Winds of Time (8 page)

“
We will launch the dinghy,”
Morgan said. “My crew will see you safe to Anglesey.”

I didn’t ask him what he was going to do, or
if he honestly thought he would survive this. I’d lived in Wales
for long enough—and been back in the Middle Ages for long enough—to
understand that there were times when you didn’t question a man’s
decision to face death head on.

“
What about my
books—?”

Aaron broke off his question at Morgan’s
disbelieving look.

“
We will find other books,
Aaron,” I said. “ As rare as yours may be, they are not the only
ones. Your life, however, is the only one you have.”

“
Thank you, Madam,” Morgan
said. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Aaron acquiesced without
asking me why I was so confident I could acquire new books for him.
That would mean I’d have to tell him about Llywelyn, and not only
was I not ready to do that, it would expose my own
insecurities:
What if Llywelyn didn’t want
to see me? What if this world he’d created had no room for me in
it?

We staggered across the
deck, barely maintaining our feet on the rocking ship. The rain had
soaked us instantly. Wave after wave crashed over the bow and we
essentially fell over the rail of the ship when it was at its
lowest point and into the dingy that rose up on the next wave to
catch us.
God, I hate boats.
The four crewmen who would travel with us pushed
away from the ship. I clung to Aaron’s arm.

“
We’ll make it!” he said,
but a moment later, the dingy met a driving wave exactly wrong and
capsized, dumping us into the sea.

Amazingly, I bobbed up for air without my
lungs full of water. “Aaron!” I spun around, searching for him,
trying not to panic. Ideally, I hoped all survived the capsizing,
but in the last hours, Aaron and I had become friends. I wanted him
to be okay.

“
I’m here.” He appeared
beside me, struggling out of his heavy robes. We had loosened the
ties on our cloaks in the dingy, knowing that if we ended up in the
water, they would drag us down. As I ripped off my cloak and shoved
it away from me, an abandoned oar floated past. I grabbed it. The
rain pounded so hard I could barely see Aaron through the water
streaming down my face, much less anyone else, or our lost
boat.

“
We’re not as far from shore
as Morgan implied,” Aaron said.

“
How do you know? I can’t
see anything.” But just then a wave lifted me up and I saw the
shore. It wasn’t close enough to touch, but it gave me
hope.

“
Can you swim?” Aaron
said.

“
Not well,” I said,
scissor-kicking my legs even as I spoke. It was true. But I
could
swim, and at this
point, I had no other choice. With one hand each on the oar, and
the other helping paddle, we stroked and kicked, each wave lifting
us and surging us closer to shore. The tide was bringing us
in.

“
Wake up, Margaret!” Aaron’s
voice roused me. I hadn’t realized I was floating and no longer
swimming.

“
Okay,” I said, though he
probably didn’t know what that meant. I began to kick
again.

* * * * *

When I woke up, the sun was
shining brightly in my face. I lay still a moment, feeling the heat
on my closed lids, and then opened them. As is often the case after
a storm in Wales, the sky above me was a bright blue, with a few
scattered clouds, and gave no sign of the horrors of a few hours
before. Experimentally, I moved a leg and then my arms.
Bruises?
Check
.
Aching muscles?
Check
. Seemingly nothing was broken, however. I eased into a
sitting position. It hurt to move so much I choked out a
laugh.
I will never, ever set foot on a
boat again.

Around me, the beach was littered with
refuse thrown up by the surf, mostly driftwood and seaweed, but
here and there was a wine cask or the remains of a boat. But no
Aaron.

With legs aching, I got to my feet. My
clothes had dried in the sun but I could feel the salt and sand in
my hair and a pass through it with my fingers told me it stuck up
on end. I smoothed it the best I could. Llywelyn could be only a
short walk away, if only I knew where I was.

And then I laughed at myself for my
foolishness in thinking that Llywelyn would be anywhere near here,
and that even if he were, he would want anything to do with me. I
had left him and taken his child with me, even if unintentionally.
That might not be something he could forgive.

I started walking down the beach, angling
away from the water and towards the dunes in the distance. The
morning sun shone bright in my eyes and I put up a hand to shade
them. Some people had clustered on the edge of the beach and I
peered towards them, hoping one was Aaron.

As I got closer, a man broke
away and my heart leapt. It
was
Aaron. He was alive!

“
Meg!” he said.

Aaron hiked up his robe and took off at a
run towards me. I waved and veered towards him to meet him half-way
between the dunes and the sea. Always wary of touching a gentile,
Aaron ducked the hug I was about to throw at him and took my
forearms decorously.

Then Aaron turned me towards two of his
companions, who had followed him. The closer they came, the more my
eyes watered. By the time they had taken ten steps, tears poured
down my cheeks and blurred my vision.

“
Oh, my God, it’s
Mom.”

David stood before me,
saying those words.
David!

The sound of his voice
released Anna and she raced across the beach towards me, her boots
slipping in the sand. Sobbing, she threw herself into my arms and
knocked me backwards. I held her, my cheek against her hair,
rocking her as if she were a baby. She
was
my baby.

“
Oh, my darling daughter.” I
repeated the words over and over again. If I said them enough, I
could believe that she was in my arms. Anna couldn’t stop crying,
even when I took her face in my hands and kissed her eyes, trying
to get her to stop.

“
It’s okay. It’s me. I’m
here.” I looked past Anna to David, who’d come to a halt five paces
away, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing either. “And
your brother too.” I held out one arm and he came into the circle
of it. I embraced both my children for the first time in a year and
a half.

“
How did you get here?” Anna
said.

I shook my head. “It’s a long story.”
David’s shoulder muffled my voice. “I can’t believe you’re here,
too. I didn’t let myself believe it might be possible.”

