A Catalogue of Catastrophe, page 15
part #13 of Chronicles of St. Mary's Series
‘You could have put that another way,’ I said. ‘If I have nightmares, I shall know who to blame.’
‘He does it, I’m afraid. I’ve never actually caught him so I can’t do a great deal. Do you want to make a formal complaint?’
By now we were halfway up the stairs. I could hear the bustle of people leaving the building through the front doors. My blouse was sticking to my back. I had a sudden thought that between sweat and the friction from my trousers, I might accidentally rub off the vital info currently inscribed on my thighs.
Now there’s a sentence I’ve never used before.
‘No,’ I said. ‘He told me what he’d done. Looking for scissors, apparently.’
‘I could have a word if you like but it’s a difficult situation. Officially it’s not forbidden because it would be too stupid to need something urgently and not be able to go into someone’s desk to get it. It’s one of the reasons we ask everyone to leave their personal stuff in their lockers – nothing gets nicked that way.’
By now we were in the locker room. I swiped my locker open, retrieved my backpack and changed my shoes. ‘Well, goodnight. See you tomorrow.’
Not giving her time to reply, I headed for the line to get out of the building, slightly concerned that Markham might have chosen today to meet me from work. He did sometimes, in case, he said, he had to rescue me again. There had followed a vigorous discussion on who had rescued who most often. Now, with Bridget close behind me, I very much hoped he wasn’t here today.
Guess who was waiting at the top of the steps, loitering with intent, looking clean and very nearly normal.
He waved.
Pillock.
I waved back because what else could I do?
‘Who’s that?’ enquired Bridget.
I didn’t reply immediately because I was next up in front of the guard. Between him, Bridget and Markham, I didn’t know where to look or what to do.
The guard waved me through. I strode out, still seeking to shed Bridget, but he waved her through as well. Bloody bollocking hell. It was too late for him to get out of the way so he went for it.
‘Hi,’ he said, addressing both of us.
‘Hello,’ said Bridget.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m Maxine’s flatmate.’
‘Nice to meet you. I’m Bridget.’
I waited with interest to hear how he’d introduce himself.
‘Ham,’ he said. ‘Mark Ham.’
She blinked. I didn’t blame her. If I hadn’t been wearing my backpack then I’d have slugged him with it. As it was, thanks to my magnificent self-control, he remained unslugged. Although not once I got him home.
Bridget looked from Markham to me and back again. I knew that look. She was trying to work out our relationship. Or at least I hoped that was what she was doing and not entertaining suspicions about me, the files and the toilet. She smiled suddenly. ‘Got to go. See you tomorrow, Maxine. Nice to meet you, Mark.’
‘You too,’ he said and then, thank God, she was gone.
I clutched his arm. ‘For God’s sake, buy me a drink.’
‘What happened to today’s modern girl?’ he said, reproachfully. ‘Buy your own drink. And one for me while you’re at the bar.’
‘Buy me a drink or die,’ I said, which pretty much clinched the matter.
Once back at the flat I made Markham close his eyes.
Not unnaturally, he demanded to know why.
‘I’m going to drop my trousers.’
‘I’m off,’ he said, scurrying away. ‘Food on the table in ten minutes.’
Some of my careful writing was a little blurry but it was all still there. I copied everything out on more conventional writing material – paper – and we pored over the sheets during dinner.
‘The coordinates will be easy,’ I said. ‘I’ll nip out to the pod as soon as it’s dark. The map’s a puzzle, though.’
‘One will solve the other,’ he said. ‘Eat up and we’ll go and look.’
As soon as darkness fell, we trotted down the dingy alleyway and tackled the obstacle course in the back garden. Glass crunched under my feet and something scuttled away in the dark.
The coordinates were easy.
‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘One solved the other. The coordinates are for a point midway between Windsor and London. 1215 AD. Runnymede.’
I remembered the day of my interview. The Magna Carta file had been in Bridget’s drawer. She’d used it to demonstrate the file numbering system.
He took the map off me and looked at it. ‘I’m assuming then that the J is John. What do the Xs show?’
I remembered the list of people’s initials. ‘Positions,’ I said. ‘Two groups of two people. Four altogether. Two to the east and two to the west.’
We laid the map on the console and stared at it.
He pointed to a symbol. ‘Is that broccoli or a tree?’
I scowled. ‘Trees.’
He saw it at once. ‘So,’ laying a pen along the paper, ‘clear lines of sight between both the Xs and the J.’
We looked at each other.
‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’
‘Well, I wasn’t, but now I am.’
‘Snipers,’ he said. ‘Betcha. They’re going to shoot King John. To stop him signing Magna Carta.’
‘John didn’t sign,’ I said automatically. ‘He couldn’t write. His signature wasn’t necessary. All that was needed was the Great Seal.’
‘Seal, signature – doesn’t matter if he’s dead, does it?’
‘I suppose not,’ I said, thinking it through. ‘But what’s the point? He’s dead eighteen months later, anyway. We know that. He reneges on Magna Carta, the barons rebel, he flees, loses the Crown Jewels in the Wash and dies of a nasty combination of dysentery, peaches and brandy. Why go to all the bother of assassinating him?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘We’ll have to check it out, won’t we?’
