Crossroads in Time (The After Cilmeri Series) by Sarah Woodbury

Author:Sarah Woodbury [Woodbury, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: medieval, prince of wales, middle ages, wales, time travel fantasy, time travel, adventure, teen, young adult, time travel romance, young adults
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

27 August 1288

Near Clifford Castle

Lili

Lili shivered. The rain had abated once the sun went down, but now a fog had moved in. She couldn’t see anything at all if it wasn’t moving. That Dafydd was with her was only evident by the fact that he held her hand.

“You’re sure about this?” she said. “Trusting William, I mean?”

“I don’t think he means to get us killed or captured,” Dafydd said. “He’s twelve. I was more sure of myself and self-righteous than he at twelve—until coming to Wales blew my world apart.”

Lili smiled under the cover of the darkness because Dafydd was still pretty sure of himself, hence the journey into England in the first place. He could have let William go, or ordered other men to follow the boy. But no—he had to do it himself. As far as she could tell, Dafydd wasn’t the least bit afraid to be stumbling about in the dark near Clifford Castle, looking for what Lili feared might be a non-existent ford, or one impossible to use if the earlier rain had raised the level of the river past the point that it was safe to cross. Concerned, Dafydd might be. But not afraid—and even what he felt of that emotion would be more for Lili and William than for himself.

“Just a few more paces.” William pulled up at the edge of the trees that buttressed the castle to the northeast.

The original builder had located the castle at a bend in the Wye River. It was hard for Lili to get her head around the geography, but the river started in the mountains of Wales, flowed southeast, then turned north past Hay. Two miles north of the town, the Wye flowed eastward before heading north again for a brief stretch (Clifford Castle had been built at this curve in the river). It then turned southeast as it wended its way through England to the sea.

Taking advantage of the winding river, the original builder of the castle had built an earthwork dam upstream from the castle to flood the little valley to the west and south of it. Thus, with water all around it, the only real access to the castle was from the northeast.

“I think it’s low enough to cross.” Dafydd peered through the trees towards the ford. “So much of the water has been diverted to the valley, that the dam has made the ford on the river even shallower.” He had read Lili’s thoughts.

“I told you we could use it,” William said.

A faint light filtered to them from the battlements of Clifford Castle which towered above them. They’d gotten far closer than Lili had thought they might. The wait until the end of the day, and then the walk in the dark, had seemed endless and ultimately for no good reason. It wasn’t like her to be so pessimistic, but the forces arrayed against them—against Wales—seemed far too powerful and omnipotent for them to counter. At least they hadn’t gone hungry, as Lili had packed food in her saddlebags for the journey back to Buellt which she had planned to make.

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