The Doomsday Code

‘My lady, perhaps it would be best if we return to the grounds of the priory?’

She shook her head. ‘I am detecting tachyons, Cabot. It appears the message has already been received.’

Tack-ee-ons? Another one of their strange words that he could only ponder the meaning of. He looked around the field, not sure what a tack-ee-on was, or what he should do if one were to approach him.

A fresh breeze stirred the barley, sending a gentle wave across the ears of grain.

‘The portal is coming,’ said Becks.

Cabot’s gaze flitted from one direction to the next. All he could see was the field they were standing in, the edge of the nearby woods and a thin smudge of smoke rising from the priory just over the brow of the hillside. Then all of a sudden he felt a strong buffeting wind, cool against his cheek.

A dozen yards ahead, above the chest-high sea of swaying barley, he could just make out the outline of a shimmering, undulating dome. Within it, he saw swirling dark details that flickered and twisted like the reflection in a disturbed pool of water. ‘What devilry is this!’ his voice croaked hoarsely.

‘It is a time portal,’ said Becks matter-of-factly. She started towards it. ‘Follow me, please.’

But Cabot remained rooted to the spot. Suddenly terrified of this thing that had no place being here in their field. He saw darkness in the middle of it, shapes he couldn’t understand, demon-like shapes that seemed to be waving malevolently to him, beckoning him on.

This can be of no good, he cautioned himself. He glanced at Lady Rebecca and for a moment wondered if his more devout brothers in the priory had been right all along, that there were demons and devils and a dark place beneath the earth they stood on whither tainted souls were taken down and doomed to burn in torment for an eternity.

Becks turned and saw he hadn’t yet moved. ‘Now!’ she barked at him.

Cabot shook his head. ‘’Tis … ’tis an evil work!’

She pushed her way impatiently through the stalks and grabbed his arm roughly. ‘We are wasting time. The portal can only remain open for a limited period on one charge.’

‘No!’ He tried to wriggle free of her grasp. ‘No! Please!’ But her hand had closed around his lower arm like a vice. She began to wrestle him forward towards the churning darkness.

‘Oh, Lord forgive my sins!’ Cabot began to bellow, trying his best to dig his heels into the soft dry soil. ‘I renounce all evil! I renounce the Devil and his minions!’

Cabot threw a punch at her face. It landed firmly on her cheek, leaving a graze and a welt that was sure to turn into a dark purple bruise within the hour. Her eyebrows knitted disapprovingly.

‘Please do not do that again.’ With both hands she grasped his monk’s habit and lifted him up off the ground. His arms and legs began to flail frantically.

‘Ye are a demon!’ he screamed down at her face. His feet in sandals kicking her stomach, her thighs. ‘I knew it!’

She staggered forward, just about managing to keep her balance as he squirmed, kicked and punched in her grasp.

‘No! Please!Have mercy on — !’

CHAPTER 71

1194, Nottingham Castle, Nottingham

‘What!’ roared John.

Liam looked at Bob, standing beside him. A quick warning glance to him to be ready for anything. There was no knowing how John was going to react to the news.

‘I said it’s gone, Sire. Lady Rebecca took it last night.’

The skin on John’s face raced through several shades of crimson anger, then it drained to a pallid grey. ‘Good God! She was a traitor! She was a spy of Richard’s! She was — ’

‘No,’ Liam interrupted him. ‘No, she is nothing to do with Richard, Sire.’

John’s anger was already spent, gone in a moment, leaving him quivering and looking lost.

‘She …’ John’s jaw worked silently. ‘She … But I thought we were … in love.’ He looked slowly up at Liam and he could see tears filling the man’s hooded eyes. ‘But, do you say she was taking me for a … for a fool?’

Liam couldn’t deny that bit. Yes, she had been using him.

‘Lady Rebecca has taken it to a safe place,’ said Liam. The fluttering of nerves in his own voice had gone. John didn’t look like a tyrant about to order his head be cut off. Liam had expected a torrent of abuse, a face full of royal spittle. Instead, John looked all of a sudden like a child, abandoned, frightened and lonely.

‘She told me to … to be strong,’ he said quietly, a tear rolling down his cheek into the wispy bristles of his beard. ‘For her … you know? I would have been.’ He swiped at his cheek with a sleeve. ‘For her, you understand? For her … I would have stood up to Richard.’

Liam looked over John’s slumped shoulders at the arched alcove and the balcony beyond. In the heat- shimmering distance beyond the walls of Nottingham, he could see the endless rows of multicoloured tents and marquees of Richard’s assembled army, the sturdy lumber A-frames of half a dozen catapults, being swarmed around and finished by carpenters. Like ants at this distance.

‘I have to surrender to him,’ whispered John. ‘I have to capitulate. The longer I leave it … the angrier he will get! He will — ’

‘No!’ said Liam.

John looked up at him sharply, a flash of irritation in his eyes at Liam’s insubordinate interruption.

‘Listen, Sire … if you do surrender while you have no Grail, you have nothing to bargain with!’ Liam didn’t need to finish that thought for John. By the look in John’s red-rimmed eyes, he knew exactly what that meant for him.

‘But, if you stall …’ Liam continued.

‘Stall?’ A word John was unfamiliar with.

‘If you wait. Let Richard think you have it … maybe even threaten to destroy it if he attempts to attack — ’

‘Destroy it?’ John’s eyes looked like they’d glimpsed the very bowels of Hell. ‘Can you imagine, Sheriff — can you imagine what he would do to me? If I … If I were to …’

‘Would he dare risk that, though?’ Liam cocked an eyebrow. ‘Really? After all that he’s done to get hold of it, would he risk you putting a candle to it?’

John swallowed nervously. ‘He … he would know I daren’t.’

Liam looked at the man, trembling and pale. Perhaps he would at that.

‘You still have to be strong, Sire. You have to arrange a meeting with him. You have to tell him we have it here — and, unless his army disbands, you will burn it yourself.’

Bob opened his mouth to say something. Liam knew what it was: a warning about time contamination. The way history was supposed to go, Richard’s siege was successful and John surrendered to his older brother. Liam patted his good arm to hush him. John didn’t need to hear that right now, that he was destined to surrender.

‘Buy us a little time, Sire,’ said Liam. ‘Meet with him … convince him that you will destroy it if he attempts to attack us.’

John stroked his chin obsessively, the faint tremor of a nervous tic in his quivering jaw. Liam wondered if the poor man could convince anyone of anything right now.

‘Lady Rebecca will be back, I assure you. She’ll be back with the Grail.’

I hope.

‘And then you can arrange a truce, Sire. You’ll have something you can use to bargain with.’