Overtime. Part 12

Guy, who had just started to feel he could cope, on a purely superficial level at least, felt his jaw drop. 'A corn exchange,' he repeated.

'Or a yarn market will do,' Blondel replied. 'We can make do with a guildhall at a pinch, I suppose, but there may well be people about. Somehow I don't feel a church would be a good idea. They may be idiots, but they aren't fools. Coming?'

It was about two hours before dawn when they reached the town. Fourteenth-century Wandsworth was waking up, deciding it could have another ten minutes, and turning over in its warm straw. Blondel quickened his step.

'In the 1480s,' he whispered as they crept past a sleeping beggar, 'there was a corn exchange in the town square, but they may not have built it yet. Looked a bit perpendicular when I saw it. Hang on, this'll do.'

They were standing under a bell-tower. Blondel was looking at a small, low door, which Guy hadn't even noticed. It wasn't the sort of door that you do notice. Over its lintel were letters cut into the stone.

NOLI INTRARE, they said, AD VSVM CANONICORVM RESERVATA.

'That's the Latin,' Blondel explained, 'for No entry, staff only. This'll do fine. We'll have to leave the horse, but never mind.'

He knocked three times on the door and pushed. It opened.

'So?'

'He hit me,' Pursuivant explained.

'I gathered that. What else?'

Meanwhile the doctor's a.s.sistant was up a ladder in the stockroom, looking at the labels on the backs of what looked like shoe-boxes. 'We've only got a 36E,' he called out. 'Will that do?'

'Have to,' the doctor said. 'Means he'll get bronchitis from time to time, but so what?'

Pursuivant sat up on the operating table. 'Hold on, doc,' he said. The doctor pushed him down again.

'You never heard of the cuts?' he said. 'You're lucky we've got a 36E. There's been a run on lungs lately.'

'Yes, but ...'

'Don't be such an old woman,' said the doctor. 'We should have some 42s when you have your next thirty-year service. Until then, you'll have to make do.'

Mountjoy, who had been standing fiddling with his signet ring all this time, was getting impatient. 'He hit you,' he repeated. 'Then what?'

'Then I fell over,' Pursuivant replied. 'Look, boss, in the contract it plainly states that all damage will be made good, and -'

'Shut up,' said Mountjoy. 'You fell over. Go on.'

'But boss

'Look,' the chaplain snapped, 'I should be at an important meeting. Get on with it.'

In actual fact, Mountjoy was at the meeting - in fact, he'd been three minutes early - but there was no need to mention that. He flickered irritably.

'I fell over,' Pursuivant said. 'Then there was a bang and the bloke's hat came off.'

'What?'

'His hat,' Pursuivant explained. 'He was wearing a hat and it came off. Don't ask me why.'

'I see,' Mountjoy said. 'And what happened next?'

'I died.'

'I see,' Mountjoy said. 'And that was all you saw?'

'Well,' said Pursuivant, 'my whole life flashed in front of me, but I don't suppose you want to hear about that.'

'Not particularly, no. What was this other man like?'

Pursuivant furrowed his brows, thinking hard. 'Odd bloke,' he said. 'About my height, dark hair, wearing a sort of sheepskin coat, no sword. If you ask me, he didn't seem to have much idea of what was happening.'

'That,' said Mountjoy unkindly, 'would have made two of you.' He put away his notebook and turned to the doctor. 'Right,' he said, 'how long before this one's up and about again?'

'Let's see,' said the doctor. 'Neck partially severed, multiple wounds to lungs, stomach and shoulders, compound fracture of the left leg. I'll need to keep him in for observation, too. Say about twenty minutes.'

'Oh for pity's sake,' snapped Mountjoy petulantly. 'Doctor, you are aware of the staffing shortages?'

'Not my problem,' the doctor replied. 'All right, nurse, close him up.'

The staff nurse put down her visor and lit up the welding torch.

'Blondel,' said Guy, 'can I ask you something?'

The tunnel was damp and smelly. The ceiling was low and the light from the torches in the wall-sconces wasn't quite bright enough. On a number of occasions, Guy had trodden in something. He was glad that he didn't know what it had been.

'Fire away.'

'How do you do that?'

'What?'

'Go through doors,' Guy said, 'that lead to ... well, this.'

Blondel laughed. 'This is how we travel through time,' he said. 'My agents taught me.'

'I see.' Guy walked along in silence for a while. He was getting a crick in the neck from keeping his head ducked. 'Er, how does it work?' he asked.

'On the principle of Bureaus.p.a.ce,' Blondel replied. 'Are you all right with the saddlebags or shall I carry them for a bit?'

'No, no, that's fine,' Guy said. 'What's Bureaus.p.a.ce?'

Blondel stopped under a torch and looked at a little book. He was actually rather shorter than he looked, Guy noticed, and didn't have to lower his head to avoid the ceiling. 'This way,' he said at last. 'I thought we'd taken a wrong turning back there, but it's all right. Now then, the proper name for it is the Bureaucratic Spatio-Temporal Effect, but we call it Bureaus.p.a.ce for short. It's really very simple, once you grasp the fundamental concept.

'Oh good,' said Guy. He had the awful feeling that this was going to be one of those questions you regret asking.