Charlie Watts and the Rip in Time

by Marcus Anthony (UK) Eden-Ellis

  “Charlie…” he said softly to himself.

  “Charlie…” more loudly this time.

  “WAKE UP CHARLIE!” he shouted.

  Nothing. He was still walking in the countryside. The sun was warm in the sky and a gentle breeze was feathering his face.

  He then remembered that you could snap out of a dream by pinching yourself so he pinched a small piece of flesh on his arm and gave it a small twist. He was instantly reminded of Mick Clark because the thug had done the same thing to him one day last year and had left him with a bruise the size and shape of a small saucer. The pinching did not work. He succeeded in simply hurting himself. Walking toward the brow of the hill in front of him he realised that perhaps he was not in a dream and that the place in which he found himself was real. If that was the case, then Charlie started to feel scared and worried. What had happened…where was he…where was Gramps house…where …why…how…? The questions started to pile up in his mind, clogging and choking his ability to think clearly and with clear logic. He was beginning to reach the crest of the hill and the feeling of disoriented unease soon gave way to outright fear.

  Suddenly, the sound of distant rumbling thunder filled the air and he immediately looked up to the sky expecting a drenching downpour of rain. He was puzzled that the sky was still deep blue and yet the thunder still rumbled seeming to grow louder by the second. The sound fuelled Charlie’s panic and anxiety and he whirled around to try to discover its source. He could see nothing. Now the pounding roar filled his head and shook his slight body to the core. He realised that the sound was approaching him from beyond the brow of the hill in front of him, which

  he had nearly reached but could not quite see over. Louder and louder; Charlie’s heart was beating so hard and fast it felt like it might burst right out of his chest and go flying through the air. Despite his dread, Charlie still found himself reasoning and applying logic to his situation. He now realised that the sound was not thunder but seemed strangely familiar. Whatever it was creating the sound, it was about to come hurtling over the hilltop like water bursting over a breached dam.

  It was nearly upon him and Charlie could do no more than throw himself to the ground and bury his face in the soft grass. He felt so vulnerable where he lay but that didn’t matter; this was his only chance. Whatever was about to burst over the top of the hill was clearly travelling at some pace and was not aware of him. It might go rushing past without noticing him. He made himself as flat as he could and tried to become part of the ground. For the first time since he was small, Charlie prayed.

  The warhorse was a huge beast that stood more than twice the height of an average boy of Charlie’s age. It was blacker than a crow’s wing and its coat shimmered in the sunlight. Draped across its back was a deep purple blanket with a golden coat of arms stitched into it. On the blanket was a magnificent leather and wood saddle, trimmed with steel and in which sat a knight. The knight looked just like you would expect a knight to look; a chain mail vest covered with a glinting metal breast plate, green coloured leggings, brown leather boots and topping the whole outfit, an ornate metal helmet with a visor that was pushed up to expose the face. A long white shield with the same coat of arms that appeared on the blanket was strapped over his back and hanging at his side was a huge battle sword encased in a leather scabbard that was finely tooled with silver and gold inlays. The horse was travelling at a full gallop and the pounding of the heavy hooves was the source of the thunderous noise. As the massive creature reached the crest of the hill it immediately saw the white tee shirt Charlie was wearing starkly contrasting with the emerald green of the grass and panicked-bringing itself to an abrupt shuddering halt and then it reared up with a frightened neighing sound.

  The whole process was too much for the knight on the horse’s back. He was pitched violently forward as the horse came to a halt and then was immediately thrown backwards as the animal reared up onto its hind legs. Unable to keep his balance the rider tumbled backwards off the horse and landed heavily on the ground in an awkward tangle of chain

  mail, shield and sword. The horse reared up again and then bolted off, zigzagging away from Charlie and the unseated knight. Charlie had seen none of this but had kept his face buried in the ground. Only when he was aware of the sound of the hooves receding did he regain the courage to lift his face.

