Guardians of Time (29 page)

“What about Mark?” Callum said.

“He isn’t the former director of the
Project,” Tate said. “He’s been in Iceland this last year.”

Mark’s expression turned rueful, and he
spoke to Callum in an undertone, “He’s protecting himself.”

Callum grimaced. “One moment, sir.”

He turned the phone off speaker and pressed
it against his thigh, looking at Mark as he did so. “Are you
sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Callum shook his head, but he held out his
free hand to Mark anyway. “Good luck.”

“I will keep the home fires burning.” Mark
shook hands with Math too, nodded once, and set off across the
square towards the castle, his shoulders hunched against the
blowing snow.

Callum turned the speaker back on. “Mark is
on his way.” Then he motioned that Math should start walking away
from the castle square with him, which he did at a rapid clip,
heading east towards the Tesco and plowing through six inches of
new snow in some areas of the walkway where nobody had passed since
the snow had started.

As they walked, Callum continued to talk to
Tate. “Have you found any other bombs, sir? I find it hard to
believe Lee would have planted only one.”

“No, we haven’t, and while even one bomb is
unacceptable, I’m sure you are mistaken about there being more. Lee
set the bomb off too early, dying in the process,” Tate said. “The
explosion was meant to go off during the prince’s speech. With
security focused on the east tower, terrorists could have abducted
or even killed the prince in the chaos.”

“That’s quite an assumption,” Math said in
an undertone as he took long strides at Callum’s side. “He sounds
like he’s already preparing his speech to his superiors.” Math too
had come a long way in a single day.

Callum chose not to express his disbelief.
“Please ring me if you learn anything more that might pertain to
King David and King Llywelyn.”

“I will do that,” Tate said. “Goodbye,
Callum.” He disconnected the call.

Callum instantly began to press more
buttons, reaching Cassie immediately.

“Where are you?” she said.

“On our way to you,” Callum said.

“What’s going on?”

Callum skirted an unattended barrier, since
the security guard appeared to have abandoned his post. “I think
it’s time we went home too.”

David

D
avid landed on his
feet with a thud and rolled. The black abyss had come and gone, and
even if he’d been screaming inside the whole time, he forced
himself to stay alert to whatever situation they were falling
into.

He came up from a full summersault into a
runner’s crouch in the grass, and as he caught his breath, the
blades in the tuft directly in front of his nose came into focus. A
drop of rain plopped onto it, and David shot a glance at the sky.
It was raining instead of snowing, and low hanging clouds
surrounded him.

He knew instantly where he was: the castle
of Dinas Bran sat silhouetted against the sky to the southeast,
meaning they had arrived approximately halfway up the mountain. The
road from the village to the castle ran just to the northeast of
their position, switching back and forth across the face of the
mountain until finally climbing to the southern facing gatehouse.
The gateway was new since Math had rebuilt the castle, moved from
its original position on the eastern slope.

A moan came from behind him, and he spun
around. A few feet away, his father and Abraham were getting to
their feet, but beyond them, Darren lay in a heap in the grass, his
coat shredded and his entire back covered in blood.

Abraham saw him in the same instant, and
since he was closer, he crouched beside Darren before David could
reach him. David’s back was sore where he thought stones had hit
him before they’d vanished, but it was nothing like what had become
of Darren.

“Nobody has a knife, do they, to cut off his
clothes?” Abraham said.

David knelt in the grass, wanting to touch
Darren, but knowing that might not be a good idea. “No. I left
everything in the van.”

Abraham began to peel from his skin the
remains of Darren’s coat and shirt, both of which had been shredded
by debris the bomb had thrown at them. David watched in silence for
a few seconds and then moved to Darren’s other side to help, giving
thanks that the explosion hadn’t been caused by a pipe bomb or one
laced with gasoline, or else all their clothes might have caught
fire too.

David gently peeled away the cloth. Darren’s
skin was shredded, and David’s face twisted in sympathy at the pain
Darren had to be feeling.

Abraham’s brow was heavily furrowed. He
glanced at David and said in an undertone, “It looks bad, but it
could be worse.”

