The End of the World is Nigh

by Tony Moyle

  Antoine had absolutely no idea what that meant and turned to Ally hopefully for interpretation.

  “No, we most certainly weren’t. It’s quite simple to understand, even for a vacuous mind like yours. We came here because my colleague,” she raised a finger and pointed across the table, “said he knew someone in town that might help us. We found to our cost that he was not at home, which left us with nowhere to stay.”

  If Gabriel had known what the word ‘vacuous’ meant she might not have accepted the compliment quite so readily.

  “Most unusual,” said Antoine. “Maybe he’s already left town to avoid this modern-day plague that has descended on us.”

  “Maybe you’ve got it!” exclaimed Gabriel, immediately spitting the last mouthful of tea into the sink in case it was poisoned with flu and retreating to the other end of the caravan again. “Right, jog on, the pair of you.”

  “I can assure you we do not have the flu. We escaped Lyon before the cordon was raised.”

  “Why didn’t you check into a hotel, then?”

  “It was two o’clock in the morning,” replied Ally.

  “Plus,” added Antoine conversationally, “we’re being hunted by someone and desire to keep a low profile.”

  “So you decided to steal my caravan instead,” replied Gabriel indignantly.

  “We clearly haven’t stolen it, otherwise you wouldn’t be stood in it, would you? We’re just asking you if we can stay in it for the night,” replied Ally who had taken an immediate dislike to this petite stranger based on two fundamental characteristics: she was extremely pretty and she wasn’t Einstein.

  “What will you give me in exchange?” she replied, remembering the second amendment of the Millennials Charter, ‘Thou shall not do something for nothing’.

  “Give you?” blurted Ally, reacting spontaneously.

  “Yeah.”

  “Young lady, we thought, given the current situation around the world, that this was the time when other humans might rise up in collective protection of their fellow man with acts of charity,” said Antoine, affecting a stern tone.

  “Er…no,” replied Gabriel in a sarcastic tone. Charity was for annual telethons and only then when they sent Taylor Swift to some god forsaken country that no one had heard of to highlight that everyone who lived there needed help because they were considerably shorter than she was. Based on their personal situations, if anyone deserved charity out of the three of them it was probably her.

  “We’ve already paid you,” mumbled Ally under her breath. “We’ve shown you where your own fridge is.”

  “Huh, I would have found it eventually.”

  “Young lady, what is your name?” asked Antoine politely.

  “Gabriel Janvier.”

  “Oh. How curious,” replied Antoine, making a connection that no one else understood.

  Both women challenged his reaction with vacant expressions.

  “I think we’ve just found our angel,” he added to himself.

  “Listen, you dirty old man I’m a fully paid-up member of the ‘me, too’ fan club and I won’t put up with any form of sexual harassment.”

  “I meant angel in a purely biblical context. The Angel Gabriel was a protective figure who carried people from danger. Look, if you help us, as I believe you will, I will pay you ten thousand euros.”

  “What?” said Ally in dismay. “Have you lost your mind?!”

  “No. This young lady has a place where we can sleep tonight and a car that can take us to Mâcon tomorrow: I would say her usefulness should be well rewarded.”

  “But ten grand! That would pay for a week in Monaco at a five-star hotel and a minute ago you were advocating the whole charity thing.”

  “Done,” replied Gabriel before the grumpy woman could talk him out of it. “Although I’d rather not have cash if it’s possible, the concept of shopping might not exist by the end of next week. I’ll give you a list of things I want not exceeding that total.”

  “You’ve changed your tune,” grunted Ally. “A minute ago you were worried we might have the flu.”

  “For ten grand you can have Ebola for all I care.”

  “Agreed,” replied Antoine. “Now if you don’t mind I think I need some rest. It’s not every day you get burgled, blown up, forced to run away and have to spend your very first night inside a caravan. We set off first thing tomorrow.”

