by Jodi Taylor
‘Roger dodger,’ he said. Another one not taking this seriously at all. ‘I’ll find him.’ He stepped away a few paces and spoke urgently into his com. That left Markham who could support Sykes, Lingoss who could guide Dottle, and me. God knows what I would do. I think that at that point I may have been slightly losing the will to live.
Evans turned back. ‘He’s only round the corner. He says some woman is shouting at him. About fish, he thinks, but she’s shouting in Welsh, so it’s not going well.’
‘You speak Welsh. Go and sort it out.’
‘No I don’t,’ he said, affronted.
‘Why not? Your name’s Evans.’
‘I’m from Halifax. Very little Welsh spoken there.’
‘Just … go and do what you can,’ I said, and he disappeared.
Over the road, the assault on the inn had redoubled. Even as I watched, two of the mob trotted round the corner with a wooden bench and attempted to batter down the door. The crowd around them responded with encouragement, criticism, disapproval, and mockery. People hung from upstairs windows, showering them with the contents of pots. We pulled back out of the splash zone. There was absolutely no way in a million years we were going to get anywhere near Sykes and Dottle. The seeming leader of the gang, red faced, was screaming at his men who were heaving the heavy bench at the door. It seemed safe to assume that Edward’s charm offensive with the free food and drink was not necessarily keeping the locals as quiet as he had hoped. On the other hand, this was the rough end of town and for all I knew this sort of thing happened two or three times a day. The inn door was certainly a great deal more solid than it appeared. It wouldn’t last forever, though.
‘We need a diversion,’ I said. ‘Something to disperse this crowd.’
I looked up and down the narrow street, filled with sweating men, shrieking prostitutes, a jeering mob, dogs and, just for once, inspiration failed me. Short of waving a magic wand, there was no way to disperse this little lot. The buildings were mostly of wood and thatch and I really didn’t want to risk the traditional method of setting a small fire and yanking out our people in the confusion. With our luck, the entire street would go up in a blazing inferno, scores of people would die, and the subsequent riots would jump-start the Welsh resistance, which would lead to the Welsh kicking the English out of Wales forever. The subsequent resurgence of national pride would lead them to raise an army, which would sweep down on London where they would overthrow the King and his government and install their own prince, name unknown but Llewellyn seemed a safe bet, and the entire course of History would be irrevocably and fatally changed and it would be all our fault.
I realised Lingoss and Markham were staring at me in astonishment and it was possible that I might have said some of that aloud.
‘I’ve had a brilliant idea,’ said Lingoss, and before I could stop her, she’d darted into the street.
‘For God’s sake go with her,’ I said urgently, and Markham elbowed his way through the crowd in her wake.
I heard Lingoss shout, ‘Hey!’ and there was a kind of collective gasp and a stunned silence fell.
Just like that. One minute a mini-riot and the next minute, complete silence. Even the dogs had shut up. What the hell had she done? I craned my neck this way and that to try to see what was happening and, suddenly, she was alone in the centre of an expanding circle and I could see exactly what she’d done.
Oh, shit.
Throughout the Middle Ages, women’s hair was considered immoral and associated with temptation and sin. Only a woman of very low breeding, or a prostitute, would show her hair in public. Legally, a married woman’s hair was the property of her husband. The point I’m trying to make is that you don’t see much public hair. (I made a mental note to be very careful about typing that phrase in my report. Or perhaps not.) Anyway, you didn’t see a lot of men’s hair, either, and certainly no one had ever seen anything like this explosion of jet-black hair tastefully tipped with blue and purple. I rather liked it, but today I was in a minority of one. The effect on the good citizens of Caernarfon was astonishing. I knew they would run. The only question was whether they would run towards or away from her. I crossed my fingers for away and so, of course, they ran towards. This was Lingoss, however, a tough kid who’d looked after herself all her life. I would bet this wasn’t the first angry crowd she’d run away from, but even so …
She was already accelerating down the street when the first angry shout went up. She would have got away easily, only at that very moment, with a hollow rattling sound, a handcart came round the corner at some speed. I caught a very brief glimpse of Bashford and Evans pushing for dear life. She jinked left, and I lost sight of her. The handcart missed her by inches, but completely failed to avoid the crowd behind her. The handcart went over with a crash, shouts of Welsh abuse and bad language filled the air, and suddenly the world was full of fish.
