Champions of Time (The After Cilmeri Series, #13)

by Sarah Woodbury

  Worse, part of him wouldn’t mind at all being treated with the respect your royal highness would afford him, and he distrusted the emotion enough to prefer erring on the side of caution.

  He did know, however, as much as he hated to admit it, that he was as out of his depth in Avalon as Anna had warned him he would be. “My relationship to my people is just so much more personal.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s weird the way your majesty or your royal highness changes the pronoun around. At home, while I have been called your grace, the honorific is usually reserved for churchmen. To my face, everyone says my lord. Do you see the difference?”

  “You want me to call you my lord?” Even Amelia, the embodiment of the serene spokesperson, was aghast.

  He laughed. “You can’t do it, can you? That’s because it means something. You can say your majesty with detachment.” He sobered. “Call me David. Please.”

  Amelia pressed her lips together, and David had a feeling she wasn’t going to call him anything at all—or he was stuck with HRH. When he got back home, he was going to make a point of asking his mother when the change had occurred. He guessed that some pompous European prince during the Renaissance or the French Revolution had thought it sounded better or put him above his otherwise peers.

  “All right.” Amelia picked up her tablet and swiped through several screens. “To get back to my main point, you are a king, and regardless of what you want to be called, you need to think of yourself as one here.”

  David took in a breath through his nose and let it out. “Okay. I will take what you’ve said under advisement.”

  “How long have you been king?”

  “Five years.”

  “Do people still question your right to rule?”

  He laughed. “I’m in the midst of a civil war right now, didn’t you know?” He tipped his head. “Though admittedly, that war was predicated on the idea that I’d been assassinated in Ireland, so the people usurping the throne were taking it from my three-year-old son rather than from me.”

  Amelia was genuinely gaping at him. “I-I didn’t know.”

  “I hadn’t said before now. Anna only knew about the attack on her outside of Llangollen.”

  “You’re keeping the throne, though, right? You’re fighting back?”

  “Oh yes.” He nodded. “I didn’t seek the crown and the power that goes with it, but it is mine, and I would be doing my people a disservice not to use what they have given me to better the world.”

  Amelia pressed her lips together in something that looked almost like a smile and glanced from him to her tablet and back up again. “Did you read my notes?”

  David looked at her warily. “What notes?”

  “What you just said was my next talking point.” Now she genuinely smiled. “You’re good. Maybe this won’t require a total makeover.”

  He folded his arms across his chest and studied her. “You are doing what they all do, every time.”

  “What is that?” She was flipping through screens on her tablet, not paying complete attention.

  “Treating me like a kid.”

  Her head came up, and her face paled. “No, I wasn’t.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Why do I need a makeover?”

  Amelia put out a hand to him. “That’s not what I meant. Really, it isn’t. I was being flip when perhaps I shouldn’t have been.”

  “You are correct that I don’t have experience with talk shows or interviews. We don’t have cameras in the Middle Ages, but I can be coherent when I choose to be.”

  “I know that.” She took in a breath. “But really, you’re misunderstanding me. What you wear, how you stand or sit, and everything you say is going to be dissected by the entire world. It is so easy for any of that to be misinterpreted. My job is to try to manage that process. I’m not trying to manipulate you. I’m trying to manipulate them.” She threw out a hand to indicate the world at large.

  David nodded slowly. “I get that. And again, I am well aware that I am out of my depth here. The world has changed, and I’m not a part of it anymore.” He spread his arms wide. “I am in your hands.”

  Amelia nodded vigorously. “Thank you. Chad has suggested, and I agree, that we need you to look the part, to project an aura of a king. Saying you are one isn’t enough.” She gestured up and down with her hand to indicate his appearance. “First thing tomorrow morning, Chad is flying in a tailor.”

  David looked down at himself. Even before coming to Earth Two, he had cared very little about his clothing. He’d lived in jeans, t-shirts, and sweatshirts. At the moment, he was wearing his medieval pants, shirt, and boots, which he’d had on when he’d arrived. He’d removed his overtunic, cloak, and belt knife, all of which were stashed in a locked closet in William’s room.

  “Will you want me to wear a suit?”

  “Suits are what the royal family wears to events, but if members of the younger set were going on the Owain Williams show, they might wear something more casual. Chad has people studying the issue.”

  “You mean he has focus groups telling him what would make me most appealing?” David laughed again.

  Amelia didn’t. “Yes.”

  David instantly sobered. “My valet would love this. The chamberlain and his varied assistants as well. He and my wife are capable of discussing the various merits of my clothing long past the point where I have any interest.”

  “About five seconds, I imagine?”

  David grinned. “Exactly. If Lili were here, she would have understood all this immediately. We manage my image there too. It’s just that the conversation revolves around the wearing of robes and scepters and crowns.”

