by Jodi Taylor
I said, indignantly, ‘Ow!’ because I still had no idea how much trouble I was in. I backed myself hard against the wall for support and protection. Not the best move because now I was really trapped, but there were now so many of them that there was no other direction in which to go.
I don’t know why I didn’t call for help there and then. I think part of me couldn’t believe this was serious. They were children, for God’s sake, throwing a few stones. Someone would open a window and yell at them, they’d all run away laughing. I’d rub my arm, curse a bit, and get back to the pods.
More stones clattered around me. Some of the ones thrown by the smaller children never made it as far as me, but the older ones had found their range. A lucky shot hit my knee in exactly the wrong spot and a sharp stabbing pain ripped through my leg. I felt it buckle beneath me and now it really was serious. I wouldn’t be running anywhere anytime soon. Time to get help.
I fumbled with my com and whispered. ‘This is Maxwell. Code Red. Code …’
I felt stones rain down on my head, my shoulders. They weren’t large rocks. People don’t sling boulders because it only takes two or three of those and then you’re unconscious, which is no fun at all. You have to suffer first. It’s probably good for the soul; so they threw smaller stones – pebbles found in the street. Which was a bit of a bugger because that meant there was an unlimited supply and they wouldn’t be running out of ammo anytime soon.
I tried again. ‘Man down. Behind the Villa Strozzi.’
Some of these pebbles had sharp edges but fortunately for me, the thick brown dress I was wearing offered a certain amount of protection. I made make myself as small as possible and hoped for rescue because there was no way out. Nowhere to run to and, in my case, no left leg to run with. There were far too many of them to engage. Yes, I had a stun gun, but even I recoiled at the thought of tasering a bunch of kids – nasty little buggers though they were. I needed to keep as much distance as possible. Deep down, I think I was still hoping they weren’t that serious. Just a bit of a stoning, just to teach me a lesson and then everyone goes merrily on their way. To church, probably, for their reward. Even deeper down, I knew I was kidding myself. I wasn’t going to get out of this without help.
Not everyone was throwing stones, but everyone was urging them on, baying for my blood, cheering the hits. The sound of high-pitched, childish voices was terrifying. There was no mercy to be shown here.
Only the wall was holding me up. I told myself I had to stay on my feet because once I was on the ground, they would close in, and then things would really become unpleasant.
Vaguely I could hear someone talking in my ear, but my knee was throbbing so much that I was sick with the pain of it. My head swam. My knee would no longer hold my weight. Like a voice from the past, I could hear Helen saying, ‘I told you that knee of yours would let you down one day.’ On the other hand, it seemed unlikely I would live long enough to regret not getting it fixed. There’s always a bright side if you take the time and trouble to look.
I had what seemed a good idea at the time, and bent to pick up a stone myself. After all, there were plenty of them around – and threw it back. Yes, I know, but I think I’ve already said I’m not fond of kids, especially this bunch of 15th-century ASBO contenders encircling me. I blame the parents. And I didn’t throw it hard – more a kind of gentle toss, really, but someone out there took exception. You’re not supposed to fight back.
Something hard slammed into the side of my face. My head jerked round and I lost my earpiece. My vision blurred. The world tilted. I was falling. My face scraped down the rough wall. I scrabbled for some sort of handhold to keep me on my feet. I tried to cover my head. My knee was on fire. Probably more seriously, there was that deep internal pain that tells you that things inside are not as they should be. There was blood everywhere and it was mine. It ran down into my eyes, blinding me.
I heard a man’s voice. With my luck, this would be the parents turning up to yell at me for chucking stones at their innocent children, because they were good kids really, and the whole thing was just an unfortunate situation that got out of hand. I became aware that someone was shouting in my face. Nothing new there, then.
A familiar voice cut through the hubbub.
‘Get behind me.’
