Crossroads in Time (The After Cilmeri Series)

by Sarah Woodbury

  “That must have cheered the English commander,” Math said. “With a help of a traitor, he rides to Buellt and takes the castle without a fight, to find that an even bigger prize is on his way, riding innocently into his arms.”

  David gazed south towards Buellt. He’d never liked the place, not since the former owner, Edmund Mortimer, had set a trap for his father that had almost meant his death. David and Anna had saved Dad’s life by driving their aunt’s minivan into medieval Wales and eliminating his attackers.

  David wondered sometimes—though he’d learned not to think too hard about it because the uncertainties could drive him insane—what was special about his family. His mother had done the same as he and Anna, driving her car into the swamp beside Cricieth Castle, with baby Anna strapped into her car seat in the back. Was it God at work? Or magic? A robot controlling the universe from a hidden moon? Or a random hole in the time-space continuum, linked somehow to his family’s DNA? He didn’t know, and mostly likely, he never would.

  Owain folded his arms across his chest. “The English will try to trap you, my lord.”

  “They don’t even need to trap us,” David said. “All they have to do is keep flying the Welsh flag, post Gethin on the ramparts, and wave us in.”

  “We have more men than they do,” Math said. “Many more. They’d be taking a chance that they could overpower us. Odds are, they could lose the castle on the very day they take it.”

  David studied the ground. What I wouldn’t give for a cell phone to call Dad. But of course, that was needless wishing and he put the thought aside. It was up to him and Math—and their men.

  “We could avoid them entirely,” Owain said. “Why go to Buellt at all? We have a greater mission than the taking of one castle.”

  “You are correct—perhaps,” David said. “But what if this is a bigger piece of the Normans’ plan than we presently know? How many other English companies have entered into Wales today?” He met Math’s eyes. “Is Dinas Bran safe? Or Dolforwyn? Or maybe they’ll send a fleet to Anglesey or attack Aber itself.”

  Math nodded. “We cannot be in two places at once. Or three. You sent a messenger to Aber, to warn them of the Norman plans. We know of the action in the south—whether spearheaded by Clare, Bigod, or Mortimer—only because Bohun warned us. All we can address is what is before us. Guessing isn’t a winning strategy.”

  “If not for the presence of William, I might think that Bohun’s news was a ploy to get us to strip Gwynedd of its defenders so that the Normans could invade in the north.” David glanced at William, who was feeding a carrot to his horse.

  “But he gave you the boy,” Math said.

  “And thus, I must believe the rest,” David said.

  Lili’s eyes flicked to William and then back to David. “That’s William de Bohun?”

  David gazed down at her. His arms itched to go around her. But he kept his hands at his sides. Those days were over. “Yes,” he said.

  “Wow. I scarcely believed it when Ieuan told me that Bohun had left him with you.” And then Lili hastened to put a hand on David’s arm in reassurance. “Not that he shouldn’t trust you, my lord, but this is his son.”

  David smiled. He loved it when Lili spoke American. Even more, he loved it that she’d touched his arm, if only for a second. A girl didn’t touch a man she didn’t like.

  He cleared his throat. “One threat at a time, then. The English at Buellt first. We’ll take steps to counter this particular foray, and maybe we’ll learn something about the bigger one.”

  “Agreed,” Math said.

  Owain nodded. He wasn’t as sage a counselor as Bevyn had been—and certainly didn’t grow his mustachios as large—but he was good with a sword and had a quick mind. He reminded David of Ieuan a bit. David made a note to himself not to take Owain to the modern world, find him an archaeologist like Bronwen to marry, as he’d done with Ieuan, and lose him as a captain immediately afterwards.

  Owain and Math walked back to the men, leaving David with Lili. He thought for a few seconds about what to say to her and then decided, screw it. We’re friends, right? Friends! Always have been. And if they weren’t, they shouldn’t be getting married anyway. “Would you like some food? Water?”

  “Both, if it’s easy,” Lili said, and actually gave him half a smile. David went to his horse, untied a water skin from where it rested near his saddlebags, and handed it to her.

  “So you were going to shoot this morning?” David said.

