The Doomsday Code

‘He is alive?’ Bob repeated insistently.

‘Aye … y-yes … they took … they took him …’

Bob nodded. ‘Understood,’ his deep voice rumbled. He turned to one of the recruits standing nearby. ‘Fetch this man some mead from our store-room.’ He estimated the dying man had another hour of life left in him. The alcohol would at least make it a comfortable hour. Bob evaluated the man deserved at least that for dutifully struggling back to make his report. His grey eyes swivelled on to the townsfolk who’d helped him in. ‘You are good civilians. I am grateful for your assistance. You may also drink some mead.’

The men tugged their forelocks with gratitude.

Bob rested a hand on Gardiner’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. ‘You have functioned well, Henry Gardiner.’

He stood up, his mind already shuffling through a decision-tree of actions he was going to need to take. There wasn’t a great deal of calculative effort required to come up with the conclusion that retrieving Liam alive was the preferred course of action. It didn’t conflict with the primary objective; what’s more, Liam O’Connor’s role as sheriff had proven to be effective among the local population. The people appeared to like him and would want their sheriff back.

Bob had already made the decision to find and rescue him. He was just waiting for his code to spit that out as a formal menu option.

But finding him, finding where exactly the Hood’s men were encamped within the forests of Nottingham, could take days, weeks, perhaps even months. He didn’t have that kind of time. He had just twenty-three days left until either he returned to 2001, or his silicon mind fused itself here in 1194.

Little time to waste.

If there’d been a skirmish in the forests — an ambush, logically — it would have occurred on the forest track north-east between Nottingham and Kirklees Priory. There would be detectable signs of the fight still: bloodstains, scuff marks … perhaps a trail to follow. Perhaps the raiders were still in the vicinity.

He turned to look up at the men in the guardhouse above. Several faces were peering curiously down. One of them he recognized as belonging to one of the original guard that had escorted them here from Oxford nearly six months ago. Like Eddie, a veteran with experience. He pulled the man’s name from his database.

‘Jethro Longstreet?’

‘Sire?’

‘Under the authority of the Sheriff of Nottingham, I am promoting you to garrison commander of this castle in my absence.’

He could see the man’s eyes widen with disbelief.

‘You will continue the daily patrols of the farms outside.’ His voice echoed around the castle’s walls. ‘You will continue supervising morning food distribution in the town marketplace. You will also maintain the training regime for these new recruits. I will be absent for several days. Are these instructions perfectly clear?’

‘Aye … aye, sire.’

‘Then proceed in this role.’

He turned to the men standing nearby. ‘And bring me a horse immediately.’

CHAPTER 55

1194, Oxford Castle

Becks detected noises of distress coming from the castle’s outer walls: raised voices, high-pitched and signifying alarm. And one of those voices she identified as John’s.

A few minutes later he staggered into the great hall, gasping, looking for her. His eyes found her standing beside an arched window doing her best to look serene and ladylike. He came quickly over.

‘’Tis true! I have j-just this minute heard!’ he stammered.

‘What is true?’

‘R-Richard … he has s-set foot in England!’ John’s face was ashen with fear and damp with sweat. ‘The messenger … the messenger arrived this morning! He tells me he set foot in Dover yesterday!’

Becks consulted her database and a map of England. It was 118 miles from Dover to Oxford. A piece of data she didn’t have was how many miles an army from this period could travel in a day. However, a determined man could cover that distance in two days. John had already told her his brother most likely would gather supporters along the way, with his growing army eventually catching up with him.

‘Do you believe he will come to Oxford immediately?’ she asked.

John nodded frantically. ‘He will come here directly … b-because he believes the Grail is here!’ He swallowed nervously. ‘I will have to be the one to tell him — tell him that it’s lost. It was on my instructions the Templars were taking it north to Scotland.’ John’s nerves spilled out and became a manic laugh. ‘He’s going to kill me!’

‘I will protect you,’ she said calmly.

He wandered over to the balcony and looked out across the city. The heat of a mid-morning’s sun was baking the castle’s stone walls, and the air shimmered above the crenellations, making the dark slate rooftops of Oxford’s shacks and hovels dance and undulate beneath the cloudless blue sky. ‘Why has your colleague, Liam, not managed to find it yet? It does not sound like he has even started to look for it!’

There had been several couriers from Nottingham over the last few months, bearing a detailed account of matters up there. Most of Liam’s reports had been on his efforts to win the starving people round, to carefully rebuild some semblance of royal authority, law and order … all in John’s name.

‘He has been busy stabilizing the region,’ she replied. ‘Only when he has the support and sympathies of the people will he have a chance of locating this outlaw who has stolen your Grail.’ She was quoting Liam’s words from the last report.

‘I know! I know!’ snapped John. ‘But we have no more time now for making friends of the peasants! Richard will be here this very night … maybe tomorrow.’ He turned to look at her, trembling as he spoke. ‘Do you understand? There will be blood when he discovers it is lost! My blood!’

Becks’s eyes narrowed. She looked back out at the walls of the castle, the walls of Oxford. ‘You could hold out against him. Prevent him from entering the city.’

John scratched at his beard; a nervous tic of his that Becks had noticed gradually become increasingly pronounced over the last six months. ‘The city would fall to him,’ he said. ‘The people here love him.’

Becks nodded slowly. His evaluation was, of course, quite correct. She trawled through her database of history for this period and immediately hit upon the obvious solution. A solution that, as it happened, would also align with history as it was meant to happen.

‘You must retreat north to Nottingham,’ she said. ‘The castle has a better defensive configuration, and the city is sympathetic to you.’

John licked his lips, breathing noisily through his nose as he gave her suggestion serious thought. ‘NO! No … that w-will anger him f-further!’

Becks’s store of data on the correct timeline indicated a successful defence of the city and a siege by Richard that lasted several weeks. The siege concluded with John’s surrender and Richard demonstrating uncharacteristic mercy for his brother, letting him live as long as he swore allegiance to him.

That was the history that needed to happen now to prevent an unacceptable level of temporal contamination.

‘Nottingham is loyal to you,’ she said. ‘The city will hold. This may give the sheriff enough additional time to locate the Grail for you. The Grail could then be used as a bargaining tool, allowing you to negotiate an acceptable surrender.’

He looked at her. ‘You think that is possible?’

‘Of course it is possible. Liam may already have enough local intelligence from the people to successfully locate these outlaws. Winning their loyalty and support as he has been doing has been a necessary first step.’