“It’s 1969,” Ruthven reported from somewhere above Boswell.
“Hmm? How do you know that?”
“Robson O’Sullivan’s in uniform.”1
“So you don’t need me to dart out there and check the current shooting script to confirm the date?”
Ruthven sighed. “If you want a sandwich, go get a sandwich.”
Three sandwiches later, after a near miss when several makeup artists spotted him and started squealing about how adorable he was, Boswell trotted to the greenhouse. “I would have thought you’d be more excited,” he observed when he found Ruthven sitting on a bench, looking like the sad, brooding human he was. “Cramberleigh and all that.”
“It’s 1969,” said Ruthven heavily.
“I’m aware.”
“That’s an Event. One of the Anachronaut-caused ones.”
“Ah, yes,” Boswell said wisely. He had spotted some of the telltale anachronisms of Event Space, including several iPods among the crew, and a flock of dodos careering across the manicured lawn. “I suppose that lot would be interested in partitioning off this particular year. Woodstock, after all.”
Ruthven blinked at him. “The Moon landing, surely.”
Boswell gave him a much slower blink. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the Anachronauts care more about famous parties than historical significance when creating their Events.”
“So it’s all about eating, drinking and making merry?” Ruthven looked even more depressed. “I’m surprised they haven’t recruited Monterey.”
Boswell leaped up to the bench and laid his head on Ruthven’s knee. Not that he was hinting at anything at all. They weren’t partners, merely workplace acquaintances. There was no need for Ruthven to… ahh, good lad. Boswell preened a bit as Ruthven stroked his fur. “Monterey had a theory, actually,” he informed the human, turning this way and that so Ruthven could get full coverage with his pats. “He’s always said the Anachronauts were trying to ruin his life by making sure he personally couldn’t attend all those parties.”
“And that’s not true?” Ruthven hummed, continuing to pat.
Boswell rubbed against his hand. “I imagine ruining his life was a minor bonus,” he purred. “My personal theory is that Anachronauts are arseholes.”
“Sounds about right.” Ruthven sighed. “It’s hard to get excited about watching Edgar Wildegreen waved off to war when we’re still stuck. The hop didn’t work.”
“It did not. I don’t think that was a real time hoop,” Boswell added. “It didn’t smell right.”
“So, we’re trapped in Event Space forever?”
“It could be worse, dear boy. You could be trapped in Event Space without a cat.”
Ruthven pulled together something like a smile and scratched Boswell behind the ears. “What now?”
Boswell twitched his nose. “Unless you fancy trying for a walk-on role in Cramberleigh, I suggest we take the offensive. Find some Anachronauts and ask them what the hell is going on.”
“You don’t think that might be dangerous?”
“What are they going to do, trap us in Event Space forever?”
“Good point. We don’t have to trudge all the way to Woodstock to find them, do we? I’m pretty sure the groovy young things would make fun of my blazer.”
Boswell smirked “Let’s have a poke about in Cressida’s time aisles, see what turns up.”
“Huh,” said Ruthven, looking up at the many windows of the manor house. “There was one just outside the pineapple parlour. Do you think if we go back in, it will drop us back down here?”
“Only one way to find out.”
There were several libraries in Fenthorp Manor, which is how you knew it was a fancy house. Only one was ever used for Cramberleigh, because dragging all the big camera equipment into the wings of the house was more trouble than it was worth. The crew were currently filming in the Round Library, on the second floor: according to the shooting script that Ruthven had definitely stolen from downstairs, Sir Victor was about to pledge his troth to the future Lady Sophia Wildegreen.2
Ruthven might have been unmoved by the sight of Robson O’Sullivan, but he considered it an act of heroic restraint to creep past the doorway without asking Barbara Hill to sign his leg.3
Upstairs, Ruthven and Boswell got into a brief spat about whether the pineapple parlour was on the fourth or the fifth floor of the manor.
Ruthven flung open a cupboard door on the landing to prove his point that this definitely wasn’t the right floor, even though he was proving his point to empty air, because Boswell had already grumbled off to the floor above.
Three brooms fell out at his feet, and Ruthven stared in horror into the eyes of…
Well, he wasn’t sure who it was. Not a member of the 1969 cast and crew of Cramberleigh, that was for sure. An Anachronaut? Maybe.
She wore dark blue robes, which looked vaguely religious, with a hood to cover a shaven head. She looked younger than Ruthven, who himself often got mistaken for a student. She stared at him with the intensity of a thousand pissed-off cats.
“Don’t tell me you don’t have the jade pineapple either?” the woman demanded.
Ruthven backed up a step. He slammed the cupboard door closed, and used a broom handle to wedge it shut.
“What are you doing in here, I told you, this is the wrong floor,” complained Boswell, strolling in.