The Doomsday Code

‘Bob, I think we’re going to have to make a go for it.’

‘Clarify “go for it”.’

‘Don’t stop. Just go. Go very fast!’

Bob nodded. ‘Agreed.’

He whipped the reins across the horse’s shoulders, and for good measure swung a hard kick once more at its rear. The horse bellowed a complaint but all the same broke into a begrudging canter.

The soldiers ahead of them called out warnings for them to stop but, at the very last moment, stepped aside to avoid being run over.

As they swept by them, angry voices rippled orders and another party of soldiers further up, overseeing the merchants’ exodus, readied themselves to stop the cart. Liam could see these ones were better equipped for the job, armed as they were with pikes. Just one of those braced firmly against the ground would be enough to run their horse’s chest through and bring it down in an untidy heap.

What they needed was a stampede. A distraction. Chaos. What they needed was …

He reached for the box, yanked the lid open and carefully tucked the drawstring canvas bag into the folds of his cloak. What was left inside, a small mound of gold coins, he scooped up into his hands.

‘Bob!’ he bellowed over his shoulder. ‘Shout “free money”! Shout something like “free money”! Really, really loud!’

Bob craned his hooded neck to look at Liam and saw him holding the handfuls of coins. He seemed to understand what Liam was up to. ‘MONEY!’ his voice boomed above the pounding hooves and the laboured creak of their spinning cartwheels. ‘HAVE FREE MONEY!’

Liam tossed a handful of the glinting coins over the left side of the cart and into the tall grass beside the track. The result was almost instantaneous — like tossing a handful of breadcrumbs into a courtyard full of pigeons. Merchants’ wives walking beside their husbands’ carts, the foot traffic, tradesmen’s helpers old and young, children, all swarmed off the dusty track and began scrabbling in the tall grass.

Bob steered their horse, cutting in between two carts and putting them on the right side of the traffic emerging through the arch of the gatehouse as Liam tossed another handful into the crowd around them.

‘FREE MONEY FOR EVERYONE!’ bellowed Bob again.

Hands snatched and grabbed for the coins tumbling through the air. They were now level with the pikemen — the soldiers on the left of the surging river of people, them on the right, separated by a roiling sea of grasping hands fighting each other to get within reach of the last shower of coins.

The soldiers pushed their way angrily through people bent over double and scrabbling in the dust to get to them, but then Liam tossed a handful right at them. Coins clanging like shrapnel off their helmets. It did the trick, stopping them dead, as they too dropped to their hands and knees to scrabble for what they could.

The large arched entrance to the town loomed above them and Bob savagely kicked their poor beast one last time, raising their canter to a reckless gallop. Its hooves clattered and scraped noisily off dried mud on to cobbles and flagstones, and the tail end of evacuating merchants ahead of them swiftly parted either side to avoid being flattened as they passed beneath the archway and into the market square inside the wall.

‘FREE MONEY FOR EVERYONE!’ Bob’s deep voice echoed across the market, bouncing off the inside of the stone walls like the blast of a ship’s foghorn. Liam tossed out another fistful in their wake, ensuring none of King Richard’s soldiers were going to be able to push through the entrance after them, plugged as it was with people doubled over and searching for coins.

‘We’re in!’ Liam shouted. ‘We did it!’

Bob reined the horse back and it slowed down to a blown, wheezing trot.

People around them, soldiers too — this time wearing the burgundy and orange colours of the town’s garrison, flocked around the back of the cart. Looking in at the remaining coins scattered across the flatbed.

Why not? Liam grinned.

He scraped the last of the coins up and threw them out into the crowd.

‘Money for the poor!’ he shouted.

CHAPTER 67

1194, Nottingham Castle, Nottingham

The first thing Liam registered as he and Bob stepped through the velvet drapes into the keep’s main hall was Becks. She was standing by the arch that led out on to a wooden balcony, poised in a ridiculously-not-her demure and ladylike pose, long embroidered linens and lace fluttering glamorously from her in the breeze.

‘Salutations, Liam. J’espere que vous allez bien?’

Liam bit his lip, resisting an inappropriate urge to giggle. Instead he tipped a polite nod at her. ‘Greetings, Lady Rebecca.’

She switched to English. ‘Greetings to you also.’

John stepped into view from the balcony. He smiled, genuinely pleased to see Liam. ‘Ahhh! My sheriff! ’Tis the man of the hour!’ He stepped forward to greet him. ‘I am indebted to you. I truly am! I arrived here earlier today to, would you believe, to cheers — actually, cheers from the peasants!’

Liam bowed. ‘They are loyal to you, Sire.’

‘Indeed, but I suspect it has been your common touch as sheriff that has earned me their affection, hmmm?’ John’s face adopted a mock-serious expression. His thick brows knotted. ‘I noticed your rather flamboyant entry to the marketplace just now. Congratulations for making your way through Richard’s lines outside … but, I must ask, is it customary now to hurl handfuls of royal revenue at the people to gain entry?’

‘Ahh, yes, that … Well, err … I — we, umm — ’

John’s frown faded and he waved the question away. ‘It matters not to me any more. Now he is back home, it is Richard’s money you were throwing anyway. Not mine.’ He stepped closer to Liam. He could see there was something far more pressing on John’s mind than mere coin. ‘Now … Please, please, you must tell me,’ he said more quietly. ‘I … I need to know — ’

Liam quickly nodded, saving the man any more anguish. ‘“Yes” is the answer, Sire. I have it. We have the Grail.’

John sagged with relief, his breath puffing out in a barely suppressed gasp. ‘Oh, thank the Lord! Thank the Lord!’ He settled down heavily into a wooden chair, robbed of the strength to remain standing. ‘I cannot tell you how … how vexed — how … how so very worried I have been!’

Becks stepped into the room and stood beside him. Liam noticed the graceful way she moved and the way she gently caressed his brow. No longer the swagger of a tomboy, no longer another Bob in a girl-suit. She was all grace and elegance.

Now that’s very weird so it is.

He smiled, proud of what she seemed to have learned over the last few months, her ability to adapt so convincingly. Not so long ago she’d barely managed to pass herself off as an American high-school student. Now here she was, quite believable as a medieval lady of noble blood.

‘Calm yourself, my lord,’ she cooed softly. ‘Did I not say my friend Liam would retrieve it for you?’

John nodded and smiled. ‘Yes, my dear … yes, so you did. I should never have doubted you.’

‘Bob helped, of course,’ said Liam, shrugging. ‘Actually he did most of the hard work.’

Bob emerged from behind the drapes and nodded politely at John and Becks.

‘Good God!’ said John, his eyes suddenly as round as pickled eggs. ‘This man needs a physician!’

Bob looked down at the ragged, shredded stump of his left arm, dangling shreds of tattered skin and the rounded white nub of a bone. ‘The wound is no longer bleeding. It is not life threatening.’

‘Your arm is GONE, man! You should be attended to immediately!’ gasped John. He got up from his chair and led Bob back towards the drapes. He called out for one of the guards standing outside to take Bob to the garrison’s apothecary. ‘And be double quick about it, fool! The man needs it bound!’

He returned, pale-faced and shuddering. ‘Ughh! I … have a poor stomach for such things.’ He puffed his cheeks queasily. ‘Oh, quite horrible … All that … gristle and — and …’ He reached for a cup of wine and drained it,