Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) (4 page)

“Get your men out of the hold if they will
come,” David said.

Callum went to the trap door and lifted it
up. At the start of the journey, his men had insisted on staying in
the hold, but now a tall Saxon named John scrambled up the ladder.
“The hull is breached! We’ll drown if we stay down there.”

“Unfortunately, we’re already drowning up
here,” Callum said.

Several more soldiers came out of the hold,
though not all of them. Callum stuck his head through the trap
door. “Come on, men!”

“We’re going to die!”

“I can’t swim!”

Callum reached a hand down and hauled two
more men out before another huge wave swamped the cog and poured
water into the hold. Those he’d rescued scuttled to the stern and
huddled there with the crew.

David, meanwhile, had pulled out his belt
knife and begun working at the ropes that bound the horses.

“What are you doing?” Callum said.

“I’m turning the horses loose. They should
have a better chance of surviving out there than on the ship.”

Callum would have helped him, but at that
moment Cassie screamed and clung to the rail as the plummeting ship
swept her off her feet. Callum leapt towards her, catching her
around the waist with one arm and gripping the rail with the other.
As the ship climbed back up out of the trough, he tied the other
end of Cassie’s rope around his own waist to link himself to her.
If a wave sent them overboard, they could more easily find each
other—and save each other—if they were attached together. Callum
continued to keep her between him and the rail, both of them
hanging on for dear life.

The first mate joined David with the horses,
cursing as one of them reared and flailed his hooves. Callum
glanced down the deck to his men and was horrified to see fewer of
them than before. With the horses finally gone, David returned to
where Cassie and Callum cowered by the rail. He grabbed the end of
their rope, wound it around his own waist, and then urged them
towards the mast.

“David, what exactly are you doing?” Cassie
said.

“Saving us, I hope!”

“How is tying us to the mast saving us. The
ship is sinking!” Cassie was soaked from head to foot. Rain
streamed down her face, and she swept a sodden lock out of her
eyes.

“What about everybody else?” Callum
said.

“I don’t think they want to go where we’re
going,” David said, “and I couldn’t ask it of them, even if I could
control what happens next.”

“What happens next—” Cassie stopped speaking
at the look David gave her.

David remained focused on tying the rope to
the mast, and then he cinched it tight one last time. “If this
turns out like I fear it might, it would be better if we took the
ship with us.”

“With us?” The words caught in Callum’s
throat. For months, up until the day he and Cassie met, in fact,
he’d longed for this moment. Now that it might finally be here,
however, he was terrified. He pulled Cassie close, wrapped his arms
tightly around her, and managed a few words. “Hang on to me.”

The three of them huddled together on the
deck. With each wave the ship dove and came up like it was climbing
a mountain. Cassie peered past Callum to shout at David one more
time. “Do you really think that we’ll return—”

That was all she got out, because David
suddenly stood and faced north, taking the full weight of the storm
in his face. To Callum, he had the look of Odysseus, tied to the
mast lest he follow the siren song to his death.

“Is this really happening?” Cassie’s voice
caught on the last word.

“Yes,” David said.

The ocean seemed to open up in front of
them; they fell into yet another giant trough, and as they came up
the other side, the water rose with them. Callum curled himself
around Cassie’s head and shoulders. But even as he tried to protect
her, he was in the water—and then he was water. He couldn’t
breathe; the world went black all around him for a long count of
three, and then—

With a
thud
, he landed flat on his
back on the deck, with Cassie on top of him and all of the air gone
from his lungs. Callum gasped for breath and then ran his hands up
and down Cassie’s back, willing her to be unhurt. He breathed
easier when she opened her eyes. Her wet hair had come loose from
her braid and formed a veil over his face. He swept a length of it
aside. The sun was a bright circle overhead in a nearly cloudless
sky.

Had they really—?

Someone sputtered beside him and Callum
turned his head to see David sprawled beneath the mast, shaking
with laughter.

