Plan for the Worst

by Jodi Taylor

  He was maddeningly incurious. ‘Anything else? Only we’re quite busy, you know.’

  ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘How long will you be gone?’

  ‘Couple of hours,’ I said. ‘Maybe three. Definitely no longer. You won’t have time to miss me and Matthew won’t even notice I’ve gone.’

  So there we were – everything was coming together beautifully.

  And then Markham went down with something horrible.

  My first fear was that he’d brought something back from our jump to France. I thought he’d looked a bit of a funny colour when we were talking in the Library. Dr Stone had him scheduled for any number of tests because Markham has been known to go down with something horrible on an almost daily basis. He’s generally reckoned to be a lightning rod for disgusting diseases. We all still have vivid memories of Oscar the Ringworm. I personally was off spaghetti hoops for weeks afterwards. But it’s Markham and it usually only takes him a day or so to return from death’s door and start getting on everyone’s nerves again.

  Only this time, he didn’t.

  ‘Vomiting,’ said a remarkably unperturbed but very large Hunter to my anxious enquiry.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Vomiting like Vesuvius was the medical term,’ she said. ‘He can’t stop. We’ve shoved him in the Isolation Ward because we don’t know the cause. It should stop in a day or so because there can’t be much left, but you can’t have him for the Tower jump. Sorry, Max.’

  Peterson and I went to wave at him through the observation window. He was busy with a basin so we left him to it.

  Returning to my office, I spent some time considering my passengers and their status. I’d be insane to continue without Markham. A point I made to Dr Bairstow, expecting to be congratulated on my common sense and regard for personal safety.

  I was to be disappointed. The jump was to proceed.

  I got as far as, ‘But sir . . .’ when my principles of common sense and safety were trampled by the Chariot of Seniority.

  ‘Mrs Brown has a very full schedule and we were lucky she could fit us in at all. Any delay could set this jump back by months. We go as planned, Dr Maxwell.’

  I hesitated. I was right but so was he. And, actually, a far more important consideration than the safety of a major player at Whitehall was that if they did go at a later date, I might not be available. Suppose I was on Crete, for example. Anyone from the History Department – Peterson, e.g. – would give their right arms to be included in this jump and that was never going to happen. With just the right amount of mature reluctance, I agreed the assignment could stand. It should, after all, be a very quiet, safe jump.

  I’ve never actually used those three words in the same sentence before.

  I wasn’t happy but if the Boss was OK with it . . . At least the lack of a security presence would give me the authority to keep them in the pod should I consider it necessary. Which went completely tits up when we landed in the wrong place, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

  16

  I assume Dr Bairstow had made all the appropriate arrangements with Mrs Brown, because here we all were outside Number Four and, I have to say, a considerable step up from our usual scruffy selves.

  I wore a dress of light green wool, very full and gathered under the bust. I’d particularly asked for tight sleeves. Those long angel sleeves look great in one of Calvin Cutter’s cinematic monstrosities but they’re bloody useless in day-to-day situations.

  For those of you who have forgotten – Calvin Cutter produces those historical films where men are men and women’s clothes fall off in anything stronger than a light breeze. He’s supposed to be making a movie of David Sands’ bestselling time travel novel – don’t ask – and it’s not turning out to be the happiest experience of his – David Sands’ – life. I think we’re going to have to kill him. Cutter – not David Sands.

  Given the fashions of the day, my headdress was really very modest – a small, close-fitting bonnet welded to the back of my head, and covered with a light froth of fine linen. Those great wire contraptions supporting a Niagara of gauze are all very well but, trust me, not when you’re running for your life. Not that I expected to be doing so on this assignment. Not with the Boss and the Boss’s plus-one coming along.

  Dr Bairstow was the epitome of respectability in a full-length robe of black velvet over an under-tunic of blue. It suited him. His soft, floppy hat sat at a rakish angle. I told him he looked the dog’s bollocks – a remark he pretended not to hear.

