Winds of Time (3 page)

Chapter Three

I awoke to find two boots next to my nose.
One of them shifted to poke me in the ribs.

“
Wake up!”

I could have sworn I had stayed awake the
whole night, but just when I should have been watching, I must have
fallen asleep. Isn’t that always the way of it in the movies?
Thomas still slept, cradled against my side. His weight prevented
me from shifting so I could see the speaker. Instead, the owner of
the boots crouched in front of me and I found myself looking into
blue eyes and the stern face of a man of an age with me—middle
thirties, maybe even younger.

“
Allard.” Blue-eyed man
threw the words to the man behind him whose face I couldn’t see.
“You and Francis lift the boy and bring him to my horse. I will
carry him home myself.”

“
Yes, Sir John.”

Sir John kept his gaze steady on me as
Allard and Francis raised Thomas up.

“
He’s not injured,” I
said.

Thomas yawned and rubbed his eyes.
“Uncle!”

Sir John relented some of his sternness and
grabbed Thomas up in a bear hug. For my part, I struggled to my
feet, very conscious of my twenty-first century clothing. I
clutched my short jacket closed and folded my arms across my chest.
Sir John looked at me over the top of his nephew’s head. “And you
are?”

Thomas released his uncle enough to twist
towards me. “This is Margaret, Uncle. She and I walked from the
Roman fort together.”

Sir John’s eyes narrowed. “Which Roman
fort?”

“
Your nephew found himself
alone and on the run from some Scots,” I said. “He ended up at a
fort along the wall.”

“
I might ask what you were
doing there, dressed as you are.” His eyes inspected me up and
down. “But for now, we best be getting home.” And just like that,
he turned away from me and towards his horse, which he mounted on a
single, fluid motion.

Thomas scampered after him. Sir John gave
the boy his arm so that he could clamber up after him on the back
of the horse. I had followed Thomas from the woods, but now backed
away, thinking that continuing the journey by myself wasn’t a bad
idea. Sir John had a different notion, however.

“
Francis!” Sir John jerked
his head, directing Francis’ attention towards me. Francis nodded.
A moment later, I found myself grasped by the arm and urged towards
Francis’ horse. “Can you ride?”

I stared up at the beast and sighed.
“Yes.”

Sir John laughed. “Look after her, Francis.
I have many questions.” He spurred his horse away.

I hadn’t ridden more than a
few times since my year with Llywelyn, but I knew what to do. I
grasped the horse’s mane and Francis threw me up onto him. I swung
my leg over the horse’s back and tried to get comfortable. I closed
my eyes.
Where will this end?
A second later, Francis mounted behind me. Perhaps
he feared that I would slip off the back and run away if he didn’t
contain me.

I’d been fortunate so far
that neither Thomas nor Sir John had pressed me about what
I
was doing at the wall.
Sir John would corner me eventually, and if I couldn’t get myself
free first, I was going to have to come up with a satisfactory
story with which to explain myself. I hated to lie and couldn’t
trust myself to lie convincingly anyway. My hope lay in finding a
truth palatable enough for John, that was also true for me.
Hopeless
.

We set off at trot, which quickened to a
ground eating canter. The sun had fully risen now and it promised
to be a beautiful summer day.

It took us almost two hours to reach
Carlisle Castle, Sir John’s home, located within the city of
Carlisle. As the castellan for Edward I, Sir John would be one of
the men spearheading Edward’s invasion of Scotland in another few
years. Another bit of history that I would change if I could. I
decided not to mention that to Sir John.

* * * * *

Once at the castle, Sir John arranged for a
servant to lead me to the bathing room, located just off the
kitchen. Discarded clothes that needed washing sat in baskets near
a back exit that led to the large troughs where laundry was done. A
fire warmed the room, which it needed, even though it was summer.
It was England after all. The water for the bath was warm too and I
made the most of it. Afterwards, the woman presented me with a
linen shift and a dress of deep blue that matched my eyes
perfectly.

