by Jodi Taylor
‘No. You can’t see your hand in front of your face here. There are soldiers after me and I’ve hurt my knee again.’
‘No, you can’t see your hand in front of your face. I’ve got a Maglite.’
Well, he just bloody would have, wouldn’t he?
‘Get under cover and wait for me, Max.’
‘I’m not leaving without Guthrie.’
‘Neither am I, but we’ll get you first. Just stay there. Don’t move. I’m on my way. Two minutes.’
It was considerably longer than two minutes, but eventually I saw a gleam of light. With huge relief, I stepped out of a sheltering doorway and walked straight into the arms of Clive Ronan.
I swear – if I bumped into one more person that day, I would have screamed.
Both of us were taken aback, but I had the advantage. I knew who he was and, in the dark, he didn’t have a clue about me.
We’d done it! We’d got the queen and Bothwell together, and now, here was Ronan. Right in front of me. Mission accomplished.
If I could just hold on to him for a minute or so – that’s all it would take. Leon was on his way. I hoped.
I threw myself at him. He slipped on the wet cobbles and we both went down hard. He cursed and thrashed around. He was on the bottom, smothered in wet velvet and brocade. His lantern had smashed as he fell and we were grappling in the darkness. I struggled to get an arm free and pull out a hairpin. Still my weapon of choice in any century.
We rolled around blindly in the dark. At any moment, I expected to feel the bright, sharp pain of his dagger between my ribs, but I wasn’t going to let go.
He tore himself away and scrambled to his feet. Desperate, I grabbed a leg, hung on with both arms, and bit the inside of his thigh as hard as I could. He yelled – a sound abruptly cut off when Farrell clouted him with his Maglite.
He reeled away. Still on the ground, I lunged for him and Leon, attempting something similar, fell over me. We both went down again and Ronan disappeared into the rain and dark.
‘Don’t let him get away,’ I shouted, flailing wildly amongst yards of sodden velvet.
He pulled me to my feet. Somewhere behind us, I could hear bolts being pulled back as a concerned citizen grappled to get his door open and discover what all the noise was about.
He pulled me away. ‘Come on, before someone sticks their head out and sees us. Did you see which direction he came from?’
‘Yes, down here.’ I pointed to a patch of even deeper darkness. He shone his torch down a narrow alley.
‘Which knee?’
‘The left one again,’ I said with resignation.
He stood on my left side, put his arm around my waist and took some of my weight on his hip. Now that I was safe – relatively – my concerns were all for Ian Guthrie, who had gone alone into this maze of dark alleyways. Not a wise move. I feared for him.
At this range, we could use the tag reader. Even so, it seemed to take for ever to find him. There were any number of dark places where he could be and we searched them all. Eventually, we found him in an alley, propped limply against a barrel. My heart lurched with fear. Farrell bent over him. Blood ran from a seriously bad gash above his eye, mixing with the rain streaming down his face. I exhaled with huge relief. Dead people don’t bleed. His eyelids flickered in the torchlight. He was conscious. Dazed but conscious.
We liberated a handcart we found backed against a wall and bundled him into it. Farrell pulled and I pushed, casting anxious glances over my shoulder. By my reckoning, about an hour had passed. More than enough time for soldiers to be combing the streets and alleyways, weather or no weather. They would surely have gone straight to the house in Canongate and have sealed off the Ports – the gates – as well.
We saw no one.
The torrent had ceased and the rain was now merely heavy. There was no sound apart from the ceaseless drumming and splashing of water. No sound of running, no shouting, no lights, no commotion as a peaceful city was roused in the search for someone with whom the queen would surely want a very nasty word. I limped along and thought through the possibilities.
The first was that the alarm had been raised, but the queen had ordered no further action. Bothwell might or might not have been arrested, but no other culprit had been identified.
The second was that the alarm had been raised, but members of her court, scenting an opportunity, had ordered a cover-up. To safeguard the reputation of the queen they would say, but this night power would pass from her to them and henceforth she would be queen in name only. Again, Bothwell might or might not have been arrested.
