‘You’ve been drinking the beer?’
‘Well … yes.’
‘You idiot!’
‘What?’ He was dumfounded. ‘Why?’
‘Have you any idea what lived in 16th century water?’
‘None at all,’ he said proudly. ‘But a couple of modern beers will soon see it off.’
‘You wish! You’ve almost certainly picked up a dose of worms and 16th century tapeworms are the worst. Left untreated, they lodge in your intestines, where it’s warm and wet – and I should imagine yours are warmer and wetter than most – and they just grow and grow. Finally, when they’re so big there’s no more room, they start to work their way up your gullet. Not overnight, obviously, but, one day, you’ll be talking to someone and you’ll feel the worm’s head, nodding away at the back of your throat.
Markham paled.
‘And by then it’s far, far too late,’ she continued, remorselessly, ‘because anything strong enough to kill a thirty-foot worm isn’t going to do you any good, either.’
Everyone else stepped back from him.
‘What about the other end?’ Dieter asked the question to which no one else wanted to know the answer. ‘The tail. Where does that appear?’
‘Well, guess.’
‘I need a drink,’ said Markham, desperately.
‘Sorry. Beer is the very worst thing you can drink when you’ve got a tapeworm. They just love the yeast. Doubles their size overnight. Definitely no beer for at least six months.’
She grinned; blonde, fluffy, and evil. ‘You’ve gone a really funny colour.’
‘I feel terrible,’ he said plaintively.
‘You poor, poor boy. Would you like to lean on me?’
‘If that’s all right with you,’ he said, bravely.
‘Well, it’s not. Get your arse up those stairs. Now.’
Guthrie uncrossed his eyes and focused on Helen.
‘Would it be possible to dissolve Mr Markham and keep the worm?’
She snorted and he was whisked away. The others trailed off behind them.
Which left Leon and me.
‘So,’ he said, brightly, as I limped down the hangar. ‘When would you like to tell me about you and the Earl of Bothwell?’
Epilogue
I got over it, of course. We always do. But sometimes the shadows linger on.
I spent a day in the library, following the history of events after our intervention. Mary Stuart went on to marry Bothwell and spent the rest of her life in tears and regret, exiled from her own land and imprisoned in England. I never called her The Tartan Trollop again.
Bothwell fled to Denmark and spent ten years chained to a pillar, unable to stand upright. He died insane. I try not to think of his green eyes and careless charm.
Elizabeth Tudor was saved and went on to have the entire age named after her.
James VI became James I.
Everything was exactly as it should be.
And at the end of the day, Leon was right. It all happened hundreds of years ago.
I nagged and scolded until I had everyone’s reports, wrote my own, signed and initialled everything in sight, and took it all off to the Boss, who congratulated me on a job well done. I thanked him politely.
We sat in silence for a while and then he said, ‘It had to be done. And you were the one to do it.’
‘I know.’
‘No one said it would be easy.’
‘I know.’ I tried to smile. ‘It’s been a rough year.’
‘And it’s not going to get any better. I’m sorry if you and your department were expecting an easy time for a while because that’s not going to happen.’ He passed me a file. ‘Read through this please, and talk to your people. I’d like a preliminary mission plan by next Wednesday.’
I was a little hurt. He was tough, but it wasn’t like him to be insensitive. A few days to let events settle in our heads would not have been unreasonable. I took the file, sat back, and glanced at the first page. I read the brief and looked at his expressionless face.
‘Well, can you do it? Or shall I give it to someone else?’
‘Over your dead body, sir.’
He’s not big on facial expressions, but at that moment he looked like a cat who had not only got at the cream, but knew how to open the fridge. And who had possibly just invested in his first dairy herd as well.
‘You’d better get on with it, then.’
I got up quietly, left his office, smiled politely at Mrs Partridge, strolled slowly along the corridor, round the gallery and down the stairs to the half-landing. Down in the hall, a bunch of tea-sodden disaster-magnets shouted, argued, and gesticulated. The History Department at work.
Eventually, they noticed me and silence fell. I kept my face quite expressionless.
‘OK, you lot. Strike the Mary Stuart material and start it packing away. I want this room cleared and ready for our next assignment by the end of today, please. Get the Archive staff in here to advise on what to keep.