  He saw immediately the motionless pile of knight laying some twenty feet from him. Quite what it was he should do escaped him totally. He stood and looked about to see the horse that had stopped running and was now fifty meters away happily tearing up and chewing great mouthfuls of the luxuriant green pasture. Charlie was deeply perplexed at this turn of events but realised that the stricken rider may well need help of some sort. He guessed that this man was perhaps an actor taking part in a film or maybe one of those people that dress up in historical clothing and recreate famous battles of the past. Either way it was apparent that the man had been injured in the fall from the giant horse.

  “Hey. Are you okay?” asked Charlie loudly and he walked slowly toward the prone figure.

  There was no answer.

  “Are you okay?” he asked again, nearing the fallen figure.

  Still there was no answer or movement. Charlie reached the body and was truly amazed by the size of the man on the ground. He must have been at least six and a half feet tall and very broad in the shoulders. The man, dressed as a knight, was lying on his back and the visor of his elaborate helmet was now clamped firmly down concealing his face. Charlie wondered if the visor might be restricting the man’s breathing and resolved to open it. He studied it for a few seconds and then saw that it seemed to be held closed with a small catch located on one side of the helmet. He carefully unhooked the catch and slowly lifted the visor that covered the man’s face.

  The knight moved surprisingly fast considering that he was weighed down with what looked like half a ton of metal. As Charlie lifted the faceplate, a hand covered in a leather gauntlet suddenly shot up and gripped his wrist. The knight got to his feet in a heartbeat, still roughly holding onto Charlie.

  “You nearly had me killed, you idiot serf! What did you think you were doing, laying down in front of my steed like that? You would have been killed instantly if Rufus had trammelled you. You… You…”

  The knight’s anger started to subside slightly as he began to take in the sight of the visibly terrified Charlie and he realised that he was holding the boy about two feet above the ground, by his wrist. He relented a little and lowered Charlie so that his feet were, once more, in contact with the ground.

  “Speak then boy,” bellowed the knight.

  The man had such a powerful voice that Charlie was shocked into silence for a few seconds before blurting, “I’m sorry. Please. I had no idea that that you were coming. I didn’t understand what the noise was and I was scared.”

  The knight was puzzled by Charlie’s strange use of words. His accent marked him as a stranger; he was certainly not from this part of England. He noticed, for the first time, Charlie’s clothes.

  He released his grip on the boy and took a step back to observe him more fully. He looked closely at Charlie’s tee shirt, jeans and trainers and was fascinated by his glasses.

  “Where are you from, boy?” he asked with a little less anger in his voice.

  “Putney,” said Charlie, relaxing a little and gaining some confidence.

  “Putney? What part of the kingdom is that? I am not familiar with Putney. How many days journey is it?”

  The knight continued to eye Charlie up and down suspiciously.

  “I seriously don’t know,” answered Charlie, confused as to why this actor was speaking like he was in a medieval movie about knights. Mind you, he reasoned, Gramps spoke like that sometimes, so there was bound to be others.

  “I…I don’t know how I got here. Actually, to be perfectly honest, I don�
�t know where “here” is. Where am I exactly?”

  Charlie was starting to see that for all the bombast, and despite the sheer size of the knight, he did seem reasonable and ready to help, if only he would drop the whole “thee, thou, dost” medieval type rubbish.

  “You are a strange boy. You claim to not know where you are or how you arrived here and that all sounds very unlikely. You are, as you should well know boy, on the land of my lord Sir Richard Baldock, the Earl of Sherebrook, and it would be my wager that you are a part of a gang of poachers hunting his venison. Mark my words and tell me the truth and I

  shall consider letting you go free. I have no will to see a strip of a boy like you hanged this fine day.”

  The stern and grim look on the face of the knight did not falter. His expression did not help Charlie to relax. Charlie simply replayed the sentence over again in his mind and. yes. he had clearly heard the word “hanged”.

