Guardians of Time (2 page)

David actually managed a smile. “It’s just
that Anna has never done this alone, and Mom isn’t going to lose
both of us in one day if this doesn’t turn out the way we want it
to.”

“I thought you said it was going to work.”
Shane’s mother, Jane, looked up at David from her position in the
driver’s seat. The Cardiff bus had been lovingly repaired by
several of the more mechanically-minded time travelers, Jane among
them, so it seemed oddly appropriate that she would be the one to
drive it into the cliff today.

Since she would be at the very front of the
bus with him, Jane was risking her life almost as much as David
was, though if they crashed, she at least would have an airbag to
protect her. David was going to stand beside her, his hands
gripping the metal bar that ran horizontally across the dash. He’d
have no protection if the bus ran head first into the cliff instead
of time traveling. He would be thrown through the windshield and
killed.

“Oh my God.” Mom, who was sitting in a seat
that faced front, but adjacent to Anna, suddenly put both hands to
her face, her fingers spread wide to cover her mouth and cheeks.
“This is insane. I cannot believe I let you talk me into this.”

“It’s our fault Shane is here, even if we
didn’t mean to bring him.” Anna said. “We can’t let him die when we
could do something about it.”

“Then if that’s the case, I should be taking
him by myself.” Mom straightened her spine, revealing her innate
courage that was never far beneath the surface. “Nobody else needs
to risk it.”

“Anna offered to do the same thing, but I
told her no.” David unbent from his post behind Jane’s seat and
came closer. “It isn’t just about Shane any more. We need
information and whatever supplies we can get so we can reverse
engineer what we can’t yet make. At a minimum, Rachel says a
high-powered microscope would do wonders. What’s more, by taking
the bus today, everyone who came with you on it can go home. One
shot deal. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.”

“I think that’s what the game tells you to
do when you’re
going
to jail, not escaping it,” Mom said,
though she managed a smile to mask her worry.

Anna had certainly been annoyed at times
over the years with David’s intense sense of purpose and what
amounted to tunnel vision when he was sure he was doing the right
thing. Today, however, his earnestness was endearing—in large part
because what he believed to be right definitely
was.

David reached for his mother’s other hand.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe this time we will all die in a great
tragedy like when the White Ship went down in the English Channel
and King Henry lost his son and the flower of English nobility in
one go. You’re right that time travel isn’t to be used frivolously,
but this isn’t frivolous.”

“It isn’t like David’s been running down to
the corner store every five minutes,” Anna said.

“Yeah, well, Mom’s right that sometimes it
feels like I am,” David said. “Even if I didn’t stay, I did
travel
only a few months ago when I dropped off Lee.”

David was referring to one of the bus
passengers, who’d turned out to be a terrorist, possibly for an
offshoot of the Irish Republican Army. Lee had been involved not
only in the bombings in Avalon in Cardiff, which had brought Anna,
Mom, and the bus to the Middle Ages in the first place, but also
bombings at Canterbury Castle and Dover Castle in September.

In his confrontation with Lee, David had
inadvertently returned to Avalon and, as he said,
dropped Lee
off
. It was a huge relief to be rid of Lee, but they all
retained a nagging anxiety about what kind of trouble he might be
causing wherever he was now. Since the
traveling
was keyed
to David’s needs, not Lee’s, Lee wouldn’t have ended up some place
remote like the Arctic or the Sahara Desert. He’d have fallen into
North America or Wales, where he could do a great deal of harm.

“If people are going to stay here, they have
to truly choose it—and not because they’re afraid to die on the way
back. You don’t have to go. I can’t make you. But regardless of
your choice,
I
am going.” David’s voice went soft. “I can’t
have them on my conscience any more. I have to do this.”

Mom gazed down the length of the bus and
finally nodded. “More than anything, children like Shane need to
grow up where they were born and live with all the advantages that
life can give them.”

Bursts of laughter came here and there from
the bus passengers as they situated themselves. Some of the people
climbed to the upper level of the bus, which Anna thought brave of
them, given what they were about to do. This was sure to look much
worse from up there.

