I cannot believe I found this! I thought it was lost forever, destroyed along with the ancient hand-me-down laptop that died in my arms back in high school! But, here it is! Well…most of it. The ending is missing. I must have thought to save a copy of the story on my Dad's old desktop computer before I finished the last two or three chapters and, when I transferred my school files from my Dad's computer to my college laptop and then from there to my graduate and (current) postgraduate school laptops, this story must have gotten carried along for the ride! Wow!
This story brings back A LOT of memories. Not all good but, hey, high school. Doodling around with this was my way of procrastinating in front of the TV while looking like I was doing my homework. LOL! I was so deeply obsessed with Blackadder and I, Claudius back then…this was the result. It's incredibly long and admittedly flabby in places and it is missing its ending (which I really should rewrite now I've discovered this story still exists!), but it has great sentimental value to me just as it is and I'm going to post it here on my fanfiction page so I'll never, ever lose it again!
Blackadder: Forcing the Hand of Fate
An attempted explanation for several inexplicable things crammed into ten sizzling chapters - with some hot gypsies thrown in.
by Rowena Zahnrei
#0: 1959 A.D. Something of a Prologue
involving:
the strange and highly unusual meeting of two relatives
It was very late. Past midnight, in fact. The ancient stone room was drafty and cold. Most of the heat emanating from the rusty old radiator was being sucked out into the freezing night through the long, narrow window above it before it could reach the room's sole occupant: a dark, thin figure bent industriously over his large, wooden desk.
The window's hinges had frozen open some years ago and had bent during a, now retired, maintenance man's well-meaning efforts to close it. Since that time it had sat unevenly in its frame, letting in the insects of summer, the rain of spring, the chilling fog of morning, and the bitter winds of winter. A rag had been stuffed into the crack, but it had since disintegrated to a stiff, brown, tattered thing that could no more be expected to perform its function of keeping out drafts than a teenager with a short attention span who had spent the entire night before partying could be expected to stay awake during an 8:00 AM class on...anything, really.
But the thin, middle aged man who sat hunched over his desk in his shirt and waistcoat did not notice the bent window. Nor did he feel the chill draft. His attention was fully held by the thick stack of books and papers in front of him. By the yellowish light of his antique oil lamp, he flipped pages, read passages, and scribbled notes with an intense concentration that nothing short of a herd of elephants stampeding away from the epicenter of a massive earthquake could have jarred.
Perhaps this was why he did not look up when the stone ceiling above the dusty carpet before his desk wavered and shimmered as if it had just been transmogrified into liquid mercury. It could also be why he did not pause his scribbling when a great wooden box with a large clock face on the front materialized on that same carpet, releasing a great cloud of dust as it came to rest with a jarring thump. It might even explain why he continued to mutter to himself and flip pages as the wooden door on the side of the box was lowered with a great clumping thump-raising another cloud of dust-and a tall, slender, beady eyed man with very short cropped black hair, a trim, devilish beard, and a largish nose peeked his head out of the opening.
"Ah," this man said, stepping out onto the ramp the door had become, straightening his wine colored dinner jacket and smoothing the wrinkles out of his black turtleneck. He looked around the shadowy, dusty, book-crammed room with a mixture of satisfaction, derision, and half-fond remembrance. "It seems that you've managed to get something right for once, Baldrick. This freezing, dusty cave could certainly belong to none other than my old Uncle Edmund."
He waited while his companion, a short, scruffy man with a scabby face, stringy hair, baggy, greasy, stained clothing, and dirty white sneakers, tramped artlessly out onto the ramp with him.
"Is that your uncle, then, my lord?" he asked innocently, pointing with a dirty brown finger to the thin figure behind the enormous antique oak desk.
The taller man looked where the shorter one was pointing.
"Yes, that's him all right. The most studious man in England. He's probably the only person in the universe who would come into his office on his own initiative during the winter holiday and do work. He's also the least observant person in the world. You could park a car on his foot while he was reading and he wouldn't notice until some well-meaning soul forcibly extracted that enormous nose of his from his book."
Baldrick chuckled under his hand.
"What's so funny?"
"Well, it's just that his nose is exactly the same shape as yours, my lord. In fact, except for the fact that some of his hair is white and that he doesn't have a beard, you two look exactly alike."
His taller companion puffed out in anger.
"I look nothing like old Uncle Big-Nose! He's an ugly, musty, dusty, old man while I am a dashing lord in my prime. And don't you forget that, Baldrick!"
The scabby little man shrugged affably as Lord Blackadder strode over to the desk and waved his hands in front of his uncle's face. Failing to attract his attention, he turned back to his companion and smirked.
"He's exactly as I remembered him. Here, we have just materialized in front of his desk in a genuine time machine from forty years in the future and he hasn't even blinked. Look at him. Deaf and blind to all but his books."
"I believe I could get his attention, my lord," the scruffy little man piped as he jumped down from the ramp and onto the dusty old rug.
The taller man turned a sharp, ironic look on him.
"Oh yes, Baldrick? And what would you suggest? Neither the miraculous arrival of a time machine, nor our present conversation has succeeded in grabbing his attention. I fail to see how anything you might do could make any difference."
"Here, I'll show you, my lord," the little man said. He scampered confidently over to the industriously scribbling man, took him by the shoulders, and shouted into his ear, "Mr. Lord Blackadder's Uncle Edmund! Visitors here to see you!"
The thin, dark man gave a start, ran his fingers through his wild, salt-and-pepper hair, and rubbed his round, red-rimmed brown eyes. Then he stretched, and shivered.
"My, but it's cold in here," he observed in a soft, mild voice. "Now, where did I put my jacket?"
Lord Blackadder's eyes opened slightly wider than usual.
