The Doomsday Code

CHAPTER 42

1194, Nottingham Castle, Nottingham

‘Ye understand this is a fool’s errand?’ said Cabot. ‘The king’s forests are thick with the Hooded Man’s followers! And they fight in a way that suits the forests.’

Liam sighed. A night of sleeping on the matter hadn’t helped. In the cold light of the January morning their situation seemed no better. Coils of smoke from last night’s riot snaked up into the tumbling sky, and the subdued town of Nottingham below seemed to glare back at Liam with malevolence.

‘You understand, Mr Cabot, Bob and me aren’t here to play policemen! The sheriff will have to deal with this on his own!’ He turned to Bob, sitting on an oak bench beside the window and gazing out at the town. ‘Bob? Tell him!’

‘Mission priority is retrieving the artefact called The Grail,’ he rumbled, his eyes remaining on the rooftops of Nottingham.

‘William De Wendenal is nothing but a wastrel, a drunkard! His men are deserting!’ Cabot shook his head. ‘I had no idea the authority of John was this far gone! I had no idea how bad — ’

‘I’m sorry! But we can’t stay here. We have to go find the Grail!’

‘Do ye not understand, Liam? If law and order falls in this country; if chaos reigns … it is an invitation for civil war! The barons will tear this country into pieces for themselves. Worse still, it is an invitation to France to invade, to plunder England. And by God they will, if they catch wind of this!’

‘Maybe … maybe,’ Liam said, rubbing at tired eyes, ‘but that’s a whole other mission, so it is.’ He turned away from the window. ‘We need the men out there patrolling the forests. We need to find this Hood!’

‘Patrolling the forests! There be barely enough soldiers here to hold the castle! And out there — out in the forests, they would be cut down!’

Liam suspected Cabot was right. The few men left in the castle were either frightened old men or even more frightened boys. Getting them to even consider patrolling the town around the castle would be an endeavour beyond him, let alone organizing a systematic sweep of Sherwood Forest.

‘Bob? Any ideas?’

Bob remained perfectly still.

Liam came over and prodded his shoulder. ‘Bob? Hello?’

Cabot’s eyes narrowed. ‘What is the matter with him? He seems entranced.’

Liam could see muscles in Bob’s face twitch, and the slightest flicker of his eyelids. ‘What is it? Are you getting something?’

‘Just a moment,’ replied Bob. ‘Processing.’

‘What is the matter?’ asked Cabot again, rising from the round oak table, still a shambles of piled parchments and scrolls, matters long overdue for the sheriff’s attention.

‘I think … I think we’re getting a signal.’

‘Signal?’

Liam ignored the old monk’s question. He pulled up a stool in front of Bob and sat down. ‘Bob? Tell me what you’ve got.’

‘Decompressing wide-range tachyon signal data packet,’ he replied. ‘Just a moment.’

A new signal from Maddy, that’s what this had to be. He wondered what had happened. Something not good, presumably.

Finally Bob stirred. His gaze returned from the grey sky over Nottingham and settled on Liam. ‘I have a message from Maddy and an attached data package, Liam.’

‘So what’s the message?’

‘Time wave has arrived. Significant contamination event, originating 1194. Mission requirement has changed. Prevent an event known as “Great Peasant Revolt”. See data package attached for further information on event origins. Pandora now a secondary consideration. Please acknowledge.’

‘What’s the data package?’ asked Liam.

Bob blinked several times before he spoke again. ‘The Great Peasant Revolt of 1194 began during the reign of King Richard. His prolonged absence on the Third Crusade left his country bankrupt. With the king abroad, the authority of the crown quickly eroded under the proxy rule of the king’s younger brother, John …’ His monotone voice echoed across the hall for the better part of an hour as he read aloud the compiled dossier.

Cabot was the first to speak when he’d finished. His normally gruff voice shaken and small. ‘And this … these are events that are yet to happen? Just as I was saying to ye — rebellion? Civil war?’

