by Jodi Taylor
He opened the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut. ‘Does she? She told me she didn’t care.’
Hoyle stirred. Markham rolled him onto his front and pinned both his hands behind his back. That done, we sat on him and took stock of each other.
He nodded at my face. ‘That’s going to sting in the morning.’
‘It bloody stings now,’ I said grumpily.
There are people who bear their troubles bravely and then there’s me.
‘How is he?’
Hoyle was in a bad way. Wet, muddy, bloody, unfocussed, and desperate. He kept twisting around, trying to see what was happening, alternately cursing and begging to be let go.
‘Let me see. For God’s sake, let me see. I can’t be here and not see.’
Markham and I exchanged glances and let him sit up.
‘No sudden moves,’ warned Markham.
He nodded, wiping a trail of blood from his nose. His hands were swollen, bruised, and shaking. Tears merged with the snot and blood. I thought all the fight had gone out of him.
We crouched amongst the rotting trees and watched. The fighting had surged sideways, right up against the edge of the marsh and it was probably safer to stay put than try to make a run for it. Whoever had calculated those coordinates for Hoyle had done a cracking job. I’d never been so close before. The action was brutal and bloody. Only yards away, men were literally being hacked to pieces or trampled into the mud. I saw an arm, still clutching a sword, fly through the air. The ground was red. Men lay pinned beneath horses, screaming for aid.
Someone set up a cry. ‘The king is dead!’
‘No,’ shouted Hoyle in a sudden panic. ‘No, he’s not.’
He was right. Not yet he wasn’t. Away to our left, Richard, still easily recognisable despite being liberally splattered with mud and blood, was fighting like a man possessed. His sword arm rose and fell relentlessly. Men fell beneath his fury as he spurred his horse forward. Henry Tudor was only a sword’s length away, frantically pulling his horse backwards as his bodyguard disintegrated around him.
I couldn’t see his face – unlike Richard, he never raised his visor – but I could see him kicking at his horse, trying to find space to turn him in this mad melee. So desperate to escape that he hadn’t even drawn his sword.
Richard was standing in his stirrups, roaring at him to stand and fight. His horse, trained to fight for him, was trampling those who sought to stand in his way as the king urged him on through blood and bodies, fighting his way towards the seemingly helpless Henry Tudor.
This was the deciding moment. How could he fail? Richard was, literally, only feet away, desperate to get to grips with the hated Henry Tudor. Henry would fall, surely. No one stood between him and Richard’s ferocity. The king, teeth clenched, was literally straining every muscle to reach his hated adversary. The last Lancastrian. Henry would fall and the Plantagenets would endure. How could it be otherwise?
And then, in the blink of an eye, everything changed. Blinded by his overwhelming urge to kill the usurper, Richard had allowed himself to become separated from the main body of his already beleaguered forces. His desperation and fury had driven him far beyond his fellow knights and then, suddenly, seemingly from nowhere, he was surrounded by Stanley’s men – all stabbing and swinging their weapons, circling him, cutting him off.
His horse, splattered with blood and gore, wild-eyed and foaming, reared up, seeking to escape. His back legs sank deeply into the soft ground. At the same time, Richard leaned over to despatch another man at arms. There was a flurry, I couldn’t see exactly what happened – his horse was thrashing around in panic, trying to break free from the bog – and the next minute, the king was unhorsed. He thumped face-down onto the ground and his helmet, with the crown still attached, rolled free across the trampled grass.
A massive roar went up. Henry’s men closed in for the kill.
Hoyle struggled, shouting incoherently. It took all our strength to hold him down in the mud. The fight had not gone out of him after all.
‘A horse!’ he shouted, voice cracking with emotion. ‘A horse! For pity’s sake, someone give him a horse. There. There. Look.’
I looked over my shoulder. There was indeed a spare horse, standing miraculously quietly, reins trailing on the ground.
My momentary hesitation was all Hoyle needed. With a massive effort, he threw us both aside, scrambled to his feet, and started to run towards the horse.