  The real star, though, was Mrs Brown. North had been the same. They both had the ability to wear any costume as though they’d been born to it, which, I suppose, they had been. She wore a dark red dress, longer and fuller than mine – she obviously didn’t expect to be doing any running. The bodice was split down to the high waist, displaying an embroidered under-tunic. She had the wider sleeves, but they were pulled back to make a cuff. Mrs Enderby had pulled out all the stops on this one and her two-horned headdress was managing to be imposing without being bovine.

  In short – we looked fantastic. No one was going to object to us wandering around the Tower. You’d be proud to have us on your premises.

  Obviously, we were armed. Well, I was. I had my stun gun in a concealed pocket and any number of sharpened hairpins holding my headdress on. I was certain the Boss would have a pepper spray or two somewhere about his person and I knew his cane was a swordstick. We couldn’t take the smallest risk of anything happening to Mrs Brown. For all we knew, she signed our pay cheques.

  We spent a few minutes practising walking. Fortunately, the fashion for those hideous long-toed shoes was over. We all wore soft leather shoes with sensible blunt toes. Mrs Brown and I practised our fabric management skills. Walking in a straight line was OK and cornering was fine with a little care, but anyone embarking on a reckless 180-degree turn could easily end up with several hundred yards of fabric wrapped around their ankles.

  Visibility was a slight problem as well. Anything stronger than a light breeze and we’d be blinded by our own veils. And if the wind got under them, they’d act as a sail and we’d be off. Unless the weight of our dresses kept us tethered to the ground. I could only hope that there wasn’t a lot of wind within the confines of the Tower.

  You have to think about things like this, you know. I hoped it wasn’t raining, either. Not only is wet wool very heavy, but it smells to high heaven as well. And, of course, if the weather wasn’t good then the boys might not be allowed outside – and while I was fairly confident we could legitimately stroll around the Tower’s grounds, getting inside any of the buildings to track them down would present a problem – which, no doubt, I would be expected to overcome somehow. Sometimes I think about getting an office job.

  Dr Bairstow was ushering Mrs Brown into the pod. He installed her in a seat and fumbled with the seat belt, which was a bit of a bugger because none of us ever use them and we haven’t got a clue how they work.

  I ignored what was going on behind me and concentrated on the console.

  ‘Everything’s laid in,’ said Leon, standing at my shoulder. ‘Return coordinates, too. You know – just in case.’

  We always do this. Sometimes we have to leave in a bit of a hurry and then there’s no time to mess about with laying in the returns.

  I ran my eye over everything and nodded. Leon smiled for me alone, touched my shoulder and left.

  I took a deep breath. ‘Everyone all set?’

  Dr Bairstow assured me that they were indeed all set. ‘Whenever you’re ready, Dr Maxwell.’

  ‘Computer, initiate jump.’

  ‘Jump initiated.’

  The world went white.

  And here we were – the Tower of London, 1483.

  Fortress. Palace. Prison.

  And mint and armoury and other stuff as well, but we generally go
with the Big Three. Fortress. Palace. Prison. Much more dramatic.

  Before I could envelop myself in the Cloak of Congratulations, however, it was immediately apparent we had a problem. I hadn’t landed us exactly where I’d planned, which, since we had a guest on board and wanted to look good, was a bit of a bugger.

  We were only about two hundred yards or so off target, but those two hundred yards made all the difference between us being inside the Tower and us being outside the Tower.

  Guess on which side we were?

  I suspected there were folks on the other side of the wall who would give their right arms to be on the wrong side of the wall – always supposing their right arms were still attached to their bodies – but for our purposes, we were still on the wrong side of the walls.

  ‘Bugger,’ I said.

  ‘Problem?’ enquired Dr Bairstow. Quite mildly, I thought.

  ‘Unfortunately, sir, yes. We’re about a couple of hundred yards adrift. On the wrong side of the curtain wall.’

