A Second Chance

by Jodi Taylor

  He sat, too frozen now even to nod.

  ‘In the end, he asked for twenty minutes to hide you somewhere. We both knew that was worse than useless. That after the lions had finished with it, Troy would be picked over by the jackals for years afterwards. That it might even be kinder to hand you over to the Greeks. Or kill you there and then.’

  I stopped for a moment, because now even I was finding it hard going.

  ‘He took you outside. I watched on the screen. You both disappeared. Twenty minutes later, he was back. Without you.’

  But, now I came to think of it, exhausted and with a two-day stubble.

  ‘Shall I tell you what I think happened next?’

  No response whatsoever. I carried on anyway.

  ‘I think he had a pod remote control. I think he called up his own pod, bundled you inside, and took you back to the future. To his own St Mary’s. I think it wasn’t such a risk as I originally thought. I think he was able to remove you from your own time because, if you had stayed, you would have been killed.’

  Yes, he would. Probably within minutes. We can remove things from their own time, but only if they’re about to be destroyed. Only if they have no future existence in which to influence the timeline. I didn’t know we could do it with people. I wished I didn’t know we could do it with people. If this ever got out … This might be one of the most dangerous pieces of knowledge ever.

  Imagine if a bunch of fanatics tried to lift Hitler in his last hours. Or Caligula. Or the poster boy for compassion and mercy, the Abbot (Kill them all – God will know his own) of Citeaux. Of course, people being what they are, no one would ever want to lift Mother Theresa. Or Francis of Assisi.

  I forged on.

  ‘You should be very clear about this. What Chief Farrell did was incredibly dangerous. If you were destined to survive – and he had no way of knowing that – his attempt to remove you could have brought the entire timeline crashing down around us. As it turned out, he got away with it.

  ‘But, if I had had my way, I would have left you in Troy. To die. Quickly, if you were lucky, but you probably wouldn’t have been. You need to know this. I would have let you die. To preserve the timeline. I might even have killed you myself. Even now, I’m not sure what damage has been done. What damage you’ve done just by surviving. Do you have any children?’

  He shook his head, white to the lips, eyes huge and dark, just as he’d looked three and a half thousand years ago, back in Troy.

  I could see him tensing his muscles. Getting ready to run. I could probably take him with one hand behind my back. In what world was that good?

  ‘All right, Helios. Cards on the table. I was wrong. I apologise. I’m an historian but we should never lose sight of the fact that History is just that – his story, her story, everyone’s story. History is about people as well as events. There’s a saying, somewhere – always err on the side of life. That’s what Leon did. That’s what I should have done, too. I’m sorry.’

  The silence just went on and on.

  ‘I think,’ he said hoarsely, ‘we could both do with a drink.’

  I held up my tonic water.

  ‘No, a real drink.’

  He crossed to the door and shouted down the corridor.

  He reappeared a minute later with a tray, glasses, and something fiery. I don’t know about him, but mine never even touched the sides. I could feel my feet starting to get warm. Always a good sign.

  ‘Do you want to know what happened?’ he said, without looking at me.

  ‘Yes.’

  He sighed and topped up his glass. ‘He carried me around the back, through the smoke, into the olive grove, and out the other side. I didn’t want him to put me down because he was warm and safe. He covered my eyes with his hand.

  ‘A few minutes later I felt a hot wind in my face. Dust and smoke swirled around us. When I could see again there was another of your small shacks. I was puzzled because this one hadn’t been there before. He put me inside and everything went white.

  ‘When I opened my eyes the whole world had changed. For me, it was terrifying. For two days, I wouldn’t let go of him. They were very kind to me but I knew they didn’t want me. There was more shouting. In the next room. They decided that taking me back to Troy would do more harm than good.’

  ‘You were at his St Mary’s?’ I interrupted.

  ‘Yes. Not yours. He – persuaded them to take me in and there I stayed. They looked after me well. There was a lot to learn but I was a kid. Kids are adaptable.