Two mounted men came out of nowhere. Moving fast. The leader slammed into Hoyle’s chest, knocking him clean off his feet. He flew through the air and crashed heavily to the ground. Without pausing, the second rider rode straight over the top of him.
I never saw where they came from and I never saw where they went. I saw no badges. They carried no banners.
We crawled over to where he lay, white-faced, spread-eagled in the mud. I stared in horror. The damage was … extensive. I didn’t even know where to begin. There was no way anyone could make this right.
‘Jesus,’ whispered Markham, looking down at him. ‘Max?’
I shook my head.
He was trying to speak.
‘Lift him up,’ said Markham, quickly. ‘He wants to see.’
So we did. We carefully raised his shoulders and Markham knelt behind him to support his weight. So that he could see the end.
Richard was up on his feet.
Brandishing his sword, he swept a vicious circle about himself, bellowing, ‘Treason! Treason! Treason!’ His voice rose above the sounds of battle around us.
No one came to his aid.
He was surrounded by Henry’s men, but no one moved. For what seemed a very long time, no one moved. No one wanted to make the first move against the king.
‘A horse,’ murmured Hoyle, bubbles frothing on his lips as he spoke. ‘All he needed. No bastard brought him a horse.’
No, they didn’t. There are many who say he was a good king. That he didn’t kill the princes in the tower. That he didn’t murder his wife to marry his niece. That he was a good man. A good soldier. A good king. But when the chips were down – when men had a choice to make – no one came to his aid. No bastard brought him a horse.
But no one had the balls for the final attack, either. We were some distance away, but I could hear men panting, see their chests heaving as they struggled to get their breath. Circling the king. Waiting for an opening. This was a pivotal moment in History but no one wanted to be first one to strike. To kill a king.
Richard was turning with them, sword still outstretched. Still dangerous. He was smaller than I had expected and very slender. Frail, almost, but he was a formidable fighter and everyone knew it.
I saw a pale, mud-splattered face. Dark eyes. Hair, dark with sweat, plastered to his head. At his feet, the White Boar lay twisted and bloody in the mud.
Then, although no word was spoken that I could hear, they all moved at once.
Richard had nowhere to go. There was no one to come to his aid. This was the end and he must have known it, but still he fought. He swung once. A man fell into the crowd and was trampled.
The first blow caught the king across the forehead sending him off balance. He staggered but stayed on his feet.
A moment later, behind him, a man swung his halberd in a wild, wide circle. The impact sliced off the back part of Richard’s skull.
Blood and brain matter sprayed a pink arc in the sunshine.
The sword fell from his hand. He dropped to his knees, swaying slightly, but still not dead. His lips moved.
With a roar of frustration, another nameless man stepped forwards and thrust his sword through the base of his skull.
He twitched – once – twice – and then slowly fell forwards onto his face in the mud.
Suddenly brave, they fell on the body with cries of triumph, hacking and stabbing. There were so many of them they got in each other’s way. Everything and everyone was red with blood.
They tore off his armour. Even the p
added jerkin and linen he wore underneath. Everyone was scrabbling for a souvenir. Fights broke out. Men were kicking his naked body around. Someone drew a sword.
‘We should go,’ I whispered, and Markham nodded. It would do Hoyle no good to see what they did to him next.
He stifled a cry of pain as we heaved him to his feet and with an arm over each shoulder, we splashed back to the pod.
Behind us, I heard a shout of laughter.
The battle had disintegrated into chaos. Everyone was taking up the shout. ‘The king is dead. Richard is dead.’ Men and horses were running in all directions. Many of them fled into the bog, blind in their panic. Twice, someone barged into me, leaving me floundering around in brackish water, struggling not to bring Hoyle down on top of me. The water smelled awful and tasted worse.
Everyone had taken up the cry. ‘Richard is dead. The king is dead.’
We’d have been lost if it wasn’t for Atherton who guided us back. The pod wasn’t as far as I’d thought. We’d spent so long crawling around and hiding in the bushes that I’d completely lost my sense of direction.