  Nothing was right here. Charlie was beginning to suspect that he was either in the company of a seriously disturbed old fool, who wasn’t playing with a full deck. Or, and much more worryingly, he was in a very strange place; he might be in a place in which the knight was actually the normal person and he was the odd one out. The prospect of either eventuality sent a shiver down Charlie’s spine.

  “I… I…” stammered Charlie.

  “Egad!” exploded the knight. “Why do you stutter so every time you start to speak? Show some backbone and give me clear answers to my questions, as you are required to do by the king’s law. Can you not see that I am a royally appointed knight and, as such, carry the full authority of the sovereign when I speak? Well?”

  At this point Charlie had recovered enough of his shaken faculties to start to think coherently again. He decided that whatever the situation was, the man held the upper hand. He would do well to simply fall in with his questioning and give him the answers that he might want to hear.

  “I am very sorry sir,” Charlie tried to craft his words in a manner that matched that of his interrogator so that he might appear slightly less suspicious and his answers a good deal more plausible.

  “I am sorry sir,” he repeated, “Of course knew that I was on the Earl’s land but I cannot remember how I arrived here from my home in Putney. Putney lies about ten days to the west on foot. I am not a poacher. I have never eaten deer in my life and I am not about to start.”

  And after a short pause Charlie added, “Thank you Sir.”

  “Well at last, you begin to make some sense. Of course you have not eaten good venison meat. You are a serf! Old mouldy potatoes and boiled hedgehogs for you, I’ll wager. Nevertheless, I am not at liberty to allow you to continue to wander unchallenged across the Earl’s lands….”

  The knight appeared to think for a second or two before he continued, “I am intrigued to know of the methods your village employs in the

  making of their garments and, I confess, I would know more of the device on your face.”

  He jabbed a thick leather clad finger at Charlie’s glasses. Charlie was standing in his white tee shirt with a blue Nike logo emblazoned across the chest, a pair of dark blue jeans and his bright white trainers that his mum had bought for him just last week. Charlie was at a bit of a loss and didn’t really know how to answer but made a stab at falling in with things, just for the sake of an easy life.

  “Ah, well, in our village we have learned how to make a very fine weave of material and we can make clothes, such as these, that are more comfortable to wear. The shoes we make from leather that we dye with chalk and these… “ he pointed to the glasses on his face, “these are to help me see further, they are made of glass and are held together with a fine metal.”

  Charlie was really pleased with his on-the-spot summary of modern clothes. He realised, of course, that by falling in with the old man’s game he was encouraging him but Charlie was clever enough to realise that he needed to buy a little time. After all, he didn’t know where he was, how he had got here and why he was talking to a man who was behaving like an escaped lunatic who had raided a costume shop and stolen a horse. The man appeared to be thinking very hard about something or other.

  “Once again you baffle me boy but I can see no harm in you. It is therefore my decision that you shall accompany me back to Sherebrook Castle and to squire for me for a while until I have decided how to proceed with you. Now go and fetch my horse.”

  Charlie was completely taken aback by this turn of events and spoke in the strongest voice he could call upon, “I’m not going anywhere with you. I’ll decide where I go. There are people who’ll be wondering where I am and will be looking for me right now. All I need to know is exactly where I am and where I can catch a bus back to Putney and, please, you can drop the ‘knights of King Arthur’ act. It’s gone beyond a joke.”

  Charlie stood back from the man and waited for his words to sink in, quite pleased by his little speech of defiance.

  For a second or two he thought that his rant may have done the trick; and that the idiot in the fancy dress costume was about to relent, about to point out that he was in fact in Richmond park and that the 36B bus ran right to Putney high street and could be caught from outside the café

  just around the corner in ten minutes. Instead, the knight turned an odd shade of purple and swiped Charlie across the head with the flat of his hand. Charlie tried to duck but he was not quick enough and was caught a glancing blow that sent him sprawling across the grass with his ears ringing and made brightly coloured shooting stars appear in front of his eyes. Even though it was a glancing blow it had inflicted more pain than Mick Clark had done in any beating he had ever dished out. The knight drew the sword from the scabbard at his side, the blade was notched and chipped from heavy use but the metal was not dull-it radiated sharp spikes of light as it glistened in the sun. The knight stamped over to where Charlie was just starting to regain his senses and equilibrium. He thrust the sword toward Charlie with lightning speed and the point came to a halt just a few millimetres from Charlie’s throat.

