by Alex Scarrow
‘We’ll do the visits first, then you can return with the loot, but I need to go on to Kirklees.’
Bob stopped. ‘You should not travel without an escort, Liam. There are still bandits in the forest.’
‘I know … I know. I’ll take some men with me, I promise. On horseback we should make it before nightfall; we can stay at the priory and return early tomorrow. I just think it’s time to update the others, and make sure Becks is ready to come back. Her mission clock is ticking down too.’
‘Affirmative.’
Eddie called out and his men ceased drilling. Liam watched the recruits at rest; a pair of young women moved among them with water butts strung from poles across their shoulders. They served the hot and thirsty men ladles of water that they drank and splashed across their sweaty faces.
‘I wonder,’ said Liam, ‘I wonder how she’s doing?’
CHAPTER 45
1194, Oxford Castle, Oxford
‘Have I told you, Lady Rebecca … have I told you how beautiful your eyes are?’ John cooed from her lap. He looked up at her, a blissful smile stretched across his face. ‘Have I, my dear?’
Becks nodded and smiled down at him faintly. ‘One hundred and twenty-seven times, Sire,’ she replied matter-of-factly as she gently stroked his cheek.
He laughed. ‘You are so … so precise!’ He sat up suddenly and looked at her intently. ‘That is why, I think, I have fallen so in love with you. You are not like all the other women I have known … feather-headed moo-cows who think of nothing but poems and silly frivolities. You are …’ He frowned, struggling to find the right words. ‘You are so very different!’
She nodded slowly, carefully weighing up what was the most appropriate thing to say back to him.
Response Candidates:
1. I thank you for your kind words, Sire. (78 % relevance)
2. I wish to be different for you, my love. (21 % relevance)
3. I am different, Sire. I am a combat unit from the year 2056. (1 % relevance)
She giggled shyly, a gesture she’d observed other women use all the time in response to flirtatious flattery. ‘I thank you for your kind words, Sire.’
He frowned. Mock serious. ‘Sire? Sire? You must call me John, my dear. Please. In fact I am yours to call whatever you wish!’
She nodded. ‘Then I shall call you John.’
He smiled dreamily and collapsed back, his head cradled in her lap once more. ‘I have never felt so content,’ he murmured, his eyes closing as she stroked his troubled brow. ‘Never in my miserable life, not even with so many things to vex me — troublesome barons, no money, unrest, troubles, troubles, troubles …’ He continued, she pretending to listen, nodding at what she calculated were the right moments, but the cognitive part of her mind was busy elsewhere.
[Mission time remaining: 588 hours 56 minutes]
Time was running out. Another three weeks and she would have to return to 2001. If frustration had been an emotion she could emulate, she supposed she’d be feeling it now. Just over five months of this, simulating love-play with the Earl of Cornwall and Gloucester. That first night he’d visited her room unannounced, expecting her to surrender herself to him … she had miscalculated the response and thrown him to the floor. That was the night, he later admitted, that he’d fallen head over heels — literally — in love with her.
At first, she’d been uncertain how effective and convincing her responses were going to be to his overtures, his poems, his breast-beating declarations of utter infatuation. But then one of the household maids had spotted her awkwardness and taken her to one side. An older woman, with a lifetime of experience to offer her, she listened intently. The maid gave Becks advice on how best to respond to all the things John was likely to say, how best to please him.
She’d wondered how exactly to translate the nugget of advice into a practical behavioural response strategy. Cross-referencing it with modern language idioms, she concluded the old lady meant: Play hard to get.
Which was the tactical solution she’d decided to adopt. And it appeared to have worked. John, to use another modern expression, ‘was like putty in her hands’. Like a fawning puppy. She understood that gave her some degree of leverage; that she could ask favours of John that no one else would dare to ask. But a part of her AI understood human behaviour enough to know that to ask him too much about the thing she wished to know more about was to invite his suspicion.
This thing, of course, was the Treyarch Confession.
In the last five months, she had chosen to raise the subject less than half a dozen times. On each occasion she’d only asked after ensuring John had consumed enough wine to render him insensibly drunk.
His rambling replies had yielded some useful information.
The Confession was something that his older brother, Richard, had come across as a much younger man, back when the sons of Henry II were all still boys and living at Beaumont Palace. It was apparent that John was not lying when he said he had no idea how the document found its way into the royal library, but that somehow his father had acquired it.
According to John, throughout his childhood he had memories of how his father guarded it carefully and read it frequently. It became an obsession of his older brother Richard, an obsession to find out what mysterious story was contained in this Confession. And one day, when he was merely twelve years of age, Richard finally discovered the Confession hidden carefully in his father’s library of scrolls, parchments and manuscripts.
And it changed him.
As John muttered on about love, in her lap, Becks replayed in her mind the audio file of the last occasion they’d spoken about the Confession. He’d been lying by the fire as it roared and crackled from a fresh log, his voice thick with drunkenness, his words slurred.