We didn’t try to hide. We just put our heads down and moved as fast as we could. Hoyle’s feet dragged behind him. We tried not to, but we hurt him – I know we did, but he hardly made a sound. Once he tried to tell us to leave him and Markham told him to shut up. I wondered myself why we were doing it, but we’re St Mary’s and we don’t leave our people behind.
He was a dead weight. I struggled in the soft ground. We might none of us have made it back but for Atherton, who disobeyed instructions, left the pod, and came to meet us. I was too thankful to relinquish Hoyle to argue. Pulling out my stun gun, I covered our backs, but I needn’t have bothered. It wasn’t a retreat – it was a rout. Men were flinging down armour and weapons and running for their lives. Desperate to get away. To escape the new king’s vengeance.
Somewhere back there, Sir William Stanley was pulling Richard’s crown out of a hawthorn bush. Henry Tudor would leave the battlefield as Henry VII.
Richard would leave naked, slung across a horse with a sword rammed between his buttocks. The humiliation wound.
‘Why are you here?’ I said to Atherton, in mild exasperation. ‘Does nobody listen to a word I say?’
‘I came to get my trousers back,’ said Atherton. ‘If anything happens to them I’m in dead trouble with Mrs Enderby, and you know how brutal she can be.’
He had a point.
We laid Hoyle gently on the floor, propped him up, and angled the screen so he could see what was happening outside. He watched the rout. The king’s army fleeing the field in all directions. We saw Henry stand over Richard’s body, sword in hand. Men cheered as if he had actually done something brave. The traitors stepped up to receive their rewards from the new king.
Richard’s body was mercifully obscured. Hoyle shouldn’t see what they had done to him.
Tears ran down his face, but not from the pain.
We knelt around him. They were all looking at me and there was nothing I could do. Except get him back to St Mary’s. And for what? To me, there’s always been something wrong with nursing someone back to health so you can execute them with a clear conscience.
And it wasn’t completely his fault. Someone had taken advantage of his obsession and sent him here to die. Someone knew there was no way History would ever allow him kill Henry Tudor. Someone sent him here to get St Mary’s into trouble. He’d been used. We all had.
I caught Markham’s eye. His face was grim. His thoughts were following mine.
‘Why?’ he said softly.
I shrugged. ‘He said it himself. So someone who appreciates the full potential of St Mary’s can take over.’
‘He’s dying, isn’t he?’
I nodded.
Hoyle coughed, more blood bubbling from his mouth, and pulled at my trousers. ‘Please. I don’t want to go back. Made a mess of things. Leave me here.’
I looked at him. Impact with the first horse had crushed his chest. The second horse had trampled him. Destriers aren’t light. You have to be a powerful horse to carry the weight of a knight and his armour. His chest was the wrong shape. He could barely breathe. He couldn’t possibly have very long.
What should I do?
‘Leave me here,’ he whispered. ‘They can bury me with all the others. Near Richard.’
I sat back on my heels. The fallen were buried at St James’s Church, Sutton Cheyney. Richard, as we all now know, was buried at the church of the Grey Friars in Leicester.
I sat quietly and had a bit of a think.
‘Leave me here. Please. Everyone hates me.’
‘Of course we’re not leaving you,’ said Markham indignantly. ‘What sort of people do you think we are?’
I looked at his fellow trainees. They didn’t hate him. Atherton was cradling his head. Sykes was gently washing his face with water. North was covering him with a blanket. I felt a sudden glow of pride. They were going to make great historians.
I made a decision.
‘Richard,’ I remembered to use his proper name. ‘I’ve been thinking and there’s a greater service you can perform for him than … well … the one you had in mind today. What do you say?’
He nodded, slightly.
‘Mr Atherton …’ I began to issue instructions.
Markham listened with his mouth open. ‘Well, I’ll be buggered. Max …’
‘It’ll be fine,’ I said with only the slightest twinge of guilt.
