Robert & Linda Evans - Time Scout

Kynan's blood ran cold.

They'd found Margo or Koot van Beek or the raft they would torture and burn him alive-

He groped behind the tree trunk, closed his hand around a chunk of stout deadwood. He'd rather be shot with gun and crossbow than burn. Then another, worse thought came to him. They would burn Margo, too, and the sick Afrikaaner who had taught Kynan to shoot the semi-magical rifle. If Kynan let these men kill him now, the others would have no chance of escape at all. If he let them take him alive ...

They had to get free only long enough to gain the gate.

Kynan caught a ragged breath.

Then quietly surrendered

Kit and Malcolm gained the gates in time to see the search party return with a bloodied, bruised prisoner. Vines secured his wrists behind his back. The Welsh soldier was ash-pale but he stood erect, facing his doom with all the bravery in him.

One of the soldiers still inside the fort called out, "Looks like he put up a fight!"

Kynan's captors grinned "Naw Looked like he might for a minute, but he surrendered quiet as a lamb."

Kit narrowed his eyes. They'd beaten him afterward, then, badly, from the look of it. Why had he surrendered? That didn't fit the image of the Kynan Rhys Gower who'd attacked both Kit and Margo with single-minded, near-unstoppable fury. Kynan kept his gaze stonily on the ground, clearly aware that he faced his doom.

The Portuguese were gloating.

"Put him in the stocks,' the governor crowed.

"No," Kit countered, allowing weariness to color his voice. "Put him in the cell with the woman. Father Xabat and I must examine him for Satan's mark."

Kynan flinched visibly at the word "Satan." He didn't quite struggle when the Portuguese shoved him toward the stockade, but he cursed them under his breath in Welsh. One of the soldiers struck him across the mouth, splitting a barely scabbed-over lip. Kynan stumbled and glared at his captors, but made no further sound. Kit and Malcolm exchanged glances.

"Brave man," Malcolm's look said

Kit just nodded, then followed. Malcolm fell into step behind him. Their heavy cassocks dragged in the mud. Sergeant Braz unlocked the cell and shoved Kynan inside, then stepped aside for Kit and Malcolm. Once again, Malcolm shut the door. Margo sat in the corner, alert and silent. She took one look at Kynan and swallowed hard, but her eyes had begun to shine with hope. Kynan swayed, clearly at the end of his strength, but he said in broken English to Margo, "I ... I look you. Portuguese," he snarled, spitting blood onto the dirt floor, "find me. I-I come, no fight. We run gate. I help, yes?"

Margo's eyes widened. She looked past Kynan to Kit, who had difficulty finding his voice. Kynan had surrendered, knowing what the Portuguese would do to them .....hat had happened during the past seven weeks, to change Kynan's opinion of her so thoroughly?

Kit cleared his throat. "Kynan Rhys Gower."

The Welshman jerked around. His eyes widened. His mouth worked several times before any sound came out. "YOU?"

Then faint hope began to burn in his eyes. "Have you come to help us?" he asked quietly in his native tongue.

Kit didn't answer the obvious. Instead he asked, "Did you really surrender to the Portuguese to help my grandchild escape?"

Kynan flushed and dropped his gaze. "I accepted her leadership."

Ahh...

"Yes, but it was still uncommonly brave, duty or not. I will not forget this. Malcolm, free his hands. Do you have any idea where and when you are?"

The Welshman paused while Malcolm untied him. "I know we are in Africa and that Africa is south of Wales," he said, rubbing his wrists. "I know those whoresons are Portuguese, a pox on them all. I think it is a hundred years after... after I left my home."

"Yes, the year is 1542. The Portuguese think you and Margo are witches."

Kynan lost color again. "I know. They said so when they began to kick and beat me." He winced and shrugged. "I feared for a time they would kill me without benefit of a trial."

His smile was bitter and short-lived.

Kit said quietly, "We are still in very serious danger. There is a chance I will die before the gate opens again. It's complicated and you haven't learned enough about the gates yet, but the simple truth is, a man can't exist in two times at once. I am going to come very, very close to doing that If I stay here too long, past the time when I exist someplace else this year, I will die."

The Welshman's face went through a whole series of unguarded expressions. Then, to Kit's astonishment, he went down on one knee. "I offer fealty, then, liege lord. Command me, that I may finish your task should you perish in this rescue."

Now was neither the time nor the place to try and explain that no oath of fealty was necessary. He simply accepted the pledge of vassalage. If they lived, he'd sort it out later. Margo looked on, wide-eyed.

"Now," Kit said quietly, "what we must do is hold a mock trial for witchcraft ... ."

Malcolm ordered that the Welshman be given food and water, then treated his injuries. Kit ordained that he should be given a night's rest before the holy examination began. When they left, Malcolm felt marginally better about abandoning Margo. At least now she wasn't alone in that wretched little room.

They "examined" the Welshman in that same little room the next day, making a whole day affair of it and really spent the time quietly discussing their plans, coming up with alternative courses of action should something go wrong. They planned the fake trial like a Broadway production. Only this play's outcome was far more critical than any theatrical spectacular ever to hit the streets of New York. And when they finished their plans, silent looks which passed between them said everyone was aware just how easily something could still go wrong.

The African sun was low in the summer sky when Malcolm finally stepped out of the filthy little cell and held the door for Kit. The lean time scout wouldn't look at him. Margo had clung to Malcolm before their departure, revealing her feelings so transparently a blind man would have seen how she felt. Her farewell to Kit had been far more restrained. Her demonstration had shaken Malcolm, but it hadn't done anything to heal the breach between Kit and himself. As they shut the door, Kynan moved protectively between her and the Portuguese who locked them in, bringing Malcolm's opinion of the Welshman another notch higher.

Malcolm and Kit took the traders through Vespers before consenting to sit down to the evening meal. Dark looks and angry words between several of the men convinced Malcolm to put a plan of his own into action. If Kit wanted these men off-balance, he saw a golden opportunity to set them at one another. So at dinnertime, which the entire community had begun taking together at Kit's insistence, he lifted his hands and launched into a sermon on the evils of witchcraft in his Basqueaccented Portuguese.

"Know you that the Evil One has demons to sniff out all your grievous sins and tempt you to even greater evil. You must be on your guard against anything that entices you to stray from God's path. If you see your neighbor shirking his duty, be assured Satan is working within that man, leading him down the path of damnation. Be harsh with your neighbor. Correct his behavior that you might guard his soul. You must help one another to find the narrow path again. If your neighbor indulges that cardinal sin of greed, you must help him to resist the error of his ways. If you stand guard at night and see the Evil One and his minions prowling about the town, looking for ways of creating mischief, you must charge him to be gone!"

Several of the soldiers lost color. Clearly, they'd seen something prowling the night. Monkeys, Malcolm was willing to bet, intent on raiding the garbage middens, possibly even leopards after the livestock. Tonight's watch ought to prove interesting.