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

by Jodi Taylor

  ‘Where did these conversations take place?’

  ‘London.’

  ‘Have you ever seen any of these men since?’

  ‘No. The money and papers appeared, just as they said they would, and off I went to Thirsk.’

  ‘Actually,’ said Markham to me, ‘that’s rather clever. They invented the story of him escaping from America and gave him obviously forged papers and we never looked past that. If you’re going to falsify documents, disguise them as falsified documents. Neat.’

  ‘Have they made contact with you in any way since?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Were you ever in America?’ demanded Sykes.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So everything – every single thing you told us about yourself – was a lie?’

  He nodded. ‘They said if I’d come from America on obviously forged papers then no one would look at them too closely.’

  I refrained from looking at Markham. So much for the Security Section’s supposedly rigorous background checks.

  ‘So just to make sure I’m clear. You were provided with money and papers and a backstory for the sole purpose of enabling you to get to Thirsk so that you could join St Mary’s?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And from there, jump to Bosworth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  His eyes shifted. ‘They didn’t tell me.’

  There was a long silence while I stared at the console and had a bit of a think.

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Here’s what I’m prepared to do. We return to St Mary’s, drop off the trainees and Mr Markham, and then I take you on to Bosworth Field.’

  ‘No! We go now! No more delays.’

  ‘Unacceptable. I won’t risk …’

  ‘You can’t go without us,’ said Sykes, indignantly. ‘We want to be hijacked too.’

  ‘You’re trainees,’ I said, exasperated. ‘I’m not allowed to …’

  ‘And you’re definitely not going without me,’ said Markham.

  I shot him a look. He grinned at me.

  ‘That’s settled, then,’ said Hoyle. ‘You said you would go. They all want to go. I want to go. No reason to wait any longer.’

  I was left, as usual, without a leg to stand on.

  ‘So,’ I said, knowing I was going to regret this but trying to make the best of a difficult situation. ‘Bosworth Field it is.’

  We didn’t jump immediately, of course. Even I’m not that stupid. I confirmed the coordinates with the computer and insisted on holding a briefing as to what to expect once we arrived.

  Everyone knows about Bosworth Field. The 22nd August 1485. The end of Richard III, the ‘Crookback’ of Shakespeare’s play. Or Dick the Turd if you were a member of the Sykes School of Slander.

  This was the final battle in the decades long struggle between the Houses of Lancaster (Red Rose) and York (White Rose). The causes of the war are complex and bloody and go back a hundred years.

  Edward III had too many sons. Not a problem at the time, but his grandson, Henry of Lancaster, usurped the throne as Henry IV. He was vulnerable throughout his short reign but his son, Henry V, hit on the bright idea of reviving the traditional English claim to the French throne and shipping the whole squabbling bunch of troublemakers over to France.

  Things were going well and then he stupidly died of dysentery and the whole thing began to fall apart.

  Slowly, the English lost their French possessions. The long minority of Henry VI was a disaster and he was so useless when he did grow up that most people probably wished he hadn’t bothered anyway. The country was broke and, with the exception of Calais, had nothing to show for it.

  His truly unpleasant wife, Margaret of Anjou, managed to turn the relatively neutral Richard of York into an enemy by treating him as one and he rose in revolt, citing his superior claim to the throne.

  The Wars of the Roses were a tragedy for nearly everyone. Richard of York was killed. His second son, Edmund of Rutland, was killed. The king’s only son, Edward of Westminster, was killed. Huge numbers of the aristocracy were killed. In fact, the only reason Henry Tudor ever had a crack at being king was because he was almost the only Lancastrian left.

  There was no doubt these two branches of the Plantagenet line hated each other with a fierce and deadly loathing and the whole thing was about to come to a head on a marshy piece of land between Shenton, Market Bosworth, and Sutton Cheyney. The end of a thirty-two-year war, the end of a dynasty, and the end of a king. The end of the Middle Ages, as well, if you like. The decline of the overmighty medieval barons and the feudal system, and the beginning of the Tudors, the middle classes. And a new religion.

