Overtime. Part 55

They set off at a run, and made the cover of a small thicket just as Mountjoy's cart, heavily laden with dark shapes, failed to notice the obstruction in the road in time to stop. There was a pleasant crunching noise.

'I think,' Blondel observed, 'something just ran over Someone's foot.'

Dark shapes spilled out of the cart. Lanterns were waved about, Mordaunt slipped in the mud, fell, impaled himself on a broken spear, died, and was accused by Mountjoy of skiving. Then the lanterns began to head towards the thicket.

'Oh bother,' Blondel said. 'Come on, everyone, all except you, of course, Isoud. I expect you want to go that way. The rest of you follow me.

'Where the h.e.l.l are we going?' Guy demanded.

'Back to the road, of course,' Blondel replied. 'Use your head.'

'But -

'And when we get there,' Blondel continued, 'we're going to go up it. That's east-west to you, Marco. It's a one-way street, remember?'

'When are we?' Guy asked.

'At least it isn't raining,' Blondel replied. 'Come on, you two, I'll buy you each an ice cream.'

They walked towards the source of the noise and then, subconsciously adjusting their pace to the context, strolled. It is impossible to do anything other than stroll at a church fete, especially if it isn't raining.

'What happened?' Guy said. 'I mean, one minute we were running directly at those ... And then, bang! Or rather,' he added, puzzled again, 'not bang.'

'Oh look,' Blondel said, 'they've got a band. Salvation Army, probably. I like silver bands, don't you?'

'I suppose,' Guy continued, 'it was because it was a one-way street, and therefore, by implication, there was a no entry sign, and that meant it was somehow linked into the time tunnel network. Does that always happen when you go the wrong way up a -

'Probably,' Blondel replied. 'Personally, I've never tried it before. Have you?'

'Well, no,' Guy admitted. 'When do you think this is?'

Blondel looked round with the eye of experience. 'Twentieth century,' he said, 'second half, definitely. Of course, the twentieth is a right little tinker to get your bearings in, because you can't go by the clothes. They were always having nostalgia. You could be strolling along looking at the hemlines and the shoulder-pads and thinking, Yes, I know when this is, perhaps there's a new Elvis Presley picture on at the cinema, and the next thing you know you're nearly knocked down by a Datsun. Cars, though, are a dead giveaway. You can date things by cars to within six months, usually.' He stopped, looked round and nodded. '1986,' he said. 'Funny sort of place to end up, 1986.'

'Is it?'

Blondel nodded. 'Nothing happened,' he explained. 'You may not have noticed, but there's a strong tendency when you leave the time tunnels at random to come out at a turning point of history.'

'You mean like Caesar crossing the -'

'Yes,' Blondel replied sternly, 'and keep your voice down. I don't want anybody finding out that was us. I don't know why it is,' he went on, 'this forever popping up at crucial moments. Maybe they've just got a stronger temporal field than your average wet Thursday in Dusseldorf. Anyway, as far as I can see, nothing of any significance whatsoever is happening here.'

'Good,' said Guy, and added, 'you mentioned something about an ice cream ...

Blondel nodded, borrowed five pounds from Giovanni - or rather, borrowed the use of his Beaumont Express Card -and wandered off in search of the refreshments tent. The Galeazzo brothers found a hoopla stall, which they proceeded to strip bare. Guy and Isoud sat down under a chestnut tree.

'Well,' Guy said awkwardly, 'here we are.'

'Yes,' Isoud replied.

'Um,' Guy continued, feeling it would probably be easier as well as nicer to try wading through waist-high custard, 'about this future of ours. The getting married and everything.'

'Yes,' Isoud said. Expressing oneself in unhelpful monosyllables in the course of extremely embarra.s.sing conversations is a woman's prerogative, Guy remembered, and the thought struck him that his father had probably had a conversation like this, or else he wouldn't be here. And his father, and his father before him, right back to the period of human history when it was socially acceptable to crack girls over the head with clubs and drag them off by their hair. It was a wonder the world was populated at all.

'Don't get me wrong,' Guy went on, 'but, well, in a sense...'

He realised that he hadn't the faintest idea what he was going to say next, and was just about to change the subject and point out a perfectly ordinary tree on the other side of the green when Isoud turned to him and said 'Oh, Guy!'

There you go, monosyllables again. I think all the bride's lines in the wedding service are made up of monosyllables. Follows.

'Yes, well,' he said, 'like I was saying, we really ought to consider -'

'Kiss me, Guy.'

'Sorry?'

'I said,' said Isoud, with just a touch of residual personality showing through, 'kiss me.'

Guy wanted to say, Hold on a minute there, I think you've got hold of the wrong end of the stick, because what I was going to say was that now that we've found out how flexible and adjustable time is, perhaps we won't have to get married after all, and since neither of us is desperately keen on the idea ... But since he'd been taught not to speak with his mouth full, he didn't.

'h.e.l.lo, you two,' Blondel said, grinning at them over a mobile barricade of white froth. 'Thought so.'

Isoud detached herself, leaving Guy realising what a rock must feel like when there are limpets about. She blushed prettily, said something about having a look at the white elephant stall, and skipped away, for all the world, Guy reckoned, like a radiantly happy electromagnet.

'Have an ice cream,' Blondel was saying. 'So Isoud showed you the family photograph alb.u.m, did she?'

'Gug,' Guy replied.

Blondel shrugged his shoulders. 'Took me a long time to find you,' he went on. 'Well, to be honest, I wasn't looking all that hard, what with searching for the King and everything. Still, better late than never, I suppose.'

'Hold on a minute,' Guy said. There was ice cream all over his nose, but he didn't care. 'You mean you ... you chose me specially? I thought it was just a coincidence or something.'

'Hardly,' Blondel replied. 'I don't want to sound rude, but if I'd had a free and unrestricted choice of a.s.sistants, I think I'd probably have chosen someone who's a rather better shot. Not that you've done badly,' he added. 'Just the reverse. But you see what I mean.'

'Yes, I see,' Guy lied. 'You mean, Isoud and me, it's been sort of, fated ...'

'If you like,' Blondel replied. 'That is, we knew the ending, all we had to do was reconstruct the plot a bit. Your ice cream's melting all down your sleeve, by the way.'

'How long has it been -' Guy winced; the word was so b.l.o.o.d.y fey, '- fated, then?'

'Ever since we got the photographs back from the developer,' Blondel replied. 'That's one of the weird things about living in a timewarp. You get the photos back centuries before they're taken and sent off, rather than the other way round, which I believe is the usual way. So we knew it was going to be you Isoud would fall for, it was just a case of finding you. And while you were handy, of course, you might as well make yourself useful in the quest.

'I see.'

'Honestly,' Blondel continued, chuckling quietly, 'you should have seen Isoud's face when she first saw the picture. Talk about horrified disbelief! Still, I think she's just about come round to the idea.'

'Thank you very much.'

'Don't mention it.'