Castaways in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) (2 page)

Still, in the nine months since his
coronation, David had ruffled more than a few feathers. If he could
provide real treatment for a disease like scarlet fever, it could
go a long way towards getting some of the less enthusiastic barons
on board with his less popular policies—among them, issues of
education, land reform, taxation, and health care.

Take disease, for example. David and his
medical consultants (Aaron, his fellow Jewish physicians, Anna, and
Bronwen) had come up with a strategy for impeding the spread of
disease, with an eye to the Black Plague, which they could expect
to arrive in another sixty years. But
change
was hard for
anyone to accept, much less a medieval sailor who’d been taught to
view disease as caused by the wrath of God. Or a churchman who
believed the same. More than one priest had condemned David from
the pulpit for what he was trying to do. Though David had been
reluctant to call upon outside help to deal with issues of
discipline, he’d asked the Archbishop of Canterbury twice to talk
sense into one of his underlings, or if he couldn’t, to banish him
to a remote monastery.

David had hired cadres of customs officers
to manage the quarantining of ships. Before any ship docked on
England’s shores, the officers identified sick travelers, isolated
them, and arranged for treatment. He’d instituted refuse collection
throughout London, much to the groans of the populace at first,
though he wasn’t hearing anything like the complaints he used to
get. People were even beginning to admit that it was nice being
able to walk down the street without fear of a bed pan being dumped
on their heads.

“When Anna gets here, I’ll have a better
idea of what the timeline might be for getting this stuff to work.
We’ll have to test it,” Bronwen said, already thinking about test
subjects and control groups.

“Do you know how hard it is to get scholars
to switch their focus from alchemy to the scientific method? To
grasp the concepts behind germ theory?” David gestured towards the
door, but Bronwen knew he meant the world at large. “I can barely
get those yahoos to believe CPR could possibly work, much less that
women should be educated equally with men.”

“Aaron understands. It’s been the basis of
the academy he and Anna have begun in Llangollen,” Lili said.

“And not a moment too soon.” David tapped on
the desk with his fingers. “That said, when Anna gets here and you
start experimenting with this, we need to put those twenty scholars
from Oxford and Cambridge to work. I’m not going to dance around
either their egos or their sensibilities any longer. Tell them the
invitation is from me.” He gave a wolfish grin. “Play off the two
universities against each other if you have to.”

Lili gestured to the cantaloupe. “At least
this is a natural result of exposing fruit to the air. Many of them
may have seen mold like this before on apples, which is a source of
penicillin too, just not as good.”

“It would be best to avoid all accusations
of witchcraft,” Bronwen said.

“I agree.” But then David’s brow furrowed.
“You know as well as I do that these things go better when you guys
work behind the scenes. The midwifery classes are one thing, but
when those twenty men sit in that room and are expected to listen
to any of you talk, their ears will close. It’s inevitable. I’m not
saying you shouldn’t be there; I’m just saying that we have to
think strategically about how to make them listen to women.”

“Good thing Cassie already left, or she’d
box your ears just for suggesting that any of us step behind a
curtain,” Bronwen said. “We can’t do that, if only because nobody
else understands what we’re doing as well as Anna, Lili, or I.”

“You know I don’t like to suggest it,” David
said.

“We’re not going to take a back seat in the
experimenting either, if that’s what you were going to say next,”
Bronwen said.

“I wasn’t,” David said, “but you will make
waves if you don’t.”

“You mean we’ll ruffle some feathers when
they find out that not only do they have to listen to a woman—three
women, in fact—but we’re in charge,” Bronwen said.

“You said it, not me,” David said.

“My only response to that is,
it’s about
time
,” Bronwen said.

“I know it is,” David said, “but—”

Bronwen cut him off. “I’m not implying that
it’s your fault that things haven’t improved faster for women.”

“It is his fault, just a little bit,” Lili
said.

“He didn’t make the rules,” Bronwen
said.

David bowed his head. “Thank you for
defending me, but I know that I have failed you to a certain extent
in this. I haven’t pushed like I could have.”

“I know why you haven’t,” Bronwen said.

