Ashes of Time (The After Cilmeri Series) Read online

  Cadell nodded, for once subdued, maybe less by his mother’s authority than by the decorated room. The girls had gone all out and the hall looked more like Christmas than a birthday party, with evergreen boughs and candles everywhere. But everyone would be together and that was the most important thing.

  And within the hour, they were together, the table was laden with food, and the doors closed. Everyone sat quietly while Llywelyn said a prayer. Tears came to Meg’s eyes before he was halfway through it as love for all of them filled her.

  Bronwen, Ieuan, and Catrin; David, Lili, and Arthur; Anna, Math, Cadell, and Bran; Llywelyn, Gwenllian, Elisa, Padrig, and Meg. Only Cassie and Callum, who should have been with them, were absent. As Llywelyn’s prayer finished, Meg looked at David, who’d been gazing around the table as she had. He leaned across the three little ones on the bench between them and said, “We’ll get them back.”

  “I hardly knew them, and yet I miss them too,” Meg said, not surprised that he’d read her mind. Meg knew that Callum, in particular, was often in David’s thoughts. During Callum’s absence David had personally overseen his earldom of Shrewsbury. “I can’t believe it’s already been two years since you had to leave them there. I hope we see them again one day, though I can’t say I want to be the one who goes to get them.”

  “Cassie and Callum are both survivors,” David said.

  Then he paused. Everyone started spooning food onto trenchers, but David raised his cup and looked down the table to where his father sat. Llywelyn responded with a silent toast, and then David rose to his feet. “I have something to talk to you all about.” He gestured with one hand. “Feel free to keep eating.”

  “We weren’t going to stop,” Ieuan said to general laughter around the table.

  Meg looked up at David and realized that he’d grown serious. After a moment, the other adults realized it too. David glanced at Lili, who nodded her encouragement for whatever he was about to say.

  David cleared his throat. “It’s weird to say I have a dream, but I do. For a while now, I’ve been thinking about what we’re here for and what we’re doing all this for.”

  He paused again. He had everyone’s full attention, even the children. Arthur, his little wooden horse clutched in his fat fist, crawled onto his mother’s lap and stared up at his father.

  “Please don’t laugh, but I’d like to talk to you about—” David took in a deep breath, “—about working towards a United States of Britain.”

  “Thank God!” Bronwen set down her cup. “It’s about time.”

  “I was wondering when you were going to get to that,” Anna said.

  Bronwen held up her hand, palm out, and Anna half-stood to reach across the table and slap it before dropping back into her seat.

  David gaped at them both. “But—”

  “I didn’t say anything earlier because I knew you had enough on your plate,” Anna said. “The whole women’s rights thing has been difficult enough without me bugging you about a bill of rights for everyone.”

  “Well.” David sank back into his chair. “I was afraid to talk about it because I thought it sounded romantic and foolish, even to me, but I guess not.”

  Bronwen leaned forward, her face intent. “It’s off in the future, I get that, but just to say it and to have it as our ultimate goal is important.”

  Anna laughed. “I thought his ultimate goal was world domination?”

  Bronwen grinned at Anna but then waved her hand, dismissing the joke and gesturing around the table. “None of us are in this just to survive. This isn’t about us. Not anymore, if it ever was.”

  Anna nodded. “It’s about changing the world.”

  “You’ve already started by creating the pillars that can support true democracy: universal education, economic independence—” Bronwen ticked off the items on her fingers, “and an impartial government, which includes a system of courts and laws. In England and Wales, all three are in place, if nascent.”

  Ieuan elbowed Math, who was sitting next to him, and said in an undertone, “That’s my wife.”

  Llywelyn had been gazing at David as the women had been speaking, his expression disconcertingly noncommittal, but now he nodded. “You’ve talked of this before to me, son. A constitution and this—” he waved one hand as Bronwen had done, “bill of rights. We already have something like it in Wales and have had since the time of Rhodri Mawr.”