Liam nodded. ‘That’s history that has now happened.’

‘Has happened?’

‘Will happen,’ corrected Liam.

‘But need not happen if — if …?’

‘If I … if we take some sort of action, yes.’ He offered Cabot a smile and an apology. ‘It seems you’re right, Mr Cabot — there are more pressing matters to attend to.’

‘This means ye will …?’

‘It looks like Bob and me need to stay on here.’ He got up and wandered over to the window and leaned against the stone frame. ‘Those riots going on last night … that appears to be the very beginning of this peasant revolt. It all starts here in Nottingham.’

‘Affirmative,’ said Bob. ‘Corrective measures will need to be applied here immediately.’

‘Ye have John’s full authority,’ said Cabot. ‘Ye will use that?’

Liam shrugged. ‘I’d be mad not to.’

‘So … Liam, ye will become the new Sheriff of Nottingham?’

Liam saw that Bob looked unhappy about that. ‘I know, I know … if I make myself sheriff, I’m contaminating history, but it looks like — ’

‘Negative,’ Bob interrupted. ‘Contamination level may be acceptable.’

Liam laughed. ‘Oh come on! There was never a Sheriff of Nottingham called Liam O’Connor!’

‘Historical records of this time do not specify a particular name for the Sheriff of Nottingham.’

‘You mean … no one knows who it was?’

‘Correct. This means your name is unlikely to be recorded in history. This is an acceptable contamination risk.’

Cabot joined them by the window. ‘Do I presume from yer exchange that ye can become the sheriff, then?’

Liam nodded. ‘Uh … yes. Yes, I suppose I can.’

‘Good!’ Cabot slapped him on the back. ‘’Tis much that needs doing.’

‘And quickly.’ Liam sucked in a deep breath. ‘This morning, then, I suppose we should make a start. Get an idea of what supplies there are in the castle. What money there is left in the coffers. And perhaps find out what the people of Nottingham have to say … what they need the most. And this hooded fella — whatever, whoever he is — the poor seem to think he’s some kind of a folk hero. As soon as we can, we need to deal with him.’

Cabot’s old face wrinkled with a smile. ‘Good decisions already, young man.’

‘And we should also get a message back to base,’ Liam said to Bob. ‘Let them know we’re working on it, and that Becks is down in Oxford, so they know where to beam a signal if they want to contact her.’

‘Affirmative,’ replied Bob. ‘I will prepare an encoded message to be carved on the gravestone.’

‘Gravestone?’

Liam offered Cabot a guilty shrug. ‘I suppose we should’ve asked first. We’re, uh … we’re using one of your graves up at Kirklees as a … as a sort of message board. Hope you don’t mind? It involves sort of carving a few lines and — ’

Cabot frowned. ‘Ye are interfering with a man’s gravestone?’

Liam nodded.

‘Whose?’ he growled angrily.

‘Haskette.’

Cabot pursed his lips for a moment. ‘Oh, BrotherRobert? Not to worry, the man was a fool anyway.’

CHAPTER 43

June 1194, Normandy, France

He stared across the cool blue of the English Channel. It glistened in the morning sun, calm as a millpond, quiet as a monk, as it lapped gently up the Normandy shingle and withdrew with a whisper.

King Richard finished urinating and tucked himself away. His gaze drifted along the coast towards the small cluster of ships beached and battened up, and the tents and marquees erected between them topped with pennants that twitched and swayed in the light breeze.

A party of English nobles had arrived to meet him in Normandy. All of them pledging their support for him, their men-at-arms, their money. His royal tent last night had been full of them, like errant schoolchildren, all trying to outdo each other in their demonstrations of unflinching loyalty to the crown.

Richard smiled.

Just like naughty children … blaming each other for the unrest in the north of England. The rumours, if they were to be believed, mentioned a rebellion of peasants. And these fools who had come to meet him in Normandy should have been maintaining the order of England while he was away instead of bickering among themselves, jostling for favours and power.