“It isn’t that I don’t think women’s rights
are important—”

Arthur gave a little cry, and Lili reached
across David’s desk to take the baby from him. “Husband, as long as
girls aren’t educated equally with boys, as long as they can’t
represent their towns in Parliament, change won’t happen the way we
want it to.”

Bronwen didn’t smirk at Lili’s ‘we’. One of
their first conversations had been about the difference between her
upbringing and Lili’s, and how Lili admired Bronwen’s surety as a
human being. Bronwen believed herself worthy of respect and
expected men to listen to her. Lili had wanted that for herself,
and David had encouraged her, but she was still a medieval woman
living in the Middle Ages. For all that they were pressing David
now, Bronwen remained realistic about what they could change.
This
was one of those instances, however, when Bronwen was
going to hold firm. “This is our project.”

“As a compromise, who do we have who could
stand up with Bronwen and Anna and lend credibility to their
words?” Lili said. “He doesn’t have to say anything.”

“I wish I could do it,” David said, “but I’m
leaving today.”

Since Bronwen felt she had won the battle,
she was willing to give in slightly on the negotiations. “Roger
Bacon should do very nicely. The man has pride. He’s already
entranced at being on the cutting edge of our little scientific
revolution. And he listens to me when I talk instead of pretending
I’m not in the room.”

David dropped the front feet of his chair to
the floor with a thud. “Let’s talk to him together before I
go.”

“Can you make him understand what we’re
trying to do here, do you think?” Lili gestured to the cantaloupe.
“We don’t want him to undermine the little progress we’ve
made.”

“I am the King of England and Bronwen is a
woman unlike any he has ever encountered.” David winked at Bronwen.
“I’m pretty sure the two of us can convince him.”

September, 1289

David

“
W
e sail with the
evening tide, my lord,” Callum halted in front of David and gave
him a quick bow. They’d arrived at Cardiff at midday and were
departing at sunset, facing an eighteen-hour journey across the
Irish Sea.

“How long until then?” David said.

“An hour, no more,” Callum said.

“Then I suppose we ought to get everyone on
board,” David said. “The longer it takes for us to get to Ireland,
the more ready Valence will be for us.”

The ship on which they were sailing might be
called a ‘cog’ or a ‘hulk’ by historians. It was an oak-timbered,
single-masted ship with a square-rigged sail. Each cog had been
fitted to carry between twenty and thirty horses and a comparable
number of men. David’s ship presented the one exception. He would
sail with only five horses and fewer men because, like Air Force
One, it had been designed with substantial accommodation for
him.

When William the Bastard had conquered
England in 1066, he’d brought two thousand horses across the
English Channel. David wasn’t trying to duplicate that feat. He was
taking ten ships carrying two hundred men and horses. In Ireland,
they would meet Gilbert de Clare, to whom David had given oversight
of the royal estates, and join the army he’d gathered. Dublin was
the most common port in Ireland for disembarking, but David had
chosen to land at the smaller port at Waterford, far to the
south.

“Well, my king.” Humphrey de Bohun sauntered
up to David. “The time of reckoning has come.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” David said.
“We have a long way to go before we can rein in Valence.”

Humphrey rubbed his hands together with
undisguised glee. “I hear he has dug in at Wexford, and if we’re to
get to him, we’re going to have to dig him out.”

David knew that Humphrey wanted Wexford for
himself. That wasn’t necessarily part of David’s plan, though he
might have to reward Humphrey somehow if he made a major
contribution to the upcoming fight. It made David uncomfortable to
know that to the Irish, he was of the conquering nation. The Welsh
had always been the underdog, and David liked knowing that his was
the side of justice.

Thus, David’s sympathies remained with the
native Irish people, and one of the more pressing tasks that faced
him was how to control all of his Norman barons who viewed
Ireland—like the March of Wales—as their own private playground. He
couldn’t afford to lose their support, especially now. But in the
long run, he wanted the Irish to govern Ireland. While the
situation with Valence appeared clear cut to David, leaving the
issue of Irish independence unresolved was one of the many
compromises he’d made since becoming king. Sorting all this out was
a delicate task if there ever was one, and how he was going to
square his conscience with what he might have to do—or not do—he
didn’t yet know.

