Children of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book Four) (5 page)

With my identification gripped tightly in my hand, I strolled with Goronwy towards the main lobby. As we walked down the pink hallway towards the doors through which we’d come initially, I felt like I was turning back the clock. How was it that we hadn’t fallen into that pool a life time ago?

When we reached the foyer, instead of turning towards the atrium and the pool, we went through a different set of doors that opened into the lobby. And then we stopped short.

Goronwy laughed. “What is this place?” I couldn’t blame him for laughing. He couldn’t have ever seen anything like it, and I didn’t know that I had either.

The hotel lobby was decorated to make the residents feel as if they’d entered the cavernous hall of a medieval castle. Gold and red tapestries covered the walls, thick beams held up the thirty foot high ceilings, and for all that the walls were comprised of grey stone and the floor was of highly polished hardwood, it had the effect of being luxurious and welcoming. The accoutrements were as plush as any fine hotel in New York or London.

A fire burned in an eight-foot-wide fireplace against the far wall, spreading a warm glow over the red and gold couches and chairs, which were arranged in conversational groups. Obviously, the designers had never been to the Middle Ages or they would have known that the chairs in that time were nothing if not uncomfortable. If my dress wasn’t still dripping onto the wooden floor, I would have sat in one myself, to prove to myself that such softness existed.

“Come on.” I tugged on Goronwy’s arm.

He was still smiling. “I must speak to Llywelyn about making some changes to Caerphilly.”

“I’ll look forward to that.” I’d already dismissed the decorations from my mind because I was focused on what needed to happen next, and I was nervous about it. We approached the front desk and I smiled as brightly as I could at the young man who greeted us. He wore a perfectly pressed blue suit, with a stiff collar and a tie and the
Healing Waters
logo emblazoned on his pocket.

“May I help you?”

“I hope so,” I said. “Do you have rooms available?”

“We have several.” The man smiled at me but his expression faltered when his eyes skated to Goronwy and widened. It seemed my appearance was amusing, or at least non-threatening, but Goronwy’s caused dismay. I glanced at my friend. He did look rather ferocious with his firm jaw, solid physique, and Stalinesque mustache, even if its growth wasn’t as luxurious as Bevyn’s.

Still, I ignored the man’s surprise and continued to smile sweetly. “What are my choices?”

After another glance at Goronwy, the man looked determinedly away and peered at his computer. He tapped the keyboard. “I have three different suites available at this time.”

“Could you tell me the cost?” I said. It was tacky, I was sure, but we were on a budget.

“The charge for the smallest is three hundred pounds a night. The largest is seven hundred and fifty.”

I swallowed hard, though I shouldn’t have been surprised at the cost. This wasn’t a hotel, or even a bed and breakfast. Our accommodation had cost over a hundred pounds a night when my mom, Anna, David, and I had traveled through Wales after David’s birth. “We’ll take the small one.” If my card didn’t work, we were stuck. Four hundred dollars was not the same as four hundred pounds and I doubted he’d take a gold coin as collateral.

“Excellent choice,” the man said. “Although not as expansive, they are quite comfortable. May I see your card?” He held out his hand to me.

I cleared my throat. “Certainly.” It wasn’t as if I hadn’t expected to hand it over. Trying out the card was the whole point of this experiment. He shoved one end of my credit card into his charge machine and stared at the screen. Nothing appeared on it.

I bit my lip, but didn’t say anything. Goronwy held his hand at the small of my back, pressing lightly and offering his silent moral support.

“Oh—you’re American, aren’t you? Is this a swipe card?” the man held the card up to the light and squinted.

“Yes,” I said, though I would have thought all credit cards were swipe cards.

The man shook his head and mumbled something I didn’t catch. He turned his machine ninety degrees so he could swipe the card down the side; then tapped something into the machine’s keyboard and nodded. “How many nights may I reserve for you?”

“Let’s start with three,” I said. “Will that be a problem?”

“Not at all.”

A minute later, we had a keycard to a suite, with no more questions asked. He didn’t even want to see my ID. With some trepidation as to how Goronwy was taking all this, I led him to the elevator. “Hang on,” I said. “You may not like this.”

He eyed the panel of buttons as I pressed ‘5’ for the fifth floor, and then his eyes drifted to the evergreen fabric on the walls, a velour shot with gold threads. “Oh, I’m fine,” he said, though he clutched the handle on the wall as we began to rise.

