Christmas Present Page 3

I checked again that my blaster was on its lowest setting and on wide beam.

  The city was silent and for the first time, I became aware of a sound: the non-stop roar of Boudicca’s army as they approached the city. Occasionally, the noise would swell to a terrifying crescendo as a thousand drums rolled and a hundred thousand voices called on their gods for revenge against the hated Romans.

  I felt the hairs on my head lift. The veneer of civilisation is very thin. Deep inside all of us, the old instincts are still there. The instinct of the small, furry mammal when confronted with an enemy a hundred times larger is to flee. Flee for your life. Flee blindly, without thought, without plan – just get away. As far and as fast as possible.

  Then the next instinct kicks in. The one that gives the small furry mammal the courage to turn at bay, bare its teeth, and fight. In defence of it young, its mate, its burrow. That was what we were watching now.

  The men on the Temple steps were forming themselves into ranks. A stout, middle-aged man wearing a brown tunic and heavy boots pushed his way through them and turned to address his men.

  Discipline dies hard. They fell silent. Other than the now very audible roar of the invaders, there was no sound.

  His voice, battle-honed, echoed around the Temple precinct, bouncing off the walls of nearby buildings.

  ‘Men of Rome. We are soldiers of the empire. We are the greatest soldiers in the world. From the Rhine to the Nile, there is no force that can withstand the might of Rome. The legions will come. Quintus Petillius Cerialis and the IX Hispania will come. Our task today is to hold the Temple of the Divine Claudius until they do. We will defend the Temple. We will defend our families. We will hold. We will hold for Rome!’

  A roar went up from the assembled ranks. Weapons were brandished.

  ‘Rome! Rome!’

  For a moment, the sounds of invasion were lost under the thunder. ‘Rome! Rome!’ Those who had shields clashed their weapons against them. For a moment, even I believed they would hold the Temple against overwhelming odds.

  And then, as if in response, away, in the distance, primitive horns sounded. Drums rolled. There was a moment’s complete silence. Here in the Temple precinct, all movement stopped. The world waited.

  And then, a huge, ear-splitting roar. With a hundred thousand voices screaming their hatred, the British army began to move.

  We could hear it. We could feel it under our feet.

  How long did we have? And where was bloody Clive Ronan?

  At the Temple, the big wooden doors slammed shut with a boom that echoed around the square. Outside, the veterans closed ranks and raised their weapons. The Temple would be defended at all costs.

  Away in the distance, I could see a red glow. The Iceni had reached the outskirts.

  The chariots would sweep through the city, clearing the way, bringing down everyone in their path and the foot soldiers would follow on behind, mopping up and torching everything in sight. Everything and everyone would be slaughtered. There are people who use the word ‘massacre’ lightly, with no idea of its true meaning. They should have been in Colchester on that day.

  Already, we could hear the far-off clatter of hooves on paved streets. The thunder of chariot wheels. The shouts of the warriors.

  The glow of burning buildings grew brighter. I could smell smoke. Ash drifted on the wind. There were some public buildings made of stone – the Temple, for instance – but the majority were made of wood and with thatched roofs. They burned like torches.

  Here in the Temple precinct, good order prevailed. The veterans stood in disciplined ranks, each one ready to do his duty.

  Still no Clive Ronan. No Number Four. Why weren’t they here? Had I got it wrong? Had I placed us in harm’s way for nothing? Had it really been just a dream? I don’t mind saying that those few minutes on the pod roof, looking down on a horribly exposed Peterson and Markham and waiting for something that I was becoming increasingly convinced might not happen, are not anything I ever want to do again.

  I kept flicking my eyes from the fountain, to the grid pattern of streets around us, to the pathetically small army defending the Temple of Claudius, and back to the fountain again. I assumed the chariots would forge ahead into the square, desperate to get to this symbol of their oppressors. They would burst into view at any moment, and once they turned up, I would pull us out. I would have no choice, even if Number Four hadn’t appeared. That moment hadn’t yet arrived, but I could prepare.

