The Tower Grave (9 page)

             
“Ha! I’m a long way from being married, John.”

             
“Are you with anyone?”

             
“No, work hasn’t given me much time and I’m not a fan of internet dating! These are intimate questions for a hot tub, aren’t they?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, what about you? Attached?”

             
“No.”

             
“Good, so you’ll be able to concentrate properly.”

             
“Concentrate on what?”

             
“On your training, of course.”

             
“There are some distractions.”

             
“Such as?”

             
“Someone I can’t take my eyes off.”

             
“Well, I have experienced the same problem recently and I’ll admit I am struggling to manage it.”

             
“Problem is she seems more than just something to look at. I fear that the distraction will become even bigger.”

             
“Maybe it will.”

             
“It just has.”

             
He turned to Jane to find her leaning in close to him already. She looked closely at him and he felt her inhale deeply as she shifted slightly under the water.

             
“Maybe you should satisfy your curiosity,” she said, looking down at his lips and biting hers.

“
Would she mind?”

             
“She can’t wait.”

At the same time they leaned together and kissed gently. John’s
shorts became tight and uncomfortable in seconds as he reacted to the feel of her lips, and she teased his mouth with her own before it opened and a hint of her tongue touched his. He began to stir and twisted further towards her as their kiss grew in passion and her tongue grew stronger with her desire. Taking her slim waist in his hands, he pulled her on top of him and held onto her as she straddled him in the bubbling water. She groaned softly as he pressed himself against her and she moved as she felt the hard bulge of his shorts between her legs.

             
Building with urgency, she allowed him room as he took hold of her bikini bottoms and pulled free the bows holding them together at the sides. They fell loose at the back and he closed his eyes at the feel of her firm buttocks before a burst of laughter out of sight by the pool made them pull away in shock. They looked around and no one was in sight, but the sound of rushed voices followed by soft groaning told them they weren’t alone in their location or their activities.

             
Jane turned back to John and smiled playfully. She rubbed her hands over the short hair on his chest and let her eyes close as she squeezed herself against him once more. Stopping still, she kissed him and sat back, tying up her bikini and pulling him up with her hand.

             
“Looks like we’ve been beaten to it,” she said as she tip-toed to the wall and looked around the corner.

             
John stepped up behind her and looked for the source of the sound.

             
“Cheeky sods,” she whispered, looking across the pool at an open door to an equipment store room.

             
John couldn’t believe his eyes. Facing directly towards them, a pale and naked female was clinging face down to a table, groaning as her face moved against it. She raised her ginger head, making both John and Jane flinch, but kept her eyes closed as she moaned and rocked against the wood. She arched her back with her eyes closed and bit her bottom lip, letting her small, pointy breasts swing wildly below her. Fully dressed behind, Paul, the history instructor on the course panted blindly as he manically held on to her hips and drove himself into her from behind.

             
“Isn’t that...” John asked.

             
“Paul?” Jane interrupted him. “Yes, and one of the lab technicians with him. I never knew,” she mused as she turned around and looked at him. “Next time,” she sighed ruefully and pushed him away. “Come on, grab your bag. We better get out and leave them to it.”

             
“Jane, I, uhm…”

             
“I know,” she interrupted, guessing his words, “And me too. All of a sudden and in a way that scares me to death, but me too.”  She grabbed his cheeks and kissed him gently on the lips then stood back and smiled as she watched his eyes. “Come on,” she said, and she darted off down the side of the pool, leaving John looking longingly at her body as she ran.

             
“Shit,” he said to himself as the noise began to rise and he ran after her, picking up his bag on his way out of the building.

             
As he reached the door outside, Jane had slipped a pair of short, denim shorts over her legs and was pulling a now-wet white, linen top over her head. She opened her car door and looked back at John standing behind her.

“It’s nice to finally chat,” she said, and she cupped his face, kissing him gently as he slipped h
is own trousers over his shorts. “Remember you still owe me,” she teased. “That doesn’t count as repayment and you owe me even more now.” She smiled at him, turning away and shouted over her shoulder. “See you at dinner,” she said as she jumped in her car and pulled away.

             
“You can count on it,” John replied to himself as he followed suit and shot off across the dust and grass in his vehicle.

Eight

23
rd
June 2014

             
Not ready to open his eyes and wake up, John’s hand scrambled for his phone to silence the alarm blearing in his ears. Putting a stop to the racket all too late, he moaned at the fatigue inside him and sat up through the protests of his shoulders and lower back. He was exhausted. For three weeks they had worked twelve hours a day, training and learning, barely stopping for a rest. They’d all lost considerable weight from the exercise they had been put through and John’s hand found his abs; now leaner and harder than they’d ever been before. He smiled to himself. Despite the hard work, he’d had a good time and was excited about the mission soon to come.