“Son.” A hand dropped onto his shoulder, and
David turned to see his father standing to his left. “It was good
to see you.”

“Good to see you too.” David went to embrace
his father, but then stopped himself.

“What’s wrong?” Llywelyn said.

David grimaced. “I’m not feeling great.”
That was, in fact, an understatement. He had a sore throat and
ached all over. It wasn’t a good way to start a trip across the
Irish Sea, but he felt that he had no choice but to continue what
he’d started.

His father didn’t hide his concern, and they
settled for grasping forearms.

“It’s why I stayed away from the twins last
night,” David said.

Yesterday, David’s company had spent the
night with David’s family at Caerphilly. He and his mother had
managed a short evening of conversation before she’d disappeared to
nurse his twin siblings, and then he’d stayed up talking with his
father until well past midnight. Even if David was paying for the
late night now, he wasn’t sorry. He’d listened to all the advice
his father could give him, and he found it terrifying to think that
the rest was up to him. David had taken on the absurd mantle of the
King of England, but in his father’s presence, he realized how
little he knew about governing, and how much he was still feeling
his way in the dark.

Thank goodness he had Callum with him.
Callum wasn’t David’s father, but he knew more about more things
than anyone David had ever met outside his own family.

“I’d tell you to be careful, but I know it
won’t do any good,” his father said.

“I’m always careful,” David said.

His father laughed. “Except when you’re
not.” Then he sobered and gripped David’s shoulder, shaking him a
little. “Come back to us.”

David nodded. “I will. You can count on
it.”

“My lord, it’s time.” Callum reappeared,
holding out a hand to David, having overseen the disposition of
David’s men on the other ships.

“Of course.” David patted his father’s arm,
nodded to Humphrey, who would be sailing on a different ship, and
walked up the gangplank in front of Callum.

“Do you get seasick, my lord?” Cassie
greeted him from the top of the gangway. She stood with legs
spread, as tall as the average man, beautiful and uncommon in her
male clothing. She had pulled her cloak close around her against
the wind that blew from the east. It meant they would get to
Ireland all the faster.

“No, I don’t,” David said. “My mother does.
How about you?”

“I haven’t before,” Cassie said. “When
Callum and I sailed to Orkney, the ride was smooth enough, but
there’s a chop to the water today that I didn’t expect.”

David studied the waves that lapped at the
side of the ship. All the waters around Britain, the Bristol
Channel included, were known for their unpredictability. “We’ll
hope for the best.”

“All aboard who’s coming aboard!” The ship’s
captain ordered the ropes untied. The shallow bottom of the ship
meant that, unlike larger sailing vessels in later centuries, it
could be moored at a dock. Soon, the wind filled the sail, and the
ship sailed out of Cardiff harbor into the Bristol Channel. They’d
be sailing west and then northwest, since Waterford was on the
south coast of Ireland.

Once David saw that they were properly
underway, he turned to Callum. “Let me know if something happens.
I’m going to sleep.”

“Yes, my lord.” Callum smirked.

“You may laugh, but your time will
come.”

“Of course, my lord,” Callum said.

Despite the stress of being King of England,
David had managed a good night’s sleep most nights, but not since
the birth of Arthur. Even though Lili or a nanny took on the bulk
of the baby’s needs at night, David had changed one or two
middle-of-the-night diapers. Cassie had given no sign that a child
was in the offing for her and Callum, but unless something was very
wrong with one of them, children were inevitable. David crawled
into his narrow bunk and grinned evilly at the ceiling, thinking of
Callum as a father. He’d make a great one.

The old wooden cog was salted and
splintered, but seemed sturdy enough. David recalled the first
night he’d been given a room of his own after his father had told
him he was his son. David had reveled in the feeling of the down
mattress and marveled at what it was like to be alone. Tonight, he
missed Lili and Arthur, but didn’t regret that he’d arranged for
every counselor other than Callum to ride in a different ship. On
one hand, David might regret avoiding the mountain of paperwork he
could have worked through during these eighteen hours. On the other
hand, he could sleep instead.