Anna herself wasn’t sure she really wanted
to see the bus crash at all, though she was probably required to do
so since she was one of the people who had to fear for her life in
order for the time travel to work. She prodded David’s toe with
hers. “They’re happy to be here.”

“I’m really glad to know that. I thought
they would be, once they started thinking about all the people and
things they’d missed over the last year. I just hope—” David cut
himself off.

“What do you hope?” Mom said.

David licked his lips. “I just hope that
what they’re going home to is still there. You guys left Cardiff in
kind of a mess. Who knows what damage those terrorists have done in
the last year?”

“That would be their fault,” Anna said,
knowing where her brother’s thoughts had headed, “not yours.”

David gave a disparaging click of his
tongue. “Even I am not so full of self-importance as to think I’m
in any way responsible for the problems of the modern world, but I
did give Lee back to them. It’s been three months! A year in the
Middle Ages was probably the best thing that ever happened to Lee,
because it allowed him to elude the authorities to the point of
dropping completely off the radar.”

“All set, my lord.” Callum appeared in front
of David, with his wife, Cassie; and time travelers Darren Jeffries
and Peter Cobb in tow.

When Callum had arrived in the Middle Ages,
he’d been a capable, even superior, MI-5 agent, but one suffering
from his experience in war and too honorable to be happy serving
employers who had less honor than he did. A few months in David’s
service had given him purpose, focusing his energies and
intelligence and turning him into one of David’s closest
confidants. Now, as the Earl of Shrewsbury, he was one of the most
powerful men in England to boot.

Leaving space for Callum to sit directly
behind the driver, Cassie set her backpack on the floor in front of
her, took the next seat down, and buckled up. She wore jeans, a
sweater, and a leather jacket, all of which fit her well since they
were hers. She, along with those of them who were planning to
return to the Middle Ages once their work in the twenty-first
century was done, had stored their medieval clothing for the return
journey in the back of the bus.

At the moment, Anna’s mother wore the modern
clothes she’d borrowed from Cassie’s aunt’s house last Thanksgiving
when she and Anna had
traveled
on Thanksgiving Day. Though
David himself hadn’t had the pleasure of that experience, he meant
to model this trip on that one: on Christmas Eve, the authorities
would be short-staffed, thinking more about presents and ham
dinners than tracking rogue time travelers across the planet. The
only real drawback was that it meant missing Christmas with their
children.

Just like last time too, Mom wore the
Pendleton wool coat she’d borrowed from Cassie’s aunt, which should
keep her as warm as the thick wool cloak she normally wore. Anna
wore the clothes she’d borrowed too, including the puffy purple
parka she’d had to forgo once they’d returned to medieval Gwynedd.
Peter Cobb wore casual clothing (not his fatigues), which he’d had
in his duffel when he arrived in the Middle Ages on the bus, but
Callum and Darren were looking extremely handsome, dressed as they
were once again in their MI-5 suits and trench coats. Anna knew for
a fact that Callum had secreted his gun at the small of his back,
making it almost a given that Darren had too.

That left Papa and David in
best-they-could-do medieval replicas of modern garb, which was
pretty hilarious and ironic when Anna thought about it. Both wore
wool pants over their regular leather boots, a linen shirt, and a
wool sweater over the top. Somewhere David might still have the
clothes he’d come to the Middle Ages wearing ten years ago, but it
wasn’t as if they would fit him.

“Is everyone here?” Anna looked up at
Callum.

“According to my list, they are,” David
said.

Mom clasped her hands in front of her lips
and studied David and Anna over the top of them. “You do know that
to return a busload of people from the Middle Ages to the
twenty-first century is
completely
mad.”

“Yup,” Anna caught her brother’s eye and saw
the same recklessness in his expression that had suddenly swept
over her.

“You have no idea where we’re going to end
up,” Mom said.

“No, we don’t,” Anna said.

David’s chin firmed. “But I sure do hope we
run into Lee.”

