by Alex Scarrow
CHAPTER 37
1194, Nottingham
Ahead of them Bob had deftly spun the pike round so that the blood-wet tip and halberd blade were aimed towards the people. He began to swing its eight-foot length in a wide loop that clipped and gashed a thickset man who’d shuffled back too slowly.
The swooping pike’s blade did the job and created an arc of space in front of Bob as he resumed his steady stride towards the oak gates, now only a dozen yards in front of them. Cabot roughly kicked the rear of the left horse and it staggered forward, eyes rolling and snorting. The other followed suit and the cart was moving again. The guards kept pace, their shields produced a cacophony of metallic clangs, like hailstones descending on to a tin roof.
Liam felt the air by his cheek pulse as a stone or rock whistled by, far too close for comfort. He wrapped his arms round his head and ducked down low. ‘Jay-zus-an’-Mary-get-us-out-of-here!’ he screamed through gritted teeth.
Cabot held the reins in one hand and held his other arm up to shield his face.
The lethal sweeping pendulum of Bob’s pike had now cleared space all the way to the large oak gates. At their base, the beginnings of a pyre of bracken and firewood had been laid, but yet to be successfully set on fire. Several bodies littered the ground in front of the gates, the stubs of multiple crossbow bolts protruding from them.
Liam could see the bracken and branches were going to need to be cleared aside in order to allow the cart through the gates – if, that is, someone inside was prepared to open up for them. But Bob was simply too busy sweeping his pike in order to keep the rioters back to deal with that himself. As the cart rolled forward into the clearing created by him, the soldiers spread out from guarding the cart’s flanks and formed a semicircle guarding the space in front of the gates.
The rioters – and Liam had noted a fair number of them looked more like seasoned fighters, even mercenaries, than they did townsfolk – seemed unwilling to press forward and engage the soldiers or fall within the range of Bob’s swooping halberd blade. Instead they held back, jeering and cursing and continuing to rain down an endless barrage of missiles on them.
Liam jumped down off the cart and began pulling the small mound of branches and bracken away from the bottom of the gates.
‘Help me!’ he shouted to the nearest of the soldiers.
The soldier glanced quickly at Eddie, who nodded. ‘Go on, do as he says!’
He dropped his shield and sword and joined Liam dragging armfuls of tangled branches and twisted bracken aside. Between them they soon managed to clear a gap in the thick pyre when Liam suddenly felt a sharp searing pain in the small of his back; the impact of something sharp and hard. His legs buckled at the shock of it and he collapsed forward into the nest of branches and thorns, snagged and tangled like some hapless scarecrow on a loop of barbed wire. He gasped for air for a moment, winded, stunned.
Beside him he heard a loud ring of impact. He twisted, trying to untangle himself, feeling a searing pain between his shoulders, to see the soldier who’d been helping him clear the pyre, drop heavily to his knees then clatter forward on to the dirt and cobbles, wide, surprised eyes rolling uncontrollably. His helmet was caved in on one side and the stubby fletching of a crossbow bolt protruded. A river of dark, almost black blood cascaded from beneath the rim of his helmet down his face.
Oh, God help us, we’re all gonna die out here.
Cabot was suddenly beside Liam, reaching down and pulling him out of the nest of wood. He was shouting something at Liam, but above the roar of chanting voices and the hailstone rattle and clang on the shields of the soldiers, he couldn’t make out what the old man was saying.
Cabot looked back over his shoulder and quickly ducked an arcing lump of flint, that shattered and sparked on masonry nearby. He turned back to Liam and jabbed a finger past his head, shouting something again. Liam turned painfully, grimacing at the sudden twist of his spine, to see the oak gates behind him had been cracked ajar. No more than would allow a single man to squeeze through sideways.
Cabot shouted again, this time directly into his ear. ‘Forget the cart!’
Liam nodded as Cabot pulled him roughly to his feet. ‘Yeah … OK,’ he uttered to himself. Liam could see that Eddie and his remaining ten men could do little more than hunch down behind their battered and misshapen shields, several of which looked little more than twisted corners of foil paper.