Markham frowned. ‘Haven’t you already been? Years ago? I’m sure I saw something . . .’
He tailed away.
I took a moment to answer. ‘Well, I remember the History of Democracy assignment – Peterloo, Runnymede and so forth – but then we lost Grant at Peterloo, didn’t we? My recollection is that the assignment was never revived. Didn’t Kal have appendicitis? And Peterson was in shock. And I wasn’t properly qualified . . . or Sussman, so . . .’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s my recollection too.’ He paused. ‘We’ll have to check this out, won’t we?’
‘Oh, I think so. It’s why we’re here, after all. It’s Friday tomorrow – we’ll jump after work.’
He blinked. ‘You’re going into work tomorrow?’
‘I think I have to, don’t you? We don’t want to arouse any suspicions. And you’ll need time to prepare.’
I fired up the console and began to check over the power levels. ‘The pod’s fine. Greens across the board.’
‘OK. What are your measurements?’
‘What?’
‘Height? Circumference? That sort of thing.’
‘I’m not telling you that.’
‘You want me to guess?’
I sighed. ‘Either this is for some sort of costume or you’ve developed yet another weird perversion and should, ideally, be removed from society. I’m going with the latter.’
‘Theatrical costumier,’ he said. ‘I’ll hire us something tomorrow morning, make some sandwiches and then we’ll be off tomorrow night.’
‘Get something generic,’ I said. ‘And accurate. I don’t want to find myself in Sexy Medieval Wench costume with my bosom hanging out.’
He shuddered. ‘I don’t think any of us would want that.’
Markham walked me to work the next morning. He was clutching his list of measurements. I’d written mine down for him. He’d blinked, said, ‘Good heavens,’ and then disappeared out of the door before I could get to him.
I’d spent the previous evening reading up on King John, Runnymede and Magna Carta.
Well, we all know about King John, don’t we? Subject to violent rages, shifty, unreliable, lusty and greedy. So bad that no king has ever been called John since. Last of the many children of the first Plantagenet king, Henry II, and the formidable Eleanor of Aquitaine. The Devil’s Brood, as they were all known.
John more than lived up to the name. He attempted to rebel against his brother, Richard the Lionheart – who, to be fair, made it easy for him by being out of the country on those never-ending Crusades. The repercussions of which still rumble on today.
John murdered the other claimant to the throne, Arthur of Brittany. There were rumours he personally had gouged his eyes out, or that he had had him castrated and the young prince had died of his wounds.
More tellingly, his personal vindictiveness extended even to the family members of those who had offended him. On capturing the wife of one of his many enemies, Maud de Braose, together with her son, John imprisoned them in Corfe Castle and left them to starve to death in a dungeon. Eleven days later they were both discovered dead. In her desperation, Maud had eaten her son’s cheeks.
Outrage over this act was immediate and widespread. Condemnation came from all sides – if John could do that to the powerful de Braose family, what could he do to others? – and this led to the famous Clause 39 of Magna Carta:
‘No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.’
Echoes of Clause 39 can be found all over the world, even in the American Bill of Rights – when they still had a Bill of Rights, of course.
In the meantime, John had lost the Duchy of Normandy and most of his French lands. His Angevin Empire, which had stretched from Hadrian’s Wall to the Pyrenees, collapsed.
England was, at the time, regarded as a very second-class country and John’s priority was to use his kingdom to regain his French empire. To raise the dosh, he taxed everyone and everything until the country broke. Armed with this massive fortune, he bought himself an army, but since he was such a crap king, strategist, husband, son, brother, human being, everything, he was spectacularly defeated at the Battle of Bouvines. It was a rout. He lost everything – the battle, his army, his money, the lot.
Nothing daunted, his proposals to tax the country all over again to pay for the rematch led to the Barons’ Revolt which led to Magna Carta – the Great Charter.
He also managed to get himself excommunicated by the pope – which was no small matter in those days – and was basically so useless he would easily have been overthrown had there actually been anyone to replace him – but there wasn’t, and there’s no point overthrowing a king unless you have a spare standing by. The king’s son, Henry, was very young – too young – and so the barons did the unthinkable – they looked to France and offered the crown to the son of the French king, Prince Louis, who said, ‘Thank you very much,’ or possibly, ‘Merci bien,’ and hopped over the Channel with seven thousand troops.
The two sides jostled for a while and then, in 1216, John lost the Crown Jewels in a devastating storm surge in the Wash – Markham and I were there and he really did – and died shortly afterwards.
This left the barons in the embarrassing position of having a French prince who was suddenly surplus to requirements. John’s son – Henry III – was now old enough to ascend the throne under the protection of a strong regent, William Marshal. The mighty William Marshal, soldier and statesman, served five English kings: Henry II, young King Henry, Richard I, John, and Henry III. According to Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, William was ‘the best knight who ever lived’.
A disgruntled Louis returned home, England heaved a sigh of relief that all that was over, thank heavens, and got on with things under their shiny new king.