‘Overnight it seemed … Richard was utterly transformed. He was still an awful bully. But now … now he was a bully with a singular vision of destiny. He said he would take Father’s kingdom and make it an empire. That God had shown him the way he would do it. I know … I know this is why the stupid fool went to the Holy Land. As soon as Father and our oldest brother Geoffrey died and Richard became king … that’s the first thing he did — launch his bloody crusade.’
Becks heard her own voice. ‘God showed him the way he would do it?’
‘Yes … yes … it was in that wretched Confession, wasn’t it? The Grail story, you see? It was all in there. It was what turned him into the crazy man … what’s made him so, so very dangerous.’
‘Is the Confession still in the royal library?’
‘I … I … would not know, nor care to know. It … I suppose Richard would consider Oxford the safest place for it to be kept. But, please … enough of that madman, my dear … I’m getting stomach pains thinking about him.’
A pause. ‘You fear him?’
Another pause. A long one. Then finally …
‘I am terrified of him.’
‘Because he will blame you for losing the Grail?’
No sound except the crackle of flames on scorched wood. Becks, however, recalled his gesture, a silent nod of the head, his eyes wide with the look of a man considering his own imminent death.
‘I fear I will be a dead man on his return.’
She recalled the haunted look on his face. ‘Let me at least enjoy whatever time I have left … with you … and not speak his name again tonight?’
CHAPTER 46
1194, Kirklees Priory, Yorkshire
Sebastien Cabot greeted Liam with a cheerful wave as he clucked his tongue and reined in his horse. Behind him the crunch of boots and horses’ hooves on hard sun-baked soil ceased as Eddie ordered the men to a halt.
‘Sire!’ called out Cabot, stepping through the gate of the priory’s front gardens to meet him. ‘’Tis a wonderful surprise!’
Liam swung a leg over his horse’s back and stepped down out of the stirrups on to the ground. He was hot and clammy beneath the quilted tunic and the robe of office.
He ran a sleeved forearm across his damp forehead, pushing dark sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes.
‘It’s hot, so it is,’ he said needlessly.
Cabot winked slyly. ‘Good for the grapes and apples.’
The two stared at each other for a moment, then Liam extended a hand. Cabot grasped it with both. ‘Has been too many weeks since last I saw ye, my friend.’
Liam nodded. ‘Busy. Very busy.’
‘What has brought ye this way, sire?’
‘We paid a visit to Sir Guy’s estate, and Sir Raymond’s this morning. Both pleading poverty, but, like all the others, both very plump and extremely wealthy. So we collected what they owed.’
‘Long overdue, I would say.’
‘Aye.’ Liam wiped the damp from the thin downy bristles on his upper lip. ‘Sebastien,’ he said quietly, ‘I’m also here to … uhh … to talk.’
The old man nodded. ‘Of course.’
Liam turned to gesture at his soldiers, all of them exhausted from the miles they’d covered so far today, and equally hot under their vests of chain mail. ‘Would your brothers see to these soldiers? A little water? A little food maybe?’
‘Of course, sire.’ He turned and bellowed orders across the garden, and several monks emerged from a small orchard beside the barn, baskets in hand.
‘Ye wish to go somewhere private?’ asked Cabot.
Liam nodded.
‘News of yer good work in Nottingham has spread,’ said Cabot. ‘Ye are fast becoming a popular sheriff, young Liam.’
‘But not so popular with all them noble fellas, right?’
‘The nobles hate ye.’ He shrugged. ‘They see ye as a young pretender. They each wonder why it is that John has not chosen them to administer the north. And,’ he chuckled, ‘ye actually make ’em pay the taxes they owe.’
Liam slurped on his flagon, savouring the cool trickle of water down his parched throat. ‘Sebastien … we will have to leave soon.’
‘Leave? To yer time? Why?’
‘It’s just the way it works. We have to go back to our time for a bit.’
‘But … but ye can’t return the sheriff’s office to that wastrel, William De — ’
‘We’ll be back. I promise you. We just have to check in with our colleagues. See how things are in the future.’
‘The future,’ uttered Cabot. His old face creased. ‘I would dearly love to see a little of that.’
‘It’s not so great, Sebastien,’ Liam sighed.
‘Tell me something of it.’
The old monk already knew too much. Someday soon a decision was going to have to be made about him: whether they could trust him or not. A little more knowledge would probably make little difference.
‘It’s a crowded world,’ he replied. ‘That’s what I find. A crowded world full of noisy fat people.’
‘Fat?’
He nodded. ‘As plump as the lords and barons. Everyone, even the poorest, lives a lord’s life by comparison to the people here. Everyone eats more than they need. Everyone has more things than they would ever need.’
‘’Tis a good time that ye come from, then.’
He shrugged. ‘It should be.’
Cabot’s eyes narrowed. ‘But ye do not miss it?’
Liam knew, when he was all done here in 1194, he’d miss rising each morning with the sound of cockerels stirring and the distant ring of a blacksmith’s hammer, the smell of woodsmoke and unleavened bread baking in hundreds of clay ovens.
‘I could happily stay here,’ he said after a while, then realized that was perhaps too much of an admission. ‘But I can’t, Sebastien. Duty calls, so it does.’
‘Duty … I can understand that.’
