The Time Travelling Taxman Series Box Set

by Rachel Ford

  Freddo was the wise owl, to Tony’s braying donkey: intelligent, aloof, and a little irritable.

  He was, in short, very much like himself. And Alfred, not being the humblest of men, considered that to be an excellent character recommendation.

  Spring made way for summer, and the harvest was nearing. Nance had poked around the generator now and then, but she’d always shake her head, or sigh, “It’s no use. This whole section needs to be rebuilt,” or, “There’s no conductive material left here. It’s all burnt away,” or, “We’re stuck. Why can’t I accept that, Alfred?”

  He had no good answer, and though he’d do what he could to comfort her, he knew it was a source of disappointment all the same.

  On other fronts, though, she was much more successful. Nance had worked her magic – he was half convinced she was a wizard too, now – on the town, and managed to bring running water and rudimentary electricity to Warwick-on-Eden. She’d drawn up plans with the city’s engineers for improved waste removal and treatment. Her designs were spreading throughout the shire, too, to other villages and towns.

  She would allow herself no praise, though. “I haven’t invented a thing, babe. All I’m doing is bringing what I know of our world back here. Hell, if I’d paid more attention back home, who knows what good I could do.”

  Basil and the people of Cumberland saw it differently. She was a wizard, who was introducing the magics of a new age to them.

  Aside from making life easier, there was another benefit to Nance’s innovation. That was the increasingly steady trickle of defectors from Yngil-wode. It began with the mass exodus of wives and children.

  Some women remained, and word got back that they were celebrated as heroes, lauded for their loyalty. Praise, though, was all it earned them. Those who stayed found their workload increased exponentially, with little help to ease their burden.

  Surprising only the outlaws, it seemed, this proved to be an untenable situation. Not a morning went by without new faces appearing in town, until there was not a woman left in the forest.

  Then, left to their own devices, the men began to return too. They were lean and gaunt-faced and complained that the rations of elixir had run out. Robert, word got around, had taken to drink, and there had been no more runs to get more of the draught they all required. What remained, he hoarded for himself.

  Lord Basil decreed that outlaws defecting should be granted a pardon, on condition that they completed the addiction treatment. One by one, the men of the forest returned, and one by one they grumbled their way through the process.

  All, that is, but Robert Whod. Even John Naylor, in the end, abandoned his friend, and took “the tyrant’s cure.” But Robert remained in the Freemen’s Forest. Gwen would deliver letters for him every week, and every week wait for a reply.

  It never came.

  Alfred learned of this primarily from Nancy, who had grown to be good friends with the other woman. She was, he decided, probably better off without him anyway.

  “Still, I am sorry he won’t see reason,” Nance would say.

  “Well, at least the rest did.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And with all you’re doing for this city, no one’s going to want to live in the woods forever. I’m sure we’ll see him eventually.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Alfred hadn’t been sure. He’d said it to ease Nance’s concern, but the truth was, he didn’t have a clue what was running through the outlaw’s mind.

  Still, it proved to be a lucky guess.

  They did see Robert Whod again, near the start of the harvest. It was a clear day, bright and crisp, with a wind that left a chill in the taxman’s bones. Nancy was consulting with the hospital staff about an electric lantern design, and he had tagged along to keep her company.

  He was well into his routine of nodding sagely, as if he understood what was being discussed, and deferring to Nance when questions came up, when a nervous orderly ran into the room. The young man stopped by Lord Basil’s seat, whispering something to the nobleman.

  “Damnation.”

  “What?” Nancy asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “That fool Whod is marching into town.”

  “Whod?” Nancy repeated. “Here?”

  Basil nodded. “And he’s armed.”

  Alfred felt his heart skip a beat. He hadn’t seen the outlaw in months. He could only imagine what such a solitary length of time might do to anyone. In Robert’s case, it would be accompanied by feelings of betrayal, as his family and all his cohorts vanished.

