The storm worsened in the night. Aaron hung onto an iron ring in the floor, literally for dear life, while I rocked in the hammock. He tried to make conversation, but I felt so ill I could barely speak. He talked about his family, particularly his older brother Jacob, who had been a trouble-maker as a boy. When I didn’t respond, even to his funnier stories, he began to recite one of his medical books from memory. In Latin.
At some point in the dark hours of the early morning, Captain Morgan reappeared. As he opened the door, the wind banged it back against the wall of the room so hard that it split in two. “Mistress! You must leave the ship with the youngsters among my crew. We are only a few miles from Wales, but I can’t take the ship in to shore. The storm hasn’t lessened as I’d hoped and the wind is against us.”
Terror filled me, though there was something in Morgan’s eyes that made me think he was offering us the only hope he had and would save none for himself. Without waiting for an answer, he half-dragged, half-carried me from the room, picking up Aaron by his upper arm on his way out the door.
“We will launch the dinghy,” Morgan said. “My crew will see you safe to Anglesey.”
I didn’t ask him what he was going to do, or if he honestly thought he would survive this. I’d lived in Wales for long enough—and been back in the Middle Ages for long enough—to understand that there were times when you didn’t question a man’s decision to face death head on.
“What about my books—?”
Aaron broke off his question at Morgan’s disbelieving look.
“You will find other books, Aaron,” I said. “As rare as yours may be, they are not the only ones. Your life, however, is the only one you have.”
“Thank you, madam,” Morgan said. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Aaron acquiesced without asking me why I was so confident I could acquire new books for him. That would mean I’d have to tell him about Llywelyn, and not only was I not ready to do that, it would expose my own insecurities: What if Llywelyn didn’t want to see me? What if this world he’d created had no room for me in it?
We staggered across the deck, barely maintaining our feet on the rocking ship. The rain had soaked us instantly. Wave after wave crashed over the bow, and we essentially fell over the rail of the ship when it was at its lowest point and into the dingy that rose up on the next wave to catch us. God, I hate boats. The four crewmen who would travel with us pushed away from the ship. I clung to Aaron’s arm.
“We’ll make it!” he said, but a moment later, the dingy met a driving wave exactly wrong and capsized, dumping us into the sea.
Amazingly, I bobbed up for air without my lungs full of water. “Aaron!” I spun around, searching for him, trying not to panic. Ideally, I hoped all survived the capsizing, but in the last hours, Aaron and I had become friends. I wanted him to be okay.
“I’m here.” He appeared beside me, struggling out of his heavy robes. We had loosened the ties on our cloaks in the dingy, knowing that if we ended up in the water, they would drag us down. As I ripped off my cloak and shoved it away from me, an abandoned oar floated past. I grabbed it. The rain pounded so hard I could barely see Aaron through the water streaming down my face, much less anyone else or our lost boat.
“We’re not as far from shore as Morgan implied,” Aaron said.
“How do you know? I can’t see anything.” But just then a wave lifted me up, and I saw the shore. It wasn’t close enough to touch, but it gave me hope.
“Can you swim?” Aaron said.
“Not well,” I said, scissor-kicking my legs even as I spoke. It was true. I could swim, and at this point, I had no other choice. With one hand each on the oar, and the other helping paddle, we stroked and kicked, each wave lifting us and surging us closer to shore. The tide was bringing us in.
“Okay,” I said, though he probably didn’t know what that meant. I began to kick harder. "Let's do this."
* * * * *
When I woke up, the sun was shining brightly in my face. I lay still a moment, feeling the heat on my closed lids, and then opened them. As is often the case after a storm in Wales, the sky above me was a bright blue, with a few scattered clouds, and gave no sign of the horrors of a few hours before.
Experimentally, I moved a leg and then my arms. Bruises? Check. Aching muscles? Check. Seemingly nothing was broken, however. I eased into a sitting position. It hurt to move so much I choked out a laugh. I will never, ever set foot on a boat again.
Around me, the beach was littered with refuse thrown up by the surf, mostly driftwood and seaweed, but here and there was a wine cask or the remains of a boat. But no Aaron.