He pushed me roughly behind him but despite all my best efforts, my legs just wouldn’t hold me up any longer. I began to slither down the wall and as I did so, my elbow caught on a kind of latch. There was a click and something behind me gave way. I fell backwards and grabbed instinctively at the figure in front of me, which did no good at all, because I fell heavily onto a cold, stone floor and jarring my knee quite badly, and whoever it was landed on top of me, because, of course, I just wasn’t damaged enough, was I?
I think everyone on the street was just as surprised as me. One moment we were there and the next minute – we weren’t.
Their astonishment gave him just enough time to stagger painfully to his feet, slam the door closed, and fumble the bar into place. We were safe. Relatively speaking.
Blearily, I tried to lift my head and focus. Someone knelt beside me. It was Leon and he too, looked bloody and bruised. St Mary’s was taking a real battering today. We seemed to be in some sort of small storeroom. The warm smell of spices enveloped me. It would have been rather pleasant just to drift away, but I could hear the mob outside, pounding at the door. This was just a temporary respite.
I tried to say hello but it didn’t come out that way at all.
I tried to focus on something – anything – but I really couldn’t see that clearly. Well enough, however, to see that other than the door, there was no way out.
The blinding light above my head resolved itself into a skylight. He pulled over a barrel and climbed up, but it was way above his head. He might be able to pull himself up, but there was no chance for me and it was only a matter of time before those outside discovered they could get in that way. We’d bought ourselves a few minutes, nothing more.
He jumped down and came to kneel beside me.
Catching his sleeve, I said thickly, ‘You. Go.’
‘No.’
‘Leon …’
‘Not leaving you, Max. Save your breath.’
Sometimes, there’s no arguing with him. He gets that note in his voice, that look on his face …
Outside, they were battering away at the door.
He activated his com and said calmly, ‘Gentlemen, your urgent assistance is required, please. Can you stand up? No, not you, Peterson. Quick as you can, please. No, not you, Max. You stay there. No, not you, Miss Prentiss. Look – will everyone who isn’t the Chief Technical Officer please shut up. Thank you. Peterson, you, Clerk, and Roberts get back here, asap. Yes, same location. Prentiss, you and Mr Sands remain at the pods, please. Prep for the usual hasty getaway. Everyone move now. No, not you, Max. You just stay where you are.’
I was busy wiping the blood off my face, and when I could see a little better, pulled up my skirts to expose the black and purple melon that had once been my knee.
Bollocks! I wasn’t going to be skipping anywhere this afternoon. I hastily pulled down my skirt before he saw it.
He was inspecting the door. Without turning, he said, ‘It’s your knee, isn’t it? How badly does it hurt?’
‘Hardly at all,’ I said, with a complete absence of accuracy. ‘An icepack or two and it will be absolutely fine.’
To this day, I’m still not sure what set him off, but he went up like a rocket. We stood – well, sprawled, in my case – in that dirty, musty storeroom with half of Florence trying to batter its way through the door, and with every chance that rescue would arrive too late, and had a conversation that would change our lives.
Attack is always the best form of defence, so I made sure I opened the batting. ‘What are you doing here? You were supposed to remain with the pods.’
‘I’m not even going to answer that.’
‘But the paintings …’
I was righteously incensed. ‘This is a search and rescue mission. We were here for those paintings. You should be at the pods now, assisting. Why aren’t you at the pods now, assisting?’
‘Those paintings are not the most important things in Florence.’
I tried to keep it light. ‘Yes they are. Historians are two a penny, but there’s only one Botticelli.’
‘You are not two a penny. There is only one of you, too. You are not worth less than a splash of paint on a bit of wood.’
Typical techie. They have all the artistic appreciation of people who spend every day hitting metal with a lump hammer.
‘You can’t say that. Those painting will touch millions of people’s lives in a way I never could.’
‘You touch people’s lives, Max. Not in the millions, but that doesn’t make you less valid than a wooden panel. People are always more important than things.’
Unable to stand still, he was prowling around the tiny storeroom, looking for non-existent ways out. ‘You mean a lot to me. Why doesn’t that mean a lot to you?’