  *****

  The next morning it took three distinct operations to get the beige relic of the French motor industry up and running. Renault cars had a dodgy reputation for reliability before they even rolled off the production line, but this one had seen forty years’ painful service. The battery, whose main purpose over the last week had been to power a laptop, was stone dead. Although they had jump leads they were a bit redundant as none of them stretched the quarter mile to the nearest car.

  Sometimes all you needed in adversity was a big dollop of experience. Antoine used all of his to remember an old solution to the problem. Cars were a passion and old cars in particular. He’d spent many a Sunday afternoon with his arms covered in grease, a wrench in hand and a battered car above him waiting patiently to be resuscitated. To him the old Renault was a classic; the other two thought it was a relic. On his instructions, and after considerable bickering, the two ladies were invited to jack the car up above the mud to allow Antoine to wrap a tow rope around the car’s wheel. After the keys were turned in the ignition the ladies gave the rope a pull to spin the tyre. Within seconds the motion kicked the battery and the engine into life. Their bitter complaining about broken nails and being told what to do was only momentarily halted by the sight of the smoke billowing out of the exhaust.

  The second operation was far messier. The heavy rain and soft ground had combined to sink the back-end of the car deep into the mud, not helped by the weight of the caravan and the extra occupants last night. There were no special tricks up Antoine’s sleeve for this one. After some leverage had been placed under the back axle the girls were instructed to push while Antoine tried to rev them away from the mire. Eventually they succeeded but not before Gabriel and Ally had been painted an interesting shade of brown.

  The final operation was the most complicated and unexpected, at least for two of them.

  “Right, we’re finally ready,” said Ally trying to brush as much mud out of her dress as she could. She’d already spent two days wearing it and prayed a day would soon come when she wasn’t, preferably today.

  “Did you call Bernard again?” asked Antoine.

  “Three times already. It just keeps going to voicemail. Let’s just go there on the off chance. I desperately need a change of clothes and a brand new outlook on life.”

  “Let’s see what we can do. Right, Gabriel, if you would,” said Antoine, pointing her towards the driver’s seat.

  “What?”

  “If you’d be so kind as to drive.”

  “Drive? Why?”

  “I think you preppers say G.O.O.D.”

  “It’s bloody not good! You’re both flipping crazy if you think I’m going anywhere with you weirdos,” replied Gabriel, sporting a face of thunder.

  “G.O.O.D. is slang for ‘get out of dodge’. You’re not up on the prepper lingo yet, then?” said Antoine.

  “The lingo isn’t the issue, you are!”

  “Surely you understood I was not just paying you for the car, but for you to also drive it.”

  “Antoine, a word please,” said Ally, beckoning him over for a quiet one-on-one. “Why do you want the stupid bimbo to come with us? Trust no one, you said. We can both drive, we don’t need her.”

  “We definitely do. I can’t explain it, but something tells me meeting her was no accident. I’m sure she’ll be useful.”

  “How? Are you expecting us to run into a dangerous mob of emojis?”

  “Emojis…is that a type of monkey?”

  “It doesn’t matter. She’s useless. Look at her, she can’t even survive here for more than a
week and I can literally see civilisation on the other side of those trees. This has gone too far, Antoine. I was struggling to understand why I was here, but there’s even less reason for her to be.”

  “Sometimes you just have to accept advice. Can you do that?”

  “Not well, no.”

  “Listen, I think having her with us will be good for you,” replied Antoine. “You need to spend more time with diverse types of people…in fact people in general.”

  “Baristas are people,” she said in an argument that only shone a brighter light on the problem. “Once we’ve found Bernard, I’m done with both of you. Understand?”

  “If you say so.”

  They returned to their original conversation.

  “Gabriel, I’m delighted to say that we’ve had a chat and agree you should join us.”

  “I’m not going. There’s literally nothing on earth that you can say or do to convince me. Nothing!”

  “I’ll give you twenty thousand euros and a new car.”

  “Done.”

