll sort things out here and then join you tomorrow.”

  As he hustled them through his bat cave, Anna looked left and right. He had at least twenty fancy cars in his underground lair: black cars like those they’d driven out of London yesterday, a half-dozen SUVs that wouldn’t have been out of place at MI-5, several buses like the ones that took passengers to and from airport hotels, and a helicopter. David would have loved everything about it, but for once, she didn’t wish he was beside her. He was better off where he was, leaving this to her.

  In the predawn light, the plane looked normal enough, if small. The wings were a slightly odd shape, with more flaps than she was used to and fat tires. It definitely wasn’t a helicopter, so Anna didn’t know how it was supposed to take off without an airstrip. Chad had no such reservations, and he trotted up the stairway to the door, and the others followed.

  Once inside, the plane proved to have eight seats in pairs facing each other with tables between them, plus a couch, all in white leather. There were even throw pillows and flowers on the tables, though a quick check revealed the vases were affixed to the tables and the flowers were kept moist through a green fibrous block rather than a cup of water.

  This was a smaller plane than the one they’d flown in several years ago from Oakland, California, courtesy of MI-5, and Chad implied as much when he said a second later, “This is just my puddle jumper. I traded fuel capacity for getting in the air quickly. I’ll bring the bigger one when I come.”

  “It still
can fly five thousand miles without refueling,” Ted said in an aside as he sat down next to Anna.

  She had taken a chair in the middle of the plane, opposite the couch, on which Elen and Elisa chose to sit. Mark hovered for a moment and then chose a chair opposite Anna. Sophie and George entered the plane last.

  After a quick check to make sure everyone was seated and safe, Chad stopped in front of Anna and held out his hand. “It’s been a pleasure. Good luck.”

  She shook without hesitation. “Thank you.”

  Then Chad bent to Andre, who was sitting in the pilot’s seat, the two men spoke briefly, and Chad left. George sealed the door behind him.

  Anna craned her neck to see that Sophie had settled into the co-pilot’s seat next to Andre. George, meanwhile, disappeared into the back of the plane, only to reappear a minute later with an apron on. “Can I get anyone something to drink before I finish preparing breakfast?”

  Anna laughed outright. “MI-5 is coming, but you’re preparing breakfast?”

  George checked his watch. “Well, they’re not here yet.” It appeared his amusement was genuine. “Mr. Treadman is not one to go anywhere on an empty stomach.”

  And then the engines fired up, and Anna gripped the armrest of her seat.

  George put up a hand. “I’ll get those drinks for you after we take off. Is everyone buckled?” He himself took a jump seat at the back of the plane. Then Sophie’s voice came over the intercom. “This can be rough.” She laughed. “You’ll see in a second why we haven’t gone into full production yet.”

  Anna peered out the window. They were moving across a field that looked nothing out of the ordinary. It was mowed, she supposed, but it could easily have been eaten down by sheep. It was lumpy, and they bounced around as they picked up speed. Then with a burst that sucked her back into her seat, ten times the pressure of a normal take off, they shot across a last fifty feet of grass and were in the air.