by Jodi Taylor
We were in a small courtyard, backing on to a big, sprawling two-storeyed building. I could feel paving of some kind beneath my feet. Dark walls reared up around us. Looking back, the pod was quite invisible.
There was no moon – or rather, the moon was obscured by thick, heavy clouds which hung, seemingly, only just overhead, strangely bright against the black sky.
In the distance, a dog barked and that set off a few more. Someone shouted, a door banged, and they fell silent.
It was so quiet. The whole place was silent. This was Bishop’s Lynn, a busy place, and the King was in town. Why wasn’t it lit up like a firework factory? Where were the last-minute repairs to harness and wagons? Why weren’t blacksmiths working the night round?
Had John imposed a curfew? We knew that he was ill. He was suffering from dysentery, which is never any fun. He would be dead in a few days. Now I came to think of it, Henry V died of dysentery as well.
Where was I? Yes – sick king. All right, he might have gone to bed early, but would everyone else? There were large numbers of soldiers here tonight. At the very least, the ladies of quickly and easily bought affection should be doing a roaring trade. Tonight, they were probably hiring themselves out by the minute.
We set off. Single file, walking in the shadow of the high walls. Markham, me, then Peterson. We ghosted gently down the street.
Ghostly we might have been, but they very nearly bloody caught us.
Just as we were oozing silently around the corner, a number of dark shadows oozed just as silently towards us. I froze. We all froze. Always the best thing to do in a crisis. I felt a pressure on my arm and carefully eased my weight backwards against the wall. We stood motionless, hardly even daring to breathe, trying to see what was going on because obviously we weren’t the only people up to no good here.
I heard whispering, sibilant in the darkness and then, a faint, flickering light. Someone was lighting a torch.
I eased my weight onto my back foot and silently lifted the other, placing it down with extreme caution. I knew Peterson and Markham would be doing the same. Someone was bringing a torch and we couldn’t afford to be seen. There was no one else on the streets. A curfew had definitely been imposed. Something was up.
Markham had his hand on my shoulder. I crept backwards, trailing my hand along the wall as we retraced our steps back to the pod and safety.
Except that they followed us. Not knowingly of course, but they followed us every inch of the way. We couldn’t shake them off.
I heard a faint crunch as Peterson, leading the way, walked into the pod. I heard the slither of his hands as he felt his way towards the door. Dottle – definite historian material – had learned from her previous error and had it open ready. We squeezed back inside and the door closed behind us.
‘Well,’ said Peterson, exhaling hard. ‘That was close. Two minutes earlier and they’d have had us. Anyone else getting the feeling this jump isn’t meant to be?’
I was peering at the screen. The torch had been thrust into a sconce in the far wall and threw out a very faint light. Four men stood at the entrance to the courtyard. Minutes passed and none of them moved. They just stood. Silent and unmoving. The whole thing was rather eerie.
‘What’s going on?’ whispered Dottle.
‘Shh…’ I said, although God knows why. No one could possibly hear us.
Whatever they were looking or waiting for happened out of range of our cameras. With no given signal that I could see, they split up. One crossed the courtyard and opened a small door. Two disappeared back into the street and the one remaining in the entrance waved his arm.
Someone, somewhere, must have been keeping watch, because the very next minute, a column of some half-dozen men appeared in the entrance and then walked swiftly across the courtyard, vanishing through the little doorway in the same eerie silence. The shapes were difficult to make out because the one flickering torch caused shadows to jump and leap across the walls. I was certain they were hooded and masked but strangely, their feet were bare. Of course – for silence.
Whatever was going on, once again, St Mary’s was right in the middle of it.
‘What on earth …?’ said Peterson.
‘Assassins?’ queried Markham.
‘There’s no point – he’s dying. He’ll be dead in a week.’
‘Yes, but they don’t know that.’
What the hell was going on?
