Children of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book Four) Read online

  I gritted my teeth. Llywelyn was wrong. It was long past time we went, whether he liked it or not.

  With a grunt, Goronwy used a fallen rock as a step up and climbed to the top of the waist-high wall that overlooked the Wye River. He glanced down at me. “Are you coming? It’s not as if this will work if I do it by myself.”

  “Yes, yes, of course I’m coming!” I lifted my skirts so they wouldn’t hinder my legs and scrambled to stand beside Goronwy. I looped the fingers of one hand around Goronwy’s sword belt and found Llywelyn’s hand with the other. Llywelyn no longer protested. With a rush of terror, I realized he had lost consciousness. We had so little time.

  “Mom! What are you doing?”

  I looked back at my son who stood in the doorway to the balcony. My beloved son. I smiled, even as tears returned. “I love you. Give my love to Anna.”

  And with Goronwy at my side, and my arms around Llywelyn, I jumped.

  Chapter Two

  15 November 1288

  David

  I threw myself forward, desperate to stop Mom and Goronwy. But even before I moved, I knew it was too late. They had jumped before I was halfway across the balcony. When I reached the wall from which they’d leapt, I leaned over the edge to gaze down at the rushing water. I prayed to see their heads bob up—and prayed that I wouldn’t.

  I wasn’t a fool. I had asked Mom what was wrong with Dad, but it wasn’t like I couldn’t tell. Dad was having a heart attack and Mom had done what she felt she must in order to save him. I’d done the same for Ieuan three years ago. I could hardly blame her for trying it too. As the water rushed by, I continued to stare. Then Lili’s arm slid around my waist. “What’s going on? I heard you call for Aaron. Did someone fall?” she said.

  I hugged her to me, and then Anna and Math appeared on my other side to peer over the wall with us.

  No heads appeared; nobody sputtered to the surface. The water was moving so fast they might have been a quarter of a mile downstream by now anyway—if they’d hit the water at all. I turned around to see Aaron standing in the middle of the balcony. His face fell as he looked at me. I read sadness—and pity—in his eyes.

  “You knew about this?” I said.

  “Yes,” Aaron said. “Or rather, your mother mentioned the possibility of-of—” he gestured helplessly towards the balustrade at my back, “—if the king’s health didn’t improve.”

  “I didn’t even know he was sick.” I turned to Anna. “Did you?”

  “Are you talking about Papa?” Anna said. “He’s been weaker than Mom and I like, but neither Aaron nor I have been able to put a finger on the problem. Why do you ask—?” Anna cut herself off, her face paling, and then she gazed over the edge of the wall again.

  I looked past Aaron to the cluster of men-at-arms and servants who’d gathered at the entrance to the balcony. I lifted a hand to Evan, who came forward.

  “Send a few men south along the river,” I said. “Even better, go yourself.”

  “What am I looking for?” Evan matched my lowered tone.

  “Bodies in the water.”

  Evan’s jaw clenched. “My lord—”

  I put a hand on his arm, gripping as tightly as my father had gripped my shoulder before he’d fallen, and then eased up. For all that my mother had asked that I live more lightly, I had to contain myself in front of these people. The Prince of Wales was not allowed to burst into tears, no matter what he felt inside. “I don’t expect you to find anyone.”

  Evan’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded, obedient because he couldn’t not be. “Immediately, my lord.” He turned away. When he reached the other onlookers, he made a shooing motion and they allowed themselves to be urged out of the wine cellar and up the stairs to the main part of the castle.

  Then Math was at my side and clenched his fingers around my upper arm. “You sent Evan to look for bodies. Who fell?”

  “Better if we discuss this elsewhere,” I said.

  “We know who, don’t we?” Lili said.

  “Not here.” I wrapped one arm around Anna’s shoulders and the other around Lili’s. “Come with me.”

  I could feel Anna’s silent protest at my refusal to talk, but how was I to say out loud that I’d seen Mom, Dad, and Goronwy jump into the river and disappear, whether into the water or the future? I ran over the events of the last few minutes in my mind and shook my head. They had to have made it. They had to—but I didn’t know for sure.