  “I am not accustomed to explaining my decisions.” began the knight seeking to control the rage inside him “…but I will give you one chance because of your age and obvious ignorance. When I say that you will accompany me to Sherebrook Castle and that you will be at my disposal, then that is exactly what will happen. When I say fetch my horse, you will fetch my horse, Rufus, and you will do it with good grace and a fair face.” He prodded the point of the sword at Charlie’s throat until it touched the flesh and Charlie had never been more scared in his life. “Any failure on your part to understand this will result in me cutting you in two with the same ease as I might cleave apart an apple. Do you understand me? Well do you? Never make me wait for an answer boy.”

  Charlie, stunned, managed to gulp a “Yes Sir.”

  “Excellent. We appear to have reached an understanding of sorts. Now then boy, my horse?”

  The knight removed his sword from Charlie’s throat and nodded his head toward Rufus who was still happily grazing some distance away. Charlie got up and started jogging over toward the horse.

  “Boy!”

  Charlie turned back.

  “By what name are you known?”

  “Charlie Watts,” replied Charlie Watts.

  “Odd name for an odd boy. I am Sir Geoffrey de Lancie of Bagshotte, a knight in the service of Sir Richard Baldock, Earl of Sherebrook. Until I determine otherwise-you are my squire. Now, retrieve my horse.”

  Charlie turned and continued walking toward the grazing Rufus and considered what he had just heard. This man seemed to genuinely believe that he was some kind of medieval knight and that he served a lord who lived in a castle. That, of course, was impossible. Although, Charlie could not deny that the sword was real enough; he touched a finger to his throat and could feel a small nick in his skin where the weirdo’s sword had been. H
e knew that he should go along with things, for the time being, and at the first opportunity escape from this madman.

  Rufus was an incredibly big animal. Charlie approached him cautiously and Rufus raised his head from his grazing to look directly at the boy that approached him. Seeing no threat let out an unconcerned snort, almost of derision, and let Charlie gather up the reins that hung down from his neck. Charlie breathed a small sigh of triumphant relief as Rufus allowed himself to be led back to Sir Geoffrey.

  Sir Geoffrey managed, to Charlie’s complete surprise, to swing himself onto the back of Rufus with comparative ease and then sat in the saddle speaking in an imperious tone.

  “You will run behind boy. Do not fall back, I wish to be at Sherebrook castle before nightfall.”

  He spurred Rufus on and Charlie hesitated. He didn’t really want to leave this place because he felt that somehow he should stay here if he wanted to find his way home but good sense got the upper hand and he realised that Sir Geoffrey was not to be crossed. He also expected that, at the very least, the man would be heading back towards civilisation of some kind and that he had no real option but to follow. He broke into a reluctant trot, following after Rufus and the knight.

  “Sherebrook Castle?” he whispered the question to himself under his breath, “where is that?”

  SEVEN

  The hatchet-faced robber, One Tooth, had watched the entire encounter from within the thick canopy of the oak tree under which Charlie had first appeared. He had been taking a nap in the crook of a thick branch, where it joined the main trunk. He had been suddenly shaken awake by an almighty roaring sound that was followed by a shaft of light that shot up from the ground beneath the tree. The flash of light lasted about a second but seared into his eyes and for several minutes left him temporarily blinded. One Tooth was frightened and disconcerted by the noise and light, and did not move until his sight began to return and his panic eased. When he could see again he immediately spotted a strange looking youth. He seemed to be shouting something at nothing. What was he shouting, he couldn’t quite hear, but it sounded like a name, “Chaylee” Or something like that.