The only good thing to come out of all this turbulence was Magna Carta. Lacking a human focus for their rebellion, the barons had turned instead to constitutional reform. These reforms were to benefit only themselves, of course. There was no mention of the common people, and women wouldn’t catch up for centuries, but the foundations were laid – and strong ones they were too. It was enshrined in law that no man could have his property taken from him, that he was entitled to a trial and so on. It certainly curtailed the powers of the king who, up until that point, had been able to do pretty much as he pleased.
I should mention that John turned up at Runnymede to ‘sign’ the Great Charter but had no intention of abiding by its conditions. Although, to be fair, there’s no evidence the barons considered it particularly binding, either. John successfully appealed to the pope – another head of state who believed in unlimited power at the expense of others. Presumably forgetting he’d previously excommunicated John for four years, the pope condemned the Charter and all those who supported it.
Magna Carta survived, however, was revised, copied, and issued throughout the land. And went on being revised and reissued, forming the base of our laws today. Its effect down the centuries has been massive. It has been described as the most important document in History. Countries all over the world – with some notable exceptions and we all know who they are – have adopted the principles of Magna Carta.
But suppose John didn’t die in 1216, but at Runnymede instead? Assassinated. There would be shock, turmoil and rebellion, and in the ensuing chaos, Magna Carta would be forgotten. Everyone would argue that with John gone, there would be no need for the Great Charter. The king is dead, they would say. And I never liked the look of that Charter thing anyway – silly liberal nonsense. Burn it and let’s press on. And the world would be poorer for it.
I sighed. Markham and I were going to have to get out there and save worthless John’s worthless arse, weren’t we?
And it wouldn’t be easy. This wasn’t going to be a case of just recording and documenting and dealing with whatever History threw at us. We were jumping back to foil what no doubt Markham would, any moment now, be referring to as a dastardly plot. A plot, moreover, hatched by people who might possibly know my face. And I’d stand out because there weren’t likely to be many women there. We were going to have to box very carefully with this one.
For the record, when I awoke the next morning, I wasn’t that enthusiastic about going back to Insight. I think if Markham had said, ‘I’ll phone in sick for you,’ I’d have jumped at it. He didn’t, however, so I did. Go to work, I mean.
We strode along the walkways with me thinking cheerful things like this could be the last time I ever do this, although I think this time tomorrow, I could be dead was my favourite.
We parted on the pavement outside Insight.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, even though he hadn’t said anything.
Markham shook his head. ‘She walked you out of the building yesterday. You said she’d never done that before.’
I thought for a moment and then said, ‘I don’t think you should turn up here again. Keep your distance from now on. If anything happens to me . . .’
‘Oh.’ He looked disappointed. ‘Actually, I was considering trying my luck with your boss. You know – invite her out for a drink and a fun-filled evening and use my charm to winkle out her secrets.’
‘Wasting your time,’ I said. ‘Delightful though you are, I’m pretty certain she bats for the other team.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave that to you, then. Are you sure you don’t want me to come in with you?’
I shook my head. ‘You’re keeping your distance, remember?’
‘OK. Good luck.’ He disappeared into the crowds of people streaming along the pavement.
I stared up at the building wondering what horrors were in store. I pictured the Insight staff waiting for me. Silent and implacable. Or gunning me down as I changed my shoes. Poisoning the coffee. My imaginings became wilder and wilder until even I had to laugh, and it was with a very nearly merry smile on my lips that I climbed the steps.
All ridiculous when you think about it. I knew this lot didn’t mess about. If they’d had any doubts about us, then Markham and I would have enjoyed the traditional dawn raid so beloved by governments and other illegal organisations everywhere.
I took my place at my desk. Eddie ignored me as usual. Bridget was in her office, head down and typing away. She gave me a vague wave as I entered and passed me my key.
Somewhat reassured, I unlocked my desk and got stuck in.
There’s nothing like a guilty conscience to make you work harder. I think I thought if I kept moving, they couldn’t catch me. I raced around the building like a maniac. Files flew in all directions. At one point Bridget came out of her office and asked if I was on medication.
‘No,’ I said, seizing the excuse, ‘but I was hoping perhaps to finish a few minutes early tonight.’
‘Plans for the weekend.’
‘A few, yes.’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘If you’ve nothing major outstanding then how about finishing at four?’
‘Thank you,’ I said, beaming. ‘Much appreciated.’
After that I took care to calm down a little.
I worked until five to four and then started clearing my desk. I called goodnight to Eddie – just to annoy him because he really hated participating in social intercourse – and was out of the doors by five past.
I called up Markham as soon as I gained the safety of Great Russell Street and he stepped out from behind Duke of Bedford’s statue as I walked past Russell Square. He was bearing two covered hangers and a bag and banging on about the heat, the length of the journey, the cost, and having to have his inside leg measured twice because they hadn’t believed it the first time. I’ve no idea what that was all about and I wasn’t going to ask. His inside leg had always looked moderately normal to me – especially compared with the rest of him.
Back at the flat I left him murmuring discontentedly on the sofa and made him some illegal tea. He sipped and subsided while I investigated the results of his day’s work.
