Prince of Time (Book Two in the After Cilmeri series) Read online

  When we got to my car, I got in the driver’s seat while David opened the back door to Ieuan and pointed. “You sit there.”

  Ieuan obeyed, but winked at me as I looked at him through the rear view mirror. It was very strange to see a sixteen-year old boy ordering a man around and that man happily obeying him. David climbed into the passenger side of the front seat and settled beside me, his sword on his lap. He had a self-satisfied grin on his face. Second thoughts, anyone?

  I twisted around to look at Ieuan. He grinned at me too.

  Chapter Nine

  David

  I slouched in my seat. I was utterly delighted that Bronwen was driving us to Bryn Mawr, but I hadn’t really slept in three days and I ached all over. I looked out the window and watched the lights shift past; then closed my eyes, trying to empty my mind so I could rest. I dozed off.

  “My God! No! My lord, no!”

  Aaron slides off his horse and falls to his knees. He’s stopped fifty yards away, having ridden hard from the opening in the trees at the top of the cliff. The path on which he was riding runs east along the cliff edge, 150 yards as the crow flies from where I’m standing, before curving west to the boat. An arrow can fly that distance in one breath.

  I can hear the gulls calling. It almost sounds like they are saying “No! No!” along with me and Aaron. I’ve had the men ready all day, waiting for my lord’s return. As soon as Aaron broke through the trees, they readied their arrows, but it was my lord who appeared, Ieuan cradled in his arms.

  “No! No!”

  He jumps. Unbelievably, he jumps. I see them fall, and then from one instant to the next, they vanish. The men gasp. We’ve all seen it—or not seen it—and none of us can credit our own eyes. I run forward, but before I manage ten paces, English riders appear in the space my lord had occupied. It takes me a moment to comprehend who they are. In those seconds, they mill around the cliff’s edge, as confused as we are. A breath later, I realize they’re easy targets, silhouetted as they are against the trees.

  “Fire!”

  My eight archers release their arrows. Three of the English and two of the horses go down. We will tally the arrows later and the three men that missed will find themselves chastened.

  I lead the chase up the cliff, collecting Aaron on the way. “Mother of Christ, Aaron! What has happened?” I say.

  “My God, my God,” he replies. “I know what has happened, but I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I saw it with my own eyes.”

  I grab the front of his jersey and pull him to me. “By all that is holy, tell me what has happened to the Prince!”

  I look into Aaron’s eyes, and see first the fear, and then the compassion, and I am chastened myself. I release him.

  “He has gone to the land of Madoc, Bevyn,” Aaron tells me, as we gaze down at the bodies of the dead English soldiers that litter the cliff edge, and the rocks below. “He has taken Ieuan with him. I don’t know how, but I can guess why—to save his life, for I heard Ieuan’s cry and my lord’s shout. An English arrow must have hit him.”

  I hear Aaron’s words, but they make no sense. How could the Prince travel to the Land of Madoc by jumping off a cliff?

  We stare again at the downed men and horses at our feet, and then over edge. The rocks are jagged at the base of the cliff, and two of the Englishmen have fallen on them. Some of my men are slowly picking their way to the bottom, hoping to find the body of their prince to prove what they saw false. I know that at the same time they are hoping not to find him. I’m hoping too, because if he has fallen, he is dead. If he lives, as Aaron says, in another land, he can come back to us; rise again, as another Arthur…

  Arthur, Arthur, Arthur. I jerked awake, with the name ringing in my head. I glanced around, seeing the car and the darkness outside my window, and realized I must have dreamt as I dozed. Already the dream was fading—it was something about jumping off the cliff? And Bevyn? It was no use. The images were gone.

  I came more awake, then, and realized that Ieuan and Bronwen were in the midst of a conversation. Bronwen said, “Would you like to drive the car, Ieuan?”

  “No!” I intervened, shooting upright.

  “My lord!” Ieuan said. “It’s a chance of a lifetime!”

  “You can drive the van, once we get back to Wales, Ieuan, once your ribs have healed.” Then to Bronwen, “You have no idea what you’re offering,” I said.

