The Renegade Merchant (35 page)

“Better that than to lose her entirely,”
Callum said.

“We can watch the crowd for anyone who balks
as he approaches the entrance,” Natasha said.

“I don’t like this.” Callum turned to
Natasha. “I need a better picture of what’s happening. I’m too far
away.”

Natasha put one hand to her ear, listening,
and held up her other hand to Callum. Then she said, “The custodian
has arrived and is waiting for you at the castle entrance.”

“Excellent.” Callum got out of the car,
checked that his earpiece was working properly, and headed towards
the castle gate. His trench coat with the collar up didn’t fit in
with the re-enactors, but at least he wasn’t in black like his men.
Their coats hid their firearms from the crowd, but they still
looked like cockroaches on a bed sheet. At this point, however, it
was too late to find them medieval clothing. It wasn’t as if Callum
could buy that kind of attire at Marks and Spencer.

Welsh gun laws were more than strict. People
weren’t used to seeing weaponry outside of their televisions.
Callum didn’t wear his gun openly either. He didn’t want to
intimidate the innocent onlookers more than he had to. Callum
wanted this to be easy. It
should
have been easy from the
start.

Callum eased through the crowd, smiling and
nodding, trying to blend in and pretend he enjoyed medieval
pageantry. All the while, he cursed the rain, the bad luck that had
brought Meg to Chepstow on this day, the errant custodian who had
only just arrived, and Smythe for his initial heavy-handed approach
to their fugitives. Remarkably, Smythe had never learned that much
more could be accomplished with honey than with vinegar.

As promised, the custodian was waiting for
Callum at the castle entrance and unlocked the door as he
approached. The custodian didn’t immediately push the door open,
however; he just stood there, gabbing at Callum. “I don’t
understand what this is all about.”

“You don’t need to,” Callum said.

“If something untoward is going on, I need
to know about it,” the man said. His expression told Callum what he
thought of this insult to his authority.

“No, you don’t.” Callum put his hand on the
door and shoved it inward with enough force to knock the door
handle from the custodian’s hand. The custodian sputtered his
disapproval, but Callum pushed past him and entered Chepstow’s
lower bailey.

He was alone for only a minute before a host
of organizers and re-enactors followed. With them came Callum’s men
who would watch for Meg from inside the castle. Before they set
about their task, Callum took them aside. “I want you on the walls
and in the doorways between the baileys. We stay in constant
communication.”

“Yes, sir,” the men said in unison.

Callum then did a complete survey of the
interior of the castle, all the way up to the rear door. It was
locked. He returned to the lower bailey and entered the gift shop,
looking for the custodian. The man wasn’t happy to see Callum, but
he delegated the ticket taking to someone else and gave Callum his
full attention. “Tell me about the back gate,” Callum said.

“It’s always locked,” the man said. “Only
the groundskeeper and I have keys.”

“Is the groundskeeper here today?”

“He’ll be along in a minute,” the custodian
said.

“Send him to me when he comes in,” Callum
said. “I’ll be on the balcony off the wine cellar.”

“Yes, sir.”

Having little faith that the custodian would
do as he requested, Callum asked Natasha to let him know when the
maintenance worker arrived. He was sorry he’d rubbed the custodian
the wrong way, but Callum had a job to do. It was ridiculous for
the man to question how he did it.

Callum made his way through the kitchen,
already busy with preparations for a medieval meal, down the
stairs, and into the wine cellar. Chepstow Castle was in better
repair than many ancient fortresses since it had never been taken
by an enemy force in battle. Still, it wasn’t what one might call
habitable, having lost its wooden infrastructure—specifically the
roofs to all its buildings and halls—centuries ago.

The room in which Callum found himself now,
however, was built in stone. Contemplating the rain, he stood in
the doorway to the balcony that overlooked the Wye River. He
couldn’t help but think about the men who’d lived here centuries
ago when the cellar was full and the purpose of the castle was to
stand as a last bastion of English strength against the miles of
Wales to the west.

Seven hundred years ago, Llywelyn ap
Gruffydd, the man Meg claimed was her husband, had died, and Wales
had fallen to England. Callum hadn’t lived in Wales very long, but
only an imbecile could have failed to notice how many Welsh people
wished that had never happened. Callum stared at the puddles
forming on the uneven stones at his feet. He wished he could speak
to his father, who’d have had a thing or two to say about the day
Callum was having.

From the back of the wine cellar, perched on
a building stone that could have fallen off the balcony wall four
hundred years ago, Callum called in to Natasha. “What do you
see?”

“I —
crackle, crackle
— someth —
crackle, crackle
—”

“You’re breaking up.”

“I —
crackle, crackle
—”

“Forget it. It’s my fault. I’m coming
up.”

Natasha was right that waiting for Meg in
the wine cellar was a waste of his time, especially since the
stones blocked the reception for his earpiece. Callum had allowed
the knowledge that Meg had eluded them so far to cloud his
thinking. He was ascribing superpowers to a pregnant former history
professor burdened by two older men, one of whom was fresh out of
hospital. If Callum hadn’t felt that his job was somehow on the
line, he would have laughed out loud at the absurdity of his
situation.

Callum came out of the former great hall of
Chepstow Castle into a dramatically changed scene. When he’d
entered earlier, the castle had just been starting to fill. Now, an
expansive pavilion had been set up in the center of the lower
bailey. Tourists streamed through the gift shop, heading towards
either the pavilion or the middle bailey, where Callum could hear a
speaker welcoming everyone to Chepstow Castle. Three of Callum’s
men observed the movements of the crowd from the battlement, and
two more stood in the doorway between the middle and lower bailey,
checking the face of every person who went through it.

