Roman Holiday

by Jodi Taylor

  ‘Just like that? These soldiers conquered Gaul. And fought in Egypt. And Spain. You’re saying these battle-scarred veterans will feel a slight headache coming on and just wander off?’

  ‘Pretty much. And it’s painless. Probably. If it works on aurochs and mammoths and ostriches, it’s bound to work on Roman soldiers.’

  ‘Ostriches?’ said Guthrie, incredulously.

  ‘Long story.’

  ‘If you’re going to give it a go,’ interrupted Van Owen, who hadn’t taken her eyes off the screen, ‘you should get a move on. They’re coming down the street with chains and half a dozen oxen. I think we’re about to be towed.’

  Well, that wasn’t good. Obviously, they were fed up and had decided not to waste any more time. They were just going to drag us away. Pods are tough – and I should know after what historians have done to them over the years – but bumping us up and down the Seven Hills of Rome? We needed to get out of here.

  ‘Go ahead,’ I said to Peterson. After all, it probably wouldn’t even work.

  He slapped in the disk and switched to audio.

  It was embarrassing.

  It was a disaster.

  You can add Ancient Rome to the long list of places we can never go back to.

  Inside the pod, of course, nothing happened.

  Outside … Outside …

  Words failed me.

  When oxen stampede, they really don’t mess about. Over the millennia, herds of bison have thundered majestically across the prairies, shaking the ground with the fury of their hooves. Six maddened oxen in a small Roman suburb channelled their ancestors and did even better.

  The first casualty was a fruit and veg barrow. Two seconds later, we had vegetable puree and a lot of firewood. The owner sought refuge in a fig tree. Since he was only about four feet off the ground, it was hard to see what this would achieve, but this was advanced thinking for oxen and they lost interest.

  All the Roman soldiers now scrambled up onto the roof – partly to escape the excited livestock and partly to get a better view. People in the square clutched their heads and then scattered as the oxen broke ranks and embarked on the bovine equivalent of asymmetric warfare.

  Personally, I thought the fleeing hordes did more damage than the bullocks. The soldiers, shouting a variety of conflicting instructions and curses from the safety of the roof, also contributed more than their fair share to the confusion and disorder. Really, none of it was our fault.

  There was only one exit from the square and with the exception of the man up the tree and the soldiers on the roof, everyone and everything headed in that direction. There was a massive bottleneck. Fights broke out. Women screamed. Soldiers shouted. Oxen bellowed.

  We sipped our tea and watched the screen in awe.

  Twenty minutes later, the square was deserted apart from a few disoriented souls who were rebounding from wall to wall as they attempted to find their way home.

  Trampled vegetables lay in the gutters. The remains of market barrows and their goods were scattered over a surprisingly large area. The street was littered with odd sandals, discarded togas, several broken handcarts, abandoned shopping, and surely far more dung than was possible from only six oxen. Every dog in Rome was still howling its head off. The purveyor of quality groceries was still up the tree and had been joined by large numbers of chickens and a stray goat. Markham wanted to go and help him down, but was restrained by Major Guthrie, who was staring at the screen as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  ‘Not our fault,’ I said, defensively.

  He closed his eyes, briefly.

  ‘Relax. No one’s ever going to know,’ said Peterson. Wrongly.

  One by one, the soldiers dropped off the roof.

  ‘It’s raining men,’ said Van Owen, which was something I’d always wanted to say.

  Wrapping their cloaks around their heads, they went for more reinforcements.

  ‘We could sell this device to Asterix,’ said Markham, the only one who appeared unaffected by Sonic Scream Trauma.

  ‘Can we just go?’ said Guthrie, between gritted teeth.

  So we went.

  It was one of Peterson’s better landings. We hardly bumped at all.

  ‘Rather in the manner of a stone skimming effortlessly across a limpid pool,’ he said.

  What anyone would have said to that was never known because at this point it became apparent that our problems were not yet over.

  All around Hawking, orange techies began to drop to the ground, arms curled protectively around their heads.

  In the far corners of the hangar, the glass in both the IT and technical offices crazed suddenly, shattered, and fell to the ground.

  ‘Shit!’ said Peterson. ‘Did we do that?’

  ‘You forgot to switch off the bloody Sonic Scream thing,’ I shouted. ‘Quick.’

  Peterson flicked a few switches and although nothing happened inside, outside the pod prone orange figures slowly began to unfurl.

  ‘Like flowers at the beginning of a new day,’ I said, trying to look on the bright side and getting the look from Guthrie that I deserved.

  ‘All this is your fault,’ said Guthrie to Markham. ‘If you’d kept your bosoms where they belonged, none of this would have happened. I hold you entirely responsible.’

  Markham blinked, indignantly. ‘Not my fault if I have unreliable bosoms. I’ve got nice bleached nipples, though. Do you want to see?’

  ‘No!’ shouted four voices, simultaneously.

  Round the hangar, people started to pick themselves up.

  Polly Perkins, head of IT and a sweet girl, was being forcibly restrained by members of her team.

  Dieter, Chief Farrell’s number two and built like a large brick shithouse, picked himself up, staggered a little, and then headed wrathfully for our pod. I had a moment of déjà vu. It was the oxen all over again. He picked up a fire bucket and hurled it with great accuracy and not a little force. It bounced off the pod with a dull thud.

  We all stepped back.