The third was that the alarm had been raised and a methodical search was taking place for our party and would descend on us at any minute. A possibility that seemed less likely with every passing minute.
The fourth was that no alarm had been raised at all. She hadn’t done so in the original timeline – whether from shame or because he’d been monumentally a good shag was unclear. Dr Bairstow had once said to me, ‘History is lazy. History suffers from inertia.’ Suppose History now was influencing events to restore the timeline to as close to its original course as possible. Mary would not denounce him, but go on to marry him, lose her kingdom, and then her life just as she was supposed to do. As Darth Vader would have said, ‘It is her destiny.’
Which could mean we were hurtling to hell in a handcart with unnecessary haste.
‘Slow down,’ I said to Leon. ‘I don’t think they’re coming.’
He stopped and got his breath back.
Guthrie sat up and was spectacularly sick.
We trudged on in silence.
Unexpectedly, Farrell said, ‘Did you … bite him?’
I grinned in the dark. I might not have been allowed to do him any serious injury, but he’d carry that mark with him to the end of his days.
Guthrie heaved again and Farrell said, ‘Over the other side this time, Ian. The last lot went all over my boots.’
We approached the Port with caution. Not surprisingly, given the amount of rain falling, no one was in sight. That didn’t mean there was no one there.
‘Hold on,’ said Farrell. ‘Guard ahead.’
I tensed. Maybe the palace had sent out messengers who had somehow slipped past us in the night and were, even now, waiting for us in the dark shadows.
Wrong. A stout guard met us, wiping foam from his beard. I thought of Falstaff.
He was suspicious. Of course he was. He lived in his own small world and knew nothing of courtiers and queens and palaces, but he knew a suspicious bunch of reprobates when he saw them. Richly dressed nobles would never be out on a night like this. A woman doubly so. Richly dressed nobles, soaked to the skin, dishevelled, dirty, bleeding, one of them in a handcart – this was well above his pay grade and there was no chance he was going to let us through. And for us any delay could be fatal.
He shifted his weight, prior to turning his head and shouting for reinforcements. This was very, very bad.
We’re really not supposed to injure contemporaries. It’s a kind of prime directive. Whatever the risk to ourselves – we’re supposed to get by on cunning, running, and balls of steel. For me, it’s more of a prime suggestion. So far this year, I’d beheaded Jack the Ripper, killed Isabella Barclay, presided over an execution, and stood by while Guthrie and Markham took out four of Nineveh’s finest. And I’d bitten Clive Ronan, as well. I’d bloody well had enough.
I reached over, seized Guthrie’s stun gun from under his cloak and zapped the fat bastard.
Sorted.
No one said a word.
We were out of the gate and away.
I heard Peterson’s voice in my ear; his restraint only emphasised his anxiety.
‘What is going on? Where the hell are you?’
‘On our way,’ puffed Farrell.
We were heading uphill, the ground was wet and slippery, and my feet were numb with cold.
‘Can you show a light?’
We stare
d into the darkness. Above us and to the right, a light flashed three times and then shone a steady beam through the rain.
‘It’ll be quicker now without the cart,’ he said. ‘Guthrie, can you walk?’
‘No idea.’
‘Lean on me. Max, can you walk?’
‘Probably. Can I lean on you, too?’
He sighed. ‘Once again, the technical section is the last man standing.’
Guthrie said groggily, ‘Doesn’t the technical section just piss you off?’
‘Tell me about it.’
Leon took Guthrie and I took the torch. We stumbled through the dark, tripping and cursing. I made us stop occasionally to listen, but there was nothing and no one behind us. No one had raised the alarm. If they’d found the gate guard they’d assume he’d drunk too much or he’d had a funny turn. I suspected he’d come round, picked himself up, and gone inside for something to calm his nerves.
The tension eased. Even the rain was slowing.
‘So,’ said Leon, ‘tell me what happened. How did you manage it in the end?’