  Amelia leaned forward. “You don’t have to be interested, but you need to let me stand in for your wife. If you were dealing with one of those rebellious barons—or that Scot king, Balliol—you would be focused, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “The entire world—and I mean that quite literally—will be watching. You need to treat this with commensurate seriousness.”

  David eased back a little into the softness of his chair. Early on in his kingship, his natural inclination had been to think that speaking the truth was enough when it came to public relations. At the time, he hadn’t understood how everything he said fell under diplomacy, but he did now, even if he might mock the need for political calculation. Lili was a master at it, and he felt she had a natural charm that put everyone at ease. He had a harder time with it, coming across as either arrogant or too earnest. He also still found himself embarrassed by the attention given him.

  Over the years, however, he’d learned the folly in making light of what others cared about, so he gazed steadily back at Amelia and promised, “I will. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  1 April 2022

  Amelia

  That was more like it.

  Amelia rose to her feet and headed for the door, leaving David contemplating the new phone she’d left with him. A glance over his shoulder as she walked away revealed him to be googling the phrase your royal highness.

  She’d been Chad Treadman’s public relations head for three years now, which was a lifetime in this business. Ideas needed to be fresh, and it was easy to screw up and find yourself out the door. Amelia had actually met David’s aunt, Elisa Shepherd, at a conference several years before Ted had come to work for Chad. Elisa had been well-respected within her field, and the work she’d done for the U.S. embassy had been stellar.

  It was actually Elisa’s sudden absence more than anyone else’s that had made Amelia provisionally believe in the whole time travel/alternate universe scenario. David’s existence aside, an entire family had disappeared into thin air, along with the plane they were traveling in.

  When Amelia had asked David about how his family was doing in the Middle Ages, he’d made a rueful face and said they were as well as could be expected. It was the perfect
response, utterly convincing. She was faced with a stark choice: either David was a consummate actor, hired by Chad as a publicity stunt, or time travel was real. Or everyone around her was mad. Given how the world was going these days, the last option wasn’t as far-fetched as it should have been.

  “Is there anything I need to know?” Michael was standing with his back to the wall to the right of the lounge area door. He’d been guarding the entrance. With a dozen other security men in the hospital, it was an unnecessary precaution, but it made Amelia feel better to know that everything that could be done to protect David was being done.

  As soon as Reg had scanned Michael’s ID, Chad’s people had, of course, run a complete background check. He was clean, exactly what he said he was: an apparently innocent bystander who had the skill to save William—and the desire and temperament to stick around once the danger was over. He didn’t appear to be either an attention-seeker—quite the opposite, actually—or someone who stalked celebrities.

  “I think I’ve convinced him of the importance of this interview and his interactions with the press,” Amelia said. “Up until now he’s been dangerously naïve about them.”

  “Can you blame him? They don’t have a press corps in the Middle Ages.” Michael paused. “I can’t believe I just said that.”

  “And with such authority too!” She laughed and stuck out her hand. “We haven’t formally met. I’m Amelia Hopkins.”

  Michael smiled as he shook her hand. “Michael Dawar.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Pakistani?”

  “By way of Manchester, but yes.”

  “My grandmother was from India.”

  “So we shouldn’t be friends?”

  She laughed again. “Peace begins at home.” Then she drew in a breath prepared to ask him something a bit more personal. Maybe David’s honesty was rubbing off on her. “Why are you here? What’s in it for you? You don’t strike me as someone who follows the limelight.”

  “Treadman’s people have probably interviewed nearly everyone I know by now, checking up on me, so you know I’m not.” He shrugged. “I was onsite to treat William. That’s really all there is to it. Then David needed someone to drive him to the hospital, and because William didn’t speak English, I was worried that he might get into the emergency area and find nobody understood him.” He gestured to the walls to indicate the hospital. “I don’t have anyone waiting for me at my flat, so I thought I’d see this through for a bit.”

  “David asked that you be given a room at the house if you want it.”

  Michael looked towards the open doorway. David had risen to his feet and, his hands deep in his pockets, was staring out the window at the car park. “I’ll wait for him.”

  Amelia studied Michael another moment before reaching into her bag for her phone. “I don’t want to insult you by offering you something you don’t want, or implying you’re here for the money, but Chad would like to hire you, for your sake as well as his.”

  “His being David’s, or his being Chad Treadman’s?”

  “Either. Both. Liability is a huge issue, as you must be aware. As our employee, you would be protected under the auspices of Treadman Global. We can make the hiring retroactive to yesterday, so nobody can go after you as a private citizen. Whatever you’ve done in the last twelve hours, you’ve done for us.”

  Michael looked at her a bit sideways. “And what is it I’ve done? I’m not sure why I need this.”

  Amelia took a step closer and lowered her voice. “We have two concerns. The first is MI-5.”

  Michael swallowed hard. “I have heard bits and pieces regarding them. MI-5 sent the fighters after Anna’s plane two weeks ago, yeah?”

  “Yes. Five years ago, right after David became king, he returned to our world with Alexander Callum, a former MI-5 agent. Against Callum’s recommendation, agents locked David up, among other things.”

