by Jodi Taylor
‘Awesome, sir,’ I said, giving credit where it was due and reserving a little for myself as well.
I was convinced of it now. Dr Bairstow had engineered the whole thing. Well, not us stealing Arthur’s sword perhaps, but he’d certainly been behind all subsequent events. I could picture the scene. He’d been notified of our transgression and, unable to do anything about it, he’d simply, in the words of a famous military leader I couldn’t call to mind at that moment, tied a knot and gone on.
Faced with the ever-present threat of Thirsk’s interference, he’d turned a disaster into an opportunity to discredit them. I wondered how he’d managed to engineer things so we got Halcombe. I could imagine him vehemently protesting. I could hear him saying, ‘No, not Halcombe. He’s not the man to fit in at St Mary’s.’ And because that was exactly what Thirsk wanted, they’d fallen for it. And Dr Bairstow had let him get on with things, with the result that Helen had Halcombe in isolation and his loyal lieutenant had defected to the enemy.
‘What about the id … what about Mr Halcombe, sir?’
He smiled coldly, his resemblance to a merciless bird of prey increasing with every second. ‘Oh, while Mr Halcombe would appear to be on Thirsk’s payroll, I’m almost certain he is taking his instructions from someone else.’
I sat up straighter. ‘Who?’
He said nothing because he always expects us to work things out for ourselves. I thought furiously.
‘The same people who got to Hoyle?’
‘Yes, I think so, don’t you?’
Some months ago, during my fortunately brief stint as Training Officer, we’d had an assignment go wrong and we’d finished up at the Battle of Bosworth. One of my trainees, a somewhat unbalanced young man, had allowed an obsession to overcome him, been manipulated into hijacking a pod, and attempted to pervert the course of History. He’d died, but not before he’d told us of some shadowy presence that had tried to use him to disgrace St Mary’s. It would seem they hadn’t given up.
I was about to ask if Thirsk had been aware of this, but second thoughts answered that question for me. Of course not. They’d been used. They would not be happy about it. The corridors of our former employers would run thick with blood, blame, and retribution.
And St Mary’s was now in a position to replace what, on the face of it, was a rather dull iron sword whose provenance could never be proved, with the fabulous, genuine, easily identifiable Sword of Tristram. And a crown belonging to the Holy Roman Emperor. And we’d saved Miss Dottle from a fate slightly worse than death. Bloody hell, we’re good.
I shuffled forwards on my chair. I had to know. Other than Mrs Partridge, no one else was here. No witnesses.
‘Sir, did you engineer all of this?’
He looked down his beaky nose. ‘No, of course not. You and you alone were responsible for your disgraceful behaviour at Thirsk. I merely took advantage of an unfortunate situation to make sure everyone got exactly what they wanted. Thirsk got their permanent presence here, and what a double-edged sword that has turned out to be for them. Because of that, Dr Chalfont will almost certainly be restored to her rightful position as Chancellor. Indeed, it is my hope that her imminent discovery will lead to her position being considerably strengthened.’
His chair creaked as he leaned forwards and said in a softer tone, ‘And you, Max have, I hope, learned a valuable lesson.’
I blinked back a sudden tear, nodded, and said in a small voice, ‘I have, sir.’
He sat back and said briskly, ‘Then we need say no more about it. I shall inform all departments that you have been reinstated as Head of the History Department.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Actually, sir, if you don’t mind – no.’
‘No?’
‘Sir, Mr Clerk has done an excellent job. It’s not fair on him. I don’t have long to go and I have one or two small funding projects I’d like to finish. I’ll put in for my last jump if I may, and then, if you don’t mind, on the agreed date, I’ll sally forth and multiply.’
He nodded. ‘As you wish.’
I felt about a hundred years younger as I walked out of his room. I would have liked to have felt about a hundred pounds lighter as well, but that doesn’t happen when you’re pregnant. Which I was. Very pregnant. Definitely time to put together my last jump, but first, I had a bridge to mend.
He was in our room, sitting at the table, frowning at his data stack.
