“Time you learned… meddling idiot!” Pendelshape growled. He started to crawl around on the ground, cursing angrily and desperately searching for his weapon.
Suddenly, there were voices. Angus shouted, “Help! Over here, we’re in the clearing.”
A second later, Tony, Gordon and several other royal guardsmen tumbled into sight.
“Over there!” Angus pointed at Pendelshape who was still scrambling around desperately trying to find his gun.
Tony called out to him, “It’s over Pendelshape.”
Pendelshape screamed back, “That’s what you think… VIGIL is about to be crushed.”
“Stand still — or we’ll shoot,” Gordon shouted.
But Pendelshape was having none of it. He stood up, put his head down, dropped his shoulder and charged directly into the perimeter hedge. Instantly, Tony and Gordon let loose a volley of shots. For a second all was quiet. Suddenly, there was a flash of incandescent white light and for a moment the sky above them was as bright as day. Tony and Gordon rushed over to the hedge through which Pendelshape had escaped.
Tony cursed under his breath. “He’s gone. Time signal… this means trouble… we need to get to the safehouse.” He turned back to the guards. “You men — take the queen and Lady Sarah back to the palace immediately. We will go ahead and track down the intruder. When you get back to the palace, get Walsingham to send help and search the surrounding area. Now go!”
Tony peered down at Jack. “Are you okay?”
Jack was starting to come round. His head was spinning; he felt like he’d been hit by a bus.
“Hurts like hell… what happened?”
“You just saved the queen’s life.”
Jack just about had the wherewithal to reply, “But not Lady Sarah’s?”
Tony grimaced. “Don’t know — she’s in a bad way…”
“We’ve got to go…” Gordon said urgently. “We don’t know what Pendelshape is going to do. We need to act while this time signal lasts. We’ve got a couple of hours at most… come on!”
The guardsmen were already escorting the queen away from the clearing. But as they prepared to leave, she walked over to where they stood. Her voice trembled with emotion.
“Sir, you have saved my life. I must now return to the palace for protection until the area is secured. Report to us tomorrow and you shall be rewarded.”
“Your Majesty — we must give chase… the intruder,” Tony pressed.
“Yes — you must go.” Then, quite spontaneously, she slipped a ring from her finger and pressed it firmly into Jack’s hand. “Take this as a token of our thanks. Now Godspeed…” She paused before adding grimly, “And when you find the assassin — kill him — and bring me his head.”
Day of Deliverance
It took them fifteen minutes to reach what Tony called the ‘safehouse’ — a hunting lodge that they had already commandeered in the middle of the deer park about a couple of kilometres from the palace. Jack’s head was still throbbing from Pendelshape’s punch — and in the dark he had to be supported by Angus and Gordon as Tony led the way through the woodland at a lung-bursting pace. When they entered the lodge, Jack and Angus were surprised to find a third member of VIGIL waiting for them — Theo Joplin.
“We’ve got a problem,” Tony said.
“I noticed: the time signal,” Joplin replied.
“Yes, it all went according to plan, except for one thing — Pendelshape has escaped. He could be anywhere.”
Angus was not listening. Instead, he was looking at an array of bags and equipment that were stacked up against one wall of the room. “What is all that stuff?”
“Weaponry of various sorts. Provisions. When Joplin came back to reinforce us, VIGIL supplied what we needed to defeat Pendelshape. Don’t worry about it just now,” Tony said.
Jack’s head was spinning. “I need to sit down.”
“Sorry, Jack — sit there.” Tony pulled out a chair. “Gordon — get the lad an ice pack and break out some of the emergency provisions. We’ll all need our blood sugar up. We haven’t got much time but let’s get ourselves properly organised. What we do next… well, it’s life or death now.”
Soon they were all sitting round the table inside the main room of the lodge. Joplin had warmed up some tomato soup and they were working their way through bread, cheese and chocolate bars. Jack held the ice pack to his head. Despite the throbbing he was listening intently as the VIGIL team quickly pieced together the events of the last few days to work out their next move.
“So the Taurus transfer went wrong?” Angus said.