Suddenly it all became clear. The men reappeared, every one of them carefully bearing a casket, or a small trunk, or a bundle of some kind. They paused in the courtyard and then the man at the entrance gave some sort of signal and they all vanished soundlessly out into the night.
I had it. I knew what was happening. The words tumbled out in my excitement. ‘Oh, my God – he is. He’s stealing them. John’s stealing the Crown Jewels. He’ll say they were lost. They were never lost. He’s going to hide them here somewhere and then tomorrow, very publicly, and very ostentatiously lose them. He’s planned all this. He’s going to try to escape his creditors, his enemies, everyone. It’s brilliant, and if the devious bastard hadn’t buggered it all up by dying, he’d probably have got away with it.’
And we were right in the middle of it. I wasn’t sure whether this was a good or bad thing. Shadowy figures moved around the courtyard. Armed guards patrolled the street outside. Now what? I sank back into the seat, stared at the screen and tried to think.
It was all happening. Right here. Right now. Right in front of us. There must be some way we could turn this to our advantage. There must be.
Markham and Peterson were pulling out bedding to use as makeshift cloaks.
‘And none of this stuff is ever found?’ demanded Markham, pulling a blanket over his head.
‘Well, no one looks for it here. Why would they? We’ve just seen it all washed away forever.’
‘So there’s the possibility that it’s all still here?’
‘Not all of it, obviously. Just the small, valuable, portable stuff.’
‘So,’ said Markham. ‘This means they’re out there now, concealing this treasure somewhere nearby?’
‘Yes,’ I said impatiently, heading towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To steal the Crown Jewels, of course.’
‘No,’ said Peterson. ‘No. Sorry Max, but no. It’s all very well for you to risk life and limb in an historian kind of way, but not against armed men busy carrying out the biggest jewel theft of all time. Your repertoire of devious tricks will not avail you here. They’ll skewer you as soon as they clap eyes on you. Stay here and keep the motor running.’
I couldn’t believe it. ‘But …’
‘No,’ said Markham, following him towards the door. ‘This is no time for girl power. You two stay here, run the hoover round, put the kettle on, and have everything nice for when the men get back.’
He was out of the door before I could rip his arms off.
They were good. I stared at the screen and try as I might, I couldn’t make them out, and I knew they were there. Somewhere.
I guessed they were edging their way around the wall, but where they were going and what they were going to do when they got there, I hadn’t a clue. I wouldn’t mind betting they didn’t either.
I remembered I was an historian. All right, a disgraced historian, but nevertheless … I activated the night vision, set everything to record and then, because there wasn’t anything else I could do, I paced. Up and down. Up and down. Returning every few steps to peer uselessly at the screen again.
Dottle wisely got out of the way.
Men came and went, bearing bundles or small trunks. They couldn’t possibly move it all so it would be the small, easily carried and most valuable items that would be taken. That would not meet a watery end in The Wash tomorrow. I kept checking the recorders and angling the cameras. Everything was working perfectly well, but I had to do something.
Then another small group of dark fi
gures appeared. The one at the end, shorter than the others, was struggling with a heavy casket. He set it down and ostentatiously eased his back. His companions manoeuvred themselves past him. No one stopped moving, not even for one moment. What a shame John couldn’t organise his country as well as he could plan a jewel heist. He was in the wrong job.
As the last figure disappeared out of the gate, Markham picked up his casket, staggered slightly for the benefit of anyone watching, and stepped into deep shadow.
Nothing happened. No one shouted a demand to know what he thought he was doing.
I signed to Dottle who switched off the lights and I got the door open. The smell of wood smoke flooded in on the night air. We stood either side of the door and waited. My God, we were stealing the Crown Jewels. We were in the same league as John Lackland and Colonel Blood.
Markham struggled through the door. Dottle took one end of the casket and they set it down. I closed the door. The casket was heavy. I could tell by the way that it thumped to the floor. Dottle turned the lights up – just a fraction so as not to affect his night vision, and I asked him where was Peterson.
‘He was just behind me.’
