“I’ve been thinking about what I wanted to say to all of you if I got the chance. Now that I have one, I want to thank you for being who you are. I am grateful in ways I never could have imagined or anticipated for being born here and raised on this planet. I know at times it’s impossible to see beyond the crime, gossip, political backstabbing, and a level of environmental degradation that may well be terminal, but I want you to know how deeply I treasure your values and ideals. They have the power to transform this world and my new one too.
“Growing up, I never thought very hard about what it meant to be raised by a single mom. She believed herself a capable and worthwhile person, equal to any other person on the planet, and she taught me to see myself that way too. In the universe I live in now, however, ideas we take for granted are centuries away from being understood, much less common. Men and women aren’t equal, and science isn’t a concept. Before I became king, everybody had to follow one religion, only the rich went to school, and King Edward was hellbent on conquering most of Europe.
“You see that as your history, and not relevant to today. But you couldn’t be more wrong. I could not be the king I am now if not for the boy I was then—the boy this world made.” He tipped his head. “You made.”
He put his heels together and bowed slightly from the waist. “So thank you for that. Thank you also for caring enough to give some of your valuable time to watching this interview, and finally, thank you—some of you—for believing, or at the very least wanting to believe.”
Finally, David gestured towards the wings, where William now appeared on cue. He was looking dapper in a suit and tie, with a black sling holding his right arm to his chest. As it turned out, all this time he’d been a left-handed man forced to use his right, so he was actually doing pretty well with his right arm in a sling. Whether he could use a sword remained to be seen.
At the moment, all he needed to do was walk across the stage, which he did with aplomb, raising a hand to the audience and smiling as David introduced him by his full name. Having practiced with Chad’s staff how to shake with a firm grip, William shook hands with Owain and then with David, though with him it was the medieval way, gripping each other’s forearms and grinning.
William had wanted to come on stage. Though he thought it absurd, he understood at least in some small way that who David was in Earth Two was a far cry from who he was in Avalon. For David’s part, he was more glad than ever that of all his medieval companions, it had been William who’d stepped in front of him and taken that bolt.
Both with Owain and without him, David and William posed before the audience, still shaking hands, allowing people to take picture after picture. It went on too long, but nobody appeared tired of either the pictures or the applause. David’s eyes strayed towards the wings, hoping for a clue from anyone there how to end it. But while Livia and Amelia were smiling and applauding, Chad was focused on the rafters, making David glance upwards too. He didn’t see anything untoward until he looked back at Chad, who’d made a slight gesture with his hand, not at David, but at someone behind the light array David couldn’t see.
An instant later, a gunman opened fire with an automatic weapon, the bullets chewing up the area in front of the stage and the steps up to it. Fortunately, David was already gripping William’s forearm when he felt the tug of his departure.
One, two, three ...
Chapter Thirty-four
3 April 1294
David
For once, David was glad of the blackness because it gave him a moment to think. At first he hadn’t known what was happening because the echo of the guns in the warehouse was so overwhelming that it drowned out every other sense. In retrospect, he thought there may have been two gunmen, one who aimed his weapon at the ground and steps in front of the stage rather than actually at David. The shot to the chest, however, had been shocking in its power, even though the bullet had hit the ceramic plate over his heart. David thought he might have heard a second shot, but he’d traveled before it hit him.
They arrived three heartbeats later in Earth Two. As before, they both staggered, but this time, David couldn’t maintain his balance, and he cursed as he fell sideways onto his right hip. He’d have a bruise there tomorrow to go with the one on his chest. Kevlar spread out the energy of the bullet, but that energy still had to go somewhere, and that meant his chest had taken quite a punch. It hadn’t been punched through, though, which would have left him dead. He was alive, and so was William, and that was all that mattered for now.
After a moment, during which they both fought to breathe, William rolled over until he was lying flat on his back on the stones of the battlement next to David. Stars shone above them, though the giant tower to David’s left blocked some of the view.
“Mary, Mother of God, that hurts.”
In an instant, David was up on one knee, hovering over his friend. He checked the wrappings on William’s wound. “It isn’t bleeding, or at least not much.”
“Small blessings, I guess. Help me to sit up.” This was a new William, one actually willing to ask for help.
David got him to a sitting position and crouched before him. “Are you really okay?”
“I think so. Are we home?”
“You tell me. What do you hear?”
They both went silent as they listened to the world around them.
After a moment, William said, “Water running. I think there’s a river somewhere below us. I hear men’s voices in the distance.” He paused. “Birds.” Then he focused on David. “No motors.”
“No motors. Twenty-first century noises encroach on even the remotest places. But not here.” David came up from his crouch. They were on a wall-walk behind a tower. A doorway off the curtain wall lay ten feet away. The wall-walk continued to the right and left, curving around the back of the tower, which currently hid them from the view of anyone in the castle’s bailey. “My best guess is we are somewhere in England.” He glanced down at William. “Sorry about that. I really meant to give you a choice.”
