‘Dancing before the King at Court, or standing at the bows of some ship travelling to far Lyonesse,’ the man said, perhaps in response to an earlier question from the girl, which the watcher did not feel inclined to track back to.

The man went on, ‘Perhaps standing at a window of the Bloody Tower, awaiting the harsh fate bestowed upon the beautiful and innocent. Maybe far away on—’

‘You are as interminable as a three-onion fart, Berthold,’ said the older man on the wagon, before replacing in his mouth the stick he had been gnawing.

The girl was studying both men intently, obviously starving because of the parasitic drain of her tor, perhaps fascinated by their smallpox-scarred faces, which were inadequately covered by the neatly trimmed beards they wore.

‘But, Mellor, it is my interminable rhetoric that puts the groats and pennies into my pouch and the pheasant pie into your mouth.’

Mellor removed his stick. ‘No, I would venture to suggest it is the juggling and pratfalls which do that and your athletic servicing of either lord or lady.’

Berthold frowned, then returned his attention to the girl. ‘You have the face of an angel, my lady. Tell me, whence do you come, and whither do you go?’

The watcher noted now that Berthold was eyeing, with some puzzlement, her clothing, his attention finally resting on her army boots. It must be the odd clothing that caused him to use the honorific ‘my lady’, for in this age skin unscarred by smallpox was the preserve of milkmaids naturally immunized by an earlier infection of cowpox.

‘I’m a traveller from… the East,’ said the girl.

‘Yes,’ said Berthold, ‘it is said that their garb is most strange and that the women wear trews. Most interesting.’

Ah, the human capacity for self-deception, thought the watcher.

The girl at last found something to add. ‘I am also a hungry traveller.’

Berthold turned to Mellor. ‘How far to go?’

‘Another six miles, by my reckoning, and we were instructed to arrive not before tomorrow morning. Berthold, what is in your mind?’

‘I am thinking that the nobility value novelty most high, and are never averse to the sight of a pretty face.’ Berthold turned to her. ‘Climb up here with us and travel a little way. We shall soon make our camp and I am sure Mellor has some pie to spare. Tomorrow we shall eat like kings in the house of a King, and shall leave it with as much as we can carry.’

The watcher wondered if the girl had any idea what age she was in and how lucky she was not to have ended up dumped behind a tree with her throat cut.

Mellor snorted then spat a gobbet of phlegm over the side of the wagon, but he shuffled aside to allow the girl to sit beside him. Once Berthold, too, was up beside her, squashing her up against Mellor, the watcher felt some sympathy for her, and some amusement at her expression. By her dress she must have come from an age where people were not so unconcerned about body odour or about the things living in their beards.

‘Geddup there, Aragon,’ said Berthold, as he released the brake and snapped the reins across the horse’s rump. The animal looked back at him, let out a snort identical to Mellor’s, then slowly began to trudge up the track. After listening for a while to Berthold’s subsequent ‘three-onion farts’ as he described interminably his adventures as a travelling entertainer, the watcher tracked forwards in time.

Late afternoon inexorably slid towards evening, and before sunset Berthold pulled the wagon over to a clearing below a huge oak tree. While Mellor freed the horse from its harness, the girl and Berthold collected fallen wood from around the tree. When Berthold then struggled to use a tinderbox to get a fire started, the girl took out a propane cigarette lighter, thought for a moment, then hurriedly put it away again.

Very wise, the watcher whispered in her glassy domain. The consequences for the girl might be proximity to more flame than would be healthy.

Soon a good blaze was going and beside it rested enough wood to keep it fed for some time. Only then, in fading light, did Mellor fetch a sack of food from the back of the wagon. The bread looked stale and the hard pies seemed to contain, along with meat, fat and jelly, the occasional bone and unidentifiable organ webbed with rubbery tubes. But for someone who had earlier tried eating acorns, it was doubtless all ambrosia. Though eating plenty themselves, Mellor and Berthold watched the girl’s guzzling with awe.

‘You were hungry,’ commented Berthold.

Pausing to wipe crumbs from her face, the girl said, ‘Yes, I was… and you say there’ll be more tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow I shall entertain the King himself, then our pouches will be filled with silver and our sacks filled with salted venison and pork, pheasant pies and sweet pastries.’

After washing down, with small beer, her latest mouthful, the girl prompted, ‘The King, yes…’

Berthold obliged her, ‘Yes, good old Harry himself—Henry the VIII, under God alone King of this fine green country.’

The girl choked on another mouthful of pie and had to cough it into the fire.

The woman tossed Tack out into the open as if he were an empty coat, then slowly approached as he struggled upright. But, as he brought his gun to bear, she was on him in a second, slapping it out of his hand.

‘Pishalda fistik!’

Under the impetus of Traveller’s last order, he swept his foot out towards her legs, while aiming a straight-fingered blow to her throat. She caught his outstretched hand and twisted it so hard that he must follow it round or feel it break. Pulling his kris flick knife from concealment, he clicked it open and swung it towards her neck. Next thing he knew he was on the ground again, flat on his back and disarmed.

‘Esavelin scrace, neactic centeer vent?’ she said, casually inspecting the flick knife before closing it.

‘Yeah, about four o’clock in the afternoon,’ muttered Tack, hauling himself to his feet and preparing for attack again.

Desist.

Tack paused, grateful for this order from Traveller, aware that he had as much chance of killing this woman as he had of killing Traveller himself. Now, inactive, he had more time to study her. Approaching two metres in height, she moved with the same wiry strength as Traveller. Her face was utterly beautiful but strong, her cropped hair a dyed black that was growing out bright orange, and her eyes the colour of strawberries. She wore loose black fatigues, and a loose shirt underneath what looked like a sleeveless Kevlar jacket. Some sort of gun was holstered across her stomach, and various odd-looking instruments were affixed to her belt. His knife she now placed into a pouch also attached to the same belt.

Tilting her head she studied him with apparent confusion. ‘Century twenty-two primitive. With you want what they?’

Tack could only suppose that somehow Traveller was watching this scene from nearby, and wondered why no shots had been fired. Unexpectedly, Traveller answered that same question as if the link between them ran deeper than just the comlink.

I am five kilometres south of you, and will be with you in fifteen minutes. Try to stay alive and try to delay.

Tack did not know how Traveller could see what was going on, though he guessed at some sophisticated sort of bugging — which should not be so difficult for a race advanced enough to travel in time.

‘Answer me!’ the woman spat.

‘What was the question?’ Tack asked.

The woman paused, as if listening, then, carefully articulating each word, said, ‘What do the Heliothane want with you?’

‘I would tell you if I knew a Heliothane from a hole in the ground.’

By now the woman’s attention was fixed upon his right arm. Abruptly she stepped forward, grasped his forearm and lifted it to inspect the device now enclosing the fragment of tor embedded in his wrist.