  Everything would be different after today. Henry Tudor and his forces march up from Milford Haven. Richard marches from Leicester and ranges his forces along a ridge – probably Ambion Hill. Henry’s forces face him across the Redemoor Marsh. Outnumbered, Henry keeps his army together. Richard divides his into three, headed by himself, the elderly Duke of Norfolk, and the Earl of Northumberland, who was in charge of the rearguard.

  The really important people, the treacherous Lord Thomas Stanley and his brother Sir William, stand off to one side unwilling to commit themselves either way. Waiting to see how they can twist the events of this day to their advantage.

  Everyone knows what happens – Richard, in an effort to prevent Henry Tudor approaching the Stanleys to persuade them to fight for him, leads an all-or-nothing charge of probably less than two hundred knights straight at Henry himself, gambling everything on one reckless throw of the dice.

  He doesn’t make it. The Stanleys, seeing their chance, fall on him from the rear. Northumberland refuses to come to his assistance. Richard loses his horse in the marsh and is killed. His crown, which he wears to distinguish himself to his own troops is, supposedly, found in a hawthorn bush and placed on Henry’s head by Sir William Stanley himself.

  Game over for the Plantagenets.

  So we were jumping to a battlefield. Not the ideal place to take a bunch of trainees. I seemed to be the only one worried by this. Everyone else was jumping with excitement.

  I checked the coordinates very, very carefully and then I did a parallel calculation, which I passed to Atherton for confirmation.

  Hoyle was shifting impatiently in his seat, but had the sense to keep quiet. It wouldn’t benefit him if we landed in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  I asked him if he’d calculated the coordinates himself.

  ‘No, but I verified them and they are correct.’

  Yes, they were. They were spot on, 22nd August 1485; slightly to the south of Ambion Hill. Right in the middle of the action. I wondered whether the people who had supplied these coordinates had expected Hoyle to survive. Or even wanted him to.

  Never mind Hoyle. Would we survive?

  As I saw it, there were two areas of concern. Firstly there was the battlefield itself, although we should be safe enough inside the pod. Unfortunately for us, inside the pod was our unstable hijacker, highly strung, twitching with nerves, and armed. On reflection, we might be safer outside after all.

  I turned to Hoyle.

  ‘Your plans on arrival?’

  ‘To observe. Stop procrastinating. Get on with it.’

  I couldn’t delay any longer. Slowly, hoping some sort of inspiration would strike within the next twenty seconds or so, I laid in the coordinates and had Atherton check they were correct.

  He nodded and sat back down again.

  Hoyle pointed the gun at me.

  ‘Now.’

  ‘Computer, initiate jump.’

  The world went white.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  This was not my first battlefield.

  Nor was it Markham’s.

  It was the trainees’, however.

  The first thing that always strikes you is the noise. There were over twenty thousand men gathered here today. Orders were shouted. Drums rolled. Horses neighed. Even now, only mi
nutes before the battle commenced, smiths and armourers were still busy at their forges, hammering away at weapons and armour. Grooms were getting replacement mounts ready. Pages and squires ran to and from with spare weapons and last-minute helmets, weaving their way through the chaos. The whole area seethed and hummed like a beehive.

  As far as I could make out, we were somewhere within the Redemoor Marsh. And marshy it was. Not just the boggy wetness of badly drained land, this was real marshland. I could see patches of murky standing water interspersed with clumps of coarse, reedy grass. Stands of straggly willows would give us some cover, and I could see fallen, rotting tree trunks and spindly birch trees scattered around. It could have been worse. We weren’t completely exposed.

  ‘Good grief,’ said Markham. ‘We’ve landed in the Great Grimpen Mire.’

  Atherton stared at him. ‘When did you read The Hound of the Baskervilles?’

  ‘Fell off the stable roof.’

  Atherton waited, but no more was forthcoming.

  I could see the Yorkist banner, Richard’s White Boar, high on the ridge above us. What I assumed was the Earl of Northumberland’s rear guard, under his banner of red and white, was stationed behind the hill.