  Bronwen looked at me, grinned, and then glanced at Ieuan through the rear-view mirror. They shrugged in unison. Satisfied, I settled back into my seat. It actually felt really great to be moving so quickly, but not be on the back of a horse.

  Bronwen spoke. “So, what are you thinking, right now.”

  I could just feel Ieuan shifting uncomfortably at the way Bronwen spoke to me. I kind of liked it actually. She wasn’t going to defer to me, and even if someone suggested it, she couldn’t imagine why she should.

  “I was thinking about the chair I’m sitting in, actually,” I said. “I haven’t sat in a comfortable chair for three years. The thirteenth century doesn’t have any comfortable chairs, even for a prince.”

  Bronwen laughed. “This is a cheap car, too,” she said. “I have an uncle who just bought a new one. It’s nicer than my apartment. Of course, almost anything would be nicer than my apartment.”

  Ieuan spoke from the back seat. “I’m thinking about your men, my lord,” he said. “The English were chasing all three of us. Aaron was some distance ahead. Did he escape the riders to reach the boat? Did the men see you jump and then vanish, my lord, with me over your shoulder?”

  His words made my head itch, as if I should remember something about that. Instead, I said, “I’ve been trying to imagine what they must be thinking, Ieuan, what they would decide to do. I have to trust that Bevyn will know what is right, but it’s frustrating to be so helpless.”

  “If they sailed on the tide, my lord,” Ieuan said, “they still won’t reach Wales for another day or two.”

  “And what will happen to them?” Bronwen asked. “What will they tell your father?” I could hear the worry in her voice and it heartened me.

  “Believe it or not, if the men saw us disappear from the cliff face, Father will be less worried than if we’re just missing in action,” I said. “He knows the whole story, so my family will suspect that what happened is exactly what did happen.”

  “He won’t punish Bevyn?”

  I turned to look at her, puzzled, but Ieuan understood her question.

  “I don’t know what you’ve read about our time in your books,” he said, “but we are a civilized people, with a civilized Prince. He wouldn’t punish Prince Dafydd’s men for something that wasn’t their fault.” His voice was low, deep, and very deliberate.

  Bronwen met Ieuan’s eyes in the mirror, and then switched back to the road. “I’m sorry, Ieuan. I didn’t mean to malign your prince. It is true, however, that many of the rulers in the Middle Ages behaved just as I described, including King Edward of England, whom your father is fighting.”

  I turned my head to look out of the window. “Not anymore,” I said, under my breath. I hadn’t told her at the pizza place about the meeting at Lancaster, because I couldn’t quite admit to Edward’s death, afraid it might be the last straw that made her walk away from us.

  “What?” Bronwen asked.

  “Edward is dead, Bronwen,” Ieuan said. “He was poisoned in his own tent a week ago.”

  Bronwen looked at me. “Really?”

  “Yes,” I said. “He attacked me in his own pavilion, but fell ill before he could finish the fight. That was why we were in England—to meet with him. The Archbishop of Canterbury wanted to encourage peace between Wales, Scotland and England. We weren’t gallivanting around the countryside for the fun of it.”

  “So the English know you were involved?” she asked. “Is that why they shot at you?”

  “Well, not exactly,” I said.

  Ieuan’s mouth turned wry. “We don’
t know, Bronwen,” he said. “We weren’t involved directly in Edward’s death, and at the time thought that by leaving the area immediately afterwards, we’d escaped anyone’s attention.”

  “We heard in Carlisle that the English think I’m dead too,” I added, “so we don’t know why Falkes cared enough about us to pursue us across Scotland.”

  “And we don’t know what’s going to happen now,” Ieuan said.

  “It’s going to be a time of great upheaval,” I said. “With Edward dead, who claims the English throne? His eldest son, who is just over a year old, inherits. But you know as well as I that inheriting the throne and claiming it are two entirely different things.”

  “Hereford,” Ieuan growled. He used the same tone every time he mentioned the name. Everything always comes back to Humphrey de Bohun.

