Guardians of Time (20 page)

“The Scots?” Peter spoke without emphasis,
trying to ask the question without implying that he cared. His
stomach growled, and he stabbed the tip of his belt knife into an
onion. He hadn’t realized he was hungry.

“Cousins of Lord Fulk, come down from the
north.” George made a sour face. “I can hardly understand them when
they speak, though they claim it’s English.”

“Have some come here?” Peter said.

“A few,” George said. “They have plenty of
food and drink down at the castle, of course, and I’ve heard Lord
Fulk has sent out hunting parties every day.”

“Hunting parties,” Peter said. “Really.”

George hesitated, swallowing hard. Hunting
wasn’t a privilege accorded to just anyone, even to a local lord
like Fulk Fitzwarin, who ruled at Whittington. The king—meaning
David—controlled all forests in England, and Wales should be off
limits to any English hunting party.

“I-I-I don’t know,” George said.

Peter rubbed his chin. “Thank you, George,
for being honest with me. I didn’t hear it from you.”

His expression cleared. “Thank you, sir.” He
bowed and departed.

Peter ate a slice of mutton, thinking hard.
That Scots were at Whittington and James Stewart had been abducted
a few miles to the north couldn’t be a coincidence.

“I don’t know this Fulk Fitzwarin, though.”
Bridget’s brow furrowed. “He must be a by-blow of the Warenne
family.” Among the Normans, an illegitimate child whose father
acknowledged him acquired his father’s surname, with the addition
of
fitz
before the name.

Peter’s parents hadn’t been married when
they’d had his older sister, though they did marry before his
birth, with the odd idea that, while one child wasn’t enough to
seal the deal, two ought to be. They’d made it work, and he got on
with them well enough, though his dad hadn’t supported his joining
the military. Peter had written and phoned during the time he’d
been in the Middle East and then Africa, but the long months and
years of separation had taken its toll on their relationship. With
him staying in the Middle Ages for the foreseeable future, it
seemed unlikely it was ever going to improve.

“The connection isn’t recent as far as I
know,” Peter said.

The medieval obsession with illegitimacy
became comprehensible as soon as you realized that condemning a
child for the sins of his parents wasn’t actually about sin or
damnation, but about money. In England, illegitimate children, even
those acknowledged by their fathers, weren’t supposed to inherit.
When two nobles married, the bargain struck was that the son of the
woman would inherit the father’s money, and vice versa.

Sometimes a child was acknowledged anyway if
he or she was royal—and sometimes even when he wasn’t, as seemed to
be the case for whatever bastard in the Warenne family had raised
himself to the point of inheriting Whittington Castle. David hadn’t
produced any illegitimate children himself—no Fitzroys were running
about Westminster Palace—so, he had hadn’t chosen to press the
issue yet.

In Wales, illegitimacy was ignored by all
parties if the father acknowledged the child. And in that case, the
child inherited equally with his legitimate siblings—and could even
be the chief heir. This policy had been changing in the years
leading up to David’s arrival in Wales in 1282, as England gained
more control over Wales politically. But these days, with King
Llywelyn, whose own father was illegitimate, on the throne,
traditional Welsh law continued to prevail. David wasn’t
technically legitimate either, since his parents hadn’t been
legally married at his birth.

Peter was pretty sure nobody remembered the
true situation anymore—or if they did, nobody,
nobody
, would
have the temerity to suggest that David wasn’t going to inherit his
father’s kingdom.

Peter lowered his voice again so it wouldn’t
carry beyond their table. “Do you have any idea what the Scots
could be doing with the Fitzwarins?”

Bridget stared down at her vegetables. “The
wife of King John Balliol of Scotland is a Warenne, you know.”

“I want to believe that’s a coincidence,”
Peter said, “but I can’t, not if there are Scots at Whittington,
and Fitzwarin has Scottish cousins.”

“Could the King of Scotland really have had
a hand in abducting his High Steward from an English highway?”
Bridget said.

Peter shook his head, his eyes searching the
hall for George. “With the Scots, anything is possible.”

Bridget made a face. “I’m Scottish.”

Peter whipped his head back around. “I
didn’t mean you!”