Liam cupped his hands. ‘The gate is open!’
His words were lost amid the chanting from the rioters. He tried to make himself heard again. ‘THE GATE IS OPEN!’
This time Eddie heard, turned quickly and saw for himself. He snapped an order to his men and they immediately began to shuffle backwards towards the gates.
Liam looked for Bob. Over the top of the cart’s two horses he could see his round head protected by the swinging skirt of his chain-mail coif as he ducked and weaved, and the metallic blur of the pike’s head whizzing round like the blade of some vast propeller.
‘BOB!’ he bellowed.
The support unit paused, straightened up like a startled rabbit and looked round for Liam.
Liam waved his arms until Bob spotted him, then pointed to the gates. ‘IT’S OPEN!’
Bob nodded and then, with one last warning flourish of his pike and a deep bear-like roar that startled and hushed the rioting crowd for a few fleeting seconds, he bounded around the uneasy horses and the abandoned cart.
The soldiers had begun stepping through the tangle of branches quickly, one after the other, and through the narrow gap between the gates. Until all that remained of them was a rearguard of Eddie and two others.
‘You first!’ Eddie shouted at Cabot and Liam.
Liam pushed Cabot towards the gates. ‘I’ll wait for Bob!’
Cabot nodded and followed through the gap. The rioters resumed pelting them with missiles as Bob arrived beside Liam.
‘GO!’ Bob’s voice boomed. A large rock bounced off his left shoulder and spun off into the night. ‘NOW!’
‘All right, all right!’ Liam nodded and beckoned at the remaining soldiers to go for the gap in the gates.
The air around them was now thick with the hum of incoming rocks and stones. Liam hunched over with his arms round his head as he waited his turn, certain that some large hunk of masonry was going to brain him before he got a chance to squeeze his way through.
Eddie waved at him to go first and Liam wasted no time. He stepped through the nest of remaining branches and forced himself into the narrow gap between the two large oak gates, rattling like drumheads from the impact of stones and rocks.
Then he was through into the darkness of the tower’s entrance arch. He collapsed on to a hard floor of flagstones, gasping and wheezing. By the wan light of the torches outside falling through the opening he could see the pale and frightened faces of half a dozen men, their shoulders braced against the gate, ready in case the rioters decided to rush it and force it wider.
Bob’s head appeared through the gap between the gates. ‘Wider, please!’ his voice boomed above the din. The men against the gate reluctantly gave him a few more inches to push himself through, and then he was inside with the others. Immediately a heavy locking bar was slid into place.
Liam collapsed back on to the ground exhausted as the thick gates rattled and thudded for a while longer under the dwindling barrage of projectiles. Finally, apart from the occasional thud, it seemed the riot going on outside had spent its energy. He could hear the roar of voices grow sporadic, beginning to dwindle and lose some of the intensity they’d experienced earlier. Finally, one of the men in the guard tower called down.
‘They’re leaving!’
A man next to Liam, one of the guards who’d handled the locking bar, sighed. ‘Same as last night.’
Liam grasped his arm. ‘It was like this last night as well?’
He shrugged. ‘’Tis like this most nights.’
CHAPTER 38
1194, Nottingha
m Castle, Nottingham
It took a word of command from Cabot and a mere glimpse of the king’s royal seal to convince one of the castle guards to take them immediately into the main keep. They found the Sheriff of Nottingham hunched over a round oak table, on which a dozen thick candles cast a flickering glow across cluttered stacks of parchment and a plate of food uneaten and forgotten.
‘What is it now?’ He stirred drunkenly. Bleary eyes opened, and at the sight of strangers in rags, spattered with blood, he lurched back in his chair and fumbled clumsily for a longsword on the table. It slid off the table along with a small stack of parchment and clattered uselessly on the floor.
‘Sire!’ said the guard, a young lad with tufts of ginger hair poking down from the rim of his helmet. ‘Sire! ’Tis not villains!’
The sheriff stopped fumbling for the blade on the floor and looked up. ‘N-not villains?’ His rheumy eyes narrowed behind a tangle of dark greasy hair. ‘We are safe? They – they have … gone?’
