Ashes of Time (The After Cilmeri Series)

by Sarah Woodbury

  David hadn’t expected that to be the result of his query. “He is. I ask this hypothetically.”

  Cadoc chewed on his lower lip. David had taken a chance in asking him, and he was really putting him on the spot. Cadoc was outspoken, but he was talking to the King of England, the Prince of Wales—and the man who under the old system would inherit the throne after his father. But David really did want an answer. He could feel the intense interest of the men around them.

  “I would take it,” he said finally. “Though it is our tradition to divide a kingdom among all of a man’s sons.”

  “Wales needs a single ruler,” a man beside Cadoc said. Men around him nodded. Despite tradition, they could see as well as David how keeping Wales undivided had benefitted all of them.

  “That would mean choosing between Padrig and me,” David said, knowing that today such a choice would be no contest, and Padrig would lose. “I know what I’m asking. And it’s hardly a fair question so you don’t have to answer. I do want you to think about it, however.” David raised his voice. “I want you all to think about it. God willing, there will come a day when you will be given the chance to choose the one who leads you. If I have my way, that man will not be the one with the most land or wealth.”

  David bent his gaze on Cadoc again. “Or whom tradition says should lead. When that time comes, I expect you to vote for the one you believe most worthy.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Cadoc said.

  As David returned to his horse, Math leaned in to say, “You might as well ask them to fly to the moon. It would be as likely.”

  David shook his head. “That’s just it. The men of Avalon have visited the moon and lived to tell the tale. Nothing is impossible anymore.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  November 1291

  Callum

  As the hour approached midnight, Callum had checked in with all the sentries, conferred with the scouts who’d returned, and sent out new ones. In perhaps the greatest triumph of the evening, he had even talked sense into Cadwallon. Under normal circumstances, the organization of the camp would have fallen to Llywelyn’s young captain, but Callum had convinced him that delegating his responsibilities to Callum so he could focus exclusively on Llywelyn’s well-being was in the king’s best interests.

  Even now, Cadwallon stood sentry outside Llywelyn’s tent, glaring at anyone who passed by who might even think about disturbing his lord’s rest. Callum would leave to Meg the prospect of convincing Cadwallon that even he had the right to sleep.

  “How are we doing?” Callum clapped a hand on Samuel’s shoulder. As Callum had asked, Samuel hadn’t left Cassie’s side since Callum had sent him to guard her. She’d spent the rest of the day overseeing the well-being of the passengers, most of whom had fallen asleep at last, exhausted and spent. They all understood—or at least could articulate—what faced them now, though Callum couldn’t say that any had come to terms with it. That might be a long time coming.

  For everyone.

  “All is quiet, my lord,” Samuel said.

  Callum nodded, feeling the big man’s eyes on him, but he didn’t meet them right away. He and Samuel had developed a camaraderie in Scotland, even if Callum was a lord and Samuel his captain. The contours of their relationship would be different from now on, not only because they’d spent two years apart, but because Callum had spent those two years in Avalon. To know that, to know that Callum had returned in a double decker bus, was a big thing for Samuel to accept.

  Callum took in a breath, dreading this conversation but knowing they needed to have it. “I know this is all very strange—”

  But he stopped as Samuel waved a hand, dismissing Callum’s words. “Do you remember the ambush on the road to Edinburgh?”

  “How could I forget?” Callum said. “It was your warning that saved us all.”

  It looked like Samuel had been about to say something else, but he arrested his speech before the words reached his lips and said instead, “That’s what you remember?”

  “Was there something more important to remember about it?” Callum said. “I was hit on the head, so I admit I could have forgotten some of the more salient bits.”

  “That’s—” Samuel laughed silently, his broad shoulders shaking. “What was important to remember is that because we were ambushed, you saved Scotland.”

  “Ach,” Callum said. “We worked together.”

  Samuel shook his head. “That ambush put your feet upon a path that has led you to this day. Because I follow you, I have shared in that path, to my benefit. Fortune has shone upon me since I met you.”

  “I wouldn’t have said being held prisoner and almost dying from it was a fortunate thing,” Callum said.

  “Ah, but because I followed you, I was never forgotten. You saved me, James Stewart, and the boy. And Scotland.”

  Callum was starting to feel uncomfortable. Samuel was sincere, and he was talking like Cobb. Callum certainly tried to do the right thing, pretty much all the time. It wasn’t too often that anyone but his wife—or David—noticed. Usually, that was enough.

  Callum cleared his throat and changed the subject. “I hear you’ve kept Shrewsbury for me in my absence.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Samuel said. “All was well there, too, when I left.”

  “Samuel’s being modest.” Anna had snuck up on them, having made her way silently through the clusters of sleeping time travelers. Cassie had been reading from a notebook a few feet away, and Anna caught her by the arm and pulled her forward. When they reached Callum and Samuel, Anna continued, “You’re going to have the same problem David has, Callum: losing captains left and right because you can’t help but promote them.”

  Callum reached out a hand to Cassie, who took it. “I am well aware of my good fortune.”

  “Where are Darren and Peter?” Anna said.

