by Alex Scarrow
‘The arteries are sealed. There is no additional blood loss. I will need to dress the wound to ensure no foreign matter gets into the wound and causes secondary infections.’
‘It will regrow, right? You’re not going to be stuck as a one-armed support unit forever, are you, Bob?’
Bob shook his head. ‘It will not regrow on its own. I will need to return to a growth tube for healing.’
‘Right. Well …’ he slapped Bob affectionately on the back, ‘that’ll be first thing on the “to-do” list when we get home,’ he grimaced. ‘Poor you, it always seems you have a tough time of it, each occasion we’ve gone back.’
‘That is my role.’
‘Aye, but … Ah well, I suppose I –’
They both heard a sudden commotion: voices calling out, the sound of horses’ hooves thudding on soft ground.
‘What’s going on?’ Liam ducked down and stuck his head outside to see Locke’s people standing around bemused and motionless, watching the retreating rear of a baggage cart bounce across the lumpy ground of the camp and rattle on to a narrow track that curved and weaved into the forest and out of sight.
Liam cursed. He stuck his head back in. ‘That slippery sod!’
‘What has happened?’
‘Locke – he’s only bleedin’ well done a runner!’
CHAPTER 63
1194, Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire
‘He won’t have left without it,’ said Liam. ‘Not without the Grail, I’m sure of it.’
Bob nodded. ‘Then we must catch him.’
Liam ducked back out through the entrance and was pushing his way through the crowd when several pairs of hands grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground.
‘An’ where ye goin’, Frenchie?’ snarled someone.
Liam heard the grate of a metal blade being unsheathed.
‘RELEASE HIM!’ Bob’s voice boomed across the clearing once again. He strode forward, his face once more covered by the hood. ‘STAND BACK!’ The crowd did so instantly, drawing back from Liam as if he carried the plague. Bob reached down with his one good hand and helped him back on to his feet.
‘We need horses,’ uttered Liam out of the side of his mouth. ‘We’ll never catch him up on foot.’
‘WHO HAS A HORSE?’
The crowd was silent.
‘Bob, tell them you’re taking me to Nottingham,’ he whispered. ‘Tell them you’re going to force me to write a pardon for them all. They’ll be free to go back to their homes.’
Bob nodded and repeated Liam’s words in his parade-ground voice. The people listened in stunned silence. As he announced they’d be free to return home, an uncertain cheer rippled through them. Uncertain, perhaps because to them it sounded too good to be true.
‘Where has Locke gone?’ asked someone.
‘I’ll tell them,’ uttered Liam to Bob. He cleared his throat. ‘Locke has gone to offer his services to King Richard!’ Some of the men in the crowd cheered at mention of the king. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t be so quick to cheer him,’ Liam continued. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure Richard’s here to save you from John! He’ll come here first, I’d wager. Come here and deal with you all, before dealing with his brother!’
‘You’re lying!’ someone shouted. ‘You are John’s man!’
Others in the crowd murmured their agreement. Liam could see none of them was going to believe a single word he uttered. ‘You better tell them,’ he whispered to Bob.
‘HE IS TELLING THE TRUTH!’ barked Bob. ‘RECOMMENDATION: LEAVE THIS CAMP IMMEDIATELY AND RETURN TO YOUR HOMES! KING RICHARD IS COMING AND WILL KILL YOU ALL!’
The wood was suddenly filled with raised voices, all speaking at once.
Through the crowd, on one side of the clearing, Liam spotted a solitary malnourished horse, tied to a tree and staring listlessly out at the noise and commotion in front of it. He nudged Bob gently. ‘Over there. Do you see it?’
‘Affirmative.
‘I WILL NOW LEAVE WITH THE SHERIFF. YOU WILL ALL BE PARDONED!’
Bob led the way, dragging Liam with him by the arm. The crowd was beginning to break up into knots of people arguing with each other – some determined to stay here, some wanting to go home. An old man reached out for Bob, his hands grasping at his cape. ‘Please don’t leave! We follow you! We came here to follow you!’
