Children of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book Four) (19 page)

Llywelyn sighed. “I do. I always did, even when I was arguing with him about it. Maybe it’s not possible for me ever to understand him, not having grown up in your world, or lived here long. If I have my way, we won’t stay another day. But I’m not sorry you brought me here. It’s given me the opportunity to see what’s inside you—and him—more clearly.”

He kissed me again and then pulled open the car door while I walked around to the other side. Before we sat in the car, he and I exchanged a long look, and then he canted his head. “All will be well,
cariad
, regardless of how this turns out.”

I nodded. No matter what happened, no matter how long we were stuck in the twenty-first century, he and I were each other’s constant. We were in this together, and neither death—nor time—was going to part us.

Chapter Fifteen

19 November 2016

Meg

I
pulled into the parking lot outside of Chepstow Castle at four in the morning. Llywelyn peered through the windscreen. The rain that had fallen unrelentingly since Ystwyth had tapered off in the last few minutes. With two more sweeps of the wipers, the windscreen cleared.

“It doesn’t look too bad.” Llywelyn meant the castle, not the weather. In fact, in the years I’d been with him, both when I was younger and more recently, I’d never heard him complain even once about the weather. He only cared about it if it impacted his current plans or strategy.

“In this world, we never took it,” I said. “Chepstow was fortified until the 1600’s, when the government deliberately made it indefensible.”

“What could possibly have motivated them to do that?” Llywelyn said.

I ran a hand across my eyes. “The English crown has had its ups and downs in the last seven hundred years. There was a period in the 1600’s when parliament deposed the king and a man named Oliver Cromwell ran the country.”

“Ahh,” Llywelyn said. “Like Simon de Montfort in the Barons’ war.”

“Cromwell was more righteous about it, I think, and believed he was chosen by God,” I said. “Under his oversight, Parliament executed the king and abolished the monarchy.”

“Where was Wales in this?” Llywelyn said.

 “Mostly supporting the king.” I smirked. “Ironic, I know.”

“At what hour can we enter the castle?” Goronwy said.

“If Chepstow is like other castles I’ve been to, nine o’clock in the morning.” I started the car again. “We should try to sleep until then if we can. We’ll need to buy the life jackets too, before we go in. And maybe get a good breakfast and some provisions. We never know where we’re going to end up, and if it turns out to be like what happened to me the last time, our location could be remote.” I pulled out of the parking space and back onto the street.

“Where are we going?” Llywelyn said.

“We shouldn’t park so close to the castle,” I said. “It’s too conspicuous if someone is looking for us.”

“Someone
,” Goronwy said.

“How could the government possibly know where we’ll be?” Llywelyn said.

“You forget, Llywelyn. They have Ted,” Goronwy said.

Llywelyn nodded. “I do forget. He wouldn’t stand up well to any pressure. A few well-placed punches or a broken finger and he’d talk.”

“He did leave us his keys,” Goronwy said. “Maybe he’s stronger than we think.”

I coughed a laugh. “We call such questioning
torture
, and it’s illegal in this time.” At Llywelyn’s scowl, I added, “not that it doesn’t happen. Even so, you’re right that Ted might still not understand the gravity of our situation. I can see that if his friend were present, Ted wouldn’t see a problem with mentioning that we arrived here by jumping off the balcony at Chepstow.”

I found a parking space on a one-way street a few blocks from the castle, among a line of other cars parked for the night. I showed Llywelyn how to lean back his seat.

“How are you, Llywelyn?” Goronwy rested against the duffel which he’d propped up against the door as an improvised pillow.

“Four days ago, I was sure I was going to die.” Llywelyn reached for my hand. “You saved my life, and I am glad to have finally seen your world. But now I can’t get home fast enough.”

I leaned over and kissed his cheek. Then I handed him a water bottle and one of the antibiotics from the prescription I’d filled shortly before Ted had arrived. “Take this and go to sleep. We have a few hours until the castle opens.”

I intended to stay awake myself, to keep watch, but the next thing I knew, Llywelyn was pushing at my shoulder. He held my car door open and crouched on the curb. My tongue had stuck to the roof of my mouth so I grabbed the water bottle from the cup holder and took a quick swig. “What’s wrong?” I twisted in my seat to see Goronwy getting out of the car with the duffel on his shoulder.

