Ashes of Time (The After Cilmeri Series)

by Sarah Woodbury

  “Have our scouts check again,” David said. “We must be sure. At the very least, if something is amiss, a lone man can warn my father before he reaches Beddgelert, even if the rest of us are already on our way.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Justin bowed and departed. Dad gazed after him, rubbing his chin, and then he nodded as if he’d decided something.

  His expression made David wary. “What is it?”

  “Madog’s movements are dependent upon mine. He wants to surprise me with battle. That is all very well and good, but it is our movements that worry me. Once I cross the bridge at Beddgelert, my force will be as vulnerable as any force I have ever led. Even if we traverse that mile at a walk, if you have fallen behind, we will arrive at Aberglaslyn before you and be defeated. And if we are wrong, if Madog intends to descend on us from the cliffs above the gap, I would prefer to take that distance at a gallop.”

  Ieuan’s jaw remained tight. “We will do what we promised. But no rider could reach either of us in time, no matter how fast he rode or how important the message.”

  “Sound your horn when you cross the bridge, Dad,” David said.

  Dad raised his eyebrows. “That will ensure that Madog, too, knows that I am coming.”

  “His men will have warned him already.”

  Dad’s expression turned thoughtful.

  David continued speaking. “Not all horn calls are the same. Some are for setting forth. Others are for battle. I’m not suggesting a war cry. It would be natural for you to sound your horn to call the people of the region to you. If anything, such an act would reassure Madog that you know nothing of his movements.”

  “Would Madog know the difference between one call and another?” Samuel, who would be riding as part of David’s company, had been keeping silent in one corner.

  “His men would. The sons of Rhys would.” Cadwallon stood with his arms folded across his chest. “Who are these men that they would support Madog’s rise against you? This is treason. How do they not see it?”

  “It’s only treason if they lose,” David said.

  “It doesn’t matter who they are,” Dad said, cutting off further discussion. “We will answer that question after we defeat them.”

  As when they departed from Aber, the others took his statement as a dismissal. With bows and nods, they left the tent to prepare their men.

  David stayed behind and turned to meet his father’s eyes. “It does matter. If there are Welshmen among Madog’s men who might be loyal to you under different circumstances, and we gain the upper hand, we must give them the opportunity to lay down their arms.”

  David’s father studied him for a moment and then gave a quick nod of his head. “I agree. If we can.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  November 2019

  Meg

  Once the plane had taken off and was level, Meg pulled out her phone and waved it at Callum. “Can I call my sister?”

  “Call her,” he said.

  “Wait!” Anna put out a hand to her mother. “You can call from an airplane? Since when?”

  Meg looked up in mid-dial. “They’ve had the technology for while now, even if they wouldn’t let you do it.” She bit her lip. “You were gone, sweetheart. I think I read the first article about it during the year and a half I had to live without you.”

  Anna unbuckled and came over to Meg with her arms out. “We never talk about it, you know.”

  Meg hugged her back. “What don’t we talk about?”

  “About that time.” She released Meg and returned to her squashy airplane seat. Meg had never flown in such a comfortable plane. The seats were leather, roomy, and soft, and arranged more in talking groups than in rows.

  Meg sat facing backwards with Anna across from her and Cassie to one side. Callum had sat beside Cassie for the few minutes it had taken to lift off, but as soon as he had given Meg permission to call her sister, he’d pulled out his own phone. He was talking on it now while pacing the aisle, which ran beside the left windows for the full length of the plane. Private planes were definitely the way to go.

  “That’s probably because it’s a time I generally pretend didn’t happen,” Meg said.

  “We talk about what happened to David and me all the time but never what it was like for you, other than that you missed us,” Anna said.

  Meg rubbed her forehead with two fingers. “When we get home, I will give you the blow-by-blow, as much as I can remember. I promise.” She held up the phone again.

  “This airplane has what amounts to a mini-cell tower. It will communicate with cell towers on the ground.”

  Cassie nodded. “It operates on a frequency that doesn’t interfere with terrestrial cell phone use or the airplane’s avionics.”