  “I often do.” Lili took two long swallows and then swapped the water for a piece of bread. “I have to go early because Ieuan doesn’t like it if I look like this in the middle of the day.” She smiled for real as she looked down at herself.

  Progress.

  Lili continued, “Ieuan is tolerant, urged on by Bronwen, of course, but I am a lord’s sister. I do have to think about his feelings a little bit.”

  “Have you been working on your karate too?”

  “More than a little,” Lili said. “Last time I saw Anna, she said I was at least a purple belt.”

  “Congratulations.” That gave Lili just enough knowledge to be dangerous—mostly to herself—but it was a good start.

  Lili smiled back, and David gave an inward sigh. Maybe they could get through this. “Come on. You’d better ride with me.” David mounted Cadfarch (meaning ‘battle horse’—completely without irony) and pulled Lili up after him.

  “He’s new.” Lili patted the horse’s side. “Bigger than your last one.”

  “My father gave him to me.”

  What David didn’t tell her was that his father felt guilty for rejecting Lili and was trying to make up for it. For David’s part, he’d been not much more than civil to his father for so long it was threatening to harden into true dislike. His mother despaired of them both, but Dad was unbending, and thus, so was David. It made family gatherings—which were few and far between as it was, given the distances involved—unpleasant.

  But David didn’t know what else to do when the alternative was to pretend that he would accept a marriage for political reasons to a woman he’d never met and didn’t love. His father had a vision of the crown of a united England and Wales on David’s head. He thought that David, not William, should marry one of Edward’s daughters and combine the rule of both countries under the Red Dragon of Wales. The kingdom was David’s for the taking. All David had to do was reach out and grab it. His father couldn’t understand David’s obstinacy. Why didn’t he merely keep Lili as a mistress?

  To which David could only reply: I don’t think so.

  Lili tightened her arms around his waist and David’s hand went to hers and squeezed once. It made his heart skip a beat to know that she was with him.

  Chapter 4

  25 August 1288

  North of Buellt

  Lili

  Just for a moment, Lili pressed her cheek into Dafydd’s back, before she remembered that she was supposed to be keeping him at arm’s length and loosened her grip. Being with him was almost worse than not being with him, because now she had to keep herself tightly contained all the time so he wouldn’t know how she felt about him.

  “I assume you have a plan,” Lili said.

  “Math and I will come up with something between here and Buellt,” Dafydd said.

  Lili gritted her teeth because he was keeping her out on purpose, where in the past he might have consulted her too. “Perhaps I can help?”

  Dafydd tipped his chin toward a trail that led off the road just ahead of them. “I’ve a mind to split up. I don’t want all of us to trip blithely down the road to Buellt and end up dead. We aren’t going to walk innocently into whatever trap they’ve set for us.” He paused. “What do you think they’ll do? You know Gethin better than I.”

  “I don’t like Gethin,” Lili said, “so that colors my judgment, but I think they’ll risk leaving the castle and choosing their ground, rather than waiting for you to come to them. If I were Gethin, I’d sugg
est to the English commander that he set an ambush for you. That way, they keep the castle no matter what happens, and if you have the greater numbers, they can even the odds by surprising you.”

  “You think they’ll go for open war? Really?”

  “Once you get inside the castle, were they to admit your teulu, they run a real risk of your force overcoming theirs. They have thirty-some men. If that many. You have fifty. It isn’t great odds, especially if your men are even slightly wary.”

  “Why should we be wary?” Dafydd said. “Gethin surely will try hard to make everything look perfect for me.”

  “Except for one thing, Dafydd,” Lili said. “Me. I won’t be there to greet you. All things being equal, that has to worry Gethin. And given that I’m not in evidence, Gethin will wonder where I’ve gone. Even if he decides my absence isn’t important, it will niggle at the back of his mind. He will wonder if I’ve done exactly has I have done, and brought you warning of the danger.”

  “I see the problem,” Dafydd said. “He’s making a mistake if he dismisses you because you’re a woman.”

  Lili felt a warmth in her stomach at the pride in Dafydd’s voice. She swallowed it away. “For them to come out after you doesn’t even the odds, but as Math said, even if you escape their clutches, they can simply drop the portcullis and keep you out of Buellt. The English captain will accept the risk of losing men, if it means he keeps the castle.”

