Overtime Tom Holt

by Overtime (lit)

  'Come on,' Blondel shouted in his ear. 'This way.'

  A moment later the door marked Staffe onlie had closed behind them and three guards were unsuccessfully trying to lever it open with their halberds. Cromwell, meanwhile, picked up his hat and dusted it off. There was a hole in it. Pity. New hat, too.

  'Order!' he shouted.

  The halberdiers stood up, looked at their bent spearheads, shrugged and returned to their posts. The Long Parliament sat down. Cromwell resumed his seat.

  'Well anyway,' he said, 'that's got rid of the mace.'

  The negotiations had reached a critical stage.

  With a practised hand the senior partner motioned a waiter to bring a fresh pot of coffee and five more pipes of tobacco.

  'But if we withdraw all our clients' money from the South Sea Company,' the broker was saying, 'isn't that going to cause a crisis of confidence?'

  'Maybe,' said the senior partner. 'So what?'

  'But ...' The broker, lost for words, waved his hands about. His colleague took up the argument.

  'If the public get the idea that there's something wrong with the South Sea Company,' he said, 'the effects could be catastrophic. There would be an immediate collapse. The economy of the nation - of Europe even - would

  The senior partner cut him short with a wave of his hand. 'Listen,' he said, 'Mr, er...'

  'Smith,' said the broker's friend, 'Adam Smith.'

  'Mr Smith,' the senior partner went on, 'you haven't answered my question. So what? All your funds will be safely invested in Second Crusade 67% Unsecured Loan Stock. What possible difference will it make to you if the whole British economy crumbles away into dust?'

  Mr Smith's lower lip quivered slightly. 'But that's -' he started to say.

  'In fact,' the senior partner went on, 'what could be better, from your point of view? Sell now, reinvest, buy back at the bottom of the market, make a double killing. The wonderful part of it is that, thanks to the unique facilities offered by our Simultaneous Equities Managed Fund, your money can be invested in both the Second Crusade and the slow but steady regrowth of the British economy at the same time. Well, concurrently, anyway. There is a technical difference, but I don't want to blind you with science.

  'I ...' Mr Smith stuttered, but his friend the broker stopped him.

  'Actually,' he was saying, 'I rather like the sound of that.'

  The senior partner smiled. 'That's the spirit,' he said. 'Now, if we can move on to the topic of life assurance, we offer a wide range of tailor-made retrospective endowment policies which -'

  'Hold on,' Mr Smith interrupted, 'hold on just a moment.

  The partners turned and looked at him. 'Well?' they said.

  'Gentlemen.' Mr Smith calmed himself down into an effort. 'You may not be aware of this,' he said, 'but I am by profession a student of economic theory; in fact, I pride myself on being on the verge of a breakthrough in monetary analysis which will, I sincerely believe, revolutionise the practice of economic planning in Europe, and my view is -'

  'You mean,' said the senior partner slowly, 'The Wealth of Nations?'

  Smith's jaw dropped. 'You've heard of my book?'

  'Naturally.'

  'But that's impossible,' Smith replied. 'Why, I only completed the final draft today. In fact, I have it with me now. I'm taking it to my publisher.'

  The senior partner smiled politely. 'You have the actual manuscript with you?' he said.

  Smith, in spite of himself, could feel a glow of pride creeping over his face. It had been a long time since anyone had taken him seriously, since he'd been shown the proper respect his genius merited. 'I do indeed,' he said.

  'Really!' The senior partner's manner changed; he became deferential. 'I have indeed heard of your work, Mr Smith,' he said. 'The word "seminal" would not be an overstatement.' Smith blushed. 'In fact, I would go further and say that your book brings the Dark Ages of economics to an end. May I see?'

  After a very brief moment's hesitation, Smith dived into his battered brown bag and produced a manuscript. It was thick, dog-eared and bound up in red string. He handed it to the senior partner, who threw it on the fire.

  'Now then,' he said, 'we offer a wide range of tailor-made retrospective endowment policies which ...'

  'You really must learn,' Blondel said, 'to be more careful with that thing.'

  'I wasn't

  'I mean,' Blondel said, 'it's a nice trick if you can do it, but there are some people who have very pointy tops to their heads. You could injure somebody that way, you know.'