  “So you’re saying that as an employee of Treadman Global, I will be treated differently than if I were merely a private citizen.”

  “Exactly. In addition, as soon as the press realizes that you have been at David’s side today, people are going to want your story, and they’re going to tear apart your life to get it. Let us help you.” She eased back. “Besides, I can attest that the pay and benefits are excellent. Chad believes in finding the right people and paying them well for what they do. People are not fungible in his world.”

  Michael studied her and then looked to where David still stood, deep in thought. “Is he for real?”

  “Who? David ... or Chad?”

  “Either. Both.” Michael laughed at the way his response mimicked hers.

  “Chad is a great boss. I wouldn’t work for him if he wasn’t, and he has never asked me to do anything I considered unethical.”

  Another laugh. “That would be a first, after Afghanistan.” He paused. “I would be working for David, though, as long as he’s here.”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, I can do that.” He hesitated. “Speaking of David, you didn’t answer the other half of my question.”

  Amelia raised her eyebrows. “You’ve seen the videos and the documentation as much as I have. You were the one who was in that field today. What do think happened?”

  “I don’t know. David and William appeared out of nowhere, wearing medieval gear. William’s wound was all wrong for a gun, and the archer who shot in his direction eventually collected his arrow, which wasn’t bloody. It isn’t as if I have another explanation for how they could have appeared in that field where a second before there was nobody. You have to remember, though, that I didn’t actually see it happen. Someone ran to get me, and I just dealt with the aftermath.”

  “What other explanation do you have?”

  He shook his head, his lips pressed together.

  Amelia gave him a rueful smile. “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

  “It’s a nice thought, but I would have said that time travel was the impossible thing that had to be eliminated.”

  “Except for the part where they appear out of nowhere, just as David has done on and off for the last twelve years.” She tsked through her teeth. “Look at me, defending the idea where five minutes ago I was doubting it too.”

  “If it isn’t time travel—or universe hopping—the real question to ask is what else it could be? Where is the plane? Were all those people on the bus hypnotized? Where did they go for nine months? Is abducted by aliens really a better answer?”

  “I wouldn’t say so,” Amelia said matter-of-factly. “And really, conspiracies are considerably harder to maintain than it looks on the telly. Two thousand people plus a BBC crew saw that plane disappear. How do you explain that?”

  Suddenly, the communicator in Michael’s ear barked loudly enough for Amelia to hear it. She had taken hers out while she’d been speaking with David. Employee or not, Michael had remained at David’s side, and that meant he had been included, because to do otherwise would have been stupid.

  “What’s happening?” In two strides, David, who had heard the sound too, filled the doorway.

  Michael hastily turned down the sound on his earbud. His head was bent, listening. “MI-5 is here.”

  “Not again.” David’s face was ashen, but there was a set to his jaw and a glint in his blue eyes that told Amelia he was prepared to fight.

  She put out a hand to him. “Chad planned for this. We’re going to face this head on.”

  “With cameras rolling.” Michael pulled out his phone.

  Two of Chad’s security men came trotting down the hallway from the nurse’s station, heading towards the elevator doors at the far end. Two more halted in front of David. Given the tight gun security in Britain, none of the agents on this floor carried a gun, but Amelia saw the way Michael’s hand had reflexively reached for his hip before his hand clenched around his phone instead.

  Then the elevator doors opened. Instead of
a host of Special Branch officers with automatic weapons, the only person who stepped out was a lone woman wearing a trim navy suit dress and heels. She wore her blonde hair piled on top of her head and walked out of the elevator with a steady grace. Beside Amelia, Michael sucked in a breath of air. As a media person, Amelia devoted more time than she thought reasonable to what she looked like, but she couldn’t hold a candle to this woman. And yet, oddly, the woman’s sheer magnificence made her completely nonthreatening. And as a fellow professional, Amelia could appreciate how much harder the woman would have had to work to gain her co-workers’ respect. For now, Amelia herself could give her the benefit of the doubt.

  Nobody said a word until the woman was six feet away. Then the two guards in front of David moved aside. In her three inch heels, she was at most two inches shorter than he was, and Amelia felt a twist of sympathy since her feet had to be killing her.

  Then she smiled and stuck out her hand. “Hi. I’m Livia. I’m hoping that you can tell me how Mark is doing.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  1 April 2022

  Livia

  David shook Livia’s hand, having introduced everyone else to her and explained that she had helped Mark escape from MI-5’s clutches. Those were his exact words, in fact, and Livia was glad she had insisted on going into the hospital unmiked.

  The expression on David’s face as he’d spoken was one of bemusement. Livia herself was struggling not to go all fan-girl on him. At least he wasn’t wearing a crown, just a blue linen shirt in a color that matched his eyes. Strangely, without his cloak he seemed bigger—taller with broader shoulders—than when he’d been wearing it in the video. He filled the hallway.