  Henry Tudor’s army, fighting under the Red Dragon, faced the Yorkists in a solid block, under the command of the Earl of Oxford, who had forbidden his men to fight more than ten feet from this banner, fearing that if they split up, they faced being ridden down by Richard’s knights.

  Off to one side lay the boggy ground in which we were concealed and that would prove so fatal to Richard, and opposite that, forming the fourth side of the square, Lord Stanley and his brother waited to see which way the cat would jump.

  It was very quiet inside our pod as three trainees and one hijacker suddenly came face to face with the realities of war.

  I said quietly, ‘Well, Mr Hoyle. Now what?’

  He stood up and moved towards the door. ‘You can go now. I don’t need you any longer.’

  ‘What?’ gasped Sykes, outraged beyond words. ‘We’re not a bloody taxi service, you know.’

  He slapped the door control and suddenly the pod was full of the sounds of men and horses and the smells of sunshine, bruised grass, and slightly stagnant water.

  Markham stood up. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘We’re all coming with you,’ said Atherton.

  Up came the gun again. ‘No, you’re not. Stay back, all of you. I’m here now. I won’t hesitate to shoot. Remember, I don’t need you any longer.’

  I believed him. His gun was swinging back and forth, trying to cover us all at once and he was vibrating like a badly balanced washing machine.

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Markham. ‘You’re the one trembling like an aspen.’

  North stared at him. ‘Trembling like a what?’

  ‘An aspen. It’s a tree.’

  ‘Don’t you mean an ash?’

  ‘They make coffins out of ash,’ said Sykes helpfully.

  Markham turned to her. ‘No they don’t. That’s pine.’

  Sykes opened her mouth to respond, and possibly for the first time in her life, was silenced.

  ‘Shut up!’ shouted Hoyle and his voice cracked with emotion. ‘Shut up! Shut up! For God’s sake. All of you. For once, can’t you all … just … shut … up.’

  Well, there you go. We’d finally managed to push him over the edge. Not exactly the recommended procedure when trapped in an enclosed space by a madman with a gun.

  Not taking his eyes off us and swinging the gun from left to right, he backed out of the pod and the door closed behind him.

  ‘Is it just me,’ said Sykes in the silence, ‘or was he a bit unbalanced there at the end?’

  ‘Sorry, Max,’ said Markham. ‘I was hoping for an opportunity to grab him.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Sykes.

  Atherton grinned at her. ‘You?’

  ‘Why not?’ she said, shifting her weight ever so slightly.

  ‘No reason,’ he said hastily. ‘He’s gone, anyway, that’s the main thing, and it’s not our fault he’s got the life expectancy of a cliff-top lemming. What harm can he possibly do?’

  ‘He’s got a gun,’ I said, flatly, and silence fell.

  ‘What do you think he’s up to?’ said Atherton, turning to me.

  ‘At a guess,’ I said, ‘he’s going to try and prevent Richard’s all-or-nothing charge towards Henry. That was certainly the turning point of the battle.’

  ‘Jesus, Max. How can he possibly hope to get away with that?’

  ‘No idea. Speaking as his primary trainer, I’m slightly annoyed at his failure to absorb anything I’ve said over the past months. I tell you, if – when – I get my hands on Mr Hoyle, he’s a dead man.’

  ‘It might come to that,’ said Markham seriously, and I nodded. It might. If we couldn’t stop him then we’d have to kill him. Because if we didn’t, History would. And probably us as well.

  I sighed. ‘Mr Atherton, please take off your trousers.’

  ‘There you go, Phil,’ said Sykes. ‘Another fantasy fulfilled.’

  He went scarlet and climbed out of his trousers.

  I ripped off my coat and giant skirt. It took both Sykes and North to get me out of my corset. Sykes resorted to a sharp implement and when she’d finished, no one was never going to be climbing into that corset again. I closed my mind to the grief I was going to get from Mrs Enderby and scrambled into Atherton’s trousers.

  ‘Braces? Belt?’

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing me his cravat. I tied myself into his trousers and Sykes rolled up the bottoms for me. I thanked the god of historians for my boots.