  'It wasn't -'

  'Anyway,' Blondel leaned against the wall and caught his breath. 'I don't think they're following us, do you?' he panted.

  'No.'

  'Splendid. Now, where are we, do you think?' He produced his little book and began to study it. Guy, who had got out of the habit of running shortly after leaving school, leaned with his hands on his knees and gasped for air.

  'Blondel,' he said, 'I nearly killed Oliver Cromwell.'

  'I know,' Blondel replied. 'Now, I make that the Un-American Activities archive over there, so if we head due south...'

  'I nearly changed the history of the world.'

  'Then we can take a short cut through the New Deal, which ought to bring us out where we want to be. Sorry, you were saying?'

  'History,' Guy repeated. 'I could have really messed it up, you know?'

  'Exactly,' Blondel replied. 'Very volatile stuff, history. Give you an example. You tread on a fly. The fly is therefore not available to walk all over your great-great-great-great-grandfather's breakfast, and so he fails to die of food poisoning. Your family therefore does not sell up and move from Cheshire to Norfolk, with the result that your great-grandfather doesn't meet your great-grandmother at a whist drive, and you don't get born. That means you never existed, so you can't travel back through time and squash that fly in the first place. Result: your great-great-great-great-grandfather gets food poisoning, the family moves from Norfolk to Cheshire ...'

  'And you,' Blondel went on, 'become a temporal anomaly, zipping in and out of existence like the picture on a television screen, thousands of times a second. Then you start to cause real problems, because of the knock-on effect and Ziegler's Mouse, and you end up with the Time Wardens after you.'

  'Time Wardens.'

  'Like game wardens,' Blondel explained, 'only with even more sweepingly wide powers. They won't be appointed for a hundred years or so yet, but when they are they'll travel back and start rounding up all the Loose Cannons.'

  'Loose Canons,' Guy repeated. 'Is that some kind of religious order?'

  'Not quite,' Blondel replied. 'You're thinking of the Giggling Friars, which is odd enough in its way, because they were all wiped out by the Time Wardens in about six hundred years' time. The Wardens have been looking for me since before I was born,' he added, 'or at least they will be. Actually they're not a problem. It's the bounty hunters you've got to be wary of. Now, I think that if we go along this passage here, we'll come to a sharp left bend which should ... ah, here we are.'

  As far as Guy was concerned it was just another tunnel, but Blondel seemed to recognise it at once. He said, 'Nearly there,' several times, and whistled a number of tunes, including Stardust and The Girl I Left Behind Me.

  'History,' he was saying, 'is fluid: you've got to remember that. It's changing all the time, what with the Loose Cannons and the Time Wardens and the Editeurs Saunce Pitie. Now then, if I press this lever here...'

  A door opened, and Blondel walked through it.

  Experience, the psychologists say, is like a man who walks into a lamppost, knocking himself out. When he comes round, the blow has caused a partial memory loss, which means that the victim forgets, inter alia, that colliding with lampposts causes injury. He therefore continues walking into lampposts for the rest of his unnaturally short life.

  'Blondel,' said Guy, but Blondel wasn't there any more. He shrugged and followed.

  'L'amours dont sui
epris

  Me semont de chanter,'

  Blondel sang. A few passers-by threw small coins into his hat, but otherwise nobody took a great deal of notice.

  'Oh well,' he said at last, 'he doesn't seem to be here. Right, what about a drink?'

  Guy had tried to explain to Blondel that there wasn't in fact a castle at the Elephant and Castle; that it was, to the best of his recollection, something to do with a mispronunciation of the Infanta of Castile; that even if there ever had been a castle here, there was highly unlikely to be one still here in 1987; and that even if there was one in 1987 they'd come up in the tube station instead. He'd done his best to convey all these things, and he didn't believe that 'That's what you think' was a satisfactory rejoinder. On the other hand, the idea of a drink sounded splendid, and he said as much.

  'You're on, then,' Blondel said. 'Watch this.'

  He laid his hat down beside him, produced his lute and sang some more songs, ones that Guy hadn't heard before and which he didn't like much. His view was not, however, shared by the passers-by, and they soon had a hatful of coins which Blondel judged to be adequate for the purpose in hand.

