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

by Sarah Woodbury

  Mark picked up the earphone by which he was maintaining communication with Sophie’s band. Poor communication had been the bane of David’s existence since he’d started leading men in Earth Two, but more reliable electronics had come on the plane, including the earpieces that Sophie, George, and Andre wore, allowing them to talk to one another. Ieuan and Callum also each had a walkie-talkie, though the mountain blocked reception, so Ieuan might be able to use his only once he was at the top.

  Math stood a little way away. He’d been in constant motion since he’d arrived with his army, somewhat after Ieuan and Callum. Now that David was gone, it was good Math was here, because the line of authority from David to him was clearer than from David to Callum. If Callum had known that David was going to go missing, he would have called in Nicholas de Carew, who was holding the fort in London—and probably gnashing his teeth about being left behind again.

  God help him, it was times like these that Callum actually missed Gilbert de Clare. He’d been witty and clever and too arrogant by half. David missed him too, but he was still masking that grief with anger. It was an open question how to properly mourn a friend who’d tried to kill you.

  Math raised a hand and dropped it. “Light ‘em up.”

  Not everyone was as fluent in American English as Math, but it wouldn’t have mattered what he’d said because the men knew what they were doing. They may have thought the entire endeavor completely mad, but they were obeying because most understood the consequences of following the more conventional path. The men supporting Mortimer were just that—men like them, tied to a liege lord who’d led them astray. On another day, and but for the grace of God, their places could have been exchanged.

  There was a spark as the tail of the first firework was lit and then a whoosh as it shot into the air. The red, green, and gold lights showered down above the castle, which was Callum’s cue to put a microphone to his mouth and say in three languages, just to be safe: “Surrender and you will be allowed to return to your homes and families. Fight and you will certainly die.”

  David had recorded himself saying much the same thing, but with his absence, Callum felt uncomfortable using the recording, especially because that would ruin the deception that he was marching north with the bulk of the army.

  Callum put his binoculars to his eyes, waiting with the others for something to happen and wondering if he ought to speak again. This was the same message Roger Mortimer had rejected earlier when David had sent emissaries under a white flag.

  “David is alive, and Roger is on his own. Balliol has abandoned these men,” Mark said, his own binoculars to his eyes. “They have to know it—don’t they?”

  “From all appearances, Roger still believes Balliol is coming to save him.” Callum grimaced. “He hasn’t surrendered, and that’s the only thing that matters.”

  “He must know something we don’t or thinks he does.” Mark brought down the binoculars and looked at Callum. “He can’t win.”

  “He has hostages.”

  “Then why not trade them for safe passage to France?”

  Callum laughed. “France is hardly safe for him, is it? No place is safe. He may be holding out hope that David wants peace so badly he comes to the gate personally.”

  “And allows one of Roger’s men to put an arrow in him? Not likely.” Mark guffawed. “He is going to regret that choice.” Then he grinned as more fireworks lit the night sky. “This part of Plan C I’m liking, though I don’t see a white flag.”

  Callum scoffed. “He won’t put one up himself. The question is whether or not his men will do it for him.” Then his amusement faded. “David really didn’t want men to die for Roger’s stupidity.”

  “David can’t always get what he wants.”

  Callum decided not to rise to that obvious bait. David had wanted Mark to come home to Earth Two, and events had conspired to ensure that Mark did, so Mark’s tone in this instance was understandably a little sour.

  So instead, Callum said gently, “David would probably be the first to agree.” He glanced again to Mark, who was looking determinedly through his binoculars. “Everyone else is glad you’re here.”

  “And I appreciate it.” He made a rueful face. “I confess the tears in Bronwen’s eyes when she realized, thanks to your money, that I’d brought her every out of print or free book available and a thousand dollars’ worth of children’s ebooks—” he eyed Callum, “—made me feel a whole lot better.”

  Humphrey de Bohun and Edmund Mortimer made their way to where Callum, Math, and Mark were standing.

  “Roger will not surrender,” Edmund said matter-of-factly, “and that means his men won’t either.”

  Math sighed, much as Callum had, at Roger’s obstinacy. “Any movement from any gate?”

  They had watchers all around the castle, with walkie-talkies to radio back if anyone had decided to take them up on their offer.

  Mark spoke into a microphone, waited a beat, and then shook his head.

  Math’s next glance took in everyone. “We’ll send the fire arrows. That will be signal enough to Sophie and the others. Hopefully they’ve reached the ditch by now, though it would be great if you could get through to Ieuan. If at all possible I want them out of the castle before we take down the front gate. Once that happens, there’s no telling how this will go.”

  “Yeah, there is.” Mark appeared to have left any willingness to show deference in Avalon. “With the weapons we have, this is already over.”

  His eyes met Callum’s, just for a moment. Humphrey moved away again, but Edmund Mortimer stayed behind, his left arm pressed across his chest and his right fist to his lips. “I don’t want to see my brother die, Callum.”

  “I know.” Callum gripped Edmund’s shoulder. “I’m sorry if David’s absence means our timeline for this stage has been moved up.”