  ‘This next bit is difficult. He was an older man when he took me to St Mary’s. When I next saw him, years later, when he joined the unit, he was much younger. He didn’t know me. I was hurt. They had to explain it to me several times. I’m not sure I get it even now.

  ‘And then he got his big assignment – to jump back to this time, to your St Mary’s, and I came with him. Between us, we took this pub. I’ve been here ever since. It’s in my blood, after all.’

  Yes, his father had kept a tavern, back in Troy.

  ‘And, I suppose, I’m a first line of defence down here in the village. A kind of early-warning system.’

  ‘When we first met,’ I said, ‘when I was a trainee, I used to come down here all the time, with Sussman and Grant. Did you recognise me?’

  ‘Soon as you walked in through the door. You’ve hardly changed at all.’

  ‘You knew – all these years you’ve known that I would have left you in Troy? To die?’

  He shrugged. ‘I survived. The timeline survived. Everyone survived.’

  Except Leon. Leon hadn’t survived.

  He nudged my glass towards me. ‘Drink.’

  I needed no urging. It had been a pretty shitty day.

  ‘And you never said anything – to anyone?’

  ‘I was just grateful to be alive. I wasn’t going to say anything to rock the boat.’ He shrugged again.

  I drank again.

  ‘I wonder,’ he said, hesitantly. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  Oh, God. Now what?

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said, cautiously, not wanting to commit myself in any way.

  ‘Well, I wondered, if it’s possible – I’d like to see his memorial stone, you know, in your graveyard. To pay my final respects, if I may. If I’m not breaking any more rules.’

  ‘Of course. What’s today?’

  I got the ‘typical historian’ look that he’d obviously inherited from Leon. ‘Thursday.’

  ‘Come tomorrow. About ten thirty. Come to the front door and ask for me. We’ll go together. If you want that?’

  ‘That sounds fine,’ he said. ‘Do you want another drink?’

  ‘Thank you, no,’ I said, standing up to go. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr Nelson.’

  ‘Joe.’

  ‘Joe.’

  He nodded. ‘Are you all right to get home?’

  ‘Absolutely fine,’ I said, shook his hand and staggered out into the night.

  I had a very, very careful report to write.

  I couldn’t show Joe the Boards of Honour, on which are inscribed the names of all those who had died in the service of St Mary’s, but when he turned up the next day, smartly dressed and still rather pale, I took him into our little churchyard and for a long time he stood looking at Leon’s memorial stone. I sat quietly on a nearby bench and looked at all my friends buried there.

  He joined me on the bench and we sat for a while in silence.

  ‘You do know he’s not here?’ I said, at last. ‘They sent him back to the future.’

  He nodded. ‘Do you miss him?’

  Now there was a question.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, admitting it to myself for the first time. ‘Yes, I do.’

  We strolled slowly down the path. As always, the place was very quiet. Only the crows cawing in the tall chestnut trees disturbed the peace.

  He said suddenly, ‘What will happen to me when I die?’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned, Joe, noth
ing.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell anyone who I am?’

  ‘No.’

  He swallowed. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Do you miss him?’

  ‘Yes. He was like a father to me. I owe him everything. And now he’s gone and I miss him.’

  Poor Joe. Uprooted from Troy and then again from the future. And now Leon was gone. And someone else knew his secret. How lonely and afraid must he feel at the moment.

  I saw Miss Lee approaching and braced myself to intercept her. Joe Nelson was in no fit shape to encounter the laser-focused hostility and random evil that packaged itself as Rosie Lee.

  I got The Look. The one that indicates she’s had to perform above and beyond the call of duty. Such as delivering a message to someone who’s not at her desk, for example.

  She launched into a litany of complaint.

  ‘Why are you all the way out here?’

  I opened my mouth to point out that ‘out here’ was only about two hundred yards from the main building, but there was no chance.

  ‘I am busy this morning, you know.’

  This was news to me.