  Meg shot Cassie a grin, impressed with her excellent techno-speak.

  Anna looked from Cassie to Meg. “They can do that?”

  “Guess so.” Meg put the phone to her ear, again with her heart in her throat. When she’d last phoned her sister, Elisa’s kids had been sick with chicken pox, and none of them had been able to see Meg. At the time, she’d felt like Elisa hadn’t wanted to see her either, but having nursed her own twins through a bout of chicken pox two months ago, Meg could better understand how truly rotten they had all felt. Certainly it had turned out for the best that Elisa hadn’t tried to fly across the Atlantic with Ted. MI-5 had begun its pursuit of them within a few minutes of Ted’s arrival at Aberystwyth.

  And now here Meg was again, reaching out to her sister while in the process of fleeing the country without a chance to see her. Just a few minutes to talk to her on the phone.

  “Hello?” A deep voice, one Meg didn’t recognize, answered after two rings.

  Meg was momentarily stumped, thinking she’d dialed the wrong number or perhaps her sister’s number had changed, but decided to carry on. “Is Elisa there?”

  “Sure, just a second.” The voice went away and, belatedly, Meg realized that it had belonged to Christopher, her nephew, who was now seventeen years old.

  “Hello?” Elisa said.

  Meg let out a short breath. “Hi Elisa. It’s Meg.”

  “Oh dear God,” she said.

  “I named my daughter after you.” Meg didn’t know where those words had come from, but all of a sudden out of all that had happened since Meg had spoken with Elisa last it seemed like the most important thing to tell her.

  “Th-th-thanks—” Elisa stuttered a bit more, starting sentences and stopping them while Meg fought tears and couldn’t speak at all. Then Elisa said, “Where are you?”

  Meg swallowed hard, fighting for control. Anna, who’d been watching her steadily, moved to her mother again, this time crouching in front of her. Anna held out her hand for the phone, and Meg gave it to her.

  “Hi, Aunt Elisa. This is Anna.”

  “You’re there too!” Elisa spoke so loudly Meg could hear her even without putting the phone on speaker.

  “Yup,” Anna said. “Just give Mom a second. She’s going to come back on.”

  Meg breathed deeply, looking up at the ceiling and wiping the tears from her cheeks with her fingers. Anna was still talking, exchanging more pleasantries about her kids and Elisa’s, but still watching Meg’s face as she spoke.

  Then Meg nodded, and Anna gave the phone back to her. “Hi Elisa. We’re in an airplane, flying across the United States.”

  “Are you coming to see us?” Elisa said.

  “We can’t.” Tears threatened again, and Meg struggled to hold them in. “I’m sorry, but we can’t. I’m a little surprised that you don’t have Homeland Security beating down your door already.”

  “Are you in trouble again?” Elisa said.

  “I guess so. It seems so,” Meg said, “though it’s hard to understand why.”

  “Hard for me too, though after what Ted went through in Wales, I suppose we should have expected it.” Elisa had turned matter-of-fact, and it helped Meg to get her emotions under control. “Where are you flyin
g from and to?”

  “We ended up in Oregon,” Meg said and gave her sister a brief rundown of the last twenty-four hours. She felt, under the circumstances, she owed Elisa at least that, and she didn’t want her sister to be surprised if the government showed up and was playing with a different deck of cards than she was.

  At the end of Meg’s little speech, Callum, who’d finished his conversation, made a ‘give it to me’ motion with his fingers, and Meg handed the phone to him.

  “Elisa, this is Callum. We’ll be leaving U.S. airspace within the hour, so I’m less worried about Homeland Security than I was.” He paused, listened, and then said, “No, I don’t think they’ll send fighter jets after us. This is a diplomatic flight. If the American government wants to make trouble, they’ll do it once we’re on the ground in Wales.” Then he listened some more. “Yes, they will discover Meg and Anna were here. That might not happen today, but it will definitely happen in the next few days.” More listening and then, “You are free to tell them whatever you need to.” He’d been pacing around the small space but finally sat down beside Meg, leaned close with the phone between them, and turned up the sound.

