Prince of Time (11 page)

“What’s ‘corn’?” Ieuan said.

Only the most utilized vegetable on the planet
. I contemplated him while he sipped his drink. I would have looked away, to pretend I hadn’t been watching him, but before I could, he winked at me.

“I need some more of this drink,” Ieuan said.

“I’ll get it,” I said. “You sit and let those ribs rest.”

Ieuan shook his head. “The more I move, the better. It just hurts getting up and down.”

Shrugging, I stood and let him pass, and then scooted over to where he’d been sitting. Otherwise, I suspected I was going to be getting up a lot.

A few minutes later, the pizza came. I’d ordered a super-large one with everything on it, and I actually heard the men’s stomachs growl as the server placed it in front of us. I ate one piece:
Aha! A new food group!
and they ate the rest.

Watching the men eat pizza was practically obscene they enjoyed it so much, but I was impatient and ready to hear what they had to say. “So are you going to talk?” I asked David after he had consumed his third piece before taking a breath.

“Sure,” he said.

Between mouthfuls, David told me how he and his sister, Anna, had been transported to Wales of 1282, rescued Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, who turned out to be David’s father, and lived there ever since. David’s mother, Marged, had conceived David during a prior trip to Wales, been returned to the twentieth century, and then was sent back again to 1284. From there, the history of his Wales diverged so profoundly from the real history, it was hard to keep track of what was real and what wasn’t. David and Ieuan seemed real: their easy camaraderie, coupled with Ieuan’s deference was very genuine.

 
For me, it wasn’t David, for all his eloquence and sincerity, that made me want to believe them, but Ieuan. First, there was a wide-eyed innocence to him, despite the gory tales he told me while wolfing down his food. According to Ieuan, David was a man of action, fighting off the English, personally rescuing everyone from stray puppies to damsels in distress, and virtually saving Wales single-handedly. The sub-text that I read, even though Ieuan didn’t say it, was that he’d been beside David all the while, protecting and serving him.

Second, Ieuan spoke what had to be an older version of Welsh, and language isn’t something you can falsify, no matter how smart you are. It’s too elaborate, too complex, to create out of whole cloth just to fool me. Third, his whole being screamed ‘Middle Ages’, from his completely out of place mustache, to his clothes, to the knife in his boot. It made Peter Jackson’s
Lord of the Rings
movies look fake.

Finally, my thoughts kept returning to Ieuan’s words in the library, when David had to tell him that Wales was no longer a country, and that everyone he loved had died, some very gruesomely. It forced me to face that either their story was true, or they’d escaped from a mental institution. There was no alternative.

I eyed Ieuan picking a piece of pepperoni off his pizza. David leaned back in his seat, seemingly sated.

“How far is it to Bryn Mawr?” he said.

 “Less than three hours,” I said.

Silence.

“I know you have a very busy schedule,” David said. “Thank you for taking us to pizza, and maybe even believing us a little. We can’t take up more of your time.”

I said nothing, just fidgeting with my place setting.

“You could drive us to Bryn Mawr,” Ieuan said. “I would spend more time in your company.”

I turned to him. He was studying me, and it seemed that no one had ever looked at me as intently. I racked my brains for one last question; one last thought that would prove beyond a doubt they were not from thirteenth century Wales.

Then it hit me: the newspaper story. There had to be one. Without answering Ieuan, I whipped out my laptop and set it up on the table in front of me. The pizza place had wireless internet, so it was a simple matter to search for ‘David Lloyd’ and see what came up. Ieuan leaned closer, his arm stretched across the back of the seat. As he coudn’t read English, supposedly, it wasn’t clear why he needed to see the screen.

And there it was:

December 12, 2010, Bryn Mawr, PA.
A Bryn Mawr police report was filed today regarding the disappearance of Anna Lloyd (16) and her brother David (14). Their mother, Marged Lloyd, reported them missing after they failed to return home yesterday evening…

And then:

August 24, 2012, Baker City, OR.
Search and Rescue workers, scoured the mountains near Baker City for the third day in a search for a downed plane carrying pilot, Martin Tesky and his sole passenger, Marged Lloyd, a professor at Northern Oregon University. The flight was a routine run from Pasco, Washington to Boise, Idaho. Ms. Lloyd’s children also disappeared in an unexplained manner in 2010…

I considered the screen. David could have read about the disappearances and adopted Lloyd’s identity, but to what end? Just to fool me? I admitted, finally, that it was enough, for now. I capitulated.

