David
Mom froze, her hand on David's shoulder, her face still. "Father?"
"He's alive, Mom," David said. "And he's here, at Rhuddlan."
"Oh, David." Mom put the back of her hand to her mouth. "I didn't dare...I mean, I hardly dared to even think that he might be, that I might be able to see him again. So you think..." She stopped.
"Do I think he'll want to see you?" David said. "Yeah, I know he will."
"But how did you ... how did you find him? How did you know?"
"We didn't," David said. "Father did, the moment we arrived. We literally drove into his attackers at Cilmeri and saved him."
"He went to Cilmeri?!" Mom's voice went high. "He went to Cilmeri on December 11th?"
"It's okay, Mom," Anna said, trying to calm her down. "He felt he had to, despite your warning."
"He could have died!" Mom glared at David and then at Anna, and then the two women burst into tears again.
All David could do was stare at them in amazement. They should be happy! Two of the smartest, most independent-minded women in all of Wales, both of whom had managed to trek miles and miles across unfamiliar terrain, surviving entirely on courage and nerves, were falling to pieces again.
Mom turned to David, her cheeks wet, blinking her eyes to rid them of tears. "This is too much to take in. You were a child last time I saw you, David, and now you are grown and Anna is married." She turned back to Anna. "You got married at what? Seventeen? Eighteen?!"
David tried injecting rationality into the proceedings. "Math's a great guy, Mom. He can't believe how lucky he is to have her; and the marriage secures a beneficial alliance for Father. It's all worked out really well."
"Besides, I'm nineteen now," Anna said.
Mom stared at them for a second and then gave a laugh that was almost a bark. "See! Precisely my point!" And then, more thoughtfully, she said, "Does Math know where you're from?"
Anna nodded. "He knows, but I think he's just beginning to believe."
"It's always been impossible to believe," Mom said. "And I'm living it."
"Math is pretty grounded in the here and now," David said. "He told me that if Anna looks Welsh, speaks Welsh, and is acknowledged as Welsh by the Prince of Wales, that is good enough for him."
"I guess there is something to be said for that," Mom said. "We will need hard-headed and practical people in the new Wales."
"Don't you remember when you came to Wales the first time?" Anna said. "Do you remember what it was like trying to find your way when you didn't speak the language and knew nothing about anything that was important?"
Mom sighed. "I do remember. I remember very well. If not for Llywelyn, I don't know that I would have survived. Before I knew it, we were in love and I was pregnant with David. I managed to bypass most of the trauma by ignoring it."
"We couldn't ignore it, Mom," Anna said. "It was all so awful at first."
Mom nodded. "I know, sweetheart. That you're standing in front of me, whole and happy, tells me that you and David have done remarkably well, at a much younger age than I was."
"We did have each other," Anna said.
"And we also had Father who knew who we were from the start," David said.
"It would have been different if we'd appeared in Cilmeri and not killed Papa's attackers," Anna said. "Imagine trying to make your way in Wales with no help from anyone. We could have starved to death. David could have ended up a stable boy, and me a scullery maid."
"Or worse." Mom's expression darkened.
"A lot worse!" Anna said. "Imagine if the English had captured us!"
More settled, at least for the moment, they walked back to the horses. David mounted Taranis and pulled Mom up behind him. "So, how did you get from Hadrian's Wall to Wales?" David turned Taranis, heading south to the castle. "Planes, trains, automobiles?"
"Try feet and horses," she said. "And then, of course, the ship."
"Oh, Mom." David said. "How bad was the seasickness?"
"That's how I made friends with Aaron," she said. "He gave me a concoction to settle my stomach, which helped, and then he kept me distracted from my stomach by stories of his family. In the end, though, it didn't make any difference since the storm broke up the boat and dumped us into the sea."
Within a few minutes, they approached Rhuddlan Castle. Mom got very quiet. As they rode in under the gatehouse, David glanced up to see a familiar figure standing at the top of one of the towers. Father looked down at them—and it felt like the whole world paused and took a breath.