I flew to the screen. There he was. He was slipping out of the building, carrying something long and thin. If this was part of the regalia, then it might well be some sort of sceptre.
Things weren’t so easy for him. Two other men appeared behind him, carrying a trunk between them. Right on his heels. There would be no slipping into the shadows for him. I felt my breath catch in my throat.
Tim’s brilliant. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word panic.
He stepped out of the line and without any attempt at concealment, crossed the courtyard towards us. Markham went to the door and stood with his hand on the manual control, waiting for my signal. Waiting for the first sign of trouble.
Quite openly, Peterson approached the pod. He propped his bundle upright against the wall and grinned cheerfully up at the camera he knew was hidden there. He fumbled a moment and then, still grinning, relieved himself against the pod, splashing it everywhere. Leon was going to go ballistic.
I’ll admit I was surprised, but only because he usually pees on me. The other two men trudged on, backs bent, out of the entrance, and just for a quick second, the courtyard was empty. Dottle hit the lights again. Markham got the door open and we yanked him inside before it was even half-open.
We stood motionless, heads tilted, listening for a shout or some kind of alarm, but one man appeared in the doorway, another one in the entrance, they passed each other without speaking, and it looked as if we’d got away with it. Slowly, we unfroze and began to breathe again.
‘We can’t jump until they finish,’ said Peterson. ‘And just pray they do before the sun comes up and people start moving around.’
‘They will,’ said Markham, confidently. ‘They’ll want to be finished and gone before first light.’
‘Yes, but we have to be gone in a few hours,’ I said. ‘So lots to worry about still.’
Even as we spoke, the last man was out through the arch. Unseen hands closed the little door. Someone removed the torch from the wall. Silence and stillness fell. I heaved a sigh of relief. The whole thing had taken no longer than twenty minutes from start to finish. If we’d waited even another few minutes we’d have lost our chance.
‘Well,’ said Markham, surveying our loot. ‘We’d better see what we’ve got.’
I made them wash their hands and we all covered our hair. We always do this. Whatever we recover is always subject to rigorous scrutiny and we can’t have experts casting doubt on the stuff we’ve gone to so much time and trouble to ‘rescue’, simply because someone has shed modern epithelia and hair all over it.
We laid the blankets over the muddy floor and investigated.
Markham’s big heavy leather casket turned out to contain another smaller casket.
‘It’s not locked,’ he said, frowning at the catch. ‘Not that that would have been a problem.’
He eased open the lid, said, ‘Shit,’ and sat back on his heels in awe.
‘Oh my God,’ said Peterson.
Dottle’s eyes were huge. Without thinking, she reached out to touch it.
Peterson gently grasped her wrist. ‘Be careful. Your fingerprints might ruin everything.’
She blushed again and nodded.
‘This must be from the Empress Mathilda’s collection,’ I said. ‘I wonder if it was hers. Her own personal property.’
It was a crown. My first crown – and judging by the expressions on everyone else’s faces, their first crown too.
We didn’t touch it. We left it in its casket, crawling around on the floor so we could appreciate it from every angle.
Before anyone faints with excitement, I should say now that it wasn’t the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire, with its distinctive hoop. That would have been too much, even for us, but it did have the traditional octagonal shape. Long golden pins held the eight plates together. Rounded and polished stones had been embedded in the gold plates and held in place with exquisitely fine wire. It was quite small – maybe made for a woman’s head – which made sense since this particular piece had come to John through his grandmother, the Empress Mathilda.
We stared and stared at this beautiful object winking and glowing in the light.
‘Shit,’ said Markham again, which really just about summed up everything. We nodded, then closed the lid and packed the casket carefully inside the larger one and unwrapped the slender bundle.
If the crown had impressed us, the contents of the bundle just blew us away.
‘Dear God,’ said Peterson, and put his head in his hands.
‘What?’ said Dottle in alarm. ‘What’s the matter?’
We were looking at a sword.
