An Argumentation of Historians Page 4

  Nope. He just swept on past, visor up, waving and smiling, basking in the admiration.

  The next bout was already lining up as Henry swept from the lists. I watched him dismount fairly easily from his horse, clap someone on the shoulder, accept a goblet of wine and stride off to watch.

  There were very short intervals between each joust. Just enough time to drag away those unable to move under their own steam and put fresh sand over the blood.

  The king’s team won the next bout as well. I could see Peterson meticulously recording events in the arena while I followed the king as he sat outside his tent, drinking and laughing. Sykes would be down there somewhere doing the same, and Clerk’s team would also be covering the action. Double coverage. Belt and braces. And the security team, I knew, would be watching our backs.

  They lost the next one. The horse on the king’s team – nervous before it even entered the ring and sweating heavily, veered sideways at the last moment. The crowd roared in disapproval. This was Failure to Present – a serious offence. The crowd – all of them experts in a field in which they could never compete – booed loudly and, at the entrance to the arena, the Knight Marshal recorded the foul on his wooden board and indicated a rematch.

  Both sides pulled up with difficulty, turned around, settled their lances and set off again. I think the king’s rider must have been concentrating too much on his horse, because he was unseated easily, flying through the air and hitting the ground with enough impact to bounce.

  ‘Ouch,’ said Peterson, wincing.

  The rider was dragged, unconscious, to his tent and two men scurried up with more buckets of fresh sand.

  His horse, the cause of all the trouble, was fleeing around the ring, reins trailing, until cornered against the high-fronted stand. Someone flung a sack over its head.

  ‘They’re not going to shoot him, are they?’ said Markham anxiously. I think that despite every horse on the planet having him on their hit list, he’s actually quite fond of the species in general.

  ‘Doubt it,’ said Peterson, shaking his head and checking his recorder. ‘He’s only young. Probably his first time out. A mistake to bring him today but maybe his rider wanted to catch the king’s eye. Which he has done but for all the wrong reasons.’

  Indeed, we could see the rider being carried into his tent.

  ‘Who’s next?’ said Markham.

  Well,’ I said, ‘if they keep to the same order, it’s Henry again. And if it is, then this is the big one.’

  They did and it was.

  There was a lot of cheering as Henry emerged from his pavilion, accompanied by some half a dozen favoured acquaintances. The king himself appeared to be in excellent form, tossing a remark over his shoulder that made them roar with laughter. He accepted another goblet of something from a page whose hair he ruffled so vigorously that the lad staggered. He tossed back the contents in one go and, with some assistance, heaved himself onto his horse who, despite the massive weight on his back, skipped sideways and appeared to be making every effort to dump his sovereign lord into the mud. There was a great deal more laughter. Apparently, this was not unusual behaviour.

  The laughing group accompanied the king to the arena. Shouts of encouragement and good luck followed on behind him.

  I wondered if Henry ever thought about what might have happened if he’d let that final bout go. What would have been different? If Anne Boleyn did not miscarry. If she was delivered of a healthy son. If their marriage somehow survived. Mary might not have been queen. Nor Elizabeth. And Edward might never have been born at all. Jane Seymour would probably have lived – it was Henry’s obsessive care of Jane that caused him to order male doctors to attend the birth and they missed the piece of placenta left lodged inside her. Men, in those days, were not experts in childbirth – it being an area best left to women – whereas any competent midwife would have sussed it immediately and probably saved her life.

  The ramifications went on and on. I foresaw a massive game of ‘What If?’ over a margarita or two that evening.

  Henry’s challenger was a big man – although not as big as the king. I wondered what might he have done if he hadn’t been king? With his talents and physical presence would he – could he – ever have played second fiddle to his older brother, the shadowy and little-known Arthur?

  His opponent this morning rode a thick-set brown horse – very big around the hindquarters. Peterson spent a couple of moments describing his livery – we’d try and identify him when we got back because there’s no record of the king’s unlucky opponent – and I stayed with the king.

