Guardians of Time

by Sarah Woodbury

  “Does David know?” Peter said.

  “He knows,” Bridget said. “Since David confiscated Valence’s lands in England, the only estate Aymer de Valence inherited from his father is a small tract of land in Angoulême, which has been taken over by King Philip. Although Aymer’s grandmother was once Queen of England, after King John’s death, she married the Count of Angoulême and had William, Aymer’s father. Thus, they aren’t royal, but they have always felt they should be, and have deeply resented being continually snubbed by the French court. In fact, it might be a contest between David and Philip as to who Aymer hates more.”

  “How is Aymer related to Red Comyn?”

  “One of Aymer’s sisters is married to Red, so they’re brothers-in-law as the steward said. In addition, another one of Aymer’s sisters married John Balliol’s older brother, Hugh, who died twenty years ago—and, for added flavor, Red Comyn’s mother is King John Balliol of Scotland’s sister.”

  “Christ.” Peter’s stomach sank into his boots.

  “That’s how we get the connection to James Stewart,” Bridget said. “The Stewarts supported the Bruces during the conflict over the throne three years ago, to the point that when Callum met James Stewart, Robbie Bruce was his squire. As you may recall, that was during the time when Black Comyn colluded with William de Valence in an attempt to wrest the throne from his own brother-in-law, John Balliol. While one of Balliol’s first acts as King of Scotland was to release both Comyns, father and son, after they paid a sizable ransom to the Scottish crown, bad blood remains between the Comyns and the Bruces.”

  Peter gave a low laugh. “You’re telling me we should be glad Robbie Bruce wasn’t among the emissary’s party, because Comyn wouldn’t have hesitated to murder him?”

  Bridget smiled. “So you do know something of what I’m talking about.”

  “I listen,” Peter said lightly, “and I find it hard to believe that Balliol would approve such a move.”

  “Balliol might not be involved at all,” Bridget said. “Red Comyn and Aymer de Valence could be making their own plans without consulting him.”

  “That, of everything you’ve said so far, would surprise me the least. Any more bad news, Bridget?” Peter said.

  “It’s also possible that Red and Aymer hope for the chance to bolster Aymer’s lands in Angouleme while Philip is distracted by war with England.”

  Peter’s eyes crossed. “That’s mad.”

  “You’re not a Valence. David did see to the death of Aymer’s father. Anyway,” she waved a hand, “the only thing you have to know is that Aymer de Valence, Red Comyn, and John Balliol are allies, and that it is perfectly credible that these two here are seeking to expand their lands, destroy the Bruces, and cause trouble for David and Philip.”

  “I can see why they viewed James Stewart’s journey with the ambassador from the French court with dismay,” Peter said.

  Bridget laughed under her breath. “And now, if he isn’t dead, they may have no idea what to do with him.” She glanced towards the high table. The steward was turning away from Fulk and coming towards them. “Do you think he knows what Fulk’s guests have done?”

  “You heard him talk about the Scots,” Peter said. “I find it likely he doesn’t.”

  Peter watched the steward’s approach with some trepidation. He wasn’t comfortable speaking to Fulk on Callum’s behalf, though it had seemed like a good excuse to be here when they were at the entrance to the castle. He kept his eyes fixed on the high table, trying to imprint the faces of the various Scots and Normans on his memory. He wasn’t any more of an artist than he was a conversationalist, but he was pretty good at remembering faces. Mostly, he just wanted to get Bridget out of there as quickly as possible without having it seem hasty and rude.

  “Sir.” The steward had arrived at their table again. “My lord Fulk would be happy to greet you now.”

  “Thank you.” Peter stood and held out his arm to Bridget, who took it, and they processed towards the high table behind the steward. This time Bridget’s hand rested gently in his elbow. She was doing a better job about faking a calmness she didn’t feel. Peter’s breakfast, which he’d eaten back in Chirk, was doing a dance inside his stomach.

  “My lord.” The steward bent his head to Fulk. “May I present Sir Peter Cobb and his lady wife.”