  I leaned my head against the headrest. “Hereford,” I repeated. “He won’t claim the throne, but while the cat’s away, the mouse will play.”

  “Some mouse,” Ieuan said.

  “Do I get to ask who Hereford is?” Bronwen said.

  “He is a lord of the Marche as well as Lord High Constable of England,” Ieuan answered. “His full name is Humphrey de Bohun. The Welsh have suffered for generations under the Earl of Hereford’s boot, whoever he may be.”

  “He’ll take advantage,” I said. “Edward’s death alone is a huge gift to him—but coupled with the deaths of half of the nobility of the Marche, plus mine, will only serve his interests. If I didn’t know the true story, I would’ve guessed that Hereford himself colluded with Jacob to kill everyone.”

  “Carew will tell your father what happened in the pavilion,” Ieuan said. “Even without us there, the Prince will know what to do and how to prepare for it. He is in a much stronger position than he was, even a year ago.”

  “What will he do?” Bronwen asked, trying to follow along.

  David let a breath hiss through his teeth. “Prepare for war,” he said.

  Chapter Ten

  Bronwen

  “Prepare for war,” David said.

  No matter how impossible, improbable, and outright ridiculous it was to think it, David thought he was a Prince of Wales. He sat in my car and talked about war with the Earl of Hereford, dead for nearly seven hundred and fifty years, as if it could happen tomorrow. To him, it could happen tomorrow!

  We drove for a while in silence, each with our own thoughts. Eventually, the sky began to lighten, and I pulled off the highway and into a McDonald’s restaurant. We all ordered, and as usual, I paid. I thought they’d eaten a lot of pizza, but I’ve never seen any men eat as much in one sitting as those two did. Ieuan ordered another root beer and this one was super large. I worried about his teeth. If Ieuan really was from the thirteenth century, he didn’t have a lot of familiarity with sugar. But that is probably why both he and David ordered hot fudge sundaes ‘to go’. I was surprised they were even on the menu at breakfast, but maybe there was a market for them, beyond my two lunatic companions.

  We pulled into the long driveway that led to David’s aunt’s house a little after 7:30 in the morning. Elisa opened the door to us. She had blonde hair, David’s blue eyes, and was dressed professionally in a tailored suit with heels, making her five inches taller than I was instead of three.

  “Hi, Aunt Elisa,” David said, leaning against one of the porch pillars. He kept a few feet away, so as not to appear threatening. He and Ieuan had also left their swords in the car, which I thought was probably a good thing.

  Elisa stood frozen in the doorway, her eyes fixed on David’s. She must have seen something in them, because she didn’t slam the door immediately.

  “Who are you?” Elisa asked.

  “It’s David, Auntie,” he said, “all grown up.”

  Silence. David didn’t fill it. Elisa was immobile as she regarded him. Her eyes traveled from the top of his head, down to his boots, and back again.

  “She’s not Anna,” Elisa said, flicking a glance at me.

  “No, Aunt Elisa,” David said. “This is my friend, Bronwen Llywelyn.”

  I stuck out my hand. “Hi,” I said.

  Elisa’s good manners were ingrained, because she took my hand and shook it.

  “May we come in?” David asked.

  Elisa took a step back, no longer meeting David’s eyes. “I have to go to work. Can you come back later?”

  A look passed over David’s face. Impatience, I thought. “Aunt Elisa,” he said, “we have nowhere to go. I have news of Mom and Anna. Please let us in. We won’t be any trouble.”

  Suddenly Elisa’s face crumpled. “Is it really you, David? Can it really be you?”

  David stepped forward, his shoulder pushing the door open wider, and Elisa moved into his arms. She wrapped her arms around his waist and sobbed into his neck. I couldn’t see his face, but he bent his head and rested his cheek on the top of her head.

  “I’m sorry to surprise you this way. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Slowly recovering, wiping the tears on her cheeks, Elisa let us inside the house. As we followed her into the living room, she gripped David’s arm so tightly her knuckles were white. Everyone grieved in a different way. Hers was suddenly sharp and new all over again. I didn’t know what that was like. I never had any siblings and it wasn’t like I was close to my parents.