I told him what I’d done. It was easier in the dark where I couldn’t see his face. I tried to keep it detached and business-like, but he must have heard something in my voice.
We trudged on a few paces and then he said, ‘You’re cold and wet. It’s been a tough assignment. But, for us, it all happened hundreds of years ago. What you did was meant to happen. She could have screamed for help. She could have denounced him. She didn’t. Not originally and not on this night, either. I understand how you feel – she might have gone on to be a remarkable woman. But she made bad decisions and she had to live with them. And remember – she was no innocent. She was almost certainly implicated in the murder of her husband. And the poor wretches who died with him.’
I couldn’t see his face, but he’d flirted with her, charmed her, and gazed into her eyes …
‘What about you? If you’d played your cards right, we could have been calling you King Leon by now.’
‘I’ve found my queen.’
He waited for me to say, ‘Hey, you’re not talking to some daft Scottish bint now, you know,’ but, for some reason, I didn’t. I was tired, depressed, and not very proud of myself. I just wanted to sit somewhere and think about what I’d done.
We trudged a little further.
‘I was wondering,’ he said slowly, ‘if perhaps you would like to go somewhere for dinner. Tomorrow night. Like normal people do.’
I was roused from my little pit of self-pity. ‘You’re asking me out on a date? Now?’
‘No, of course not now. Tomorrow night. If you’re free, of course.’
Of course I was free. I was always bloody free.
I leaned around Guthrie. ‘I’ll have to check, but I think I am.’
‘Good. I’ll ring Joe Nelson and book a table.’
‘The Falconberg Arms? In the village?’
‘Well, no choice, really.’
‘What?’
‘No car,’ he said briefly.
I stopped dead.
They carried on for two or three steps before he realised he’d left me behind. Guthrie stared blearily from me to him and back again.
I was all set to have it out there and then and sod all the queen’s horses and all the queen’s men.
‘I don’t believe you. We’re fleeing for our lives in the rain-swept gloom of 16th century Scotland and you’re still banging on about your bloody stupid bloody car?’
‘Seriously?’ he said. ‘You think I’m not going to be referring to it at regular intervals for the rest of your life? That I’m not going to drag it into every argument we ever have? That I’m ever going to let you forget? There will be ‘Driving The Car Into The Lake’ anniversaries. I shall commission a special card from Hallmark. There will be celebration cakes. We may even get a telegram from the King.’
He paused. ‘Well?’
‘Seriously? I said. ‘You think where the car leads the owner can’t follow? Let’s see Dieter winch you out of the lake every Friday.’
‘OK. Better now?’
‘I think so.’
‘Come on, then.’
I thought I could hear Guthrie laughing.
We headed for the light, finally tumbling soaked, cold and exhausted into the pod.
Peterson was waiting for us. I could tell by the way he was complaining about the mess we were making that he had been anxious. Guthrie and I sank to the floor. Pools of water gathered around us.
I said, ‘Report.’
‘Everyone else has jumped. I’ve done the FOD plod. Rigorously, before you ask.’
The FOD plod – Foreign Object Drop – was our check we hadn’t inadvertently brought anything contemporary into the pod.
He passed me a towel. ‘What about Ronan?’
I groaned with frustration. ‘We had him and he got away. Again. Every time. Bastard!’
‘What happened about the queen? I gather you saw her?’
‘I left her and Bothwell together.’ No need to say any more. ‘Let’s go home.’
The world went white and there was a slight bump. That’s Peterson. He always bumps on landing.
He activated the decon lamp and we waited for the blue glow.
‘Leave your stuff,’ he said. ‘We can collect it later.’
I said, anxiously, ‘Can you see Number Five?’
‘Yes, I can see it from here. They’re waiting for us. We’re all back safe and sound.’
We always wait for each other. I insist on it. We always finish a mission together.
We stepped outside to cheers and applause. We were home. I could smell dust, hot electrics, and pods. Something warmed inside me. I looked up at Dr Bairstow, waiting alone on the gantry, smiled and nodded. He nodded slightly, twitched something that might have been a congratulatory smile – or not – and limped away.
