Читать книгу Erasmus Hobart and the Golden Arrow - Andrew Fish - Страница 5

Chapter One

The sun was high in the sky as Erasmus emerged. Blinking in the unexpectedly bright light, he looked back at the privy behind him. Could he return for a pair of sunglasses? No, he couldn’t. Bringing even the simplest of modern technologies into another time could have profound effects on the development of the human species. Sighing with the burden of responsibility, he locked the door to the time machine and pocketed the key before shading his eyes with his hand and examining his surroundings.

He appeared to be in some kind of side street, which implied a relatively large settlement; about a hundred yards ahead of him he could see an open area, probably a marketplace. But he was struck by how quiet it was: mediaeval settlements were supposed to be hives of activity, centres of trade and intrigue. Perhaps it was a holiday. But wouldn’t people be out celebrating and the streets filled with bunting? He looked around at the surrounding buildings, all apparently empty, and shrugged. Perhaps that was one of those historical misconceptions. He walked on.

After ten or twelve yards, he felt himself step in something soft and looked down to see his boot had sunk into a pile of horse manure. Disgusted, he moved his foot and scraped it on the dusty ground; the manure was moist and streaks of it rubbed off on the hard road surface. That was also puzzling: if the manure hadn’t dried enough to flake, then it had to be relatively fresh.

For a moment he thought he caught a hint of movement in the alley to his left. He turned to look, but there was nothing: a row of wooden doors stayed obstinately shut; nobody moved behind the glassless windows.

So where was everyone? It was as if aliens had descended on the town during a busy lunch hour and carted them all off. He chuckled to himself. Aliens. A preposterous idea – the stuff of poor science fiction. He looked back to make sure his time machine didn’t look too out of place then continued towards the square, stopping periodically to scrape more horse dung from his boot.

The area at the end of the street was definitely a marketplace. The buildings surrounding it were all two-storey, timber-framed affairs of the type you would normally associate with rich merchants and their guilds. There was no sign of market activity, but that wasn’t surprising since markets wouldn’t take place every day. What was odd was that even here there was no sign of life.

He looked up at the upper storeys; the windows were all shuttered, preventing him from seeing if there were people inside. Mystified, he continued through the square, looking for some indication of where he was and when. Perhaps the more ostentatious buildings would have a construction date engraved somewhere – that at least would give him some idea.

As he approached the tallest of the buildings surrounding the square – something he presumed to be a town hall – he heard the sound of hooves approaching at a gentle trot from one of the side streets.

He listened carefully: in between the distinctive clops of the horse’s hooves he could just make out the tramp of more solid footsteps – perhaps a man in boots. As long as he was in the right country, the new arrivals should be able to tell him where he was and what was going on. Decided on his course of action, he walked towards the street from which the sound was emanating and, as he turned the corner, stopped in stunned surprise.

In many ways it was probably a fairly ordinary sight for its time: the woman on the horse carried herself with dignity and surveyed her surroundings with a look comprised in equal parts of contempt and arrogance; the two mail-shirted men who flanked her kept their hands on the hilts of their swords and their eyes assiduously on the ground, making no attempt to look at their lady.

And that was clearly what she was: a lady, a member of the ennobled classes. It wasn’t just her bearing, or the fact she was mounted on a chestnut mare, which itself appeared somewhat uninterested in the proceedings; it wasn’t that her long, dark hair showed signs of care and that her finely chiselled looks showed evidence of the lack of hard toil.

No, if Erasmus had been asked to put his finger on the nub of the argument, he would have said it was her apparel: she appeared to have been outfitted – if that was the word – by the same tailor who had provided the emperor with his new clothes. In short, she was completely naked and it was only the horse’s head and the lady’s hair that prevented Erasmus from having a grandstand view of one of the most famous, yet least seen sights in English legend. History, he corrected himself – if he was seeing it, then it had happened. He knew the woman was rich because he knew who she was. This was the woman who, according to the tales, had ridden naked through the streets of Coventry in protest at her husband’s oppressive taxation of the peasants. This was…

‘Lady Godiva.’ He couldn’t help himself and blurted the name out.