  The horses were already straining at their bits, tossing their grooms around like so many straw dummies.

  The marshal had the sense not to keep them waiting. The thunder of cheering and shouting drowned out the drums and trumpets and I never heard the signal, but someone must have given it because the big brown horse was already moving. A fraction of a second later, and from a standing start, so was Henry. They galloped furiously towards each other. The noise was tremendous.

  And then for Henry, for Queen Anne, Mark Smeaton, George Boleyn, even Jane Seymour, everything went wrong. Everything went very, very wrong.

  Off to my left, there was a scuffle in the crowd. Even over the clamour, I could hear men shouting. I turned for a better view and as I did so I heard something that to me sounded very much like the crack of a gunshot.

  Henry’s horse shied sideways.

  Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.

  His opponent’s lance hit Henry’s helmet with a tremendous crash that pushed him out of the saddle. He began to topple to one side. His horse, severely unbalanced, staggered sideways, tipping Henry even further. I suspected he was already unconscious because he was, literally, hanging from the saddle. His horse was strong and struggling to stay on his feet, but Henry was a big man and armour isn’t light. The king went down first with a metallic clang that reverberated off the stands, and then, with a scream that was dreadful to hear, his enormous horse crashed to the ground as well. Right on top of him. It was a massive fall. And at the speed they were travelling, both horse and rider, entangled together, skidded along the ground for a good twenty feet, gouging a path in the sand and mud.

  Afterwards we agreed that probably the only reason Henry survived was that the ground was soft and, to some extent, cushioned his fall. Nothing, however, could save him from the crushing weight of half a ton of thrashing horse on top of him.

  For a few seconds after the impact there was a shock of silence and then the screaming began. Turmoil. Panic. People surged around. We were pushed to and fro in the confusion. I was aware someone had hold of the back of my dress, keeping me in place, and hoped it was Markham. I just kept recording and I knew Peterson would be doing the same. That’s our job. Markham would keep us safe. That’s his.

  Women were crying. Children screamed as they were knocked over in the crush and then their mothers screamed too. People were shouting that the king was dead and it was at this moment that I suddenly saw things from Henry’s point of view. Yes, people were shocked and horrified at his accident, but now we saw a glimpse of just how precarious was the Tudor hold on England. Henry was only the second of an upstart line. He had no male heir and right now he might be dead. The death of a monarch and the accession of a new one is always a perilous time. I didn’t mind betting that the thought uppermost in people’s minds was – the king is dead and he has no heir. There would still be people alive who would remember the Wars of the Roses. When Plantagenet fought Plantagenet for the throne. With no clear heir, challenges for the succession would arise. The Scots would sweep from the north; the French would be across the Channel as soon as they could get their anchors up.

  This was Henry’s nightmare come true. People condemn his efforts to get a son but, without a clear heir, an orderly and peaceful transfer of the crown would be impossible. There would be chaos, certainly. Perhaps even civil war. No wonder people were panicking.
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  We were on the communal link. I could hear Clerk shouting at someone. And someone shouting back. A full-scale fight seemed to be breaking out around him, but no time for that now. Evans was with him. He’d make sure they were OK.

  Up in the stands, people were on their feet. Women were covering their faces. No one had swooned but, then again, women don’t swoon half as often as men think they do. Yes, I myself have fainted once or twice, but usually it’s been a tactical move.

  I jerked my attention back to Henry’s horse which was screaming in pain and thrashing around trying to get up. I could only imagine the damage he was doing to his rider. People ran to the fallen king, who lay ominously still.

  Two men were dragging at the king’s helmet. The field medic in me screamed a silent protest, but there was nothing we could do. Or should do. The records show he hadn’t incurred any spinal injuries. Besides, removing the king’s helmet gave us a glimpse of his face. Eyes closed and deadly white. His hair was plastered to his head and dark with sweat. I panned in for a close-up, trying to find which part of his head he’d injured so Dr Stone could assess the possibility of brain damage.

