A Catalogue of Catastrophe, page 20
part #13 of Chronicles of St. Mary's Series
My margarita-laden mind was struggling to cope.
‘We are History’s instruments,’ Markham cried, dramatically.
‘Tools, more like,’ I said. ‘We are the Tools of History.’
‘No, seriously, Max. Remember Mary Stuart? Remember how difficulties just melted away before us?’
‘They melted away for you,’ I said. ‘I was wrestling Clive Ronan in an alleyway during a monsoon and we had to evacuate Ian Guthrie in a wheelbarrow.’
‘Not the point I’m trying to make.’
‘You can be a tool,’ I said. ‘I’m off to do research on the Battle of Lincoln Fair. And don’t forget one of us has to go to work on Monday and it’s not you.’
He was silent a while and then said, ‘Do you ever wonder what will become of us, Max? How all this is going to end?’
‘I don’t like to think about it,’ I said, and got up to go.
A spell at the data table followed by a short nap and a long shower and I was as good as new. Not that that was anything to get excited about. I took Markham in a cup of tea because it was my turn and then went downstairs.
Pennyroyal had obviously been busy because our two neatly refurbished costumes hung over the back of a chair. Plus a proper wimple and veil for me.
‘Have you and Markham sorted out a plan of action yet?’ Smallhope asked.
‘We have. We’re going to land inside the castle. The city of Lincoln is about to become a bloodbath and we don’t want to be caught up in that. I suspect the Insight people won’t want that either so they’ll be inside, too.’
‘How will you neutralise them?’
‘We have a number of scenarios, each based on the circumstances prevailing at the time.’
‘So no idea then?’
‘None whatsoever.’
‘Here you are,’ said Pennyroyal, emerging from the kitchen with a covered basket from which the most delicious smells were wafting.
‘You made pasties?’ I said in amazement. ‘You do home baking?’
He shook his head. ‘Delivery,’ he said. ‘Greggs.’
‘Even better.’
Don’t laugh. I always did this when I was with St Mary’s. A basket would give me something to do with my hands. And the contents could be used as either a bribe or a tasty snack.
‘We’ll see you off,’ said Smallhope, ‘and then get going ourselves. Your instructions are to get the job done and rendezvous back here. We’ll be along as soon as we’ve done what we can in 1848. A quick recap and then everyone off to 1605. Once there we’ll do a recce and come up with a plan of action.’
I changed in my room. Low waistlines were fashionable but this time I wore my narrow belt up around what passes for my waist so I could hitch up my dress and run like hell if I had to. A large wooden cross around my neck and close-fitting wimple and veil denoted I was a Good Person doing Good Deeds. Someone you would think twice about accosting. Pious and devout. Respectable. God-fearing. I shook my head. I was never going to get away with any of that.
Markham was in the same tunic. Pennyroyal had found him a surcoat but he wasn’t keen. ‘Too much material,’ he said, ‘but I’ll take it anyway. We can always tear it up for bandages.’
Pennyroyal’s expression very clearly gave him to understand that anyone tearing up their surcoat for bandages would soon need said bandages themself and possibly major surgery as well.
Markham had also rammed a small round hat on his head and trimmed his beard. He actually looked quite smart.
He grinned and looked at me. ‘All right?’
I nodded, for some reason suddenly very nervous.
‘Good luck,’ said Smallhope. ‘Have at the bastards.’
‘If I don’t come back,’ I said to Pennyroyal, ‘can you tell Leon . . .’
‘If you don’t come back, we’ll take it out of your wages,’ he said, which was his way of being jolly and upbeat. I think.
We were heading for Lincoln on the eve of one of the bloodiest battles of the Middle Ages. We didn’t know what we were going to do when we got there. We didn’t know how this was going to pan out. We didn’t even know if we were on the right track. Basically, we were placing ourselves in the hands of History.
What could possibly go wrong?
Lincoln Castle, 20th May, 1217. Not quite when we wanted to be. Or where – but hey, no one’s perfect.
