“It’s for the best,” Aesop said sadly. “We can’t know more than they do, Boswell. The humans won’t forgive that.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” said Nero. “You’ll take my memory from my cold dead paws. But I can see that you two are going to be all wet about it.”
“The anachronisms haven’t broken through here yet,” Cressida went on. “Not like poor old 912, with its skateboards and yo-yos. And sushi — you should have seen the faces of all those Viking merchants when sushi turned up! My favourite was introducing the tomato to Italians a millennium and a half early — I thought Cicero was going to cry over his first plate of spaghetti marinara.”
“Church,” Boswell said tiredly. “What aren’t you telling me?”
She seemed so earnest, so real. But she felt less and less like she was the partner he had lost.
What secrets have I kept from you all these years, Church? What secrets have I kept from both of us?
Cressida was unaware of his inner turmoil. “I know it all sounds like nonsense, Boz. But I’ve been living this nonsense for a long time now. This place — this one afternoon. Sometimes Mikaela stabs Petey with a spoon, not a cake slice. And sometimes it’s the sound guys who trash the set before the lighting guys. Sometimes one contestant makes it to the cars before the others… but no matter how many times I see it, this afternoon remains mostly the same. It’s the closest thing I’ve found to a stable Event.”
Boswell frowned. “This is an experiment to you.”
“What do you think I am, an Anachronaut?” Cressida said lightly.
“You said we were all Anachronauts.”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
Boswell stretched his claws into the arm of the couch. “I suppose so,” he grumbled. “Chronos College has always approved of the most ridiculous antics. What you lot — what we got up to wasn’t exactly responsible. They keep sending young history nerds and talking cats off into history to gather data, and no one ever talks about what the data is for. Then there was the Boleyn Incident.”
Anne Boleyn. She was the key to it, somehow. Those pieces of memories chasing Boswell around like a bad smell. If he could remember how he knew her, surely the rest of it would make sense.
Anne Boleyn. Aesop.
It was a bit rich, Boswell criticising how Chronos College operated. He was part of it, after all. He had been shaping young minds ever since he retired from the field. Seven years, and he hadn’t asked nearly enough questions.
(Was he so busy mourning his partner, he didn’t notice what else had been taken?)
Ruthven was asleep, curled up on the couch. Boswell wanted to lie on his warm stomach and sleep too. He used to do that with his Church, after a good mission. Or a bad mission. He trusted her so much.
“If it’s true,” Boswell muttered. “If Chronos College and the Anachronauts have always been in league with each other… what do we do about it? Who do we report this to? Do we try and stop it?”
“It’s the coward’s choice,” said Nero. “But you’ll be used to that.”
“I don’t know,” said Cressida. “The Founders have to know about it already. Don’t they? Maybe everyone knows except us.”
Her voice fluttered, faded. When Boswell glanced up, he saw that her whole body was also not quite here — utterly translucent. He could see the lines of the window frame through her Viking apron.
“I was never able to find my way out of Event Space,” Cressida said, her eyes fixed on his as she dimmed. “It’s too late for me — this me, anyway. But you, Boz. Cats can go anywhere. You can get Ruthven out. Old school time travel. Send a postcard. Tap the opal. Go home.”
Boswell blinked, and Cressida was gone.
Again. He had lost her again. Even if she wasn’t the real version, that only meant he’d failed her twice over. Boswell crawled down on to the couch and snuggled up against Ruthven’s chest, listening to him breathe.
Wish you were here.
He craved oblivion. A good nap, to make it all better.
Instead, he got memories, more memories, piling in and around and on top of him.
Memories of Lovelace and Ptolemy. Of Nero and Banksia. Of Aesop.
Of Anne bloody Boleyn.
It was all starting to make sense, and Boswell didn’t like it. Not one bit.
1 Boswell would never acknowledge that he could not actually open the door without Ruthven’s assistance; whatever quirk of evolution allowed twenty-fourth century cats to speak in human language had not seen fit to provide them with opposable thumbs.
2 If Boswell was going to watch vintage television then it was Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes or nothing; in truth he was a simple cat and far more likely to select that one channel that has a flickering hearth fire on eternal loop.
3 Cressida was referring to Season 7 of Stately Baking, also known as the Season Where Mikaela Tried To Stab Petey With A Cake Slice. This popular show always trod a careful line between feel-good cottagecore kindness in the kitchen, and deliberate psychological torment.
Thirty-Six
1526 further back than you might think
Aesop was twitching with glee. The twitch began somewhere near the end of her fluffy black and orange tail and ended at her tiny pink nose. In the spaces between there was even more extraneous twitching.
“Castle, castle, castle,” she chanted beneath her breath.
“Come on, Aes,” Ruthven laughed. “You’re an embarrassment right now.”
She gave him a snooty look over her shoulder, and added about twelve twitches to her tail. She was going to strain something, at this rate. “Why aren’t you more excited? This is our first castle, Ruthven. Our first sixteenth century hop. Our first… MOAT!”
She jerked back, just in time to stop her dainty paws from getting wet from what did in fact prove to be a large Tudor moat.