‘The fool is drunk,’ growled Eddie under his breath.
‘Aye, sire,’ replied the young guard, ‘they have dispersed, as last night.’
The sheriff collapsed back into his chair with a sigh of relief, resigned to leaving his sword where it lay on the floor. He muttered a prayer of thick unintelligible words and then reached across the table for a goblet of wine.
‘Sire,’ said Cabot, stepping forward, ‘we are on royal business. His Lordship, Earl of Cornwall and Gloucester –’
‘Oh yes? What d-does John want of me now, eh?’ He grinned up at them and then upended the goblet into his open mouth.
‘We have come directly from John’s keep in Oxford,’ said Cabot. ‘On his orders.’
Nottingham laughed again. ‘Orders? I have orders, eh?’ He attempted to pull himself to his feet, stumbled a solitary step towards them before losing his balance and sprawling on to the floor. He lay where he was and began whimpering. Finally, while they waited for him to pick himself up, they realized he was snoring.
‘He is of no use to anyone,’ said Cabot.
‘Bob,’ Liam sighed, ‘lift him on to his bed.’
They watched Bob heft the sheriff carelessly over his shoulder and cross the hall to a large oak-framed mattress.
Liam turned to the guard. ‘Is he always so drunk?’
The young man was unsure whether he should reply.
‘Answer the man!’ barked Eddie.
‘Aye, s-sire. ’E …’e’s turned to drink.’ The guard looked anxiously at them. ‘Dreadful afraid, ’e is.’
‘Of what?’ asked Liam.
‘The people, sire! The people out there! Every night now they come out. Every night they gather and try an’ burn them gates.’
‘Lad, where are the captains? The sergeants? Who is in charge here?’
The young guard shrugged. ‘Many ’ave deserted. They gone to serve other masters.’
‘So who is in charge?’
‘The sheriff,’ said the lad.
‘There are no captains?’
‘No, sire. Just other … other men at arms, sire.’
‘How many?’
‘We are at ’alf strength. Perhaps no more than two ’undred, sire. But more leave each day.’
‘So why’ve you stayed?’ asked Liam.
‘Because … because there’s food ’ere. Because I’m afraid what them people out there goin’a do to me, sire. I ’eard stories of soldiers caught leavin’ this castle … what them outside ’ave gone done to them.’
Eddie cursed. ‘This castle will not hold the people of Nottingham out much longer if all that is left inside are frightened boys.’
Cabot nodded. ‘This is not a good situation for ye to take charge of, Liam.’
The young guard’s eyes widened and Cabot noticed that. ‘Aye, seems this young man is to be yer new sheriff.’ He tossed a nod at the snoring body on the bed across the hall. ‘I am sure he can do no worse a job than that drunken fool, William De Wendenal.’
Cabot turned to Liam. ‘So, lad … there are things it seems that need yer immediate attention here, before we go looking for a certain item.’
Liam nodded silently. Jay-zus, I’m supposed to be running a castle now?
‘Right,’ he said with little enthusiasm. ‘Right … yes.’
He became aware that Cabot, Eddie, the young guard – even Bob – were all looking at him, waiting for him to say something.
Why me? Why is it always me?
‘Errr … all right,’ he said finally. ‘Right,’ he said once more for good measure. ‘Umm, OK.’
Eyes on him still.
‘So, then, Eddie?’
‘Sire?’
‘I’m going to put you in charge of the men here.’
His jaw dropped open. ‘Sire?’
‘That’s right, you’re the garrison commander now. I want you to take command on the walls for the rest of tonight. All right?’
‘Aye, my lord!’ Eddie barked with enthusiasm.
Liam expected him to turn and go immediately but then he realized the man was waiting to be dismissed. ‘So then, uhh … you can go now.’
‘Sire!’ Eddie turned on his heels. ‘Come on, lad!’ he barked at the young guard. They clumped heavily out of the hall and a minute later Liam thought he heard his parade-ground bark echoing up the stone walls from the bailey outside.
