What Could Possibly Go Wrong (The Chronicles of St Mary's Book 6)

by Jodi Taylor

  No, he hadn’t been, then. His balance was fine, now, but he’d been a bit wobbly for a while and people were always picking him up off the floor. I suspected he usually arranged things so his pickers-up were female and pretty.

  ‘I said I was sorry, and instead of telling me I was the clumsiest ass on the planet and why didn’t I look where I was going because he was six feet tall, for God’s sake, and how could I not see him, which is what he would have said to someone he liked – and possibly hit them with his crutch as well – instead of all that, he just said it didn’t matter and everything was fine.

  ‘I said, could I help, and he said no, just let him get on with it, but he couldn’t because his foot kept slipping on the parquet floor so I went to help but he slipped again and I fell down on top of him and he said bloody hell, woman, you’re heavy and I smacked him on the arm and he said why was I beating up a cripple and Mr Clerk and Miss Prentiss walked past and Mr Clerk said oh bad luck, mate, meaning, I suppose, that he’d rather be on the floor with anyone other than me and then he kissed me – Mr Sands, I mean – and Clerk said to get a room for God’s sake and he said – Mr Sands, I mean – that he intended to one day and I didn’t know what to say and they helped him up and I wanted to go home but he took me in to dinner and made me sit with him and then …’

  She tailed off, possibly to draw breath, and I had a bit of a think. I needed to look into this ostracism of Rosie Lee because I wouldn’t stand for it. I had no idea what I would do about it, but I’d think of something.

  She was staring at the floor, hot and angry.

  ‘So,’ I said, fascinated by someone else’s romantic entanglement, ‘then what happened?’

  ‘We talked.’

  I stared at her. I knew David Sands very well. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well, you know what I mean. He talked and I listened. But he seemed to be enjoying himself. And it was a nice thing for him to do. To sit with me, I mean. And then the dinner finished and he could legitimately have gone off with the other historians into the bar, but he didn’t and we sat a little longer while they cleared up around us and the next day he sent me a note thanking me for my company at dinner.’

  You have to hand it to male historians – they have charm in spades. Peterson, with his thatch of brown hair and lazy grin; Roberts, squeaky and endearingly unsure of himself. Even Markham, of course. Not strictly a member of the History Department, but grubby, disreputable and unfailingly likeable. It would appear our Mr Sands had been exercising his charm all over Miss Lee. You can add bravery to his list of qualities.

  ‘Anyway, the next night, we went for a drink in Rushford. And the night after that. And then we went out to dinner …’ she trailed away.

  Bloody hell!

  I made an effort to get things back on track. ‘So, have you had a disagreement? Is that why you were …?’

  She nodded and blew her nose again.

  I tried to imagine anyone falling out with David Sands.

  ‘Was it about Benjamin?’

  ‘He says he doesn’t mind although I don’t see how he can’t. I mean, he must do, mustn’t he? And then he started on about …’

  ‘His foot,’ I finished.

  ‘Yes. Did I mention he’s a complete idiot? Apparently, it’s all right for him not to care about Benjamin, but he can’t believe I don’t care about him missing a foot. He makes me so angry.’ She sniffed again. A tear rolled down her cheek.

  And we were back where we started.

  Except that we weren’t. I had more or less eliminated Miss Lee from my list of suspects. And I’d had a fascinating insight into someone else’s love life. And she’d actually made me a cup of tea. All that, coupled with my staggering success in the Outdoor Survival thing – I was really on a roll today.

  ‘Right,’ I said, in my newfound role as agony aunt. ‘Talk to him.’

  She shook her head. ‘He won’t listen. He just thinks I’m being kind.’

  ‘No,’ I said without thinking. ‘Even Sands isn’t that stupid.’

  She blinked in surprise and then, even as I thought my last moment had come, she began to laugh. I joined in. I couldn’t help it.

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘You know what to do. Talk to him.’

  She shook her head.

