The Toast of Time, page 1
part #12 of Chronicles of St Mary's Series
Copyright © 2021 Jodi Taylor
The right of Jodi Taylor to be identified as the Author of
the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2021 by
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
This Ebook edition published in 2021 by
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
1
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law,
this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted,
in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of
the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in
accordance with the terms of licences issued by the
Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication – other than the obvious
historical figures – are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 4722 8345 0
Cover design and illustration by zoedrawsthings.co.uk
HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
An Hachette UK Company
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.headline.co.uk
www.hachette.co.uk
Contents
Title
Copyright
About the Author
About the Book
Also By
Author’s Introduction
Dramatis Thingummy
The Toast of Time
Acknowledgements
Discover More about Jodi Taylor
About the Author
Jodi Taylor is the internationally bestselling author of the Chronicles of St Mary’s series, the story of a bunch of disaster prone individuals who investigate major historical events in contemporary time. Do NOT call it time travel! She is also the author of the Time Police series – a St Mary’s spinoff and gateway into the world of an all-powerful, international organisation who are NOTHING like St Mary’s. Except, when they are.
Alongside these, Jodi is known for her gripping supernatural thrillers featuring Elizabeth Cage, together with the enchanting Frogmorton Farm series – a fairy story for adults.
Born in Bristol and now living in Gloucester (facts both cities vigorously deny), she spent many years with her head somewhere else, much to the dismay of family, teachers and employers, before finally deciding to put all that daydreaming to good use and write a novel. Nearly twenty books later, she still has no idea what she wants to do when she grows up.
About the Book
It’s that most wonderful time of the year once more. But Max and Markham are a long way from St Mary’s. What sort of Christmas will it be without their loved ones?
Settle down with a mince pie and a small sherry and prepare for an unlikely combination of Flying Auctions, Fabergé eggs, duped Time Police officers, the Parish Council, a TWOCed Bentley (no, not that one), legendary swords and a belligerent ram.
Will it be Peace and Goodwill to all men? Well, we all know the answer to that . . .
By Jodi Taylor and available from Headline
time police series
doing time
hard time
SAVING TIME
The Chronicles of St Mary’s series
Just One Damned Thing After Another
A Symphony of Echoes
A Second Chance
A Trail Through Time
No Time Like the Past
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Lies, Damned Lies, and History
And the Rest is History
An Argumentation of Historians
Hope for the Best
plan for the worst
Another Time, Another Place
short story collections
The Long and Short of It
Long story Short
The Chronicles of St Mary’s digital shorts
When a Child is Born
Roman Holiday
Christmas Present
Ships and Stings and Wedding Rings
THE VERY FIRST DAMNED THING
The Great St Mary’s Day Out
My Name is Markham
A Perfect Storm
Christmas Past
Battersea Barricades
The Steam-Pump Jump
And Now For Something Completely Different
WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR FATHER?
Why is Nothing Ever Simple?
The Ordeal of the Haunted Room
Elizabeth Cage novels
White Silence
Dark Light
LONG SHADOWS
Frogmorton Farm Series
The Nothing Girl
The Something Girl
Little Donkey (digital short)
Joy to the World (digital short)
––––––––––––––
A Bachelor Establishment
Author’s Introduction
It was the title that came first for this one. I thought The Toast of Time had rather a nice ring to it. True, it doesn’t have much to do with the story, but I never let that stop me.
I wanted to write a story that brought everyone together for Christmas. A bit of a tall order given that Max was separated from St Mary’s both geographically and temporally but I’ve done my best. All the old favourites are here – and some new ones, too. Lots for you to get your teeth into.
SPOILER ALERT – Not only is Pennyroyal eventually able to remove his arm from the turkey, but we even find out what Markham is keeping in his trousers.
Merry Christmas to you all.
Dramatis Thingummy
Lady Amelia Smallhope
Second daughter of the previous Earl of Goodrich and sister of the current E of G. Organiser of extravagant Christmas presents. Very successful bounty hunter. Sorry – recovery agent.
Pennyroyal
An alleged butler. Currently toiling over a turkey. Ditto with the recovery agent thing.
Markham
You’ll never guess what he’s got down his trousers.
Maxwell
Definitely not considering catering as an alternative career. Rubbish at buttering toast.
