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 … . What 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.”