The Time Travelling Taxman Series Box Set
Page 51
“There was?”
He nodded. “There were a bunch of them. All headed here.”
As if to reinforce his words, pandemonium broke out at that precise moment. Screaming voices, high and frightened, reached their ears from just about every corner of the hospital.
“Fire!”
“We’re under attack.”
“Oh my God, Wilfred’s been shot.”
The sounds cascaded in, until they became unintelligible. It was almost more terrifying than hearing the particulars. “We need to get out of here,” the taxman decided.
“We can’t leave,” Nancy protested. “We’ve got to help. They’ve set the place on fire.”
“But…this is our chance to escape,” Freddo protested.
“Goddammit, she’s right,” Justin growled, seemingly infuriated by the conclusion. “We were part of this. We’ve got to make it right.”
Alfred groaned. He couldn’t get thrown back in time with the Justin from his own world. Oh no. I have to be cast across universes with a noble-minded one. After all he’d suffered in dealing with his world’s Justin, he never would have imagined himself thinking it…but, in the moment, Alfred Favero actually would have preferred the wretched, spiteful, selfish Justin Lyon of his own time.
That Justin Lyon would have encouraged his selfish impulses. He would have urged him to run without a second thought. He would have pressed him to save himself and Nance, rather than worry about these people.
And he would have been wrong. Just as, Alfred knew, he was wrong to entertain those impulses now. “Fudge muffins,” he said aloud. “You’re right. Both of you are right. We’ve got to save the hospital.”
“Sugar cookies,” Freddo sighed, resignation in his tone. “Let’s go, then.”
They did, and as soon as they stepped into the hall, he saw smoke.
“Looks like it’s coming from there,” Nance said, pointing to a room a few doors down.
The hall was thick with smoke, but Alfred could see gray billowing out from under the heavy wooden door. He nodded, pressing through the choking fumes.
He opened the door to a fire blazing away in the corner of the room. The floor was in flames, and one of the walls was starting to light. “Quick,” Justin called, “get the blanket, from the bed.”
“There’s water in the washbasin,” Freddo called, heading in that direction.
Alfred went for the wool blanket. It was heavy and thick, and he prayed that it would be enough to smother the flames – without itself becoming fuel for the fire.
Nancy grabbed one end. It was a large blanket, large enough to drape over the bed and still hang over on both sides. Now, they got as near to the flames as they dared. The heat was intense, and he grimaced in pain as they approached.
“Ready?” she called.
“Ready.” Together, they draped the blanket over as much of the fire as they could, and she let her end drop. The flames vanished. Alfred held his breath.
A lick of flame still burned along the wall, and Freddo called, “Out of the way.” As they complied, he chucked a pan full of water at the remaining fire. It fizzled and flickered, and largely went out. Justin stepped in, stomping at what remained.
Alfred drew back the blanket, hoping it had remained long enough to cut off the oxygen, but afraid that the fibers would ignite from the heat if it stayed any longer. As with the wall, there were a few stubborn flames that tried to leap back to life. But these they stomped out quickly and without much trouble.
When it was all said and done, the taxman realized that he was trembling.
“Come on,” Nancy said. “They’ll be more.”
He would have been content to consider his good deeds done for the day, his debt paid. At least, the thought entered his mind. But, dutifully, he fell in alongside her.
The firefighting efforts were proceeding well throughout the building. One of the beds in the long-term recovery wing had ignited, and a tapestry in the children’s ward caught fire. Other than these last battles, though, most of the blazes had already been extinguished by time they descended.
They joined these firefighting efforts, falling into a human bucket chain. Alfred’s shoulders ached with the repetitive motions, and his lungs burned from smoke exposure. It was hard, brisk work, and the fear of losing the fight, of burning to death here, was ever in his mind. His luck, lately, hadn’t been very good, and that worried him. He was stranded in a strange world. They’d fallen in with madmen. He’d almost gotten skewered on a fire arrow.
