Christopher
“What do you want us to do?” Christopher and Huw planted themselves in front of Callum. Between the two of them, they had deliberated briefly but heatedly as to which of the commanders would be least likely to dismiss them, and by extension most likely to do what they wanted. “David told us he was sending us north, but that was when he was sending us with William.”
Christopher was really glad his mom and dad were back in Wales with Aunt Meg and Uncle Llywelyn. They’d had a lively debate about that too, but Christopher had argued successfully that if he’d been in Avalon, he wouldn’t have lived at home anymore either. Earth Two wasn’t exactly college, but they couldn’t argue that he wasn’t learning a lot—and that it was his job to serve David. Just because his parents were here now too didn’t mean that he was going to change who he was and who he was becoming.
For sure, Sir Christopher had a really nice ring to it, and the longer he stayed here, the more reasons he had to stay, and the more he understood why David did too. Whatever happened in the future, Christopher was determined not to go back to being a twenty-first century kid. In Avalon, men his age had three more years of sitting around in classrooms all day to look forward to, and he didn’t know a single person—the smart ones included—who wouldn’t have done something different if they’d had another real way other than going to college to get ahead in life.
In prior arguments, Callum had usually supported Christopher’s quest for independence, if quietly, and now he looked unseeingly towards the battlement from which David and William had disappeared.
“It’s what the king wanted,” Huw said helpfully.
“I know what David wanted better than you two, I think.” He gave them the beady eye. “But you’re in luck in that we already resolved not to second guess David’s plans nor try to imagine what he would do if he were in our shoes and faced with new information. As it is, in your case we know what he had planned because he’d already told you about it. So I’m not going to change it.”
“Yes!” Christopher went to punch the air, but Callum’s hard look arrested the movement, and he lowered his hand. “Sorry.”
Callum bobbed his head. “You don’t have to be sorry. I’m glad you’re excited about this commission David has given you. Though—” the stern look was back, “—would it make you feel better or worse if you knew how important it was? David was hoping to hear back by now from the scouts we sent north ten days ago, but they have not returned. We can’t wait another day for information.”
“I know,” Christopher said. “Plus, we need the Stewarts and the Bruces, and they need to know what we’re doing—and what has happened to David.”
James Stewart had been needed as one of the few elder statesmen of his adopted Irish clan who’d survived the carnage in Ireland, but his Scottish estates had always been the most important. He’d resolved to sail for Scotland within a day or two of David’s own departure for Wales. Robbie himself was a Bruce and had felt an urgent need to warn his grandfather of Balliol’s treachery, if he didn’t already know of it—and to stand at his side when he faced it. Even now, the Stewarts and the Bruces were supposed to be riding out of Carlisle Castle, a royal stronghold, to hem in Balliol’s forces from the north.
“I’d go myself if I wasn’t needed with the main army. I’d love to send Cassie, but Gareth is too young to travel into a war zone, or to be without his mother, were she to go alone for as long as this might take.”
“We’ll manage,” Christopher said staunchly.
Callum rolled his eyes. “Like you did in Ireland.” He laughed. “You must have something of your cousin in you to pull off a stunt like that.”
Christopher tried ineffectively to look modest.
Undoubtedly Callum wasn’t fooled. He had the ability to see through anyone. “For that reason, I think I’ll send Matha O’Reilly with you too. He’s recovered, for the most part, from the airplane ride, and with David gone, he’s going to be a bit at loose ends. It will give him something to do.”
Christopher nodded. He understood all too well the need to have something to do. And he liked Matha well enough. “His English is improving. He ought to do fine.”
Huw looked somewhat more askance. “I haven’t forgiven him for forcing William and me to run across Ireland.”
“He was doing the job his father set him with admirable single-mindedness,” Callum said.
Huw still looked sullen, which prompted Callum to openly laugh. “Don’t let David hear about this. We’re friends with the Irish now, remember?” He put a hand on Christopher’s shoulder. “This doesn’t mean you have permission to take unnecessary risks.”
“No, sir. Only necessary ones.”
“Pshaw.” Callum scoffed. “Off with you. I’ve chosen three other men to go with you to keep you honest.”
Huw and Christopher hastened away before Callum could change his mind. Christopher was glad to be going on the road, even if he was missing William’s company. Motion was better than no motion, as David often said.
Thus, an hour later, fully armored and armed, he, Matha, and Huw rode out of the castle gate, along with Jacob, John, and Cedric, each a seasoned English soldier. None had been at the Battle of Tara, but they’d heard about it. For that reason, Christopher thought that the eyes that looked back at him were more respectful than they might have been a month ago.