  Time to lie. ‘You’ve got better powers of persuasion that that. He’s a great guy. Very attractive. Trust me, if you don’t work at it, someone else will. Whatshername from IT is always going on about him.’

  ‘He won’t even talk to me at the moment.’

  ‘Then you talk to him. For God’s sake, you’re Rosie Lee. Your reign of terror is second only to Dr Bairstow’s. Get out there and hunt him down. Pin him to the ground and make him listen. If you don’t, Whatshername will.’

  Silence. I was never going to heaven.

  She smiled tentatively and nodded. ‘All right, I will. Thank you, Max.’

  I picked up my mug and toasted her. ‘An honour and a privilege, Miss Lee.’

  For one instant, I thought we were about to enjoy a rare moment of peace and harmony, and then there was a scream of warning from the car park outside, followed by nasty, soft, wet noise and something huge, purple, and wobbly impacted against the window, making us both jump.

  ‘What on earth –?’ she said and rushed to the window. ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Don’t panic,’ I said. ‘It’s just Miss Lingoss’ pig exploding in its coffin.’

  ‘What coffin?’

  I was seized by the cold hand of dread.

  ‘The coffin in which the pig is interred?’

  ‘No,’ she said, craning. ‘I can’t see a coffin anywhere.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I said, as casually as I could. ‘Is there much damage?’

  ‘Mostly to the car parked in the next space.’

  The hand of dread tightened further.

  ‘How bad?’

  ‘Impossible to say. You can’t actually see the car for dripping pig.’

  ‘Miss Lee, could you nip along to R&D please. My compliments to Miss Lingoss. Tell her there’s been premature pig precipitation in the car park and she shouldn’t stop to pack.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  In all of our training courses, there comes a moment when the full impact of what they do has to be brought home to the trainees. When they realise that a large part of the job is watching people die, because History is not pretty. We call it the violent death assignment.

  After some consultation with Peterson, I’d selected Rouen, 30th May 1431. The death of Joan of Arc.

  Everyone knows the story.

  Towards the end of the Hundred Years’ War between England and France, things were going badly for the English. There were three reasons for this. Firstly, the early gains of Crécy, Poitiers, and Agincourt were all but cancelled out by the premature death of Henry V; secondly, the new French king wasn’t as mad as the previous one; and thirdly, the inspired leadership of a young girl called Joan, who appeared from nowhere and set about pushing the English out of France.

  Under her command, the French were regaining their territories and everything was going well until she was captured by the Burgundians. Inexplicably, the French king, on whose behalf she had laboured so hard, refused to pay the ransom and the Burgundians, not ones to miss a good business opportunity, sold her to the English instead for the sum of 10,000 livres.

  Unwilling to risk hostility in their occupied holdings, the English handed Joan over to an ecclesiastical court in Rouen where, because she had cut her hair and wore men’s clothing, she was accused of and tried for the crime of heresy, rather than praised for handing the English forces their arses at the battles of Patay, Meung-sur-Loire, Montepilloy, and Lagny. The French king still did not come to her rescue and eventually, she recanted, which didn’t suit the English at all.

  If ever a person was stitched up, it was Joan of Arc. During her time in prison, she was continually threatened with sexual assault by her captors. Rumour had it even the Earl of War
wick was involved. Whether it happened or not, Joan resumed her men’s clothing in self-defence. Just as the English had intended.

  The church swung into action again, calling her a lapsed heretic, the punishment for which was death. By burning. She would be executed on the morning of 30th May 1431 in the Vieux Marche in Rouen and her burning supervised by the Bishop of Beauvais, Pierre Cauchon. And we would be there.

  Atherton had this one. I took him aside.

  ‘You may feel I’ve sold you a little short on this one, Mr Atherton. We won’t be venturing outside. This is a record and document only assignment. Your main task will be that of observing your colleagues. Being burned at the stake is not a good way to die. No one will enjoy this. Keep an eye on them as well as what is happening outside.’

