Andrew Fish - Erasmus Hobart and the Golden Arrow

And that was clearly what she was: a lady, a member of the ennobled classes. It wasn’t just her bearing, or the fact she was mounted on a chestnut mare, which itself appeared somewhat uninterested in the proceedings; it wasn’t that her long, dark hair showed signs of care and that her finely chiselled looks showed evidence of the lack of hard toil.

No, if Erasmus had been asked to put his finger on the nub of the argument, he would have said it was her apparel: she appeared to have been outfitted – if that was the word – by the same tailor who had provided the emperor with his new clothes. In short, she was completely naked and it was only the horse’s head and the lady’s hair that prevented Erasmus from having a grandstand view of one of the most famous, yet least seen sights in English legend. History, he corrected himself – if he was seeing it, then it had happened. He knew the woman was rich because he knew who she was. This was the woman who, according to the tales, had ridden naked through the streets of Coventry in protest at her husband’s oppressive taxation of the peasants. This was…

‘Lady Godiva.’ He couldn’t help himself and blurted the name out.

The party continued a step or two and, for a split second, Erasmus thought perhaps he hadn’t said anything or that the theorists had been right when they suggested time travel took you into a parallel dimension where you could be neither seen nor heard.

He was just preparing to step aside, in order to prevent the profoundly embarrassing feeling of people passing through him, when the guard on the left looked up, using a hand to blinker one side of his face so he could see who had spoken without committing the heinous crime of seeing whom he had spoken about. The other guard shot him a quick glance and then looked back at the ground. Godiva herself interrupted the appraising of her domain to look at Erasmus. Her expression changed from one of quiet dignity to rage.

‘What are you doing out here?’ she roared. Erasmus stepped back involuntarily, almost tripping over a stone in the road as he did so.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know what day it was.’

‘Didn’t know what day it was! Do you honestly expect me to believe that?’

Erasmus kept quiet. He knew he couldn’t tell her the truth and he wasn’t entirely sure what he could tell her that she would believe. Godiva gave him a scornful look, then turned her head so she could address one of the guards below. ‘Don’t just stand there,’ she said.

‘Yes ma’am,’ said the guard nervously, trying to fight his natural instinct to look at the person who was speaking to him.

‘Seize him, you fool.’

‘Yes ma’am.’ Both guards began to move purposefully towards Erasmus, each drawing their sword as they did so, whilst trying hard not to look back towards their mistress. Erasmus took a few careful paces backwards. Then he turned on his heel and ran.

‘Run after him, you fools,’ yelled Godiva. The two guards picked up the pace and pursued Erasmus as he sped across the marketplace.

Godiva herself pulled on the reins and her horse began to canter steadily. The increase in pace meant the horse sprang between steps and the force of its impact dislodged the braids of hair which had, up till then, been protecting her modesty by covering her breasts. The hair fell in front of her eyes and, intent on her pursuit, Godiva threw the braids over her shoulder, making no further effort to conceal herself as she continued.

‘Phwoaar,’ came a voice from the building to her left. Godiva turned and saw that, amongst the windows of the building, one was unshuttered and a man was staring out at her, his eyes wide.

‘Right, that does it,’ she snapped. She dug her heels into her horse’s sides. The beast wheeled round and brought up its forelegs, lashing out at the side of the building. The man backed away hurriedly, but wasn’t fast enough to prevent his face being bombarded with fragments of wattle from the wall.

‘Ow!’ he screamed, clutching his face. ‘My eyes, my eyes! I can’t see!’

‘Bloody peeping Alfreds,’ Godiva muttered. She guided her horse in the direction in which the guards had run.

Erasmus, meanwhile, had entered the side street. He could see his time machine ahead. His lungs were straining with the unaccustomed effort, but he had the advantage – he wasn’t, after all, encumbered by armour. Godiva’s angry yells were ringing in his ears, but he resisted the urge to look back, concentrating instead on the prize.

And so it was that he almost cannoned into a blurry shape that cut across his path. Refocusing his gaze, he found himself looking at the burly form of a man, rudely dressed and unarmoured, but holding a pitchfork in his hand like a peasant who had more than a spot of gardening in mind. Erasmus almost skidded to a halt, then took a step back and smiled amiably.

‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘I wonder if I could just get past.’

The man said nothing, but glared fixedly.

‘Only. I’m trying to go over there—’ His words were cut off by an angry cry from behind.

‘Seize him, man.’

The peasant looked up and his expression faltered. Blood rushed to his face and he clamped a hand to his eyes as if to stop it escaping. Taking his chance, Erasmus tried to sidestep him, but with the pitchfork and the narrowness of the street, there was no way past. Erasmus turned to his right, where an alley led away. He couldn’t tell if there was a way through, but it was better than staying where he was. He ran.

The cry of ‘fool’ resonated along the alley, shaking the wattle and daub walls. A door to Erasmus’ right seemed to be shaken partially open. Erasmus paused, contemplating ducking into the building and waiting for his pursuers to pass. Then the door swung wide and three more peasants piled out, each wielding a pitchfork and wearing an angry expression. Suddenly Erasmus found himself wishing the aliens had visited.

He sprinted on, almost tripping over his feet in his haste. He stumbled to one side and put a hand out to steady himself. The wall beside him yielded, but held and he sprang back, his pace barely reduced. Behind him he heard the urgent thudding of heavy soles as his pursuers broke into a run. Their heavy breaths spoke of men used to steady effort rather than sudden bursts of exertion, which filled Erasmus with hope.

Then there was a sudden and heavy-sounding thump, followed by a grunt, a crash and several angry exclamations. Despite the urgency of his situation, Erasmus couldn’t help but turn back. Behind him, he saw the original pitchfork-wielding peasant lying on the floor with a man he assumed to be one of the second batch of pursuers. The other two appeared to have vanished.

Erasmus was just musing on this when he noticed a hole in one of the buildings lining the road. The continued commotion from this direction told its own story. Grinning to himself, he turned and continued his flight. Ahead of him was a junction, where another alley crossed his path left to right. Slowing his pace to a more sustainable jog, he turned left. If he was correct, the simple geography of the place suggested this passage should lead him on to one of the alleys he’d encountered on his arrival. From there it would be only a short flit to his time machine and safety.

The sudden arrival of two hefty peasants in his path ended this latest burst of optimism. From their reddened faces and plaster-covered clothes, Erasmus couldn’t entertain the hope they were just another pair of generic peasants, despite their generic pitchforks. These they levelled to deny him passage, leaving him staring at eight unpleasantly rusty tines. He backed off.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Surely we can talk about this.’

The low growl from the peasant on the left sounded anything but conversational. Either, Erasmus considered, the Stone Age had ended later than people thought, or the people of mediaeval Coventry had poorer than average communication skills. He dodged a lunge from one of the pitchforks, eyeing the corroded metal with concern.