Temporal Tales
Copyright © www.inkslingerbooks.co.uk 2013
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
First Ebook Edition 2013
Temporal Tales
Personal Saviour - SJA Turney
One-Eye - AJ Armitt
Coming to Terms - Jacqueline Pye
A Time to Die - Paul Murphy
The Hoard - Robin Carter
The Man with the Gun and the Time Machine - Rob Wickings
Tick... Tick...Tick... - SJA Turney
The Doll’s House - AJ Armitt
No Time for Goodbye - Shirley Blane
I am Downhill - Paul Murphy
When Virtue turns to Vice - Jacqueline Pye
Personal Saviour
By S.J.A. Turney
The Contessa Anna Giovanna Cavallaro de San Cataldo struggled. The heavy rope held her flat against the heavy slab of oak, leaving barely room to flex her shoulders. Desperately, she tried to bend her hand back, feeling the horrific strain on her tendons. Her fingers, although supple and long, were nowhere near enough. Her wriggling digits flailed uselessly in the air, inches away from the rope that bound her. Once again, she tried to twist her wrist and pull the hand free from the restraints, despite having tried the manoeuvre at least half a dozen times already.
Useless.
Her eyes rolled desperately in the manner of a downed horse, trying to look along the length of her body – to identify any weakness in her bonds; any way she could take advantage of it. Any way she could free herself. Tried to look down. To the left and to the right. Anywhere but straight ahead.
There simply had to be a way out. Despite anything that might be said of her – despite any accusations and implications, Anna knew that in her deepest heart she was a true daughter of God and a believer. She had faith in her Saviour and his house on Earth. She had done a couple of the things of which the sickening priest had accused her, but in her eyes they sat comfortably within the framework of her Catholic beliefs. Had not the Saviour himself practiced the medicine of the mind and the will? Did the church not condone belief rather than science?
God would intervene. Her Saviour would save her.
Or her brother would.
She knew that her brother had petitioned Cardinal Ortega and that even now he would be racing to save her. Even if the cardinal refused to intervene, her beloved brother would defy the priests and their thugs, and battle to reach and protect her. He would never leave her to her fate.
Desperately, she glanced once more over to the far side of the room, her eyes focusing in the gloom on the flickering orange light of the candle as it burned; burned away tallow and wick, burned away time, burned away her life.
The rope that stretched across the candle was charred and blackened, three small, frayed strands already snapped and standing proud. For a while, Anna had thought they had miscalculated – that the rope was too thick or the candle too quick-burning. That the rope would hold until the flame had passed it and burned down to a smoking cord. But Brother Gimigliano was too shrewd for that. The candle would burn long after the rope snapped.
At the thought, her eyes involuntarily followed the cord as it ran taut from the wall, past the burning wick, up to the pulley on the ceiling and then to the three-foot wide, heavy, razor-sharp steel blade that hovered like the sword of Damocles over her neck, two vertical wooden runners waiting to guide the blade to its rest.
Somewhere in the palace above, the authorities would be waiting for her confession so they could put her on public trial. Of course, even if the worst were ever to happen, Anna would never subject her family to that humiliation. But that was not Brother Gimigliano’s place. Even if she felt the urge to purge her soul of these imagined crimes and face the judgement of the Church, there was no one here to listen. How could they expect a confession without a confessor present? This was execution, plain and simple.
No. It was murder.
But her brother would come. He would come.
***
Antonio raced through the dingy corridor, his expensive leather boots clattering on the worn flagstones. He was still too high up. He would have to get down to the cellars before it was too late. As he ran past a loophole in the wall, the dying sunlight caught the blade of the priceless swept-hilt rapier he gripped in his gloved hand. The Toledo steel glinted red in the flash of light, the blood of the unfortunate guard coating the beautiful weapon.
He’d really intended to harm no one. After all, he knew the building so well he could have found his way round in the dark without trouble. Arriving while court was in session, he knew most of the palace’s occupants would be kept busy and few guards would be expecting any problems.
Typical then that, as he reached a small postern door at the base of the Eagle Tower, inserting his key and opening it with a quiet creak, he had found the palace’s one statutory alert guardsman lurking in the shadows.
Antonio, had however, the benefit of an education in the sword and five years’ service under the Concottieri Federico of Urbino. The young man had lashed out with his clumsy blade and begun to shout a warning, but the cry turned into a gurgle long before anyone could have heard as Antonio’s misericord deflected the lunge, while his own magnificent blade slid through the young man’s throat.
No killing, he had told himself as he’d ridden break-neck for the palace. He was a good Catholic and a death for any cause other than the Church or a lord’s service would stain his soul. And yet now he had failed in that goal.
Here it was.
Without even slowing, Antonio leapt down the first five steps to the corner, skittering down the remaining eleven and into the corridor on the next floor.
