Shades of Time
Dearest Reader:
Cast of Characters
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Sample: The Uninvited Guest
A novel from the After Cilmeri series
Shades of Time
by
Sarah Woodbury
Shades of Time is a work of fiction.
Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2017 by Sarah Woodbury
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the publisher
except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
www.sarahwoodbury.com
Shades of Time
March 1294. With David and Llywelyn in Ireland, the rule of Wales and England has fallen to Math and Anna. Unbeknownst to them, however, rebellious barons have tried to assassinate David and thrown Ireland into civil war. When the treachery reaches across the sea and touches Anna, she finds herself at the center of a conspiracy that stretches from Dublin to Edinburgh—and only her actions and choices stand between her family and the destruction of everything they’ve worked so hard to build.
Shades of Time takes place at the same time as Outpost in Time, the previous book in the After Cilmeri series.
To Brynne
Books in the After Cilmeri Series:
Daughter of Time (prequel)
Footsteps in Time (Book 1)
Winds of Time (novella)
Prince of Time (Book 2)
Crossroads in Time (Book 3)
Children of Time (Book 4)
Exiles in Time
Castaways in Time
Ashes of Time
Warden of Time
Guardians of Time
Masters of Time
Outpost in Time
Shades of Time
The Gareth and Gwen Medieval Mysteries:
The Bard’s Daughter (prequel novella)
The Good Knight
The Uninvited Guest
The Fourth Horseman
The Fallen Princess
The Unlikely Spy
The Lost Brother
The Renegade Merchant
The Unexpected Ally
The Worthy Soldier
The Lion of Wales Series:
Cold My Heart
The Oaken Door
Of Men and Dragons
A Long Cloud
Frost Against the Hilt
The Last Pendragon Saga:
The Last Pendragon
The Pendragon’s Blade
Song of the Pendragon
The Pendragon’s Quest
The Pendragon’s Champions
Rise of the Pendragon
The Pendragon’s Challenge
Legend of the Pendragon
www.sarahwoodbury.com
Dearest Reader:
While many of you will have a better recollection of the events of the previous books than I do, some readers might be joining us only now (note, if that’s you, you might consider starting with the prequel to this series, Daughter of Time, which is free in ebook at all retailers!) or be struggling to recall some key events from the previous books. If that’s you, read on!
The After Cilmeri series begins with Meg, a young, troubled American widow, who, at a moment of catastrophic danger, falls through time and into the life of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, the last Prince of Wales. A strong and charismatic leader, he saves her, and she in turn saves him, thanks to her knowledge of future events. Although powerful forces seek to divide them, by working together, Meg and Llywelyn navigate the dangerous and shifting alliances that constantly undermine his rule and threaten the very existence of Wales.
But before they can create a future which avoids the predetermined death of Llywelyn, Meg is ripped from his world and returned to her own—in time to give birth to their son, David.
David and his older sister, Anna, as teenagers, return to the Middle Ages to save Llywelyn yet again. This time, Norman lords have lured him into the fateful ambush at Cilmeri in eastern Wales. Without warning, David and Anna are thrown into a world they do not understand, among a people whose language and customs are totally unfamiliar. Ultimately, David is recognized as Llywelyn’s true son, and he and Anna begin to make a life for themselves in the Middle Ages.
Over the course of thirteen books, it becomes clear that the medieval world is actually an alternate universe, and Meg, Anna, and David (and ultimately his son, Arthur) time travel when their lives are in danger. In the process, many new characters, both medieval and modern, are introduced. These include Math (Lord Mathonwy), a distant relation of Llywelyn, who marries Anna (Footsteps in Time); Ieuan, David’s captain, who travels with him to the modern world (what ultimately comes to be known to the time travellers as Avalon) (Prince of Time); and Lili, Ieuan’s sister, who becomes David’s wife (Crossroads in Time).
From the modern world comes Bronwen, an anthropology graduate student who marries Ieuan; Callum, an MI-5 agent suffering from PTSD, who attempts to prevent Meg and Llywelyn from returning to their world (Children of Time); Cassie, a Native American woman, who was plucked from the mountains of Oregon in the wake of Meg’s plane crash (Winds of Time) and must survive on her own in medieval Scotland (Exiles in Time); a busload of twenty-firsters, who make the mistake of traveling on the same bus as Meg and Anna and end up in their alternate universe (Ashes of Time); and Christopher, David’s cousin (Masters of Time).
All the while, the combined efforts of Anna, David, and their family and friends are transforming the medieval world. Not everyone appreciates the burgeoning equality, universal education, and democracy, however, and throughout the books, the twenty-firsters face threats both from outside their inner circle and from within it.