  Two minutes later, I herded everyone into my office. Math shut the door behind him and stood with his back to it, his fists on his hips. I hadn’t let go of Anna, but now she pulled away and folded her arms across her chest. She glared at me with a mutinous expression. “Tell me.”

  “Dad was having a heart attack …”

  Anna dropped her arms, her anger gone in an instant. In two strides, Math reached her and put his arms around her waist so she could lean against him.

  “… I ran for Aaron and by the time I got back to the balcony, Mom and Goronwy stood on the top of the wall, with Dad in Goronwy’s arms.” I tried to get my mouth to say the words they jumped, but couldn’t get them out. I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes.

  “Did anyone else see them go?” Anna said.

  “No,” I said, “not unless one of the guards noticed from the battlement above.”

  Math leaned over Anna’s shoulder. “You’re assuming they’ve gone to the future, and yet you sent Evan to look for them along the river?”

  “I had to. We have to be sure,” I said.

  “They would have been carried quickly downstream,” Math said. “The most likely spot for them to beach is at that sandbar, a mile to the south.”

  “Only if they’d actually entered the water.” Anna was slowly recovering. She stared at me over hands clasped before her lips. “This is all my fault.”

  My jaw dropped. “How could this possibly be your fault?”

  “I’m the one who thought about climbing to the top of a tower and jumping off it,” Anna said. “Mom and I talked about it.”

  I barked a laugh. “I’m the one who actually did it!”

  But Anna’s eyes had filled with tears. She took a step towards me, Math loosened his grip, and I pulled her close. She wrapped her arms around my waist and sobbed into my shoulder. My own eyes were full of water too. I blinked back the tears. “They went, Anna,” I said. “They made it.”

  Aaron cleared his throat. “My lord, as you guessed when we were outside, your mother discussed with me the possibility that this day might come.”

  “Why didn’t you say something to any of us?” Anna said, her voice muffled in my shirt.

  “Because she swore me to secrecy.” Aaron raised his hands and then let them fall. “I’m sorry.”

  “The last thing she said to me was love to Anna,” I said, which garnered another sob from my sister.

  “So they really meant to go,” Math said. “It couldn’t have been an accident?”

  “Nobody stands above the Wye River by accident,” Lili said.

  Anna released me and returned to Math. I paced to the window and back, running my hand through my hair and trying to think. “We need to discuss what we’re going to do now, before any of us has to face everyone out there.” I waved a hand towards the door, but I really meant everyone. The King of Wales couldn’t disappear and have nobody notice.

  Math nodded. “You’ll have to tell the people something. I’m just not sure what.”

  “Let it be known to those here at Chepstow that your mother took your father to Avalon, for healing,” Lili said, “as you did for Ieuan three years ago.”

  I stopped my pacing and resisted the desire to spit on the floor. Arthur. Again. The legend followed me everywhere. How could I shake it when even my own father talked about it as if it were true? Nobody understood that Arthur’s boots were far too big for me. “We called it the Land of Madoc at that time and it was absurd then. They won’t believe my mother has taken Dad to Avalo—”

  “They will believe it because they want to,” Lili said, “just as they accept you. They want to believe, so they do.”

  My father had said much the same thing. I pursed my lips and stared at the floor, warring with myself, not wanting to admit that what she said would work, and that she might be right.

  “For those who come here inquiring after the King,” Lili continued, “they will learn that he has headed north, to Aber.”

  Math coughed and laughed at the same time. “And those who ask at Aber will be told that he is at Caerphilly.”

  “Meanwhile …” Anna said.

  “Meanwhile, we must pretend that nothing is amiss,” I said.

  “We will have to alter our own plans, however,” Anna said. “Math and I can’t go to England with you.”

  I looked over at her. “Why is that?”

  “Because not only have we lost both our parents, but Gwenllian has too,” Anna said.