A quick update while I shut down the pod. It’s almost two years since Magna Carta. John’s dead because trying to cure dysentery with brandy and peaches was never going to be a good idea. But now that the English have a king who isn’t John, a significant number of people have changed sides – including the young William Marshal – and now support the new, bright, shiny young Henry III.
Prince Louis was still in the picture, however, and a sizeable number of rebel barons were laying siege to the castle. The city itself was already in their hands. I assumed large numbers of townsfolk had fled. There’s a tragic story of all the women and children taking to the boats to escape the battle. The boats sank and most of them drowned. You could say they’d have done better to stay put and take their chances, but the royalists would go through the city like something that moves very quickly through something else. Markham through a Spotted Dick, perhaps.
For those who mistakenly think Spotted Dick is just the sort of terrible disease he would go down with – it’s actually his favourite dessert. He’s almost terminally addicted to it. And the ocean of custard that goes with it. Rumour has it that Mrs Mack had been forced to employ another kitchen assistant just to satisfy his rapacious demands. I don’t know about that, but I do know that at least twice a week Janet used to emerge from the kitchen and personally serve him his own individual Dick. He would beam and thank her politely. She would blush and pour his custard for him. No – that is not a metaphor. Shame on you.
Anyway, moving swiftly away from the young master and his designated Spotted Dick provider, the damage to the city was one of the reasons we’d landed inside the castle rather than out.
Nice place, Lincoln. Very prosperous. In fact, the third largest city in England. Made its name through wool and cloth. Remember Robin Hood and his famous Lincoln Green?
And strategically very important, too. They say, ‘Location, location, location,’ and Lincoln had location in spades. It stood at the junction of two main Roman roads – Ermine Street and the Fosse Way. The River Trent gave access to York and the north via the River Ouse, and the River Witham offered access to the eastern coast. Yep – Lincoln was a prize worth fighting over.
And Lady Nicola de la Haye, the hereditary castellan and one of the most remarkable women of the Middle Ages, was making them fight for it. Loyal to the king, contemptuous of the rebels on the other side of her castle walls, she commanded the tiny garrison and, despite an appeal from Prince Louis on the grounds of her age and gender – silly sod – she refused to surrender to him. For almost three months the castle had withstood siege engines bombarding the south and east walls. To no avail – these were obviously some serious walls.
The royalists, headed by Ranulf, Earl of Chester, and William Marshal senior, were due any minute now. There would be bloody fighting. The siege would be lifted and the town plundered as its punishment.
So that’s the state of play. Everyone in the right place at the right time except for Markham and Maxwell. We’d aimed for the north-west corner of the bailey on the day before the battle was due to take place – the 19th – so we’d be able to have a good look around and suss things out before events kicked off. Hence the pasties. The royalists – trapped inside the castle – had been under siege for three months now, although I don’t think the siege was total. Sir Geoffrey de Serlant, Nicola’s deputy, was able to get out when he needed to – but food opens doors and we intended to exploit that.
Lincoln Castle was a big place. The bailey – the area within the castle walls – was huge, which was just as well, as it had to contain all the official buildings – the courts, the administrative offices and all the men who staffed them. We’d hoped to find ourselves somewhere to blend in among the usual clutter of scruffy wooden buildings scattered about. Kitchens, smithies, workshops, poultry houses, wells, stables, armouries, storerooms – it’s not all flouncing around in long skirts and pointy hats, you know. Castles were male-oriented, working, multifunctional buildings. The centre of commerce and the community. Bustling. And, with luck, too busy to notice a couple of strangers and their pod.
As I said, we’d aimed for the north-west end and missed. We were in the north-east corner, a few yards from an old stone edifice that would one day be Cobb Hall but wasn’t at the moment. I’d missed our target. Or rather, I hadn’t missed but the pod had.