  “Cobb.” Fulk canted his head. “My lady.”

  “Bridget,” Bridget said, with a dipping curtsey. “I am honored to meet you, sir.”

  Fulk fixed his eyes on Peter’s face. “You have news for me from Earl Callum?”

  “He simply asked me to give you his Christmas Day greetings,” Peter said.

  “He’s in Shrewsbury?” Fulk’s eyes had narrowed.

  Aymer and Comyn were whispering to each other, both leaning back in their chairs as Fulk leaned forward. He gave them an annoyed glance, and then returned his gaze to Peter.

  “He celebrates Christmas with the king.” Peter opted not to mention that the celebration would be occurring—if at all—in Avalon.

  Comyn was listening closely now. Peter didn’t know if he had met Callum several years ago when Callum brokered the deal for Balliol to become king, but he thought it likely. “The earl is here?”

  “At Dinas Bran.” Peter wished he could have avoided saying that, but he didn’t feel like he could lie outright. Politics were not his thing.

  However, Bridget smiled. “He commemorates the birth of our lord with the ambassador from the French court and James Stewart. We are honored to have been invited to share the day with him.”

  Peter gave a short bow in Comyn’s direction. It was obvious why he was called Red, given the color of his hair and the millions of freckles covering his face. “I’m sure, my lord, that you would be welcome if you cared to travel the last few miles to Dinas Bran with us.”

  Comyn gave what had to be an involuntary shake of his head, and Aymer just managed to arrest the sneer that had formed on his lips.

  “Please give my regards to your lady wife, my lord Fulk,” Bridget said. “We should be on our way. We wouldn’t want to be late for the Christmas feast.”

  Fulk gave her a sickly smile. “I won’t keep you. Godspeed.”

  With a last nod, Peter spun Bridget around and directed her towards the door of the hall.

  “That went well,” she said.

  “Let’s not count our chickens until we’re free,” he said. “You took a risk mentioning Stewart.”

  “What good is it to be here if we don’t learn what they did with him?” Bridget put out a hand to the door and pushed through it. “Did you see Comyn’s face pale when I said James’s name?”

  “You could hardly miss it.” Peter glanced back before he followed her. No alarm had been raised.

  Bridget hesitated on the top step. “Are you sure we should just leave? What if James is locked in one of the towers?”

  “We are only two, three with Simon,” Peter said. “We have what we came for. If Aymer de Valence has truly conspired with Red Comyn to murder the ambassador from France and abduct James Stewart, then the sooner we tell Samuel and Lili about it, the better.”

  “And if Fulk is completely innocent of the attack on the emissary?” Bridget said.

  “When has Callum ever condemned an innocent man?”

  Bridget nodded and preceded Peter down the stairs. A dozen men moved about the courtyard, many speaking Gaelic or English with a thick Scottish accent. That the men in Fulk’s garrison or their Scottish visitors had left Molier and Geoffrey for dead and killed everyone else in their party wasn’t a good sign as to what would happen to them if they were found to be spies. Peter urged Bridget towards the gatehouse and the bridge.

  “If he is not innocent,” Peter took her arm again, “then I am quite worried about what he might do to us if he learns that we aren’t really passing through or that you are not yet my wife.” Peter said the last few words with some hesitation. He hadn’t mentioned the wife issue since last nigh
t and hadn’t really meant to say anything about it again unless Bridget did, but the situation seemed to call for it.

  “I don’t mind, by the way,” Bridget said.

  Peter glanced over at her. “You don’t mind what?”

  Bridget tipped her head back to look up at the sky, laughing silently. “All this time I’ve been stressing about not replying, and you forgot within moments of asking me, didn’t you?”

  Peter stared at her for a second, the rain dripping off his forehead. He wiped at it with the back of his sleeve and then swallowed hastily.

  “I hadn’t forgotten. I was just distracted by the case. Do you mean it?”

  “I mean it,” she said.

  “When?”

  “When what?”

  “When will you marry me?”