Liam glanced up at Bob. He couldn’t see Bob’s eyes beneath the shadow of the hood, but a gentle tip of his head assured Liam he had an answer. ‘It is over, old man! There will be no uprising now. You must go home!’
With that he grabbed Liam by the arm again and pulled him forward through the milling crowd.
But the old man was not to be shaken off so easily. ‘You cannot leave us now! We have nothing! We have –’ He grasped at the cape again, but this time the old man’s frail hand grasped at material further up the cape and as Bob stepped away the hood pulled back off his face and flapped down on to his shoulders.
The effect was instant. A silence once more; arguments momentarily forgotten, voices hushed and eyes growing ever wider as they stared at his face.
‘’Tis the man who was here earlier!’
‘A trick!’ someone else cried out. ‘To rescue the sheriff!’
Liam jabbed Bob in the ribs. ‘Run!’
Bob’s one good arm stretched out and snatched a longbow from the hands of a young man standing nearby. He swiped it around, smacking the heads of half a dozen of those too slow to duck. And then the pair of them were running for the horse.
Liam’s bare feet stumbled through the embers of a fire, kicking up a shower of sparks. He yelped and hopped as those nearby frantically brushed off and patted down embers on their dry rags and lank hair. Liam was still hopping and yelping as Bob tossed the longbow aside, scooped him up under his arm and a moment later hurled him over the rear of the horse. The animal bucked and complained at the sudden load deposited on its back.
Bob snapped the horse’s tether from the tree with a savage jerk and then swung a leg over. With a brutal kick of heels into its flank he startled the horse forward into the crowd, knocking aside hands reaching out to grasp the reins and wrest the horse from their control.
They clattered through the rest of the camp, the horse’s hooves kicking aside the frail wooden frames of tents and hovels, people lurching back out of their way at the last moment. Curses and stones whistling through the air at them. And then they were on the narrow forest track.
CHAPTER 64
1194, Nottingham
John stared with utter bemusement at the people in the marketplace. They respectfully made a pathway for his escort of soldiers and the two dozen carts and wagons containing his baggage and essential royal staff of servants.
‘I do believe they’re … uhh … they’re cheering for me,’ he uttered to Becks.
She rode on horseback beside him, side-saddle rather than astride. Dressed in fine linens that fluttered lightly and gracefully. ‘Yes, my lord, it appears they are.’
‘That makes a rather pleasant change,’ he murmured, self-consciously waggling a limp hand back at the people. They roared approval at the simple gesture.
Leaving Oxford hadn’t been quite so pleasant. John had felt compelled, for his own safety, to hide in one of the wagons while his escort of soldiers had had to push and shove the angry crowd aside to allow the column through the main gate. He’d heard jeering and cursing, he’d heard swords being unsheathed, and the thumps and bangs of fists and booted feet against the wooden trap of his wagon.
‘It seems your friend has won them round for me.’
Becks nodded. ‘Yes. He has been very effective.’
He smiled and nodded at the people. ‘And they are staying put … even though they must have heard by now that Richard’s army approaches.’
Becks nodded as she rode in silence. She offered him a faint smile, the slightest curl of her lips.
John felt his heavy heart lift. For the first time in years he actually felt … liked
. These people could have abandoned Nottingham to its fate. They could surely leave and find shelter elsewhere, in other towns, villages. But they’d decided to stay. Prepared to show the king that they actually approved of John’s stewardship while he’d been away on his foolish crusading, bankrupting them all.
He noticed the market stalls were well stocked. A good summer’s crop that had managed to be harvested without the disruption of roving gangs of bandits and villains, leaving smouldering fields and dead farm workers in their wake. The people certainly looked better fed than those in Oxford – not all pallid skin drawn up against hard-edged bones and dressed in rags, but people who looked well. People from better, happier times.
That at least was some comfort.