  ‘If it’s that bad then why go?’

  A good question.

  ‘Joan will burn whether we’re there to observe it or not. And it all happened six hundred years ago. Does that help put it in perspective?’

  He nodded.

  ‘However, this will not be pleasant. Be aware.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Peterson invited himself for this one. ‘Time I checked out what sort of a job you’re doing. I see you’re one down already.’

  ‘I don’t count that. Miss Lingoss has not actually left the building.’

  ‘And we’re getting Randall back.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good news. How is he?’

  I felt a little guilty. I’d had two messages from Mr Randall, requesting the pleasure of my company in Sick Bay and not only had I not gone, I’d been avoiding him ever since. It embarrasses me to be thanked. He’d got the message and the requests had ceased, to my relief.

  ‘He’s fine. He’s coming along on this one just to ease himself back in again. We’re not going outside so I imagine even we’ll find it difficult to balls this one up.’

  I grinned at him. ‘You underestimate us.’

  We assembled in Hawking. No need to check everyone over – no one was in costume. Once inside, we tested our recording equipment very carefully. We have to get things right first time. If we screw up then for everyone on that jump the opportunity is gone forever. You can never visit the same time twice. Two versions of the same person in the same time is very bad news. In the way that no two objects can occupy the same space without catastrophic consequences, so no two versions of the same person can occupy the same time. No one’s quite sure what form the catastrophic consequences would take. Whether the two versions would simply cancel each other out – permanently – or whether it would be the equivalent of matter meeting anti-matter and the subsequent explosion would annihilate the universe and everything in it, we just don’t know. Anyway, Atherton made them check all the equipment very thoroughly. His instructions were delivered quietly and without fuss. Just like the man himself. Effective without being pushy.

  I took the left-hand seat. Peterson made himself comfortable in the other. Randall eased himself into the corner.

  I turned round. ‘Welcome back. Good to see you. You OK now?’

  He nodded. ‘Right as rain. Looking forward to this one. I thought I’d have a bit of a snooze in the corner while you lot do your historian things.’

  I sighed. ‘Typical Security Section. All these years and you still don’t have any idea what actually goes on at St Mary’s, do you?’

  He settled himself back comfortably. ‘I’m sure I will have when it becomes important. Wake me if you need me.’

  So here we were.

  We’d landed well before dawn, settling ourselves in a dark corner of the market square, the Vieux Marche. We were gambling on the fact that the crowd would be so dense they wouldn’t notice the small shack in the corner that hadn’t been here yesterday.

  We were in Number Eight, my favourite. Quite a small pod, but TB2 was far too big for today. We were a little crowded, but nothing to complain about. Although that wouldn’t stop us. Peterson and I stepped back from the console to give them room to work.

  Early we might have been, but the scaffold was already erected and by the dim, pre-dawn light, English soldiers were unloading densely packed bundles of firewood from the continuous line of carts snaking around the Vieux Marche. They were in a hurry, shouting impatiently at drivers and horses alike. The drivers picked their teeth in silent contempt, and the horses apparently went to sleep.

  More English soldiers were filing into the square. Hundreds of them had been drafted in as crowd control. They were expecting trouble. Records say the day passed reasonably peacefully, but the records are wrong. There was trouble. For everyone.

  Atherton switched off the proximities before we went deaf because there would soon be enormous numbers of people in this place. North aligned the cameras. Sykes split the screen and started recording. Hoyle was monitoring the sound levels.

  I touched his shoulder. ‘Not too loud, Mr Hoyle.’

  He nodded.

  We didn’t have long to wait.

  As soon as the enormous bonfire was built and the carts withdrawn, the soldiers started allowing the citizens into the square.

  The four trainees clustered around the console. I stood to one side where I could see what they were doing. Peterson stood at the other, and Randall was at the back against the lockers.

  We were ready.

  ‘Begin, please,’ said Atherton.