It had been unfortunate, especially on limited time, that he’d had to take such a tortuous route through the palace, climbing two floors from the postern door, crossing one of the palace’s wings and then descending three levels to reach the cellars, but there was no alternative without risking discovery and the resulting full-scale battle.
No. He would have to rely on his almost legendary luck.
Time would tell how that panned out.
***
Another strand of rope snapped with a flash of orange sparks and a small spray of carbon. Less than a minute left, at a guess. Time was running short.
The Contessa tried a new tactic. Instead of the tiny struggles for freedom and battles against restricted movement, wiggling fingers, straining wrists and the like, desperate urgency and the recognition of the failure of such activity pushed her into brute force. Despite the ropes sawing into her, she tried to haul her whole body left, managing to shift it a fraction of an inch. Elated even at this tiny victory, she immediately threw her body back to the right and felt the slightest give in the rope around her chest.
Another minute or two of such movement and she could probably push her head out of the line of the blade’s descent. If only she had another minute or two!
Heaving in as deep a breath as she could manage with th
e restrictive ropes, she moved her hands a fraction. They were still held down by the next rope around her tiny waist, but now she had an inch or two’s movement. Scrabbling around with her bruised fingers, she tried to free that rope a little.
To no avail.
Taking another steadying breath and trying not to think too hard about the sound of fraying, snapping rope that suddenly echoed around the room from the far wall, Anna grasped the oak slab upon which she lay with both hands, her fingers curling around the edge, her wrists almost bent back on themselves to give her the correct angle. Perhaps with her hands around the edge, the added leverage would give her more momentum as she heaved left and right.
*snap* … *hiss* … *crackle*
A sudden sharp intake of breath accompanied the unexpected pain as her finger caught a badly placed nail that stuck proud of the timber, just below the edge. The iron was rusty and jagged and had torn a rent in her finger that, despite being out of sight, she knew was at least half an inch long.
But the finger was already almost forgotten as her mind latched on to the discovery and what it meant.
Struggling, she managed to change the angle of the rope across her midriff with a few pushes of her hand. The cord scraped on the proud, jagged nail and Anna found she was holding her breath as she began to scrape the rope back and forth on the nail, praying to her Saviour and every saint she could name that her work with the nail would be faster than that of the flame on the rope above.
Small hope, really.
Her Saviour was working to help her. God, after all, helped those who tried to help themselves. But her brother would be here. He was a lucky man, always had been. He would be here.
***
Antonio raced along the corridor. Down here among the cellars, the walls ran with chalky water, leaving glistening, white build-up in places. Nitre glowed here and there, providing almost as much illumination as the light-wells that allowed the dusk to filter down twenty-foot chimneys into the gloomy tunnels.
Rounding a corner, he felt his heart begin to race. He was there! A door that would be unlikely to be locked. But even as he turned the corner, he realised it was far from over.
In front of the door stood a man-at-arms, his stained leather tunic covering the colourful uniform of the Cavallaro family, a halberd held straight, almost brushing the stones of the ceiling. Next to the man sat a monk in a black robe, his tonsured head glistening in the light from a lamp on a shelf by the wall. The monk was either asleep or deep in thought, his head down and arms folded. The man-at-arms, on the other hand, appeared alert.
Antonio felt his heart lurch as he ducked back against the wall, hoping he hadn’t been seen. It galled him to have to dispatch another guard. The man was innocent. Just doing his duty. And, while the monk was hardly likely to be innocent – what monks were in these days of terror and torture – it sat badly in his soul to consider the death of a priest.
Frowning, a plan began to hatch in Antonio’s head.
Fumbling in his doublet, he found the Turkish-made throwing knife that hung on a thong, the prize of a long-ago war. It had taken him two years to achieve a level of competence with the blade and, as he had been told by an expert, no two throwing blades were the same, so he had clung to this knife as if to a loved one, unwilling to have to retrain with a new weapon should he lose it.
The knife came out of his doublet, unclipped from the thong, his hand closing on the carved ivory hilt bearing indecipherable inscriptions and heretical images. If only the priest could see this, he would have a fit!
A quick glance around the corner confirmed that neither man had moved. He’d remained unseen. Antonio took a deep breath and stepped out into the corridor, the knife raised by his ear, releasing it in a fluid motion even as he moved.
The guard jerked back as the blade slammed into his throat, severing the windpipe and preventing any call for help. Even as he started to froth and fall back, Antonio was running.
The monk stirred at the sudden motion in the corridor around him, raising his head from his doze just in time to see the blurred figure of Antonio leap at him, the delicate swept-hilt of the rapier coming down to rap sharply on his skull, driving the consciousness from him even as he woke.
Time was almost up. Two floors above the meeting would be ending and the men of God and lords of men would be filing out into the palace.
Ignoring the thrashing of the dying guard and the slumping figure of the monk, his heart racing with the closeness of the timing, Antonio wrenched open the door.
The treasures of the Cavallaro family sat in glittering glory, gathered here in gloomy cellars to prevent their falling into the hands of the usurper who had brought the inquisition against them and who even now sealed the family’s fate in the council chambers.