  “They resisted sleeping, but I told them I needed them fresh,” Callum said.

  “And they obeyed,” Anna said. “Of course they did.” Then she smiled and Callum knew she didn’t mean for the words to bite.

  “Whether or not they’ll actually sleep is a different matter,” Callum said.

  “Any news from David?” Cassie said.

  “That’s why I’m here, actually,” Callum said. “A message from David arrived five minutes ago. Harlech is safe, with no loss of life.”

  “How did he manage that?” Cassie said.

  “By being David, of course.” Then Anna ran the back of a hand across her brow. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to come out the way it sounded. I’m just tired.”

  “We all are,” Cassie said.

  “You don’t have to apologize. I know exactly what you mean,” Callum said. “Going forward, David needs to keep being who he is if we want to turn this world into the one we dream of.”

  “We,” Anna said. “I wish David were here to hear you say that.”

  “Does he still think he’s in this alone?” Callum said.

  “Not as much as he did,” Anna said.

  Callum nodded. “None of us are alone.” He gestured to the modern people, most of whom, for the first time in their lives, were sleeping with only a blanket between them and the ground. “We need to make sure all of them know it too.”

  It was that issue that was bringing Callum to his next quest. Leaving Cassie with the promise that he would join her in sleep soon, Callum walked towards the bus. It remained where it had come to rest, standing sentry like Cadwallon but in the middle of the battlefield, some hundred yards from the closest fire circle. As Callum left the light behind, the bus loomed before him, a dark bulk against the darker hill behind it. Occasionally, the metal siding glinted, reflecting a flicker of light coming from the camp.

  Callum’s boots made crunching noises in the frozen grass as he walked to the back door (the front door was still stuck shut), and pushed through it. Coming up the stairs, he peered towards the front of the bus. He wondered if he’d have to check upstairs, but then Mar
k Jones’s voice came to him out of the darkness. “I suppose you’re looking for me.”

  Callum walked down the aisle to where Anna had been sitting moments before the bus had crashed through time to get here. Jones hunched in the seat opposite, his backpack at his feet. To Callum’s knowledge, he hadn’t actually left the bus yet.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to throw a wobbler.”

  Callum sat heavily in the seat facing him. “Sorry the day went so wrong.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Callum just looked at him. It was his fault. Because of Callum, Jones had been on the bus.

  Jones tipped his head back to indicate the camp, the lights of which Callum could see from where he sat. “They all right out there?”

  “As well as can be expected. Thanks for getting them organized. There’ll be more of that tomorrow and for days, if not months, to come.”

  “We are well and truly snookered.” Jones raised a hand and then dropped it onto his thigh.

  Callum didn’t want to see his friend in such despair. “Why haven’t you left the bus?”

  “If I sit here, cold as it is, I can pretend for a few more minutes that none of this is happening. I’m sitting on an empty bus, waiting for the driver.” Jones paused. “Oh, wait. He’s dead.”

  Callum had been hearing this kind of talk for hours already. Somehow, he hadn’t expected it from Jones.

  Jones read his silence correctly. “You’re disappointed in me. You think I’m a wanker for not getting on with it like Cobb and Jeffries.”

  “I didn’t expect it from you, no. Which makes me think there’s something more to this. Why don’t you tell me what that is so we can get off this bus?” Callum tugged his cloak more tightly around himself. His muscles were stiffening from sitting in the cold.

  “You’re happy to be back. I could see it right way. Overjoyed in fact.”

  Callum nodded.

  “Cassie too?”

  “Yes.”

  Jones sighed and looked away. “So, here’s my problem.”

  Callum braced himself, with no real idea of what was coming.

  “I was thinking just now about my parents,” Jones said. “To them, I died today.”

  “Yes,” Callum said. There wasn’t any point in sugarcoating it. “I imagine even if some people swear they saw the bus disappear, cooler heads will prevail and the story will be that the bus was pulverized by the explosion.”

  “MI-5 will know.”

  “They will know.”

  “I wasted my life,” Jones said. “Twenty-seven years old, and I hadn’t even lived yet. I spent it in a windowless office, playing with computers. Making a difference sometimes, sure. But how often? How many minutes of my life did I actually make a difference to anyone?”

  Jones had made a difference to Callum, but somehow he sensed that wasn’t the answer Jones was looking for.

  “I haven’t seen my parents since the summer,” Jones went on. “I’d started dieting. I haven’t eaten pizza in three weeks. Look—” Jones lifted his right arm in mimicry of a weight lifter and showed Callum his bicep. “I’ve been working out.”

  Callum had thought Jones looked a little thinner.

  “I hadn’t even lived yet and now I’m dead. And you know what the worst thing is? How many people really are going to miss me?”

  Callum licked his lips and ventured a comment. “You made a difference for forty people today.”

  Jones laughed without humor. “Did I? I spent the whole time hating the fact that I had to talk to total strangers and sure they were mocking me behind my back. I want to be in my warm office, hacking into the Oregon DMV, eating chips and biscuits and pouring too much cream into my tea.” He leaned forward. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want to be here!”

  “But you are here.”

  “Too right I am.”