  Edmund sighed and dropped his arms, visibly trying to ease the tension in his back. “Roger is a traitor. It would have been wrong for the king to negotiate directly with him. David should have let the hostages die before he made that move.”

  “He wouldn’t have,” Callum said.

  Edmund nodded, knowing as well as the rest of them that mercy was David’s first instinct. “Perhaps, then, that’s the reason he isn’t here.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  2 April 1294

  Sophie

  Sophie had been climbing since she was a young girl, but she had to admit that she’d never done anything under the pressure she was feeling now, not even in competition. She’d won many of those competitions, but she’d never before had lives on the line. Unfortunately, as soon as she thought about what was at stake, her muscles tightened, and she forced herself to breathe again and to focus on the next handhold.

  The truth she kept telling herself was that under other circumstances, this climb would have been a walk in the park. As soon as the fireworks started going off, the sky had been brightly lit. At that point, they’d left their resting place halfway up the mountain. If the watchers on the walls were looking at the sky, which they had to have been, their night vision would be completely shot. She hadn’t known what had possessed Chad to include fireworks in the airplane’s cargo, but when they’d done an inventory, and she’d showed David the packages, she’d seen his mind begin to work. David took no credit for the idea, nor did Chad, but he and Chad apparently had read the same books, since David had instantly understood the reference on the note Chad had left him.

  Sophie herself avoided military fiction like the plague, but if a fictional story had inspired David to concoct their current scenario, she was all for it. The original intent had been to use the fireworks and the climbing gear only if Roger Mortimer’s total surrender or the sensible mutiny of Mortimer’s men failed to transpire. That neither of those things had happened, despite knowing David was alive, was befuddling to Sophie. To her, there was a significant difference between honor and pride, and what was happening here surely looked like Roger was throwin
g away the lives of men because he had too much of the latter.

  Beeston Castle was built on a rock three hundred and fifty feet above the valley floor. The highest point, upon which the keep itself was built, was on the northwesternmost end, and the plateau, upon which the whole castle sat, sloped steadily downwards all the way from the keep to the main gate two football fields away.

  The inner ward was surrounded by a stone wall, which topped an almost vertical rocky descent on the north side. This was the face the Royalists appeared to have conquered four hundred years from now to get into the rock-cut ditch that curved around the inner ward and separated it from the outer ward. Sophie and George had decided to attack the west face, however, and with hardly any ado, they arrived in the ditch at the western end. In a group, they crouched in the bit of vegetation that had been allowed to grow underneath the wall.

  She had chosen the west side for two reasons: first, the climbers she was bringing with her were less experienced than Sophie would like them to be, and the slightly less steep ascent had been a less risky one for them; second, her people had modern gear. While the gear would have made mincemeat of whichever side she chose to climb, no matter how steep, it had allowed them to get this far with minimal fuss; and finally, although by 1643 the entire curtain wall had been completed, in 1294, a gap had been left in the inner curtain wall to allow access to a natural balcony.

  Apparently, the defenders thought their keep was unassailable, and the lady of the castle wanted a place to sit where she could take in the view.

  No kidding.

  Sophie supposed she could understand the impulse. At the time Beeston was built, the castle was in the middle of Cheshire. Its closest enemy was Wales, and according to Meg, the castle had been a jumping off point for attacks on Wales. But nobody had actually thought that an army from Wales would ever reach this far into England. Thus, the castle was a home as well as a fortress and that meant it was trying to be too many things to too many people. At a minimum, it was just too big to defend from any kind of concerted attack—a fact Callum was counting on. And, undeniably, the nine people who settled into the ditch tonight had the ability to go over both the inner curtain wall and the outer one to reach the outer bailey without being detected.

  “Is everyone ready?” Sophie looked into George’s face. Everyone but Andre, who didn’t need to, had put charcoal on their faces to darken their skin. However, the whites of their eyes gleamed at Sophie.

  “We’re doing fine. Keep going,” Ieuan whispered. “I’ve let Mark know we’ve made it this far and that the drawbridge is up.” He tipped his head to indicate the bridge that should have spanned the ditch.

  In the face of the assault, the men in the keep had chosen to barricade themselves inside. Callum had assumed that would happen, and it meant that reinforcements would not be coming to their aid from the outer ward. The defenders had assumed they wouldn’t need them.

  Heh.

  Men shouted from somewhere in the outer bailey. Another firework burst above their heads, and it was accompanied this time not by Callum asking for the castle’s surrender, but flaming arrows. The arrows arced, reached their peak, and then descended into the outer ward. Three hundred yards was a doable shot for the elite archers in David’s army, especially when all the arrows were required to do was arc over the outer wall and land inside it. Child’s play, as evidenced by the accompanying screams.

  “Don’t think about them,” Andre said, low in her ear. “Lead on.”

  Sophie nodded and reached up for the first handhold.

  The defenders would have assumed when they sited the castle here that the reverse pyramid shape of the wall would make this last stretch from the ditch to the balcony an impossible face to climb, but five minutes later Sophie’s climbing hook caught on the corner of the curtain wall, and she hauled herself over the edge and onto the grassy balcony.