  Men with sharp knives cut away the stirrups and they dragged the horse to his feet. White-eyed with terror and covered in mud all down one side, he was bleeding badly from several deep gashes to his shoulder and flanks. From the king’s armour, probably. Henry’s enormous saddle had slipped half way around the horse’s belly and a brave man slipped underneath to cut the girths. Two russet-clad grooms led the horse away. He was limping and shying at everything in sight, but seemed otherwise unharmed. I don’t know what happened to him.

  The king, still in his armour, was lifted onto a board. It took eight men to carry him away and even then, they were staggering with the weight.

  I said softly, ‘Sykes, he’s coming your way.’

  ‘On it,’ she said. ‘We’re right by his tent. There’s people racing towards us clutching bundles – possibly doctors – although given current medical procedures he’d probably be better off with a vet. We’ve set up sound recorders to try and listen to what will happen inside.’

  ‘Good work.’

  I closed the link and left them to get on with it.

  Everywhere I looked, people were crying. Men and women. Already the cry had gone up. ‘The king is dead. The king is dead.’ We were only one step away from outright panic. I looked for someone to take charge. To initiate some sort of damage control. To contain the rumours that the king was dead. Because if they didn’t …

  Peterson touched my arm. ‘Over there.’

  Someone was on it. I don’t know who. Heralds were making their way through the crowds shouting ‘The king lives. The king lives,’ but all in vain. No one was listening. If anything, the panic was growing worse.

  Already, in my imagination, the Duke of Norfolk was racing to the queen’s chambers, to fling at her, without warning, the news that the king was dead. This would be the moment when she too would realise how fragile was the framework of her life. In her arrogance, she had made enemies everywhere and without Henry’s protection they would begin to close in. The only thing keeping her safe was that she carried the king’s child. In four days’ time, she would lose that child. He would have been a boy. The boy that would have solved all of Henry’s problems. The boy that might, just might, have saved Anne’s life. As it was, she would lose her child and, in five months’ time, her head. The king would become engaged to Jane Seymour the very next day.

  Around the field, the marshals were vigorously dispersing the spectators, breaking up crowds of gossiping people. Despite our protests – which were lost in the protests of many, we were pushed out of the wrong exit. We were now on the north side of the field and would have to walk all the way around the lists to get back to our starting point. But not yet. There was something I wanted to check out first.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘We should take a look at what that scuffle was all about while we’re at it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Peterson. ‘I could have sworn I heard a gunshot.’

  ‘You did,’ said Markham, heaving his pack into a more comfortable position.

  ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘we definitely need to check it out.’

  I’d barely got the words out when Clerk spoke in my ear. ‘Max, you need to get yourself over here. Quick.’

  We have a saying at St Mary’s. ‘Everything was going really well right up until the moment when it really wasn’t.’

  My heart sank. ‘What’s the problem? Is someone hurt?’

  ‘No, we’re all fine.’ He paused. ‘But the Time Police are here.’

  Bollocks. Now what?

  Our relationship with the Time Police is always exciting. Over the years we’ve shot each other, fought with each other, saved each other’s lives, rescued each other … We’ve even collaborated once or twice. You just never know how it’s going to go. My historian senses told me the gunshot and the presence of the Time Police were somehow connected. As I said to Captain Ellis once, ‘Wherever there’s trouble, you find the Time Police,’ and he had replied that the Time Police had a very similar motto concerning St Mary’s but wouldn’t say any more. Their purpose, they say, is to patrol the timeline for anomalies and illegal time travel. Their purpose, we say, is to bugger things up as fast as they can go. Their response to most problems is to shoot everyone on sight. And now they were here. And there had been a gunshot.

  ‘Oh swive,’ said Markham. ‘What the swive could those swiving swivers possibly swiving well want?’

  I’d once made the mistake of taking him to the 17thcentury and he’d seized the opportunity to enrich his vocabulary with contemporary swear words. I think we’d all learned something from that experience.

