No Time Like the Past

by Jodi Taylor

  We drank our tea.

  ‘So no one falls off the roof?’ persisted Markham.

  ‘Well, if anyone does, I’m betting it’s Edmund Lacey.’

  ‘Why did he desert his unit in the first place?’

  ‘Dunno. Maybe he thought his brother was already dead and came to claim the property.’

  ‘But there were sons to inherit.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said quietly, ‘but there was also a fire in which one son died. The other escaped only thanks to their servant. Who knows for what purpose Captain Lacey chased him up onto the roof?’

  Silence.

  ‘A bit of a bastard, then,’ observed Markham.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And that’s who we’re going to check out?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Cool.’

  We assembled outside my favourite pod, Number Eight, and checked each other over.

  Peterson and Markham both wore unpadded jerkins, knee-length breeches, stockings, heavy leather shoes, and mirth-provoking hats. Fortunately for me, ladies’ costumes were looser and more comfortable than the heavily embroidered portable torture chambers of Elizabethan times. However, I do have to say that for the short, mildly overweight ginger historian, the mid-17th century wasn’t a good look. In addition to what Mrs Enderby from Wardrobe maintained was actually a very moderate bum roll, my ankle-length full skirt made me look wider than I was high.

  I unwisely enquired whether my bum looked big in this.

  There was a brief pause.

  ‘Bloody massive,’ said Peterson. ‘I’m not sure we’ll get you through the door.’

  I glared at him. ‘You could at least have tried for a tactful response.’

  ‘That was the tactful response. Be grateful.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Markham, ‘because I was going to say …’

  ‘Just shut up and get in the pod.’

  Once inside, we were joined by the centre of my universe. Or Chief Farrell, as everyone else called him. He wore the orange jumpsuit of the Technical Section and was, as usual, festooned with tools and implements. He had more silver in his hair than when we first met, but his blue eyes remained as bright as ever. He winked at me and began to check over the console.

  Markham stowed our gear while Peterson and I ran our eyes over the read-outs.

  ‘All laid in,’ said Leon, stepping back. ‘Return coordinates, too.’

  Arising out of an assignment last year, I’d made two recommendations to Dr Bairstow. The first was that there were no more open-ended assignments. Peterson and I had jumped to 14th-century Southwark last year, and he’d carelessly picked up a touch of plague. ‘Just a twinge,’ as he was fond of saying, but I’d been unable to get him back to St Mary’s.

  Not normally a problem, they’d have sent out search parties soon enough, but in this case, being open-ended, we had no return date, so no one knew we were in trouble. By the time St Mary’s realised something was wrong, it could have been too late. So now, every assignment had a specific return date and time, and if we didn’t show up, they’d come looking for us.

  The second recommendation concerned contamination. We always decontaminate on our return from every mission. It had occurred to me – actually, I’d been sniffing around Peterson’s groin at the time, but never mind that – that our modern bugs could be as fatal to contemporaries as theirs were to us. Look at Cortéz and the South American natives. After some discussion, we now not only decontaminated on our return, but also when we left St Mary’s as well. As a further precaution – Peterson getting the plague had been a nasty shock for everyone, especially for him – the inside of the pod was painted in that special paint that kills bacteria when lit with fluorescent lights and a strip across the floor ensured our shoes were treated as well.

  Markham shut the locker doors and said, ‘All done.’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Leon. ‘Good luck, everyone.’ He held out his hand as he spoke. We shook hands, just as we always did when others were present. His hand was warm and rough and firm. ‘Stay safe.’

  ‘You too,’ I said.

  He smiled for me alone and then exited the pod. The door closed behind him.

  I seated myself. ‘Whenever you’re ready, Tim,’ and felt the familiar tingle of anticipation.

  ‘Computer – initiate jump.’

  And the world went white.

  We stared at an unfamiliar St Mary’s.

  ‘It looks so small,’ said Markham, eventually, and he was right.