  'There used to be a rather nice little Young's pub just round the corner from here,' he said. 'Nice beer, but the only way you could ever get on the pool table was to nip back through time and get your money down before the previous game started. Let's give it a try, shall we?'

  'Used to be,' Guy repeated. 'When was that?'

  'When I was last here.'

  '1364?' Guy asked. '1570?'

  Blondel grinned. '1997, actually. Like I always say, doesn't time fly when you're having fun?'

  They wrapped Blondel's sword and Guy's revolver in a blanket to avoid being arrested and walked round the corner to the Nine Bells. As they sat down and tasted their beer, Blondel smiled.

  'That's one of the advantages of my lifestyle,' he said. 'You get a better angle on progress.

  Guy wiped some froth from his lips. 'Come again?' he said.

  'You know what I mean,' Blondel replied. 'You know how, as you get older, the beer never tastes as good, the policemen get younger every year, that sort of thing. Now I do my return visits in reverse chronological order whenever I can, so I get the opposite effect; yummy beer, geriatric policemen, and the last time I was here it was thirty pence a pint more expensive. Drink up.'

  Guy drank up. It made him feel very slightly better.

  'I suppose,' he said, 'I must be in my seventies by now. That's if I survive the War.'

  'Quite so,' Blondel replied. 'There's an outside chance you might meet yourself, you never know. That's why it's so important not to get chatting about the War with old men in pubs.'

  Guy nodded. 'Unless,' he said, 'I remember I was here before, of course. Then I'd know, I suppose.'

  'Don't count on it,' Blondel said. 'I knew a chap once who met himself. Actually - he was a terribly clumsy sort of fellow, you see - he accidentally pushed himself under a train. It was his future self that got killed, of course, not his time-travelling self. Tragic.'

  Guy looked up from his beer. 'What happened?'

  'Poor chap,' Blondel said, 'went all to pieces. I said to him, Listen, George, it's no use living in the past. But Jack, he said, I haven't really got any bloody choice in the matter, have I? In the end, the Editeurs came for him. It was the only thing to do.'

  'Who are the -'

  'Never you mind,' Blondel said. 'It'd only worry you. I think we have time for another.'

  He went to the bar and returned with more beer.

  'Blondel,' Guy asked, 'is that where ghosts come from?'

  'Sorry?'

  'Ghosts,' Guy said. 'Are they people who've got - well, lost in time? I mean, it sounds as if they could be people who've -'

  'Nice idea,' said Blondel, 'but not really, no. Ghosts are something quite different. I'll tell you all about that some other time. Now then let's have a look at the schedule.'

  He produced a tattered envelope, on the back of which was a long list written in minuscule handwriting. About a fifth of the entries were crossed off. Blondel deleted another three, and Guy noticed that three more added themselves automatically at the end. He asked about it.

  'Automatic diary input,' Blondel explained. 'When I go to a place/time, it doesn't mean I've dealt with it once and for all. It just means that it goes to the back of the queue. However, I'm pleased to say we're more or less on -'

  'Is this seat taken?'

  A shadow had fallen across the table. Guy looked up and saw three men. They were dressed in smart charcoal grey suits and had dark grey hair. It was hard to tell them apart. They could easily have been brothers; triplets, even.

  Blondel glanced up, smiled and said, 'Hello there, Giovanni, fancy meeting you here. Yes, by all means, take a pew. What'll you have?'

  Guy stared. For some reason which he couldn't quite grasp, he could feel his hand walking along the seat on its fingertips towards the blanket.

  'That's all right,' said Giovanni, 'Iachimo will get them. Same again?' He sat down, strategically placed between Guy and the blanket. Guy had the feeling that he'd done that on purpose.

  'That'll be fine,' Blondel was saying. 'Guy, how about you?'

  Guy said yes, that was very kind. One of the three went to the bar; the other one sat down next to Blondel and produced a cigar.

  'We just missed you last time you were here,' Giovanni said. 'Marco, offer these gentlemen a cigar.'

  'Your local, is it?' Blondel asked.

  'Not really,' Giovanni replied. 'But we look in from time to time. Handy for the office, you know, meeting clients, that sort of thing.'

  Blondel nodded. 'That's right,' he said, 'I forgot. Beaumont Street's just across the way, isn't it?'

  Giovanni smiled. 'Well then,' he said, 'it's been a long time, hasn't it?'