I think I’ve banged on before about the necessity for frequent pod maintenance. Without it, pods begin to drift. To prevent this happening, Leon has instigated a rigid programme of A, B and C services – all of which take priority over operational requirements.
The A service is what a pod receives after every jump. The equivalent of polishing out the scratches and emptying the ashtrays. There’s always a lot of unjustified grumbling from the Technical Section, which peace-loving and very nearly innocent historians rightly ignore. The B service is the monthly check-up, and the C service – the big one – is twice yearly. That’s when Leon and his teams virtually take the pod apart and rebuild it from scratch. Mischief-making historians maintain there’s absolutely no difference in the pod’s performance pre or post any service, just for the pleasure of winding up the techies, who retaliate with a long list of complaints and observations regarding said historians, addressed directly to the long-suffering and very nearly blameless Head of the History Department.
I remembered the brief but vigorous discussion over exactly how Sykes and Roberts had managed to break a cupholder. Both of them had strenuously denied any wrongdoing – it had come off in their hand, apparently. In our efforts to prove each other wrong, Leon and I both stamped into Number Six and demonstrated our theories as to exactly how this catastrophe could have occurred. Sadly, no sooner had the door closed behind us than we were overcome by the force of our arguments – and one or two other things – resulting in us breaking the second cupholder. We called that one a score draw.
Markham and I had treated this pod as gently as we could, keeping the power levels topped up and so forth but, sooner or later, it would start to drift. Temporally and spatially. The warning signs were beginning to manifest themselves. Very soon now I was going to have to get it a proper check-up. Somehow.
Presumably Pennyroyal and Smallhope had the same problem with their pod – or pods, because Markham always maintained they had more than one. And more than one location, too. In fact, we were convinced they had boltholes all over the place. When we saw them again, I’d have to ask them how they overcame the drifting problem.
Back to the now, however. We’d meant to land in the very early morning on the 19th and spend the day familiarising ourselves with the layout. Sadly, we were twenty-four hours and a hundred yards out. At least it was still dark. Our sudden appearance, in daylight, in the middle of a castle under siege would have been asking for serious trouble.
Anyway, here we were – wrong time wrong place, which just about summed up the two of us.
‘Two hours to dawn,’ said Markham. ‘I strongly advise we stay put until daylight.’
‘Agreed,’ I said, and he curled up in the corner like a stunned dormouse and went to sleep. Just like that. I wished I could do the same. I don’t sleep well. Sometimes it’s so bad I can wake up if a sparrow coughs in the next street. And tonight my mind was racing, anyway.
The siege was going so badly for the rebels that Prince Louis, still in London, had been forced to send reinforcements. Which meant that over half the rebel forces were now congregated outside the walls of Lincoln Castle. Something that wily old strategist, William Marshal, was about to use to his advantage. A win today would be a massive blow against the rebels. A turning point in the war. And vice versa. Both sides had everything to play for and things were about to get very hairy indeed.
Markham and I had discussed our strategy. Land inside the castle grounds, pray everyone was far too busy to pay us any attention, wander around handing out the odd pie or pasty, and keep our eyes peeled. It seemed a good bet that a specific attempt would be made on the life of someone important here today. William Marshal senior was our first choice, followed by Nicola de la Haye. She had a very able deputy in the person of Sir Geoffrey de Serlant, but there was no doubt her death would deal the defenders a mighty blow. Markham and I might have to split up.
I folded my arms and scowled at my feet. They hadn’t actually done anything wrong – I was just having a think about what was going on. Not just here, but in general. The first question, of course – what the hell were these Insight people playing at?
Because you can’t change History. It’s the first rule of St Mary’s and what we’ve always been told. You can’t change History. History doesn’t like it.
Deep breath, everyone, because, actually – you can. I’ve changed History twice that I know of. Once when I’d had to engineer a meeting between Mary Stuart and the Earl of Bothwell because someone else was working very hard to ensure they were never going to get it together – and again when we’d had to move heaven and earth to get Jane Grey off the throne and Mary Tudor on it. There’d been no one person to blame for that particular problem – it was the result of what the Time Police call Bluebell Time.