  This might well, Alfred knew, be the other man’s last stand. Had he come to challenge Basil, to pick a fight with the town’s militia? Had he come to die on his own terms rather than live alone in the woods, like a feral dog?

  The taxman felt a wave of guilt, strong and inescapable, as he pondered this. He’d taken part in the unraveling of Robert’s fortunes. He’d encouraged Nance, he’d celebrated the disbanding of the Freemen. They were right to do it, of course. Robert had nearly killed, he’d thought about deliberately killing. He was a tax cheat. He would have stolen the shire’s tax revenue, to fund his own habit. He had been a threat to Yngil-wode. He’d menaced the people of Warwick-on-Eden.

  Still, Robert Whod had saved them when they were lost. He’d offered them food and shelter when they had nowhere to turn. He’d demanded nothing in return.

  And the idea that that hospitality might prove his undoing, the first step on his fatal journey, rather sickened the taxman.

  It was too late for regrets now, though. Basil was on his feet, heading outside with a contingent of guards in tow. Nancy and the hospital staff followed. Alfred accompanied her.

  They marched outside, until they stood before the entrance of the hospital. Robert Whod was visible now, a lone figure marching down the suddenly emptied cobblestone streets. A blade hung in the sheath at his belt, and he walked with a deliberate measuredness, one step at a time, one foot in front of the next.

  His eyes locked on Basil’s, and the nobleman seemed to answer an unspoken challenge. He left the hospital grounds, making his own slow, steady way toward the outlaw.

  Alfred’s pulse hammered as the two men neared each other. The morning was still, and though eyes peered out from houses all along the way, Robert and Basil stood alone in the town square. They came to a halt a good twenty feet from each other, their hands hovering on the hilts of their swords. And for a long moment, the two men stared at one another.

  Robert’s clothes were dirtier and more tattered, his frame leaner, and his eyes colder than the taxman remembered. But there was a tension in his posture that promised a long and bloody fight if it came to that.

  For his part, Lord Basil seemed ready to respond in kind. He planted his feet firmly in place and stood with an unflinching determination.

  The taxman was reminded of the dreadful westerns his mother loved when he was a child, and the thousand and one Mexican standoffs he’d suffered through. He wondered if either man would make it out alive today.

  Then, Robert spoke. “I’ve come to reclaim my life, Lord Rickman.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?”

  The outlaw broke the other man’s gaze, now, to glance at his own hand – the one that hovered over his blade. Slowly, he drew the sword.

  Basil’s hand tightened on the hilt of his own weapon. “I advise you to think your next move through very carefully, Mister Whod. It may be your last.”

  Robert didn’t seem fazed by the advice. He finished drawing the blade, and then he threw it, not at the nobleman, but toward him. It landed with a terrible clanging a few feet in front of Basil, the sound of metal on cobbles echoing throughout the still square. “You say you have a cure. Well maybe you do, and maybe it’s poison.

  “But I’ve lost everything. Maybe you took it from me. And maybe I lost it, fair and square.” The outlaw shook his head and seemed confused by the sentiments. “I don’t know. But I do know, I’ve nothing
left in the forest.

  “So if you’ve got a cure, then give it here. And if it’s poison, well, dammit, I’ll take it too. For I’ve run out of better options.”

  Alfred feared a scheme of some sort, a last-ditch, mad effort at revenge. So, he thought, did Basil.

  But Whod had no ace up his sleeve. He surrendered his sword and started the treatment.

  It was not always a smooth road.

  Robert suffered withdrawals – and when Robert suffered, so did those around him, for he flailed and raged and threatened like a bear caught in a trap.

  Still, as the days turned to weeks, and the weeks to a month, the outlaw’s symptoms lessened. He was reunited with his family, and even joined one of the work crews.

  He didn’t talk to Alfred much. When they did bump into each other, the meetings were brief and awkward. The former outlaw seemed to want to forget what had transpired in the forest, and the taxman had no desire to keep those days alive.