I opened my mouth, but he swept on.
‘You still don’t get it, do you? Even after all this time. After all that’s happened to us. From the moment I met you, when you stood in front of me with that hair and those eyes and that attitude … You’ve been wreaking havoc in my life ever since. You dance around the timeline, escaping disaster by a hair’s breadth and sometimes not even by that much. You leave a trail of catastrophe and devastation strung out behind you like a comet tail.’
I was so flabbergasted by this injustice that I could hardly speak. Definitely a first there.
I regrouped. ‘I don’t believe you. You’re standing in front of me now, spouting some gibberish about me risking life and limb and you’re far worse than I could ever be. Who got himself lost in the Cretaceous? I had to steal a pod to get you out. Who got himself snatched by Clive Ronan and carted off into the future? If it wasn’t for me you’d still be naked and tied to a bed.’ I stopped to consider that for a moment and then got back on track. ‘Who fell in a ditch and was nearly eaten by Nile crocodiles last year? It took three of us to get you out. Who would have had a burning cathedral fall on his stupid head if Markham and I hadn’t got the door open?’ I raised my voice to be heard over the repeated hammering on the door. ‘And now – instead of one of us being stuck in a Florentine cellar, there’s two of us stuck in a Florentine cellar. Is there a way out? No, there is not. Are we trapped? Yes, it would appear so. The whole point of this assignment was to recover …’
I got no further. He seized my shoulders, twisted me round to face him, and kissed me hard. Really hard. It was one of his better efforts – as I might have mentioned when I got my breath back.
He ignored me. ‘You just won’t be happy until you’ve driven me completely insane, will you? I’m a reasonable man. I don’t ask for much. Just someone who can get through the working day without imperilling herself, or those around her, or the timeline … Why couldn’t you just follow Clerk and Sands back to the pod? And don’t give me any of your usual crap about being overtaken by events. You just couldn’t walk past, could you? You just couldn’t leave well alone?’
I opened my mouth to protest at the injustice of this, but the shouting in the street kicked up a notch and from the way lumps of plaster were falling away from the doorjamb, the whole lot was going to come away any minute now.
Somehow, he had wrapped himself around me and was taking my weight. I leaned back against his solid warmth. I could feel his heart and it was racing away. As was mine. I turned my head to see him better. I would have liked a little longer to savour the moment, but that door was coming down any moment now.
He took my hand and rubbed his thumb over my knuckles. I rested my head back on his shoulder and looked up at the grey light seeping through the grille. Escape – so near and yet so far. I made no further attempt to persuade him to leave. He wouldn’t go. I wouldn’t have gone either, so I was in no position to criticise.
One of the hinges was working loose. I could hear shouting and the sounds of bodies thudding against the door. We had only a few minutes left before…
‘Do you think …? The thing is … Would you like to marry me?’
The door trembled, but not anywhere near as much as me. There was a long, long silence.
Because, with those few words, wherever they came from, my life changed forever. Everything stopped dead. Even the hammering on the door seemed to recede. The world just stopped. I stood on the edge. The future was unfamiliar and far more frightening than anything on the other side of that door was. Unexplored territory. Terror Firma.
With a crash, the door latch broke clear of the wall. The doorframe shuddered. Daylight appeared. The whole thing was coming down. We had only seconds left.
‘Yes. Yes, I would. Very much.’
‘I … don’t know why I said that.’
‘I don’t care. You asked. I said yes and I’m holding you to it.’
The entire door, frame, hinges, bar, everything, crashed into the storeroom in a shower of dust and debris.
I balanced unsteadily on one leg and pulled out my stun gun.
‘This isn’t going to be much fun,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry; I won’t hurt them too much.’
He moved away a little, to give us both room.
‘It’s been an honour and a privilege, Max.’
‘For me, too.’
Three bulky figures fought their way through the dust, crunching over the broken bricks and plaster. They had scarves tied tightly around their faces and carried heavy wooden staffs. They looked big and mean and they meant business.