And, of course, his brother John … The useless idiot appeared to have done little to help the situation. He was weak, that was his problem, that had always been his problem, a weakling, a coward.

Richard tasted bile in his throat and spat.

The whole ugly, cold, wet country of England disgusted him. His spineless brother, the squabbling two-faced nobles, the repulsive peasants … even the ugly language they spoke, Anglish. Its tones grated on his ears.

My kingdom. For what it is.

It was worth nothing more than the taxes he could throttle out of the miserable place. Taxes to raise a new army and reclaim his French lands lost during the last five years.

France. All of France … that was his birthright, his true home. That was what God wished for him. And more.

He’d known that since he was a young man. Known his destiny was to rule all of Christendom — not just that ugly wet island of Britain. And with such a magnificent force behind him, he would sweep once more into the Holy Lands and east into the Arabian deserts, wiping out Saladin’s army.

He smiled as a freshening breeze lifted the pennants above the tents into life and they fluttered with a renewed vigour.

God wants this for me.

Why else had the Lord led him to learn of the Treyarch Confession? Why else had the Lord ensured his success in retrieving the Grail from the Muslims? It was safe now. Safe on that ugly island across the Channel. Safe in the Royal Palace … and waiting patiently for him to return and unlock it.

He felt his arms and legs tremble with excitement at the thought of that.

He’d seen it briefly after his knights had retrieved it from the catacombs of Jerusalem; the yellowing brittle pages of manuscript filled with faint ink lines of writing. He thought he could sense a hum of divine energy coming from it, sense the meaning of it … even though the words were encoded. One brief glimpse and then he’d dispatched it with haste into the night with the Templars he most trusted to see it safely home to England, to the royal palace in Oxford.

While, in his possession, in his oak campaign chest … was the key to unlocking the words of the Lord: the other half of the Grail. A small square of worn leather.

‘Sire?’

A shrill, tremulous voice like the cry of a seagull cut into his thoughts, like fingernails down a board. Irritated, he turned to see a young squire, little more than a pageboy in silks, several yards away, kneeling in the shingle and looking down at his own feet, not daring to make eye contact.

‘The lords are asking … uh … w-when it is ye p-plan to set sail?’ the young man asked nervously.

Richard’s broad face creased with amusement. It was funny how nervous men became in his presence. They stumbled over their words; their voices rose in pitch until they sounded like women; they fidgeted and scratched and shuffled; their cheeks flushed crimson. It was as if they too sensed the energy of destiny burning inside him. As if they understood that soon King Richard would govern an empire larger than Rome had ever known. And he would rule it with the rigid discipline and firmness of a father.

Because God wills it.

‘We shall set sail this morning on the tide,’ he replied slowly.

The young squire nodded and began to back away.

‘And, boy?’ Richard called out to him.

He stopped. ‘Yes, Sire?’

‘Bark at me like that again and I shall gouge the tongue from your mouth with the tip of my sword.’

The squire’s face paled. He nodded silently, not daring to speak again.

Richard watched him back away to a respectful distance, then turn and run towards the tents with the news. He turned back to look at the Channel and smiled. The weather for the crossing was good. The breeze freshening.

Because God wills it.

CHAPTER 44

1194, Nottingham Castle, Nottingham

The sunlight warmed Liam’s face. He closed his eyes, savoured its heat and listened contentedly to the sounds of Nottingham stirring to life: the tac-tac-tac of someone chopping firewood, the bray of a donkey, the bustle of market vendors setting up for the day, the bark of a dog setting off a dozen others. All these sounds echoed across the cluttered shack rooftops of the town and up towards the castle keep.

A flight of swallows swooped past Liam’s narrow window and he opened his eyes to watch them dive and chase each other. His gaze shifted across the warm summer shimmer of the walled town towards the spread of fields outside. All of them now being worked, striped with thick lines of barley and wheat.

Someone, somewhere below was singing. A distant female voice that seemed to share his contentment.