  'Quite,' Blondel replied. 'It must be -'

  'Eight hundred years, exactly,' said Giovanni. 'To the day, in fact.'

  'Is it really? Doesn't time -'

  'Eight hundred years,' Giovanni went on, 'since you skipped out on us. Welched on your contract. Left us in a most unfortunate position.'

  Blondel smiled. 'I don't think you've met my colleague, Mr Goodlet,' he said. 'Guy Goodlet, the Galeazzo brothers; Giovanni, Iachimo, Marco. They're in the ...,' Blondel considered for a moment, .... the timeshare business. And other things too, of course.'

  The Galeazzo brothers turned and looked at Guy. Then they turned back and looked at Blondel, who was still smiling.

  'Mr Goodlet,' he said, 'is a historian. In fact, he's with the History Warden's Office. Something to do with the fiscal division, aren't you, Guy?'

  Some last vestige of native wit prompted Guy to sit still, say nothing and try and look very much indeed like a souvenir from Mount Rushmore.

  'I see,' Giovanni said. 'No doubt he's got some means of identification.'

  'Indeed I do,' Guy said. 'Would you like to see it?'

  'If you don't mind.'

  Guy nodded. 'I'll just get it,' he said. 'It's in that blanket over there, so if you'll just excuse me ...' He leaned across Marco, fumbled in the blanket, found his revolver and pressed it into Marco's side, discreetly below table level. Blondel thought for a moment, and then put his hat on

  Marco's head. Marco didn't move.

  'Believe me,' Blondel said, 'you're much safer that way.'

  After a long and slightly uncomfortable silence, Giovanni sighed and said, 'That's all very clever and impressive, but it doesn't really get us anywhere, does it?'

  Blondel shrugged.

  'I take it,' Giovanni went on, 'that your friend isn't actually a historian?'

  'Correct,' Blondel smiled. 'Nor is he a top-notch marksman. At this range, however -'

  'Yes, all right, I think you've made that point,' Giovanni scowled. 'Violence really isn't our way, you know,' he said. 'The last resort of the incompetent, and all that.'

  'In which case, gentlemen,' Blondel replied, 'I think you pro
bably qualify. Good Lord, is that the time?'

  'All right,' Giovanni said, 'point taken. We have an offer.'

  'I know all about your offers,' Blondel replied. 'Please don't try and stop us. I'm very fond of that hat, and another hole in it will leave it fit only for the dustbin. Thanks for the drink.'

  He stood up and took hold of the blanket. Giovanni shook his head.

  'We can help you find what you're looking for,' he said. 'That is, provided you're prepared to help us.'

  Blondel raised one eyebrow. Then he sat down again, the blanket across his knees. To a certain limited extent, he looked like Whistler's Mother.

  'The last time I listened to you gentlemen,' he said, 'I ended up with my face all over thirty thousand imitation satin surcoats.' He frowned. 'It's taken me eight hundred years to get over that,' he said.

  Giovanni shrugged. 'So maybe we overdid the merchandising,' he said. 'You're an artist. Deep down, you need to perform. You need to communicate to vast audiences. You have a duty to your public.'

  'I haven't got a public,' Blondel replied. 'And I am decidedly not an artist. Artists wear berets and smocks and cut their ears off. Messire Galeazzo, you are talking through your hat, and that is a very risky thing to do while Mr Goodlet's anywhere in the vicinity. Good day to you.'

  Giovanni shrugged. 'It's up to you,' he said. 'But if you do actually want to find the King...'

  Blondel closed his eyes for a moment and then sighed deeply.

  'All right, then,' he said. 'Let's hear it.'

  'Well -'

  Before Giovanni was able to say anything else, however, the side door of the pub flew open and three men burst in. They were wearing dark green anoraks and holding big wooden clubs. Having entered, they stopped still and looked around them. Nobody seemed particularly bothered by their presence.

  'Oh, how tiresome,' Blondel said. 'You just wait there.'

  He got up, pulled his sword out from under the blankets, rushed at the three men and cut their heads off. A head rolled across the floor, was deflected off the leg of a chair, and ended up with its nose against Guy's foot. He looked down, feeling sick, terrified and, above all, horribly conspicuous. He needn't have worried, however; nobody was looking at him, particularly.