by Jodi Taylor
This was no gentle ride across country. They were really moving. They looked neither to right or left. If we hadn’t moved they would have ridden over the top of us. Mary Tudor was heading to her estates in Norfolk. To raise her standard and claim her throne. Seconds later, they were out of sight. The sound of hoofbeats lingered only a moment longer.
‘Well,’ said Ellis, ‘it’s out of our hands now, Max. And we can’t afford to hang around. We need to be getting back to the pod. Come on. It’s only seven miles.’
‘I’ve already done it once,’ I said grumpily. ‘To say nothing of falling off that bloody wall. Twice.’
13
There’s no doubt that when you’re working for History, History works for you. So far – flawless. However, now we’d done our bit, we were no longer important, so half an hour later the rain came down. We did our best, keeping under the trees at the edge of the road, but it was the wrong sort of rain and we were soaked in minutes. And it got dark quite quickly as well. Ellis had a torch and a compass and swore he knew how to use them both and when we got a little nearer – he said – we should be able to pick up the signal from the homing beacon.
The rain really slowed us down. There was mud everywhere. There seemed to be two types of road in Tudor England. The hardened, rutty, dusty sort that turned your ankle and broke your axles, and the wet, sticky, muddy sort that sucked at your shoes and soaked your hem. Each is as uncomfortable to walk on as the other.
And you get so tired. Well, I did. My stupid wet skirt kept wrapping itself around my legs, considerably hampering my progress. In the end, I just hitched it up and struggled on as best I could. Our progress was slow and we dared not deviate from the road. Not by very much anyway. We did have to detour sometimes to avoid the worst of the bogs, puddles and swamps.
Despite the pace, I was shivering all the time and it seemed a very, very long way back to the pod.
‘That’s because it is a very, very long way back to the pod,’ said Ellis.
There was no time to eat. I couldn’t remember when I’d last had food. Although I had seen a pizza go by twice. Drinking as we ran was not successful. I suggested a pit stop every thirty minutes or so, but Ellis pushed us on. He didn’t say anything, but I know he was concerned about how much time we might or might not have left. We’d done our part. Mary was warned. Her letter was on its way to London, safeguarded every inch of the way by Nash and Bevan, who would then go on to the rendezvous with the others at The Tabard.
Clerk and his team were in 1554, facilitating Wyatt’s Rebellion. As soon as the conspirators were discovered, they and the clean-up team would jump to the rendezvous point, meet with Nash and Bevan, and get the hell out of the 16th century.
And everyone’s instructions were very, very clear. At the first sign of this timeline dissolving there was to be no lingering. Whether the job was completed or not there were to be no heroics. Everyone was to return to TPHQ and safety. Regardless.
And if we weren’t back at Number Five we’d dissolve, too. So, we ran.
We ran and ran. The road was a quagmire but we squelched and splattered along as quickly as we could.
And then, on one of our detours around a boggy bit, I fell over a rabbit. Hey – these things happen. It was dark. It was wet. I wasn’t looking where I was going. It had been a long day. Let’s see anyone else do better. It’s typical, isn’t it? We’d done the job and now the god of historians had abandoned us. Sometimes I think these deities need a good talking-to.
Actually, it wasn’t the rabbit itself I fell over, but the snare stretched between two pegs, so – you know – quite forgivable under the circumstances.
If this was one of Calvin Cutter’s masterpieces then I – as the heroine, obviously – would have broken my ankle and have to be carried along by the hero who would randomly have to tear off his shirt. As it was, I cursed horribly, scrambled to my feet, aimed a kick at one of the pegs and missed. Ellis stood solidly nearby and showed no signs of removing any sort of garment.
‘You should look where you’re going,’ he said, mildly enough, and I was all set to incinerate him on the spot but at that moment something rustled in the undergrowth. Someone was out there. This was Tudor England. No one went out in the rain and murk unless they were up to no good. Just like us.
I think the same thought went through both our heads – Robert Dudley and his men were out here somewhere.
A chilling thought. We hadn’t reckoned on Dudley being so close. I knew he’d brought a couple of hundred men into Norfolk. In the original timeline he’d missed Mary and spent his time capturing towns, including King’s Lynn where he’d proclaimed Jane queen. But this wasn’t the original timeline. This was unexpected and alarming. That he or his men could be so close . . .
‘Follow my lead,’ said Ellis and before I had time to say or do anything, he pushed me to the ground.
I managed to get as far as, ‘What the hell?’ when he began to fumble underneath my skirt.
Fortunately – for both of us, because he had only micro-seconds to live – the undergrowth rustled again and suddenly there were three men standing around us, together with either two very short men with cold, wet noses or a couple of dogs. They had a lantern with them and there was no chance of escape.
We blinked in the sudden light and did our best to look like two people so carried away by passion they hadn’t noticed the pouring rain. Not that easy.
I was unsure whether they were Dudley’s men, engaging in a little light poaching to supplement their rations – in which case we were in trouble – or actual poachers, come to check on their traps – in which case we were in trouble – or gamekeepers who thought they’d caught a couple of poachers – in which case we were in trouble. Whichever it was, there seemed to be a common theme and it would be sensible not to hang around.