  ‘Mr Clerk. Please tell me they haven’t shot someone.’

  ‘Not exactly. You’d better get over here, Max.’

  ‘On my way.’

  We set off, elbowing our way through the crowds who, in the way of crowds everywhere, all wanted to go in the opposite direction from us.

  There they were. Four of them, all kitted out in the enveloping black cloaks they think enables them to fit into any time any place and really, really doesn’t. I tried not to sigh. One of them turned his head and made a gesture of recognition. Captain Ellis.

  They were all standing around something stretched out on the ground. Oh God, was this the victim of the gunshot? Now what had they done? I couldn’t see clearly because they and Clerk’s team were forming a protective huddle as the crowd swept past, unheeding.

  With all the righteous indignation of one who is, just for once, completely on the side of the angels, I glared at Ellis and demanded, ‘What did you do?’

  ‘We saved the day, Max. There’s been an assassination attempt.’

  I knew nothing of this – there certainly wasn’t anything in the records. I stared at him suspiciously.

  ‘On Henry?’

  ‘No – his opponent.’

  ‘Who?’ I suddenly realised I still didn’t know his opponent’s name. No one does. Like the Viking who held back the Saxon forces at Stamford Bridge, his name is lost to History. Which begged the question – why kill an unknown man?

  So I asked it. ‘Why kill an unknown man?’

  ‘So Henry would triumph. No accident. No miscarriage for Anne Boleyn. A son for Henry.’

  I asked again. ‘Why?’

  He shrugged. ‘God knows. Do you know how many nutters are out there?’ His tone implied there were a good few of them standing in front of him right this moment.

  ‘So your purpose here is …?’

  ‘To protect the timeline, Max. That’s what we do. It’s not all about St Mary’s, you know.’

  ‘But how did you know?’ I stared even more suspiciously. ‘He’s not one of yours, is he?’

  ‘If you mean is he Time Police, then no. If you mean is he from our time, then yes.’

  I examined the unconscious figure at our feet. The silly sod had obvio
usly based his homemade costume on the historical epics turned out by the future equivalent of Cutter Cavendish Productions. And don’t get me started on Calvin Cutter himself. The man’s an idiot. Anyway, here was the loose linen shirt with the flowing sleeves – more suited to Charles II than Henry VIII. Plus a pair of baggy shorts more suited to Elizabethan times, and those ridiculous thigh-length leather boots you always expect to see on red-lipped ladies clad in black and clutching a riding crop. Seriously – what a pillock.

  I turned back to Captain Ellis. ‘I thought the Time Police had brutally obliterated this sort of thing. Don’t tell me you haven’t been brutal enough.’

  He sighed. ‘The odd one does still get through occasionally. And then it’s a Class A emergency. We drop everything and here we are – saving the day. The irony is, of course, that without his intervention there would have been no gunshot. Henry’s horse wouldn’t have shied and there wouldn’t have been an accident. Silly sod brought about the very thing he was trying to prevent.’

  I nodded. It’s not easy changing History. For a start, History doesn’t like it. This idiot was lucky to be alive. Although since illegal time travel was a capital offence – he wasn’t going to be alive for very long.

  ‘So you tracked him all the way here with your magic equipment.’

  ‘I’m tempted to smirk and take the credit, but no. Not this time.’

  ‘Then how did you know?’

  He sighed. ‘The idiot left a note.’

  I think I might have reeled. ‘He wrote to you?’

  ‘Worse than that. He wrote to his girlfriend – wanted to impress her, I suppose, and she reported him to us.’

  ‘What a …’ I stopped, unable to think of suitable words to describe his … this …

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘What will happen to him?’ asked Peterson.

  ‘It’s a Class A felony even to be in possession of an illegal time machine, so nothing good. On the other hand, he didn’t actually affect the timeline in any way, and it’s a first offence, so they probably won’t execute him. Probably.’