We hugged and rocked until the tightness in
my chest loosened and I was able to relax my hold enough to look
into my children’s faces.

“
You must have been through
a lot,” Anna said.

“
Me?” I said, and laughed
through my tears. “What about you? Have you been here all this
time?”

“
We have,” David said.
“Let’s get you home.” He put his arm around my shoulders and looked
at Anna over the top of my head.
Over the
top of my head!
When I’d last seen him,
we’d been same height.

Anna held tight to my hand as David herded
us, along with a very bemused Aaron, back to where they’d left
their horses.

“
You mentioned that you had
known the Prince many years ago,” Aaron said, “but I didn’t quite
catch that you’d given him a son.”

“
I couldn’t tell you and I
didn’t want to lie,” I said, and left it at that.

A few steps further on, a man waited—tall,
dark, and handsome, with the deep blue eyes of a Celt. Anna took
the man’s hand and pulled him towards me. “This is my husband, Mom,
Mathonwy ap Rhys Fychan.”

“
I’m pleased to meet you,
Madam,” Math said, his Welsh formal.

I stuck out my hand, as if meeting Anna’s
husband was a perfectly normal thing to do, but then ruined it.
“You’re married?” I blurted out the words before I could take them
back. My hand went to my head before Math could shake it. “How can
you be married?”

Anna tightened her grip on Math’s other
hand. “I’m sorry you missed it, Mom, but, well ... you weren’t
here.”

With that, I melted again. I started crying
and then Anna started crying, and we fell into each other’s arms.
Math kissed the top of Anna’s head and patted her on the shoulder.
“We’ll leave you a moment.” He and Aaron moved past us towards the
horses and out of earshot.

Once again, Anna and I struggled to regain
our composure, wiping at our cheeks with the backs of our
hands.

“
How long have you been back
here?” The control in David’s voice told me he was determined to
remain on an even keel.
So like
Llywelyn.

“
Since the beginning of
August,” I said. “I think.”

“
How
did you get back here?” Anna said, finally able to calm down
enough to marshal her thoughts.

“
By plane,” I said. “Near
Hadrian’s Wall.”

“
Hadrian’s Wall?” David
said. “And you made it here all by yourself?”

“
I had help,” I said, “most
recently Aaron’s.”

“
Hadrian’s Wall is a long
way from here,” Anna said.

“
It is,” David said. “Father
is going to freak.”

Chapter Seven

I froze, my hand on David’s shoulder, my
face like a frozen mask. “Father?” I wasn’t ready. I’d thought
about him every waking moment since I came back to the Middle Ages,
but I still wasn’t ready.

“
He’s alive, Mom,” David
said. “And he’s here, at Rhuddlan Castle.”

“
Oh, David.” I put the back
of my hand to my mouth. “I didn’t dare … I mean, I hardly dared to
even think that he might be, that I might be able to see him again.
So you think …” I stopped.

“
Do I think he’ll want to
see you?” David said. “Yeah, I know he will.”

“
But how did you ... how did
you find him? How did you know he was your father?”

“
I didn’t,” David said.
“Father did though, the moment we arrived. We literally drove into
his attackers at Cilmeri and saved him.”

“
He
went
to Cilmeri?!” I couldn’t help it.
My voice went high. “He
went
to Cilmeri on December 11th?”

“
It’s okay, Mom,” Anna said,
in a voice that said
patience
, and was probably one she’d
heard from me a million times growing up. “He felt he had to,
despite your warning.”

“
He could have died!” I
glared at David and then at Anna, and then she and I burst into
tears again.

I could feel David staring
at us in amazement, thinking
they should be
happy!

I turned to my son, my cheeks wet, blinking
my eyes to rid them of tears. “This is too much to take in. You
were a child last time I saw you, David, and now you are grown and
Anna is married.” I turned back to Anna. “You got married at
what—eighteen?”

“
Math’s a great guy, Mom,”
David said. “He can’t believe how lucky he is to have her; and the
marriage secures a beneficial alliance for Father. It’s all worked
out really well.”

“
Besides, I’m nineteen now,”
Anna said.

I stared at them for a second and then gave
a laugh that was almost a bark. “See! Precisely my point!” And
then, more thoughtfully, “Does Math know where you’re from?”

Anna nodded. “He
knows
, but I think he’s
just beginning to
believe
.”

“
It’s always been impossible
to believe,” I said. “And I’m living it.”

“
Math is pretty grounded in
the here and now,” David said. “He told me that if Anna looks
Welsh, speaks Welsh, and is acknowledged as Welsh by the Prince of
Wales, that is good enough for him.”

“
I guess there is something
to be said for that,” I said. “We will need hard-headed and
practical people in the new Wales.”

“
Don’t you remember when you
came to Wales the first time?” Anna said. “Do you remember what it
was like trying to find your way when you didn’t speak the language
and knew nothing about anything that was important?”

I sighed. “I do remember. I remember very
well. If not for Llywelyn, I don’t know that I would have survived.
Before I knew it, we were in love and I was pregnant with David. I
managed to bypass most of the trauma by ignoring it.”

“
We couldn’t ignore it,
Mom,” Anna said. “It was all so awful at first.”

I nodded. “I know, sweetheart. That you’re
standing in front of me, whole and happy, tells me that you and
David have done remarkably well, at a much younger age than I
was.”

“
We did have each other,”
Anna said.

“
And we also had Father who
knew who we were from the start,” David said.

“
It would have been
different if we’d appeared in Cilmeri and
not
killed Papa’s attackers,” said
Anna. “Imagine trying to make your way in Wales with no help from
anyone. We could have starved to death. David could have ended up a
stable boy, and me a scullery maid.”