  “Are you sure?” Elisa’s voice bellowed out of the speaker, and Callum hastily turned the volume down once more.

  “Yes,” Callum said. “I’m going to give you back to Meg.”

  Meg took the phone but didn’t put it to her ear right away. “Is it really okay just to talk?”

  “Go ahead.” Callum smiled. “You may not get another chance for a long time, and you might as well use up your minutes.”

  Tears pricked Meg’s eyes yet again, but she returned to the line. Unlike three years ago, Elisa sounded confident about her own life and happy to hear about Meg’s. They talked for an hour, and when Meg finally hung up, the tears were back, but this time she was crying because she was happy.

  It was six in the morning, U.K. time, when the plane touched down at Cardiff airport. Naturally, it was raining.

  Meg peered out the rain-spattered window. “What’s in store for us today, Callum?”

  “I hope you’re not thinking about the last time we were in modern Wales together,” Callum said.

  Meg glanced at him, hoping he wasn’t offended. He’d changed into a suit, tie, and trench coat—the uniform of an MI-5 agent—which George had arranged to leave on the plane for him. The women were still in their two-day-old jeans, t-shirts and sweaters, and winter coats. It wasn’t as if Meg hadn’t ever worn the same underclothes multiple days before washing, but as the Queen of Wales, she didn’t often have to.

  “I don’t blame you for being worried.” Callum leaned over Cassie’s shoulder, looking at the scene before them. A single SUV waited on the soaked tarmac. “I’m hoping that’s Jones.”

  “And if it isn’t?”

  He pressed his lips together.

  “Are we getting to avoid customs here too?” Anna said.

  “You have the red passport,” Cassie said, “and Callum is still the director of the Project, for a few more days anyway. Given the explosion at Signals yesterday, you two are small potatoes.”

  “For today, arresting the organization behind the bombing has to be the primary concern of the Security Service to the exclusion of everything else,” Callum said.

  Meg nodded. While she didn’t know anyone involved, she could feel Callum’s sense of loss. She wouldn’t have wished what had happened on anyone, even if it meant that they were flying (quite literally) under the radar.

  The airplane door opened, and the four companions filed down the steps to the waiting SUV. As it turned out, Mark wasn’t there to greet them, but Callum cordially lifted a hand to the man who was. Of a more lithe build than Callum, and with skin that bespoke some African ancestry, he stood ramrod straight and wore his suit and trench coat like a uniform, just as Callum did. He also held a truly enormous umbrella. As they approached, he moved it so that it covered all of them.

  “Agent Jeffries.” Callum shook his hand. “Good to see you again.” He turned to Anna and Meg, waving a hand back and forth. “Anna, Meg, meet Agent Darren Jeffries of MI-5, formerly of the Project.”

  Darren nodded his head. “A pleasure to meet you.” Then he looked at Callum. “Jones sends his greetings.”

  “I hoped he’d be here,” Callum said.

  “He couldn’t get away,” Darren said.

  Callum looked warily at Darren, who simply opened the passenger side door and gestured everyone inside.

  “Should I be concerned?” Callum said, getting into the front passenger seat.

  “Director Tate knows you’ve arrived. I am to drive you directly to the Office.”

  Callum’s lips twisted.

  “Given the current crisis—” Darren cleared his throat, “—he told me you would understand the urgency.”

  “Oh, I understand,” Callum said.

  Meg sat with a certain amount of reluctance and ended up in the middle seat between Cassie and Anna. Cassie noted the stiffness in her shoulders and leaned in to her. “It’s okay. This is going to be okay. The Project is all but shut down. Nobody should be worrying about you at all.”

  “I hope so,” Meg said. “I’m tired of running.”

  As at Oakland, they’d ended up in an area of the airport set aside for charters and private planes. Darren had to drive through a guarded gate to get out of the airport, but he was waved through with a brief flash of his ID and nothing more. It was a far cry from the security lines in the public sections of every airport Meg had been in since 9/11, and she said as much.