The immediate precursor to Shades of Time is book 11, Outpost in Time, in which David, Meg, and Llywelyn, with friends and other family members, journey to Ireland to attempt to address the ongoing turmoil and warfare there. Unbeknownst to David, however, rebellious barons have colluded with King John Balliol of Scotland to assassinate him—and almost succeeded. David leads a coalition of Irish and Norman allies to defeat the rebels in Ireland … but because he has no way to effectively communicate with Anna and Math, he remains unaware of the events playing out in England, Wales, and Scotland.
Shades of Time takes place simultaneously with Outpost in Time.
Cast of Characters
Anna—Time traveler, Princess of Wales
&
nbsp; Math (Mathonwy)—Lord of Dinas Bran, Anna’s husband
David (Dafydd)— Time traveler, King of England, Anna’s brother
Lili—David’s wife, Queen of England
Llywelyn—David and Anna’s father, King of Wales
Meg— Time traveler, David and Anna’s mother
Christopher Shepherd– Time traveler, David and Anna’s cousin
Elisa Shepherd—Meg’s sister, Christopher’s mother
Ted Shepherd—Christopher’s father
Elen Shepherd—Christopher’s sister
Callum— Time traveler, Earl of Shrewsbury
Bronwen—Time traveler
Ieuan—Lili’s brother, Bronwen’s husband
Mark Jones— Time traveler, MI-5 agent
Humphrey de Bohun—Earl of Hereford, Constable of England
Edmund Mortimer—Earl of the March
Roger Mortimer—Edmund’s brother
John de Warenne—Earl of Surrey
Cadwallon—King Llywelyn’s captain
Bevyn—David’s companion
Hywel—Steward of Dinas Bran
The Children
Elisa and Padrig–Twin children of Meg and Llywelyn
Cadell and Bran–sons of Anna and Math
Arthur and Alexander–sons of David and Lili
Catrin and Cadwaladr–children of Bronwen and Ieuan
Gareth–son of Cassie and Callum
Chapter One
19 March 1294
After midnight
Anna
Anna pulled her thick cloak closer around herself, chilled to the bone by the damp air and fog that had enveloped her small company at this higher elevation. The fog also muffled the slight conversation among her companions, which included another midwife, Mair, and five men-at-arms.
The torchlight barely penetrated five feet on any side, and Anna wished she had a torch—or better yet, a flashlight—of her own. She was glad her children weren’t here. Though she was only a few miles from home, it was one of those nights when danger lurked around every corner, and the hollow sound of the horses’ clopping hooves on the hard-packed dirt of the road forebode the arrival of the old Welsh gods.
Anna shivered and told herself she had allowed the latest enthusiasm of Cadell, her eldest son, to afflict her too. At nearly nine years old, Cadell had developed a fascination with ghost stories. In the evenings, he would pester the men for an endless supply of terrifying supernatural tales. All the men knew them like they knew the legend of King Arthur. The Welsh had a strong superstitious streak, coupled with an innate belief in the mystical, so everyone had one tale or another to tell.
Earlier this week, they’d been entertained by a story of the ghost of King Alexander of Scotland, Anna’s supposed great-grandfather, who’d ridden his horse too close to the edge of a cliff one foggy night and died when he’d gone over it. According to the storyteller, the king’s ghost haunted the cliffs to this day. Tonight, the story hit a little too close to home. So far, Cadell hadn’t been visited by nightmares, though she’d told him in no uncertain terms that if he scared his younger brother by repeating any of the stories he knew, he would be writing Latin verb forms until his hand bled.
Hoping Mair wasn’t feeling similarly spooked, Anna put out a reassuring hand to her, but Mair’s smile was genuine in the torchlight, and she appeared to be visited by no such worries. Mair knew as well as Anna, when she was being rational, that Wales was safer tonight than at any other time in its history. They hadn’t been at odds with England since Anna’s brother, David, had taken the English throne.
Just the other day, Anna’s husband had told her of a conversation he’d overheard between an Englishman and a Welshman as he was passing through one of the taverns in Llangollen, having taken a moment to check in with its proprietor, a former Crusader:
“So, you’re from Chester are you? English?”
“Yes,” the Englishman had replied, somewhat defensively.
The Welshman sniffed. “Then I’d better buy your next drink. Lord Mathonwy up at the castle says we have to welcome you.”
“I’d be grateful,” the other man said, unbending slightly at this unexpected overture.
“We rule your country now instead of the other way around, so it’s the least I can do.”
Math had gone away laughing and tucked away the story to repeat to David when next he saw him. Anna hoped David would laugh when he heard it. Her brother was far too stiff himself these days—not with self-importance but with the burden of running a country. The two of them had been fourteen and seventeen when they’d arrived in the Middle Ages for the first time. A little more than eleven years on, they’d lived here just long enough for people to treat them as if they belonged—and for young people born after 1282 not to remember the time when England and Wales were constantly at war.