I could live here forever.

He sighed. He could, really, he could. He could abandon the mission. He could abandon Bob and Becks, let them return home without him and he could remain here in Nottingham as the sheriff. As long as he preserved history as it was, no one would need to come for him, would they? He could live out his natural life here, lord of all he surveyed.

A lovely dream.

One he could happily indulge all day. But, he sighed, there were matters to attend to.

Down below, in the flagstoned bailey, he could see soldiers being drilled. Eddie, working the new recruits. Bob was down there with him, demonstrating the on-guard position, a longsword glinting in the sunlight, above the coarse mop of his dark hair.

Liam stepped away from the window and finished dressing himself. A pageboy brought him a tray of freshly baked bread and honey, and a flagon of watered-down wine. Ten minutes later he emerged from the dark interior of the keep into the courtyard and watched the soldiers drilling for a while.

Finding men willing to join the guard and replenish the garrison had been nigh on impossible five months ago. The people of Nottingham would have turned on any young man foolish enough to announce he planned to offer his services to the sheriff. But that was before Liam had opened the doors of the castle’s storehouse and offered loaves baked fresh from the contents of their granary. Word got around the town’s starving folk, barely managing on nettle stews and pottages made from rotting vegetables, and that simple gesture on day one of Liam’s role as sheriff had put an end to the nightly riots.

Eddie spotted Liam standing and watching. ‘Good morning, sire!’ he called out.

Liam nodded and waved. ‘Morning, Eddie. Your lads are looking good.’

Several of the men drilling turned and knuckled their foreheads politely. Smiles and nods from recruits old and young alike.

Liam, Cabot and Bob had taken inventory of the castle and found food stores enough for the garrison to feed on generously six months or more. Shared out carefully with the townspeople, there’d been enough for a month. Liam had then decreed that the King’s forests were free for all to find food and game in, to forage for wild-growing shoots, nuts and berries, for the immediate future. A popular measure that ensured a steady supply of food into the town’s market every day. Satisfied that support for the revolt within Nottingham had been averted, Cabot had soon returned to Kirklees to oversee his priory.

Barely a week after they’d taken over from the previous sheriff, Liam and Bob were able to mount a few cautious patrols beyond Nottingham’s walls, which was timely. With spring arriving, the fields beyond needed to be worked if the people were going to feed themselves.

Seeing Liam, Bob disengaged from his class of recruits and ordered them to stand easy. They lowered their heavy swords and shields with sighs of relief as he walked through them towards Liam.

‘Sheriff,’ he greeted Liam formally.

Liam beckoned Bob to walk with him around the edge of the bailey, out of earshot so they could talk freely. ‘Bob,’ he said quietly, ‘how much mission time have we got left?’

‘Twenty-four days, nineteen hours and forty-three minutes of mission time remain.’

Liam nodded, thoughtfully stroking the thin tufts of downy dark hair that had sprouted along his jaw in the last few months. ‘We have, what? Less than four weeks left?’

‘Affirmative.’

‘Both you and Becks will need to return.’

Bob nodded. ‘Our mission countdown needs to be reset.’

Six months: a safety measure. Hard-coded into them both was a self-destruct command. The tiny mass of circuitry inside their skulls would fry itself. It meant computer technology from the 2050s was never going to fall into the hands of somebody from an earlier time, nor could a killing machine like Bob ever become reconditioned or reprogrammed to be used by some tyrant. If the support units failed to return and have their mission clocks reset, a tiny puff of burnt-out circuitry would leave Bob and Becks nothing more than dribbling village idiots.

‘I think I should take a trip out to see Mr Cabot. We’ll need to leave a message for Maddy. Let her know we’re getting on top of things.’

Bob grunted an affirmative.