  So Robert Whod resumed his old life, and Basil Rickman let him. “He’s a damned fool,” he confided one evening, more to Nance than Alfred, “but at least he had the sense to leave Yngil-wode before winter.”

  “I wish we could leave before winter,” Freddo sighed.

  “I can’t believe it’s going to be six months,” Justin agreed. “Who knows what my mom thinks.”

  “She probably thinks we got eaten by bears,” Freddo nodded. “She was always warning you about bears, remember?”

  The other man smiled, a bittersweet smile. “Poor mum.”

  Here, Basil cleared his throat. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that, Nancy.”

  “About what?”

  “About your artifact. You say you do not have the tools to repair it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you did not have the tools to do much of what you’ve done already. Still, you were able to fabricate them. You, and my smiths.”

  She nodded, smiling softly. “Yes. But those were far more rudimentary than what I need to repair the generator.”

  He nodded. “I do not doubt it. That’s why…that’s why I’ve called in a workman from London. He is a jeweler and a master metalsmith. He works with filaments as fine as a hair, and can create …well, anything. Whatever supplies you need to make your artifact function again – he’ll acquire them, Nancy.”

  She blinked. “You mean…we might be able to go home?”

  “Yes. I believe you will.”

  “Basil, I…I don’t know what to say. Thank you.” She frowned. “But…his services must cost a fortune.”

  “A king’s ransom,” the nobleman smiled. “But it is the least I can do for my wizards.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Basil was as good as his word. A week later, a bearded fellow with a fiery mane of hair that seemed almost to swallow his face arrived. His name was Hugh, and he regarded the four strangers with unreserved skepticism. “Wizards, eh? Never had much use for wizards.”

  “We’re not wizards,” Nancy said.

  “A she-wizard?” He studied her with pinched features, then shook his head. “Well, that’s a first.”

  “We’re – we’re scientists,” she said. “Not wizards.”

  “Hmm,” he harrumphed. “A horse doesn’t become a dragon, just because you say so, if you’ll pardon my frankness, miss.”

  “Uh…sure. But a dragon is still a dragon,” she said, visibly struggling to work with his analogy, “even if someone thinks it’s a horse.”

  Hugh paused to consider this, then nodded. “Well. Well, damned if you’re not right, miss. Alright, then, if you say you’re scientists, I suppose maybe you are.”

  It was a fairly accurate preview of the master smith’s personality. The three men quickly learned to stay out of his way. They had neither the engineering expertise nor the social skills to be of use. But Nancy seemed to hold her own against the cantankerous old man.

  Indeed, Alfred thought, he took rather a shine to her. “Well, whether you’re a scientist or a wizard, you know your way around metal, Nancy,” he said over dinner a few nights after he’d arrived. They’d been working together all day, fabricating parts.

  “You should see what she’s done in town,” Basil offered. “She’s a wizard alright.”

  “I’m not a wizard,” she protested. “It’s just science. I’ve told you that, Basil.”

  He smiled. “It may as well be wizardry, Nance, if no one else is smart enough to understand it.”

  She brushed this aside. “You understand it.”

  “Some of it,” he acknowledged.

  “And so do your engineers.”

  “And if something breaks? If we can’t figure it out?”

  “You will,” she assured him. “You have smart people working for you. You are smart, and resourceful. There’s nothing we’ve done in Warwick-on-Eden that you can’t maintain, Basil.”

  He nodded slowly. “Perhaps. But we’ll be sorry to lose our wizard all the same.”

  Alfred felt it could not happen soon enough, and he’d check in on their progress so often that Hugh threatened to throw him off the top of the tower more than once. But he was relieved as Nance’s excitement grew. She’d given up on getting home. He knew that. So the sparkle in her eyes and the eagerness in her voice as she’d talk through their work for the day filled him with a cautious hope of his own.

  He began to believe that they might return after all.