I turned my attention to the rest of my team.
‘So,’ said Schiller, impatiently. ‘Were we successful?’
‘Are you kidding?’ I said. ‘We were bloody amazing!’
Helen and her team appeared, impatient and irritable at our non-arrival in Sick Bay.
Nurse Hunter expertly intercepted Markham, who was trying to slope off to the bar.
‘Why?’ he was saying, plaintively. ‘Do you know how awful 16th century beer is? I need something to take the taste away.’
She put her hands on her hips in mock horror.
‘You’ve been drinking the beer?’
‘Well … yes.’
‘You idiot!’
‘What?’ He was dumfounded. ‘Why?’
‘Have you any idea what lived in 16th century water?’
‘None at all,’ he said proudly. ‘But a couple of modern beers will soon see it off.’
‘You wish! You’ve almost certainly picked up a dose of worms and 16th century tapeworms are the worst. Left untreated, they lodge in your intestines, where it’s warm and wet – and I should imagine yours are warmer and wetter than most – and they just grow and grow. Finally, when they’re so big there’s no more room, they start to work their way up your gullet. Not overnight, obviously, but, one day, you’ll be talking to someone and you’ll feel the worm’s head, nodding away at the back of your throat.
Markham paled.
‘And by then it’s far, far too late,’ she continued, remorselessly, ‘because anything strong enough to kill a thirty-foot worm isn’t going to do you any good, either.’
Everyone else stepped back from him.
‘What about the other end?’ Dieter asked the question to which no one else wanted to know the answer. ‘The tail. Where does that appear?’
‘Well, guess.’
‘I need a drink,’ said Markham, desperately.
‘Sorry. Beer is the very worst thing you can drink when you’ve got a tapeworm. They just love the yeast. Doubles their size overnight. Definitely no beer for at least six months.’
She grinned; blonde, fluffy, a
nd evil. ‘You’ve gone a really funny colour.’
‘I feel terrible,’ he said plaintively.
‘You poor, poor boy. Would you like to lean on me?’
‘If that’s all right with you,’ he said, bravely.
‘Well, it’s not. Get your arse up those stairs. Now.’
Guthrie uncrossed his eyes and focused on Helen.
‘Would it be possible to dissolve Mr Markham and keep the worm?’
She snorted and he was whisked away. The others trailed off behind them.
Which left Leon and me.
‘So,’ he said, brightly, as I limped down the hangar. ‘When would you like to tell me about you and the Earl of Bothwell?’
Epilogue
I got over it, of course. We always do. But sometimes the shadows linger on.
I spent a day in the library, following the history of events after our intervention. Mary Stuart went on to marry Bothwell and spent the rest of her life in tears and regret, exiled from her own land and imprisoned in England. I never called her The Tartan Trollop again.
Bothwell fled to Denmark and spent ten years chained to a pillar, unable to stand upright. He died insane. I try not to think of his green eyes and careless charm.
Elizabeth Tudor was saved and went on to have the entire age named after her.
James VI became James I.
Everything was exactly as it should be.
And at the end of the day, Leon was right. It all happened hundreds of years ago.
I nagged and scolded until I had everyone’s reports, wrote my own, signed and initialled everything in sight, and took it all off to the Boss, who congratulated me on a job well done. I thanked him politely.
We sat in silence for a while and then he said, ‘It had to be done. And you were the one to do it.’
‘I know.’
‘No one said it would be easy.’
‘I know.’ I tried to smile. ‘It’s been a rough year.’
‘And it’s not going to get any better. I’m sorry if you and your department were expecting an easy time for a while because that’s not going to happen.’ He passed me a file. ‘Read through this please, and talk to your people. I’d like a preliminary mission plan by next Wednesday.’
I was a little hurt. He was tough, but it wasn’t like him to be insensitive. A few days to let events settle in our heads would not have been unreasonable. I took the file, sat back, and glanced at the first page. I read the brief and looked at his expressionless face.