  Markham wrenched open a locker and pulled out a tag reader. Because Hoyle was tagged. We all were, in case we were lost or injured. Actually, there’s no ‘in case’ about it. ‘When’ is probably the more accurate word. Anyway, to help us locate lost or injured historians, we had tag readers, which, in theory, can home in on the lost or injured etc. The reality is that they’re bloody useless. They actually only sound off if your target is about six feet in front of you. We generally find that jumping up and down shouting, ‘Hoi! I’m over here, stupid,’ is much more effective.

  He also took pair of stun guns. Tossing one at me, he headed towards the door.

  I turned to the console. ‘Computer. Additional authority Atherton. Authority Maxwell. Five zero alpha nine eight zero four bravo.’

  ‘Confirmed.’

  I turned to the trainees, who were standing open mouthed.

  ‘Listen to me very carefully. You will stay here. You will not leave this pod. I don’t know what Mr Hoyle is up to but it is my job to find out. Markham’s job is to protect me while I do it. Your job is to stay here. I know you’re not happy about that. I wouldn’t be either but I can’t function properly if I don’t know you’re safe. Therefore, your instructions are to remain inside the pod. Document and record by all means, but if anything goes wrong – and it will – your second priority is to declare an emergency evacuation. The pod will get you back to St Mary’s where you can brief Major Guthrie and assist in any rescue. You will not be able to do that if you are dead or dying on the battlefield out there. It’s hard but unavoidable. There will be plenty of opportunities in the future for you to die a painful and messy death. Just not today. Mr Atherton, you have command. Close the door behind us.’

  I stepped out of the door straight into a bog. I looked down and watched my feet sink up to my ankles in brown water. It was just one of those days.

  I don’t know what arrangements appertain to the formal opening of a battle. There’s never any clearly given signal that I can see. It’s almost as if there’s some sort of gentleman’s agreement. ‘So that’s agreed then, chaps. Kick-off at eleven. Unless it’s raining, of course, in which case the whole thing’s off and we’ll try again tomorrow.’

  Because at the exact moment we exited the pod, trumpets sounded and over to our left, the Red Dragon banner began to m
ove. Henry’s army was advancing. I could feel squidgy earth moving under my feet. The battle had begun.

  Markham pulled me down. ‘You stay with me, Max. I’ll get us wherever we need to be but you stay behind me at all times.’

  I nodded.

  I could hear Atherton in my ear.

  ‘We’ve split the screen. North is covering Henry Tudor. Sykes has Richard. And I will keep my eye on the trainee formerly known as Laurence Hoyle.’

  ‘I like Atherton,’ said Markham, confidentially. ‘If you don’t want him, I bet Major Guthrie would snap him up.’

  ‘Please ask Major Guthrie to keep his thieving hands off my trainees.’

  Atherton said, ‘Um, you do know we can hear you in here, don’t you?

  Barely had the words left his mouth when a huge fusillade of cannon shot sounded from the lower slopes of Ambion Hill. White smoke drifted across the marsh. Horses everywhere screamed – whether in panic or battle fury was unclear. The king’s army had opened fire.

  The battle was on.

  There aren’t many advantages to lying in a bog while a battle is fought over your head. About the only one is that you’re left to enjoy sole occupancy of the bog while everything happens elsewhere.

  I said, ‘Mr Atherton, any sign of him?’ Because you can’t see much when your head’s only six inches off the ground and you’re hiding behind a tussock of reedy grass.

  ‘Yes. Fifty yards ahead of you and slightly to your right. He’s on the move again.’

  And so were we, slinking along on our bellies. I could smell wet earth, muddy water, gunpowder, and horses. There were insects everywhere.

  ‘Where’s he going?’ said Atherton, suddenly, and I could hear the alarm in his voice. ‘No. He’s going the wrong way.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s not heading towards Richard. Where is he going?’

  ‘How should I know? We can’t see a bloody thing here.’

  Smoke from the cannon fire was still drifting across the battlefield, obscuring our view. And hiding us, of course, for which we should be very grateful.