It was a relief to have fought in a real battle and comported himself well. Up until now, it had been an awkward thing being the king’s cousin. Because of his blood, Christopher had been accorded a respect that he and everyone else had known he didn’t deserve. Not that it wasn’t still awkward sometimes, but maybe he deserved it now.
And that was an awkward thing too. Ever since he was seven years old and David had come to Avalon, Christopher had dreamed of being a knight. Now he was a knight, and while he had no regrets on that score, in reality, it wasn’t as magnificent as he’d imagined. He didn’t dream of being a knight anymore—he dreamed of fighting and blood. His dreams drowned in it. It was worse than the times back home when his friends and he had stayed up late watching horror movies. At Tara, he’d lived a horror movie. It felt like the blood had soaked into his skin. And while it had washed off, the memory of it never would. Just because saying so was a meme didn’t mean it wasn’t true.
He turned in the saddle, his eyes traveling over the faces of the men who rode behind him. “We ready for this?”
To a man, they snorted their derision that he could even ask such a thing, and Jacob, their captain, said, “More than ready.”
Jacob was Jewish, no surprise given the name, and something of a friend to Christopher. Ten years ago, Jacob would never have been allowed to join the army, much less command men, but this was the world David had created, and Christopher was glad to have him. Even if Avalon was more foreign than the moon to a medieval person, Jacob understood what it meant to be different, and Christopher appreciated the resulting camaraderie between them.
Now, Jacob urged his horse a little closer. They were almost through the town, at which point they would head northeast as directly as possible. They would change horses at Warrington, Rochdale, and Skipton Castle, before circling to the west around the Pennines. The only check on the distance they could travel was their own endurance. Barnard Castle, where John Balliol’s army was gathering, wasn’t in Scotland, but quite a ways south into what Christopher felt to be England.
“My lord,” Jacob said, “I must ask why we are traveling so far east? Skipton is miles out of our way. Surely riding through Liverpool would make a faster journey to Carlisle. And if our intent is to go to Barnard, we should be riding more east around the Pennines.”
“You are right on both counts,” Christopher said. “But Earl Callum wants to know who is moving in the north, and if any lord we don’t know about is allied with Balliol and Mortimer. Our men have to march past Skipton to get to Barnard. Better to know something of the journey before they get there. At each castle we pass through, we’ll have the castellan send a rider south, first to the main army, which will be following, if slowly, on our heels, and then to Earl Callum to tell him about the conditions.”
Jacob thought about that for a moment. “That’s really why the king decided to send you, isn’t it?” He nodded thoughtfully. “You would be wasted at Beeston.”
Christopher glanced at him, surprised by the idea, since he had just successfully navigated a battlefield at Tara. “Why is that?”
“Anybody can wield a sword, but if reports are true—and I’ve been listening closely, so I believe them—you singlehandedly won over two great lords of Ireland. If not for your embassage to them, Ireland would have been lost.”
“That’s right,” Huw said. “Where William de Bohun and I managed almost instantly to get ourselves captured—”
“By me,” Matha added with equanimity.
Huw guffawed. “Christopher saved the kingdom. Dafydd said so.” He had taken up the Irish habit of referring to David when he wasn’t there only by his first name. Everyone did it now and again, but with the Irish, David’s name was like a title in and of itself.
Jacob nodded sagely. “I heard him say that too.” Then he fell back to align his horse again with Cedric’s.
That gave Christopher a chance to say in an undertone to Huw. “Do you really think Callum and David are expecting that much?”
Huw shot him a surprised look. “Yes. Did you really not think so?”
More than Callum’s words had done, Huw and Jacob’s certainty had Christopher reconsidering the tameness of this assignment. When David had explained what he wanted, he’d been pretty casual about it. Christopher had assumed that David was sending them because 1) Christopher was his cousin, which would garner the delegation instant respect from everyone they encountered on the journey; and 2) he wanted to keep Christopher out of harm’s way.
Christopher would never forget the look on David’s face when he found him after the Battle of Tara. There had been genuine fear in his eyes—followed by utter relief when he’d seen Christopher sitting in the field, alive and uninjured. Now that Christopher’s mom was here, David would have her voice constantly in his ear, warning him not to let anything happen to her son. In the nine months they’d been apart, she may have mellowed in some respects, but not by that much.
Christopher led his friends in Ireland because leadership had been forced upon him. Now, it had been given to him, and for the first time, he was seeing this journey far less as an adventure for him and Huw—and a way to get them out of Callum’s hair—and much more as something that really was necessary. Truthfully, it was an added pressure he didn’t need right now. But they’d started, so he could hardly turn back and tell Callum that he wasn’t ready for this kind of responsibility.
Christopher really wished William had been able to come along because he would have said exactly what Christopher was thinking: You’ve got to be kidding me!