If Richard wanted to besiege this town, then he was going to have a hard time of it. The walls were good, the town’s position a strong one. There appeared to be good supplies of food within and a population that appeared willing to make a stand for him.
But the Grail?
Has he found it yet?
John’s heart skipped anxiously at the thought. There’d be no need for any kind of a stand, a battle, a siege, no need for any of that nonsense if that curious young man, Liam De Connor, had managed to successfully track down the bandits and get back what they’d taken.
He could hand it over to his brother and then beg his brother’s forgiveness for losing the Grail. Beg his forgiveness for failing to find that ransom money for two long years. He could beg, and publicly stoop to kiss his brother’s hand and, perhaps, that and the safe return of the Grail would be enough to appease him. There’d be a beating with a cane later, of course. Away from public eyes.
Royalty can never afford to be seen as frail … just as mortal as any common man.
Richard would delight at that: stripping him, beating him, having him beg and plead like a pitiful dog. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done that to him. But Richard would have his precious Grail with all its precious Templar secrets and be in a good mood. He’d be distracted into thinking about future insane campaigns in faraway lands, now that he had his holy relic.
And John would get to keep a head on his shoulders.
He glanced up at the sturdy keep in front of them, at the centre of Nottingham. Hoping to catch sight of his new sheriff riding out to greet them on horseback. Hoping to see a sign, a smile and a small nod – a gesture from him to assure him that all was well, that he could relax once again.
That he has the Grail.
‘No welcome,’ uttered John. ‘Is no one at home?’
He could see the bobbing of helmeted heads between crenellations. The castle appeared to be garrisoned still. But a greeting party on horseback should have emerged by now, out of mere courtesy.
‘I wonder where the sheriff is?’
‘Up ahead!’ Liam shouted. Sitting across the bouncing rump of the horse, his voice warbled like a songbird. ‘That’s him!’
The cart ahead of them was rattling along the narrow track, wheels wobbling and straining as they careered over the humps of tree roots. In the back of the cart, tethered faggots of firewood and several sacks of apples rattled and rolled around as Locke kicked and cajoled the rear of his horse to pick up the pace.
They closed on him quickly. Even their weary-looking old horse, all bones and hide and ready for the butcher’s cleaver, was making better progress than the wide-axled cart down what was barely more than a winding footpath.
Locke must have heard them approaching and turned to look over his shoulder. It took him all of a second to realize the cart was too slow. He reined in the horse, reached round into the back of the cart, grabbed a small dark wooden box, no bigger than a hatbox, and leapt off the seat on to the track.
‘He’s bolting!’
Bob nodded. ‘Get off here,’ he grunted. ‘I will pursue him.’
Liam slid clumsily off the back of the horse, the still raw soles of his feet jabbing him painfully as they settled on sharp stones. Bob kicked his heels and clattered off down the footpath, turning the horse left into the trees where Locke had disappeared moments before. Liam listened to the receding thud of hooves and the occasional crack of a dried branch, echoing back through the wood as Bob gave chase.
He made his way slowly down the path towards the abandoned cart, yelping and grimacing at each sharp stone, each fir cone he stepped on. Finally he drew up beside it. The horse eyed him irritably as if even he knew this was no track for a cart. It snorted, flaring its nostrils.
‘Easy there,’ said Liam. He pulled himself on to the back of the cart and allowed himself to collapse, exhausted, among the apples that had spilled out across the flatbed.
CHAPTER 65
1194, Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire
Bob steered the horse through the woods, deftly ducking the low swoop of branches. Up ahead he could hear Locke scrambling his way over fallen branches that cracked noisily under his feet. Making far too much noise to hope to evade him.
He caught a glimpse of Locke up ahead. The man was making pitifully slow progress, the wooden box tucked under one tired arm, pushing his way through a tight bush of brambles with the other.
‘Cease running!’ Bob called out. ‘You will not escape!’
Locke stopped and turned. His eyes widened at the sight of Bob calmly steering the horse as it picked its way through the undergrowth towards him.
