Chapter Three

Bronwen

 

I had a big bite of hamburger in my mouth, with mayonnaise and ketchup dripping onto the napkin in my lap, when word came from on high that my professor wanted to see me. I knew it was important because the departmental secretary had actually gotten up from her desk and walked down the hall to the graduate lounge to find me.

Now I faced a dilemma. Do I finish the hamburger, thus delaying my visit to Professor Tillman, or do I leave the rest of the hamburger uneaten? I’d decided that morning that I needed to augment my four major food groups (coffee, diet cola, onion rings, doughnuts) with more nutritious fare if I was going to survive a second year of graduate school. Thus, the banana I ate for breakfast, and the hamburger for lunch.

I set the hamburger on the table. It looked forlorn and I knew it would be cold by the time I got back. I left it and headed down the hall to Professor Tillman’s office. I’d not seen him in some time, as I’d taken to working late to avoid him. Ever since his divorce, he’d become overly friendly. I was hardly a man-magnet (nice looking...sure...but normal), so it could have been all my imagination. At the same time, he wasn’t helping me with my thesis as much as in past months and I feared that he could tell that my enthusiasm for graduate school was waning. It wasn’t the enormous amount of work—I could handle that, including the interminable round of classes and papers—but that so much of it seemed to be work for work’s sake. Ultimately, however, it was the endless self-promotion that had caught me unprepared and still left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

I knocked on the office door and poked in my head. Jim Tillman sat behind a large wooden desk at one end of the room. The office wasn’t very big, but lined floor to ceiling with books. A guest chair sat on the opposite side of the desk, only two paces away. Tillman held up one hand to stop me before I spoke, finished what he was typing on his laptop, and then looked up.

Hello, Bronwen. Come in and shut the door.”

Ugh. I came in but only closed the door most of the way. I hoped he wouldn’t notice.

Give it another shove,” he said.

I spun in the chair and kicked the door with my foot. It latched. I spun back and looked at him, trying to affect a bright and expectant face.

Coffee?” He held out a small French press.

Sure,” I said. It is one of the four food groups, after all.

Not that we should drink this stuff with all the latest findings,” he murmured as he poured some into a cracked mug and handed it to me. “Sorry, there’s only half a cup left.”

Despite myself, I smiled. “Well, I guess I don’t have to worry about it damaging me, since I only have half a cup.”

Tillman looked at me, and there was a pause. Then he laughed, and I remembered why I liked him so much. That was the worst part of my suspicions. Maybe I was just misinterpreting what he was doing. Maybe it’s all in my head?

Then he dropped the bombshell.

The selection committee reviewed your request for funding for the upcoming year. Although you’ve made good progress, we feel that others are more deserving of the annual stipend.”

I stared at him, feeling stupid, sure he couldn’t just have said what I’d heard. “They’re revoking my stipend?”

Tillman smiled, in what he probably thought was a gentle manner. “Yes, Bronwen. We have forty-five graduate students. We couldn’t fund all of them.”

There’re forty stipends. Are you telling me I’m one of the bottom five students in the department?”

It isn’t necessary to compare yourself with the other students, Bronwen.”

Not compare! Graduate school was nothing if not hierarchical. Full professors, like Tillman were at the top, followed by associate professors, assistant professors, and then graduate students. One of the secretaries had actually denied access to a forty-two-year-old third year student—a former tax lawyer—who wanted to use the copy machine. Undergraduates were at the very bottom of the heap but usually they were oblivious enough not to know it. The whole thing would be laughable if it weren’t so sad.

In the face of my silence, Tillman continued. “Your grades are more than adequate,” he said. “There were other considerations which I am not at liberty to share with you.”

Bleh.

So, do I just pack up and leave?”

You do have the option of continuing in the program, as my assistant or through your own monies. I’m willing to continue working with you, if you’re willing to work for me in my research.”

And that was it.

What to do? In truth, I loved archaeology. When I’d applied to college as a senior in high school, the admission programs were scrapping the ‘well-rounded’ motif of previous years, in favor of students with a ‘passion.’ That was fine by me. I didn’t have much else to offer, what with my spotty attendance record and worse grades. I hadn’t skipped school to smoke under the bridge. I’d been yanked time and again by my free-living parents for another trip.

Before I was fifteen, I’d been to every great museum in the world. I’d lived for more than three months in seven countries. I’d crossed mountains and deserts, lived in yurts and thatch huts, climbed Aztec, Mayan, and Egyptian pyramids. I’d attended seventeen schools and when I wasn’t in school, I’d worked with my parents in everything from a refugee camp in Africa, to triage medicine in Nepal, to well-digging in Guatemala. Was it any wonder that archaeology appealed to me? One, while doing it, I didn’t have to talk to anyone I didn’t know, always a plus; and two, I got to play with all the dead, old stuff that other archaeologists had brought back from all the ruins I’d seen. What could be better?

Sitting there in the chair, with my world blown apart around me, I accepted Tillman’s offer. Despite my misgivings about him, I had no actual proof that he wanted anything untoward from me. And then there’s the ugly truth...where would you go if you were to leave here? I told myself that Tillman’s research fascinated me, which is why I’d asked him to become my major professor in the first place. His specialty was Roman Britain. Hadrian’s Wall wasn’t as huge as the Great Wall of China, but just as enthralling.

Right away, he took me upstairs to his lab to show me where he wanted me to start. He talked a mile a minute all the way there, as he unlocked the lab, and until we stepped inside. He stopped when he turned on the light and both of our faces fell. The lab was packed with artifacts, mostly uncatalogued. It was a mess. He knew it was a mess. And now it was my job to deal with it.