  ‘I don’t actually care if I have to spend the rest of my life in here,’ said Van Owen. ‘I am never leaving this pod again.’

  I heard Leon’s voice over the com link.

  ‘What’s going on in there?’

  ‘I’m carrying out a complete systems check,’ said Peterson, swiftly. ‘Going to be some time, I’m afraid.’

  ‘And I’m checking the inventory,’ I said. ‘Don’t wait up.’

  There was a pause and then he said, 'You have five seconds. Get your arses out here. Now.’

  We sent Van Owen out first, because she has huge pansy-purple eyes and you’d have to be a monster to yell at her, closely followed by me because I was covered in snake goo and people might feel sorry for me.

  Dr Bairstow, crunching his way across the glass fragments with magnificent disdain, met us just outside the pod.

  ‘Dr Maxwell. Are you injured?’

  ‘Snake blood, sir. But good news, Cleopatra is still alive.’

  ‘Should she be otherwise?’

  ‘An attempted murder, sir, magnificently foiled by St Mary’s in general and by Major Guthrie and Mr Markham in particular.

  I beckoned them forwards. They shuffled sideways instead.

  ‘I’m almost certain the assignment was simply to observe and document. I distinctly remember saying so.’

  ‘Indeed you did, sir, but you know us. Always ready to go that extra mile.’

  ‘If you only knew how often I pray that some of you would go those extra miles.’

  I was unsure how to respond to that one and compromised by scrubbing uselessly at my snake goo.

  ‘Good news,’ said Peterson, cheerfully. ‘The Sonic Scream thing seems to work.’

  ‘While I am certain the technical section rejoices in that knowledge,’ said Dr Bairstow, ‘I suspect that thought is not uppermost in their minds at this moment. They appear to be anxious to discuss recent events with you. Should any of you survive, I look forwa
rd to reading your inadequate excuses for returning from your assignment in such an unexpectedly destructive manner.’

  He turned and limped away.

  The technical section closed in for the kill.

  ‘I blame Markham,’ said Peterson, much later. We were in the bar, settling our nerves.

  Markham, who had been eyeing Nurse Hunter in his usual besotted fashion, sat up indignantly, although I can’t think why. It can’t have been the first time he’d heard those words uttered.

  ‘What baffles me,’ I said, in an attempt to head the argument off at the pass, ‘is why no one ever said how ugly she was. Cleopatra, I mean. You could have launched ships off that nose.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Van Owen, ‘they just didn’t want to admit their leading men fell for a woman who looked like a camel.’

  We nodded wisely.

  ‘Am I right in thinking we did A Good Thing there?’ asked Guthrie. ‘I’m assuming no one was supposed to die today. Except us, of course, and that happens so frequently, I’ve stopped worrying about it.’

  We nodded again, each of us running through the implications in our minds. Of course, if it hadn’t been us, someone else might easily have spotted the asps amongst the figs. But if they hadn’t … If one or both of them had died … It really didn’t bear thinking about. Guthrie was right – just for once, we’d done a Really Good Thing today.

  Mrs Partridge appeared in the doorway, an ominously large number of ‘Deductions from Wages for Damages Incurred’ forms in her hand.

  Markham groaned. A doomed attempt to reproduce Native American smoke signals had resulted in an unexpectedly large conflagration, the destruction of a small copse, the incineration of a surprisingly large number of blankets, and a letter of protest from the parish council. These days, very little of his wages remained for damages incurred to be deducted from. Any day now, he would be paying Dr Bairstow.

  And behind Mrs Partridge loomed a very large and still very irate Dieter.

  We resisted the temptation to huddle together for mutual reassurance.

  ‘Well, I’ll be OK,’ I said, reaching for my drink. ‘I’m Chief Operations Officer. I outrank him.’

  ‘And I’m Chief Training Officer,’ said Peterson. ‘No problem here.’

  ‘I’m Head of Security,’ said Guthrie. ‘I’m safe.’

  ‘I’m a girl,’ said Van Owen, fluttering her eyelashes.

  We all stared at Mr Markham.

  ‘You utter bastards,’ he said.

  THE END

  The Chronicles of St. Mary’s Series

  by Jodi Taylor

  For more information about Jodi Taylor

  and other Accent Press titles

  please visit

  www.accentpress.co.uk

  A seasonal short story

  It’s Christmas Day 1066 and a team from St Mary’s is going to witness the coronation of William the Conqueror.

  Or so they think.

  However, History seems to have different plans for them and when Max finds herself delivering a child in a peasant's

  The Nothing Girl

  Jodi Taylor brings all her comic writing skills to this heart-warming tale of self-discovery.

  Known as “The Nothing Girl” because of her severe stutter and chronically low self-confidence, Jenny Dove is only just prevented from ending it all by the sudden appearance of Thomas, a mystical golden horse only she can see. Under his guidance, Jenny unexpectedly acquires a husband – the charming and chaotic Russell Checkland – and for her, nothing will ever be the same again.

  With over-protective relatives on one hand and the world's most erratic spouse on the other, Jenny needs to become Someone. And fast!

  Fans of Jodi Taylor's best-selling Chronicles of St Mary's series will adore the quirky humour in this new, contemporary novel.

  Published by Accent Press Ltd 2014

  ISBN 9781783753123

  Copyright © Jodi Taylor 2014

  The right of Jodi Taylor to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The story contained within this book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, Ty Cynon House, Navigation Park, Abercynon, CF45 4SN