There were fish everywhere. Some skidded slimily across the cobbles and people either trod on them, squirting bits of fish guts everywhere, or they slipped and fell, bringing down those around them. A large number of the more aerodynamic fish flew through the air, striking people impartially. No discrimination here. These fish were equal-opportunity missiles.
I stared open-mouthed, and then it got worse.
We’ve all heard the expression ‘fishwife’, usually used to denote a coarse and foul-mouthed woman. In fact, it’s a bit of a cliché, but that’s the thing about clichés – they’re often spot on. The term fishwife came about because the women who gutted and cleaned their husbands’ or fathers’ catches really were coarse and foul-mouthed. This one was the Queen of Fishwives. She wanted her barrow back. Then she saw what had happened to her fish.
I caught a glimpse of Evans yanking Bashford into the shelter of a doorway, which was a very wise move because if she’d ever caught them she would have gutted them with no more compunction than she would have gutting a mackerel.
Fortunately, for them however, she was distracted by the sight of her wares strewn across the street and even more distracted by the enterprising citizens of Caernarfon taking full advantage of this opportunity for free food, and stuffing pollocks down the fronts of their tunics as fast as they could, where presumably they nestled alongside similarly named items.
With a truly terrifying bellow of rage, she launched herself upon them and since she was still clutching the vicious-looking implement with which she separated the outside of the fish from the inside of the fish, nobody hung around. I can only describe it as a small stampede.
There was a slight bottleneck at one end of the street as everyone fought their way out and then, within seconds, it was empty apart from a shoe – because there’s always a shoe – stones, litter, debris, splintered wood, broken pottery, a dog cocking its leg against the now discarded bench, some rather trampled fish, and a really strong smell.
She righted the barrow one handed and gazed around her, hands on hips. I hoped to God she wasn’t looking for someone to blame because, with typical historian lack of foresight, I was now the only person visible. Of Markham and Lingoss, there was no sign. Bashford and Evans were in a doorway further up the street where, if they had any sense, they would remain for the rest of their lives.
The dog finished what it was doing and trotted away. The street was so quiet I could actually hear its nails clicking on the cobbles.
She caught my eye. My God, she was a really, really big woman, bare-armed and bloodied almost to her elbows. Her massive bosom swung as she walked, probably distorting gravity. She wore a coarse sacking apron, liberally stained with fish guts, scales, and blood. Her skirts were kilted up nearly to her knees, showing bare calves and heftily shod feet. I was very conscious that I was probably the only visible person for miles around. Trying to avoid eye contact, I looked down. At my feet lay a miraculously intact flatfish. I bent awkwardly, picked it up by the tail, and held it out to her.
She stared at me, face expressionless. Her face looked as if
it had been carved from a side of beef. I tried to smile and look as pregnant as possible and it must have worked because she took the fish, nodded grimly, tossed it into her handcart, and slowly trundled it back up the street and around the corner.
The sound of the wheels faded into the distance.
I took a moment to close my eyes and savour the blessed silence.
‘What’s going on?’ said Sykes, behind me.
I damned near gave birth on the spot, took a deep breath to get my heart going again, turned slowly, and did not injure her in any way.
‘Where the f– where did you come from?’
‘From the inn.’
‘But …’ I said feebly, ‘how did you get out?’
She gestured behind her. ‘Through the door.’
I felt a red mist begin to form.
‘What were you doing in there?’
‘Waiting to be rescued.’
‘Why?’
‘You told us to.’
‘I told you to stay put.’
‘We did stay put. For ages. And then I got bored with waiting and came out to see if you needed any help.’ She surveyed the fish-related carnage.