“There was never any choice. I wouldn’t have stayed. In the end, my obligations aren’t dissimilar to yours, and I love my family and my people.”
“It wouldn’t have had to be forever.”
William grunted. “I learned what I needed to from Alex. Thank you for allowing me to see what could have been possible—what was possible, back in Avalon. You were right to think that I would choose to make my own history, as you have done.”
David gripped his friend’s hand and helped him to his feet. “It was a risk telling you the truth, but even if you’d chosen differently, I wouldn’t have been sorry.”
“Water under the bridge.” William guffawed as he peered through a nearby crenel at the river below them. “And I mean that literally as I was right about the river. We appear to be on an outer curtain wall.”
David looked too. He and William could jump from here, but he’d rather not risk ending up right back in Avalon. They were both hampered physically at the moment as well, and a plunge into cold water wouldn’t be good for either of them.
“Is it too much to ask for this to be a friendly castle?” William asked
“Probably. I’m glad now we went to Avalon without our swords and armor, because we would have left them there.” David grunted. “At least I brought you back. That will make your father happy.”
“At least it’s night. The dark can hide us.”
“Only up to a point. We need new clothes ASAP.”
The view otherwise wasn’t informative, and with no moon, David couldn’t make out much beyond the lights that lit the sides of the castle. “Between the two of us, we’ve been to virtually every castle in England, Wales, and the March. This is none of them.”
“We were being shot at with guns, weren’t we?”
“Yes.” Unsurprised by the change of subject, David put a fist to his chest and coughed. He was having a little trouble breathing, but he figured if he had a broken rib and a punctu
red lung, he would be in more pain than he was currently feeling. The who and why of it, and Chad Treadman’s possibly troubling role in what had just happened, was a problem for another day. “Can you walk?”
“Of course.” William grasped David’s shoulder with his good left hand to steady himself. “Life is always an adventure with you, sire.”
David coughed again, trying to laugh. “We’ll see how happy you are about that in a minute.” They moved along the wall-walk far enough to peer around the curve of the tower, and then kept going into the darkness, leaving the castle’s large keep behind. The curtain wall enclosed an area a hundred yards across.
“It feels like late evening.” William said with a glance at the sliver of moon that had just come out from behind a cloud.
For his part, David’s attention had been drawn to the lands beyond the walls, which were dotted by hundreds of lights. Thousands.
William gave an unhappy sigh. “That looks like an army.”
“To me too, and by the banners, I’m guessing it doesn’t belong to me.”
“Could we be in France?” William sounded almost hopeful.
“I don’t relish another ride for my life across Aquitaine and Normandy.” David pulled back as a man opened the door at the base of one of the towers in the curtain wall and headed across the bailey towards the massive outer gatehouse.
With the man out of sight, they hastened again along the wall-walk, pleased but anxious that they had so far encountered no other guards.
“We could go to the hall and announce you. You are the king.”
“That would be a bad idea if this castle belongs to someone who’s allied with Roger Mortimer,” David said.
William’s expression turned pensive. “How many more traitors can there be?”
“Obviously, I’m the last person to ask. All I can say is that, since we didn’t appear at Dinas Bran, I have to assume that I’ve—we’ve—arrived where we were meant to arrive and that me being here is better than me not being here.” He frowned. “Let’s see if we can find different clothing and work up from there.”
They approached the nearest tower door, halfway between the gatehouse and the keep. Before David could think too hard about it, he simply reached for the latch and pulled the door open. They found themselves in a guard room, exactly like a hundred or even a thousand such rooms he’d entered in the last twelve years. Nobody was present, and he told himself again that he’d arrived here for a reason and to accept the gift.
“Look in there.” David gestured to two trunks set against a nearby wall.
While this wasn’t an armory, most guard rooms stored extra weapons and clothing as a matter of course. Three cloaks hung on hooks near the exit door, and he grabbed two.
Meanwhile, William flipped open the lids and gave a satisfied grunt. “Bingo.”
It was the perfect use of the idiom, and David laughed before moving to his side. “Next time, remind me to limit your television viewing.”
“Next time?” William held up a mail shirt to check the size. “Do you think there will be a next time?”
David pulled out two axes, their heads in sheaths, two belts, and two knives. He left a sword where it was, deciding in a moment of clarity that they were better off looking more like common soldiers than commanders. “You never know.” He glanced at his former squire. “Would it please you?”
“Ask me again after my wound heals.” William handed him the mail and a tunic to go over it. “This should fit you. We can’t do anything about the breeches and shoes, but it’s dark enough that maybe we can get away with what we have on for now.”
“A leather coat will have to do for you.” David looked at William assessingly. “But the modern sling has to go. We’ll rig something else—” He broke off as Christopher came through the door of the guardroom.
The cousins stared at each other through several laughing gasps, and then Christopher lifted David off his feet in a bear hug. “What are you doing here?”