  Dafydd shook his head. “They’re taking a risk, either way.”

  “I think you are too big a prize to forgo the chance,” Lili said. “Edmund Mortimer would want them to chance it.”

  Dafydd stared straight ahead as he thought. “You are probably right.” His men had formed up on the road behind them and now Dafydd waved Math forward. “Lili and I have talked further. She thinks the English will prepare an ambush.”

  Math eyed Lili and she gazed back at him, struggling to contain the flush of red that threatened to suffuse her face. He would know all about her refusal of Dafydd’s entreaties. There was no question that Math blamed her for Dafydd’s unhappiness, if he was unhappy.

  Which, now that she thought about it, he showed no sign of being. In fact, he acted as if they’d never had a relationship at all beyond friendship. Lili suppressed a sigh as the realization hit her: Dafydd was no longer in love with her. Here, she had pined for him (as Ieuan said), spent many a sleepless night wallowing in guilt, and he was nonchalant.

  Lili gritted her teeth. She needed to behave the same as he, even if it meant swallowing down her feelings until she choked on them.

  “Where would they set up?” Math said.

  “Ieuan would know better than I,” Lili said, “but I’ve just come that way. The English will assume, as I did, that you’d ride down this road, won’t they?”

  “How else?” Math said. “This is the quickest way and our company would be moving fast, unsuspecting of danger. Or so the English would hope.”

  “The road narrows between two hills about a mile and a half to the north of the Wye River,” Lili said. “Both sides of the road are tree-covered as well.”

  “I know the place,” Math said.

  Dafydd grunted. “So do I. My father and I spent many days surveying the roads around Buellt Castle. He almost died here, you know. He has made a study of good ambush sites—here and everywhere he travels when he has the time—and has used them himself with great effectiveness.”

  “Your father is a brilliant tactician, my lord,” Math said.

  Lili caught the look Dafydd shot his brother-in-law, and despite her earlier assumptions about his state of mind, there was no mistaking what his expression said—something like, I don’t want to hear it. At the same time, Math left unspoken what was plain on his face, namely, I’m not going to deny what is the truth or maybe when are you going to work things out with your father?

  “I know,” was all Dafydd said.

  And what did Dafydd and Llywelyn have to work out, but her? Lili hated that. She hated that she’d been the cause of discord between Dafydd and Llywelyn, which is why she’d sent Dafydd away in the first place. It didn’t seem to have changed things, however. If anything, they appeared worse. Maybe Dafydd blamed his father for Lili’s actions, rather than Lili herself.

  “We should split up as you suggested,” Math said. “But do it now.”

  “I will lead fifteen men down the main road to Buellt,” Dafydd said, “which seems to me the smallest number of riders that the English might expect to accompany me. The rest of you take to the fields and woods on either side of the road. Don’t get too far from me because I need to hear your horn if you come upon the English unexpectedly.”

  “It’s putting you at unnecessary risk,” Math said.

  “Is it?” Dafydd said. “I don’t think so. We have to sell them on the idea that we are unprepared and unwarned.” A sheepish look crossed his face. “It would be better to find them before they attack us.”

  “And Lili?” Math said.

  “I can fight,” Lili said.

  Dafydd pursed his lips and Lili thought that he was going to deny her request, but then he nodded. “We’ll find you some high ground.” And then he grinned. “You can shoot anyone who gets close to me.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Lili said.

  The company did as Dafydd suggested, moving within half a mile of the spot that Lili had indicated. Owain took one group into the fields to the east, circling around a great tumulus that rose up beside the road, and Math directed his men to the west, probing ever further forward.

  Dafydd took the remaining men, with Lili still behind him, at a walk, straight down the road. He didn’t speak and Lili didn’t interrupt his concentration. What might be coming at them had all of his men on edge. One of the younger soldiers in his company, who looked no older than Lili, appeared close to puking.

  William, Bohun’s son, rode at Dafydd’s right flank. Lili glanced at him and he caught her eye. Though Dafydd didn’t look around and see their exchange, he seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. “If anything happens, William, you break for the trees,” he said. “At the very least, ride back the way we came.”