A long time ago in the future – in the days when time travel for all was not only possible but legal – so many people had wanted to visit the 16th century and interact with contemporaries that many events were changed, distorted or never happened at all. The upshot was that somehow the wrong queen ascended the throne.
The Time Police likened it to a bluebell wood visited by too many people, all of whom trampled the flowers into the mud, churned up the paths, made new paths to walk on and so forth. In the end they’d all but destroyed the wood and the Time Police had had to put in a patch. They’d described it as putting down decking to give the glade a chance to recover and return to its former state.
Don’t laugh – it worked. Who here remembers Queen Jane the Bloody – even though she reigned for thirty-five years and was finally defeated by the Spanish Armada? Anyone? Anyway, History had looked the other way as I’d climbed over the right wall at the right moment to catch Mary Tudor alone and persuade her to declare herself queen. History was diverted back on to the correct path and we all went home more or less unscathed.
Even now, after all these years, I can still remember that heady feeling of invincibility. Of events falling neatly into place. Just where and when I’d needed them to. And here we were – me and Markham – interfering with History yet again.
If we got this wrong, then we wouldn’t last ten minutes outside the pod. A long time ago, one of my trainees, Laurence Hoyle, had tried to alter the outcome of Bosworth Field and he’d been trampled to death by two horsemen who had appeared from nowhere and disappeared a second later. How easy for History to kill a couple of lunatics who had no right to be here. Many and varied are the ways for an historian to die if History decides she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And this is why ex-historians shouldn’t be allowed to sit and think in a dimly lit pod on the eve of battle. It’s never a good idea to start second-guessing yourself. I switched on the kettle and made some tea, giving the young master a gentle kick.
‘Early morning tea for Mr Ham. Room service for Mr Mark Ham.’
He stirred. A bit like Godzilla emerging from the primal ooze to lay waste to Tokyo. Or Lincoln, in this case. He sat up and groaned. ‘I’m getting too old for this.’
I handed him his mug of tea. ‘Oh, come on. We’re in the middle of the second most important battle in English History. Both sides will regard us as hostile. We don’t know what we’re doing. We don’t know what’s going to happen next and we’re a long way from home. Seriously – where else would we be?’
Markham grinned. ‘True. Still got the basket?’
I nodded and touched the cloth covering the top. ‘Still warm.’
‘Good.’
‘I’m hoping no one’s going to stab the Good Woman bringing a small treat to the troops.’
He nodded. ‘Ditto with the good woman’s servant.’
‘I’m not holding my breath over that one.’
We finished our tea in silence and then he said, ‘Sun’s coming up. Ready?’
‘As I’ll ever be.’
I checked my wimple and veil, shook out my skirts and pushed my stun gun up my sleeve. Markham took the basket.
‘Right then,’ I said, squaring my shoulders and trying to look brave. ‘No reason to hang around.’
‘None at all.’
‘Shall we stop hanging around then?’
‘OK.’
‘Off we go.’
‘Yep.’
‘After you.’
I think he would have said age before beauty before realising that might end his life far more quickly than facing whatever was happening outside. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and forth we sallied.
The first thing that hit me was the noise. I don’t mean that there was any fighting but a lot of men were gathered together in a very small space – both inside and outside the walls – and there was noise. Men shouting, horses whinnying for their breakfast, the clang of hammers on metal, running footsteps, a clatter of pans from what I guessed was the kitchens, dogs barking, and someone somewhere was doing something to a goose and it wasn’t happy.
‘Good heavens,’ said Markham. ‘Well, at least we won’t have to whisper.’
What caught my attention was the sizeable contingent of civilians. I assumed these were the townspeople who supported the king or were loyal to Nicola and had sought refuge inside the castle. Which was a big relief. There aren’t usually that many women in a castle but now there was a whole gaggle of civilians to camouflage us. Things were looking better.