  It took two weeks, but Nance and Hugh finished their work. The generator was still in pieces. “There’s no way we can fabricate parts on the scale I need – not to close this thing,” she explained. “But this should work. It’s ugly and clunky, but it should work.”

  “And…if it doesn’t?” Justin wondered.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, it depends on what kind of not working we’re talking.”

  He frowned at her. “What are our options?”

  “I don’t know, Justin. I mean, best case scenario? Nothing happens. Worst case scenario? We’re ripped into a thousand shreds and scattered across the multiverse.”

  Freddo whimpered, and Justin’s scowl deepened. “So you’re asking us to gamble with our lives? To trust our lives to your engineering skills?”

  She sighed. “Look, I’m not going to lie to you. I wouldn’t try it if I didn’t think it would work. But we’re using melted down tax revenue – gold coins – as a conductor. We’re using makeshift parts, and medieval technology. Of course there’s a chance we might not survive, Justin. Whether you take the shot or not? That’s up to you.”

  Alfred felt his blood run a little cold at that. He’d been so focused on getting home that he hadn’t thought about the risks. Now, hearing her articulate them in such unflinching terms, he reconsidered. Was it worth risking their lives – Nance’s life? “Babe…maybe…maybe we should reconsider.”

  She glanced curiously at him. “Alfred, you’ve wanted to get home since we got here. I know it’s a risk, but we checked and doublechecked. It’s going to work. I’m willing to stake my life on it.”

  He took her hand in his. “But I’m not, darling. I know I’ve been a pain in the…well, buns. I know I’ve pestered you and Hugh about it. But…but it’s not worth you dying.”

  She smiled at him. “Babe, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t think it would work. I can make the jump alone, to prove it works. I can come back for everyone. But I’m going to make that jump, one way or the other.”

  “Why?” Basil asked. He’d been silent all this time, listening with a kind of solemn resignation. He spread his hands. “You could stay, Nance. All of you, I mean. You could be Cumberland’s wizards. This could be your home. You’ve done so much for it already. Only think what you could do – how many lives you could save – if you stayed.”

  “I’ve already got a home, Basil. We all do.” Nancy’s tone was quiet and kind. “And Cumberland doesn’t need wizards. This shire has a hell of a leader, and a smart team of engineers. And scienti
sts beat wizards any day.”

  “Not in tabletop games,” Justin pointed out.

  Nancy ignored this. “Cumberland has everything she needs. And as far as saving lives…you don’t need us for that. You were saving lives long before we showed up. You’re a great leader Basil, because you’re a good leader.” She smiled. “But our time needs us.”

  “That’s true,” Freddo agreed. “Those tax cheats aren’t going to turn themselves in just because we vanish. And those, uh, computers won’t, you know, fix themselves. Or whatever it is you do, Nance.”

  The nobleman nodded slowly. “Of course. I’m sorry. I’m being selfish. You’re right: you have lives you must return to.” He smiled sadly. “But we will miss you all the same.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  In the end, they decided to jump together. “Like the three musketeers,” Alfred declared. “All for one, and one for all.”

  Justin snorted. “The three dumbasses, you mean, scattering their atoms across time for no damned reason.”

  “That’s the spirit, Justin. Good and optimistic,” Nancy teased.

  Still, no one wanted to be left behind. If the repairs held long enough for a single jump, they didn’t want to be forgotten. And if there was no coming back, well, no one wanted to be in a strange world by themselves.

  Nance had taken leave of her friends the preceding days. It was a long process, since she had made friends everywhere she went. For the taxman’s part, a general farewell seemed to suffice. He’d be missed, he was told, and he didn’t particularly believe it, anymore than the people of Warwick-on-Eden seemed to believe he was sorry to go home.

  But where Nancy was concerned, they did mean it. The women of the forest, the hospital staff, Lord Basil – they all mustered smiles and wished her the best. And though they stiff-upper-lipped their way through it, the air of loss was palpable.