  - Chapter 19 -

  The Journey North

  “Phil, are you there?” shouted Chambard from his customary position just below the prison window.

  “Where else would I be?” replied Philibert.

  “Garderobe.”

  “That’s a bucket in the corner, and by the pungent smell, very much still in here. How did it go?”

  “That depends on your point of view,” said Chambard, still showing the visible signs of his wrestling match with an uncooperative and oversized boar.

  “But did the prophecy come true?” Phil asked suggestively with a wink that no one could see.

  “Um…yes.”

  “Ha ha, great job. You’ve really outdone yourself this time, my old friend. To be honest, I thought it might be too much for…”

  “You misunderstand,” interrupted Chambard. “It had nothing to do with me! Yet it happened anyway. Everything you predicted. Spears splintered, horses ran about like four-legged idiots, and an antler went straight through Claude Savoie’s shield almost removing his eyeball.”

  “Really,” replied Phil dumbfounded.

  “YES!” shouted Chambard a little too loudly given his visit hadn’t been sanctioned.

  Of all the possible outcomes Phil expected, feared and hoped might play out, this was not one of them. What were the chances of him nailing an actual prophecy on only his second attempt with no more than a week’s worth of training. Pretty skinny. A little part of him wished that Michel was around to share the success. Although given how many of Michel’s rules he’d systematically broken to achieve it perhaps he might not have shared Phil’s excitement.

  The worst thing about the good news was that it didn’t even matter now anyway. All the training had been for nothing. Since Claude had offered him another route out of his situation there had been no need for Chambard to do any of it. And that was all thanks to Michel’s unexpected interference.

  “He’ll have to release you now,” called Chambard from the muddy trench below the window. “I mean I would if someone gave me a prophecy that came true immediately.”

  “Hmmm, about that,” replied Phil, wondering how best to break it. “I actually didn’t give it to him.”

  “What?!”

  “Things have changed a little since our last meeting.”

  “How?”

  “Claude thinks I’m a Catholic spy. He wants me to go to Paris to gather intelligence for his side. He’s coming back today to hear my answer.”

  “Are you saying I spent two days in a forest trying to secure the services of an aggressively hairy pig for nothing.”

  “Yes. Sorry.”

  “Just so you know I have a slipped disc, three chewed fingers and a recurring nightmare about being mugged by a pack of angry piglets.”

  “It’s not my fault, Chambard, I couldn’t exactly tell you from here, could I?”

  “No, I guess not. What are you going to do now?” asked Chambard.

  “I have to say yes.”

  “Why? There must be another way out.”

  “I can’t see one and I really need to get out of here. I’m starting to develop an unhealthy addiction to bedbugs and I’ve found myself communicating with rodents, and more worryingly them with me. Can’t be healthy.”

  “No, it can’t.”

  “I’ll say yes but I’m going to make one demand as part of the deal.”

  “A one-way ticket to Scotland?”

  “No.”

  “A request for a short delay before you travel to Paris so you can care for your dying mother? A decade or so should do it!”

  “No, but actually that’s a good idea.”

  “It would be if your mother wasn’t already dead,” said Chambard knowing full well his comments wouldn’t cause offence. Much time had passed under the bridge since that terrible spring in Aix.

  “Indeed.”

  “What’s the demand, then?”

  “That you accompany me. Then we can work out what we do when we get there.”

  True to his word, Claude arrived exactly on cue. He appeared somewhat more nervous than he had on his last visit, perhaps as a result of his recent stag-related near-death experience. In Claude’s opinion the incident with the hart wasn’t the most concerning part: after all, moments like that could be expected if you’d hunted for as many years as he had. What really perplexed him was how Michel had predicted it all through his message. He’d tried to ask Michel after the event, but the seer had completely disappeared, presumably to avoid the scrutiny of the bishops fully alerted to his activities.