  George and Andre were beside her within the space of a minute. Every time another fire arrow went up, the sky became brightly lit, and she feared they would be seen, but all eyes were on the sky and the havoc currently being wreaked in the outer ward.

  She couldn’t expect the novices with her to scale the wall as she had, so while George moved into the relative darkness of the inner ward to make sure they hadn’t been detected, she and Andre anchored the ropes that would allow the rest of their companions to climb up to the balcony.

  Constance and Ieuan were the last to reach her, and they panted a bit as they crouched beside her in the shadow of the wall. Their climb had been made more awkward because of the quivers and bows on their backs. Like a footballer who could play multiple positions, Ieuan could do everything required by a medieval warrior—wrestling, swordplay, and archery. Though his sister was recognized as an expert shot, Ieuan had taught Lili, and Sophie had seen him shoot. He, like Constance, was better than good, and an arrow was quieter than Andre’s rifle, which would be used only as a last resort.

  While Constance took a drink of water and some deep breaths to settle herself, Ieuan moved towards Samuel to confer. These two would be leading the two teams of men around the bailey to free the captives while Constance and Andre kept any attackers at bay from above.

  “Are you ready for this?” Constance asked Sophie, who had her scope to her eye, tracing the tops of the battlements all around the inner ward.

  “I’m not going to be the one shooting,” Sophie said without looking at her. “Are you ready?”

  “Within the hour, I will know what has become of my husband. No matter for good or ill, the wait will be over.”

  Sophie reached out a hand and squeezed Constance’s arm, but she didn’t say that Cador was alive or any other platitude. Constance was right that knowing was better than not knowing, and regardless of the outcome, one way or the other, before dawn it would be over. Growing up, Sophie’s mother had talked her through many girlhood stresses, all of which seemed quaint and meaningless now, with just that thought: in an hour, it will be over, and life will go on.

  Ieuan looked back at the two women. “How many men do you see, Sophie?”

  Sophie put the scope back to her eye. “There are two guards at the top of the tower overlooking the ditch.” She gave a low laugh she couldn’t help. “You had only one job ...”

  A second later George returned. “The main door is closed, and the portcullis is down.”

  “Nothing has changed since we were in the ditch.” Samuel looked at Ieuan. “This is just what we wanted, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t like how deserted this place is,” Ieuan said. “If Roger Mortimer is here, he’s being quiet about it.”

  Samuel shook his head. “I don’t think he’s here.”

  “You don’t think he’s here at all?” Sophie asked. “Or you think he’s in the outer bailey?”

  “Oh, he’s definitely not in here with us, but I’m wondering if he’s out there either. Now that I’ve had a look at the place, it isn’t really a great spot to hole up in, is it? Roger Mortimer isn’t stupid. Let’s get the captives, get out, and regroup with Lord Callum.”

  With a gesture from Ieuan, the remaining climbers gathered around, including the three men whose names were something like Tom, Dick, and Harry. He gave them each a last chance to express their thoughts and then said, “Quick and quiet, just like we planned.”

  Constance nodded. “We have your backs.”

  “Go, you three,” Ieuan said, referring to Sophie, Constance, and Andre. “We’ll wait until you’re on the battlement before we move.”

  Her heart in her throat, Sophie followed Andre up the steps up to the wall-walk. The curtain wall was only two stories high here—maybe twenty feet above the inner ward, though it was obviously far higher than that above the valley floor.

  Meanwhile, Ieuan led three of the medieval men towards the main gate, in the opposite direction from Samuel and George, who were starting at one of the far towers.

  “They’ll be okay. You need to focus, Sophie.” Andre sidled alo
ng the wall-walk, his feet making no noise on the stones, towards the southwest tower, tracking the movements of Ieuan and his men on the ground below them.

  Constance stayed at Sophie’s side. “Call ‘em out as you see ‘em,” she said in perfect American. Who knew where Constance had learned that particular phrase, but she had her bow up and an arrow at the ready.

  If any of Mortimer’s men had been looking, Constance would have been unmistakably silhouetted against the sky, but just then another hail of fire arrows arced in the air. Sophie hadn’t been able to see the last few flights because of where they’d been crouched against the curtain wall. Now, however, a hundred arrows lit the sky and descended into the outer ward, where many of the buildings were already on fire, along with many tents. From her current position on the battlement, Sophie could see a chain of men hauling buckets from the well to the various buildings set along the western curtain wall. Her view of the eastern gate was blocked by the inner ward’s gatehouse towers.

  Then Sophie turned away from the carnage and put her scope to her eye. “Your first target is at the top of the closest gatehouse tower, Constance. Take him out.”

  Chapter Twenty

  2 April 1294

  Samuel

  Samuel and the young fellow from Avalon, George, moved at a crouching run around the inside of the curtain wall that circled the edge of the escarpment, avoiding the shadows cast by the torches in their sconces on either side of the main gate. Last Humphrey de Bohun had known, William Venables and his father were being held on the top floor of the tower on the northeast side of the inner ward, which was where Samuel and George were headed.