  “I am not worried, my lord,” William said.

  “I am,” Dafydd said. “None of this feels right.”

  They reached the possible ambush site with no sign of the English—or Math and Owain, for that matter. Then a scout galloped up the road towards them and reined his horse in front of Dafydd. “Nothing, my lord,” the man said. “We’ve been all through the area, almost to the ford of the Wye.”

  Dafydd pulled up too and waited. They were only a mile from Buellt Castle now. Finally, the rest of his company returned. Math shook his head, agreeing with the scout’s initial report. “Nothing.”

  “I guess I was wrong,” Lili said. “I’ve wasted most of the day for you. You could have been halfway to Brecon by now.”

  Dafydd’s face had fallen into grim lines. “We’ll see. I don’t like that you were wrong because what you said felt right to me.” He jerked his chin at Math. “Something still isn’t okay about this.”

  “We saw no one, Dafydd,” Math said.

  “Not where we thought they might set up, but what about at the ford? It’s close to the castle. They can’t see us yet, but once we crest that rise”—Dafydd gestured to a spot a quarter of a mile ahead of them—“we’ll be within sight of Buellt’s towers. Take your men off the road, back the way you came, but ride all the way to the river this time. A path parallels it. Take it east. We’ll meet on the north bank, just before we cross the ford. I’ll give you a short head start.”

  Math bowed, not questioning Dafydd’s decision, gathered his men, and departed. Dafydd pulled out his water skin and drank long from it, before passing it to Lili. “Drink the rest. If it comes to a fight, you won’t be sorry you did.”

  Lili drank it as he asked, feeling as she did so that she was out of her depth. If no English waited at the ford, would Dafydd try to take the castl
e back? Lili thought of her brother’s men who’d made up the Welsh garrison—good men, many of them—and felt sick to her stomach. How many were dead on Gethin’s orders?

  Dafydd got his men moving again, in good order but riding fast. Lili held onto him tightly as the wooded hills flashed by. Dafydd’s hand went to hers one more time. “A moving horse is harder to hit than a walking one,” was all he said, “and I still don’t feel right about this.”

  They rode around another hill that loomed on their left, only half a mile from the ford, and galloped through a flatter, grassy area that led down to the river. Sunlight played on the bright water, which splashed over the smooth stones of the ford.

  Lili sensed movement ahead of them before her eyes really knew what they were seeing. Her heart caught in her throat, but it was only Math’s company riding among the trees. They raced east along the path beside the river, and then turned north to meet the rest of Dafydd’s teulu which was by now only fifty yards from the ford. Just as the hooves of Math’s horse hit the road, Dafydd threw out a hand and reined in. Cadfarch danced sideways, his men bunched up behind him—and the ditches and trees on both sides of the road exploded with English soldiers.

  “I knew it!” Dafydd pointed his sword at the sky as a signal to his men, and urged Cadfarch forward. Four English soldiers, their cloaks and helms decorated with tufts of grass and twigs with which they’d used to hide their presence, had timed their attack exactly wrong. The horse plowed through them. Dafydd’s sword rose and fell while Lili, her cheek pressed to Dafydd’s back, shrunk down as much as possible so as not to hinder him with a distracting movement.

  “Charge!”

  More Englishmen on horseback burst from the trees to their left. Dafydd didn’t hesitate—or at least Cadfarch didn’t, swinging wide to the right and barreling through another three Englishmen who were attempting to fight on foot. The horse leapt off the road and into the trees, chasing down a fourth man who’d turned to run away.

  Lili forced her eyes to open wide instead of squeezing them shut as was her impulse. She held her knife in her left hand, prepared to protect their left side if need be. She peeked from under Dafydd’s arm to see Math direct his men toward the English cavalry who had circled through a field to the west and were now coming at them from the north. Neither group had the advantage of higher ground, but Math’s men had more momentum—and numbers—on their side. They crashed into the English line with devastating effect, though men and horses on both sides went down. Dafydd gripped his bloody sword in his right hand and held the reins in his left. His shield hung uselessly from a strap near her left leg.