  I could have kicked myself for forgetting our half-sister. Thank goodness Anna could keep her head together. I seemed to have lost mine. Anna and Math had been planning to leave their three year old son, Cadell, with Mom, Dad, and Gwenllian while they rode with Lili and me to London. Up until now, I’d been thinking mostly of myself and how I felt. If that was my default under pressure, how could my father think me ready to rule England? First, I needed to rule myself.

  Math nodded. “We can’t leave them alone with only nannies. Think of what might happen!”

  We all had a quiet laugh at that. Gwenllian was a reserved child under most circumstances, but bright. Lately, she’d been mouthing off to Mom in a way I never remembered doing. Mom claimed that Anna had been equally rebellious at this age. It wasn’t as if Gwenllian got away with it, but without Mom
around, and only Bronwen and a few servants to look after both her and the very boisterous Cadell, we might return to find Chepstow Castle in pieces.

  “I want to argue with you, but I can’t.” I turned to Lili. “You don’t have to come, either, if you think it might be better not to. You are pregnant, after all.”

  “As if that ever stopped any of us from traveling wherever we wished to go.” Anna grinned. “She’s in the first trimester and the pony you bought her is as placid as mine.”

  Lili smiled too and the light in her face made my heart ease, just a little. “I learned my lesson months ago,” she said. “You aren’t going anywhere without me.”

  Chapter Three

  15 November 2016

  Meg

  “What the hell, lady! Where’d you come from?”

  Those words, said in perfect American English with the right amount of indignation, had me surging into consciousness. A man with a firm grip on my arm tugged me from the water.

  I swept a hand over my eyes to clear them and found myself staring up at a fifty-something, overweight American in a baseball hat. His body was bare from the waist up and as I struggled to right myself, I understood why my legs had refused to move at first. I had fallen into a swimming pool, an indoor one within a cathedral-like glass atrium, in what appeared to be a fancy hotel. The man had his arm around my waist and was holding me upright.

  The smell of chlorine was so strong it almost had me passing out again. I hadn’t smelled a pool in years. “My husband—”

  “Yeah, yeah, my buddy already called 911 or whatever they call it around here. Actually, I think these guys are always in the building.”

  These guys. How long had it been since I’d heard anyone say that?

  While I struggled against the skirt which hampered my legs, the man dragged me towards the shallow end of the pool. By the time we reached the steps leading out of the water, I managed to get my feet under me and straighten. The water lapped around my thighs.

  And then the urgency I’d felt at Chepstow came rushing back. I swung around, eyes searching. For all his exasperation, the man didn’t waste words. He pointed to where bystanders had laid Llywelyn on his back beside the pool. Goronwy hovered over him. I could hear his sputters in Welsh and it sounded like he was trying to keep everyone away, when he really should be inviting their help.

  “Goronwy! It’s okay.” I surged up the steps and out of the water, my legs moving awkwardly in my sopping wet dress. Contrary to my expectations (if this could have been something I would have expected) the expressions of the onlookers were more amused than stunned or horrified. Aside from the question of how we had appeared out of thin air above the pool, I was about as out of place among the scantily dressed crowd as it was possible to be. I wore a long-sleeved gray kirtle, laced up the front, and my favorite deep red surcoat, now ruined by chlorine. Their eyes saw a frazzled, middle-aged-and-yet-pregnant woman in disarray.

  “Llywelyn.” I gasped his name and fell on my knees beside him. Llywelyn’s eyes were closed, but he was breathing. I looked at Goronwy. “How long was he in the pool?”

  “You mean that?” Goronwy waved a hand at the water. “Not long. It isn’t deep and we only went under for a moment.”

  Three medical personnel burst through the double doors that led to the interior of the hotel and hustled towards Llywelyn. “What happened?” the first of them said as he reached us. He spoke in English, with the lilt of India in his accent. His nametag said, “Dr Raj”. I’d once known a man who had Raj as his first name, but decided it wasn’t the time to ask for clarification. I dearly hoped we hadn’t ended up in New Delhi because that would mean a seriously long journey home.

  “I think he’s having a heart attack,” I said.