  “You want to decide that now?” Bridget was laughing at him, but Peter didn’t care.

  Once he’d decided she was the girl for him, it was as if the words were just waiting on the tip of his tongue for him to say them. “I love you. I’ve loved you from the moment you stuck that first wool hat on my head.”

  The time travelers had been given a true taste of medieval Wales on their long journey from the battlefield, where they’d arrived, to Llangollen. Bridget, whose backpack had been full of yarn, had spent the whole journey knitting hats for everyone. She’d made a gray one for him, and practically his first words to her had been thank you.

  “I’d marry you tomorrow if you’d have me. Once we’ve decided, what’s the point in waiting?” He gestured to the moat. “This is the Middle Ages. Life is short, and it isn’t like we can move in together, is it?”

  “You don’t think we need more time to get to know each other?” she said.

  “You’re smart, honest, adventurous, patient, and kind. Are you saying you’ve been keeping a dark side of your personality from me all this time that’s going manifest on our wedding night?”

  Bridget had the back of her hand to her mouth. “All right, then.” And then she laughed and dropped her hand. “For someone who’s a terrible communicator, you do all right. Better than some.”

  Peter smiled down at her. Maybe he would never stop smiling. He guided her across the bridge in double time, and they had almost reached the outer bailey on the other side when—

  “My lord! My lord!” Peter looked back to see the steward with his hand up to gain their attention. There was no mistaking that he wanted them.

  “Damn,” Peter said under his breath.

  The steward started across the bridge, and Peter felt he had no choice but to wait for him. By the time the steward reached them, he was breathing hard. “Lord Valence begs you to return to the hall. He has a gift for you to bring to the king.”

  “That really isn’t necessary,” Bridget said.

  “He acknowledges that the king’s invitation should not be lightly discarded, and he pledges not to inconvenience you unduly,” the steward said.

  Bridget and Peter looked at each other. Peter had to accept that there was no real way to deny the request, but his feet itched to be on the other side of the moat. He took a step towards the outer bailey. “We really should go.”

  The steward made a move to tug on the fabric of Peter’s cloak. “I must insist—”

  And then with a whuff as if all the air had suddenly been sucked out of the atmosphere, the Cardiff bus burst through a gash in the sky, just like it had a year ago. Except this time, instead of driving through the middle of a battlefield, it soared through the air for a half-second before settling with a jaw-rattling thud on the road to the north of the castle and then its momentum carried it headfirst into the northeastern watchtower itself.

  The tower shuddered, and the unmortared stones that made up the top floor crumbled onto the roof of the bus. The steward gaped in shock and astonishment. But Peter grabbed Bridget’s hand and took off at a run towards the outer bailey. While Simon may have warmed the horses and even unsaddled them in their absence, he’d known enough to be ready at a moment’s notice because he had all three horses out of the stable and waiting as Peter and Bridget ran up. From his position, he couldn’t have seen the bus come in, but there was no mistaking the hurry Peter and Bridget were in.

  With a quick boost, Peter settled Bridget into her saddle and then mounted his own horse. With Simon, they spurred their horses towards the gatehouse. The portcullis was still up—probably because the two guards who were supposed to be attending it were staring towards the moat, mouths open at the arrival of the modern bus. Peter had a better understanding now of what the shock of his own arrival a year ago must have been like for the medieval onlookers. For his part, he felt only satisfaction as he led the way out of the gatehouse and onto the road.

  While Peter could honestly say he would have been happy never to see the bus again, there was a certain satisfaction in knowing that he and Bridget were free of Whittington—and that Callum and David had returned.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Anna

  Cassie killed the bus’s engine and turned to look at her friends. “Who’s screaming?”

  Anna swept her gaze around the few friends who’d returned with them, all of them sitting frozen in their seats, hearts pounding at the suddenness of the transition from the twenty-first century to the thirteenth. They were all accounted for, which meant they had a stowaway. When he found out, David was not going to be pleased, and none of them had thought to give the bus the once-over to make sure they were alone.