September, 2017

David

D
avid pushed up
onto his elbows and looked over at Callum and Cassie. They were
both conscious, thank God, though Callum was staring at him as if
by laughing he proved he’d lost his mind. Given that they’d just
time-traveled from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, he
didn’t think anyone should blame him for being a little punchy.
Nonetheless, he quit laughing. His stomach clenched at the
magnitude of the distance that now lay between him and Lili and
Arthur, but as soon as the thought of them came into his head, he
brutally crushed it. The only thing that would return him to them
was to face full on the reality of his present circumstance.

His immediate concern, beyond the fact of
their location, was the precarious condition of the ship. Looking
down the deck, it appeared that they no longer
had
a stern
at all, which would explain why none of his men or the ship’s crew
had time-traveled with them. The cog must have split in two on its
way to sinking.

The loss of half the cog was daunting, and
David hoped they weren’t going to sink to the bottom just yet. The
cog was riding relatively flat, though with a definite (and
disconcerting) tilt downward from where they lay to the water,
which lapped ominously at the ragged boards twenty feet away. He
was pleased to see that the storm had never happened in this
world—or if it had happened in 1289, it didn’t matter in the
slightest to the sunny morning in 2017 they were currently
experiencing.

“I’d ask what happened, but—” Cassie rolled
off Callum and sat up, allowing him to pop up between her and
David. Neither man said anything, and Cassie finished her thought,
“—I guess at this point it’s pretty clear.” She looked over at
David. “You could have been a little less opaque.”

“
Time travel
is still hard for me to
say out loud, even after all the times it’s happened,” David said.
“And I could have been wrong. We could have just drowned.”

Even as he spoke, the cog tipped a bit more
towards the stern. Instinctively, the three of them scurried
backwards like crabs, trying to bring the damaged ship back into
balance.

“I can’t believe you brought us back,”
Cassie said.

“Not on purpose, I assure you,” David said.
“If prior experience is anything to go by, this is September 2017,
but I don’t recognize our location. What do you think?” He studied
the stretch of land half a mile away and wondered if they could
swim the distance if the cog decided within the next minute or two
to sink to the bottom. “At least it’s green.”

“I know where we are. That’s the Pennarth
head, near Cardiff.” Callum made this comment without any
inflection in his voice.

The shape of the bluff, now that David had a
chance to study it, was definitely familiar. They’d sailed out of
Cardiff harbor not twelve hours ago, so David had seen it then. But
the adjacent pier and the six-to-ten story buildings lining the
esplanade were not familiar. There was no mistaking that they
weren’t in the Middle Ages any more.

Now that his initial laughter had faded, a
heavy weight came to rest on David’s heart. He glanced at his
friends, sensing that they weren’t feeling exhilaration either. For
all that both Cassie and Callum had confessed more than once the
desire to return to the modern world, actually returning was
something else entirely. Now that they were here, they seemed more
stunned than anything, and neither smiled. For David’s part, he was
disgusted. He really didn’t have time for this.

“I know that we’ve been here for two
minutes, and it’s probably too early to make any decisions or even
think about the logistics of getting back, but you have to know
that I’m already thinking about it. I’m giving myself two days
here, and then we’re gone—or I’m gone, if you don’t want to come. I
don’t think I have to tell you that my preference would be for you
to stay with me—to return with me—but you’ll have to make your own
decision when the time comes.”

When neither Cassie nor Callum responded
immediately, David added, “Not to be overly formal, Callum, but as
of this moment, I release you from my service.”

“That’s not—” Callum cut himself off with a
glance at Cassie, who swung her gaze away from the shoreline to
look at David.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course we’re coming
back with you.” Cassie brushed her hands together and stood up.

David pushed to his feet too, clutching at
the mast as he found himself swaying—not from the motion of the
cog, but from the lack of motion. His body had grown used to the
rise and fall of the ship, and the current calmness of the Bristol
Channel was confusing his inner ear. “I’m really sorry about this,
guys.”