Bridget grinned, and laughter filled her
face. “I know you didn’t. I was teasing.”

One of Peter’s problems with women had
always been that he was too sincere and misunderstood situations
like this as a matter of course.

“We should ride to Whittington,” Bridget
said.

“It would be gone midnight before we got
there, and while Fitzwarin would admit us because I’m undersheriff
to Samuel, we wouldn’t be welcomed with open arms, and we would
certainly arouse his suspicions if he has something to hide.”

Bridget looked down at her food, which she’d
hardly touched. “You’re right.”

“Besides, we’ll be no good to James Stewart
or anyone else tomorrow if we haven’t slept. We’re not in Avalon
and can’t behave as if we are. But I can tell you this: King David
isn’t sleeping.”

David

D
avid wasn’t
sleeping. In fact, David was pretty sure that none of them were
going to be getting sleep any time soon. They’d arrived at the
clinic ten minutes after leaving the university. While everyone was
pleased Mom didn’t have cancer, David found himself somewhat
subdued over Abraham Wolff’s adamant request to come home with
them—and with Mom defending his choice.

“The whole point of this trip was to reduce
the number of modern people in the Middle Ages, not add more!”
David said.

“I know how he feels to be without his
daughter,” Mom said.

David opened his mouth to argue more but
then couldn’t think of anything to say, so he snapped his mouth
shut, deciding he didn’t actually have to decide this one way or
the other right now. They weren’t going back this minute.

“There’s more,” Anna said. “Rupert Jones,
that reporter who’s gone off to Caernarfon? Abraham talked to him
after the Cardiff bombing.”

David looked at Abraham in surprise.
“Why?”

“I was looking for Rachel,” Abraham said
simply, “a fact for which I will not apologize. Rupert does not
appear to have done his homework, however, if he came to my clinic
without knowing it was mine. Or perhaps he spoke with so many
people after the bombings that he didn’t immediately connect my
questions for him in Cardiff a year ago with a clinic in Gwynedd
today.”

“Good job he didn’t,” Darren said, “or he
would have been far harder to get rid of.”

“As it is, we sic’d him on the bus
passengers in Caernarfon,” David said with something like a
moan.

“I didn’t mean to do more than get rid of
him,” Math said. “It was all I could think of.”

“It is what it is, Math,” Mom said, her hand
on her son-in-law’s arm. “He would have gotten the report from the
Black Boar whether or not you ever said anything to him about
it.”

They all piled into the van, Rachel
sandwiched in the very back between her father and Darren, in what
had to be an uncomfortable manner.

Darren stuck out his hand to Abraham again.
“Sir, Rachel and I are more than friends. I just wanted you to
know.”

Abraham shook his hand, a smile hovering
around his lips, which boded well for Darren. “I know. Rachel told
me. I’m glad she has had someone there to care for her.”

David eased out a breath. That could have
been more awkward. Abraham was at least putting a good face on it,
but even David could see the slightly pinched look around Abraham’s
mouth, indicating that maybe he wasn’t quite as accepting of Rachel
and Darren as he looked.

Abraham directed his next question to
Callum. “How is it that MI-5 could possibly have tracked you so
quickly? Surely you’re not using your own identities?”

Since everyone on the planet—including, it
seemed, Rachel’s father—had seen too many spy movies by now, they
knew that using credit cards and your own identification was always
the first mistake of someone on the run. Callum twisted in his seat
to answer. He sat this time in the second row since Cassie was
driving again and Mark was beside her, navigating.

“Mark tapped into MI-5,” Callum said. “He
didn’t even have to get in very far to find the chatter about our
arrival. Apparently, someone was filming the snowy motorway when we
appeared out of nowhere, driving the wrong way down it. There’s
just no reasonable explanation for that, and even with it being
Christmas Eve, the slowest analyst might sit up and take notice of
a video showing our arrival.”

David added, “For whatever reason, there’s a
flash—or a ‘flare out’ as that reporter said—that isn’t visible to
the naked eye but is picked up by camera and radar. If anyone was
looking, they’d see it. The whole point of coming here today was
that nobody would be looking, but I guess that was too much to hope
for.”