We stared at it in silence. A long, long silence. Something, somewhere clicked itself on, I heard a hum and then whatever it was clicked itself back off again. Still we stared.
‘What’s wrong?’ said Dottle, her voice beginning to rise. ‘For God’s sake, tell me.’
Peterson sat back and closed his eyes. I felt tears rolling down my cheeks. I know, but I was pregnant. Cut me some slack, please.
Markham cleared his throat and said, ‘What is that?’
Peterson opened his eyes. He turned to me and gripped my hands. He had to swallow several times before he could speak and I couldn’t speak at all.
His eyes shining, he said hoarsely, ‘It’s the Sword of Tristram. This is the Sword of Tristram, I’m sure of it. Look, there’s the verse inscribed on the blade, just as described. Max, we’ve done something …’
He stopped. He was right. I wasn’t sure if we’d done something wonderful or something terrible.
Whether by good luck or bad, we’d pinched one of the very few items that definitely, definitely could be traced back to John’s accident in The Wash. The crown was wonderful – but a crown is just a crown. It didn’t have Property of the Holy Roman Empire inscribed anywhere on it, but this was the Sword of Tristram. Known. Documented. Lost in The Wash. I keep saying that and Markham says it makes it sound like an odd sock, but you know what I mean.
In the silence, I heard him get up and put the kettle on.
Chapter Nineteen
I think we all felt better after a mug of tea. I know I did. I’d turned the heaters up full blast so we were warmer now too, albeit a little steamy.
‘He’s a clever bugger,’ said Markham in admiration, sprawled on the muddy floor clutching his mug. From one clever bugger to another, this was high praise.
Yes, John lost his baggage train in The Wash. Ninety per cent of it, anyway, but the remaining ten per cent – the really good stuff – never made it that far and was currently being hidden in the near vicinity. Very well hidden, since none of it was ever found again. Did he take the secret with him to his grave? If only he hadn’t died, it would probably have worked. A nice injection of cash just as he needed it. Unfortunatel
y for him, he did die, and who now knew what happened to that other ten per cent? Was it all still buried out there somewhere, just waiting for someone to find? Someone like us, for example?
But not tonight. We had what we came for. Let’s not be greedy.
‘Now what?’ said Dottle, sitting, big-eyed in the corner.
‘We need to go,’ I said. ‘When the sun comes up people are going to be curious about the sudden appearance of a small stone shack in the corner of the courtyard.’
‘And even more curious about its sudden disappearance,’ said Peterson, hauling himself to his feet. ‘Come on. Treasure to bury. Jobs to save. Reputations to reinstate. Let’s get cracking. Max, I’ll need you to double-check my calculations. Get this wrong and we’ll really be in trouble.’
‘Why?’ said Dottle.
Peterson scribbled on a piece of paper and shoved it in front of her. ‘This is us. Our order of events is as follows: 12th April from 08:00 to 09:00, we’re at the Wellstream watching the baggage train being lost. Yes?’
She nodded.
‘We jump back – which admittedly we didn’t plan to do but we’re historians and we can adapt – so we jump back to midnight on the 11th April, steal a few things and depart around,’ he glanced at the chronometer, ‘around 02:00.’
She nodded again.
‘Then we jump to the present location of St Mary’s to hide this little lot for future discovery. We need to leave a safety margin so let’s say we arrive at …’ he punched a few keys, ‘02:30.’
She nodded again.
‘We must – must – finish hiding this little lot and be out of there before, at the very latest 07:30.’
‘Why?’
‘Because at 08:00 we’re floundering around in the mud and watching the baggage train. We can’t be there and at St Mary’s.’
‘Why not?’
‘You can’t have the same people in the same time twice.’
‘Why? What would happen?’
‘No one is quite sure, but everyone agrees it wouldn’t be good. Not good at all. Not good for the timeline and especially not good for those trying to be in two places at the same time. Therefore, I don’t care what anyone says – we’re out of this by 07:30, job done or not. Is everyone clear on that?’