“We can make it by 6 am,” I said, “just in time to wake up your aunt.”

David was on his feet so fast he almost overturned the table. He gathered us up and hustled us out of the restaurant, back to the parking lot where I’d left my car. Ieuan sputtered a bit, but he managed to hold onto his last piece of pizza and his root beer.

When we got to my car, I got in the driver’s seat while David opened the back door to Ieuan and pointed. “You sit there.”

Ieuan obeyed, but winked at me as I looked at him through the rear view mirror. It was very strange to see a sixteen-year old boy ordering a man around and that man happily obeying him.
David climbed into the passenger side of the front seat and settled beside me, his sword on his lap. He had a self-satisfied grin on his face.
Second thoughts, anyone?

I twisted around to look at Ieuan. He grinned at me too.

Chapter Nine

David

I
slouched in my seat. I was utterly delighted that Bronwen was driving us to Bryn Mawr, but I hadn’t really slept in three days and I ached all over. I looked out the window and watched the lights shift past; then closed my eyes, trying to empty my mind so I could rest. I dozed off.

“My God! No! My lord, no!”

Aaron slides off his horse and falls to his knees. He’s stopped fifty yards away, having ridden hard from the opening in the trees at the top of the cliff. The path on which he was riding runs east along the cliff edge, 150 yards as the crow flies from where I’m standing, before curving west to the boat. An arrow can fly that distance in one breath.

I can hear the gulls calling. It almost sounds like they are saying “No! No!” along with me and Aaron. I’ve had the men ready all day, waiting for my lord’s return. As soon as Aaron broke through the trees, they readied their arrows, but it was my lord who appeared, Ieuan cradled in his arms.

“No! No!”

He jumps. Unbelievably, he jumps. I see them fall, and then from one instant to the next, they vanish. The men gasp. We’ve all seen it—or not seen it—and none of us can credit our own eyes. I run forward, but before I manage ten paces, English riders appear in the space my lord had occupied. It takes me a moment to comprehend who they are. In those seconds, they mill around the cliff’s edge, as confused as we are. A breath later, I realize they’re easy targets, silhouetted as they are against the trees.

“Fire!”

My eight archers release their arrows. Three of the English and two of the horses go down. We will tally the arrows later and the three men that missed will find themselves chastened.

I lead the chase up the cliff, collecting Aaron on the way. “Mother of Christ, Aaron! What has happened?” I say.

“My God, my God,” he replies. “I know what has happened, but I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I saw it with my own eyes.”

I grab the front of his jersey and pull him to me. “By all that is holy, tell me what has happened to the Prince!”

I look into Aaron’s eyes, and see first the fear, and then the compassion, and I am chastened myself. I release him.

“He has gone to the land of Madoc, Bevyn,” Aaron tells me, as we gaze down at the bodies of the dead English soldiers that litter the cliff edge, and the rocks below. “He has taken Ieuan with him. I don’t know how, but I can guess why—to save his life, for I heard Ieuan’s cry and my lord’s shout. An English arrow must have hit him.”

I hear Aaron’s words, but they make no sense. How could the Prince travel to the Land of Madoc by jumping off a cliff?

We stare again at the downed men and horses at our feet, and then over edge. The rocks are jagged at the base of the cliff, and two of the Englishmen have fallen on them. Some of my men are slowly picking their way to the bottom, hoping to find the body of their prince to prove what they saw false. I know that at the same time they are hoping not to find him. I’m hoping too, because if he has fallen, he is dead. If he lives, as Aaron says, in another land, he can come back to us; rise again, as another Arthur…

Arthur, Arthur, Arthur.
I jerked awake, with the name ringing in my head. I glanced around, seeing the car and the darkness outside my window, and realized I must have dreamt as I dozed. Already the dream was fading—it was something about jumping off the cliff? And Bevyn? It was no use. The images were gone.