I was very conscious of being in the wrong – and given the state of his pod he had a more than legitimate grievance, and so I made a huge effort to be conciliatory.
‘I think we were both to blame.’
He shut down his data stack. ‘All right, shall we agree to split things 50/50?’
I was outraged. ‘No! More like 70/30.’
‘I think you’re being too hard on yourself.’
‘No, that’s not what I meant.’
‘Well, tell me what you did mean.’ He sat back, smiling, encouraging, sympathetic, reasonable, calm, everything I hate. He knows I can’t deal with that.
I struggled to find the words, through mounting exasperation. ‘I mean … That is … You were the one who …’ and conscious that I was still tired, that I still had 13th-century mud under my fingernails, that I was still pregnant, that it was vitally important I remain composed and make my case calmly and reasonably, and that he was Leon – husband and hero – I began to cry.
He pushed himself up from the table, but I waved him back.
He regarded me with some concern. ‘Max, you never cry. Are you feeling all right? Should I take you back to Sick Bay?’
I sniffed and wiped my nose on my sleeve – yes, I know, not an attractive habit – and groped for the tissue that was bound to be in one of my pockets somewhere. ‘No, no. I’m OK. One good blow and I’ll be fine.’
A pause. ‘What are we talking about here?’
So, there we were, all on track for a happy ending. Except for the idiot Halcombe, of course. Helen was still enthusiastically doing everything she could to prevent him developing leprosy.
‘Still undergoing multi-drug treatment,’ she said, in answer to my query, ‘Daprone, clofazimine, rifampicin…’
‘For how long?’
‘Twelve months should do it. Maybe two years.’
I stepped back. ‘What? We don’t want him here all that time.’
‘We haven’t got him here all that time. I’m shunting him off to some obscure military hospital somewhere.’
‘But he doesn’t have leprosy.’
She shrugged.
‘But surely he must know he doesn’t have it. He knows he was making it all up.’
‘Well, he can hardly come out and say so, can he? What could he say: Oh I wanted to sabotage the assignment and I thought leprosy was a good way to go, but I’m fine now?’ She gestured at the frankly terrifying battery of equipment surrounding a glum-looking Halcombe, and at Nurse Hunter, suited, booted, handling him with a pair of tongs and, by the looks of it, enjoying every minute.
‘And as a member of the medical profession,’ she added virtuously, ‘it is my duty to take every precaution to safeguard the welfare of my patients.’
First I’d heard of that, but now was probably not the time to mention it.
‘But doesn’t he know – leprosy isn’t that infectious?’
‘Then he’s a victim of his own ignorance, isn’t he. Silly ass.’
She walked off.
I’m telling you now – don’t ever mess with St Mary’s.
Chapter Twenty-one
I thought I’d better put in for my last jump before fate intervened and everything went tits up again. Always quit while you’re ahead.
Our last jump is supposed to be something special. It’s usually a personal choice – a chance to see a favourite event or person, or as I said to Leon, an inadequate reward for years of unremitting toil and sacrifice. I could still hear him laughing from the bathroom.
I’d spent some time thinking about whe
re and when. Until recently, of course, a last jump hadn’t seemed a likely possibility but now, suddenly, it was all back on again. I spent an hour or so, running through old favourites – Carthage, Persepolis, Babylon, Hastings, and so on. These were exciting possibilities and well worth a look, but last jumps don’t always go according to plan. On Kal’s last jump, we had encountered Jack the Ripper and he’d proved surprisingly difficult to get rid of. My previous last jump – it’s complicated, don’t ask – the one to Agincourt, had gone about as badly as anything could go.
And then, from nowhere a memory popped into my head. A memory of sitting on the grass at Caer Guorthigirn and thinking about giant stones dancing across the landscape.
Out of consideration to Leon, I ought to choose a destination where nothing could possibly go wrong, and where better? The site was uninhabited and it wasn’t as if the stones were likely to uproot themselves and chase us down the road, were they?
Leon and I weren’t supposed to jump together, so I opted for Markham and Peterson, both of whom, after everything that had happened recently, deserved a nice day out.