  The two other men set up the stretcher, while Dr Raj listened to Llywelyn’s lungs and heart, and my own heart pounded in my throat.

  “What are his symptoms?” Dr Raj said.

  I swallowed. “Sorry.” I had answered his first question completely wrong. I had tried to diagnose Llywelyn, rather than explaining what had happened. “He clutched his chest and felt like he couldn’t breathe. Then he lost consciousness.”

  “Has he complained of feeling ill before this?” Dr Raj said.

  “On and off for months,” I said.

  “Has he woken at all?” Dr Raj said.

  I glanced at Goronwy, whose face was nearly as drawn and pale as Llywelyn’s, and shook my head.

  “How long has he been unconscious?”

  “I—I—I’m not sure …” I searched for words that wouldn’t make me sound insane. “A few minutes? We all fell in the water. Goronwy got him out as fast as he could.”

  Dr Raj nodded. “We’ll take care of him.” One of the attendants had already put an oxygen mask on Llywelyn’s face and the plastic clouded with every breath. Somehow, through all this, Llywelyn had managed to continue breathing. Stay alive! Please keep breathing!

  Dr Raj nodded to his helpers, who loaded Llywelyn onto the stretcher. As they rolled it toward the doors, I trotted beside Llywelyn, holding his hand. The opening wasn’t large enough for me to pass through it with him, so I had to move aside to let the men with the stretcher go ahead of me. Since I had to stop anyway, I took a moment to squeeze water from my dress so I wouldn’t drip all over the interior of the hotel. The puddle I created headed for one of the drains in the concrete pool deck.

  Goronwy had stayed close to me, even as his head swiveled from side to side, taking in his surroundings. His attention, like mine, always came back to Llywelyn, however. I nodded encouragingly to him, although I didn’t feel particularly encouraged myself, before following Dr Raj through the double doors.

  In a few strides, we caught up to the stretcher. We had entered a foyer, perhaps twenty-four by thirty-six feet, with three sets of double doors leading from it. The floor was comprised of white tile and the walls were painted a pale pink and decorated with Impressionist prints.

  “Where are you taking him?” I said.

  The attendants ignored me and rolled Llywelyn through the pair of doors to the left, heading down a tiled hallway which was decorated similarly to the foyer. Dr Raj stayed to answer, though his brow furrowed at the question. “To the infirmary, of course. Our facilities here are state of the art. We’ll take good care of your father.”

  “Of—of course.” I managed not to flush red. “But I must tell you that he’s my husband, not my father.”

  Dr Raj glanced at me and then away again. “I’m sorry. My mistake. Forgive me.” He jerked his head, indicating we should come with him, and hurried after Llywelyn. As I trotted beside Dr Raj, Goronwy stayed just to my left, silent as before and asking no questions I couldn’t answer, for which I was grateful. I couldn’t begin to imagine what he was thinking and feeling right now. I was carrying my emotions only a hair’s-breadth below the surface and didn’t know if I could handle his too, just now.

  Thirty seconds later, we reached the medical clinic, accessed from the corridor through another set of wide double doors. Dr Raj pulled up, though he waved a hand to send the stretcher onward. The attendants bypassed the waiting room and the main desk and pushed Llywelyn into a wide hallway, more sterilely white than the first.

  “If you will wait here,” Dr Raj said, “we will attend to your husband.”

  “But—”

  Dr Raj had already turned away, hustling in the wake of the two attendants. I stared after him, seeing nothing through the blur of tears that filled my eyes. Then the nurse who manned the desk came around from behind it and nudged my arm. “I’ll need you to sign here and here.” Pale-skinned like me, she spoke in English, with a fruity, upper-class English accent.

  Blindly, I took the pen. I gazed at the form. It was in English but I couldn’t make sense of it. I signed on the lines she indicated anyway. “What will they do to him?”

  “Whatever he needs.” The nurse tugged the clipboard from my hand and passed the forms to an orderly, who hurried down the hall after the doctor. “I have more papers that will need your signature, if you would step this way?”