             
The team had all trained hour after hour in the study of Fifteenth Century lifestyle, culture and communication. They’d learned to adjust their speech to match the structure of the middle ages; and had learned to fight, with weapons and without, shooting arrows and riding horses like their lives depended on it. ‘Just the basics,’ Pete had said. ‘We’ve got three weeks, so we’ll learn the basics in each discipline and drill them until they are second nature.’ Jake’s experience had stood out, of course, but no one had shown promise in archery apart from Chris. They’d learned to string and set a bow quickly, and to maintain a degree of accuracy, but Chris had taken to it like he had been raised by Robin Hood and was clearly a natural shooter. He had a good eye for a target and would always carry a bow once they were deployed on the job.

             
They’d been given an extremely intensive riding course. Jane had been an exceptional teacher and had pushed hard at finer details of balance and leg control in close quarter and hand-free situations. With the help of Charlotte, they’d each picked up the skills quickly and through hard work, had become proficient enough for the journey to come.

             
John rolled out of bed and splashed his face in his bathroom. He looked more chiselled than gaunt in the mirror, but it was still too thin for his liking, having been lean before they started. He eyed his bruised body, his callused hands, his reddened ears and swollen face. He’d pushed himself and in response had hardened in the short time. He nodded at himself in the mirror and gripped the sink-edge, grinning. He was ready to go back to the middle-ages.

             
Dressed and walking down to the dining room for breakfast before their final briefing and portal rehearsal, John passed Jane’s door. He frowned to himself at how he’d missed out so far, but being exhausted and nervous, he hadn’t visited her room as invited. There had been moments where they’d stolen a few minutes alone and managed to get to know each other more. They’d even shared a kiss on occasions before more interruptions had occurred. He vowed to himself that he would pay back what he owed, and he smiled at the juvenile metaphor.

             
He walked into the dining room as Derek stood up to speak. He grabbed some toast and eggs from the counter and sat down, waiting quietly.

             
“I think we can just brief here,” Derek said. “We’ve done all we can do and we may as well be comfortable.”

             
With the room more crowded than usual, John looked around and noted practically everyone from the compound was present. His whole team sat separately around the room apart from Jake and Charlotte who sat together. From what he could see, the technicians were all present including the ginger-haired girl John had seen too much of and had since learned was called Jessie. She sat looking teasingly at Paul who shifted nervously, smiling under her glare. They exchanged a wink, subtle enough that no others noticed but clear to John who knew their secret. Next to Paul sat the instructors together, including Jane who wore a white blouse and her hair tied up behind her. She caught John’s eye and poked her tongue out at him playfully, then grinned as he smiled back and winked.

             
“In forty-eight hours at eight in the morning,” said Derek from the front, “Our friends John, Dave, Chris, Charlotte and Jake will use the portal to go back to fourteen eighty three. At seven-thirty, we will send your horses back, though they won’t arrive until ten minutes after you at ten past six AM.”

             
“Why?” asked David.

“We want to send the
m first, to make sure they don’t, you know, explode or anything. But we also want you to arrive there first so that you can surprise anything that may be unfortunate enough to be around you, and then gain control of the horses when they turn up. They’ll still arrive there in the same instant that they depart, and you will leave afterwards, but even so you will be there first.”

             
“This is messing with my head!” said Jake, laughing.

             
“I know. It’s hard to get your head around. In any case, we believe the altitude of the portal site will be a foot or so lower in fourteen eighty three, so we’ve set the portal at our exact ground level. Better to be a foot above ground than a foot in it when you materialise. Obviously we don’t know what will be there when you arrive, so we’ve tried to put you where there are no known archaeological finds, and far enough from London to be completely inconspicuous. As for the portal, well that won’t be visible as it won’t be there. Only the return gateway will be possible, and only things that have been through can come back to us; at least as far as we know. You’ll have to act quickly in case you are seen when you arrive.

             
“So, get to London and get on with the job. You’ll have roughly five weeks. Not long for this type of full infiltration job, but a long time to survive undercover where everything you do will be alien to you. There will, after all, be no break whatsoever.

             
“Rich?”

             
“Thanks, Boss. On the morning of the travel,” said Rich, standing up, “We’ll meet with your belongings and equipment at six-thirty. We’ll prep you, test run, send the horses, and then you go. Chris will be in possession of the portal tracker and remote control, which will interact with the portal’s path of travel. Now come back when you have to, but be aware there will be no back and forth. To use the portal to come back will close the path and no one else will be able to get through it. It works on memory and will allow one journey back with all remembered elements entering as close to simultaneously as possible. If you get in trouble, or indeed when you get the job done, make sure you get back through together and we’ll see you exactly the same moment you disappear. Except you will be six weeks older than when you left.

“Now I must tell you that w
e’ve decided that we don’t want to risk the job, and so we need to know that humans can pass through and return before you go. One life risked is worth the balance against you five and the thousands of folk affected if it goes wrong. So we’re sending someone through as a test.”

             
A murmur of shock sounded through the crowd, nearly all of whom was unaware that such a test was planned.

             
“Who’s going?” John asked, already guessing the answer.

             
Derek looked down in silence, the strain clear on his face.

             
“Me, John,” answered Rich with pride. “I’ll be going through and back in exactly sixty minutes time.”