He hoped the cosmos’ penchant for cruelty was sated for the moment. He hoped it was not planning to serve up a side of char-broiled taxman today on top of everything else.
After a space, his concern waned. The first fire was extinguished, and by time they moved to the second, it was almost out too. Finally, choking and sweating, they were safe; the fires were all out.
Still, the hospital was a far cry from the pristine building they’d entered an hour earlier. The white walls were streaked with black and gray. Broken glass lined the floor here and there where an arrow broke through, along with deep burn marks in the wood underfoot. Three beds had been ruined, a desk charred, and a few doors singed. One man had been hit with an arrow and was being treated for puncture wounds as well as burns.
A sick feeling settled in the taxman’s stomach. Justin had said they were a part of this. And he’d been right. They were. I am. He’d trusted Robert Whod. In hindsight, he couldn’t understand why he’d been so quick to put his faith in the outlaw. Hadn’t his views on taxes alone been enough to make clear that he was an anarchist, and probably a sociopath too?
For a moment, Alfred indulged his inner armchair psychologist, diagnosing the other man with terms he’d heard and – if he was honest with himself – probably didn’t fully understand. Was Robert a psychopath or a sociopath? Was he a narcissist or an egotist? He wasn’t sure.
But the point remained, there was something deeply wrong with the tax cheat. And he, Alfred Favero, had fallen in with him. He had aided this madman, this tax evader. He’d agreed to rob the medical stores of a hospital. He’d given the signal that launched fire arrows into a hospital.
It seemed, in the taxman’s mind, to confirm every suspicion he’d ever had. Tax fraud was the gateway drug of crimes. It was the decisive step toward absolute moral degradation. It was an embrace of anarchy, a throwing off of social obligation and the most basic human decency.
And he, Alfred Favero, had just taken a long puff at the pipe of moral degradation. He, Alfred Favero, Senior Analyst with the Internal Revenue Service, had snorted a long, white line of anarchy and indecency. And he’d been too darned blind to see what he was doing.
Alfred stood in place for a moment, shame washing over him. He felt wretched and soiled. He felt as if he didn’t know himself. Or maybe, it isn’t until this moment that I truly know myself, he despaired.
Nancy put a hand on his shoulder. “Babe?”
He cringed at her touch, ashamed to let those hands come in contact with his sullied carcass. “Don’t, Nance.”
Her eyes, though, were full of concern. “Alfred? What’s wrong, love?”
“I…this is my fault. I…I shouldn’t have listened to Robert. I should have known…”
“Oh darling.” Her forehead creased. “You couldn’t have known. How could you have?”
“I could have,” he contradicted. “After what he said about taxes, it was obvious.”
Now, she raised her eyebrows at him. “Taxes?”
“Yes.” He nodded miserably. “I’m…I’m one of them, now, Nance.” He took her hand in his and stared at it miserably. “I’ve failed you. You listened to me. You knew something was wrong, but I…” He shook his head. “I fell in with the tax cheats, darling. I’ve…I’ve become one of them.”
“We need to move,” Justin put in. “The crowd’s thinning. Now’s our chance.”
She nodded. “Let’s talk about this later, Alfred. We need to go now.”r />
“Are you sure you want me with you, Nance? After…after what I’ve done? What I’ve become?”
“Oh Alfred.” She shook her head. “You know I love you, darling. But if you don’t move your ass now, I’m going to kick it.”
Chapter Seventeen
They stepped into the sunlight, breathing in long lungfuls of fresh air. Then, Justin pointed to a cobblestone road. “That’s the way we need to go.”
They took about ten steps in that direction when a trio of armed guards closed in on their position in a sort of triangular pattern, approaching from three separate points. Alfred stepped in front of Nancy. Her words in the hospital had silenced him, but he hadn’t entirely forgotten his moral and intellectual failings either.
If his actions had brought them to danger, it seemed only right to throw himself on his sword for her. He did rather hope that part would prove to be metaphor, but he was prepared to see it through, however it played out.