At which point Anna thought, but didn’t say,
be careful what you wish for!
In David’s case, wishes had a
disconcerting tendency to come true.

Anna

A
nna kept her eyes
fixed on Math, whom she could see through the window as he stood
outside the bus. His tousled black hair was wet from the rain, and
she was noticing only now that she couldn’t do anything about it
that it had grown longer than she usually let it. She reminded
herself to give him a haircut when she came home.

Then she smiled at him, though she felt her
eyes fill with tears as she did so.

Anna had said goodbye to her boys earlier,
not wanting them here to witness whatever came next. Cadell had
stood solemnly before Math as he’d explained that David was taking
the adults to Avalon and that Cadell would need to protect his
cousins in their parents’ absence. Bran knew she was taking a trip,
which Anna did occasionally. Usually, it was to medical clinics in
the region or to collect herbal remedies from across Britain, some
of which were remarkably effective and rivaled—or even were better
than—modern drugs. Unfortunately, none could address her mother’s
cancer or Shane’s.

Lili and Bronwen had also remained behind
with Arthur, Gwenllian, and the twins, none of whom needed to see
what happened with the bus—whatever that might be.

It was already later in the afternoon than
David had anticipated leaving. They were coming off a large
Christmas feast in the hall at the university in Llangollen. The
party had been for villagers, students, visiting scholars, and bus
passengers alike, in lieu of any celebration up at the castle
tomorrow. David was hoping that people, in general, wouldn’t mind
that the feast had been held on Christmas Eve instead of on
Christmas Day.

The festivities had actually begun before
noon, but while they’d intended to spend a couple of hours at the
gathering, they hadn’t planned on it being nearly dark by the time
they set out. This close to the solstice, the sun set at 3:30 in
the afternoon. Yet Anna and Math hadn’t felt they could leave until
the feast was well and truly over. At least none of them had to
stay to clean up—one of the many perks of being part of the Welsh
royal family.

Anna blinked back her tears again, and when
they wouldn’t stay away, closed her eyes and pressed her fingers to
the corners, willing herself to remain calm. She was about to face
death for something she believed in. She was no more willing than
David to leave the risk to others.

“Hi there.”

She opened her eyes to find Math right in
front of her, this time
inside
the bus. He sat down next to
her, fumbling with the unfamiliar seat belt buckle.

Anna gaped at him. “What—Math, no—you’re
supposed to be regent in Papa’s absence.”

“You’re not glad to see me?”

“Of course I’m glad to see you.”

Math smirked. “So then don’t tell me to get
off the bus. I’m coming with you.”

“You can’t!”

Math tsked through his teeth. “I asked you
once if you would return to Avalon if you could, and you said you
weren’t going anywhere without me. At the time, I told you that I
had no intention of giving you a choice. What kind of husband would
I be if I let you go alone now under these circumstances?”

Anna put her head on his shoulder while at
the same time reaching for his hand. She didn’t know what to say,
because of course she wanted him with her. But it was reckless and
irresponsible of him. And yet, it was only as reckless and
irresponsible as David and Papa were being.

Math patted her hand. As she straightened up
again, she saw that he and Papa were gazing at each other.

“Did you speak with Goronwy about the change
in plans?” Papa said.

“He told me to go. He knows what to do,”
Math said.

Anna could see the man in question standing
outside the bus, his arms folded across his chest and his mustache
bristling even in the rain, which—typically for late December in
Wales—had started to fall more heavily. Some years it snowed by
late December, but not so far this year.

Math squeezed Anna’s hand where it rested on
his thigh. “I’m looking forward to finally seeing what’s on the
other side.”

“I am too.” David touched Jane’s shoulder.
“I think it’s time.”

Shane and Jane’s husband, Carl, sat farther
back in the bus with the other passengers. Even though this was
David’s plan, everyone had loudly shouted down any notion that he
should drive the bus. He’d never learned to drive properly, since
he’d been just fourteen when they’d come to Wales ten years ago,
and he had driven only a few times since then.