A gentle breeze stirred the tall grass of the graveyard. They were alone here at the rear of the priory.
‘Liam,’ said Cabot after a while, ‘is this world of mine — ’ he gestured with both his hands — ‘is this world as it should be now? Is this the correct England of yer history books?’
‘I don’t know yet. The unrest that there was in Nottingham months ago could have become a much bigger problem for John. There was a new history created in my time: a history where a rebellion broke this country into pieces, and the French invaded and there was no more England.’
‘Good God!’
‘And I think — I hope we’re well on the mend from that. But …’
‘But what?’
‘But history, I think, is still altered in smaller ways. I mean, think about it. Me … me as the sheriff, for one. And all the things that you now know. Those are all small differences that could lead to bigger changes.’
Cabot hunched his shoulders. ‘Ye worry I would tell others of these things ye have told me?’
‘Well … to be honest, yes.’
‘Who would believe any of it? They would think it the ramblings of an old mad monk.’ He laughed. ‘Travelling to tomorrows yet to be? Worlds shaped like balls? Who would listen to that nonsense? I would be clapped in stocks and have rotten food thrown at me for amusement.’
He had a point.
‘I have a thought.’
‘What?’
‘Perhaps, young Liam … perhaps history too is round, in a sort of way.’
‘What do you mean?’
Cabot’s bushy eyebrows locked with concentration. ‘Round … such like a cart’s wheel. Perhaps ye were always meant to come back and be the Sheriff of Nottingham? Perhaps I was always meant to be told these things by ye.’
The old man had an interesting point.
‘And perhaps our poor John was always meant to have lost the Grail. Is that what your history books say, Liam?’
‘About the Holy Grail?’ Liam emptied the cup. ‘I dunno … I think there’s nothing certain on that. I think history books treat the Grail like a fairy story, or a myth or something.’
‘There, then,’ said Cabot, smiling. ‘If it is a thing that never was … then for it to be lost, what difference does that make?’
‘True.’
He leaned forward and punched Liam on the arm affectionately. ‘Ye worry too much, lad.’
‘Don’t I just?’ he smiled. ‘Anyway … Sebastien.’ He produced a sheet of parchment from the inside of his robe. A single line of pigpen symbols were scrawled across it. ‘We need to cut this into — ’ he looked at the gravestone — ‘into poor old Haskette’s gravestone.’
Cabot studied the parchment for a moment. ‘Ye know, ’tis a very good thing this code of yers is all straight lines. I am no stonemason. I cannot engrave a curve worth speaking of.’ He pulled a mason’s hammer and chisel from the apron of his robe.
‘To work, then.’
CHAPTER 47
2001, New York
It was dark outside. Lit only by a half moon, the East River sparkled silver and reflected the amber glow coming from the lamps of several fishing vessels moored across the water. A dozen street lamps in the small fishing port across from them — they’d learned it was called Laurent-Sur-Mer — glowed mutely, and windows here and there flickered with the movements of family life.
‘I’ve never seen New York so peaceful,’ said Adam. ‘It reminds me of my grandparents’ village up in Scotland.’
Maddy nodded. ‘There’re some places like this up in Maine and Connecticut. All nice and picture-postcardlike.’
They listened for a while to the soothing ebb and draw of gentle lapping waves and the far-off cry of seagulls.
‘So, how long have you been in this time-travel agency? I mean, not always, right? You sound like you’ve done other things; had a life before all this?’
She nodded. ‘Sure, I did.’
‘Well?’
She shrugged. Telling him a little about herself was probably not going to do any harm. ‘I’m from Boston originally. My folks live there. I went to high school there. Then I went to college to major in computers. I bummed out after the first year.’
‘Why?’
‘I got a job with a g
ames company. Seemed pointless going on with the degree, an’ all.’
‘Where was the job?’
‘Here. In New York. Programming user interface stuff on an online game. Kind of like World of Warcraft, but way better.’
‘World of Warcraft? I’m sorry … never heard of that.’
‘Stupid.’ She laughed at herself. ‘Of course not. It doesn’t come out until 2004.’
‘So, how did you go from being a code monkey to being a time traveller?’ asked Adam. ‘That’s quite a professional jump.’
She looked at him. ‘I’m not sure I should tell you too much, Adam … Remember, I said you wouldn’t be able to stay with us, and the more you know, the bigger the problem. So it’s best if I just say I got “recruited”.’
Maddy suddenly felt dizzy, as if she’d been spinning on a merry-go-round with her eyes closed. ‘Ohh,’ she murmured queasily.
‘You feel sick too?’ said Adam beside her. ‘Hang on … was that a — ?’
‘Yup.’ She turned to call inside for Sal. But she saw Sal was already halfway across the floor, hurrying towards them and uncoiling loops of data cable in her wake.
‘Good job,’ Maddy said, taking the end of the cable and plugging it into the hard drive sitting at her feet. She looked up and studied the distant town and the fishing boats dotted across the river for a few moments. Even though it had been intense enough a ripple that even she and Adam had felt it, nothing appeared to be any different out there as far as she could see.
‘Looks like we got another message from Liam!’ Sal called from inside.