  I panned the camera towards the Middle Tower.

  ‘The gates are open, sir. People are coming and going. Quite a lot of people, actually. We could try our luck and see if they’ll let us in.’

  The presence of the princes would almost certainly have led to increased security but – and it’s embarrassing for the author­ities to admit – the Tower, for all its imposing appearance, wasn’t always tremendously secure. Guards can easily be bribed and medieval guards more easily than most, it would seem. Queen Isabella’s lover, Roger Mortimer, escaped with the connivance of his guards. And quite a lot of money, of course. She and he went on to depose her husband, that nitwit Edward II, the one who became more closely acquainted with a red-hot poker than might be deemed wise. There wasn’t a lot of Health and Safety around in those days.

  However, the good thing about the Tower – and most other buildings, palaces, prisons and similar – is that they’re like hives. Difficult to get into but once you’re inside, everyone assumes someone else has checked you out. Something we would have been able to take full advantage of had I actually managed to land us in the right place.

  I left Dr Bairstow and his plus-one scanning the Middle Tower while I checked the coordinates. If we’d laid them in wrong, transposing two of the digits, for example . . . but we hadn’t. They were spot on. It must be the original calculations that were out. Or – and this does happen sometimes – the pod had simply dumped us in the wrong place. They do occasionally show some intelligence of their own. More than can be said for some historians, according to the Technical Section. Or vice versa according to the History Department. Or perhaps some safety protocol had kicked in and rather than drop us into the festering sewer of the moat, or inside a wall, or even into the Thames itself, the pod had made a clever guess and dropped us here. I foresaw a couple of hours’ happy discussion as Leon attempted to talk his way out of this one.

  ‘People seem to be passing through the gate with comparative ease,’ declared Dr Bairstow. ‘I see no reason why we should not do the same.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘And I have a firm belief that fortune always favours the brave.’

  No, it doesn’t. Trust me – it bloody doesn’t. However, mine was not to wonder why – mine was just to do or – no, never mind the rest of that saying. I stared at the screen.

  ‘Problem, Dr Maxwell?’ he said again.

  ‘Not at all, sir,’ I said bravely, hoping fortune would favour me because, out of the three of us, I had a horrible feeling I was going to turn out to be the most sensible person here today and that was a deeply troubling thought.

  The time was mid-afternoon, which was later than I had planned. My intention had been to land just before dawn, when no one would notice the sudden appearance of an extra building at the end of the short row of cottages. They’re gone today – the cottages, not the Towers, obviously – but that little row had been the perfect place to shelter a small pod. It’s not often such an ideal landing spot presents itself, and for some reason we’d landed in the wrong bloody place and at the wrong bloody time of day. Apart from that, everything was going really well.

  We were on the end of quite a motley clump of shabby houses and workshops clustered along the riverbank, their backs to the river and facing the Tower over to our right. And very, very visible. I braced myself for a crowd of screaming, pointing citizens.

  It didn’t happen. There was no screaming and no ring of hostile citizens armed with pitchforks surrounded the pod. Always a good sign, I think. I panned around very carefully. There were chickens, a couple of geese, an upturned boat, a stack of wood leaning against a wall, a dog asleep in the shade and a man walking away from us with a plank over his shoulder. It all seemed harmless enough and I couldn’t put it off any longer. The two of them were champing to be out there. I checked over Mrs Brown for anomalous jewellery, wristwatches or inadvertent tattoos acquired after an imperfectly remembered evening out. Dr Bairstow adjusted his hat to an even more rakish angle, gripped his stick and off we went.

  Like most people, I’ve visited the Tower of London. I’ve walked the battlements, climbed the towers, admired the Crown Jewels, seen the armoury, counted the ravens, fought my way through the tourists and so on. This was entirely different.