  “And in England too.” David rose to his feet again, leaving the table to pace before the fire, as was his habit. Ever since he’d learned to walk at nine months old, his brain had worked in conjunction with his feet. “Though what England has is very rudimentary—and like the initial ideas produced by the American founding fathers—doesn’t include women or men who don’t own land.”

  Meg, of course, had been on board with his idea before he’d finished his first sentence but now said, “Before we get ahead of ourselves, what do you mean by a United States of Britain?”

  David hesitated in his pacing. “A confederation of states, probably a loose one initially, founded on democratic principles. Probably more along the lines of a parliamentary democracy than the tripartite division of the United States government. I’m not even proposing the elimination of the kingship, though that should be on the table too.”

  “What’s the biggest challenge we face in creating it?” Anna said, ever the practical one.

  David mouthed the word ‘we’ and shook his head. “I was an idiot not to have talked to you all earlier.”

  “You’re not in this alone,” Anna said. “You never have been.”

  David cleared his throat. “I see that now.”

  “One of the barriers has to be the Church,” Bronwen said, getting the discussion back on track. “David is fighting a rearguard action, trying not to undermine the Church’s authority but not being much swayed by it either. As long as Peckham is the Archbishop of Canterbury, he’s in good shape, but if David didn’t have the personal authority he does, he’d have been excommunicated by now. You know he would have. Imagine if they knew he’d never been baptized in the Catholic Church? His only saving grace is that England is flourishing economically and that means income for taxes is higher, for him and for the pope.”

  “The Church wants David to let them prosecute heretics. But other than that, the separation of Church and State in England might be easier to accomplish now than after the Reformation,” Meg said. “Peckham has stood by our acceptance of the Jews.”

  “That’s only because we’ve become the banking capital of the world,” Anna said. “It’s hard to argue with success.”

  “That may be,” David said, “but Aaron is keeping his ear to the ground nonetheless. He’s heard frightening whispers among his kin in recent months.”

  Aaron, a Jewish physician, had befriended Meg when she’d come to the Middle Ages the second time and had helped her to return to Llywelyn. Through his contacts among his co-religionists, Wales—and now England—had become a haven for Jews wishing to practice their religion in peace.

  “I would have said my biggest problems today—not necessarily in order,” David said, “—are the ongoing unrest in Ireland, for which my Norman barons are much to blame; the barons themselves, who own the vast majority of land and resources in England; and the inquisition.”

  Anna nodded. “The Church, like I said. Heretics and Jews aren’t welcome here.”

  “Well,” David said, coming to a halt and facing Anna, “both are welcome here.”

  “Which is going to cause you more problems than you already have if your enemies use prejudice to incite unrest,” Meg said. “Look at Germany.”

  In 1287, a wave of anti-Semitism had swept across Germany, resulting in the murders of hundreds of Jews in a hundred and fifty different towns. In that other world where David wasn’t the King of England, King Edward had expelled the Jews from England in the year 1290. David was hoping that because that expulsion hadn’t happened, other European countries wouldn’t
expel their Jewish people either. David was particularly worried about France where the medieval inquisition had its strongest hold.

  This inquisition, however, wasn’t so much about Jews as about heretics—people who didn’t abide by the doctrines of the Church. David and Llywelyn had welcomed people of all religions and beliefs into Wales and England, and it was driving the Pope crazy that David refused to allow his minions to arrest them.

  “Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” Bronwen said. The Americans around the table nodded. They lived and breathed that quote. Even if America had yet to be colonized, and somehow it might be their descendants rather than their ancestors who would do it, they could never allow themselves to forget where they’d come from.

  Though not as economically and technologically advanced as nineteenth century America, England—with a population of only three million—had room to spare if people were willing to work. And people could work here as well as in France, Spain, or Germany. Recent immigration under David’s benevolent eye had made London a sprawling capital of freewheeling mercantile expansionism.

