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he all charred looking?  He explained and had a few questions of his own. 
    Time, it transpired, is relative after all, and the time spent in the deleted file, Hecaté surmised, did not count as time at all, all this, further confused, by the fact that time in the present was frozen. 
    Stiles did not know whether he was coming or going.  ‘Am I getting any older at the moment?’ he asked.  The idea of retarding the ageing process was extraordinarily alluring to a man somewhere past forty.
    ‘Mortals,’ snorted Hecaté.  ‘Of course you are! Although no one else is –  being frozen, as they are.’
    ‘Oh,’ Stiles was disappointed.  ‘Oh well, never mind.  What are you doing there?’
    ‘I have, thanks to this very useful password, reached the mainframe, historical files, if I am correct, this anachronism here – ’  she indicated a highlighted report,  ‘Would seem to indicate that our friends are in Mediaeval Europe.  Why, do you think?’
    ‘Lost, probably.  Are they all right?’
    ‘Hard to say.’
    * * *
    ‘Well, that’s a lot of peasants – with pitchforks,’ commented Denny.  ‘What’s going on, do you think?’
    ‘Who cares?  They probably have some grudge against whoever lives in the castle over there.  It’s none of our business.’
    ‘Where – sorry – when are we?’
    ‘Dark ages, I can’t be more specific, but judging from the accents and the scenery – it’s familiar – I think we’re in Aquitaine.’
    ‘France?’
    ‘No, Aquitaine, Texas.’
    ‘Very funny. Let’s go.  He’s not going to be here, is he?’
    But it was too late; they had been seen.
     
    They were advanced upon, and, before they could disappear into the undergrowth, they were surrounded.
    It transpired that they had turned up in the middle of a siege.  One of many that occurred during the run up to the hundred years war.  (Which actually went on for one hundred and sixteen years in total, and stopped occasionally for no apparent reason.) Tamar remembered bits of it.  She estimated that they were around the end of the twelfth century.  Quite some time before the hundred years war began in 1337. She based this on frequent references from the serfs and soldiers to Coeur de Lion – Lionheart. 
    Denny was excited when he heard this, but Tamar was scornful.  ‘We won’t actually get to see him,’ she said.  ‘Depending on the year, he’s either the Duke of Aquitaine or the King of England and Duke of Normandy – too important for the likes of us !  Anyway, he spent most of his reign in the Holy Land, either that or in prison in Germany.
     
    They had been taken prisoner, their strange clothes and sudden appearance marking them out as possible enemy spies.  This, by the way, was the anachronism that Hecaté had spotted.  They were both, unfortunately, wearing jeans and Tamar was sporting a T-shirt emblazoned with the legend “Cool Chick”. 
    ‘Next time, we change clothes before anyone spots us,’ said Denny.
    ‘Well, duh!  Look, we’ll get out of here as soon as they chuck us in a dungeon. We’ll be alone then.’
    But they were not taken to a dungeon; they were brought before the King. 
    The Lionheart himself, back in France to defend his dominions from his bother Prince John. 
    Tamar now revised her estimate, it must be around 1188, she said.  After Richard’s triumphant return and near to the end of his reign.
     They were standing in a great hall, surrounded by knights and minstrels and of course, on the dais, behind a long table, was the King himself in all his splendour.  They both felt extremely conspicuous, not to mention underdressed.
    ‘I feel like a Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,’ said Denny.  ‘Hey, you would know, was he real?’
    ‘Not now!’ hissed Tamar.
    They were forced to their knees.
    ‘Who are you?’ asked the King.  ‘Are you spies?  You serve my treacherous brother John who some call “soft sword”, who has tried to wrest my kingdom