The party continued a step or two and, for a split second, Erasmus thought perhaps he hadn’t said anything or that the theorists had been right when they suggested time travel took you into a parallel dimension where you could be neither seen nor heard.

He was just preparing to step aside, in order to prevent the profoundly embarrassing feeling of people passing through him, when the guard on the left looked up, using a hand to blinker one side of his face so he could see who had spoken without committing the heinous crime of seeing whom he had spoken about. The other guard shot him a quick glance and then looked back at the ground. Godiva herself interrupted the appraising of her domain to look at Erasmus. Her expression changed from one of quiet dignity to rage.

‘What are you doing out here?’ she roared. Erasmus stepped back involuntarily, almost tripping over a stone in the road as he did so.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know what day it was.’

‘Didn’t know what day it was! Do you honestly expect me to believe that?’

Erasmus kept quiet. He knew he couldn’t tell her the truth and he wasn’t entirely sure what he could tell her that she would believe. Godiva gave him a scornful look, then turned her head so she could address one of the guards below. ‘Don’t just stand there,’ she said.

‘Yes ma’am,’ said the guard nervously, trying to fight his natural instinct to look at the person who was speaking to him.

‘Seize him, you fool.’

‘Yes ma’am.’ Both guards began to move purposefully towards Erasmus, each drawing their sword as they did so, whilst trying hard not to look back towards their mistress. Erasmus took a few careful paces backwards. Then he turned on his heel and ran.

‘Run after him, you fools,’ yelled Godiva. The two guards picked up the pace and pursued Erasmus as he sped across the marketplace.

Godiva herself pulled on the reins and her horse began to canter steadily. The increase in pace meant the horse sprang between steps and the force of its impact dislodged the braids of hair which had, up till then, been protecting her modesty by covering her breasts. The hair fell in front of her eyes and, intent on her pursuit, Godiva threw the braids over her shoulder, making no further effort to conceal herself as she continued.

‘Phwoaar,’ came a voice from the building to her left. Godiva turned and saw that, amongst the windows of the building, one was unshuttered and a man was staring out at her, his eyes wide.

‘Right, that does it,’ she snapped. She dug her heels into her horse’s sides. The beast wheeled round and brought up its forelegs, lashing out at the side of the building. The man backed away hurriedly, but wasn’t fast enough to prevent his face being bombarded with fragments of wattle from the wall.

‘Ow!’ he screamed, clutching his face. ‘My eyes, my eyes! I can’t see!’

‘Bloody peeping Alfreds,’ Godiva muttered. She guided her horse in the direction in which the guards had run.

Erasmus, meanwhile, had entered the side street. He could see his time machine ahead. His lungs were straining with the unaccustomed effort, but he had the advantage – he wasn’t, after all, encumbered by armour. Godiva’s angry yells were ringing in his ears, but he resisted the urge to look back, concentrating instead on the prize.

And so it was that he almost cannoned into a blurry shape that cut across his path. Refocusing his gaze, he found himself looking at the burly form of a man, rudely dressed and unarmoured, but holding a pitchfork in his hand like a peasant who had more than a spot of gardening in mind. Erasmus almost skidded to a halt, then took a step back and smiled amiably.

‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I wonder if I could just get past.’

The man said nothing, but glared fixedly.

‘Only. I’m trying to go over there—’ His words were cut off by an angry cry from behind.

‘Seize him, man.’

The peasant looked up and his expression faltered. Blood rushed to his face and he clamped a hand to his eyes as if to stop it escaping. Taking his chance, Erasmus tried to sidestep him, but with the pitchfork and the narrowness of the street, there was no way past. Erasmus turned to his right, where an alley led away. He couldn’t tell if there was a way through, but it was better than staying where he was. He ran.