  I said, ‘Peterson, Markham – when I say – on my mark – you retreat back to the pod. That is an order. Understood?’

  Silence.

  ‘Understood?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Peterson. No more – no less.

  We waited.

  Where the bloody hell was Number Four and Elspeth Grey?

  The veterans stood still, solid and silent. They were waiting, too.

  Peterson and Markham crouched, back to back in the shelter of the fountain.

  I lay on the roof, wearing my eyes out watching for Number Four. I was as highly strung as a violin on steroids – which would be a cello, I suppose. We were all set to go. The second Ronan touched down, we would be on standby. They second the door opened, we would be ready, and the second he jumped away, we would move.

  The clamour of Boudicca’s approaching army drew ever closer. The wind got up. Smoke mingled with the grey clouds, darkening the day even further. More ash blew across the square. I could smell burning wood. I even thought I could make out individual voices and the rhythm of marching feet, although that was unlikely. They weren’t that close. Yet.

  Still no sign of Ronan. I prepared to jump down and get the two of them back in to safety.

  Just as I bunched my muscles, everything happened all at once.

  Not twenty yards away from me, a small, battered stone hut blinked into existence. My heart soared with relief. There they were! I’d been right. We’d found them. Now all we had to do was get them back.

  I flattened myself on the roof. Peterson and Markham, who had been waiting for this moment, tensed themselves to move quickly.

  At the far end of the square, some half dozen war chariots burst into view and headed towards to Temple, where they circled, out of reach of Roman weapons, hurling taunts and challenges in their own tongue.

  Shit!

  Time to move.

  The veterans clashed their weapons, stamped their feet, and bellowed, ‘Rome! Rome!’

  I said, ‘Run for the pod, guys. I’ll get them.’

  It was the right thing to do. The pod had landed much nearer to me than to them. I could get there more quickly and without exposing myself to Boudicca’s advance guard.

  The pod door opened and someone was slung out with enough force to roll them across the paving stones, where they lay horribly still.

  A second later, two struggling figures appeared in the doorway. It was Grey and she was battling with someone who might or might not have been Clive Ronan. I couldn’t tell.

  I wanted to shout to her. To tell her to stop. Rescue was at hand. Not to risk herself or Bashford, but I couldn’t. If he knew we were here, he’d shoot them both stone dead and try for us as well. I really didn’t know what to do, but Boudicca solved that little problem for me, because at that moment, another three or four chariots appeared from a different direction, also racing towards the Temple.

  Grey was knocked to the ground. The door closed. The pod blinked out of existence.

  ‘Now! Move! Now!’

  I’d love to say that we moved with all the coordinated precision of a well-trained professional unit but that did not happen. In any way. The whole thing was just … typical.

  I shouted and my voice was lost in the noise of the circling chariots and the taunts of the British. Grey and Bashford couldn’t hear me. They did what historians are trained to do. Having no idea where or when they were, they sought shelter. She heaved Bashford to his feet and the two of them pelted across the square. In the wrong bloody direction.r />
  I had a split second to make a decision, but it was no decision, really. We’d come here to rescue them. There was no point going back without them. The only thing that just might save me from the certain and terrible wrath of Dr Bairstow was the production of Bashford and Grey. Preferably alive.

  I scrambled down off the roof, landed awkwardly, and twisted my ankle. It wasn’t serious, but I had to wait for the initial pain to subside before I could get after them.

  Markham, seeing me sprawled on the paving stones, leaped to his feet, slipped in the very substantial evidence that a number of excited horses had passed this way quite recently and crashed to the ground. Peterson fell over him.

  I cursed, offered up a prayer to the god of historians, who, on the evidence so far, must be off on a comfort break, heaved myself up and chased after our two fleeing historians.

  Markham and Peterson set off after me.

  I shouted at Bashford and Grey to wait.

  Markham and Peterson shouted at me to wait.

  Seriously, I swear trained chimps could do the job better than us.