‘Where are we going?’ enquired Markham, absent-mindedly scratching himself.
‘What are you doing?’ enquired Peterson, moving away. ‘Have you got mange again?’
‘No!’ he said, hurt.
We regarded him suspiciously.
He stared right back, visibly struggling not to scratch.
I cleared my throat for attention. ‘Right – my last jump.’ I brought up an image on the screen.
‘Wow!’ said Peterson. ‘Cool.’
‘Yes, I thought so too,’ I said smugly.
Markham blinked. ‘What the hell is that?’
‘Stonehenge.’
‘No it’s not. I’ve been to Stonehenge. It’s huge. Big stones on top of other big stones. This is just …’ he tailed away.
‘Just what?’
‘Just … stones.’
‘Yes,’ said Peterson, scathingly. ‘The clue’s in the name. Stonehenge.’
I intervened before things could deteriorate further. ‘There were many Stonehenges. The version we see today with the trilithons is quite modern.
Markham sighed. ‘Only an historian could describe something dating from 2000 BC as quite modern.’
Never mind saving him from Peterson. I was going to thump him myself.
Correctly anticipating my expression, he sat up straight. ‘Sorry. Carry on.’
‘As I would have been saying, had I been allowed to get on with it, there were many phases of Stonehenge. I’ve requested and been granted permission to jump there, but Thirsk, possibly proffering an olive branch, have offered to fund an in-depth look at early Stonehenge. Sometime between 2600 and 2100 BC, when it was smaller than it is today.
I started bringing up images.
‘Stonehenge has evolved over thousands of years and there were several construction phases. The first, a circular bank-and-ditch enclosure, dates from around 3100 BC.
‘The next phase is somewhat vague – a timber structure may have been erected around this time, but during the third phase, which is when we’re going, two concentric circles were built. At least, popular opinion has it they were circles. Excavations show they were in fact horseshoe shaped and whether that was deliberate or whether the circles were unfinished is another of the things we’ll be investigating. The horseshoe shape has always been important, especially to the ancient world. It’s the last letter of the Greek alphabet. Both Greeks and Romans hung horseshoes on their walls for luck, a superstition that continues to this day. Hanging a downward pointing horseshoe on your bedroom wall makes men more virile and women more fertile. Theories say the shape describes the route of the sun. So, are they simply unfinished circles or some kind of protective symbol?’
‘Protection from what?’ asked Markham.
‘Let’s see if we can find out. After this phase, the big Sarsen stones were introduced and Stonehenge begins to take on the shape we know today.’
‘The modern phase,’ said Markham, straight-faced.
Peterson turned to him. ‘There is evidence of cremated bones being buried at the bottom of some of the Aubrey Holes. Wouldn’t it be fascinating if some of them were yours?’
‘No,’ said Markham.
I intervened again. ‘A nice, simple jump. Another surveying job.’
‘Because the last one went so well,’ muttered Markham.
‘What is the matter with you?’ said Peterson. ‘Has Hunter given you the boot again?’
‘No, of course not. She knows how lucky she is. In fact, she’s always banging on about me having to go and see her in Sick Bay.’
‘Why?’
He shuffled uneasily. ‘Don’t know. So how long are we on site for?’
‘As long as it takes,’ I said briskly. ‘A week probably. As well as a survey of the henge, I want an overview of the entire area. It’s not known as the Sacred Landscape for nothing. There’s barrows, tumuli, Woodhenge, Silbury Hill – you name it – it’s all there. It will be winter so we’ll have all the time in the world to do a proper job. Get yourselves kitted out and meet me tomorrow outside Number Eight.’
‘Why winter?’ said Markham, mournfully.
‘Well, other than during the solstice, the site’s likely to be deserted. The ground’s far too hard to dig – all building work will have ceased. Everyone will very sensibly be at home, huddled around the fire.’
‘Except us.’
‘Except us, obviously. Undisturbed and able to get on with things.’
‘What’s the weather likely to be?’ enquired Peterson, bashing away at his scratchpad.