  This was not the St Mary’s we knew, with its flat roof and Virginia creeper, its sprawl of outbuildings, its car park, and neat grounds. This St Mary’s was square and blocky, with a steeply gabled roof from which protruded randomly placed chimneys which wouldn’t have been part of the original structure and must have been added on as required.

  There were no formal gardens as we knew them, just trees, bushes, an orchard and extensive vegetable garden. Sheep cropped the ancestor of Mr Strong’s beloved South Lawn. There was no drive leading to the house, just a wide grassy path, rutted with wagon tracks. The gates were high, wooden, and firmly shut. Most noticeably, there was no lake. A string of ponds had been built – by the monks, I guessed – to supplement their diet with the occasional carp. When Capability Brown or whoever got his hands on St Mary’s, they and the surrounding boggy area would be excavated to make the familiar lake.

  The silence was complete. I remembered what Dr Dowson had said about the monks drifting away. What was pleasant seclusion at our St Mary’s was remote and lonely at this one. Everything looked small, rural, and at the moment, very peaceful.

  That wouldn’t last. In a day or so, much of this St Mary’s would be gone.

  There was no one around. The shadows were long. The sun was setting.

  ‘Right,’ I said, turning from the screen. ‘Plan of action. We wait until it’s dark and then nip across the grass. Do not fall over the sheep. We’ll approach from the east, and see if we can get a window open. Then it’s up the stairs to the attics and find a place from which to observe events. Tomorrow is the day the Roundheads turn up.’

  ‘Are we likely to encounter any dogs?’ said Peterson.

  ‘Unlikely,’ said Markham. ‘Not if they have sheep outside, but in case my lady has a lapdog or similar …’ He flourished a small aerosol.

  ‘Not pepper,’ I warned. The last thing we wanted was a pack of hysterical, sneezing, panic-stricken spaniels yelping all over the house.

  ‘No, it’s something the professor knocked up. It’s quite harmless. It just … confuses them.’

  ‘Well in that case, for God’s sake don’t spray it on Peterson.’

  ‘Don’t spray it at all,’ warned Peterson. ‘Remember the professor’s hair lacquer?’

  He had a point.

  Responding to the many complaints from female historians about the difficulties of managing the enormous lengths of hair with which they were cursed, the professor had given the problem some thought and then announced the invention of a hairspray guaranteed to hold in place even the most unruly locks. Delighted historians had given it a go until the whole lot was confiscated by Dr Bairstow when it was discovered to be so inflammable you couldn’t even walk under a streetlight without featuring in the next scientific paper on spontaneous human combustion.

  I interrupted the discussion between Peterson and Markham who had gone on to dispute exactly who had been responsible for the small fire in the copse behind our big barn, and why Peterson couldn’t land a pod without bumping it, which was threatening to become wide-ranging and noisy.

  ‘The sun’s going down. I’m going to decontaminate now,’ and operated the lamp. The cold blue light glowed and I felt the hairs on my arms shiver.

  ‘I swear that bloody thing makes you sterile,’ muttered Markham.

  Nobody fell over a sheep. A minor miracle in itself.

  The moon came up, sending long blue shadows over silver grass. We flitted from tree to tree in a magical landscape. The
woods came down much closer to the house than in our time and we hugged the treeline as far as we could.

  I’m not sure we needed to. There were no signs of life anywhere. No lights showed from the blank windows. No dogs barked. Even the stables seemed deserted. Had Sir Rupert taken all his horses off to war? Not even leaving his wife the working horses for the land?

  We paused for a final check before approaching the house.

  ‘This is suspiciously easy,’ murmured Peterson. ‘Are we even sure anyone’s at home?’

  ‘We’re not sure of anything,’ I whispered, which was true. Our assignments usually had a stated purpose. To observe the fall of Troy. To carry out an in-depth study of the Cretaceous period. To catch a glimpse of Isaac Newton. Today we’d just turned up. To see what, if anything, happened next. To solve a mystery we weren’t sure even existed. And, of course, to discover why something or someone only Markham could see kept falling from the roof.