  For a start – the smell. In no particular order, there was the stench of the Thames itself – not that far away off to our right. The tide was going out and thick, smelly river mud glistened in the hot sunshine. The water was a thick, brown colour. It looked like – and possibly was – liquid shit. Fun fact – as Markham would say – the tide takes twice as long to go out than come in. Something to do with the Thames Basin, I believe. He would probably go on to explain exactly what for an hour or so. Sometimes unexplained vomiting can be a blessing in disguise.

  Then there was the moat, of course, so stagnant and shallow that lush grass was actually growing on it. Not so much a moat, more everyone’s public toilet.

  Then the smell of horses – so common in our working day that we at St Mary’s are nose-blind to the heady scents of horse, dung, wet straw and so forth.

  Then the tang of woodsmoke – ditto with the nose-blind. Even on a hot summer’s day – and this was a very hot summer’s day – there were fires everywhere for cooking, hot water, working. I could smell hot metal somewhere and hear the incessant clang of a hammer, as some poor sod was having his manacles adjusted for maximum discomfort, perhaps.

  Another fun fact – well, Markham wasn’t here and someone had to do it – prisoners had to pay for their own ‘suit of irons’ or manacles. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, they were obliged to fork out for their own board and lodgings here at the Tower as well.

  Fun facts finished. For the time being.

  So far everything was going well. And then the lion roared.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Mrs Brown in delight, as we headed towards the entrance.

  Dr Bairstow nodded. ‘The Tower has been famous for its menagerie since the time of King John. Lions, bears, monkeys, a polar bear, even an elephant – who lived a short but very merry life since its keepers fed it mainly on wine.’

  ‘Actually, sir,’ I said, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you if we couldn’t do something similar with the History Department.’

  ‘Alas, Dr Maxwell, I fear the History Department, like elephants, does not function well on wine.’

  Lest our flippancy engenders criticism – we weren’t just messing around. A casual approach is essential. Nothing stands out more than people nervously approaching a checkpoint. The correct method is to be engaged in casual conversation, break off with patient resignation to deal with the guard and then carry on exactly as before.

  ‘On the contrary, sir,’ I said as we approached the Middle Tower. ‘I feel that, as a plan, feeding the History Department on wine has much merit.’

  ‘Although a great deal would depe
nd on the quality, of course,’ added Mrs Brown, entering into the spirit of things.

  ‘Are we speaking of the wine or the History Department?’ enquired Dr Bairstow. He slowed as a guard stepped forwards.

  Contrary to Calvin Cutter’s cinematic catastrophes, the guard was not all decked out in colourful red- and yellow-checked medieval attire and with curly toes. None of them were. There were no pretty uniforms here. This one wore a serviceable dark tunic and scuffed but still sturdy shoes. His pike leaned against the wall behind him so he obviously wasn’t expecting any trouble – but before anyone murmurs at the apparent lack of security, two of his mates stood alongside with their own pikes very much not leaning against the wall, and watched our every move. It was well done. We were posh enough not to be jostled but strange enough to arouse mild suspicion.

  Dr Bairstow greeted him in Latin and made a vague gesture that might be interpreted as a benediction. Mrs Brown and I stood quietly behind him, eyes modestly cast downwards as befitted members of the weaker sex, waiting for the men to tell us what to do next. I had my hand on my stun gun just in case, although I have to say, its range wasn’t anywhere near as great as that of a pike so I was really hoping I wouldn’t need it.

  I didn’t. The guard gave us a long, long look, and then, just as I was beginning to worry, stepped back and joined his fellows in the shade of the gate. Dr Bairstow nodded with just the right mixture of arrogance and acknowledgement and we walked through the towers, out into the sunshine and across the moat.

  The Byward Tower presented no problems at all – the guard, having seen us passed by his colleague, didn’t even bother to leave his patch of shade, just waving us through in a manner reminiscent of Mrs Partridge.

  We were in.

  17

  The Tower of London was a busy place. A very busy place. And nearly everyone was male. I saw an occasional female disappear through a door with an armful of linen or a basket of greenery and that was about it.