"Llywelyn," Mom gripped the back of David's cloak. "I look terrible! My hair, my clothes are full of salt. I don't even have shoes. He can't see me like this."
David ignored her, not dignifying her concerns with a response. As if Father will care about those things. He didn't know if Father knew what he was seeing, but he left the battlements the instant they arrived and reappeared at ground level so fast he must have run most of the way. He crossed the bailey with his characteristic long stride, his head steady and his eyes fixed on Mom, and then halted at her knee. He reached for her and she slid into his arms.
"I never meant to leave you, Llywelyn." She shook her head. "I didn't want to keep your son from you."
He didn't dignify that with a response either. Llywelyn slipped one arm around her waist and brought her close to him while threading his other hand through her hair. "I never for a moment thought you did," he said, and kissed her.
* * * * *
"So what's the story, Mom?" Anna had whisked her mother off to her room to get cleaned up and into proper clothes and now everyone was back together, ready to listen to what Mom had to say. Seating himself behind his desk, Father pulled up a chair for Mom beside him and waved Math, Anna, and David to a bench on the other side of the table.
"I spoke with my priest," Father said without preamble, "and he sees no reason why we can't get married tomorrow. It's not like we have any consangual relationships."
"None among your advisors will object, Father?" David said.
"Marged's return is more than they ever dared hope for. Our marriage will secure your legitimacy in the eyes of the Pope and the English nobility, if and when the interdict is lifted."
Mom narrowed her eyes at David and spoke in English. "Has he asked me to marry him, or is he just assuming I will?"
"Assuming, I think. You will marry him, won't you?" David held his breath, against the chance, even after all this, that she'd say no.
"Of course," she said. "I just wondered."
"What are you saying?" Father said, obviously disgruntled at all the English.
"I'm sorry, my lord," Mom said in Welsh, laughing. "I asked David if I'd heard correctly. Am I right that you are asking me to marry you? Because it wasn't entirely clear."
Father swore and thumped his fist on the desk. "You try me, woman!" Events were way out of control for him and his talking to the priest had been an attempt to get things back on track.
Mom studied him. "You're still excommunicate, then."
He took her face in his hands and met her eyes. "And every day we live the best we can, as we hope God would wish."
Mom didn't move, just kept staring at him.
"It's been sixteen years since you pledged yourself to me," Father said. "Will you say the words of marriage in front of my people?"
"Yes, Llywelyn," Mom said. "I missed you every day we were apart."
"Good!" Father kissed her for a long time. David looked away. It was great that his parents were together, but ... Enough! Let's move on to the story!
As if they'd heard his thoughts, they broke apart.
"I want to know everything that has happened to you since you left me," Father said.
"Everything?" Mom said. "That will take a long time, Llywelyn."
"Since I cannot take you to bed, I have nothing else to do," Father said.
David could feel his face getting hot. Mom gave him a pitying look.
"Papa!" Anna said.
Father ignored them both. "Talk!" he said to Mom.
First, Mom explained how she'd left Wales the first time. "I'd gone to you in the night, Anna. You'd had a dream that scared you and woke you up."
"I often do," Anna said. "I don't know why."
Mom nodded. "I took you to the garderobe. When I crouched in front of you, I heard a 'pop'. My water had broken as I went into labor with David. I gasped, and we were gone."
"Just like that?" David said.
"Just like that," Mom said. "I found myself in the grass outside Grandma's house."
"So, any shock could send us back," Anna said.
"That," Father said, "would be unacceptable."
David agreed. There was no way he was going back now.
"I wish I could reassure you," Mom said. "But how it happens is a mystery to me."
"We'll table it for the time being," Father said.
Mom then talked through the next fourteen years of their lives, until she reached the point where Anna and David disappeared from Pennsylvania.
"My sister called me when you two didn't arrive to pick up your cousin."