  “This is the secure part of the airport,” Callum said. “You’re with the British government now, and its agents come and go as they please.”

  He wore a self-satisfied smirk. Meg had known that he’d been frustrated by their journey across Oregon and California, but now he was back on his own turf. It was exactly how Llywelyn had felt when he, Goronwy, and Meg had arrived back in the Middle Ages after fleeing from MI-5. They’d come through the time vortex in England, which wasn’t exactly home to Llywelyn. Still, the change in his manner had been palpable. He’d been sure of himself and his place in the world again.

  Darren turned right and headed east. While Meg had long since grown used to walking and driving on the left, it was still weird for her to see vehicles constructed with the steering wheel on the right. In medieval Wales, if a person crossed paths with another person while walking or riding (or charging into battle), he always went to the left. The idea was to put your sword arm between you and the other person.

  In addition, a right-handed person held a horse’s reins in his left hand, so under gentler circumstances, passing on the left allowed one man to greet another with his right hand. At some point—and this must have been a strange cultural shift—three-quarters of the world had started traveling on the right. Meg didn’t know why.

  Since it wasn’t even seven in the morning and still dark, there was hardly any traffic. When the city center didn’t appear after a few minutes, Meg leaned forward to speak to Callum. “Where are we?”

  “The airport is ten miles from the city center,” Callum said. “This isn’t eastern Oregon. They didn’t have enough room to build it any closer in.”

  He was trying to keep things light, but Meg was too tense to laugh. She sat back, feeling as helpless as she had ever felt in her life. And she’d been helpless plenty of times. She gazed out of the window. After twenty-six hours in the modern world, she was growing used to it by now: the traffic and the lights, even the food.

  “Ma’am?” Darren glanced at Meg in the rearview mirror. “I apologize for my role in what happened to you at Chepstow. I’m glad to see you well. I hope King Llywelyn is too.”

  “He is, last I saw him. Thank you,” Meg said, touched by his concern.

  “I saw you fall,” Darren said. “You and Director Callum.”

  Callum glanced at Darren, his mouth twisting in a wry smile. “Seeing is believing.”

  “Yes
, sir,” Darren said.

  Callum looked out the window. “It was for me too.”

  “That must have been something of a shock to see, Darren,” Meg said.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” said Darren. “Once Director Callum returned, I was happy to work under him on the Project. I was reassigned back to MI-5 proper two months ago.”

  “Just as well now,” Cassie said, keeping her voice low. “Callum has more contacts throughout the intelligence services than he had before. The staff believe, you see, even if the Prime Minister doesn’t.”

  Meg put a hand on Anna’s leg. She’d been entirely silent since they’d left the plane and hadn’t talked much while they were on it. “How are you doing?”

  “I haven’t been to Cardiff since you took me here after David was born. I have no memory of that trip at all.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t have found a way to live and work in Wales,” Meg said. “Though work visas for historians are kind of thin on the ground.”

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Anna said. “Hindsight is 20-20. You taught David Welsh at least.”

  Meg had tried to teach Anna too, of course, but they’d been at odds for much of her teenage years, and Anna hadn’t been interested. Although Meg had never said as much to her, the year and a half they’d been separated—with Anna and David in the Middle Ages and Meg in the modern world—had been good for their relationship. Anna had learned her mother’s secrets and figured out that Meg was human and could make mistakes. By the time they saw each other again, Anna had grown up enough, and missed her mother enough, not to task her with her failings and to forgive her for them.

  After another ten minutes of driving, Meg could see the lights of Cardiff ahead of them. The SUV crossed several bridges, and then Cardiff Castle rose on the left, surrounded by a high wall. The SUV stopped at a traffic light. It always felt absurd to sit at a light when there were no other cars in the vicinity. Callum looked back at Cassie, nodded, and pressed a button on the door beside him. Her door unlocked, and Cassie reached across Meg to poke Anna. “Come on, ladies, let’s go.”