I came more awake, then, and realized that Ieuan and Bronwen were in the midst of a conversation. Bronwen said, “Would you like to drive the car, Ieuan?”

“No!” I intervened, shooting upright.

“My lord!” Ieuan said. “It’s a chance of a lifetime!”

“You can drive the van, once we get back to Wales, Ieuan, once your ribs have healed.” Then to Bronwen, “You have no idea what you’re offering,” I said.

Bronwen looked at me, grinned, and then glanced at Ieuan through the rear-view mirror. They shrugged in unison. Satisfied, I settled back into my seat. It actually felt really great to be moving so quickly, but not be on the back of a horse.

Bronwen spoke. “So, what are you thinking,
right now
.”

I could just
feel
Ieuan shifting uncomfortably at the way Bronwen spoke to me. I kind of liked it actually. She wasn’t going to defer to me, and even if someone suggested it, she couldn’t imagine why she should.

“I was thinking about the chair I’m sitting in, actually,” I said. “I haven’t sat in a comfortable chair for three years. The thirteenth century doesn’t
have
any comfortable chairs, even for a prince.”

Bronwen laughed. “This is a cheap car, too,” she said. “I have an uncle who just bought a new one. It’s nicer than my apartment. Of course, almost anything would be nicer than my apartment.”

Ieuan spoke from the back seat. “I’m thinking about your men, my lord,” he said. “The English were chasing all three of us. Aaron was some distance ahead. Did he escape the riders to reach the boat? Did the men see you jump and then vanish, my lord, with me over your shoulder?”

His words made my head itch, as if I should remember something about that. Instead, I said, “I’ve been trying to imagine what they must be thinking, Ieuan, what they would decide to do. I have to trust that Bevyn will know what is right, but it’s frustrating to be so helpless.”

“If they sailed on the tide, my lord,” Ieuan said, “they still won’t reach Wales for another day or two.”

“And what will happen to them?” Bronwen said. “What will they tell your father?” I could hear the worry in her voice and it heartened me.

“Believe it or not, if the men saw us disappear from the cliff face, Father will be less worried than if we’re just missing in action,” I said. “He knows the whole story, so my family will suspect that what happened is exactly what
did
happen.”

“He won’t punish Bevyn?”

I turned to look at her, puzzled, but Ieuan understood her question.

“I don’t know what you’ve read about our time in your books,” he said, “but we are a civilized people, with a civilized Prince. He wouldn’t punish Prince Dafydd’s men for something that wasn’t their fault.” His voice was low, deep, and very deliberate.

Bronwen met Ieuan’s eyes in the mirror, and then switched back to the road. “I’m sorry, Ieuan. I didn’t mean to malign your prince. It is true, however, that many of the rulers in the Middle Ages behaved just as I described, including King Edward of England, whom your father is fighting.”

I turned my head to look out of the window. “Not anymore,” I said, under my breath. I hadn’t told her at the pizza place about the meeting at Lancaster, because I couldn’t quite admit to Edward’s death, afraid it might be the last straw that made her walk away from us.

“What?” Bronwen said.

“Edward is dead, Bronwen,” Ieuan said. “He was poisoned in his own tent a week ago.”

Bronwen looked at me. “Really?”

“Yes,” I said. “He attacked me in his own pavilion, but fell ill before he could finish the fight. That was why we were in England—to meet with him. The Archbishop of Canterbury wanted to encourage peace between Wales, Scotland and England. We weren’t gallivanting around the countryside for the fun of it.”

“So the English know you were involved?” she said. “Is that why they shot at you?”

“Well, not exactly,” I said.

Ieuan’s mouth turned wry. “We don’t know, Bronwen. We weren’t involved directly in Edward’s death, and at the time thought that by leaving the area immediately afterwards, we’d escaped anyone’s attention.”

“We heard in Carlisle that the English think I’m dead too,” I added, “so we don’t know why Falkes cared enough about us to pursue us across Scotland.”