  The only thing that prevented the whole thing skidding along the famous St Mary’s catastrophe-curve and crashing straight into full-blown disaster was that there was nowhere for them to go. I’ve said before that Colchester was not unprepared and barricades had been set up at every corner. They ran straight into a blocked street.

  They skidded to a halt, as did we, chests heaving.

  I said, breathlessly, ‘Hey!’

  Bashford span around, his face covered in blood, and lashed out. If he’d connected then I’d have been on my back in the mud. And not for the first time. Typical bloody historians – you risk your life and career to save them and they respond by trying to punch your lights out.

  I dragged up my visor and shouted, ‘It’s me. The rescue party.’

  He responded by having another pop at me. He was way off target because, I realised belatedly, he couldn’t see for the blood running down into his eyes. He wouldn’t have a clue who I was.

  ‘St Mary’s,’ I shouted, frantically dodging. ‘Guthrie sent us.’

  Grey seized his arm. ‘Tom. Wait. Stop. We’re OK. It’s St Mary’s.’

  He stopped swinging wildly.

  She turned to me. ‘Is he here? Is Guthrie here?’

  Markham, experienced in the ways of historians and their ability to stand chatting as a tsunami of disaster threatens to crash down upon them, strode forward. ‘No time to talk. We need to get out of here. Peterson, you take the lead. Max, Grey, and Bashford in the middle. I’ll bring up the rear. The longer we stay, the less likely we are to get away. Move. Now.’

  We headed back towards the pod and I began to think we might make it after all.

  Wrong.

  Again.

  In any major disturbance, you will always find those who try to take advantage of the situation. A bit of freelance looting here – a bit of casual pillaging there. They’re usually not bright, and just to prove my point, when everyone with more than one brain cell had either fled Colchester or sought safety, these men were trying to steal a pig.

  I have no idea where they came from. I’d never seen such a villainous-looking crew. One was enormously fat. His mud-coloured tunic strained tightly over his belly and was stiff with what I really, really hoped were foodstains. One was small and skinny with terrible skin. He wore coarse brown trousers and a bright ochre tunic several sizes too big for him. I suspected it had been freshly liberated from its real owner. The other wore some kind of metal helmet that was far too big for him so again, I guessed it wasn’t his. I have no idea what colour his clothes had originally been. They all stank. Huge sweat stains encircled each armpit. They were scruffy, scarred, and had opportunist thieves written all over them. Oh, and they were drunk. Very, very drunk. I could smell the fumes from here.

  Hardly surprising, of course. They’d been going from house to house, looting what they could find. They all had bulging sacks of looted goods over their shoulders. I had no idea whether they were native Colchestrians or escaped slaves. They might even be freelancing Iceni soldiers. Boudicca had very little control over her army. She relied on numbers and savagery rather than tactics. Looking at these three, they’d been drunk for some time. Which was good, because they obviously weren’t career soldiers. And bad, because they were unpredictable. With our luck, they’d be fighting drunks, rather than maudlin drunks. Or happy drunks. Or – and this was my favourite – unconscious drunks.

  Markham shifted his stance slightly, ready for trouble.

  ‘Wait,’ said Peterson, softly.

  He was right. Drunk they might be, but they might also have about a hundred thousand friends out there, all of whom would be turning up any minute now.

  We all stared at each other and while we were doing that, another two stuck their blond, tangle-haired heads out of a nearby ramshackle wooden shed. Both of them had beards in which you could lose a small car. Great. Now there were five of them. Maybe more, because in the depths of the shed, something else grunted and moved in the dark. We were trapped. They were between the pod and us.

  I sighed. Now would be the time to have a really brilliant idea.

  We couldn’t kill them because we might, just might, be killing one of our own ancestors and History really doesn’t like us doing that sort of thing.

  We couldn’t even seriously disable them because then someone else might go on to kill them and if they weren’t supposed to die today then again, there would be Trouble.

  Maybe we could intimidate them. All right, several of them were built like brick shithouses, but that’s never a match for feminine guile. Or cheating, as Leon always calls it.