“I’ve been in war,” David said. “I have seen
worse.”

Darren groaned, “My shoulder.”

“It’s dislocated. If we don’t fix his
shoulder, the muscles will swell, and we’ll be worse off than we
are now.” He studied David for a second. “I need you to hold
him.”

David didn’t ask why Abraham needed help.
Darren was six inches taller than Abraham and heavily muscled. The
trick to popping a shoulder back in place was easy once you knew
it, but Darren was in no condition to help in any way.

“Come on, Darren. Easy does it.” As gently
as he could, and with his father’s help, David grasped Darren
around the torso and raised him to his feet. Darren’s flayed skin
had to be screaming with every movement, but maybe not more than
his shoulder.

“You ready?” Abraham had both of Darren’s
arms bent at a forty-five degree angle in front of him. Slowly, he
moved the arms to the sides as if he were opening doors to a great
hall and they were the doors. Darren seemed to be more awake
now—and with all the pain he was feeling, how could he not be?—and
realized what Abraham was attempting. Abraham raised both of
Darren’s arms together, and by the time he got to the point where
Darren’s hands were above his head, the dislocated shoulder slipped
into place.

David hadn’t realized he’d been holding his
breath. Darren bent his head and sagged, as much as his shoulder
would let him, in relief.

“My lord!” The call echoed from above them,
and David turned his head at the shout. Even from this distance, he
thought he recognized Justin’s figure riding out of the gate,
followed by six of David’s men.

“Your mother is going to be very worried,”
Dad said, speaking for the first time.

“I know.” David looked up at the sky, though
there was nothing to see but clouds and rain. Somewhere above the
ground was the hole in the universe they’d just come through, and
on the other side of it was the rest of David’s family.

David lowered Darren back to the ground.

“Rachel,” Darren said. “How is it that I am
here, and Rachel is there?”

“Son, I don’t know when, but I can tell you
that she will be coming just as soon as she can,” Dad said. “My
wife will see to it.”

Darren pressed his lips together and gave a
sharp exhale through his nose.

“I shouldn’t complain, since I would have
been far worse off had I remained in Avalon. In fact, I’d be dead.”
Darren raised his head slightly to look at both Abraham and David
at the same time. “Thank you.”

“We need to get you to the castle.” Abraham
glanced at David. “Infection is the greatest worry—not for his
shoulder, but for his back. I have nothing out here that will help
me care for him.”

David could see that. Many of Darren’s
wounds were deep, like he’d been flayed with a multi-thonged whip
that had cut into the muscles of his back, some even down to his
rib bones.

“None of you would have been there at all
except for me,” David said.

Abraham held up one finger. “Not true. I had
a ticket to the event. If you hadn’t come, Lee would have set bombs
throughout the whole castle. I could have died—the Prince of Wales
would have died—if not for you.” He canted his head. “The Prince of
England, I mean.”

Dad brushed at David’s back. “Your coat is
shredded too.”

David’s eyes had returned to the company
that was coming to get them. The horses had slowed as they’d left
the road, but there was no mistaking the urgency in Justin’s tone
and posture. “But not my skin.”

Abraham smoothed his beard with one hand.
“We really are in the Middle Ages.”

Dad patted the smaller man’s shoulder. “You
are taking this very well. You should have heard Callum when he
first arrived. All he could say was
my God!”

“I confess I find that hard to believe,”
Abraham said.

Justin pulled up, breathing hard. “My lord.
Lady Bronwen begs you to come to the castle. The queen—” Justin
stopped, his expression stricken as he took in Darren’s wounded
body. Then his eyes returned to David’s face.

“What’s wrong?” David said.

“The baby is coming.”

One of the guardsmen dismounted and gestured
for David to take his horse. David glanced at Darren. “What
about—”

But his father had taken charge of Darren.
“You heard the doctor. Nothing more can be done for him out here.
We’ll get him to the castle, and then Abraham can help him when
he’s done helping Lili.”