  As far as Claude was concerned it was just more evidence of Nostradamus’s unique talent and that played into Philibert’s hands, even if it wasn’t immediately obvious. If Claude had known that the squire had not got the message from Michel, and rather from Chambard, as was the case, he might not have been quite so malleable.

  He readily agreed to Phil’s terms and granted permission for Chambard to join the journey to Paris. The rest of the deal was clear. They would return to a royal court they were never part of in the first place to learn what they could from a Queen they’d never met in order to discover intentions they didn’t understand. When free to do so they would return to brief the Huguenot leaders of the outcome. Jacques would escort them to the capital and they would routinely liaise with him and disclose all intelligence as and when it was discovered.

  But it wasn’t just Jacques going with them.

  Quite unexpectedly, Annabelle would also accompany them on the journey. Phil had mixed feelings about this revelation. On the upside he enjoyed her company and so far had suppressed any affections for her. On the downside she might just cause an unwelcomed distraction to their ultimate strategy, fooling everybody. It was only a small negative compared to the massive, elephant-sized one that sat in the corner of the room sporting an irritated look on its face.

  No one in Paris was expecting their return.

  They couldn’t be because they’d never been there. In fact in all of Chambard and Phil’s travels, Paris was one place they actively avoided. There were enough conmen and thieves in that city without them competing for the same prizes. It was a much simpler strategy to work the smaller towns whose inhabitants were more gullible and unsuspecting.

  Now they had no choice. Both the location and the scam would be unfamiliar. They’d found themselves in the confusing position of needing to double-cross the double-crossers. And that would require a scam so complex that even they weren’t sure who they were playing it on. Fortunately they’d have plenty of time to figure it out. It took the fastest postal rider as much as two weeks of continual riding to cross between the two cities. Their convoy of riders and accompanying coaches might take as much as three to four weeks.

  In sixteenth-century France, travellers could be categorised into three groups. Armies travelled the furthest: sometimes for thousands of miles and frequently only in one direction. Those journeys were made o
n foot and there was limited time and inclination to stop to take in the scenery or write a postcard home, particularly when someone with psychopathic tendencies bullied you into every footstep. Depending on the location of the battle, and as a result of poor-quality rations, unreadable foreign road signs and mud that came up to your kneecaps, the journey was often so horrendous you were quite excited about dying when you got to the end of it.

  The second group consisted of everyday folk. Travel to them meant going to the market, usually at the end of the road. Not a long road either. Any thought of locations further afield were the stuff of myth and legend. They’d heard of places like England and Spain because news had spread that the people who lived there had a nasty habit of wanting to invade them. But in the public conscience they were as mythical as Quivira or Atlantis. Peasants couldn’t pick them out on a map, or comprehend the concept of a map that didn’t have a scale of one-to-one. Most people were born, raised, worked and died in the very same house. It was a time in history when immigration was only ever the result of someone from Andorra getting drunk and taking a wrong turn.

  The third group included people like Chambard. Unlike the first group, who tended to go long distances but only once, and the second group who didn’t go anywhere at all, Chambard had been almost everywhere. He’d had to. Most towns weren’t keen on seeing him return. He’d travelled extensively throughout France, some of Italy, most of Spain, and even parts of the Low Countries – most of these quite by accident.

  If you were a wanderer sometimes you inadvertently wandered over borders. It would be years before someone thought it sensible to erect a big sign in the ground with names and numbers on it. It would be pointless doing it now. The world was so tumultuous, borders tended to change from one day to the next. Travellers only noted the passage from one country to another because locals shrugged their shoulders a lot, particularly when you asked them where you were.

  Chambard and Phil travelled from one town to the next identifying the most suitable mark to corrupt in the knowledge that news of their scams weren’t likely to follow them. It was a planned and erratic behaviour that only they truly understood. A day after Phil’s release the journey they set off on was quite different from what they were used to. It would be in one go and they certainly weren’t in control of it. It would be arduous, slow and require them to invent the concept of the ‘travel game’ to pass the time.