The suite appeared exactly as advertised. Goronwy stood in the doorway, surveying it. He rubbed his boot on the plush carpeting. “Nice.”

I gave him a brief tour, paying special attention to the bathroom. David still teased Ieuan about how much he’d enjoyed the bathroom during his trip to the twenty-first century. Goronwy went straight to the toilet and flushed it.

“How did you know to do that?” I said.

Goronwy grinned at me. “Ieuan described his experience.” He pulled open the glass door that led to the shower and peered inside. “It’s this I’m most interested in. Does water really come from that—” He was silent as he fought for the word “—pipe?”

“It does indeed,” I said.

The suite consisted of a living room and two bedrooms, each with a massive, curtained four-poster bed, as befitted the pseudo-medieval decor. Goronwy stood with his hands on his hips in the center of the room, surveying it with a slow turn on his heel. “I like it,” he said.

“I’m glad.”

“I’ve also had a thought.”

“Have you?” I said.

“I think we’ve had visitors from this world to ours in the past,” Goronwy said.

This was unexpected. “How so?” I said.

“What if our ancient gods and goddesses weren’t magic at all, but came from this world?” His eyes narrowed as he studied the forty-eight inch wide screen video panel on the wall. “What if
King Arthur
was a time traveler?”

“You’re thinking that he could have come from this world to yours, just like the kids and I have?” I said.

“It would explain his extraordinary abilities.” Goronwy rubbed his chin. “To the common folk, such a man would have been more than a hero, just as our Dafydd has renewed the legends of Arthur.”

“It’s an interesting thought, Goronwy,” I said, glad that David wasn’t here to hear that theory. Then again, maybe he would find it comforting to think that he wasn’t alone.

“I wonder if the first Arthur was as uncomfortable with his authority as Dafydd is now,” Goronwy said. “Perhaps he fled to Avalon—and by that, I mean this world—because he felt that he’d failed his people in the end.”

I found myself half-laughing. In five minutes, Goronwy had created an explanation for the Arthurian legend out of thin air. And the odd thing was, I couldn’t just dismiss it, not when I was standing in a luxurious suite with a man born in the thirteenth century.

“We must care for David such that he never feels the same way,” Goronwy said.

“On that, we agree,” I said.

After admiring the suite for a few more minutes, Goronwy and I returned to the lobby. Our next step was to sweep through the boutiques available at the spa. We had eight from which to choose.

When we’d passed through the lobby earlier, after acquiring our room key, I’d been surprised to find any of the stores open past five in the evening. But all of them had little 24/7 signs on their doors. The complex, if not the clinic itself, was as busy now as the pool had been when we arrived. It seemed we could have done our shopping at three in the morning. When the brochure said
round-the-clock
service
, it meant it.

For Goronwy, I opted for the store specializing in travel wear, while I shopped in a different boutique which was well-stocked with maternity clothes. I had never been fond of elastic waistbands, but pregnancy was the one time in my life I viewed them as a necessity. I acquired new outfits for both of us, using my credit card with its $25,000 credit limit. I was still shaking my head over the fact that my sister hadn’t cancelled it when I disappeared four years ago. It showed her love for me, and I was ashamed that I’d misjudged her. I also bought a cell phone.

We changed into our new clothes in the suite, leaving our old clothes to be cleaned (twenty-four-hour laundry!) and our gear stashed in a duffel bag I’d also bought. Then we returned to the waiting room.

Goronwy went to the window as he had before, although it had long since grown too dark to see anything but the garden and the road leading up to the clinic, both of which were lit by a dozen eight foot lamp posts. He shifted from one leg to another and I supposed that his new shoes felt awkward on his feet. Up until now, every pair of boots he’d owned had been made specifically for him alone, even if none of them had cushioned soles like the ones I’d bought him.

“Are you hungry?” I said. “We missed dinner.”

Goronwy shook his head, but then stopped himself as he reconsidered. “I’ve seen several people pass by with white cups in their hands. What are they drinking?”

I guessed that he didn’t mean the men laughing raucously down by the pool, who’d been drinking beer. “Most likely tea or coffee,” I said.

“Could I try a cup?” Goronwy said. “Ieaun and Bronwen have both spoken of the taste as something to remember.”