‘You said you were in the pub.’
‘We were.’ She pointed.
I pointed across the street to the other pub. ‘With a bush by the door.’
In turn, she gestured towards to a sad-looking stick with two leaves, struggling to survive in a broken stone pot by the door behind us. ‘Bush.’
Again, I pointed across the street to the other pub. ‘That’s a bush.’
‘No, that’s a vine. Not the same thing at all.’
How it would have ended, I don’t know. I try to avoid arguing with her because she’s short and stubborn and has no respect at all for authority. I swear I don’t know how she gets through the day without someone somewhere banging her head against a wall.
She spoke into her com. ‘You can come out now.’
Dottle appeared, looking sheepish and bleeding slightly from a cut over one eyebrow. Nothing serious.
Not without some trepidation, Bashford and Evans emerged from their doorway and Markham and Lingoss trotted back from wherever they’d been secreting themselves.
We attempted to pull ourselves together. Lingoss made heroic efforts to get her hair under some sort of control. Before we could shoulder Sykes, however, in the distance, I faintly heard a horn blow, followed by screams and the oh-so-familiar sound of overturning stalls.
‘Nothing to do with us,’ said Sykes, defiantly. ‘Just so everyone’s clear.’
From around the corner, came the tramp of marching feet.
‘Are they coming back?’ asked Dottle anxiously, surveying the fish-strewn wreckage and obviously unaware that to historians, catastrophes come not in threes, but in multiples of threes.
‘No, it’s soldiers.’
‘Shit,’ muttered Evans, looking around wildly – the traditional Security Section response to a crisis.
A troop of soldiers turned into the street.
There was nowhere to go and we had wounded. We drew back, set ourselves against the wall, and prepared to resist arrest. Again.
There were nine of them in three rows of three. Breastplates, helmets, and pikes. No swords.
‘We can take them,’ said Sykes with confidence.
They marched straight past us. Without even a glance in our direction. Actually, I think we all felt rather silly.
The horn sounded again and they broke into a run. In another moment, they were gone and once again, we were alone. Although given the smell where we were, that really wasn’t surprising.
‘What’s going on?’ said Bashford. I think he was a little offended. No one likes being ignored. ‘Where are they going?’
‘Back to the castle,’ I said shortly, and anyone who knew me well would have left it at that.
‘Why?’ enquired Dottle.
‘Because,’ I said bitterly, ‘there’s trouble there and we all know what it is, don’t we?’
‘Oh my God,’ said Sykes, managing to bound with excitement while standing on one leg. ‘Does this mean that the King did present Edward like the story says? Is he doing it now?’
‘Well, we’ll never know, will we?’ I said. ‘Because our priority is to get back to the pod with a trio of historians stupid enough to have missed the last bus home.’
‘Go,’ she said. ‘Go. We’re fine here. Go and see what’s happening.’
I was tempted. I was strongly tempted. I looked back over my shoulder at the castle, still glowering over the town. Somewhere, over there …
Markham shook his head and I reluctantly returned to the matter in hand. He was right. If I left them and dashed off to do something more interesting I really wasn’t much better than Halcombe, and being abandoned twice in one day wouldn’t do Dottle any good at all.
It’s bloody Sod’s Law, isn’t it? Suddenly we could rescue our people easily. Now we could just scoop them up and stroll back to the pod, and the reason we could do that was because everyone else had dashed off to the castle to watch the event which, I was certain, would turn out to be the motivation for the jump here in the first place. I didn’t know whether to scream, spit, or swear. I’m an historian. I’m used to being where the action is, not lurking in a backstreet somewhere.
‘Steady on, Max,’ said Lingoss. ‘Remember your condition.’
I threw her a look that should have set fire to her hair.
They were all very quiet on their way back to the pod.
We took a little time to check over the wounded. Whatever had happened in the aftermath of Halcombe’s abandoning them, Dottle had obviously laid about her with spirit. She really was too good for the idiot Halcombe.
