BACK AND FORTH-I

CHAPTER 15

                                        FINDING SPRIG AND JIM

     We arrived back at the palace just in time to see our ladies sitting having tea with the Queen Edith and Edith Swanneck. This is an odd sight indeed. The women are chatting away as though they were gossiping about someone or other. The light is fading quickly by this time, and I observed the women get up and stroll indoors. Its as though they were going to the mall for coffee. I could hardly believe my eyes, seeing five giggling girls, like teenagers, holding hands.

  The boys followed them inside, not knowing what is to happen next.

   "While you men were away, we used the machine. We took the queen and Edith to the 2006, it's the first year that came into my head. They saw television, aeroplanes, everything! We even watched a schoolboy rugby match. Antony, you should have been with us, it's just too wonderful to see the two girls so enthralled." Maria's enthusiasm is total. And yes, she did take the two women forward to 2040, to Victoria's Secret! They returned with hundreds of boxes of Tampax and various lipsticks, eye-shadows and 100 gallons of shampoo! My only hope is, that she had not broken the bank, leaving me destitute.

  I sat next to Queen Edith, and we chatted away as though we had known each-other for many years, when she stopped me dead in my tracts.

   "Antony. You are aware, that your existence is against the laws of nature?" The queen is serious. She knew this meeting should not happen, even though she knew that the battle would in truth, would be lost, and that the natural course of events should prevail. I thought it best to ignore her remark, and pointed to a her new crocodile skin bag, and the distraction worked. No female could resist showing off what she had bought. She bent low to fumble and search the contents for her spoils. She then pulled out and held up the Victoria's Secret brassier in her hands, smiled shyly, then lent forward to whisper. "Edith has twenty of these. We have been wearing them all day. They are so comfortable. The tights-hose is so sheer; can you see, Antony?" Edith lifted her dress to show her legs. Um? Yes, I thought, nice legs.

  The other Edith, Harold's paramour, is chattering with Sahara and Rose about, of all things, sex. Rose had bought Edith a love swing, for she and Harold to play with. I'm not going into details, but girls are girls. In any event, I have to move this story along, or you, dear reader, will drop this book and pick up the Financial Times or something.

  I spent the next week with the group I had arrived with, making our preparations to deliver the housecarls and fyrdsmen from Stamford Bridge to the Hastings battle site. We were to take no part in the battle. We would withdraw to our own time. The newly trained and competent Saxons would do what we had intended for them, then we would say a sweet þe mid sie, or goodbye.

  What is related to me about events occurring after my departure, I shall transcribe here in a later chapter, as told verbatim by Paul, who elected to stay behind and record the battle for posterity. Everyone not concerned with the forthcoming conflict is to stay in London. Only Paul, Mac and Jim would be at Senlac Hill with Harold's troops. By this time, of course, all Harold's army is equipped with his own personal force-field belt. For technical reasons, fitting of the belts could not be achieved before the army moved north, to fight with the Norwegian army. Not least of these problems is a strike by electricity workers that almost screwed-up the whole enterprise. No power back home, meant no movement by anyone, anywhere.

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  I'm sitting in my armchair, chatting with Maria. We were alone, making plans for our vacation to the Bahamas. I started as the doorbell rang. The bell is far too loud for my liking, and I'm going to have the horrid thing changed out. Maria went to the door, and, when she opened the portal, there stood a man of about eighty-five years. His bald head is tempered by excessively long almost white hair from the sides, covering his ears and down to his shoulders. I could see from the CCTV image of the door the man is not just some old man.