  Llywelyn lifted a hand. “It may be, then, that this rebellion we’re facing is a blessing in disguise.”

  “How might that be?” Meg didn’t see how war could ever be a blessing.

  David answered for his father, “If my dream is to create a peaceful, united Britain, then fighting a little war now—putting down a small rebellion now, maybe even before it has a chance to gain a real foothold—could send a clear message to every other baron who might be entertaining the idea of fostering a similar revolt.”

  Llywelyn nodded. “You made an example of Valence. We may have to make one of Rhys and Madog too.”

  Before anyone could add to his comment—or in Meg’s case, protest the very idea of a ‘little war’—a knock came at the door to the inner ward. Since Anna was already standing, having risen to retrieve Bran and plop him back into his place on the bench, she went to open the door. Meg craned her neck to see who was asking to be admitted, but she couldn’t see around Anna. Her daughter stood in the doorway for a second, one hand on the frame and the other on the edge of the door, not moving.

  “Who-who are you?” The panic in Anna’s voice had every adult at the table rising to his or her feet.

  “An old friend.” The voice came clearly from beyond Anna. She stepped back, holding out her hands in front of her, her posture stiff. Something wasn’t right. Meg still couldn’t see past Anna to whatever was the problem, but she moved with everyone else to find out.

  As Anna took another step backwards, her hip hit the door, opening it wider and enabling Meg to see beyond her to Rhuddlan’s steward, Alan, who had fallen to his knees on the landing. Meg’s breath caught in her throat as a second man—the tardy Marty—grabbed Alan by the cloak, tugged him to his feet, and shoved him so that he stumbled through the doorway past Anna and into the room. Alan collapsed against the wall a few feet from Meg, bleeding from a gash in his belly.

  And then, the bloodstained blade flashing in his hand, Marty grabbed Anna, dragged her with him into the room, and kicked the door shut behind him.

  Chapter Two

  November 1291

  Anna

  Anna’s family stared at her, and she stared back at them, each individual a dark silhouette against a brilliant background because she was hyperventilating. Mom had been sitting at the near end of the table and was already on her feet by the time Marty—it had to be Marty because who else could be ‘an old friend’?—had spun Anna around and put the knife to her throat. She was the only one who had been close enough to see him stab Alan. The poor steward—a thin, balding man in his mid-forties who hadn’t been prepared to be assaulted with a knife—clutched his hand to his side, bleeding out while everyone stood frozen in shock at the scene and out of fear for Anna.

  David had already been on his feet, since he’d been talking and walking, but he was yards away from where Anna now stood. Although six inches taller, twenty years younger, and far stronger than the somewhat tubby Marty, David couldn’t subdue him from there. Ieuan, his jaw set, put his foot on his seat, prepared to climb over the table to get to Anna. Papa pushed back his chair and stood up, while Gwenllian slipped her hand into Lili’s. Anna wished Lili had her bow because she would have trusted her to put an arrow through Marty’s eye without blinking.

  Anna’s vision narrowed as she looked at each person, and then her gaze lingered on her husband. Math’s face mirrored the horror Anna was feeling. He’d risen to his feet, but as Elisa had crawled into his lap earlier and was now clutching him around the neck, he was frozen too.

  Then Bronwen hurried around the table to crouch in front of the steward. Marty didn’t stop her, but he did edge Anna farther into the room, along the wall away from them. Anna couldn’t move her head enough to see either of them clearly and hoped Alan wasn’t already dead. In the Middle Ages, a knife wound to the gut was rarely anything less than a death sentence.

  Marty looked at Meg and said in American English. “Hello Meg. Long time no see.”

  “Marty, don’t do anything more stupid than you’ve already done.” David advanced slowly, his hands out.

  “Don’t anybody move!” Marty squeezed Anna tighter against him.