With legs aching, I got to my feet. My clothes had dried in the sun, but I could feel the salt and sand in my hair and a pass through it with my fingers told me it stuck up on end. I smoothed it the best I could. Llywelyn could be a short walk away, if only I knew where I was.
And then I laughed at myself for my foolishness in thinking that Llywelyn would be anywhere near here, and that even if he were, he would want anything to do with me. I had left him and taken his child with me, even if unintentionally. That might not be something he could forgive.
I started walking down the beach, angling away from the water and towards the dunes in the distance. The morning sun shone bright in my eyes and I put up a hand to shade them. Some people had clustered on the edge of the beach, and I peered towards them, hoping one was Aaron.
As I got closer, a man broke away, and my heart leapt. It was Aaron. He was alive!
“Meg!” he said.
Aaron hiked up his robe and took off at a run towards me. I waved and veered towards him to meet him half-way between the dunes and the sea. Always wary of touching a gentile, Aaron ducked the hug I was about to throw at him and took my forearms decorously.
Then Aaron turned me towards two of his companions, who had followed him. The closer they came, the more my eyes watered. By the time they had taken ten steps, tears poured down my cheeks and blurred my vision.
“Oh, my God, it’s Mom.”
David stood before me, saying those words. David!
The sound of his voice released Anna, and she raced across the beach towards me, her boots slipping in the sand. Sobbing, she threw herself into my arms and knocked me backwards. I held her, my cheek against her hair, rocking her as if she were a baby. She was my baby.
“Oh, my darling daughter.” I repeated the words over and over again. If I said them enough, I could believe that she was in my arms. Anna couldn’t stop crying, even when I took her face in my hands and kissed her eyes, trying to get her to stop.
“It’s okay. It’s me. I’m here.” I looked past Anna to David, who’d come to a halt five paces away, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing either. “And your brother too.” I held out one arm and he came into the circle of it. I embraced both my children for the first time in a year and a half.
“How did you get here?” Anna said.
I shook my head. “It’s a long story.” David’s shoulder muffled my voice. “I can’t believe you’re here too. I didn’t let myself believe it might be possible.”
We hugged and rocked until the tightness in my chest loosened, and I was able to relax my hold enough to look into my children’s faces.
“You must have been through a lot,” Anna said.
“We have. Let’s get you home.” David put his arm around my shoulders and looked at Anna over the top of my head. Over the top of my head! When I’d last seen him, we’d been same height.
Anna held tight to my hand as David herded us, along with a very bemused Aaron, back to where they’d left their horses.
“You mentioned that you had known the prince many years ago,” Aaron said, “but I didn’t quite catch that you had given him a son.”
“I couldn’t tell you and I didn’t want to lie,” I said, and left it at that.
A few steps further on, a man waited—tall, dark, and handsome, with the deep blue eyes of a Celt. Anna took the man’s hand and pulled him towards me. “This is my husband, Mom, Mathonwy ap Rhys Fychan.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, madam,” Math said, his Welsh formal.
I stuck out my hand, as if meeting Anna’s husband was a perfectly normal thing to do, but then ruined it. “You’re married?” I blurted out the words before I could take them back. My hand went to my head before Math could shake it. “How can you be married?”
Anna tightened her grip on Math’s other hand. “I’m sorry you missed it, Mom, but, well ... you weren’t here.”
With that, I melted again. I started crying, and then Anna started crying, and we fell into each other’s arms. Math kissed the top of Anna’s head and patted her on the shoulder. “We’ll leave you a moment.” He and Aaron moved past us towards the horses and out of earshot.
Once again, Anna and I struggled to regain our composure, wiping at our cheeks with the backs of our hands.
“How long have you been back here?” The control in David’s voice told me he was determined to remain on an even keel. So like Llywelyn.
“Since the beginning of August,” I said. “I think.”
“How did you get back here?” Anna said, finally able to calm down enough to marshal her thoughts.
“By plane,” I said. “Near Hadrian’s Wall.”
“Hadrian’s Wall?” David said. “And you made it here all by yourself?”
“I had help,” I said, “most recently Aaron’s.”
“Hadrian’s Wall is a long way from here,” Anna said.
“It is,” David said. “Father is going to freak.”