  She stood. “The noise is coming from upstairs. I’ll check it out.”

  Without waiting for anyone else’s thoughts, she trotted down the aisle towards the stairs at the rear of the bus, which projected all the way across the road, blocking it completely. Footsteps behind her told her that someone was following, and she wasn’t surprised to see that it was her husband.

  “We appear to be home,” Math said, with that dry wit he often brought out in times of crisis.

  “It seems so.” Anna ducked her head slightly so she could see out the windows. “But I’m not sure where we are.”

  “England?” The word came out of Math’s mouth with something of a sneer, the automatic reaction of a Welshman to finding himself in the wrong country. “I believe we have driven into a watchtower.”

  Anna gestured with her head to the stones that were hitting the top of the bus before falling past the windows to the ground. “I have never seen this castle before.”

  “Nor I,” Math said.

  They took the stairs to the upper level two at a time, Anna already wishing she was back in her jeans instead of the medieval dress she’d changed into so she would fit into the Middle Ages once they’d time traveled again. Though Math had showered at Abraham’s house—every medieval man needed to try it once—he was wearing the same clothes he’d come to Avalon in yesterday.

  Anna and Math popped out of the stairwell to find the source of the screaming. A man stood before them, blood streaming down his face from a giant contusion on his forehead. That they had a stowaway, that it was Rupert, and that the accident had injured him was just bizarre enough to prompt sudden laughter from Anna. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Rachel appeared at Anna’s shoulder, took in the situation with an assessing glance, and walked down the aisle towards the front of the bus.

  Rupert staggered backwards towards the windshield, his hands reaching for the metal bar beneath the window. “Stay away from me!”

  “I’m a doctor,” Rachel said.

  Rupert’s panic didn’t abate. “What have you done?”

  “Time traveled. What did you expect?” Math edged his way past Anna and strode down the aisle too.

  Though Rupert was still shrinking back against the windshield, he didn’t turn away from Rachel, who reached out a hand to him. “What-what are you going to do to me?”

  “Help you,” Rachel said at the same time Math clicked his teeth and said, “Nothing.” He stopped halfway along the aisle and reached
up to the ceiling.

  Anna frowned and moved towards to her husband. “What are you doing?”

  “Someone in the tower is shouting ‘help!’ Can’t you hear him?”

  Anna held her breath and listened. The insulation in the bus was good, which was why the faint sounds hadn’t come more clearly sooner. Math pulled a lever and a trapdoor in the ceiling lifted up with a hydraulic hiss. Then, putting a booted foot on the back of one of the adjacent seats, he hoisted himself through the opening.

  A moment later, he stuck his head back through the hole, followed by his arm, which he stretched out towards Anna. “You coming? It looks like the stones have stopped falling.”

  “Of course I’m coming!” Anna grasped Math’s hand and stepped onto the back of the seat as he had.

  She wasn’t as tall as Math, nor as strong, but as he pulled her through the opening, she got her elbows out on the roof of the bus and then, with another assist from Math, was able to scramble upright. It was raining, which was no more than Anna would have expected, and about thirty degrees warmer than it had been in Bangor. Whatever snow had come with them on the exterior of the bus to the Middle Ages had already melted.

  She found herself twenty feet in the air with a spectacular view of the surrounding countryside. Anna turned around and saw that her head was nearly level with all that was left of the top floor of the collapsing tower, over the stones of which leaned a dark-haired, dark-eyed man with a slender, patrician face. His eye had been blackened, and the knuckles of both hands that clutched the stones in front of him were scraped and bruised.

  Math gazed up at him and spoke in English. “I am Mathonwy ap Rhys, Lord of Dinas Bran. Who are you?”

  “James Stewart, High Steward of Scotland,” came the reply—in English but with a distinct Scottish accent.

  Anna clutched Math’s arm for balance as she moved closer to the window. “I’m Anna, King David’s sister. I’d ask what you’re doing here, but maybe questions can wait, and you should just come with us. I don’t know how much longer that tower is going to be standing.”