They’d need to set up a return window so that both support units could be returned and reset. It would also be an opportunity for him to update Maddy fully. From where Liam was standing, it appeared support for the peasants’ rebellion had ebbed away. The people of Nottingham at least seemed content to go about their business. The poor and hungry of the surrounding towns and villages would surely soon follow their lead, once the harvest was gathered and food could be distributed more widely. If history was back on track — and it looked that way — then he and Bob could proceed with the rest of their mission: to comb those woods he could see on the horizon, for the hooded bandit and his dwindling band of followers … and hopefully retrieve the Grail from them.

Truth was that mob of bandits, whether led by some hooded figure or not, appeared to be operating further away now that Nottingham and the surrounding area was back under some semblance of order. The farms were now regularly patrolled by their raw recruits, and the daily sight of a column of one hundred men in chain mail appeared to have been enough of a disincentive to those villains that no crops had been flamed or ruined so far this year.

This time last year, Liam had learned from Cabot, they’d been raiding every farm they’d come across — the workers killed, animals butchered or stolen, fields left in flames. And a summer had passed in which little food could be set aside for the winter. The previous sheriff had done nothing to prepare for the inevitable famine, except, of course, to ensure his own castle was well stocked.

Liam had been stunned at how much the simple gesture of offering bread to the poor and starving of the town had achieved, ending the riots with one stroke. These hardy people were prepared to endure endless hardship and sacrifice and even offer their unfailing loyalty … so long as their noble-born masters treated them like human beings.

A simple idea for a poor lad from Cork, born in the year 1896, to understand; almost impossible for these French-born lords and barons to comprehend, though — most of whom didn’t even bother to speak the same language as the peasants they ruled over.

What a difference five months has made.

Liam realized, once again, how there was a bewildering one-sidedness to things. He and Bob had arrived back in 1194 at the beginning of January, a cold desolate month of dark grey days. Now it was June. Winter had ended, spring had been and gone, and summer appeared to have arrived early, the trees already thick and green with budding leaves. But for Maddy and Sal, he imagined only half an hour or an hour would have passed; the time it took to recharge the displacement machine.

He shook his head.

‘What is the matter, Liam?’

‘I just realized something.’

‘What?’

‘I’m ageing faster than the other two.’

‘Maddy and Sal?’

‘Aye.’

‘That is correct. For you much more time has passed.’

He tutted. ‘But that’s not fair, is it? We keep doing long missions like this … I could end up an old codger while they’re still bleedin’ teenagers.’

Bob looked at him, uncertain how to respond. ‘It is an unavoidable consequence of time travel, Liam.’

He sighed. ‘Ahh well, I suppose I agreed to this kind of thing when I let that old man Foster take me.’

They walked in silence for a while, the walls echoing with the clank and rasp of Eddie’s recruits drilling.

‘We have another tax collection organized for today, don’t we?’

‘Affirmative.’

Half a dozen of the nearest nobles’ estates had been paid a visit by Bob, Liam and half the castle’s garrison. Each time they’d returned with wagons loaded with grain and a tithe of coins. The nobles and barons all pleaded poverty when they turned up outside their walled keeps, all claiming that John’s taxes had left them destitute and starving, but it was surprising how well fed they and their household servants all seemed to be, and how well stocked their granaries were. Meanwhile their tenant farmers beyond the walls looked as much like scarecrows as the people of Nottingham had last winter.

‘We’ll do the visits first, then you can return with the loot, but I need to go on to Kirklees.’

Bob stopped. ‘You should not travel without an escort, Liam. There are still bandits in the forest.’

‘I know … I know. I’ll take some men with me, I promise. On horseback we should make it before nightfall; we can stay at the priory and return early tomorrow. I just think it’s time to update the others, and make sure Becks is ready to come back. Her mission clock is ticking down too.’

‘Affirmative.’

Eddie called out and his men ceased drilling. Liam watched the recruits at rest; a pair of young women moved among them with water butts strung from poles across their shoulders. They served the hot and thirsty men ladles of water that they drank and splashed across their sweaty faces.

‘I wonder,’ said Liam, ‘I wonder how she’s doing?’