David shot a look at Abraham, who nodded.
David mounted quickly, but when Abraham didn’t mount a second
horse, which another guardsman had vacated, David bent to him.
“What’s wrong?”

Abraham moved to David’s stirrup and looked
up at him. “I’ve never ridden a horse in my life.”

“Come with me then.” David held out his arm
to Abraham while removing his own foot from the stirrup so Abraham
could mount behind him. “I’m surprised, you being a Welshophile and
all.” It was a little joke, made reflexively and with a very small
part of David’s brain.

Abraham, for his part, didn’t answer because
he was too busy scrambling onto the horse behind David. Once
settled, Abraham directed his next question at Justin. He spoke
slowly because of their divergent versions of English. “Has
something gone wrong?”

David repeated the question to make the
words clearer to Justin. It probably wasn’t necessary, since
thing
and
wrong
were ancient words that could be
comprehensible to Justin, even with Abraham’s modern accent.

“The baby is turned the wrong way around and
comes too early—”

David didn’t wait for more of an
explanation. “Yah!” He spurred the horse towards the castle.

“What do we have for supplies?” Abraham had
his hands clutched tightly around David’s waist, holding on for
dear life.

“The castle has an infirmary,” David said,
suppressing his impatience with his speed. Uphill and carrying two,
the horse couldn’t move as fast as if he’d been carrying only
David. “It isn’t as complete as the one down in Llangollen, but the
village lies twelve hundred feet below the castle in the river
valley. Rachel arranged for an infirmary to be stocked inside the
castle because, in an emergency, the village was too far to bring a
patient.”

“Anesthetic?”

“Poppy juice and alcohol,” David said.

“How far along is your wife?” Abraham
said.

“Seven months,” David said.

David didn’t have to turn around to know
what expression Abraham’s face held. But while Abraham might not be
a warrior, he was a good doctor, which meant keeping a clear head
at all times was a way of life. David had already seen Abraham
handle one crisis. He trusted that if anyone could handle this too,
it was Abraham.

The longest ten minutes of David’s life
later, they surged up the ramp and through the gatehouse of the
castle into the outer bailey. David swung his right leg over the
horse’s head, dropped to the ground, and then helped Abraham
down.

Gwenllian was right beside him as he turned
around. “She’s in the infirmary.”

All three took off in that direction at a
run.

“How long has she been laboring?” Abraham
said, showing his wisdom in using the medieval phrase rather than
in labor
which would have made no sense to Gwenllian, even
with her American English.

“Almost from the moment David left,”
Gwenllian said.

David found that he couldn’t breathe around
the fear in his throat. Lili had been suffering all night long, and
he hadn’t been here to help her. He’d thought that appearing on the
wrong side of the motorway had cured him of whatever complacency
he’d felt about time traveling, but it hadn’t been true. When he’d
grasped Dad’s and Abraham’s arms, he’d known with utter certainty
that he would live through the blast that was coming. What had
happened to Darren, however, showed how terrifyingly erroneous that
assumption had been. With Abraham’s help, Darren should live, but
the close shave showed David he had no reason to think that Lili
would be equally favored.

Abraham jogged calmly beside him and entered
the infirmary with a firm stride. Aaron and Catriona stood talking,
deep in conversation with Bronwen, who had Rachel’s stethoscope
around her neck. All three looked over as Abraham entered. Birth in
the Middle Ages was an obsessively female endeavor. All the
midwives and ladies had been horrified by David’s attendance at
Arthur’s birth, but he’d overridden them then, and he was well past
the point of caring about medieval sensibilities now.

Thus, without more than a
thank God
you’re here,
Bronwen directed David to the side room where Lili
sat on a stool. She held her head in her hands. Branwen, her maid,
a no-nonsense woman if there ever was one, folded spare linens a
few feet away.

She looked up as David entered and said
before David could ask, “She didn’t want me touching her.”

David crouched in front of his wife. Not
sure if it was okay for him to touch her either, David put his
hands on either side of Lili’s thighs. “I’m here, Lili. I’ve
brought Abraham, Rachel’s father. He’s a doctor.”