Ellis rolled off me and we both stood up. Ignoring the men around us, I rounded on him and shouted in English.
‘What the hell was that all about? Are you some sort of pervert?’
He yelled back. ‘Well, you don’t think that was a particularly pleasant experience for me, do you? There are any number of women whose skirts I would like to investigate more closely but, trust me, you’re not any of them. Besides, Leon would rip out my spleen.’
‘Never mind Leon ripping out your bloody spleen – I’ll do it myself. Just stand still a moment.’
I could see the men watching us. The lantern cast dramatically long shadows in the half-light. The dogs were completely uninterested, all their attention on the dead rabbit. The men were grinning. Good.
Ellis hadn’t finished. ‘And quite honestly, Max – and I say this as a concerned friend – you’ve really let yourself go a little, haven’t you? I mean, I know a lot of women regard having a baby as an excuse not to . . .’
I uttered a scream of rage. ‘Who are you kidding, buster? If I’d known that one day you were going to be firkling around my nether regions, I’d have had six kids at least – and possibly major psychiatric counselling as well. Left.’
I swung my left hand, going for an open palm slap. Partly because the sound effects would be good and it would do him less damage, but mainly because I always forget to untuck my thumb when I punch.
The slap echoed around the trees. I swear one or two men winced. Even the dogs looked up.
He rode the blow as best he could – although I suspected we were going to be discussing this for at least the next two miles or so – and staggered backwards, not coincidentally kicking the lantern over as he went.
Sudden blackness fell.
He seized my wrist. At least, I assumed it was Ellis – although at that moment it’s fair to say I would have gone off with anyone – and we raced off into the gloom under the trees.
There was an instant’s surprised shouting behind us but we were a considerable distance away by that time. And they w
ere in darkness. They’d have to find the lantern, check it wasn’t broken and whether there was still any oil in it, find their tinder boxes and get it lit again. By the time they’d done that we’d be in the next county.
It was the dogs I was worried about, but they’d been ratty, terrier types, more suited for plunging down rabbit holes than pursuing people and ripping their throats out. Had they been mastiffs or hounds I’d have been seriously concerned.
We flew through the trees with Ellis flicking his torch every few seconds, to avoid bumpy ground and low-hanging branches. I was just feeling we could reasonably slow down and catch our breath a little when suddenly there wasn’t anything under my feet. I toppled sideways. Ellis fell on top of me and we rolled for what seemed like a considerable length of time. Where had the trees gone? We were in a wood and just one to halt our progress would have been useful.
We landed in a tangle. I couldn’t move. My skirts had wrapped themselves around me and I had a Time Police officer on top of me. I was soaked, muddy and lost. ‘Get off me, you great lump.’
‘Hey, I just saved us both.’
‘Really – that’s the Time Police idea of a successful getaway? Bouncing off the trees and falling off a cliff? To say nothing of assaulting a female colleague. I’m reporting you for harassment in the workplace.’
‘You don’t think I enjoyed it, do you? Trust me, I am washing this hand as soon as I possibly can. Decontaminating, even.’
‘Oh, don’t be such a baby. And while we’re on the subject, try that again and you could lose the entire arm.’
‘I don’t doubt it for a moment. For how much longer are we going to lie in the rain yelling at each other?’
‘Until you tell me where we are.’
‘How should I know? Thanks to your left hook I have major concussion.’
‘From that teeny tiny slappette? I had no idea the Time Police were so fragile.’
‘Do you think they were Dudley’s men?’
‘Could be. Although I didn’t see a badge, did you?’
‘No, too dark. We need to get a move on.’
He hauled me to my feet. We plunged into the gloom again and ran straight into three horses tied to a tree. And I do mean straight into them. Markham himself couldn’t have done a better job.
They snorted and plunged a little, but none of them tried to eat us. It seemed unlikely that poachers would have horses, so it seemed reasonable to assume they had been Dudley’s men. It also seemed reasonable to assume the god of historians hadn’t completely abandoned us, after all. If I hadn’t fallen over the rabbit then we’d never have found the horses. I felt a little guilty.
‘Quick,’ said Ellis, flashing his torch.
I scrabbled at a wet knot. Voices sounded in the distance and I thought I saw a light flashing among the trees.
I pulled the tether free. The horses were haltered but not hobbled. Note to self: write thank-you note to god of historians.
I seized a handful of wet mane and heaved myself aboard. ‘Which way?’
He consulted something. ‘South-east-ish.’
‘You go first. I’ll follow.’
It was raining. It was dark. And the horses didn’t want to move. A stubborn yellow horse flickered across my memories. Anything was better than being on foot, though.
We pushed on through the woods. At this rate, now that we had horses, we would reach the pod with plenty of time to spare.
No problem at all.
14
We reached the road again and Ellis flashed his torch. ‘I have good news and I have bad news.’
‘Give me the good.’
‘We’re back on the road again.’
‘And no sign of our pursuers?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘They’ll be legging it back to their camp as fast as they can go.’
‘With their rabbit.’
‘With their trampled rabbit, yeah.’
‘To find their horses gone.’