“Hold,” one of the guards called.
“Why?” Alfred asked. “We’ve done nothing wrong.”
“You’re to come with us,” another said.
“We’re just passing through,” Nancy offered. “We’re not looking for trouble.”
“Good. Then come with us.”
The four friends exchanged glances, first with each other, and then at the armed men. The guards were outnumbered, but they were armored and armed. They were big, too, and had the look of seasoned fighting men. Alfred’s greatest victories had involved spreadsheets and tax forms, not swords and axes. He doubted their odds against one of these roughs. Never mind three.
“Alright,” he said in a moment. “We’ll go with you.”
The man who had first spoken nodded, repeating, “Good. Follow me, then.”
They did, and the other two guards took up the rear. They walked in silence, winding their way down a series of cobblestone streets. Nancy took Alfred’s hand, and he tried to smile reassuringly at her. It was such a forced smile, though, he feared he would only contribute to her anxiety.
She squeezed his hand, though, and turned her eyes to their surroundings.
The village of Warwick-on-Eden was a pretty place. At least, the taxman might have thought so in less terrifying circumstances. The homes were quaint and well-maintained, and the styles so unique, so old-fashioned, that he might have thrilled to walk these roads.
At another time, in another place, at least. Now, he barely noticed any of it, and what he did see bore no charms at all. These homes with their medieval construction and their curious residents struck him as ominous. They reminded him that he was a stranger in a strange land, helpless and completely at the mercy of those around him.
And they were the ones lighting hospitals on fire and carrying swords.
The fact was, Alfred put little stock in the reason or decency of those around him. Sugar cookies. We are toast.
They were marched to a wagon and given a hand up into the back of the transport. Then, the guards got in after them, and the driver rolled on. Their queries as to where they were headed or why they’d been detained were ignored.
The cart rolled out of town and down a sunny lane. There were open fields here, though the forest was still visible in every direction. After a space, a kind of castle came into view.
“That must be the tower,” Freddo observed. “Rickman’s tower.”
Alfred frowned. “What?”
“Remember? Robert talked about the Rickman ancestral home, the tower?”
“Oh.” The taxman nodded, the outlaw’s words returning to his mind.
The tower was a great, stone structure, rising some few stories high. It was rectangular in shape, being longer than it was wide. It seemed a kind of keep, with battlements along the roof, and narrow windows lining its face.
Whatever this place might be at the moment – and Alfred was fairly terrified to find out – it seemed to have been constructed with war in mind.
The wagon rolled to a halt in the shadow of the tower, and this lent something of a grimmer aspect to their situation. The taxman gulped, staring up at the cut stone walls above him, the tiny windows peering down.
He remembered stories of prisons that looked an awfully lot like this one. He thought of the man in the iron mask, that mysterious, seventeenth century French prisoner. He thought of Rudolf V, the fictional king who was dragged off to confinement in Prisoner of Zenda. For that matter, he thought of Rapunzel, locked high in her tower. He thought of the towers and castles that separated these men and women from their families and lives. And he shuddered to think that he might well be a few steps away from becoming the next man in the iron mask; the next Rudolf V; the next Rapunzel.
“Let’s go,” the lead guard instructed. “Inside. Lord Rickman will be back soon, and he wants to speak with you.”
The taxman gulped. “Can’t we…uh…wait out here? In the fresh air?”
The guardsman frowned at him. “Move, stranger.”
“Yessir.”
They were ushered inside, and Alfred felt his blood go cold as the door opened. The walls reached a good seven feet deep, built of solid stone blocks. This place was a fortress. It would be impenetrable. A thousand armies, he thought, might siege it, and not get through.
This was far from true, but in his addled state, he believed it fervently. Our goose is cooked.
They moved deeper into the stone structure, out of a comfortably decorated foyer into a kind of sitting room. A fireplace blazed at one end of the room, and rugs and tapestries covered the walls and floors, obscuring the cut stone and giving the place a kind of homey feel.