Callum tried Natasha again. “Where are
we?”

“I’ve moved Ted and Agent Driscoll inside
the gift shop,” Natasha said. “Ted was getting restless and
cold.”

“How well can he see from there?”

“He can see better,” she said. “We’re having
people remove their hats and hoods once they’re inside—for security
purposes.”

“Excellent,” Callum said. “No sign of them,
I assume?”

“No, sir.”

That wasn’t excellent. While Callum had been
speaking to Natasha, the speaker in the middle bailey had released
the crowd, which surged into the lower bailey. A girl brushed past
Callum lugging an iron pot. It was so heavy, she needed both hands
on the handle to carry it. Steam rose from the liquid inside,
wafting the scent of beef and barley stew in his direction.

Uncertain about his next move and sure that
he was missing something important, Callum moved closer to the
castle entrance. He spent a few minutes scanning the face of every
tourist who entered the castle. With each person who passed by,
Callum’s irritation and suspicion rose, until he remembered that he
hadn’t yet spoken to the groundskeeper.

“Who’s watching the back gate?” Callum said,
cutting through the chatter amongst his men that came constantly
through his earpiece. He hadn’t cut them off earlier in large part
because men standing around talking looked more natural than men
glaring at the crowd.

“Agents Jeffries and Leon, sir,” Natasha
said.

“Excuse me, sir,” Agent Leon said, “but
Chapman and Stevens were assigned to the rear of the castle.
Jeffries and I have been up on the wall in the middle bailey for
the last thirty minutes.”

“That’s not right, sir. Chapman and I were
tasked with watching the car park,” Stevens said.

Bollocks. “Stevens, check the back gate.
Jeffries, find the groundskeeper.”

“They haven’t slipped past us from the
front,” Natasha said. “I’m sure of it.”

“I’m going to have a look at the cellar
again as a precaution,” Callum said.

Of all the times to screw up the
assignments.
That had been Natasha’s job, but it was ultimately
Callum’s responsibility. If he couldn’t stop Meg from jumping off
the balcony, the head that would roll would be his. Callum trotted
back into the passageway that led to the wine cellar.

Tourists’ wet boots had made the stones
slippery, and Callum was glad for the good tread on his rubber
soled work shoes. No electric light or torch guided his feet as he
descended into the darkness of the wine cellar, but as he neared
the bottom of the stairs, dim light came from the doorway to the
balcony. Callum reached it a second later and pulled up, stunned by
what he saw.

“Stop!”

At Callum’s shout, the woman—Meg—pushed back
the hood of her cloak and glanced over her shoulder, letting the
rain sweep into her face. Goronwy, the shorter, squatter, and
greyer of the two men, already stood on the wall that overlooked
the Wye River. He glared at Callum, who couldn’t blame him, given
that for the last twelve hours MI-5 had chased him across the
length and breadth of Wales. All three fugitives looked as tired as
Callum felt.

Goronwy’s hand strayed to the hilt of his
sword, but he didn’t draw his weapon. Llywelyn didn’t even glance
at Callum. Instead, he hoisted himself up onto the stones to stand
on the wall beside Goronwy. It wasn’t a wide wall, either, maybe a
foot deep. Both men balanced there securely, even Llywelyn with his
gimpy heart.

“Please. Let us go.” Meg clutched her skirt
in one hand and gripped Goronwy’s hand tightly with the other.

“Don’t make another move except to step down
slowly. I need you to come with me.” Callum put a hand to his ear,
noticing the absence of conversation, and realized that his
earpiece had gone on the fritz again, blocked by the stones above
his head.

Meg dropped her skirt and reached for
Llywelyn’s hand. “We can’t. We have to go home.”

While Callum watched, helpless to stop them,
the two men lifted her onto the wall. Callum took a step forward,
one hand out, fumbling with his other hand in the pocket of his
trench coat for his phone. What he didn’t do was pull his gun from
its holster under his suit jacket. Callum needed to end this before
it went further, but not with a bullet wound.

He pressed ‘talk’ and put the phone to his
ear. As the phone rang, Meg, Llywelyn, and Goronwy sidled closer
together. Goronwy and Llywelyn clutched Meg around the waist while
she slipped her arms under their cloaks and held on.

Even as Natasha picked up with a distant
Hello?
Callum lowered the phone.

“Don’t do it!” he said.

“
Sir?”
Natasha’s voice came from
Callum’s phone.

Callum wanted to answer but the situation
was too delicate. A wrong move by him might encourage them to jump.
If Callum couldn’t come up with the right thing to say, that
headline on the front page of the national rag was going to be
written after all.

Then feet pounded in the corridor above him,
the metal fittings of boots rapping loudly on the stones. Callum
didn’t know if Meg heard the noise or if it was an instinctive
twitch from him that gave the game away. As Meg bent her knees,
Callum dropped his phone, took a step, and threw himself forward in
a flying tackle. He managed to wrap his arms around Llywelyn’s
shins, but he was too late. Their feet had left the balustrade.
Their combined weight and Callum’s momentum carried him over the
wall.

The water rushed four stories below him. As
he fell, seconds passed as if they were days. He forgot to breathe.
And then a great chasm of blackness opened beneath him and
swallowed him whole.

Callum hit the river and went under.

__________

Exiles in Time
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