I had no mirror but I could see something of
my reflection in the basin. The servant rebraided my hair in two
plaits (tying each with a leather thong), making me look far
younger than my thirty-seven years. I shrugged. It would have to
do. As my final preparation, I stacked my old clothes in a neat
pile in a corner, along with all my goodies but the two rings,
awaiting the moment I could collect them again.

I edged open the door to see
if anyone was in the passage. It was empty.
Now it begins, and I am such a lousy liar.

When I entered the great hall, it was full
of people eating. I gulped. It had been a long time since I’d faced
this kind of audience—in fact, it was the day after I fell into the
past the first time, sixteen years ago. And that time, I had baby
Anna on my hip.

Sir John sat at the head
table, in the primary position, as was usually the case with lords
in their own hall. Thinking of Llywelyn again, I squared my
shoulders. I would find courage in his memory.
Best get on with it.

At a signal from Sir John, I
walked to him and came to a halt a pace away, on the other side of
the table. I folded my hands and looked at him, aiming for an
innocent and expectant expression. Now that I wore appropriate
clothing, chances were better that I could
pass
for the medieval woman I was
not.

“
If it doesn’t trouble you
greatly,” he said, “please break your fast in my receiving room. I
have questions for you.”

“
Of course, my lord,” I
said.

He rose and I followed him from the room,
through a doorway, up a small stairway to another room on the upper
floor. The room was spacious and well lit with candles on the table
and the window shutters thrown wide. Sunlight poured into the room
from a west-facing window. Contrary to his promise, no food
appeared and Sir John moved to stand before the fireplace. He
prodded the lit logs with a poker.

“
So, Mistress Margaret,” he
said to the flames, “you appear to be a most unusual woman. It is
time to tell me of yourself.”

I swallowed hard. “Myself?”

Sir John rested a forearm on the mantle and
turned to look back at me. “Yes, Mistress. Yourself.” Dry amusement
filled his voice. “I await with great interest your explanation of
what brought you to the Roman fort in time to help my nephew.”

I had known that he would ask me this. I’d
labored on a viable story during the ride to Carlisle and then in
the bath, discarding tale after tale as ludicrous and
unbelievable.

“
Well then,” he said after a
long pause which I didn’t fill. “We will start with your place of
birth, Margaret. Who is your father and where does he
live?”

I swallowed hard. A softball question, sort
of, if one had a mind to tell the truth.

In the silence that followed, he seated
himself in a throne-like chair that had been set before the fire.
He rested his elbows on the arms of the chair, folded his hands
together, and pressed the tips of his forefingers to his lips. He
studied me for a while longer and then gestured that I should post
myself in front of him, three paces away. It was like being sent to
the principal in grade school.

I decided I couldn’t postpone this
conversation any longer. “My father is Bran ap Morgan, my lord, of
Gwynedd.”

“
Of Gwynedd!” Sir John
straightened and dropped his hands so that he gripped the arms of
the chair. “Thus, the reason for your strange accent and your
outrageous manner. It is said that the Welsh allow their women too
much freedom and I believe it. And your grandfather?”

This was it, the first plunge into deep
water. “On my mother’s side, my grandfather was Goronwy ap Ednyfed
Fychan, the former seneschal to Prince Llywelyn, and the father of
one of his current advisors, Tudur.”

“
Ah yes.” Sir John sat back,
looking satisfied. “You have explained much in only a few words,
particularly your royal bearing and gait.”

Stunned relief rushed
through me, though not because of Sir John’s satisfaction with my
story. Rather, it was his acceptance of my use of the word
‘current’. Llywelyn had a current advisor!
He is alive! My Llywelyn is alive!
The
knowledge left me so weak at the knees I almost collapsed to the
floor.

I wished I could run from the room and shout
my joy to the sky, but instead I had to stand there and calmly
answer Sir John questions. Anything else wasn’t going to get me
back to Wales.

Sir John gestured towards me with one hand.
“Pray continue. It is a long way from Gwynedd to Carlisle, is it
not?”