  ‘Sorry to drag you out into the fresh air. I forgot you crumble into dust when sunlight touches you.’

  She ignored this.

  ‘And now I’ve got to go all the way back to Wardrobe because Mrs Enderby wants some files, and you still haven’t signed off on next month’s duty roster, or approved Mr Clerk’s application for leave, or even looked at the pod servicing schedule, or –’

  This could go on all morning.

  ‘Why exactly are you here? Is it possible – and I know this is a bit of a new concept for you, but work with me here – is it possible that you have some useful function to perform?’

  ‘Dr Bairstow would like to see your report when you have a moment and there are some urgent –’

  I waited for her to finish the sentence, but that seemed to be it. I was quite accustomed to being told there was an urgent message for me and having to go off and get the details for myself, because she always considered that simply telling me about it completed the job. The actual contents of the message and whom it was from were usually for me to ascertain.

  I cleared my throat compellingly and fixed her with the stern eye of an unhappy supervisor. A complete waste of time. She was staring at Joe Nelson. He was staring at her. And both of them were looking as if Stonehenge had dropped on them. Even as I looked, she blushed and dropped her eyes.

  What?

  A considerable amount of silence passed.

  I stared at the pair of them, frozen in time like a pair of mismatched bookends. Surely not …

  It dawned on me that something was expected from me. With considerable misgivings, I said, ‘Joe, may I introduce Rosie Lee. Miss Lee, this is Joe Nelson.’

  ‘Yes,’ they both said together. ‘I know,’ and fell silent again.

  He stared at his feet.

  She stared at his feet.

  I began to feel as wanted as cholera.

  ‘Well,’ I said, backing off down the path. ‘I have to go. Perhaps, Miss Lee, you would be kind enough to escort Mr Nelson to the gate. Please don’t forget to sign him out.’

  I’m not sure why I bothered. She wasn’t listening to me. No one was listening to me. Nothing new there. In some confusion, I left them to it.

  I took my report to Dr Bairstow in person.

  Mrs Partridge nodded me through.

  He sat behind his desk, writing steadily. I sat on the other side of his desk and waited for him to finish. Silence doesn’t bother me. I was quite happy to sit there all day.

  Newton says that Time is like an arrow, and can never deviate from its path. Einstein says Time is like a river and meanders, running fast and slow. Maxwell – when she’s been up all night thinking too much, says Time is like a circle and ripples in a pool spread out in all directions. Including back into the past.

  Leon had appeared at the very time and place I needed him to be. He’d been given the coordinates. Who had told him when and where to go?

  I had.

  And who had sent him back, alone and broken, to a very uncertain future?

  I had.

  And who was going to fix that? Right here? Right now?

  I was.

  For me, he was dead and gone, but I could still save his life.

  Eventually, Dr Bairstow capped his pen and looked up.

  ‘May I see my file, please, sir?’

  He raised his eyebrows, but pulled open a filing cabinet, rummaged, and produced the battered document that was the story of my life so far.

  I flipped it open and took out the photograph again.

  I laid it on the desk in front of me and looked at it. Had I ever been that young?

  Yes, was the answer to that one. And I still was. All right, the left knee wasn’t up to spec any more, but deep down inside, I was still young. And I always would be.

  I turned over the photo, picked up a pen, and wrote across the back:

  Leon , come and get me. If you dare. Lucy.

  That should do it.

  I put the pen down and handed him back the photo. Without even glancing at it, he tucked it back in the file and replaced the whole thing in the cabinet.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s solved that little mystery. Let’s hear the end of the story.’

  I handed him my report and sat back to watch his face.

  He read it through, his expression never changing. Laying it on the desk in front of him, he stared at me for a while and then smiled.

  ‘And how was Leon?’

  ‘Not good, actually, sir. Not good when we met and probably slightly worse when we parted.’