“It dumped us in some godforsaken bog north of London. At that point we had no idea where you two were — you could have been dead for all we knew,” Tony replied. “We had to lie low and wait for the next signal. To begin with, we froze our butts off in some shack, but then we reckoned we should head to London, because if you or the Revisionists were going to be anywhere it had to be there.”
Gordon added, “And finally, we got a time signal. VIGIL located the time phones and identified where you were and where we were — and they told us where we could find you. They also sent Joplin back to help us. Luckily, going to London was the right move — it hasn’t taken us long to find you…”
“The torture chamber in that big house?”
“Yes. But we got there too late. We must have arrived after Pendelshape took you away. The letter from Marlowe was our first piece of luck. Pendelshape made a mistake. In his rush to take all those time phones and take you prisoner, he just left it there, lying on a table.”
Jack nodded. “You’re right, now I think about it, I remember him saying he’d lost it… but I don’t think he knew he’d left it behind.”
“What did it actually say?” Angus asked.
“Well, now you know,” Joplin replied. “It explained the Spanish plot in detail. One of the plotters, Christo, who was already a member of the Henslowe Players, would use the cover of the players’ visit to Hampton Court to assassinate the queen. The rest of the letter had details of how various other plotters would encourage sympathetic Catholic aristocrats around the country to rise up on news of the queen’s death and provoke a civil war.”
Tony continued, “We disguised ourselves as loyalists who had stumbled across the plot and immediately went to Walsingham.”
“Ironic — that was just what Marlowe had asked us to do with Fanshawe,” Jack said.
“Walsingham already knew that something was afoot — he was suspicious of Marlowe, who had written the letter and was torn as to whether or not he should send it. Then you turned up. The letter was the last piece of the puzzle. Walsingham moved quickly and decided to set a trap for the plotters at Hampton Court on the opening day of the play.”
“The plan worked well,” Tony said. “Although, Angus, what you did was a surprise. Gordon was about to take out Christo, but you were just too quick.”
“So… who was that other queen — you know, Lady Sarah?” Jack paused, his voice quiet. “Will she die?”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid it is likely. She was incredibly brave to act as the queen’s double,” Tony replied. “She looks quite like the queen… and dressed up in all that garb and in character presiding over the play, how on earth was Christo to know any different? It’s not as if he’d ever seen a photo of the queen. In the wilderness it also confused Pendelshape — probably bought us some time.”
“And the crossbow men?”
“Royal guards, disguised as courtiers. The entire thing was a set up — the whole audience — the queen’s double, everything. We hadn’t much time, but it came together on the night.”
“You knew that Whitsun and Gift would be there?”
“We were pretty sure, and we hoped Pendelshape would be there as well, together with any other Revisionists, so we could get them all at the same time. The Revisionist plan was to piggyback on the existing Spanish plot. They want their interventions to be as ‘light touch’ as
possible — saves them work and makes it all cleaner.”
“You and the crossbow men were ready,” Angus said. “Brilliant.”
“Losing Pendelshape was not so brilliant, though. Unless we can nail him, we’re done for.”
Joplin looked at Jack, concentrating hard. “Jack, after Pendelshape took you prisoner, was there anything, anything at all, that he said about his plans to change history?”
“It was pretty amazing. He showed us a kind of game where Spain conquers England and then all of the Americas and that becomes a basis for some sort of global domination. He said there was a way of measuring how it would be better than our present history — real history, if you like. Called it ‘UI’ or something.”
“Utility Index?” Joplin looked at his colleagues with ashen-faced incredulity. “They must have developed the causal modelling to a very sophisticated degree. That is very worrying.”
“Er, sorry?” Angus said.
Joplin explained. “If this software can really model intended changes into the future with such precision, that is a truly powerful ability. It is a capability that we in VIGIL certainly never thought possible. Basically, they can play God.”
“Sometimes I reckon Pendelshape thinks he is God,” Jack said.
Joplin rubbed the back of his neck. “This is very serious, Jack. Did Pendelshape say anything else — was he more specific?”