“
Yes, my lord.” I paused,
marshalling my thoughts, but more confident now that I had hope for
the future. “I spent the first fifteen years of my life at the
court of Prince Llywelyn, under the guidance of my grandfather. But
with Dafydd’s betrayal of the Prince, my life changed. My father
was killed in the fighting and my mother chose to leave Wales and
return to her mother’s house, taking me with her. My grandfather
was not married to my grandmother, you see, who was from
Shrewsbury, on the Welsh border.”

“
Yes, I know it,” Sir John
replied. “I have accepted the hospitality of the Benedictine monks
there.”

“
At the Abbey of St. Peter
and St. Paul?” I asked, silently thanking Ellis Peters and her
Brother Cadfael mysteries.

“
Indeed,” replied Sir John.
“Pray continue.”

“
I had not lived in
Shrewsbury long before I was married to an Englishman at my
mother’s insistence. She feared for my future were I to return to
Wales, even though Llywelyn was crowned Prince of Wales around this
time.”

“
He was crowned nearly
twenty years ago,” Sir John said.

“
Yes, my lord,” I said,
wondering why he thought to comment on it. “I had a daughter, and
then a son. Shortly after our son’s birth, my husband began to
change.”

Sir John leaned forward. “Change in what
way, Margaret?”

“
He … he began to turn away
from the Church, my lord,” I said, in a rush. “He began to leave
the house at all hours and not return until dawn. It only happened
a few times a year at first, and then every month, until …” I
stopped. I eyed Sir John carefully, but he seemed
riveted.

“
Until what?”

“
Until he confessed to me
his worship of Mithras.” As I spoke, I inadvertently looked down at
my feet. If Sir John had studied psychology he would have known
that this indicated I was lying through my teeth.

“
Ah, now we reach the heart
of it. What then?”

“
With Prince Llywelyn’s
recent victories …” I paused to see how I was doing and found Sir
John nodding. Before he noticed my clenched fists, I hurried to
continue my story.

“
My daughter and son are
grown now and I could leave them. I sent them to the Prince’s
court. I, in turn, accompanied my husband to Newcastle-on-Tyne,
where he insisted we could lodge with his great-aunt whom he hadn’t
seen in some time. When we arrived we found that she had died the
previous year. We had no place to stay and little money. My husband
paid an innkeeper for a few nights of meals and lodging for me, and
disappeared with only the clothes on his back.

“
I didn’t know what to do
when he failed to return. At last, I became determined to find him
and make a final attempt to draw him away from these evil doers. I
cut down some of his clothes for myself and, dressed as a man, set
out to find the location of their worship. Over the years I had
learned a little of their practices. I confess I listened to his
private conversations with his companions when he thought I was
asleep. I had learned that a night which promised both a full moon
and a clear dawn would bring them out. I knew that the wall built
by the Romans was the center of Mithras worship in England. Several
days ago, I set out from Newcastle along the wall.

“
When I encountered a fort
and its altar to Mithras—not where I found your nephew, but a
location further east—I realized I had reached the right place. I
hid myself. This was two nights ago. I didn’t have to wait long
before men came, dressed in long white cloaks and hoods. My husband
…” I bent my head and bit my lip. I had really fallen down the
rabbit hole here. “My husband was one of them. They were in the
middle of the ritual when the Scots—perhaps the same ones who
captured your nephew—rode out of the dark and killed them
all.”

“
I am sorry for your loss,
Margaret,” Sir John said, not sounding sorry at all. “So you expect
me to believe that you followed your husband to Newcastle, dressed
yourself as a boy, walked along the wall for several days, hid
yourself in the fort, witnessed a Scot raid, and then rescued my
nephew.”

“
Yes, my lord,” I said, my
throat dry. “I do.”

“
The surprising thing,” Sir
John said, “is that I do believe you. I’ve known about the Mithras
cult for some time and have tried to stamp it out in Carlisle. What
makes me wonder, however, is why in all of this, you chose to lie
about your age?”