"I'm impressed, Baldrick. You have just accomplished the impossible. You have diverted my Uncle Edmund's attention from his books."
The scruffy, scabby little man called Baldrick grinned, showing uneven, yellow teeth, as he held up the brown jacket that had been draped over the back of the man's chair and helped him into it.
"Thank you, my good fellow," said Lord Blackadder's uncle, absently. "I really must remember to ask to get that window fixed. This cold weather cannot be very good for my books." He suddenly looked up. "You said I had visitors?" he asked, seeming to be more present than he previously had been. "Where might they be?"
His nephew from forty years in the future sighed deeply.
"We're right here in front of you, Uncle."
The older man looked confused.
"Uncle? Why do you call me uncle? I can see clearly that we are related, genetic resemblance being so amazingly strong in our family, but I only have one nephew, and he is seven years old. While you, my dear sir, are nearer to my age than my own brother. How old are you? Forty-five? Fifty?"
His nephew straightened to the extent that his haughty arrogance could allow, covering an offended glare with obviously fake smile.
"Dear Uncle, I am indeed your nephew. I have come here to your study from forty years in the future in this time machine."
He gestured grandly to the great wooden box standing beside him on the dusty carpet.
"I am Lord Edmund Blackadder, from the year 1999."
"Well, it's almost not the year 1999 any more, my lord," Baldrick spoke up. "In fact, it's very nearly the year 2000, seeing as it was almost midnight when we left and that it's New Year's Eve and all."
Lord Blackadder glared at his companion, but before he could say anything, his uncle interrupted angrily.
"Is this some kind of a joke? I'll have you know, sir, that I do not take kindly to this. I have a great deal of work to do and I have no time for time wasters. Explain your presence here, and the presence of that ridiculous box you presume to call a time machine, or else I shall be forced to call in the night watchman and have you both removed from University grounds."
Lord Blackadder chuckled quietly in his throat.
"I'm sure there is no need for that, Uncle. I can prove to you that I am your nephew-if you'll agree to come with me and to bring that book you're writing with you."
"What is this, a kidnapping? Well, I won't go! I've never been kidnapped in my life, and I refuse to make an exception for you."
"No, Uncle. This is not a kidnapping. It is an invitation. I am inviting you to come with me of your own free will on a trip through history. Knowing how interested you are in the subject, I thought it would be only fitting if you came along with me as a guide, and for your own enjoyment. After all, who could be a better advisor as we trek through time than a Professor of English History from Oxford University: my own, dear Uncle Edmund? There is no catch, and if you choose not to come, we will leave you at once, taking our time machine and whatever dust may be clinging to it with us, never to bother you again."
The older man looked very carefully at the straight postured, black-bearded man in front of him, then turned his gaze to the time machine. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"If you are telling the truth, if you truly are from forty years in the future, why do you need me to bring my presently half-finished manuscript along with me? Wouldn't you already have a copy of the completed work?"
Quickly realizing that it would be an unwise move to say his uncle's book had never actually been published and that he had sold the only copy of his unfinished manuscript-which he had never even glanced through let alone actually read-at an auction site on the internet some years ago, Lord Blackadder took a deep breath and prepared to come up with a really convincing lie.
"Well, Uncle, I don't actually have that book in my possession. My father, you see, was so attached to it that he wanted it burned with him when he was cremated. And I felt it would be much more convenient to simply pick up a copy when I came here to get you than to purchase a new one."
Though he ended with one of his most charming smiles, Professor Blackadder still looked suspicious.
"How's this, Nephew-if that's really who you are, and I must say I am not yet even slightly convinced. You take me, in that so-called time machine of yours, to whichever year I specify and back here again. If you do that, I'll agree to come with you. If you can't, then I'll expect you and your greasy companion to get your tails out of this study as quickly as humanly possible and never to show your spotty faces round here again. Is that clear?"
"Yes, Uncle," said Lord Blackadder with a very small smile. "Perfectly."
"Very well then, let's go."
With that, Baldrick led Professor Blackadder to the ramp with Lord Blackadder following smugly behind.
"Here, Uncle. Sit down. I'm sorry there are no chairs but we weren't really expecting this to work when we first started out."
Professor Blackadder looked to where his nephew was gesturing with disgusted surprise.
"But these are toilets! Two open, wooden toilets! With seatbelts, no less! You expect me to sit here? Who designed this crate?"
"It was designed by none other than the great Leonardo Da Vinci and built by none other than our own Baldrick, here. Which, of course, explains some of the modifications that have been made to the original plans, such as the little plush creature which pops out of that cabinet over there when you push this button, and the raspberry flavored lollipop lever which does absolutely nothing."
"Unless you lick it," piped Baldrick. "Then, it gets smaller and smaller and smaller until finally, it disappears! And then, all you have left is a wet stick. That's the bit which really does nothing."
The professor stared at him. Lord Blackadder rolled his eyes, then turned his long-suffering gaze towards the ceiling.
"Baldrick."
"Yes, my lord?"
He sighed.
"No, no. I won't even comment. It's too stupid."
The professor merely grunted and plunked himself down on the board separating the two toilet holes.
"Where should I tell the machine to go, my lord?" asked Baldrick walking over to the pull-down panel of knobs, dials, and real levers at the front.
"It's up to Uncle Edmund, here, remember? Uncle Edmund?"
"Oh, yes. Take me to the year 43 AD."
"All right. 43 AD. Do you think you can manage that, Balders?"
"No problem, my lord. Before we set out on this trip, I took the time to fill in all the blank spaces here with numbers. It should be much easier to find our way around time this time around."
"I wouldn't be too optimistic about that, Baldrick, but hope springs eternal. Set the dials, turn the crank, pull the levers, and let's be off!"
Until next time! :)