  Callum studied him for a second. Callum could see that Jones was frustrated. But so was he. “Are you going to sit on this damn bus and whinge at me for another half hour, or are you going to get off your duff and help?”

  Jones gaped at him. “You haven’t heard a single word I’ve said, have you?”

  “I heard every word. I just don’t care. I need you smart and sober, like you’ve always been. All these years, you’ve hidden behind that computer. Well, now you don’t have one. Time to figure out what you do have.” Callum stood and stalked down the aisle towards the door. When he reached it, he stopped and looked back. “Bring the backpack when you come. You have maps in there David needs.” He pushed through the door and set off across the frozen grass.

  Tough love didn’t always work. Jones had been sulking on the bus for six hours now. Callum decided to give him until morning, at which point hunger and a full bladder might force him from the bus. Callum would have preferred he’d come of his own accord.

  And then he heard the crunching of feet behind him and turned to see Jones, backpack over his shoulder, hurrying towards him. Callum stopped and waited for him to catch up.

  “My arse was frozen to the seat. If you hadn’t showed up, in another minute I’d’ve come to you.” Jones paused. “That was quite a speech. Did you save it for me or have you used it six times already tonight?”

  Callum laughed. “The latter.”

  “I’m not going to be another bloke who needs saving. Bugger that. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Like always.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  March 1292

  David

  The barn-like building sat in the middle of a muddy clearing, adjacent to the educational mecca that Anna and Math had established on the outskirts of the village of Llangollen. The family dismounted in front of the double doors, built big enough to allow a fully-loaded farm cart admission. This was the first stop on the grand tour Anna had organized of her burgeoning domain, so David could see with his own eyes what had become of the bus.

  Too bad the passengers weren’t so easy to see to.

  “We need to confer.” Mom had been trying to get David to talk to her about them since he’d arrived at Dinas Bran the day before.

  “After this,” David said.

  What Mom didn’t know was that David was already well aware of what was going on with the passengers, even if he’d managed to skirt much in the way of responsibility towards them up until now, happy to leave their well-being to Mom, Anna, and Mark. At first David had thought to keep them together somewhere—at Caerphilly or even Cardiff—because what he wanted more than anything was access to their combined knowledge. They all had skills, hobbies, and expertise in areas David hadn’t even begun to tap.

  But it quickly became clear that the passengers didn’t want to be corralled, and trying to contain their movements led to unrest. Over the last four months, more than half of them had found some kind of employment and were doing okay. Some were doing better than okay.

  Like Callum’s new lieutenants, Jeffries and Cobb. They’d found meaning in employment similar to what they’d been doing back in the old world—which even David had started to call ‘Avalon’ as a shorthand. They rode among Callum’s teulu, and not only had their medieval English and Welsh improved to not-quite-atrocious, but they were learning—as Callum had—how to be medieval warriors.

  Among the others, two families with young children had moved to Llangollen. The father of one family and the mother of another had been maintenance technicians at the University of Cardiff. Their spouses were a school teacher and an engineer. That fateful Saturday, the two families had traveled together into Cardiff for an excursion—which had clearly ended a bit differently than they’d planned. Along with the three medical personnel, all four had become teachers and sources of knowledge at the school. All of a sudden, everybody was excited about the future.

  Others had come to grips with their circumstances too: a man and his two teenage sons had set up a carpentry business; two retired couples who’d been visiting Cardiff for the day had moved back to their own village and were
living relatively comfortably on the beach (thanks to a stipend from Dad that all the passengers were being given); even George Hardin had found a kindred spirit in Tudur and was helping Dad run his country.

  But that left a number of people doing less well. Several college students, two of them Americans spending their junior year abroad, were having a terrible time adjusting to the restrictions of the Middle Ages. Cassie and Bronwen were trying to work with them, but Mark was not the only one whose life had been lived at the computer. Others were outright malcontented: a couple in their fifties; a family with a rebellious teenage daughter; and three twenty-something men, one of whom was Mike, who’d caused trouble that first day on the bus. These eight spent their days moping about Mom’s castle at Caerphilly, doing little but drinking to excess. Dad had proffered his very medieval solution to their angst, but Mom was hoping for something more reasonable from her son.

  “Is that it, Ta?” Arthur had ridden from Dinas Bran in front of David, tightly gripping the pommel of the saddle. The words Arthur had spoken at Rhuddlan had been the beginning of a torrent that rarely ceased. David felt he should have seen it coming, since he’d never been a child who did things by half-measure either.

  “My God, it is.” David helped Arthur down from the horse, all the while staring at the bus, which took center stage in the middle of the barn. “I didn’t think they were going to rebuild it.”

  The bus looked better than when David had last seen it. He’d debated whether or not to leave the bus where it was in the field at Aberglaslyn or move it somehow. Having mechanically minded people from the modern world available had made his decision for him. They had not only dismantled the bus, carted it all the way to Llangollen, and rebuilt it, but they’d done the same for David’s aunt’s minivan and Bronwen’s little Honda. To see them lined up, lovingly restored and objects of research and scrutiny, made David’s heart beat a little faster. This was his history and his future. And his son’s.