Alex Scarrow - The Doomsday Code

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.