Locke seemed to realize he was wasting his time. He slumped down on to a small boulder, winded and spent. Bob swung his leg over the horse, dropped heavily down to the ground and approached him.
‘I presume you want this?’ said Locke, holding the box out.
Bob reached out his one hand for the box. He placed it on the ground, lifted a small metal clasp and opened the lid. He stared at the contents in silence for a moment before closing the lid.
‘Who are you people … really?’ asked Locke between laboured gasps.
Bob’s grey eyes studied him silently.
‘You’re just a dumb robot, aren’t you? Inside all that skin, blood and bones … a dumb robot? Just like my war-surplus mech – a machine under orders.’
‘I have mission priorities,’ said Bob drily.
‘And what do you know about what’s in there?’ Locke said, nodding at the box.
Bob was silent.
‘Right …’ Locke nodded. ‘Not much … uh?’
‘The item known as the Holy Grail may contain sensitive information about the agency. That is why we seek to obtain it and decode its contents.’
Locke laughed, a wheezy and dry cackle. ‘Is that it? Is that all you think might be in there? Something that might expose your little agency?’ He shook his head and laughed some more. ‘You really have no goddamn idea … do you?’
Bob’s eyes narrowed. ‘Explain.’
‘That,’ he said, nodding at the box, still struggling for breath, ‘that … contains something far more important. Your secret agency is nothing compared to this … it’s a speck of dust compared to this!’
‘Explain.’
‘It’s our future … it’s everyone’s future. Don’t you know this? There’s a door that opens in 2070 … a door that opens on something that –’
‘What?’
Locke shook his head. ‘That’s just it … We don’t know. No one knows! That’s why I was sent back. To find out – to decode it. To find out and in some way to get a warning through to everyone in my time. So that they can prepare themselves!’ Locke spat phlegm on to the forest floor. ‘Good God, you have to help me! You have to help me get the key off King Richard and –’
‘Your mission priorities are in conflict with mine,’ replied Bob.
‘What? What the hell kind of priorities are more important than knowing what’s going to happen?’
‘Mission priorities: Retrieve the Grail. Decode the Grail. Correct contaminated history. Locate and terminate potential contaminants.’
Locke looked up at him. ‘Terminate potential contaminants? Oh, I
see. I get it … You have to kill me?’
‘Correct,’ said Bob, pulling his sword out of its scabbard. ‘Your presence in this time represents too much of a risk to the timeline.’
Locke’s eyes followed the dull glint of the sword’s edge. ‘Look … I have no modern technology artefacts on me. I’m just one man on my own. You could let me go. You could let me just walk out of here … You see, I don’t want to go back to 2070! I really don’t!’
Bob silently appraised him.
‘Please! Just let me go … What could I say that anyone would believe anyway? I’d just be considered a madman! A village fool!’
Some small part of Bob’s brain registered the growing desperation in Locke’s voice … a desperate desire not to die – to live longer. The small part of his brain could understand that animal instinct. Even sympathize with it.
‘Get up,’ said Bob.
Locke clambered slowly to his feet.
Bob raised his one good arm and pointed into the woods with the tip of the blade. ‘You must run in that direction.’
Locke looked confused.
‘Run in that direction. You must leave the county of Nottingham immediately. Any attempt to influence historical events will be picked up by us and we will return to kill you. Is this clear?’
Locke nodded. ‘Yes … yes, of course.’
‘Then proceed.’
‘Go? Now?’
‘Immediately.’
Locke stepped away from Bob, cautious backwards steps at first, then, a few yards from him, he turned tail and began to run.
Bob silently watched him pick up the pace as he ducked and scrambled through the undergrowth. Certain now that the man wasn’t going to dare look back again, he pulled the sword back over his shoulder, poised for the briefest moment as he calculated speed and trajectory, then flung the blade forward.
It whistled through the air, one complete cartwheel hilt over tip, ending with the tip facing forward once more just as it made contact with the soft fleshy space between Locke’s shoulder-blades. He tumbled forward, and kicked once on the ground.