  David stopped. Anna’s tongue had stuck to the roof of her mouth. She couldn’t say anything and wouldn’t have known what to say if she could speak. She ran through possible escape moves she could make. But as her sensei had told her so many years ago, when a knife was involved, somebody was going to get cut. And with the blade at her throat, that person was going to be Anna. In addition, after nine years and three pregnancies, she was really out of practice with karate.

  She tried not to look anywhere but at Math. He’d schooled his expression after his initial reaction, and Anna felt her breathing slow to a manageable level in response to his calm face.

  Marty took the knife away from Anna’s throat for two seconds, pointing it at her family before putting it back to her neck. She was forced to raise her chin since the knife was now in a worse place than before, right at the bend where her jawline met her neck. Marty was only a few inches taller than Anna, which meant that if she could move her head forward without cutting her neck on the knife, she could bang the back of her head into his nose. Unfortunately, she hadn’t been prepared when he’d moved the knife from her throat the first time and hadn’t taken advantage of the opportunity he’d given her.

  Mom put out a hand to David to stop him from coming any closer and took a step forward herself instead. She was less of a threat than David—physically, anyway. Otherwise, she was way tougher than she looked.

  “What do you want Marty?” Mom said.

  “What do I want?” Marty let out a laugh. It ended in a gasp that sounded like it had its source in pain—or grief. “I want to go home.”

  Nobody pretended to misunderstand.

  “What about your wife?” Mom said.

  “She’s dead, along with our babe,” Marty said.

  He didn’t have to elaborate. Everyone here, whether born medieval or modern, had lost someone important to them in the last nine years. Anna had lost a child. It seemed Marty had too and wanted no more of the grief that followed.

  “Let Anna go, and we’ll see about getting you home,” David said.

  “Just like that?” Marty laughed again, though his voice was strangely high and, again, the laughter showed more pain than amusement. “You’d take me back if I asked nicely?” Anna sensed him shake his head. “I don’t think so.”

  “How is hurting Anna going to get you home?” Mom said.

  “Oh, I’m not going to hurt Anna unless you make me,” Marty said. “No, what the three of us are going to do is go to those stairs over there and take them up to the tower. You, me, and Anna. Everyone else will stay where they are, or this knife might slip.”

  The children had seen the steward’s wound, so they’d figured out by now that som
ething wasn’t right, even if the rapid exchange of American English had passed the littlest ones by. Though his face was very white, Cadell stood on his bench beside Math and Elisa, his sword out as if he was going to launch himself across the table. Bran had started to cry, so Lili bent to put her arm around him. Anna ached to go to her boys and for this not to be happening.

  “Come with me, Meg.” Marty sidled along the wall towards the stairs.

  Marty wanted the battlement, two stories above. If the family had dined in the great hall today, there would have been guards everywhere, but they’d deliberately sent everyone away so they could speak freely with one another for once without the possibility of being overheard. A terrible mistake.

  “Mom, don’t let him have what he wants.” Anna felt the blade on her neck. She would have given anything for it not to be there. “Without me, he has no leverage. He knows if he kills me, he’ll be dead a second later.”

  “What if I told you I didn’t care?” Marty said.

  The look on Mom’s face told Anna that she believed Marty. Anna did too, and she really didn’t want to die today.

  “It’s okay, Anna.” Mom put out both hands. “Please don’t hurt her, Marty.” Mom was begging. Anna didn’t know enough about the psychology of abduction to know if that was good or bad: if it would embolden him, calm him, make him angry, or make him feel more in control.

  Regardless, Marty kept edging Anna towards the stairs, and Mom followed. Before she passed David, she put a hand on his shoulder and spoke to him in rapid Welsh, which Marty couldn’t understand. Her voice was low enough that Anna couldn’t hear what she was saying. David nodded.

  Fifteen seconds later—far too soon—they reached the stairs. Marty turned Anna around so they both faced the room and Mom. Anna prayed for a stray soldier to come down from the tower, but she doubted any would. David had been very clear in his orders: short of a declaration of war, they weren’t to be disturbed. Nobody disobeyed David.