At least, it might have, if the guards hadn’t left with a, “Wait here.” A moment later, the door closed – and locked – behind them.
“We are going to die,” Freddo wailed. “Oh my God, we are so dead.”
Alfred nodded bleakly, Justin sighed, and even Nancy allowed, “It doesn’t look good. Somehow, he must have figured out we were with Whod’s band.”
For the most part, they waited in grim silence. Now and again, someone would offer a suggestion. “We can plead ignorance,” or, “We can say we had no idea who Robert was,” or “We can throw ourselves on his mercy.”
But the mood of their party was too pessimistic to allow any of these ideas to develop. “Ignorance of the law excuses no one,” Alfred would remind them. Or, “Since when are tyrants merciful?”
The minutes seemed to stretch into hours before they heard the turn of a key in the lock. All four were on their feet at the same moment, as of one volition, when Lord Basil Rickman stepped in.
He stood a little taller, the taxman thought, in person, and looked perhaps a bit older too. He glanced at the four of them, then said, “I apologize for keeping you waiting. There was much to do at the hospital after the fire.”
Nancy frowned, and Freddo whimpered. “I don’t understand why we’re being detained at all,” Alfred declared, mustering every bit of bravado he could to stand tall.
The nobleman held his gaze impassively for a long moment, then gestured toward the furniture. “Please, take a seat.”
The taxman considered arguing, but Nance nudged his arm to signal that he should comply. And he did.
They sat in a half circle, and Rickman took a seat across from them. For a space, he considered them all. “You are strangers in Yngil-wode,” he said at length.
Nancy and Alfred exchanged glances. “Yes,” she said. “That’s right.”
“How the hummus do you know that?” the taxman wondered.
“I’ve never seen you before,” he said simply. “And I know everyone who lives in Cumberland.”
Alfred scoffed. “That’s not possible.”
Rickman studied him curiously. “What is your name?”
Here, the taxman’s bravado rather slipped. He swallowed, saying in a voice that, to his chagrin, shook, “Alfred. Alfred Favero.”
“You are not from Cumberland, Alfred. But this is my shire. I make it
my business to know everyone who lives here.”
“Controlling much?” Freddo muttered.
Lord Rickman frowned. “You are brothers? Twins, I guess?”
“Uh, something like that.”
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Freddo,” the other Favero declared, head held high defiantly.
“Freddo and Alfred?” the nobleman mused. “I see. And who are you?” This was said with a glance at Nancy and Justin. They introduced themselves, with neither Alfred’s trembling voice nor Freddo’s challenging tones.
“And what brings you to Yngil-wode?”
“Uh…we kind of got lost,” Nancy said.
“I see. And where did you mean to go?”
“Not here.” She spread her hands. “What I mean is, we were just…walking. We didn’t have a destination in mind. And we got lost in the woods.”
“Ah. And why were you ‘exploring’?”
“We wanted to see more of the world,” Alfred put in. This was the story, after all, they’d spun for Robert.
“Off the beaten path, apparently, if you got lost in the woods? It seems a dangerous way to travel.”
“Yes,” Justin agreed. “It was not smart.”
“But not,” Freddo put in, “a crime, is it?”
Rickman shook his head. “No, Mister Favero. It is not a crime to be foolish.” Now, though, he sat back. “It is, however, a crime to associate with outlaws. It is a crime to burn down the people’s hospital.”
“We didn’t,” Nancy protested. “We helped put out fires.”
“So I’ve heard,” he nodded. “And yet you were with Robert Whod’s band.”
Alfred felt the blood drain from his face, as he wondered how in God’s name his lordship knew that. “I…we…we had nothing to do with that,” he said. “We had no idea they were going to burn the hospital.”
“But you admit you were working with his band?”
“No,” the taxman said quickly. “I admit nothing. Just, you can’t blame us for the hospital.”