‘Yeah,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘We’ve really ruined someone’s day, haven’t we?’
‘And the bad?’
He flashed his torch up and down the road. ‘I’m so turned around I don’t know where we are.’
‘Wait,’ I said, with the practised non-panic of the frequently lost. ‘Let’s start using our brains.’ I paused for any comment he might feel behoved to utter but he said nothing. The horses stood quietly, heads hung low. The rain pattered down around us. ‘I know time is short but there’s no sense in us careering off in the wrong direction and ending up even further away from the pod. We need to think. A socking great baggage train passed this way recently. It must have left some trace.’
‘It’s pouring down,’ he said. ‘Everything will have been washed away. Or turned to mud.’
‘Yes, but you saw the size of the ruts in the road. I bet a lot of people will have done what we did and walked on the verges. We look for hoofprints, footprints, whatever, and take it from there.’
We poked about for ages. The trouble was that, prior to the rain, the ground had been so hard and dry there were no footprints of any kind. In any direction. I stayed back and held the horses well out of the way while Ellis ranged up and down, looking for some signs a number of people had passed this way and, most importantly of all, in which bloody direction they’d been travelling. I couldn’t believe he didn’t have some sort of direction-finding device.
‘I can’t believe you don’t have some sort of magic box. You are the Time Police, after all.’
‘I do have a magic box. It bounces signals off the ionosphere. In layman’s terms, the beacon broadcasts on high frequency.’
‘Well, that’s good.’
‘Not really. It has a very limited lifespan and therefore won’t kick in until it’s remotely activated by our signal.’
‘Well, that’s bad.’
‘Believe it or not, Max, we don’t want to go polluting the timeline with unnecessary tech so everything has built-in obsolescence in case we have to leave it behind for some reason.’
‘How limited is the life expectancy?’
‘About two days.’
Something bleeped.
‘There you go,’ I said, preparing to mount. ‘Problem solved.’
‘Not quite.’
I had a sudden and very nasty feeling.
‘That wasn’t the beacon, Max. That was our timer. Our three hours is up.’
Bloody hell – that was quick. But at least now we had nothing to lose. I was about to say, ‘Look, just choose a direction and we’ll go with that. At least we’ll have a fifty per cent chance of being right,’ when he said, ‘Aha.’
‘What? Aha what?’
‘Broken twigs – and yes . . . something here.’ He straightened up and said with conviction, ‘This way.’
I swung myself aboard my horse and as I did so the bleeper bleeped again. Because that’s what they do and it’s bloody irritating.
Now we knew the way we could go faster. And we did. We still had a couple of miles to cover and heavy clouds were obscuring the moon, which slowed us even further, but he set a good pace and I followed on behind. We seemed to be cantering through the darkness for considerably more than two miles. Surely we should have picked up the beacon by now. I called to him. ‘How much further?’
He pulled up and I moved alongside him. He wasn’t looking at me and I realised what he’d done.
I said, ‘That thing about knowing which way to go – you made it up, didn’t you?’
He nodded, still not looking at me. ‘Yeah. I couldn’t see much in the dark so I took a chance. Looks like I was wrong.’ He couldn’t look at me. ‘Sorry, Max.’
I put my hand on his forearm. ‘No, you did the right thing. I would have done the same.’
‘Which direction would you have chosen?’
‘Same as you,’ I said, because there was no point in saying anything else.
‘Max, I’ve dragged us two miles in the wrong direction.’
‘Not your fault. It’s this stupid mist. Everything looks different.’
Something beeped again.
‘That bloody thing’s getting on my nerves. We know our time’s up. Can’t you switch it off?’
‘I . . . did,’ he said slowly.
We sat like a pair of idiots until realisation kicked in. It was the homer. I turned to him, a sudden hope in my heart. There might be a chance for us after all. He was staring at some sort of readout.
‘Bloody hell, Matthew. How much further?’
‘I’m not sure . . . the signal’s not brilliant.’
‘Curse this lack of Tudor orbiting communication satellites.’
‘Indeed,’ he said absently. ‘Whatever were they thinking? A little less religion and a little more technical progress would have done everyone some good. But I think . . . under a mile, Max. Maybe a little less. We’re nearly there. We’ve nearly made it.’
I said hoarsely, ‘Matthew . . .’
He was busy fastening his pouch again. ‘Mm?’
‘Matthew . . .’
‘What?’
I had to swallow hard. ‘Behind us.’
He turned around, stared for a moment and then said softly, ‘Shit.’
We both stared. I’d thought it was just white mist. Just ordinary white mist. The sort you get in a woodland area after heavy rainfall. And then the sun comes out and there’s a lot of steaming and smelly, wet earth and then it all burns away in the sunshine and everything is fine again.
Not this time. This was the wrong sort of mist. And now that there was no sound of hoofbeats, now that we were alone in the silence, I could hear a faint buzzing. No, not a buzzing – more a sort of hum. The sort of noise you hear sometimes if you stand near a mega pylon.
I became aware the rain had stopped as well and a rather nasty silence had fallen. I could hear no birdsong, no woodland noises, not even the plopping sound of moisture falling from leaf to leaf. I felt the hair on the back of my head lift.