Mrs Mack
Former urban terrorist and one of the leaders of the Civil Uprisings. Now Head of Kitchen Services at St Mary’s – a much more hazardous occupation.
Ellen, Sally, Janet, Kim, Edna, Terry and others
Kitchen staff grappling with an unexpected colleague.
Dr Dowson
Locked out of his own Library, would you believe?
Mr Evans and his Magnificent Security Team
Modelling the very latest in gardening gear – to the massive appreciation of some of the Parish Council.
Mrs Partridge
Keeping her cool as all around her lose theirs.
Captain Hyssop
Yes – her again. The scourge of the Security Section and sadly still at St Mary’s.
Commander John Treadwell
Whose meeting with the Parish Council is about to take a typically St Mary’s turn for the worse.
Mrs Huntley-Palmer
Proud owner of the soon to be TWOCed not-as-classic-as-Dr-Bairstow’s-Bentley Bentley. Representing the Forces of Darkness – or the Parish Council, as they’re usually known outside of St Mary’s.
The Rev Kev
Keep pedalling, Kev. Eyes front and place your trust in the Lord.
Miss Peek
Miss Frean
Also members of the Parish Council. The acceptable side of the Forces of Darkness. Recipients of more horticultural insight than they bargained for but bravely soldiering on. Bless them.
Major Guthrie
Ex-St Mary’s but having no success in leaving them behind. His secret cellar is not as secret as he thinks it is.
Elspeth
His strangely shaped partner.
Various unexpected Christmas guests
Hush – they’re a secret. Have to kill you now.
Various shady characters
Or ‘Naughty People Easily Translated into Ready Cash’, as Lady Amelia refers to them.
The Time Police
Arriving just a fraction too late in this instance but jolly useful for tidying up loose ends and allowing the author to get on with the story.
A ram
Not on Markham’s Christmas card list. Very prepared to stand his ground against two of St Mary’s former finest.
Various lost treasures
One of which spends most of the story down Markham’s trousers, which is no way to treat a legend.
Mrs Huntley-Palmer’s not-as-classic-as-Dr-Bairstow’s-Bentley Bentley
Enjoying a brief moment of fame.
The Toast of Time
It anything likewas the toast that started it. Markham and I were making toast. Or rather, I was making it and he was in charge of the buttering because, apparently, I don’t butter all the way into the corners. Once I would have argued fiercely. I would probably even have held him down while I demonstrated just how much butter it is possible to get into even the most remote corner – and not necessarily using a piece of toast, either. Or even butter. But that day I just couldn’t be bothered.
He finished buttering, passed me back the appropriately garnished baked bread product – without looking what he was doing, obviously – and I reached out for it – without looking what I was doing, obviously – and rather like the British Relay Team, we dropped the baton at the crucial moment and the toast crashed to the floor. Butter-side down, obviously, because toast doesn’t know any other way.
Both Markham and I stared at it. I, because butter-side-down toast just about summed up my life at that moment, and Markham . . . well, I’ve no idea why he does anything, let alone stares at a piece of toast.
Neither of us moved. The rain smacked against the windows, the kettle switched itself off, the toast obviously wasn’t going anywhere unaided, and Markham and I were watching it go nowhere.
Markham sighed. ‘Once again the Toast of Time falls butter-side down.’
I nodded. Of course it did.
We might be there still if Pennyroyal hadn’t come in.
‘Well, pick it up,’ he said. Pennyroyal runs a tight ship, and random slices of toast littering the spotless kitchen floor were never going to be his favourite thing.
I bent to pick it up while Markham wiped up the butter.
I looked around. I was pretty sure the five-second rule would apply so I blew on it, cut it neatly in half and buried it at the bottom of the pile. No one would ever know.
Markham brought over the teapot and I wrangled the plate of toast on to the table.
Pennyroyal accounted for the top layer.
Markham moved more quickly than me and snaffled the next tier.
Which just left me and the gravity-damaged bottom level.
I sighed and slathered it an inch thick with marmalade because everyone knows marmalade kills ninety-nine per cent of all known germs. Dead.
We ate in silence.
For anyone wondering about the cause of my depression, it was that time of the year again. The time of jolly and holly and Christmas pudding and carols and arguments and bickering and presents and goodwill.
And families.