“Oof! Ow! Let me go.” David coughed.
Christopher set him down. “You’re injured? We hoped the bolt hadn’t touched you.”
“It didn’t. This is from the way back.” David put a hand to his chest and tried to take some easy breaths. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Where are we?” William took a step forward. “Is my father here?”
“You’re at Skipton Castle,” Thomas Hartley stepped through the doorway, “and the army in the fields outside is the combined forces of John Balliol and Hakkon of Norway, who has come without his brother’s blessing.” He paused and then went down on one knee before David. “My king. I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you alive.”
“Get up. Get up.” David motioned with one hand. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you two. I think. Why, and God help me, how, are you here?” But then before they could answer, he put up a hand. “Never mind, maybe we don’t have time for that right now either. Rather, tell me what you are planning that brings you to this guardroom in this moment?”
Thomas looked sideways at Christopher for a second and then said straightforwardly, “Christopher had a feeling.”
David studied his cousin. “About me?”
“No.” Christopher gave a little shake of his head. “I just felt that we should come to the tower to see what we could see. The army is moving tomorrow.”
Thomas added, “The captains were instructed to make sure their men slept, which is why it’s so quiet.”
David waggled his hand to encompass both Christopher and Thomas. “How did you two get together?”
“Matha O’Reilly and I met him in the hall yesterday evening,” Christopher said.
“And I’m with Henri. He and Matha went to the north side of the castle, by the keep,” Thomas said as if it was the most normal thing in the world for all of them to have found each other.
David squeezed Christopher’s shoulder, but he was looking at William, who said, “Right place, right time, my lord.”
After putting on their medieval gear and fashioning a new sling for William out of a piece of cloth, they took the stairway to the top of the tower, upon which a guard watched. At their arrival, he startled, but Thomas said, “You are relieved for now. We’ll watch a while. Get yourself warm.”
“Thank you, my lords.” He descended the stairs.
“The guards are used to us by now,” Thomas said by way of an explanation.
“When did you arrive?” William asked.
“Two days ago, right after Balliol and Hakkon took the castle—without resistance, I might add. Christopher and Matha came yesterday.”
David went to a nearby crenel and looked out. This tower stood to the east of the gatehouse, allowing him a clear view of the landscape south of the castle. So many fires and torches lit the night that it was difficult to see into the darkness of the countryside. “What do you know about this Hakkon, Thomas? I’ve met only Erik.”
“He is a few years older than I am. He sneers at everyone.”
David coughed. “I could have guessed that. Who else is here?”
“Roger Mortimer.”
“Aymer de Valence?”
“No. Or at least I haven’t seen him.”
“You could say hi to them right now.” Christopher handed David his binoculars. “They’re all in the keep, planning their war.”
“I’m tempted, believe me.” David put the binoculars to his eyes. “What’s Balliol’s plan?”
“To march south,” Thomas said.
“To Beeston?” David asked.
Thomas gave a vigorous headshake. “However long it takes for your army to take it, Balliol knows it’s lost. But that’s good news to him. While your army is busy there, he’ll be slipping past to the east.” He gestured to David. “He’s also still hoping you’re dead.”
“Wouldn’t he have heard by now that I’m not?”
“Who would have told him?” Christopher said.
David’s gaze followed
the road and then around the curve of what appeared to be a fairly steep hill to the east. He frowned and put out a hand to the others. “There! Do you see movement?” He gave Thomas the binoculars.
“Riders?” Thomas asked tentatively.
“That’s what I think,” David said.
“There are too many of them to be scouts.” Thomas peered into the darkness. “Where are they going?”
“And look!” David pointed again. “Did you see that?”
“I did,” Thomas said a little grimly. “That was light reflected off metal—but not among the horsemen. It was farther up the hill.”
“Balliol must have binoculars by now,” William said reasonably. “It’s perfectly possible he realizes the importance of that high ground and has gone to take it.”
“He hadn’t placed a force there before.” Thomas brought down the binoculars. “He doesn’t think he needs to. Who would be mad enough to confront five thousand men head on? On top of which, why bother with the hill now when we’re moving out in the morning?”
“It could be James Stewart.” The binoculars were back in front of Christopher’s eyes. “Matha and I came to Beeston with Huw and three other men. I sent two south to Callum and the army, and Huw and the third went north to find James Stewart. He would have known without anyone telling him that attacking this massive army is impossible with the river as the defensive line. But I specifically suggested that Huw tell him about the strategic advantage of that hill. And James would know to go around in order to come at the castle from the south.”
“I wish we had a way to find out,” William said.
As he stared out into the darkness beyond the fires, David wished with his whole being that his allies were on that hill. And then he reached for the torch that shone from its sconce near the steps that led down to the wall-walk. “If you can bear with me, I have a crazy idea.”
Chapter Thirty-five
Champions of Time (The After Cilmeri Series, #13) Page 24