Chapter Twenty-three
I instructed North to interrogate the computer. Sykes and Atherton started working on new coordinates. Markham stayed with Hoyle while I rummaged through the med kit.
I shot Hoyle with every pain-killing med I could find. The combined effect would probably kill him, but he wouldn’t live long enough for that to matter.
I set Markham to check the read-outs. We’d had two jumps. One to Bristol and one to Bosworth and we should still be fine, but I wanted to make at least two more. There should be no problem with the cells, but pods need frequent aligning. There’s no other reason for keeping the Technical Section around. If you don’t align them then they start to drift. And anything can set them off. When I first arrived at St Mary’s there was a rumour that an historian had changed a light bulb in the toilet and the pod kept drifting a decade to the left until some genius had worked out why. I’m still not sure I believe that one.
We made Hoyle as comfortable as we could and I joined the others at the console.
‘How’s it going?’
Atherton brought up his calculations. ‘We’re cutting it fine.’
‘We have to. Go back too far and it won’t be there. Go back too soon and we’ll run afoul of the hundred-year rule. We have to get it right on the nose …’
They nodded.
‘Does everyone know what to do when we get there?
Markham and Sykes held up the canisters of the anti-bacteriological paint we used on the decontamination strips. ‘Yes.’
‘Mr Atherton, do you have the exact position?’
‘No. But I think I have it to within about ten feet.’
‘Close enough for St Mary’s work. Miss North and Mr Atherton, you will remain in the pod with Mr Hoyle. Should anything go wrong, you are our backup.’
They weren’t just backup. Hoyle didn’t have long and no one should die alone.
They understood and for Hoyle’s benefit, pretended they didn’t. Besides, they wouldn’t be historians if they didn’t argue.
‘Why? Why do we have to stay here?’
‘Well, for a start, Mr Atherton isn’t wearing any trousers.’
He looked down and went scarlet again. ‘Give me back my trousers this minute.’
I pulled off Atherton’s trousers and began to struggle back into my skirt. Something had gone wrong with the crinoline, and I was now considerably higher on one side than the other. Mrs Enderby was going to stare at me reproachfully.
Atherton was r
egarding his trousers with horror. ‘What have you done to them?’
‘Nothing. They’re just a bit … wet.’
There was a great deal of muttered complaint, the gist of which was that thrusting your legs into wet trousers is neither pleasant nor agreeable. I told him not to be such a baby and were the coordinates ready yet?
‘Are we doing something illegal here?’
Markham grinned at him. ‘How long have you been at St Mary’s?’
We checked the coordinates twice. We had to get this right. Hoyle wasn’t going to last much longer.
I was sitting with him on the floor, explaining what would happen next and enjoying the very faint smile he’d managed to muster. Sykes read out the coordinates. Atherton laid them in. North checked them over. What a team! And with all this extra-curricular activity, they were cutting great swathes through their upcoming training schedule as well. When they’d finished, they turned to me expectantly. Everyone looked at me expectantly.
‘Are we sure about this?’ said North. ‘Suppose someone paints over it?’
‘They won’t,’ said Markham confidently. ‘This is a local government car park. Council officials everywhere head the charge in the battle against entropy. Resisting change with every fibre of their beings. They’ll still be renewing it when the sun explodes.’
Everyone’s familiar with the story. You can read it for yourself in the Leicester Mercury. Because, ladies and gentlemen, ‘R’ marks the spot. Yes, it does. Really. Back when they excavated the council car park, looking for Richard’s remains, there was a faded letter ‘R’, painted on the tarmac. It wasn’t really near a parking space. It didn’t line up with anything. It was just there. It had been there forever. No one knew for what purpose or even when it had appeared. It had just always been there and when they were looking for somewhere to start excavating someone said, ‘“R” marks the spot.’
And it did.
Or rather, it was going to.
I said, ‘Computer, initiate jump.’
The world went white.
Well, here we were. A certain car park in Leicester.