Cassie looked up at him. The sun was shining
above his head, so she put up a hand to block the light. “What are
you sorry for?”

“Not giving you fair warning,” David said.
“I tied that rope around you and didn’t say
I think we’re about
to be transported to the modern world. Let me know if you don’t
want to come.
It was selfish of me, but I didn’t want to end up
here alone. So I made it so you’d come with me if I did.”

“If the choice was between drowning and—”
Cassie broke off again, swallowing hard.

“I can’t say I’m sorry either, given that
alternative.” Callum took the hand Cassie offered him and got
laboriously to his feet, rubbing at his right hip as if it
hurt.

David gazed beyond the ship, which seemed to
be making its slow way into shore on its own, since the pier looked
a little bit closer than before. Perhaps the tide was going in. The
three of them stood side-by-side on the slowly sinking cog and
thought about what to do next.

“We’ll be all right, Callum,” Cassie
said.

“I know we will.” Callum wrapped his arms
around her, and they held on for a few seconds before parting with
a kiss that David tried not to see. They continued to hold hands,
and David felt awkward standing beside them during their marital
moment. He cleared his throat, but Callum spoke before David could
think of something to say. “Why do we have only two days?”

“Gilbert de Clare will know about the storm.
Ships get blown off-course often in the Irish Sea, so he won’t
think too hard about it if we’re late by a few hours or even a
day,” David said. “But once the storm ends, he’ll want to see our
ships sailing into port sooner rather than later. He won’t know if
the reason for the wait is because we delayed our departure from
Wales or because we drowned.”

Callum nodded. “Clare has the authority to
hold the men together for a little while. But the longer you’re
missing, the more the uncertainty. He and Humphrey de Bohun will
consider the consequences of your death for two days. After that
...”

“After that, the race back to London begins.
Before you know it, England will have a new king,” David said.

“You’ve thought a lot about this,” Cassie
said. “Do you have a plan for getting back?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you think you
can
get us back?”
Cassie said.

“I brought you here, didn’t I? I’m willing
to bet my own life on the assumption that I can,” David said. “It’s
up to you to decide if you are willing to risk your life at the
chance.”

“I don’t know what to tell you.” Callum
didn’t look at him. “If you had to come here, through no fault of
your own, I’m not sorry you brought us along, but I can’t think
about going back just yet.”

“That’s okay,” David said. “I’m not going
back right this second, and a lot depends on what Her Majesty’s
Coastguard is planning to do with us.” David pointed towards a ship
that had just rounded Pennarth Head, coming from Cardiff, and was
cutting its way through the Bristol Channel towards them. Above it,
a helicopter flew low, also headed in their direction.

“Already?” Cassie said.

“We are listing rather badly,” David
said.

“I’ll handle this,” Callum said.

“How?” Cassie said. The cutter was coming on
fast. The closer it got, the tinier the cog seemed in
comparison.

“I’m still a member of the Security Service,
aren’t I?” Callum said. The Security Service (known to Americans as
MI-5) was the government agency for which Callum had been working
ten months ago when he’d thrown his arms around Llywelyn’s knees
and fallen from the balcony at Chepstow Castle, inadvertently
hitching a ride to the Middle Ages.

Cassie blinked at Callum’s words, but David
laughed and said, “I knew I brought you along for a reason.”

“We’d better get our stories straight,”
Callum said.

“We should tell the truth,” David said.

“The truth? What do you mean
the
truth?
” Cassie shook her head vehemently. “You’ve got to be
kidding me.”

“I’m not.” David gestured to Callum. “Isn’t
it the truth that you were following orders when you tried to
apprehend my mother and father at Chepstow?”

“I was.” Callum’s brow furrowed.

“Then it’s also the truth that you continued
to serve your country the best way you could, which meant staying
close to me. At the first opportunity, you returned to the
twenty-first century with the time-traveling King of England in
tow.”