Which was why the road should be safe, not giving her the heebie-jeebies, and the reason they were heading home at two in the morning instead of staying the night back at Heledd’s house. Anna had spent the last twelve hours helping Heledd give birth to a baby boy. The birth had gone well, and both mother and baby were healthy, but Anna was a princess, and one who very much liked her own bed. Thus, she and Mair had left a third midwife with Heledd and chosen to return to Dinas Bran.
The five miles from Heledd’s house to home hadn’t seemed so daunting when they’d left an hour ago, but it hadn’t been foggy then. Anna also hadn’t realized how tired she was. Now that the adrenaline from the delivery had worn off, all she wanted with every fiber of her being was to lie down.
For once, she hoped the boys had stayed up late, even if it meant Cadell might have a new crop of horror stories in his repertoire. Most of their cousins were visiting, so the possibility of chaos and hijinks in the castle was high. If so, there was a slight chance Bran, her youngest, would sleep in and not come into the bedroom and wake her before dawn. If Cadell woke early, he was happy to read or concoct yet another ghostly adventure in his room, or perhaps sneak down to the kitchen for an early breakfast. But Bran wasn’t yet five, and he still came in to Anna every morning, snuggling under the covers and putting his cold feet on Anna’s warm legs.
Not that she would have it any other way.
But in the last five years, she hadn’t woken in the morning more than a handful of times without Bran’s small face peering at her, and she had the fleeting wish that for once the boy would just sleep.
As it was, Anna rarely went out on calls anymore, not with an entire university of healers in Llangollen at the disposal of the residents of the area. But Heledd was special: back at Castell y Bere, she’d been Gwenllian’s wet nurse. After Gwenllian had no longer needed her, Heledd had married a small landowner named Gryff, who settled them a few miles to the southwest of Llangollen.
The two women had spent very little time together since that fateful winter when Anna had led her and Gwenllian, along with the stable boy, Hywel, out of Castell y Bere. With Anna a princess and Heledd becoming a farmer’s wife, there hadn’t been much chance—or much they had in common. But what they had experienced during that cold January had bonded them forever, and Anna had been glad to keep her promise to attend the birth of Heledd’s latest child.
“My lady, do you hear that?” The captain, Adda, held up a hand to halt the small company. His concern was apparent in his voice.
Though she’d been telling herself for the last half-mile that they had nothing to fear, it was unusual for anyone to be riding this late at night without a very good reason. Not just anyone could afford a mount either, and from the thunder of hooves coming towards them from the north, more horses than their seven were approaching.
Anna peered ahead. Despite the torchlight, she couldn’t see past the next bend in the fog-shrouded road.
“Maybe Lord Mathonwy has sent a troop to meet us, my lady,” Mair said. “Your husband does care for you so.”
“H
e does.” Anna wanted to believe these men belonged to Math, but she couldn’t shake off her concern. Her captain clearly felt the same, since he signaled for two of the men to ride ahead to the bend in the road.
The hoofbeats grew louder, echoing in the windless night. Anna’s horse danced sideways as it waited. As Anna tugged on the reins to control it, she wished she’d chosen a mount that was a bit less rotund, though normally he was exactly the kind of horse she liked.
Then one of the soldiers, who’d ridden to the bend in the road, shouted a warning. In response, Adda pulled his sword from its sheath, and the other two men with him did the same without needing a command. As Anna steadied her horse, prepared to flee if she had to, a company rode around the bend. Though the two soldiers up ahead held their ground, the oncoming cavalry was unstoppable. Swords raised high, they swept over, through, and then past Anna’s men, tumbling them to the ground as they came. They wore no lord’s colors.
“Ride, my lady! Ride!” Adda pointed at Anna and Mair. “We’ll hold them off!”
Anna wasn’t a warrior and had no pretensions to being one, so she didn’t hesitate or argue, even though she could see as well as Adda that no amount of heroism from her men, no matter how well-trained, was going to be enough to overcome the force they faced. Twenty men had come around that bend, and there would be no holding them off for more than a few seconds.
“Come on!” Anna slapped the reins. The riders were here for her. She wouldn’t dishonor the sacrifice of her men by throwing away her only chance at escape.
Cadi had been slower to react than Anna, so her horse immediately fell several lengths behind. But she was a better rider than Anna, her horse fleeter, and the oncoming riders had no interest in her anyway.
“They’re gaining!” Mair screamed the words at Anna’s back.
Behind them, the men following shouted to one another, some orders and some responses. “We need her alive!” These last words were spoken in heavily accented English, as by a Scotsman. If the words hadn’t rung clear, Anna could have convinced herself she’d misheard them, but as it was, her throat closed. She couldn’t think why Scots had ventured this far south seeking to capture her, but it was hardly the time to inquire. She had to get away.