Simon Hawke - Ivanhoe Gambit

"So what's the answer?" Bobby said.

Finn laughed. "Well, we could always go back and kill the son of a bitch who invented the crossbow."

He yelped suddenly as an arrow embedded itself in the tree trunk against which he leaned. It pierced his left sleeve, grazing his arm and cutting it.

"Stand and deliver!"

Three men appeared, each holding a drawn longbow pointed in their direction. Both men jumped to their feet, Finn first yanking the arrow free and throwing it down upon the ground furiously.

"It's Little John and Robin," one of the men said, lowering his bow. The other two followed suit.

"Damn, Will, you could've killed him!" one of them said.

"Sorry, John," the one named Will said. "I couldn't see that it was you."

Finn glowered at him. "Come here, you…"

Will Scarlet approached hesitantly. "Now don't get mad, John. Could've happened to anyone, y'know."

Delaney struck him squarely on the jaw and Will Scarlet collapsed to the ground, unconscious. The other two began to back away.

"Stand fast!" said Delaney.

They froze.

"Now, you two eagle-eyed marksmen, I want you to cut me a staff, a nice-sized one, and then you truss up sleeping beauty here and hang him from it like a stag. Then you can carry him to camp that way."

Anxious not to provoke him any further, the two merry men hurried to comply with his orders.

"We're going to start whipping these cretins into shape right now," Delaney said. "Their cozy little forest retreat is about to become Finn Delaney's boot camp!"

Discretion seemed the better part of valor. Although he was tempted to reveal himself at Ashby, Lucas chose to postpone the return of Ivanhoe until a more opportune time. What he needed now was Cedric's protection. Ashby would provide a good opportunity to make it up with his "father," but not during the banquet. His arrival at the feast would have caused quite a stir, especially if he attempted to reclaim his fief and announced that Richard had returned to England, as had been his plan. Such an announcement, he had believed, would have thrown John for a loop. He guessed that the prince would have stalled for time. With many people at the banquet still loyal to Richard, the very people John was determined to win over to his side, Lucas thought that John would have made a show of loyalty himself by returning to Ivanhoe his fief and welcoming his brother's return. It would be so much lip service and nothing more. Returning Ivanhoe's possessions would have been a small sacrifice and a wise political decision. Meanwhile, John would doubtless send armed parties abroad in search of Richard, to find him and to do away with him posthaste. If Lucas could get John to do his job for him, so much the better. And certainly, anyone wishing Ivanhoe ill would not act during the banquet, where there would be so many witnesses. By giving up Rowena and begging Cedric's forgiveness, Lucas was certain that he would reestablish Ivanhoe in his father's good graces. It might not make Rowena very happy, but he would be safer leaving Ashby in the company of an armed party of Saxons. At least, that had been the plan. His growing sense of paranoia made him change it.

Finn was most likely correct in his guess that Goldblum had done away with Richard, rather than holding him prisoner somewhere. Holding the real Richard prisoner might have made for a bargaining point with the referees in case Irving failed, but Lucas was convinced that Irving was not even considering the prospect of failure. He was well ahead in the game and his possession of a chronoplate made the prospect of defeating him highly improbable. Unfortunately, that highly improbable prospect was all they had to look forward to. The alternatives were too frightening to consider.

Somehow, he had to discover where Irving was holed up. Either that, or wait until he made his move. So long as he was on his own, he was an open target. He had to change the course of events that had led to Irving's clocking back with Hooker's body. He did not know if that was possible, but he had to try. The danger was in second guessing himself.

He had fully intended to pursue his original plan. What he did not know was if he had already done so by the time that Hooker died. He thought back to Finn's analogy of dropping boulders in the river of time. His brain was in a muddle. Perhaps, by clocking back with Hooker's body, warning them that the boy would die, Irving had dropped a little boulder in the stream, had caused a tiny split in the timeline. Assuming that Goldblum had killed Hooker, at the time that happened — at some point in the not too distant future relative to where Lucas now was-perhaps Lucas had followed through on his original plan and revealed himself as Ivanhoe at John's banquet. Perhaps it was that event which had led to Hooker's death. What was the absolute past in Irving Goldblum's case?

Whatever had occurred up to the point at which Goldblum had killed Hooker was absolute relative to Irving's position in the timeline at that point. He killed Hooker, then clocked back with his body to confront them with it, to flaunt his superiority in the deadly game. Yet, there had to be a scenario in which Irving had not done that, there had to be. He had to kill Hooker before he could clock back with his body. Therefore, there had to exist an absolute past relative to Irving in which Hooker did not see his own corpse, because Irving had to kill him first before he could travel back into the past to confront them with his body. At the point in time at which Hooker had died, there had to exist a past scenario in which the timeline had been different. Irving had now changed that timeline or split it. The danger in second guessing the split, if there was one, lay in the fact that Lucas had no way of knowing what actions he was to take, which actions he had already taken at the point of Hooker's death. Had he, in fact, followed through on his original plan and announced himself at Prince John's banquet, which event subsequently led to Hooker's death-or had he altered his plan, as he was now doing? Which way would play into Irving Goldblum's hands? Or did it even make a difference?

Trying to solve the riddle gave Lucas a tremendous migraine. Maybe Finn was right. Maybe Hooker's fate was sealed, and with his fate, theirs as well. But if he was to accept that, then what hope could they possibly have of coming out of it alive?

Lucas decided and prayed that he had made the right decision. Without a chronoplate, he had no way of knowing. And if he had one, then things would have been even more confusing. Perhaps it was trying to solve such riddles that had led to Goldblum's insanity. For the first time in his life, Lucas was able to appreciate the difficulties involved in being a referee.

The first thing he had done had been to find a safe place to keep his armor while he was at the banquet. After some consideration, he had decided that the safest person to entrust his gear to was Isaac of York, Rebecca's father. He had already established a cursory sort of relationship with Rebecca and he knew that she did not think of him in the same way as she did the other knights. He had reason to believe that he could trust her. Secondly, he felt that he could trust to Isaac's business sense. What he had done was to send Hooker to Isaac and Rebecca, along with his armor, to use as collateral for a loan. He did not need the loan, but it made for an excellent pretext. They would keep his armor safe, obviously ignorant of its true nature and value, knowing that the interest Isaac demanded on the loan would exceed the price of Hooker and the armor if they sold them in the event of his default. After the banquet, he would simply repay the loan plus interest (which money would come from his winnings at the tournament) and reclaim Hooker and his armor. He felt that this would seem more natural than simply paying them outright to keep it safe for him. In that case, they might grow suspicious and wonder about his reasons for doing so and why he had selected them for the task. This way, as a poor knight errant, was a better way and it served to help keep up appearances.