Jack thought for a moment about what Pendelshape had told them. “He said ideally he needed to do two things. First, he said Elizabeth must die to create disorder across the country — a sort of power vacuum. Then he said the Spanish Armada needed to succeed. The Spanish troops under the Duke of Parma in the Netherlands could then just walk in and take control. In fact, he seemed to think even if they didn’t manage to kill the queen, the second part of the plan could still work, as long as the Armada succeeded.”
“The Armada — did he say anything more about that?”
Angus piped up, “He mentioned a battle… Grave — something.”
Joplin banged the table. “Gravelines! I knew it. That confirms it.” Joplin jumped to his feet and started to pace the room. “I have been piecing together a theory based on the information your father gave us and our knowledge of history. Gravelines was a sea battle that took place in the east of the English Channel. The defeat of the Armada was down to many things… but if there was one point where you wanted to make a decisive change in favour of the Spanish fleet, Gravelines would be it. Gravelines was the point where the English ships engaged and damaged the great ships of the Armada. After Gravelines, the Armada fled up the English coast, badly battered but still intact. After that point though, the storms got them. Those that did survive the wrecks and struggled ashore were often murdered and robbed. If you wanted to change the outcome of events for Phillip II and Spain and allow a Spanish victory, the history of England, Spain and the world would be dramatically different. It would be Spain’s day of deliverance.”
“How would you do it, though? I mean, how can Pendelshape take on all those English ships on his own?” Jack asked.
Joplin shook his head. “I don’t know. But you’re right Jack, you would need some way to destroy the English fleet. Quickly and easily. Some form of military superiority. With the fleet at the bottom of the Channel, London and England would be open for the Armada to transport the Duke of Parma’s Spanish troops from the Netherlands into England, just as they planned. England had no army that could resist them. It would only be a matter of weeks before all of England was in Phillip II’s hands. Your information confirms my theory: Gravelines is the critical event. I am convinced the Revisionists will use this time signal to stage an intervention. Pendelshape will want to get on with it.” Joplin gestured at the bags of equipment arranged along one wall of the room. “We need to get going — let’s take what we need from that lot and Tony, you need to code the time phones for the battle of Gravelines — 8th August 1588.”
“Okay.” Tony opened a thin briefcase on the table and took out two time phones. He handed one to Jack and one to Angus. “Yours — and don’t lose them this time.”
Jack picked up the time phone. “Hold on, you’re not expecting us to come as well?”
“Of course. It’s like Inchquin said — you two are fully paid-up members of VIGIL now — part of the team, and where we’re going, we’ll need all the help we can get.”
“What — you’re taking us into a war zone?”
“No mistake, Jack — this is war.”
Gravelines Graveyard
Jack and Angus were squashed into a wooden barrel that was open at the top. Above them was clear sky. Jack popped his head over the edge of the barrel and immediately wished he hadn’t. They were suspended forty metres in the air above a choppy, grey sea. Seconds ago, before the time transport, they had been in the safehouse. The barrel swung from side to side in a giddy arc. It felt like some sort of mad fairground attraction. In fact, they were in the crow’s nest of an English battleship. But this was no ordinary battleship — they were soaring high above the deck of The Revenge, Sir Francis Drake’s flagship, as it led the English line towards the Spanish Armada. The ship’s motion in the water was transmitted through the masts so that at the crow’s nest the movement was wildly accentuated. Jack’s response was to cling on to the edge of the barrel to avoid being flung into the abyss below. But his terror was replaced by goggle-eyed incredulity when he surveyed the scene beneath them.
The sea around them was thick with ships of all shapes and sizes — massive galleons, barges and hulks — some powered by sail, some by oars and some by both. Everywhere, they could see white canvas sails billowing in a freshening wind and a forest of masts, fighting tops and the complex tracery of rigging. The sails of the great Spanish galleons were emblazoned with giant red crosses. Behind them, the English ships were adorned with the St George cross, the royal standard and the rose of the House of Tudor.
“Ships… everywhere…” Angus gasped in amazement.