  Elisa pulled David to a seat beside her on her coach. It was yellow, with green and blue flowers, and David looked incongruous there in his war gear. Ieuan and I took chairs opposite but her eyes were only for David. She clutched both his arms. “Why are you dressed this way?”

  David put his own hands on her shoulders, but didn’t speak, and it occurred to me that he hadn’t thought this through further than arriving in Bryn Mawr. How do you tell your Aunt that her sister isn’t dead but living in the Middle Ages as the Princess of Wales?

  “Auntie,” David finally said. “I want to explain, but I can’t think of any good way to do it.”

  “Just tell me,” she said.

  David took a deep breath and let it out. “When Anna and I took your van to pick up Christopher,” David said, “we crossed a barrier into another time, specifically into thirteenth century Wales. When Mom disappeared a year ago, she also traveled there. I don’t know how it is possible, or why, only that it happened. We are all well, but living in another world, one I need to get back to as soon as possible.”

  Elisa stilled and then released him. She put her hand to her mouth, her nose pinched and her face white.

  “What are you saying?” she asked, anger in her voice. “Why are you telling me this?”

  As her words were painfully similar to the ones I’d fired at him, I understood what she was feeling, and thought I could help. “Elisa,” I began. “Please listen to him. I know this is hard to hear, but proof of his words is before you. David is here. He has so much more to explain to you and I believe that he’s telling the truth.”

  Elisa stood and stepped to look out the bank of windows that opened to the rear of her house. Two French doors led to a patio. She leaned her forehead on the glass and fiddled with the lock with one hand. Then, she fisted the other and raised it above her head to pound it against the door. The glass didn’t break, but Elisa did.

  “I can’t . . .” she began. “I can’t do this.” She turned on her heel, both fists clenched at her sides though her anger was contradicted by the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Just...just. . . stay here. Make yourself at home.” And then she was running from the room, her head down, refusing to look at David again. Her heels staccatoed on the slate in the hall, keys tinkled as she grabbed them off the table by the door, and then the front door opened and closed behind her.

  David sat in silence, his head turned in the direction she’d gone. Then he stood and went to the door. I reached him just as he opened it, in time to see his Aunt speed away up the driveway in her car. He turned to us. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know how to tell her, and now I don’t know wh
at to say to you.”

  “Give her some time,” Ieuan said. “She’s gone to collect herself. She’ll be back.”

  David nodded, shrugged, and closed the door. I looked from one to the other, saddened by Aunt Elisa’s grief, but also appalled by the men’s complacency. Yet, perhaps they were right, and I hoped, like me, she’d come home willing to listen.

  * * * * *

  Make yourself at home. The words resonated in my head. I regret to say, David and Ieuan did make themselves at home, with enthusiasm. I hadn’t known that a shower could make a person as happy as the one in Elisa Shepherd’s house made Ieuan. He was truly a kid in a candy store. Everything was exciting to him: the food; television; books; floors; cleaning products. He overlooked nothing in that whole house in his explorations. David just let him do what he wanted.

  “Ieuan is one of the smartest, most curious men I know,” David said in an aside to me. “Let him be. He’ll wring from this every possible experience he can, and then return to Wales, grateful for the chance to have seen it.”

  David, for his part, spent most of the day on Elisa’s computer. I poked my head into the office every now and then. He was friendly, but absorbed in whatever he was doing and at first I left him to it. I kept thinking that I should go back to Penn State, but I told myself that I was too tired; that the drive was too long on no sleep. I went back to Ieuan. He was sitting on the couch, his hand resting lightly on his bandages; perhaps his ribs hurt him more than he’d admitted. He held the remote control in his hand and as David had taught him, flipped through the channels.

  I sat beside him, finding myself a corner of the couch in which to curl up.

  “The colors aren’t true,” he said, glancing over at me.

  “Excuse me?” I asked.