  I was behind Bashford and Peterson. I whipped off my helmet and passed it to Grey. I pulled out my hairpins, shook my hair free, tossed back my cloak, set my blaster to full charge and elbowed my way forwards to confront them.

  I tried to see myself as they were seeing me.

  A woman with red hair. Quite a lot of red hair. Actually, I have hair like Japanese Knotweed. Cut it and it grows back ten times thicker. I’m still waiting for the hair care industry to produce a shampoo that reduces volume and shine.

  But, I was a red-haired woman wearing armour and if they were followers of Boudicca then this would not be an unfamiliar sight to them. And best of all, I was a woman who could do – this.

  I raised my whining blaster and sent a stream of liquid fire onto the thatched roof of the ramshackle shed, which went up with a whoosh. There was a sudden blast of heat and red sparks flew skywards. Flames began to lick around the door.

  They jumped a mile and stared at me, wide-eyed and swaying. Maybe we were going to get away unscathed, after all. I took advantage of their surprise and gestured in the direction of the Temple, assembling words in my head. I don’t speak Brythonic and I only have a very little Old English. I hoped for the best.

  ‘Death! Death! Kill them all! Kill the Roman cats!’

  I know, I know, but in the heat of the moment, I couldn’t remember the word for dogs and quite honestly, I think I deserve some sort of credit here. Drunken looters were confronting us and Boudicca’s battalions were going to show up any minute now. For God’s sake, what do people expect from me?

  They stared at me blankly.

  I sighed. Everything was going wrong. This was just not our day. Today was the day we were all going to die in Roman Colchester.

  And then, typically, at this point the god of historians pulled the chain, exited the comfort station, and returned to duty.

  I really should have taken a second to wonder what the other two were doing in the shed, although no one had much chance to think about anything because the next moment, we were all of us in fear for our lives.

  An enormous, enraged pig erupted out of the burning building, scattering squealing piglets around her feet. Two, however, were made of sterner stuff than their siblings and hung on, sucking grimly. She stood, head down, legs splayed, pi
glets swinging.

  She was massive. She was the biggest pig I’d ever seen in my entire life, which, admittedly, has not been pig-filled, but even so ... Even when stationary, bits of her continued to wobble and quiver of their own accord. Tiny, beady, piggy eyes peered balefully at the world. She really wasn’t happy at all. She fixed those eyes on me, correctly identified the person who had torched her sty, and began to lumber.

  ‘Look out,’ shouted Peterson, and before I could protest, he pushed me sideways. I landed in something pig-related and unpleasant that I was given no chance to examine, because half a second later, he landed on top of me.

  The pig uttered some sort of porcine battle cry, changed direction, and, trailing piglets, charged for the bearded buggers, who fell over themselves trying to get out of her way. They tried to scatter, but in a narrow street, it was more of an involuntary clump than a scatter. The fat one ran into a wall and rebounded, nearly bringing down the skinny one. One slipped over and scrabbled backwards on his bum to get up. Someone else tripped over Peterson and me. It had to have been one of our British friends. No pig could smell that bad. Dreadful oaths and bitter recriminations rent the air and not all of them were from St Mary’s. Piglets squealed and ran between people’s legs. The pig barged into the still reeling fat bloke, knocking him into the burning shed. He shrieked and rolled back out again, beating at his smouldering clothing.

  The pig, scenting victory, closed for the kill, followed by her equally enthusiastic offspring. The now ex-looters gave it up, hauled each other off the ground, and ran for it. The pig uttered a bellow of victory and followed on behind. They all vanished from view.

  In our little street, silence fell.

  ‘I don’t believe any of this,’ said Grey, who had sensibly taken refuge behind Markham. ‘We’ve just been beaten up by a pig. Who are you people?’

  On our performance to date, I would have thought that was obvious.

  I don’t know about the others, but I don’t have much memory of getting back to the pod. We hadn’t been gone that long – although it seemed longer – but in our absence, the square had filled up with Boudicca’s troops. Chariots still circled the Temple, but massive numbers of footsoldiers were pouring into the square from all directions. The noise was overwhelming.