  It seemed likely that out here in the country, the household went to bed at sunset and rose at dawn. The house certainly looked bedded down for the night.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Before we lose the moonlight.’

  We made a final dash to the side of the house, standing in its shadow as clouds scudded across the sky. The wind felt cool on my face.

  Peterson and Markham felt around the windows while I kept watch. They didn’t seem to be having any luck until suddenly, in the dark, I heard a quiet tinkle of broken glass.

  ‘What?’ I said, managing an outraged whisper with no trouble at all.

  ‘Relax,’ said Markham. ‘I was doing this when I was in my cradle.’

  ‘What?’ said Peterson. Ditto with the whisper.

  ‘That’s why I had to join the army.’

  ‘You’re a felon?’ It takes talent to hiss when there isn’t a single ‘s’ in the sentence.

  ‘Well, yes. Aren’t you?’

  ‘You had to join the army?’ persisted Peterson.

  ‘Yeah. It was that or – something else.’ He was working the catch. ‘Served under Major Guthrie. Didn’t you know? There we go.’

  He eased open a small window.

  We paused for irate householders, watchdogs, patrolling servants, crying children, whatever, but apart from the odd owl, we could hear nothing.

  Markham was fastidiously picking up the glass.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  He tossed the shards under a bush. ‘We don’t want some servant noticing a broken pane and raising the alarm.’

  ‘Oh. Good thinking.’

  ‘I offer a complete service,’ he said smugly.

  We pushed the curtain aside and clambered in, dropping silently to the floor. Risking a little light, Peterson flashed a tiny torch.

  We appeared to be in a small, wood-panelled room. I wondered if this was Sir Rupert’s study. Just faintly, I thought I could make out the smells of wood, leather, and tobacco. Like most rooms of the period, it wasn’t over-cluttered with furniture and what there was of it was dark and heavy. Markham crossed to the door, opened it a crack, and peered out. Peterson and I remained motionless.

  He watched and listened for what seemed a very long time then signalled us forwards. From now on, there would be no talking.

  We glided across the Great Hall, keeping to the shadows. There was no glass lantern in the roof. Massive hammer beams supported the high ceiling, but the smell was just the same – dust and damp stone. I listened to St Mary’s talking to itself in the darkness. Boards creaked. Timbers settled. Somewhere, a mouse skittered along the floor.

  The staircase was unfamiliar, being long and straight and running up the wall. The famous half-landing, the centre of St Mary’s life, had yet to be born. We eased our way around the gallery, silent apart from the swish of my skirts. From somewhere in the dark, I could hear the murmur of a woman’s voice. A high, childish voice answered. We veered silently away, past closed doors, heading for the narrow staircase in the corner. Our plan was to spend the night in the attics and that was all the plan we had. We had no idea what to do next. We’ve had missions fall apart around us – that happens all the time – but this was the first time we’d set out with no clear course of action. It was quite exciting, actually.

  The attics were tiny. We could barely stand up in our little room. Peterson flashed his torch and I stared in wonder at the treasure trove of broken household goods, unfashionable portraits, bric a brac … and it would all be gone in a day or two when the place went up in flames. We found a corner. Markham indicated he would take the first watch and I settled down to sleep.

  I had the last watch. I sat against the wall, watched the patterns of light travel across the floor as the sun rose, and then woke them for breakfast. We sat on the floor and munched a couple of those shitty high-energy biscuits they keep shoving in our ration packs and listened to the house stir. A door opened and a woman’s voice called outside. Someone must be in the hen house because I could hear chicken noises. Faintly, a child shouted and there were running footsteps on a wooden floor. They were up and about. Time to get cracking.

  We were just packing everything away when we heard the hoof beats. Someone was approaching – and at great speed. It had begun.

  ‘Bloody hell, he’s early,’ muttered Peterson. ‘Leave all this. We’ll come back for it later.’

