It won’t surprise you to know that just after cock-crow, when we were warming up for a fresh arousal, the door downstairs banged open and I heard Gerald the German telling the intruders to bugger off or he’d call his Roman mates (of which he did have a lot) and send them all packing. I knew what was going on. I told Jessie to stay where she was and, putting on a robe, went downstairs where I found Gerald nose to nose with a bellowing Joseph of Arimathea and some of his nerdy followers, getting all het up about blasphemy and sacrilege and so forth.
“Look,” I said, producing the spear and the cup. “I swear I was going to have her bring this back after breakfast. I promise you I haven’t nicked it.” Whereupon the lot of them, men and women both, piled into the house and knocked me to the ground. Which would have been all right except I was pretty convinced that they were then going to stomp me and I wasn’t having that. I pulled the covering off the spear, used it to get to my feet while Gerald engaged them from behind. I poked the spear at them, hoping to scare them off. Which was a big mistake since one of Joseph’s followers, an unblinking, red-faced loony if ever I saw one, lunged towards me and got the spear in his shoulder. “Sorry,” I said. What else could you say. But it wasn’t enough.
“He has desecrated our holy relics. He has defiled the instruments of the world’s salvation.” Joseph was in full priestly mode. And he didn’t stop at my defiling. He got himself into a right old state. I wouldn’t have taken him all that seriously if, through the door, I hadn’t seen big black clouds boiling up on the other side of the river. I was never superstitious, but I had to admit I was feeling a bit creeped out.
“Look,” I said, “have the thing. Have them both and bugger off back to your ship before Gerald’s mates start turning up.” I held the cup and the spear out to them and they backed away, making various signs with their fingers. Then the spear started tingling in my hand. Then the cup began to do the same. A queer, itchy sort of feeling.
“Blasphemer, I condemn thee to live in this city for days without end until it shall cease to exist save as ash blowing across a barren wasteland and thou shalt never see thy homeland again!” roared Joseph, and raised his eyes to heaven.
I would have thought little more of this if a bolt of lightning hadn’t suddenly zapped out of the sky, struck the tip of the spear, run up my arm and flung me against the far wall, dazed as I watched a somewhat smug Joseph collect up his goods and lead his followers out. After referring to Jessie as ‘a Jezebel’, which seemed a bit redundant, and saying ‘I divorce thee’ three times (evidently not above a bit of religious backsliding when it was convenient), Joseph led his followers back to the river. They returned to the ship and began rowing towards what is now Greenwich, the way they had come. I never saw him again. And at the time I couldn’t even remember the substance of his curse, which I had to admit was pretty dramatic. He must have known there was a summer storm building. No plague of anything. No mysterious sickness. He had just been impressing his followers. I was glad to see the back of them.
Soon Jessie was stroking my forehead and helping me to a sip of nice Tuscan red while Gerald held the wineskin. “Let him keep his silly spear,” she said, snuggling against me, “and his stupid cup. After all, we have each other.”
That suited me. It was no more than I had expected in the first place. That afternoon she was if anything even more passionate. The lightning strike had done no serious damage. In fact I felt invigorated, full of energy. Jessie was very impressed (and secretly so was I). It would be a couple of weeks before I understood the snags.
Some years later, I heard Joseph of Arimathea had established his colony and made quite an impression on the locals. But I never had a chance to go down and see it for myself. I’d become a Londoner, whether I liked it or not.
* * * *
The novel is a work in progress and as yet has no publisher.