Giovanni pushed his way forward. 'Go on,' he said, nudging Richard hard in the ribs, 'tell him. Tell him about the calendar reforms.'

'Ah yes,' Richard said, with a strange edge to his voice. 'I was, um, forgetting. You tell him,' he said desperately.

'We demand,' Giovanni said, doing his best to speak with a palate apparently composed of leather, 'that something is done about the calendar. I mean, it's a disgrace.'

'Absolutely,' Richard boomed through his visor. 'A scandal.'

'Infamous,' said Blondel. 'Outrageous.

'And we won't stand for it.' 'You can say that again.'

'We won't -'

'Shut up.'

'Sorry.'

'Is it now?' the Antichrist said. 'Do tell me all about it.'

'I mean,' Giovanni went on, giving the impression that somebody had wound his tongue up with a large metal key, 'you've got some of your months thirty days long, some of them twenty-eight, some of them thirty-one. Just think of the havoc it plays with watches.'

'Watches?'

'You heard me,' Giovanni snapped. 'Calendar watches. How the h.e.l.l is a poor dumb machine supposed to know which months have twenty-eight days and which ones have -'And there's leap years,' Blondel added loyally. 'Somebody's bright idea, I suppose.' He tried to find a bitter tw.a.n.g in his vocal repertoire, and failed.

'Right, then,' said the Antichrist. 'Winter evenings shorter, reform the calendar. No problem there, I mean, they might have a bit of trouble fiddling the moon's...o...b..t, but let n.o.body say we're not ready to give it a go. Are you sure there wasn't something else? Something,' he hissed viciously, 'almost equally important?'

'Um,' Richard said.

'I mean,' the Antichrist rasped unpleasantly, 'otherwise I think that when you come to explain all this' - and he waved his hand at the horizon - 'to the Boss and say it was all to get the calendar sorted out and tack an extra hour on before lighting up time in December, He might get just a bit aerated, don't you?'

As if on cue, the sky darkened. Clouds knitted together like huge eyebrows. The Antichrist's grin widened, until it stretched from ear to... to ...

'I mean,' he said, 'Somebody Up There might take a less than tolerant view. Words like irresponsible and troublemaker might be used, don't you

SHUT UP.

'Who said that?' Guy asked. n.o.body could accuse him, he felt, of taking his duties lightly.

I DID, YOU CLOWN.

'How did you all manage to say that without moving your -AND AS FOR YOU, YOU CAN TAKE THAT GRIN OFF YOUR FACE.

The Antichrist looked straight up at the sky and wilted. Then he slid down the side of his horse like an oily raindrop.

THROWING YOUR WEIGHT ABOUT LIKE THAT,.

YOU OUGHT TO BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF. NOW, IF YOU'VE ALL QUITE FINISHED MUCKING ABOUT, LET'S GET THIS MESS CLEARED UP AND WE'LL SAY NO MORE ABOUT IT.

'But,' the Antichrist said, and then clung frantically to the patch of air his horse had occupied before the lightning hit it. That, it occurred to him, was a hint. b.l.o.o.d.y good hint, too.

Guy leaned over and whispered in Giovanni s ear. 'Is this what they call a deus ex machina?' he said.

'I wouldn't,' Giovanni whispered back, 'not if I were you.'

'All right, don't tell me, then,' Guy said. 'And you can all work it out for yourselves for all I care.'

The clouds swirled. A patch of c.u.mulonimbus raised itself.

'And that,' Guy shouted, 'goes for you too.'

Suddenly he was alone. It wasn't another temporal shift or anything like that; it was just that everybody had suddenly realised how sensible it would be to be somewhere else.

WHAT DID YOU SAY?.

'I'm fed up,' Guy yelled, 'and I want to go home. n.o.body ever tells me anything.'

There was a long silence. A small thorn bush a few yards to Guy's left started to smoulder quietly.

DON'T THEY?.

'No,' Guy said, 'and I'm not standing for it any longer, understood?' He raised his fist in a gesture of defiance, realised how silly he looked, and lowered it. 'If you were wearing a hat ...' he wailed.

ALL RIGHT.

'Sorry?'

I SAID ALL RIGHT. YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON AND I'M GOING TO TELL YOU, READY?.

'Well, yes,' Guy said. 'Um...'

IN THE BEGINNING ...

'He's asleep,' said Blondel.

'Good,' Isoud replied, pounding the boiled potatoes with a wooden spoon and a great deal of force. 'Did you really have to hit him like that?'

'If he thinks he's got concussion -'

'He has got concussion.'

'Let me rephrase that,' Blondel poured himself a drink and held it up to the light. 'If he thinks he got concussion getting out of the plane, he won't be surprised at not being able to remember anything. Best way,' he added. 'Sante'.

Isoud added a drop of milk to the potatoes. 'You know,' she said, 'he seems much nicer than he did.'

'That's just because he's incoherent with concussion,' Blondel replied. 'I've noticed, you women tend to go for the concussed type. Brings out the nursing instincts, I suppose. Can I get you one, sir?' he said, turning to the man sitting in the shadows in the corner of the room.

'Thanks awfully,' said the man, 'but not for me. Well then, that just about wraps it up for now, then, don't you think?'