The cry of ‘fool’ resonated along the alley, shaking the wattle and daub walls. A door to Erasmus’ right seemed to be shaken partially open. Erasmus paused, contemplating ducking into the building and waiting for his pursuers to pass. Then the door swung wide and three more peasants piled out, each wielding a pitchfork and wearing an angry expression. Suddenly Erasmus found himself wishing the aliens had visited.

He sprinted on, almost tripping over his feet in his haste. He stumbled to one side and put a hand out to steady himself. The wall beside him yielded, but held and he sprang back, his pace barely reduced. Behind him he heard the urgent thudding of heavy soles as his pursuers broke into a run. Their heavy breaths spoke of men used to steady effort rather than sudden bursts of exertion, which filled Erasmus with hope.

Then there was a sudden and heavy-sounding thump, followed by a grunt, a crash and several angry exclamations. Despite the urgency of his situation, Erasmus couldn’t help but turn back. Behind him, he saw the original pitchfork-wielding peasant lying on the floor with a man he assumed to be one of the second batch of pursuers. The other two appeared to have vanished.

Erasmus was just musing on this when he noticed a hole in one of the buildings lining the road. The continued commotion from this direction told its own story. Grinning to himself, he turned and continued his flight. Ahead of him was a junction, where another alley crossed his path left to right. Slowing his pace to a more sustainable jog, he turned left. If he was correct, the simple geography of the place suggested this passage should lead him on to one of the alleys he’d encountered on his arrival. From there it would be only a short flit to his time machine and safety.

The sudden arrival of two hefty peasants in his path ended this latest burst of optimism. From their reddened faces and plaster-covered clothes, Erasmus couldn’t entertain the hope they were just another pair of generic peasants, despite their generic pitchforks. These they levelled to deny him passage, leaving him staring at eight unpleasantly rusty tines. He backed off.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Surely we can talk about this.’

The low growl from the peasant on the left sounded anything but conversational. Either, Erasmus considered, the Stone Age had ended later than people thought, or the people of mediaeval Coventry had poorer than average communication skills. He dodged a lunge from one of the pitchforks, eyeing the corroded metal with concern.

‘You be careful with that,’ he snapped. ‘You could give someone septicaemia.’

The peasant ignored him, his gaze seemingly drawn over his shoulder. The sound of heavy boots from behind trod what was left of Erasmus’ hope into the ground. He raised his hands in surrender, then winced as he felt the point of a pitchfork prodded firmly into his back.

‘So what happens now?’ he demanded.

None of the men spoke.

‘You must be wonderful guests at parties,’ Erasmus muttered. He paused, awaiting a response, but received none. The man to his right avoided his gaze. The man to his left said nothing, but picked his nose with his free hand. Erasmus felt a sudden terrible uncertainty descending on him. What had only moments ago felt like a bit of an adventure suddenly felt much more sinister. Life in the Middle Ages, a memory told him, could be nasty, brutish and short. It was all very well when you saw such a thing written in one of the cheaper textbooks, but that was just words; something to be contemplated in the quiet security of a twenty-first century classroom. This was reality. And the quiet didn’t help. Erasmus felt like screaming for someone to just say something, but some deeply coded message in his DNA told him making a loud, sudden noise when surrounded by men holding pointy things was no way to pass your genetic material on. He settled instead for an unthreatening smile and a slight stretch to raise his hands higher.

‘Take me to your leader?’ he ventured.

Suddenly, the man to his left flushed. He withdrew his finger quickly from his nose and clamped his hand over his eyes. Momentarily distracted by the mucus the man was now smearing over his cheek, Erasmus took a second to realise that the peasant to his right was also doing his best not to look. The teacher glanced over his shoulder and caught a glimpse of two peasants with hands firmly in place and, beyond them, the body of an approaching horse.