“The men in the black vehicles are here,” Llywelyn said.

“What?” I straightened and grabbed Llywelyn’s hand so he could help me out of the car. I was too pregnant to easily haul myself out of a low-slung vehicle in a hurry. “You saw them?”

Llywelyn nodded. “I walked over to the castle.”

“You did what?” The panicky feeling Llywelyn’s words had given me wasn’t lessening. “Llywelyn—”

Llywelyn pulled me into his arms. “I’m fine. They didn’t see me.”

I breathed in and out, my forehead in his chest. I calmed and made room for thinking. “How many vehicles?”

“Three, with three men apiece sitting inside.”

We are in deep trouble
. I thought the words but didn’t say them. Why bother? My men were prepped as if for battle, and they’d lived through far more real battles than I. Even so, I wiped the car for prints the best I could. If the men who were hunting us found it, they would know without further inspection who had driven it here, but I wouldn’t make it easy for them. As it was, they’d be looking for us earnestly enough. I wasn’t even sure that leaving the vehicle at all was the right course of action, but if we stayed inside it, we were sitting ducks.

“We could go somewhere else,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be here.”

“It does,” Llywelyn said. “I feel it.”

I stared at him. It wasn’t unusual for him to admit to a feeling that influenced his actions. He’d won battles by listening to that inner surety that he couldn’t rationally explain, rather than to his advisors. In fact, that first night I was with him, twenty years ago, could be ascribed to him going with his gut rather than what made sense.

So I didn’t argue with him.

I checked the car a last time. I’d left the keys on the seat and the windows rolled down in the hope that someone would steal it and put our pursuers off our trail. That we had pursuers at all continued to boggle my mind. Regardless of whether or not we jumped from the balcony today, we couldn’t come back to this car. According to the car’s clock, it was only 7:30—light, but the heavy cloud cover kept it from being bright.

“We should find some food,” I said.

Llywelyn rubbed my arms, then took my hand and we started walking. I looked up at him as we strolled down the street, heading for the river. “What are you doing?” I said.

“Walking with you,” he said.

“I know that, but you never hold my hand. Ever.”

Llywelyn lifted his chin to point to a couple ahead of us. “I’m fitting in.”

Which was the truth. He wore his cloak and sword, but the couple ahead of us was dressed more like him than me, and when we turned at the intersection, we encountered five more people in period costume. It dawned on me what was going on. “They’re re-enactors,” I said.

“They’re what?” Llywelyn said.

“They work at the castle,” I said, suddenly excited. “We should stick with them.”

“It appears that you and I should put back on the clothes in the duffel,” Goronwy said.

The people ahead of us headed towards a restaurant that had a sign out front advertising hot breakfasts all day long. With a shrug, I turned into the porch and ducked through the door.

The place was packed with a mix of people—all ages, sizes, colors—most of whom were dressed in medieval garb.

“Nice cloak!” A man bumped into Llywelyn, who turned.

Llywelyn didn’t understand the English, but nodded and smiled. I leaned in. “What time do we have to be at the castle?”

“Half eight,” the man said. Then he pointed a finger at me and cocked his head. “You’re American?”

“Yes,” I said. “We’ve come a long way for this.”

“Me too!” He stuck out his hand and suddenly his accent was Midwestern. “Don Jones. We make a special trip every year so we can participate.”

“It’s an odd time of year for it,” I said, still trying to gauge if this was something specific to Chepstow Castle, or part of the Society for Creative Anachronism.

The man shrugged. “You can get cold and rainy any time of year in Wales.”

Which was, of course, the truth. Don looked from me to Goronwy, who seemed to understand what the man was thinking without him speaking, because he hoisted the duffel higher on his shoulder.

“If you’ve got your gear with you, you should get dressed,” Don said. “The organizers won’t admit anyone without a costume. They have a back room for that over there.” At my look of surprise, he added, “we’ve been coming here for many years.”

“Great.” I gestured to Goronwy and Llywelyn and went with them to where Don pointed. I opened the door to find a dozen people in various stages of undress. A few glanced at us as we entered, but our presence didn’t spark any particular interest.

