Dark Tidings

Chapter 25 - New Age Travellers

"What the hell is this for?" Lego, a stapler, a vacuum cleaner, a model helicopter and a hand-shaped fly swatter were among the many things which prompted this question.

After gathering more clothes, a pair of shoes each, some food provisions, two large knives and a good handful of silver coins, they went back to the biggest, most luxurious hut they'd come across.

"Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb," said Tung as he settled into a comfy armchairs.

Madrick studied one of the coins.

"Have you seen this, Tung?"

"What?"

"It's not round which means people are still clipping pieces off the coins."

"The slivers of silver add up over time. Come on, we all used to do it."

"I know, I was just pointing out that nothing much has changed."

"How much are those things worth anyway? Are we rich?"

"Well it says 'fifty pence'. I've no idea how much that is, however fifty anythings can't be bad. But look, the coin also says 2008 and there's a lady's head; a regal-looking lady with a crown."

"A woman queen?" said Tung.

"Unlikely," said Madrick who remembered childhood stories about an ancient queen called Boadicea. That hadn't ended well, so surely people wouldn't make the same mistake again? "But didn't you hear me? 2008. This coin was minted in the year 2008."

Tung did the maths. "So we jumped about a hundred years, wow." His maths wasn't great.

"A hundred years? No. We've jumped a thousand years."

Tung shrugged his shoulders. He came from the 'one, two, three, many' school of counting so to him, a hundred and a thousand were both gigantic numbers which he couldn't get his head round. "So we jumped a thousand years, wow."

A thousand years, Madrick mused, if that was truly the distance of their time jump, then things were going to be mightily different. They were the epitome of strangers in a strange land.

Darkness was winning the battle with the moonlight, so staying put for the night was definitely a good idea. This place seemed quiet and safe, and they needed time to recover and get their bearings. Tung slept while Madrick browsed through a selection of books which were strewn round the room. The language was a little strange but he quickly adapted his reading to cope. Amazing pictures of wonderful foodstuffs, great cities, fantastic machines and people in strange costumes adorned the pages. He read prolifically while Tung snored noisily in the corner. Eventually the moon gave up its struggle and darkness claimed the night. Madrick could no longer make out even the pictures so he reluctantly gave up and joined Tung in sleep.

It was an uneasy sleep because his dreams constantly reminded him of the wondrous things he'd seen in the books. He was wide awake at first light and wasted no time in getting back to his studying.

'A History of Britain Through the Ages' was his favourite so far. Inside the front cover was a list of all the English monarchs. He smiled when he saw Boadicea and noticed there had in fact been some queens since her; a couple of Marys, Anne, Victoria and two Elizabeths and the lady on the coin was Elizabeth II... who'd have guessed.

After a quick look at events from his day; Alfred the Great, the invading Danes and the story of King Cnut, he moved on to the photographs of medieval ruins; ruins of buildings which he remembered as newly built. Weird, but he'd have to get used to the fact that they'd skipped a thousand years and the world had moved on without them.