"Called you?" Math said.
Mom hesitated, and then explained. "In our time, a person can speak into a machine that transmits her voice to another person far away."
Father exchanged a look with Math, before folding his arms across his chest, not looking at all satisfied.
Mom glanced at him. She patted his knee. "It's called a telephone. I mentioned it once before. I'll explain later."
"You were telling us about Aunt Elisa," David said.
"Yes," Mom said. "At the time she was puzzled, and not a little angry, because you'd left your cousin to languish at his friend's house for hours. By the time she got off work, however, she was genuinely worried. The police came, but they never found any trace of you or the van. You remain, I presume, an unsolved mystery."
"As will you," David said. "I wonder what the authorities are thinking now, with the addition of your disappearance."
"What did you think when we disappeared, Mom?" Anna said. "Did you think we were dead?"
"Not for more than a moment," Mom said. "During those first heart-wrenching hours when you were missing, I refused to think it, and then, once the police had left and I was alone, I realized I couldn't think it. I was very lonely without you, but I believed you were alive, just alive somewhere else. Though I certainly was aware of the significance of the date you disappeared ..." Tears welled up in her eyes again. "It's just too good to be true that you're here!"
Anna, also teary-eyed, stood up and hugged her.
Father and David looked at each other. Just as David had thought earlier, the expression on his face said, 'Okay—enough!'
Then Mom began to laugh, her shoulders shaking as she struggled for control. Father looked startled, but David remembered that Mom often laughed during stressful situations. It was the crying that was unusual for her. Mom squeezed Anna's hand and David was glad to see the laughter instead of tears.
"I love you, cariad," she said. "This has all been a little overwhelming."
"And you're tired," Father said, "so let's finish this."
"As I told Anna and David," Mom said, "I arrived at Hadrian's Wall."
"But that's hundreds of miles from here!" Father said.
"I know, Llywelyn. I was as horrified as you to discover it."
"You really are from the future." Math rested his elbows on his knees and looked from Mom to Father, and back. "There are times that I forget where Anna was born, but now ..." He paused and then leaned back in his chair.
"Are you okay with this?" Anna said.
"This is fascinating," he said. "I'm very interested in what your mother has to say. Please continue."
Mom nodded. "I walked along the wall, anxious to avoid meeting anyone. My clothes, of course, were entirely inappropriate, and I was anxious about what time I found myself living in. I only hoped that this was 1284—it could easily have been another era entirely.
"The first evening, I spent in one of the ruined Roman forts along the wall. When I entered it, however, I found that I wasn't alone. A ten year old boy had hidden himself there, frightened; hands tied behind his back, he huddled in a corner."
"You're kidding," David said, reverting to English.
Mom shrugged. "Turns out he was the nephew of Carlisle Castle's castellan, Sir John de Falkes, who crusaded with Edward before being given custody of the region. The boy, Thomas, had been riding with an English patrol—apparently they start them early in war in England—which had come upon a Scottish raiding party and gotten wiped out, with the boy as the only survivor. The Scots had tied him up and thrown him over a horse. Once it got dark, he slid off the back into the brush and got away."
"So you helped him get home?" Anna said.
"I did," Mom said. "We walked all night. By dawn we'd reached the outskirts of Carlisle and encountered Falkes riding out with his men to look for Thomas. They took me in, cleaned me up, and sent me on my way to Wales, though, in truth, he didn't like that part at all."
"He didn't want you to come here?" David said.
"England is at war with us, after all," Mom said. "In the end, however, I convinced him I was harmless and he paid for my passage, if for no other reason than to discharge the debt he owed me for caring for his nephew."
"Chance, luck, and happenstance." Father's eyes darkened and he looked very serious, almost grim. "I don't want to lose you three. I don't want Wales to lose you. How do I keep you here?"
Mom, Anna, and David shook their heads, each solemn.
"I don't know," Mom said.