‘Well, the general trend was towards milder weather, but around 2200 BC, major volcanic eruptions disrupted the North Atlantic weather patterns and winters became bitterly cold, so I’m not sure what we’ll get.’
‘It’s Salisbury Plain,’ said Markham gloomily. ‘It’ll be raining.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘It’s always raining on Salisbury Plain. When I was in the army, I spent what seemed like years there, running pointlessly in one direction and then back in another direction and then off in a completely different direction. It was like rugby but with bombs instead of balls. Thank God, I barely remember any of it, but the bit I do remember is that it always rains on Salisbury Plain. Great, grey, icy sheets of it, coming at you sideways …’
‘Yes, all right. We get the picture. Three sets of wet weather gear then.’
‘Excellent idea. What will you two be wearing?’
They made it special for me. Dr Bairstow met me in the Great Hall and offered me his arm. We walked slowly down the long corridor, the rest of the History Department trailing along behind, laughing and cracking terrible jokes.
The techies applauded as we approached Number Eight. I looked up. Nearly everyone in the unit was crammed on to the gantry, watching and waving. I waved back.
Leon handed me into Number Eight where Peterson and Markham were already waiting. He didn’t say anything. We’d said it all the night before, curled up together in our room, watching the moon cast shadows on the walls as the soft breeze fluttered the curtains, and we made plans for our future.
He ran a professional eye over the console. ‘Everything’s all laid in. Even an historian won’t be able to get this one wrong.’
Markham snorted. ‘You underestimate them.’
Leon took my hand. ‘Take care.’
‘Of course,’ I said, slightly indignantly. Why does everyone think I don’t?
His gaze swept around the pod, alighting on the other two musketeers. No words were spoken, but it was very clearly understood that the consequences of not safely bringing back either the pod or me would be serious. Probably in that order, too. He might be a husband at night, but during the hours of daylight, he was a techie to his fingertips.
Not that anything could go wrong on this jump. The landscape would be empty. Monotonous, even. As far as
I knew, earthquakes rarely happened on Salisbury Plain. The mammoths and dinosaurs were all dead. Glaciers no longer gouged their way across the landscape. As Markham said, stowing his gear in a locker, even an incendiary historian couldn’t accidentally set Stonehenge alight, because not only was there nothing to burn, but the continual, incessant, never-ending rain would ensure we couldn’t get a flame even if we took one of Professor Rapson’s homemade flame throwers.
‘He does seem to have a bee in his bonnet about Salisbury Plain,’ said Peterson, watching him bang the locker doors closed.
‘He does seem to be scratching a lot,’ I said.
He looked up to see us watching him. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ we said.
‘Sit down Max,’ said Peterson, indicating the right-hand seat.
‘Are you driving?’ I said, suddenly alarmed.
‘Of course. You’re the guest of honour. Now, close your eyes.’
‘Is this so I won’t see you bounce us all the way into Somerset?’
He sighed. ‘No, it’s so that when you open them, the first thing you will see is Stonehenge at sunrise.’
I was touched. ‘Tim, that’s lovely. Thank you.’
‘Good luck everyone,’ Leon said, smiled for me alone, and left the pod.
The door closed behind him.
‘Everyone sitting comfortably?’ said Peterson. ‘Then I’ll begin.’
The world probably went white. I had my eyes closed.
We barely bumped at all. I was impressed. I could hear them both fussing around, muttering to each other. ‘Don’t open your eyes yet.’
‘All right,’ I said, swallowing down my impatience.
‘There we go. Open your eyes, Max.’
I opened my eyes, blinked, and blinked again.
They’d dimmed the lights in the pod so I could appreciate the full beauty of the scene outside.
Stonehenge at sunrise, but not the modern Stonehenge, with the familiar jumble of stones standing like jagged teeth against a wide sky. This was an early version. Tim moved out of the way and I leaned forward to see. I could just make out the dark bluestones, rearing up out of the early morning mist. The huge sarsens were not yet in place. Instead of the famous trilithons, the smaller bluestones stood in lonely splendour. A wonder of light and shade in the early morning light.