  We crept down the stairs and oozed out onto the gallery, grateful, for once, for the bad lighting. Correctly guessing that everyone’s attention would be on the front door, we wriggled forwards. Lying on our stomachs and peering through the bannisters, we had an excellent view of the front doors below and most of the Hall. There was no vestibule. The front doors opened directly into the Great Hall. Whoever was there – whatever was about to happen – we would be able to see everything.

  Peterson and I are historians. We get caught up in what’s happening. That’s why we usually bring a member of the Security team with us. They watch our backs because we forget to. My attention was fixed on downstairs. I never thought to look behind us.

  Markham nudged me and nodded over my shoulder. Two little boys, dressed well but soberly, stood in the doorway to what I guessed might be Lady Lacey’s own sitting room. They held hands and both of them looked terrified. Galloping horsemen arriving just after dawn during a civil war – that’s never reassuring.

  The eldest boy was very pale, and slender and delicate looking in his blue jacket and breeches. His blond curls hung around his face. His brother was stockier, darker, and dressed in similar material. Idly, I wondered if it was his brother’s outgrown suit. These must be Charles and James, the two boys.

  They both stared at us in silence. Given that the sight of three complete strangers lying on their stomachs, peering through the bannisters couldn’t possibly be something they’d ever seen before, we probably had only seconds before one or both of them raised the alarm.

  Down below, someone pounded on the front door, demanding admittance. The boys stopped staring at us and turned their attention to the Great Hall instead. Then back to us again.

  Markham rolled over onto his back, winked at them, put his finger to his lips, and gestured them back into the room again. Amazingly, they did as they were told. In fact, they seemed glad to go.

  Downstairs, the pounding redoubled. No servant came to answer the door. Had they already fled? In all our time there, we never saw a single one.

  Lady Lacey – at least I assumed that was who she was – slowly crossed the Hall. I could only see her rear view. She wore something light on her head – I couldn’t make it out. Her dress was of some dark, stiff material, caught up over a lighter underdress. Her skirt was even fuller than mine was and the wide sleeves gave her that fashionable narrow back. In the sudden silence, I could hear the sound of silk swishing over the stone flags.

  The pounding began again. Visibly squaring her shoulders, she pulled back the bolts. The door crashed back against the wall. Echoes boomed around the building. I risked a look over my shoulder. The
boys had gone.

  A dusty figure tumbled into the Hall, bent forwards, and panted for breath.

  Margaret Lacey stepped back, her hands to her face.

  ‘Edmund?’

  I suddenly had a very bad feeling about all of this.

  Straightening, he seized both her hands. ‘Margaret – I have come to warn you. He is coming. He is on his way. I came across the fields, but he will be here at any moment.’

  She half turned and I could make out her white face.

  ‘Rupert? Coming here? But why?’

  I couldn’t see his face clearly – he was outlined against the light behind him, but I heard him take a deep, shuddering breath.

  ‘Because he knows, Margaret. God help us both – he knows!’

  Chapter Three

  You see, this is the problem with legends. They’re legends. A bunch of colourful facts bundled together to make a good story. This is why the world has historians. We jump back to a given event, sort out the real facts, escape whatever peril(s) is (are) menacing us at the time, and return in triumph. That’s what historians do. It’s not all sitting around drinking tea and blowing things up, you know.

  Anyway, it seemed that even St Mary’s gets their facts wrong occasionally. From the way they were clinging to each other, it was obvious that Edmund Lacey and his sister-in-law had a greater affection for each other than had previously been known.

  And who was ‘he’? And what did ‘he’ know? These were not difficult questions to answer, and ‘he’ was on his way here. We were in uncharted territory now.

  I glanced at Peterson, immersed in the human drama below, and at Markham who was still keeping watch behind us. He cocked his head, listening. Then I heard them too. More hoof beats. And more than one horseman this time. Markham melted away into the shadows, reappearing moments later to whisper, ‘Four of them. Riding hard. Don’t like the look of this.’

  Neither did I. I twisted round to make sure both boys were safely out of the way.

  Back down in the Hall, both Margaret and Edmund Lacey had also heard the sound of approaching riders. She uttered a small shriek and clung to him.