I smiled. “I would be happy to corrupt you.” I rose to my feet, but before I had taken two steps towards the door, Dr Raj materialized near the nurse’s station. “Your husband is awake. You can see him now.”

“Thank you!”

Goronwy hadn’t understood what Dr Raj had said, so I waved at him to come with me.

“Your husband—Llywelyn is his name, correct?—doesn’t speak much English and all but one of the nurses had trouble with his Welsh. Perhaps you can explain to him better what has happened.”

“Of course.” For all that he wasn’t from Wales, Dr Raj had pronounced Llywelyn’s name correctly. Goronwy and I trotted down the hall after the doctor, who seemed to walk everywhere in triple-time. “What
did
happen?” I said.

“He has pericarditis,” Dr. Raj said, “made acute by a pericardial effusion.”

I waited through a couple of heartbeats for him to elaborate but when he didn’t offer up any more information, I said, “And that means …”

“It’s an infection of the tissue around the heart. While this condition is very serious, his coronary arteries are normal. It’s odd.” Dr Raj pulled up suddenly, causing me to stop abruptly too. “This type of infection is very rare, but it’s the third case I’ve seen this month, which is why I recognized it so quickly. Often patients are misdiagnosed as having a myocardial infarction.”

I had been fighting for breath, trying to encompass what the doctor was saying, but now had to ask, “A what?”

“A heart attack.”

I nodded. I had heard that phrase before, even though I hadn’t known exactly what it meant. I felt a bit like Goronwy must, swimming through a world of unfamiliar words and expectations. “Will … will he be okay?”

“He’s lucky to be here,” Dr Raj said. “We’re going to get him on the road to improved heart health.”

I blinked. That sentence was right out of the pamphlet I’d flipped through in the waiting room. “Does he need surgery?”

“No. As I said, he is very lucky. We’ve drained off the fluid that was putting pressure on his heart, and the infection is bacterial, so it is treatable with antibiotics. He’ll receive them via IV for the first forty-eight hours he’s here, and then he’ll take them orally. It is also a matter of making sure he maintains his fluids and nutrition. He has a good prognosis. I do have to ask you, however: how long has he been ill?”

“On and off for months,” I said. What I didn’t add was
ever since the battle at the Severn Estuary.

“That’s not uncommon with this type of illness. We’ve examined his blood.” Now Dr Raj shook his head again. “To tell you the truth, we’ve never seen this particular bacterium before. Has he been to a foreign country recently?”

I swallowed hard. “Not really.”

Dr Raj shrugged and didn’t press me, even though
not really
was a non-answer. Either a person went to a foreign country or he didn’t. “Even so,” Dr Raj continued, “initial tests indicate that the antibiotic we’re giving him is already working.”

I allowed myself a sigh of relief.

“The one other thing I have to point out is that his cholesterol is very high—over three hundred.” Dr Raj picked up the pace again. “That’s very dangerous in a man his age, and unusual in someone as thin as he is who doesn’t smoke. Does your husband have a stressful job?”

I swallowed a laugh. “Very.”

“If you can afford it, you might talk him into retiring early.”

“I would if I could,” I said.

Dr Raj nodded. “Then maybe this incident will give him the push he needs.” He gestured us into a room where my very pale and thin husband reclined in a bed. His hair had gone gray around the temples, and the scruff of his beard and mustache were nearly white. The other day when Gwenllian had rubbed his face and call him ‘frosty’, I’d laughed and dismissed the thought of him as old. But he looked it tonight.

I went to him, kissed his forehead, and caught his hand. He squeezed mine tightly and the clamp around my heart eased a little more.

“I’ll leave you three alone for a minute,” Dr Raj said. “The nurse will be in soon because we’re going to run a few more tests—” Dr Raj looked at his watch “—and then we’ll need you to leave him so he can sleep.”

“Leave him?” I continued to hold Llywelyn’s hand but looked back to the doctor.

Dr Raj couldn’t disguise his confusion. “Surely you would prefer the bed in your suite, Mrs. Gruffydd, to the recliner we provide here.”

I nodded, but inside, my resolve hardened. While our change in circumstances had happened so fast I could hardly keep my feet, I wasn’t leaving Llywelyn alone if I had any way to stay—not in the modern world in a modern hospital where he was helpless.