Free Winds of Time by Sarah Woodbury Page A

didn’t,” David said.
“Father did though, the moment we arrived. We literally drove into
his attackers at Cilmeri and saved him.”
    “ He went to Cilmeri?!” I couldn’t help it.
My voice went high. “He went to Cilmeri on December 11th?”
    “ It’s okay, Mom,” Anna said,
in a voice that said patience , and was probably one she’d
heard from me a million times growing up. “He felt he had to,
despite your warning.”
    “ He could have died!” I
glared at David and then at Anna, and then she and I burst into
tears again.
    I could feel David staring
at us in amazement, thinking they should be
happy!
    I turned to my son, my cheeks wet, blinking
my 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.” I turned back to Anna. “You got married at
what—eighteen?”
    “ Math’s a great guy, Mom,”
David said. “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.
    I stared at them for a second and then gave
a laugh that was almost a bark. “See! Precisely my point!” And
then, more thoughtfully, “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,” I 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,” I 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?”
    I 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.”
    I 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,” said
Anna. “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.” My expression
darkened.
    “ A lot worse!” Anna said.
“Imagine if the English had captured us!”
    More settled, at least for the moment, we
walked back to the horses. David mounted his horse and pulled me up
behind him. “So, how did you get from Hadrian’s Wall to Wales?”
David turned the horse’s head and headed south, towards Rhuddlan.
“Planes, trains, automobiles?”
    “ Try feet and horses,” I
said. “And then, of course, the ship.”
    “ I’m sorry, Mom.” David
said. “How bad was the seasickness?”
    “ That’s how I made friends
with Aaron,” I 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 half an hour, we approached the
castle. Every yard made me feel more sick to my stomach than I’d
been on the boat. As we rode under the gatehouse, I glanced up to
see a familiar