This would be the first time for ages that I’d been away from St Mary’s for Christmas. I don’t know how Markham was feeling about that but I really wasn’t in a festive mood at all. Au contraire, as our French friends would say.
I missed Leon. I missed the way he smiled for me alone. The way he looked for me whenever he entered a room. And I missed Matthew. Especially our nightly battles over face-washing and teeth-cleaning.
I even missed St Mary’s. The lunchtime scrum. The noise. The smells. And continually having to step over an unconscious Bashford. Or Roberts and Bashford glaring at each other over a grinning Sykes. Or Sands and his never-ending knock-knock jokes. Even Angus crooning happily from the top of a cupboard.
Normally, at this point, I’d go on to describe St Mary’s, what we did, warn people against saying ‘time travel’ in Dr Bairstow’s hearing, talk about the pods without mentioning the word ‘cabbage’ in every sentence and just generally bring people up to speed on how things stood at the moment.
But not this time.
For a start, Markham and I were no longer at St Mary’s. Neither was Dr Bairstow – whose whereabouts are, at present, a closely guarded secret to be dealt with at another time. Along with Mrs Brown. I can only say they’re not at St Mary’s. And that’s it. That’s all anyone’s getting from me.
Back to me and Markham, living wild and free on toast.
Smallhope and Pennyroyal had given us a home. A very comfortable home. There was good food and plenty of it. And excellent pay and conditions, together with lots and lots of rules to break, bend or completely ignore, but nothing could compensate for not being at St Mary’s any longer. And, worst of all, we’d both of us lost our families. Leon was out there somewhere, jumping up and down the timeline, keeping Adrian, Mikey and Matthew on the straight and narrow, possibly assisted by Professor Penrose but more probably not. And Hunter and Baby Flora were safely hidden away from the world. Markham saw them occasionally – not as often as he would like to, I suspected – while I hadn’t seen Leon since I left St Mary’s.
But, we were here and we were safe. We shouldn’t complain. We had a roof over our heads and a certain amount of job satisfaction as we apprehended various lowlifes (lives?) who thought it would be a good idea to conceal themselves in another time to escape the attentions of the Time Police, but failed to take into account the Magnificent Markham and Maxwell – bounty hunters.
Sorry – recovery agents.
I really didn’t have a thing to complain about. Compared to how badly things could have turned out, everything was fine – it really was. But so dejected were Markham and I that neither of us could be bothered to argue about whose turn it was to clear away the breakfast things and load the dishwasher. We just got up and did it in silence.
‘It’s like a wet weekend in here,’ said Pennyroyal, rummaging in his briefcase.
I looked out of the window at the rain. He wasn’t wrong. It was indeed a wetter weekend in here than it was out there.
‘Perhaps this will cheer you up,’ he said. ‘New assignment for you,’ and dropped a file on the table.
We looked at it. ‘Anything interesting?’ said Markham, poking it with his finger.
‘Depends,’ Pennyroyal said. ‘Take a look and tell me what you think.’
Markham opened up the file. Lady Amelia and Pennyroyal always preferred paper to electronics. Their home was as secure as they could make it but there was always the chance of something unexpected erupting through the door and catching them in the act, so paper was their preferred way to go. That way one of them could shove the evidence in the range while the other launched a small nuclear strike at their unwelcome visitors. No – I’m not joking.
‘Where did you get this?’ asked Markham.
‘An announcement on the Dark Web,’ Pennyroyal said. ‘Useful place if you know where to look.’
According to the single sheet of paper in the file, a Flying Auction was to be held. That was it – no other details. Just the announcement and two long lines of coordinates at the bottom of the page.
I stared at it. ‘What on earth is a Flying Auction?’
Pennyroyal was pouring himself a coffee. ‘Flying Auctions are markets of no fixed abode. They simply occur as and when required. They are an established way of disposing of items that can’t be widely advertised. Or even advertised at all. This one purports to be selling historical artefacts.’
‘Fake historical artefacts?’
Pennyroyal grinned. ‘Not if we’re very lucky.’
‘So would we be buying? Selling? Observing?’
Pennyroyal shook his head. ‘In these sort of circumstances, Lady Amelia always favours keeping our plans fairly loose. A fast and flexible approach enables us to take advantage of sometimes rapidly changing situations.’