  Obviously, I hadn’t told him all of it. I’ve always regarded it as my duty not to overburden senior staff with too much information. Their brains can’t handle it. It’s all that bigger-picture stuff they do. However, I had described, in some detail, the sad end of Number Nine, the less-than-sad end of Clive Ronan, the appearance of Chief Farrell, and my rescue. My subsequent return to St Mary’s was covered in half a sentence.

  I said nothing about Helios. I would never tell anyone about Helios. Or Joe Nelson, as I must get back into the habit of calling him.

  He looked up.

  ‘You did make a note of the coordinates?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  I took out the most important piece of paper of my life and pushed it across the desk.

  He folded his hands and said, ‘I was present when my Director pulled out this famous Standing Order. Just one sheet of paper. One named historian to present himself at these co-ordinates to render assistance. This order has, apparently, been handed down from Director to Director until the right historian turned up. Which reminds me – I had better write the damned thing.’

  He pulled a sheet of paper towards him.

  ‘Just one more thing, sir. Ronan was an old man when he died. There’s absolutely no reason why, as a younger man, he still couldn’t come bursting out of the woodwork at any time.’

  He nodded. It was true. Something Ronan had done ten years before he died could still be ten years in our future. We would never be completely safe.

  ‘We have defeated him at every encounter, Max. If he has any sense, he’ll give us a wide berth in future.’

  Neither of us mentioned that he was a desperate fanatic who had long ago kicked common sense and rational thought into touch and had just demonstrated that his hatred remained undimmed right to the end of his life. There was nothing we could do – no way to predict what he might do next. We could never do anything but deal with each threat as it arose.

  ‘Was there anything else, Dr Maxwell?’

  I got up. I had more thinking to do.

  ‘No, that’s it, I think, sir.’

  As I reached the door, he said, ‘That photograph saved his life, you know.’

  I nodded and left the room.

  That photograph saved his life so he could save mi
ne.

  The circle was closed.

  Time to move on.

  Feeling the need to be alone, I saddled up Turk and rode up through the woods and onto the moors. Side-saddle. We stopped at Pen Tor. I sat on the rocks and looked at the distant sea, sparkling on the horizon. Turk got his head down and carried on as if there was going to be some sort of grass shortage in the very near future. At no point did he try to attack me. I wondered if we were both mellowing with old age. It seemed unlikely. I’m an historian. The chances of living long enough to have an old age, mellow or otherwise, are remote.

  I sat and thought for ages, sorting things out in my head. Hours passed. I was roused by the old bugger giving me a nudge. He wanted his tea.

  I went to see Dr Bairstow that evening and told him I would be honoured to take up the offer of Deputy Director. We had a quick drink and he told me I’d soon come to regret it. I told him I already did.

  I put in for my last jump the very next day.

  Tim and I were off to Agincourt. It seemed appropriate, somehow.

  There are many views of Agincourt. That it was one of Britain’s finest hours – right up there with the little ships at Dunkirk, the stirrup charge at Waterloo, and the March Uprisings, when a tiny handful of civilians threw the Fascists out of Cardiff, sparking the nationwide uprising that led to the Battersea Barricades.

  And it was. Henry’s inspired leadership of his tiny, hopelessly outnumbered army on their increasingly desperate march through France was a triumph of skill and tactics.

  On ascending the throne, the fifth Henry took one look at his over-mighty subjects – all the fractious lords who thought they were entitled to a share of the pot simply because they’d joined the rebellion that placed his father on the throne – and said, ‘Sod this for a game of soldiers.’

  Casting his eyes thoughtfully across the Channel, he revived the age-old Plantagenet claim to the French throne and shunted the whole turbulent bunch of them over to France where they could either get themselves killed or rich. Whichever came first.

  They took Harfleur – although not easily, as Henry’s ‘Once more unto the breach,’ speech implies and, with the end of the campaigning season coming up, he had a difficult decision to make. To return home with most of his money gone and only a very moderate victory to show for it, or to intimidate the French with a show of strength and press on to Calais; a march, he estimated, of no more than five days.