I took her aside. ‘OK, let’s get this wimple off and get you cleaned up a little.’
‘Why?’
‘Historians never go back looking scruffy. It’s an image thing. No matter how bad things are, we never let people see we’re not always completely on top of things.’
Pathetically hopeful, she said, ‘Am I an historian?’
‘Well, you’re in a pod. You’re wearing 13th-century clothing stained with someone else’s blood. You stink of beer and horse shit. Your hair is coming down. You’ve split your lip and your nose is bleeding. I’d say you’ve nailed it.’
She glowed. Despite the crusty nose, swollen lip, and bird’s nest hair, she looked quite attractive. Animation suited her. Not everyone looks as good after a punch-up, as I told her.
She sighed. ‘I don’t think I did a lot of good.’
‘You didn’t run.’
I saw her remember Halcombe.
She said quietly, ‘He ran, didn’t he?’
I nodded.
She picked at something dubious on her skirt. ‘How could he do that? How could he just leave us?’ She looked at me hopefully. ‘Did he go for help?’
What could I say? How do you shatter someone’s world?
I chickened out. ‘I’m not sure. I only arrived in Hawking in time to be included in the rescue team.’
‘Was Mr Halcombe injured?’
Why was I so reluctant to tell her? ‘I don’t think so, but we had to move quickly to get back here so I didn’t have time to check him out.’
She wasn’t stupid. ‘He wasn’t, was he?’ She picked at her skirt a little more. ‘He just ran. He left us.’
She looked around at Markham, laughing with Sykes as he applied an icepack to her ankle. ‘You don’t think much of us, do you?’
I smiled. ‘I think you did just fine.’
She glowed. I don’t think that under the Halcombe regime, a lot of praise came her way. If any at all. And then it faded again.
‘I’ve wasted so much of my life waiting for him to notice me.’
‘I wouldn’t want to interfere,’ I said, insincerely, ‘but I think it’s definitely time for a regime change.’
She nodded. ‘So do you think the King did present Edward as
the Prince of Wales?’
‘Exactly the right question to ask,’ I said. ‘You should stick around at St Mary’s for a while.’
Chapter Fifteen
They kept me in Sick Bay longer than anyone else – even Dottle. For once, I didn’t complain. Dr Bairstow was out there somewhere. I thought I’d leave Peterson to deal with the fall-out from Caernarfon since he’d do it so much better than me. It was just possible that if I lingered here for a year or so then Dr Bairstow might have forgotten about me when I did eventually find the courage to emerge.
Fat chance.
I opened my eyes one afternoon to find him standing at the foot of my bed, silhouetted against the window – dark, sinister, and unreadable.
‘Good afternoon, sir.’
‘Report.’
‘Not written yet, sir,’ I said, trying to be crafty. I don’t know why I bother.
‘A verbal report will suffice.’
I sat up, marshalled my scattered wits, and gave him just the bare bones. He’d read everyone else’s reports and presumably interviewed them personally, so I wasn’t quite sure what he was expecting from me.
At the end, he leaned on his stick and said, ‘I congratulate you on your timely actions relating to Mr Halcombe.’
I wasn’t sure to which timely actions he was referring. To locking the bugger up or initiating the rescue? Whichever it was, he seemed inclined to let me live a little longer. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘That this unit was able to avoid … serious contamination is largely due to your actions.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘We are all extremely relieved that Mr Halcombe was isolated before any further contamination could occur.’
O … K …
‘I have conveyed the details of his current misfortune to Thirsk, who were most anxious he remain where he can benefit from the best medical treatment.’
I said carefully, ‘And will they be sending a replacement for him?’
‘Apparently not. I have assured them of my willingness to work with Miss Dottle and this has been deemed an acceptable, if temporary, solution.’
His face was unreadable. Was he saying what I thought he was saying? That Halcombe was neutralised for the near future? That Dottle would be easy to deal with? That he was – what’s the word I’m looking for? Grateful?