Mead sounded pretty good about now, actually. It was the first thing in this time period that smelled appealing.
“Can I help you?” asked a burly man in furs, ladling out wooden cups of sweet-smelling fermented honey. “You seem lost, stranger.”1
“I’m looking for an orange and white cat,” said Ruthven.
“Lots of cats in town today. It’s the Time of the Cat!”
“Is that a local festival?” Ruthven stepped hastily out of the way as another child-laden sleigh pulled by cats went past.
“Yes, indeed! Cats are sacred to the goddess Freya. They are mighty warriors and strong sailors.”
“I’m also looking for a woman,” said Ruthven. “She had a helmet with two horns on it.” Hopefully that was still an unusual thing to see around here and not the latest trend along with distressed denim and Pokemon cards.
“Oh,” said the mead guy. “You mean Cressida. I saw her a minute ago wearing that hat of hers.” He chuckled. “Two horns. What a character.”
Of course it was Cressida. Of course they had turned up in the wrong century and stumbled across her anyway.2 One more cinnamon stick in the surreal mead cup of Ruthven’s life.
“You know what,” he said. “I will have a drink. I don’t have anything to trade for it…” He reached into his pockets, considered the historical ramifications, and straight up handed over a ballpoint pen.
Suck on that, Time.
“Excellent!” roared the Viking in delight. “My brother-in-law collects these.”
“Of course he does.” Ruthven accepted the brimming mead cup, and was about to take a mouthful when an arm hooked into his, pulling him along the street.
“Leave the mead, no time,” said a breathless woman in braids.
Ruthven did not drop the cup. He did let himself be propelled along by a living legend, because it seemed the quickest route to having everything explained to him. “You’re Cressida! You’re really her, aren’t you?”
Close up, it was obviously her. The hours of footage he had reviewed of Cressida and Boswell’s travels through this particular time and place were not entirely conclusive: Cressida’s footage had been recorded from her perspective, and the angle of the camera on Boswell’s opal meant that Ruthven was a lot more familiar with the shape of Cressida’s ankles than the shape of her jawline.
Still, he passed a statue of her on a daily basis. He was confident in his identification.
As Cressida hustled him along through the market, Ruthven realised that her ‘helmet’ wasn’t a helmet at all, not like Fenella’s. It was a sturdy felt hat — the horns stuck on the side were attached with large, ugly stitches. The whole aesthetic, matched with the blonde braids and the Viking apron, was a bit more Last Minute DIY Ren Fair than Approved by Costume. But no one seemed to care. Not with this many designer trainers and crop tops floating around 912.
“Top marks,” said Cressida, setting a brisk pace. “Have we met?”
“You kicked me and my friend out of a party once. Also, you’re sort of famous where I come from.”
She was unsurprised. “Tragic moral lesson, am I?”
“Something like that. We thought you were in 1964.”
“I wouldn’t rule it out. Walk faster, kid.”
Ruthven gripped his cup of mead as they hurried through the town, trying to prevent spillage. He was pretty sure he was going to need it when they got to wherever they were going. “Where’s Professor Boswell?”
“Professor. That kills me.” Cressida barked a laugh. “He’s waiting for us. Somewhere safe.”
“Oh, good.” Ruthven considered everything he had seen of Kettlewick thus far. The happy, laughing children. The entertaining anecdotes. The friendly mead seller. The humorous vegetables. “Are we not safe now?”
Cressida gave him an impatient look, not halting her stride. “This is 912, Rudolf.”
“Ruthven,” he corrected her. “Why is 912 not safe? Apart from the obvious — casual violence and lack of antibiotics.”
They reached a longhouse at the edge of the village, which was full of goats. Cressida tugged him inside. The smell of goat closed in around them like a fog made of, well. Goat. “I could explain,” she said. “But that might give the Anachronauts time to catch up with us. I’m trying to avoid that.”
“Good call.” Ruthven had no idea how wading through the world’s largest goat shed would keep them safe from Anachronauts, but he was sure he wouldn’t like the answer. “Where is this safe place we’re going?”
Cressida unbarred a large door to what looked like a store cupboard. “You’ll find it easier to believe if I show you.”
“I almost never get into cupboards with strange women!” he protested.
“Go on. It will do you the world of good.”
Boswell trusted Cressida. Ruthven wasn’t sure he trusted Boswell, but what was the worst that could happen?
(Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, Ruthven heard the voice of Lakshmi Tunbridge calling him out for thinking such a thing: “Now you’ve done it, Ruthven. Everything that goes wrong with this mission is officially your fault.”)
He stepped into the cupboard.
1 The translator unit built into every opal implant was fairly decent when it came to nuance over content, but you could never be certain that what you heard was exactly what had been said. The translation defaulted to making locals sound more polite than they might have intended. They grew politer with every software update. This was cited as the reason for fewer reported cases of travellers getting into fights with locals, but did create an uptick in travellers assuming that everyone they spoke to was flirting with them.
2 Technically if this was 912 then it was not the ‘wrong’ century as it was exactly where Boswell had lost Cressida in the first place. But when you’re aiming for 1964, 912 CE is wrong no matter which way your scone is buttered.
Twenty-Five
“You’re going to have to forget everything you know about time travel.”
