Free Children of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book Four) by Sarah Woodbury Page B

someone well known to me.”
    “You did this yourself, you mean?” I said. “You’re the leader?”
    “Leadership in the Order is more fluid than that,” Bevyn said. “More complicated.”
    “Is it, now?” The question had come out dry and semi-sarcastic. I couldn’t help it.
    Bevyn closed his mouth. I eyed him for a long moment before prodding him, even though it was clear he didn’t want to say more. “Meaning what?”
    “We have no status, no titles, no fixed station for any member in our Order,” Aeddan said. “Each member is his own man, but we all look to Bevyn for guidance.”
    “Lord Carew joined us very recently,” Huw said. “He’s proven his worth in your service many times over.”
    I couldn’t argue with that. It was no less than the truth, which was why Dad and I had included him in the party traveling to England tomorrow.
    I scrubbed at my hair with both hands and didn’t say what I really thought, which was that they’d all run completely amok. They had stated point blank that my life was more important than theirs, and had backed up their belief by creating a secret society whose sole purpose was to protect me. I found myself growing angry again. I wanted to tell them that they had no right to lay this burden on me, no right to build their lives around me . But I didn’t chastise them— God help me, I couldn’t.
    “We’re putting every man we have on full alert during your trip,” Huw said. “You will be well protected, and if you need anything at any time, we’ll see to it.”
    I closed my eyes for a second, and then opened them. I was defeated. “Thank you.” What else could I say?
    We spoke among ourselves for another few minutes, small talk mostly. I asked about Aeddan’s wife and other children, and tried not to convey to them anything but my gratefulness. It would do no good to complain, and as I sat by the fire, I wasn’t sure I had a right to my discontent. Live more lightly , Mom had said. To which I could only reply, How?
    Bevyn and I said our goodbyes, and I promised Aeddan that his family would be welcome in any castle in which I was staying, anywhere in Wales.Bevyn and I walked back to the castle through another cloudburst. Evan kept his men ten paces behind us as he had on the way to Aeddan’s house.
    “Why did you bring me to them?” I said, once we left the village behind.
    “To sober you up.”
    “I’m sober, believe me,” I said. “I’ve been sober every day since I was fourteen years old and my sister drove my aunt’s van into that clearing and saved Dad’s life. I’ve been nothing but sober.”
    “I know it.”
    “Thus, I’m asking you again— why ?” I said. “You could have told me what was happening in England and what we might face in London without all this—” I gestured expansively with one hand, meaning the rain, the walk, even the world at large “—without letting me in on the secret of your Order.”
    Bevyn halted in the middle of the road, within range of the torch lights from the gate, and turned to face me. “You needed to know.”
    I folded my arms across my chest. “Why?”
    Bevyn’s jaw worked. “Did you know that it was I who was the first to go to your father, back at Castell y Bere, after you came to us? It was I who told him what he had.”
    A coldness spread throughout my belly. “Go on.”
    “I told your father that he had to be very careful with you, that you were no ordinary boy. You were far more than he could ever have hoped for in a son, but you were untrained—woefully untrained—and that meant handling—on his part and on mine—with soft gloves.”
    I thought back to those first days in Wales, when my life had narrowed to sword play, languages my mind had refused to encompass, and meals that by the end of the day I was too tired to eat. Bevyn had been right in his understanding of me. “But all that changed, didn’t it?” I said. “It was the boar hunt.”
    Bevyn nodded. “Up until then, you