It was past nine in the evening by the time I was able to go home. The scary thing was how many people were still in the building and I waved to a couple of them as I passed their offices. I always hated walking out to my car by myself. I thought about getting someone to come with me but told myself not to be pathetic. It was bad enough that everyone was going to know by tomorrow or the next day that I was no longer a funded student, but at school on sufferance without a stipend. I was going to have to stand on my own two feet.

I pushed open the door with my shoulder, holding my keys in my left hand and my TASER firmly in my right. I was so preoccupied with my thoughts that I almost didn’t see the two men, one kneeling beside the other in the shadows of the building. As I passed them, walking quickly, the one who was kneeling jerked around and startled me. He knew it, too, for he held out his hand as if to plead with me not to run.

I backed away. He wasn’t as old as I’d first thought—more of a boy than a man—but he was a big guy, with a mop of unkempt, light brown hair and long legs. I couldn’t see very well by the light of the street lamp, but it looked like he was wearing a cloak and a thick leather coat—could that be armor? What really got my attention, though, was the long sword, sticking out from his left side. It looked like a real sword, not a prop. None of the SCA folks I knew had a sword like that.

He spoke. “My name is David . . .” then paused, thinking, before continuing, “Llywelyn. Please, please help us. My friend is wounded.”

Llywelyn.

The other man’s voice spoke out of the darkness, quiet so I couldn’t quite make out the words. It tickled my ear to hear him, as if I should understand what he was saying but couldn’t quite catch it. David replied under his breath. I glanced from one to the other, ready to run, but not yet running. I couldn’t run away from that name and there was something about the boy that wasn’t really threatening, though I held up the TASER just in case. David held out his own hand again. “Please! Don’t go. We really need some help.”

Why do you think I can help you?”

You have a cell phone?”

Of course.”

Please call 911. You can stand over there to do it, but please call. My friend’s been shot in the back.”

Believing him now, I fumbled in my backpack for my phone while David returned to his friend. He shushed him and began to work at his clothing, perhaps trying to get at the wound. I dialed my phone.

911,” the woman who answered said. “We have your location. What is your emergency?”

A man has been shot. We’re at the plaza at the Penn State campus, outside the archaeology building.”

Stay on the line. An ambulance will be with you shortly.”

As she spoke, I moved next to David, but held the connection open. I fell to my knees beside him.

Can I help?”

David scooped up a pile of weapons that lay beside him, consisting of, from what I could see, two swords (he no longer wore one), three knives, a bow and a quiver.

I need you to take these and put them somewhere safe,” he said.

You’re not serious!”

If the authorities find me with them, we may end up in jail instead of the hospital. We’ve done nothing illegal as far as I know, but we’re dressed strangely enough without complicating matters further.”

I blinked. He talked just like a professor, but he couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen.

Do you have a vehicle?” he said.

I nodded. “In the parking lot.”

Please do as I ask. Please.”

Giving in again, I took what he gave me, leaving him my phone so the ambulance’s tracking device could find him. I ran to my car, though the weapons were so heavy my shoulders were aching by the time I reached it. I threw open the hatchback and dumped the weapons inside, only to find that the bow wouldn’t fit. Grumbling, I scooted around to open the door to the back seat and folded down one of the seats. Slamming the doors, I ran back to the plaza. The emergency crew had arrived.

While the EMTs worked on his friend, a policeman grilled David. I ran up just as the cop said, “I need to see some ID, sir.”

I don’t have any.”

The policeman’s mouth twisted, irritated. “Give me your name and date of birth.”

David rattled them off. The policeman hesitated over his paperwork when he realized David was only sixteen—he didn’t have to carry identification at all times until he was eighteen.

How about your friend?” the policeman said. “He’s older than you, isn’t he?”

Yes, but I don’t know that he has identification either. We didn’t plan for him to get hurt.”

What’s his name?”

Ieuan Cynan,” David said.

Excuse me, sir,” I interrupted. I’d been rummaging in my pack while they talked, and now pulled out my driver’s license. “I’m Bronwen Llywelyn,” I said.

David’s eyes almost bulged from their sockets, but thankfully he kept his mouth shut.

It was you who called emergency services?” the policeman said.

Yes, sir,” I agreed. What are you thinking, Bronwen! Are you out of your mind? Why are you getting involved?

He’s your brother?” The man gestured to David.

Cousin,” I said, though we looked nothing alike, with David a Viking to my Celt.

And the other guy?”

David spoke this time. “Our friend. He’s visiting from Wales and doesn’t speak any English.”

They don’t speak English in Wales?” the policeman said.

Not always.” I gave David a speaking look. From Wales. No wonder their voices sounded familiar.

Excuse me, sir, ma’am,” one of the EMTs said, walking over to stand next to us. “We’re taking your friend to the hospital.”

Can I ride with him?” David said. “He’ll be lost without me.”

No, sir; I’m sorry, sir; that’s against hospital policy. Anyway, we’ve sedated him, so he won’t remember the trip.”

I’ll need certification from you that this was a gunshot wound,” the policeman said to the ambulance technician.

No gunshot, sir. Looks like he fell on something sharp. It bit him between two of his lower ribs. He’s lost some blood, but it missed his lungs.”

The policeman glared at us while the ambulance man returned to his work. We stood and watched them load Ieuan into the ambulance, and then the policeman spoke again. “I thought you said he’d been shot.”

I thought he had!” I said, looking at David.

I’m sorry,” said David. “I must have misspoken.”

Don’t make a habit of it,” the policeman said. He snapped his notebook shut. “I hope your friend recovers soon.”

Thanks,” David said, and the policeman walked away. David turned to me. “Will you take me to the hospital?”

I bit my lip and looked up at him, meeting his blue eyes. They were bright and sincere and fixed on mine. I shook my head to say no, but found myself saying yes to him again.

Surely I will regret this!

David grinned.