The one in front pulled down his scarf and prepared to enjoy the one of the greatest moments of his life.
‘Toc-toc!’
Chapter Fifteen
I opened my eyes. It didn’t make the slightest difference. I couldn’t see a thing. I would have panicked but whatever it is that Dr Foster pumps into people on these occasions was doing its job beautifully. There was one thing, however, that was vitally important.
‘The paintings? Did we get them?’
Someone said something I couldn’t make out. Great. Now I couldn’t hear, either.
I tried again, getting cross because no one was answering me.
Something cold slid into my hand.
I must remember to tell Helen to stop doing that.
Finally, I opened my eyes. Some people see angels. I got Peterson. Scarfing down my grapes. I stared at him reproachfully through my one working eye and rearranged my priorities.
‘Leon?’
‘At Site Two.
‘Is anyone else hurt?’
‘Not compared with you, no. Just minor bits and pieces.’
I nodded.
‘For you, however, a bit more serious. Bruised kidney. You have excitingly coloured wee. Extensive bruising and lacerations. A magnificent black eye. Minor concussion. Helen’s had a go at your knee. Shall I go on?’
‘No. Bored.’
Silence. I peered Cyclopically at him.
He grinned. ‘Do you want me to put you out of your misery?’
‘Go on, then.’
He couldn’t keep it in. ‘We got them, Max. All three of them.’
I was grinning so much it hurt.
‘You were right. They followed the cart and we led them a merry dance, I can tell you. They caught us up in the end and had a good poke around, only to find a bunch of not very exciting pots and pans and three blank panels. They confiscated the lot, of course, so we lost the cart. Not quite sure what that will do to the timeline. Let’s hope it ended up on the Bonfire at the end of the day.’
He helped himself to the last of my grapes and began poking around the apples.
‘Good plan of yours. Clerk and Sands got back to
the pod with the real panels, no trouble at all. We got your call. Leon set off at the speed of light. Showing the correct grasp of priorities – and knowing we’d have to answer to you afterwards – we secured the paintings first and followed on behind, only to find you about to be beaten up by a group of small children. I have to say, if you had any street cred before, you certainly don’t now.’ He looked sideways at me. ‘Congratulations, by the way.’
I played dumb. ‘What for?’
He looked at me, still going at the apple like a starving rabbit. ‘Leon left his com open. We heard every word. You would not believe the huge amounts of money changing hands around this place. I’m taking Helen out to dinner with mine.’
Oh my God. Oh my God. What had I done? I was engaged to be married. ‘Does everyone know?’
‘Of course. Except for Dr Bairstow.’
‘Bet you he does,’ I said, displaying possibly slightly more gloom than was appropriate for a recently engaged person.
‘Of course he does, but nobody wants to be the person to tell him officially. We’ll leave that to the engaged couple. Good luck there. Any idea what he’ll say?’
‘You have thirty minutes to pack your belongings and be gone’ was the most likely option. ‘No. Can we talk about something else?’
‘Well – back to the paintings. You should have been there. We had a hell of a job getting them through the pod door. It was just like one those spatial awareness tests we give recruits – and as it turned out, we all we all failed that one, but we got them in eventually. Prentiss and Sands stayed put and we all cantered off to your rescue, thoroughly enjoying the in-flight entertainment on the way. Was Leon really once tied naked to a bed? No, don’t answer that. Let me live with the image. Tell him that one has passed into St Mary’s legend. That’ll cheer him up. Anyway, the paintings and everyone else have gone on to Site Two and I brought you back here as quickly as I could.’
He read my mind.
‘The entire Security Section is guarding the caves, Max. A mouse couldn’t get past them let alone Clive Ronan. Barring natural accidents and disasters, the panels will be fine. Dr Bairstow’s talking to Thirsk at this moment. He sends you his regards and has asked me to remind you that you’ve exceeded your sick-leave limit for this year already and it’s only September.’