Antonio’s hands closed on the catch of the nearest chest and ripped it open. The coins – the wealth of an ancient family and enough to buy a small nation – were already bagged, ready to be moved again if necessary. Or in this case, simply if coveted.
With a greedy grin, the former guard and ward of the Cavallaro, later turned mercenary and thief, helped himself to the accumulated wealth of the family he had once served.
***
Niccolo GianLuca de San Cataldo, last scion of the Cavallaro, brother of a ‘heretical’ Contessa and dispossessed son of a murdered lord, ripped open the door to the prison and felt his gorge rise and his heart skip a beat as the wooden portal knocked his sister’s head, sending it spinning across the flagstones of the cellar.
The rope still smouldered.
So close…
So close.
One-Eye
By A.J. Armitt
As the Cretaceous sun filtered through the forest canopy, One-Eye tossed back her head and screeched a blood-curdling, shrill warning to the creatures that dwelt nearby. Her pack had made a kill. They did not want to be disturbed.
For a brief instant, her single oculus was drawn to the other orange ball that could be seen peeking out over the mountains. It, too, hid behind the swaying branches of the trees. She sniffed the air, but then turned away. It was neither food nor another predator. It was of no interest.
But there was something else...
She moved her head rapidly, turning it behind her. Sniffing the air, she caught the faint whiff of something unknown. Since losing half of her sight in an earlier hunt, she had become more reliant on her other senses. The soft warble from deep within her throat warned the rest of the pack to stay alert. She turned her head once again, cocking it to one side and inhaling deeply. Pine trees, nothing else.
She must have been mistaken.
Satisfied, she turned her attention to their kill. At her feet lay the torn, lifeless body of Horn-Face.
As she surveyed his carcass, the rest of the pack screeched and squawked at one other. They were hungry, but none dared to take the first bite. That honour was for the alpha-female alone.
Horn-Face was bigger than One-Eye, and meaner too. It had taken the combined efforts of the pack to kill him. During the hunt, he had swung his head at any pack-member who had gotten too close. His armoured skull had easily splintered the leg of Long-Claw. The alpha-male had collapsed in agony and his faint cries of suffering could still be heard a short distance away. Long-Claw would die soon. He would die, and the rest of the pack would eat him.
A tear ran from One-Eye’s single oculus. An observer may have construed this as sympathy for her fallen mate, but they would have been mistaken. The alpha-female would soon gorge on his flesh, just as she would on any other. A pack-member who could no longer hunt had only one purpose.
Food.
One-Eye bowed her head to taste the fresh meat that was Horn-Face, but the metallic stench of his blood turned her stomach and she staggered backwards to cries of alarm from her pack. She had felt unwell for most of the day, but now her very bones ached and she felt weaker than before the hunt. It was hardly surprising; Horn-Face had put up quite a battle.
; She shook her head, suddenly sneezing and spraying the dead body of her prey with green mucus.
Without warning, another member of the pack, Long-Neck, emitted a loud screech and snapped at her. One-Eye stepped back, away from the bleeding carcass.
The attack did not come as a surprise. Long-Neck had grown strong this past year, and One-Eye had long suspected the beta-female would one day challenge her for leadership of the pack. Long-Neck must have sensed her weakness. She would have no greater opportunity than now.
One-Eye took a further step back and stood tall. She was still the bigger of the two females and would not give up her position without a fight. Her tiny brain throbbed but instinct told her that if she retreated, Long-Neck would pounce and kill her; the beta-female would not risk her rival regaining her strength and seeking retribution at a later date.
Long-Neck leapt towards her, with sickle-like claws from her rear legs poised to strike. In one fluid motion, the beta-female would attempt to rip out her throat. One-Eye swerved her head, and then snapped at her opponent’s front leg, ripping into the soft skin and piercing bone.
She tasted blood for the second time that day and her heart thumped hard against her chest when her adversary cried out in pain. Her back leg swung out, and the prominent claw slashed the soft belly of Long-Neck.
They rolled to the floor, but the bloodied Long-Neck recovered her position sooner. She let out a victorious screech and lurched forward.
The dazed alpha-female braced herself, ready for the attack, but then came a soft thumping sound from her right. To her surprise, the enraged Long-Neck tossed back her head and collapsed to the ground.
Breathing heavily, One-Eye looked down at the beta-female, puzzled. A shiny insect was imbedded in her neck and she had instantly succumbed to its sting. Around her, clicks and warbles from the pack. They, too, were confused.
More soft ‘thumps’ behind her. More shiny insects. They were being bombarded by the swarm and her small pack was falling quickly. She knew she had to run. She turned in the direction of the thick scrub and bolted. The strange scent from earlier was all about her, and unfamiliar sounds drew closer. An insect shot past her head before landing on the tree in front of her. She ran past it, and for the first time in quite a while, she felt afraid.
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