Goronwy bent his head and I could tell he was trying not to look at the women. “We get dressed all together?”

“Sorry.” I tipped my head towards the far wall. “You can go behind one of the screens.”

Llywelyn clapped a hand on Goronwy’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”

Amusingly less worried about modesty than the men, I stripped off my pants and shirt in front of God and everyone, and stepped into my shift. After a minute of watching me struggle into my dress and surcoat, one of the other women smiled and came over. “Let me help.”

“Thank you.” I didn’t tell her that I never dressed myself anymore and these dresses weren’t designed for me to do so. Oddly, I found myself happy to be back in my medieval clothing. When I first put on the pants I’d bought at the boutique at the spa, they had felt comfortable, and certainly familiar. But I liked how the clothing swished around my ankles and enjoyed the warmth of wearing so many layers. As I belted my knife around my nonexistent waist, I wasn’t sure how the other enactors might feel about us wearing actual weapons, but if we didn’t unsheathe them, they wouldn’t know if they were rubber or real.

“What should we do with the bag?” Goronwy said when he and Llywelyn came around from behind the screen. Goronwy looked much more fit and comfortable in his old clothes.

“Leave it here,” I said. “Is there anything in it we’re going to need?”

“Not if we make it home,” Llywelyn said. “What about the present you bought for Bronwen?”

I smiled and patted the purse at my waist. “I have her lip balm here, along with your pills.”

“So, can we eat?” Goronwy said.

We pushed through the crowd and found a table vacating as we approached it. We sat in the booth, Llywelyn beside me, and Goronwy alone on the opposite bench. Goronwy fingered the condiment tray with its display of ketchup, salad cream, and vinegar. This was a more upscale tea shop than some. If we wanted condiments, we wouldn’t have to pay 25 pence for them.

“There are too many
things
I don’t understand and don’t know about to even begin to ask questions about them.” Goronwy fingered the vinegar jar. “I do have to ask, however … this is glass? Like the windows and the cups?”

“Yes,” I said. “And that’s a change from a few years ago when everything was made of … well … plastic.” I said the word in English. It didn’t matter what I called it, since they wouldn’t know what it meant anyway. “At home, we could make more from glass, too. I’m sure that David has instructions in that pile of documents he brought back three years ago.”

Llywelyn leaned back in his seat. “He does. It takes time to train men and for them to master the skills, and other items were more pressing.”

“Like weapons,” I said. “Glass is precious and we needed to focus on spectacles.”

Goronwy gazed out the window. It had started to rain again. Then he looked to Llywelyn. “I’m sure he is doing fine. Better than we are.”

“I know,” Llywelyn said. “I feel it. At times over the last few days, I’ve felt both him
and the presence of our Wales, a finger’s-breadth away, as if I could stretch out my hand and pierce the veil between our worlds. And then it disappears again.”

It sounded to me like Llywelyn could have been hallucinating. Then again, like the Native Americans in the United States, the medieval Welsh were far more in tune with their spiritual side than most modern Americans. Maybe he
could
feel home.

The waitress stopped by our table and took our order: a full Welsh breakfast for everyone, including fried tomatoes, a food item that neither man had ever tasted before the hospital visit. Tomatoes, along with potatoes, chocolate, and corn on the cob, came from the New World. While we’d talked about the Land of Madoc as a way to explain our strangeness to the medieval Welsh, other than this notion that Madoc had been there and back, it hadn’t truly been ‘discovered’ by medieval Europeans.

The last time I’d eaten a full breakfast was Monday morning, back at our Chepstow Castle. My biorhythms were so off, I didn’t know what day it was, much less the hour. But the men would finish my food if I couldn’t. I took a sip of coffee, savoring the taste for possibly the last time, and found both men staring at me. I set down the cup. “What?”

“I’ve been keeping something from you,” Llywelyn said.

I moaned. “Oh no! Are you sick? What hurts?”

“It’s not that. I’m fine.” He covered my hand with his. “It’s nothing to do with me.”

I heaved a sigh. “Then … David?”

The men exchanged a glance and Llywelyn nodded at Goronwy. My heart sank a little, because if Llywelyn was getting Goronwy to tell the story, it had to be something I wouldn’t like.