  I watch people die for a living. I don’t like it – and not getting involved is always difficult, but that’s what I do. I watch people die.

  I try to achieve a small amount of detachment. I try to tell myself that these people died hundreds, sometimes thousands of years ago. That nothing I can say or do will change that. Or should change that. That I’m simply here as a witness. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  Mostly, I can do that. Sometimes I have to go away somewhere quiet afterwards. Sometimes I need to be on my own for a bit. Or, in extreme cases, I have an overwhelming urge to take what I’ve seen and felt and splash it across a canvas or a wall somewhere. Surprisingly, Dr Bairstow’s pretty good about that. The point is, over the years, I’ve learned to deal with it, but these people hadn’t. Yet. Peterson and I would monitor this assignment very carefully and Dr Foster and her team would keep an eye on them afterwards while they came to terms with what they were to see here today.

  According to records and eyewitness accounts, the English were in a hurry to get this over with. Joan was hustled into the market place with some speed.

  She wore a simple white robe that was far too long for her. Either she’d been praying, or she’d fallen down because it was stained around her knees. Her short thick brown hair had grown a little, but not enough to plait. She wore it gathered at the nape of her neck in a stubby ponytail. Her escort, Martin Ladvenu, a priest of the order of Saint Dominic, walked with her, carrying a cross on a long pole. The priest murmured to her as she walked. She seemed very calm, but the bailiff on her other side was sweating heavily. Huge dark rings stained his tunic around his neck and under his arms and he regularly dragged a sleeve across his forehead.

  The crowd made very little noise as she was marched across the square, although eight hundred English soldiers might have been the reason for that.

  The little procession halted at the base of the scaffold and Joan bowed her head as the sermon was read out. My middle French isn’t good, but it was all being recorded and someone would get it translated.

  I was surprised they let her speak, but it seems to be a fixed tradition at executions – the accused always has the right to address the crowd. Joan spoke. Again, I couldn’t make out her words. She spoke with a heavy accent, her voice high and piping in the early morning air. She seemed to speak for a very long time. I know, again from the records, that she was asking people to pray for her. Throughout the crowd, women were openly crying. The English grew restive. They wanted this over with.

  She was still speaking as they started pushing her towards the scaffold. The drums rolled. Now, she showed
some signs of agitation and the crowd began to murmur. There was some shouting from the rear. Officers bellowed commands and the soldiers used their pikes to push people well back from the scaffold. They were not gentle. There was going to be trouble.

  One soldier turned to her and gestured her towards the scaffold. She spoke to him, urgently. He gestured again. She seemed to be pleading with him.

  The man, a common soldier by his gear, looked around for a moment, then bent and picked up a stick, which he broke across his knee. Pulling a leather lace from his sleeve, he lashed the two pieces together in the form of a rough cross and handed it to her.

  The transformation was amazing. At once, she became tranquil and calm.

  I’m a bit cynical when it comes to religion, but it did seem to me that if a heretic requested a cross at her execution then a compassionate church, grateful to have saved another soul, could easily have found one for her from somewhere. Apparently not, however.

  The English had had enough by now. They heaved her to the top of the pile and secured her to the stake. Men stood ready with lighted torches.

  They shoved Martin Ladvenu roughly out of the way and before the sentence could be read, or she could make any further statement, the drums rolled and the fire was lit.

  They must have drenched the wood with oil because it went up like a rocket.

  The crowd cried out and the friar, a good man, picked himself up off the ground and stationing himself perilously close to the leaping flames, raised his cross high where she could see it.

  She didn’t die easily. She didn’t die easily at all.

  There are three ways in which you can die at the stake.

  The first is for the executioner to ensure there is enough smoke for the victim to inhale, lose consciousness, and die while mercifully oblivious. The second is to pay him a small sum of money and he will strangle his victim from behind early on in the proceedings. Many stakes had a ring specially built in for the cord or chain to pass through.

  Joan burned the third way. The worst way.