“Look…”
Jack pointed to a very large Spanish galleon on which The Revenge was rapidly closing in. They could even make out the lettering on its side — San Martin — the Spanish flagship. With its raised castles, fore and aft, it towered over The Revenge, which by contrast was built for speed and agility. They were close enough to see men with muskets and arquebuses in the fighting tops of the San Martin and lines of close-packed soldiers along the rail of the decks ready to fire. Jack knew that the Spanish would try to grapple and board the English ship, but they had already learned from bitter, earlier experiences on the Armada campaign that the English would not allow them to do so. Instead, using their greater manoeuvrability, the English would keep just out of grappling distance and one by one they would use their superior gunnery to pick off and pulverise each lumbering Spanish galleon, like a pack of hungry wolves descending on a helpless, tethered cow.
“Cling on. Looks like we’re going in,” Angus said.
The Revenge was less than twenty metres from the San Martin when first her bow guns and then her broadside guns erupted in cannon fire. Although Jack and Angus were above the main action, they were still in danger, but the spectacle had a hypnotic momentum and they stared in wonder as they inched past the San Martin. Jack could see that there were holes in her sails already and some of her magnificent carpentry had been reduced to matchwood. They could hear screaming from the close-packed decks and upper works as chain-shot, hail-shot and cube-shot, each designed to maim, kill and destroy in its own unique and bloody way, took their terrible toll.
Jack looked away and tried to focus on his feet and the inside of the barrel, but Angus continued to stare — his face lined in horror.
“Those poor guys…”
Finally, The Revenge drifted clear, but the plight of the San Martin was not over. Behind them, the rest of Drake’s squadron, followed by Frobisher’s squadron, headed by The Triumph and Hawkins’s squadron in The Victory, lined up in turn to pummel the San Ma
rtin. They now saw other ships of the Armada rallying to protect the San Martin, but the English cannons pounded relentlessly in a progressive rumble as the cannons fired successively along the length of each ship.
Suddenly, a round of chain shot from a Spanish ship spun through the upper rigging of The Revenge. It hit the upper mast and sliced through the rope that tethered the crow’s nest. Jack and Angus felt the barrel lurch violently as the securing ropes fell away. The barrel inverted itself, although somehow it remained hanging by a single thread. Jack and Angus could do nothing to save themselves. Sliding out of the upturned barrel, Angus was propelled through empty space, but before he could reach any speed, he slammed into a cross-spar that broke his fall. He clawed desperately at a flapping rope secured from the mast above, which he finally managed to reach and cling on to. But then, a second shot shredded the cross-spar, which promptly collapsed, leaving Angus suspended in the rigging, twenty metres up, swinging from side to side like a human pendulum.
Jack was only slightly luckier. As he was launched deckwards, the furious assault from the Spanish ship dislodged the upper gallant and its huge billowing sail floated seawards like a giant parachute. Jack, accelerating rapidly through the air, landed square on top of the rolling canvas as it floated down. The sail deposited him gracefully on the foredeck of The Revenge, before folding in on itself and floating gently into the sea. Jack had no time to reflect on his incredible escape. The deck of The Revenge was alive with men fighting for their lives. He craned his neck upwards, searching the rigging for any sign of Angus, but he could see nothing.
“You there!” a man shouted. “Gun deck!”
With no time to think, Jack found himself being bundled below. The gun deck was a single, low-ceilinged cavern. The massive trunks of the ship’s masts passed directly through it, rising from the floor and up through the roof. Inside the gun deck, Jack could see that every timber was black with spent powder. There were huge iron guns decorated with coats of arms, which rested on massive carriages held on wheels cut from whole sections of tree trunk. The oak planking around them was grooved where the guns had been run in and out time and again. Piles of shot and cartridges of black powder were stacked in the lockers by the guns alongside ramrods, powder scoops and match cord. Suddenly, a cannon ball from a Spanish ship ripped though the planking of the gun deck, unleashing a blizzard of splinters. Jack saw one man collapse, impaled by a shard of wood. But his comrades kept grimly to the routine of their work. As the men sweated, the master gunners barked orders. It was a scene from hell, and Jack knew that if he stayed he would die. Nobody noticed as he bolted back up on deck.
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