Cabot filled the quiet hall with the sound of his soft wheezy laugh. ‘So, Liam of Connor, mysterious traveller from the future. It seems now ye have become a part of history. Ye are the Sheriff of Nottingham.’
‘This will cause contamination,’ cautioned Bob. ‘And it is exceeding our mission parameters.’
‘Yes.’ Liam nodded. ‘I’m well aware of that.’ He glanced at the snoring drunk on the bed. The man was clearly unfit for his role; a nervous wreck. A drunken nervous wreck. Perhaps the situation had done that to him. The stress of it, being in charge of this hopeless mess. He’d learned enough now to know that this country was in a perilous condition, bankrupt and on the verge of complete anarchy. A resentful population taxed to their knees and now starving. The noblemen – barons, lords, earls who should have been the backbone of authority providing men-at-arms and money to maintain order – were all conspiring against John, refusing to pay the tributes they owed.
A mess. A terrible mess. But a mess that was not his nor Bob’s concern. That’s how this history was meant to be anyway, right?
‘I’m afraid, Mr Cabot,’ said Liam, ‘that fella snoring away over there … he’s still the sheriff.’
‘Ye understand this castle is the administrative centre of the north!’ said Cabot. ‘Do ye understand that? If it falls into the hands of marauding peasants, if they overrun this place, then the country north of Oxford will be lost!’
‘Right. But it’s not our business. If it happens, then it’s meant to happen. That’s how history goes.’
Cabot studied him silently. ‘Ye would let that happen? If order collapses, the land will be awash with the blood of innocent people!’
Cabot was probably right.
‘Information: there are no records in history of a popular uprising of peasants successfully overthrowing the Sheriff of Nottingham,’ said Bob.
Liam looked at him. ‘You sure?’
‘Affirmative.’
‘Oh that’s just grand, that is,’ he sighed. ‘You’re telling me this is all wrong – right? That this shouldn’t be happening?’
Bob nodded. ‘It appears we are experiencing incorrect history.’
CHAPTER 39
2001, New York
‘Sal? Sal? … You OK?’
Maddy noticed she was teetering on her feet unsteadily. The half-empty mug of tea dropped from her slackened fingers to the floor and shattered on the hard concrete. She took a faltering step, then steadied herself against the edge of the kitchen table. Maddy got up from her armchair and put a protective arm round her narrow shoulders.
‘Dizzy,’ she replied.
‘She OK?’ asked Adam.
Sal nodded. ‘I’m fine … but I think that was a –’
The archway went completely dark.
‘Time wave,’ said Maddy.
‘What?’ She could hear Adam’s breath, uneasy and ragged. She felt the soft touch of air on her cheek, his hands swooping and flailing in the pitch black. ‘What is this? Is this … is this some other sort of dimension thing?’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘It’s just darkness. The genny should kick in, in a few seconds.’
But the lights flickered back on before she heard the deep coughing throb of the generator starting up.
‘Oh! That means we’ve got power still,’ she said, looking at him and smiling. ‘That’s a good sign.’
The computer monitors began to flicker back to life, one after the other.
‘That was a big wave,’ said Sal.
‘Yes, it was.’
Adam looked at them both. ‘So does that mean …?’
‘You’re in an alternate timeline? An alternate 2001?’
His head bobbed like a cork.
‘Yes.’ She made her way over to the computer desk. ‘Let’s see how alternate.’ The computer system was just finishing restoring itself, and Bob’s dialogue box flickered up on to one of the screens.
> System reset complete.
‘Bob?’
> Hello, Maddy.
‘We just had a time wave.’
> I know.
‘But we’ve got power still.’ Stupid thing to say, but she’d said it anyway.
> Affirmative, we have power. But I have had to correct the voltage and amplitude settings.
‘What?’
> The power coming in is a form of direct current.
She looked at Adam and Sal standing beside the desk. ‘Then maybe it’s a bigger change than I thought.’
> Information: we have no external data link.
‘No Internet,’ said Sal. She made a face. ‘That isn’t such a good sign.’