There was no better moment. Erasmus looked to the building at his left. It looked solid enough, but then so did the rest of them. Tensing himself, he shoulder charged the wall. There was a sickening crunch as layers of twigs cracked under the impact, then the panel caved in and he tumbled through into the cottage beyond, landing on a pile of old rags. Stumbling to his feet, he took in his surroundings. Cracks of light suggested a door ahead. He took a step towards it and felt a sudden sharp pain on the side of his head. From the corner of his eye he saw a small, dishevelled figure wielding what appeared to be a broom. At least, he considered, it wasn’t a pitchfork. He raised a hand to fend off further attacks and ran. His assailant let out a blood-curdling screech, prompting him to run faster. She managed to land only one more blow on the small of his back before he crashed through the door, but the pain raced through him, spurring him on beyond his physical limits.

Outside, he heard the sound of feet as his pursuers gave chase. Fear lent him speed and he rapidly put distance between them. He came out of the alley into the side street, gratefully finding himself only yards from his privy.

Fumbling with his keys, he ran to the door. The sounds of pursuit rumbled in his ears and made it harder for his shaking fingers to put the key into the lock. Glancing down, he realised this was because it was, in fact, the wrong key. He tried a second and felt it bite just as the sound of boots became a thunder.

Quickly, he unlocked the door, opened it and threw himself into his seat, not even bothering to extract the key from the outside. Instead, he slammed the door and scrabbled for the controls.

Outside in the street, the peasants came to a halt. The guards pushed past them and approached the privy with caution. A few feet from the device, one of the guards paused and tapped his partner’s arm.

‘What is it, Smith?’ snapped the other guard.

‘I’ve just trod in summat, Sarge.’

‘Can’t it wait? We’ve got a man to catch.’

There was an eerie whine from inside the privy. Both guards shivered.

‘He’s not going anywhere, Sarge,’ said Smith. He began casually scraping the manure from his boot using the blade of his sword. His eyes, however, were firmly on the wooden box.

‘We ought to arrest him,’ said the sergeant, although his voice seemed to suggest this was a junior guard’s job.

‘No rush,’ said Smith. ‘We’ll just say we were waiting for her presence. It’s not like he’s escaped.’

Just as he spoke, a gust of hot air blew the dust up from the road. Guards and peasants covered their faces as if an army of naked women stood before them. Then, the sound of a thunderclap came from the direction of the privy and the guards dropped their hands to their sides and gaped. The street where the privy had stood was empty.

For a moment there was silence, then Smith, his wide-open mouth filling with dust, began to choke. They were still thus distracted when the sound of hooves came clopping up behind them.

Godiva forced the peasants aside and brought her horse to a halt next to the guards, narrowly missing Smith’s foot. She stared at them scornfully. The guards closed their mouths and attempted to look businesslike. This was made somewhat difficult by the fact they couldn’t look at Godiva to see her reaction.

‘Where is he, then?’

‘Vanished, ma’am,’ said the sergeant, keeping his eyes trained studiously on the horse’s head. The horse shook its head to dislodge some of the dust that was still drifting through the air and hmmphed scornfully.

‘Vanished?’

‘Into thin air,’ said Smith, trying not to look at either Godiva or the rear end of the horse, which was the part nearest to him. The horse’s tail lashed his nose and he sneezed.

‘He must have been an alchemist, m’lady.’

The horse shook its head as if in disagreement.

‘An alchemist?’ Godiva seemed equally unconvinced.

‘Must have been,’ the sergeant concurred.

Godiva mused on this a moment then wheeled her horse round. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘When we get back we’re going to see about a crackdown on alchemists.’ She started forward and the two guards stepped back to avoid being trampled. The peasants turned to study the nearest wall intently. Godiva ignored them and kept her eyes on the guards.

‘Lead on,’ she said.

The two guards walked on, a few yards ahead of the horse.

‘We got off lightly there,’ said the sergeant.

‘You might have done,’ said Smith.

‘What do you mean?’

‘That bloody horse just crapped on my foot.’