“The bus passengers have pretty much given
the game away anyway,” Cassie said. “I wish we could have stopped
them.”

David turned to her. “How? The second we
arrived, they stampeded for the door. We could have held them by
force, but that would have been worse in the long run. I should
have given more thought to what would happen when we arrived, but I
didn’t.”

“I didn’t either,” Callum said. “This isn’t
all on you.”

“David isn’t their king anymore,” Anna said.
“It’s actually Papa and Math who concern me most.”

“Us?” Math was sprawled beside Anna, his arm
across the back of the seat. “We’re just along for the ride, as you
say.”

Dad laughed too. “Meg does not have cancer,
so I am the least of your worries.”

“You’re medieval, Papa, and the King of
Wales,” Anna said. “I’m sure anyone from MI-5 to whatever that
private security force was called—” she looked at Callum.

“The Dunland Group turned CMI.”

“Right, them,” Anna said, “would love to
keep you in a locked room.”

Dad frowned and glanced at David. “We’ve
talked about that, and I would like to avoid it, if possible.”

“You know what?” David said. “You guys
should go back right now. Mom got what she came for. There’s no
reason to stay. I can take everyone else later.”

“I’m not leaving until I see my sister,” Mom
said.

David rested his head against the window.
“Right. I forgot what we were doing for a second.”

“Better if we stick together, son,” Dad
said.

“By the way, has anyone heard from Jane?”
Cassie glanced in the rearview mirror before returning her eyes to
the road. The snow was continuing to fall, if anything more heavily
than before. David hadn’t seen a snowplow yet and wondered how many
there might be in all of Gwynedd, much less the UK.

“I spoke with the physician who admitted
him,” Abraham said. “He took one look at Shane and called in a
pediatric oncologist—a good man whom I’ve had dinner with a number
of times. He left his home for the hospital immediately. They’re in
good hands.”

“What about the diagnosis?” David said.

“The tests were ongoing, but yes, Rachel is
right that it is probably leukemia,” Abraham said. “The admitting
physician was disturbed that Shane had been allowed to reach this
point without treatment.”

David sank lower in his seat, his hand to
his head. “That’s my fault.”

Abraham lifted a hand. “You didn’t cause the
cancer, nor are you responsible for the bombing in Cardiff that
brought Shane to the medieval world.”

“I’ve told him that at least twenty-six
times,” Rachel said. “He doesn’t listen.”

“Jane told him that they’d returned to this
country today specifically because Shane was ill. I supported her
story,” Abraham said.

“Will he live?” David said.

“Childhood leukemia is eminently treatable,
even in later stages,” Abraham said, “though it is too early to say
one way or the other in Shane’s case, and it would be wrong of me
to do so.” He eyed David for a moment. “The first thing you learn
as a doctor is that you can’t save everyone.”

“You can try,” David said.

“Absolutely,” Abraham said, “and I would not
argue that you shouldn’t.”

“We’re entering Caernarfon,” Mark said from
the front seat.

“This is easily the most confusing town I’ve
ever driven in,” Cassie said, as she followed an off ramp and then
did a loop-de-loop under the motorway to get into the city proper.
Christmas lights were strung across narrow alleys, some of which
they couldn’t have gone down even if they wanted to, given the size
of the van. The really old part of the city was surrounded by a
medieval town wall, which had fewer than a half-dozen entrances.
They turned onto a road that took them along the east side of the
city.

“The inn is through that gateway.” Mark
indicated an archway to the left.

Cassie slowed, but then Mark threw out a
hand before she had completed the turn.

“No, no! Don’t go in there. The road doesn’t
go through!”

“Sheesh!” Cassie swung the wheel back to the
right, narrowly missing a car parked with its rear angling into the
street. “How can it not go through?”

Mark peered at his phone. “It’s blocked by a
pedestrian-only walkway.”

For David’s part, he was perfectly glad not
to enter there, since they might have had to pull in the mirrors on
either side of the van in order to get through the archway.

“It was better not to get so close to the
inn anyway,” Darren said from the back. “I saw several vans like
ours parked along the road.”