Archer paced the small room where he had lodged with Silik. Silik, still in human form, busily examined his instrument.
"I don't understand. According to this, there are no more assassins. Elizabeth the First reigned for a good forty years. Her forces defeated the Spanish Armada and facilitating the settlement of much of North America by the English and French, rather than the Spanish. Our rescue of her should have restored the timeline."
Archer sighed. He never thought he'd miss Daniels, but Daniels was a better temporal traveling companion than Silik. Archer sat down next to Silik, and he moved to grab the device.
But before he could say anything, there was a knock on the door. Jon and Silik stood up. A young, elaborately dressed man - a court page Jon assumed - came in and bowed.
"Her most gracious majesty wishes to thank Sir Steven Silk and Captain Jonathan Archer for their service to her. She has found you both lodgings at court."
Archer glanced at Silik. As much as it pained him, if he was ever going to get back to his own time, he needed to figure out how to restore the timeline. Court was probably a good place to start.
"Tell her majesty we are honored," said Silik.
"Yes," said Archer, who did not speak very often. Even though the UT allegedly would hide his accent and translate his speech into Elizabethan English, just as it was translating it for him, he didn't fully trust the device. "Please thank the Queen for me as well."
The page bowed, and once he left, Silik moved toward a large truck and threw it open. It contained a pile of items, most of which appeared to be from their timeline. "Now we must figure out what gifts to bring her majesty."
Archer sighed. Apparently this version of Silik had been trapped in this timeline for nearly a year, building a cover identity and trying to find out when the assassination would happen. He'd managed to ingratiate himself into the queen's security forces via a combination of forged letters and an ability to get himself into buildings he shouldn't have been able to get into. His capture of a Jesuit hiding in Whitehall Chapel, with a stash of letters addressed to the Duke of Norfolk had garnered him a knighthood.
"I've got just the thing," said Silik, "The Queen will be impressed. You should give it her. She's got a thing for captains."
Malcolm rubbed his hands in his face. He, Trip and T'Pol were in the captain's mess, examining the now deceased Daniels's instrument. Malcolm was reading history from the device, or at least what the device said was history.
"This is all wrong," said Malcolm. "All wrong."
T'Pol looked over at Trip, and then back to Malcolm. "My knowledge of Earth history is limited. What specifically is wrong with the timeline?"
Malcolm shook his head. "The United States never existed. The northern two thirds of North America remained part of the Commonwealth...the house of Hanover never ruled over England. The Stuarts were there, but there was no Cromwell or regicide. James Stuart ruled, but he did so along with his wife Anne the First...I'm confused. The Stuart Queen Anne ruled a century later."
T'Pol leaned forward. "It's obviously a different Queen Anne. Do you think you can pinpoint when the timeline went wrong? We must determine that if we are to proceed."
Trip got up and looked out the window at the bright blue planet below. "We also need to figure out what to do if we're stuck here. It's possible we may never get home."
Malcolm noticed a tell-tale bit of emotion on T'Pol's face, but when she spoke it was with a cool monotone. "I'm not ready to consider that possibility yet."
Malcolm was restless. "I just thought of something. This little device contains a huge amount of data on Earth's history. Perhaps if we look search the historical record for someone we know isn't supposed to be there-."
Malcolm typed the search term "Jonathan Archer" quickly into the device. It searched through millions of records. His eyes scanned and skipped over obvious references to the wrong Jonathan Archer. Then, he found a small record in an encyclopedia of the Elizabethan Age.
He read it. Then he read it again. After a third time, its contents finally registered. Malcolm was suddenly grateful he was sitting down.
"Well, I've found him. Or what happened to him," sputtered Malcolm.
"You mean he's really here?" Trip turned around, his face looking brighter and happier than it had in as long as Malcolm remembered.
Although the change was more subtle, T'Pol's face softened and her stance became slightly less rigid. Unfortunately, what Malcolm was about to tell them was going to complicate everything. He took a deep breath and he read the passage:
"Sir Jonathan Archer was a courtier in the early reign of Elizabeth the First. A sea captain of obscure origins, he rose to prominence after helping rescue the queen from an assassination plot. He quickly found favor at court and remained close to the queen until her marriage to King Erik of Sweden. Unfounded rumors at court speculated that the prematurely born Princess Anne, Elizabeth's only child, may have been fathered by Archer rather than the Queen's husband. In later years, Archer led several exploration expeditions to North America and founded the first settlement in North America, named Annapolis, in honor of the birth of Princess Anne."
Trip grabbed the device from Malcolm. "That son of bitch," he said nervously.
T'Pol's eyebrow raised. "At least, now we know where to scan for the captain's biosign."
Malcolm, whose stomach was suddenly in knots, nodded. "Even if we pinpoint his location, it won't be easy to get to him. Elizabeth the First had more security than any other contemporary monarch. And her court was in perpetual motion, moving from palace to palace."
Trip smiled, "Princess Anne was born in late 1563. That means eventually Archer will show up at her court soon, if he's not there now. I should go see if Hoshi can scan for him. We might be able to just transport him out of there."
Malcolm shook his head. "That won't be enough. We can't be sure if just removing Archer will restore the timeline. Plus, we could cause a panic if we transport him in front of witnesses. We should physically go and find him."
T'Pol nodded. "We need to contact the quartermaster for clothing. Mr. Reed, will you be able to advise us on proper protocols for this time and place."
Reed sighed. "I remember some from school. And I'll consult the database."
Trip grinned. "If he's alive, we'll find him."
Jonathan Archer watched the Queen's long, pretty fingers move with swift precision over a keyboard. He recognized the tune, but he couldn't place it. The harpsichord-like instrument she played sounded tinnier than a piano, but it wasn't unpleasant to hear. The queen sat on a stool, and her huge gown of green and gold pooled onto the floor. She wore a white collar, a velvet hat and more jewels than Archer had ever seen on a person. Around her neck she wore a chain on which she had strung newly acquired large diamond, nearly perfect in quality. What she didn't know was, that the diamond had been manufactured on Silik's ship for industrial use. Enterprise had equipment that could do the same, turning carbon waste into the hard gem in a matter of hours.
However, as far as the queen knew, Archer had obtained the diamond on a sailing expedition to India. She was delighted with it. So delighted, she had invited Archer into her private chamber. They weren't alone of course, a half dozen guards and just as many ladies in waiting stood around the room, watching the stranger carefully. Yet, when the queen spoke to him, Archer found it easy to forget the others were there.
"You play beautifully, your grace," said Archer, hoping he was using the correct address.
"My father wrote this tune. Do you like it?" she asked haughtily. Although her voice was sharp and distant, she met his eyes, and Archer recognized playfulness there. Flirtation, as well.
"Yes," he replied, as he retrieved information about her father from the recesses of his memory. He pictured an obese man with at turkey leg, one that had had six wives.
It dawned on Archer that this woman's father had essentially murdered her mother, framing his own wife for adultery and other trumped up charges. Elizabeth's mother had been beheaded. Archer had heard about it as a boy, on a tour of The Tower of London. At the time, he couldn't understand how a man could order the death his wife. He still couldn't, though he knew a little bit more about how love could turn dark very quickly.
He looked at the queen, who despite her youth, commanded attention and respect as much as any person he'd ever seen. He racked his brain for what he knew of her, which wasn't much. He'd seen her portrayed in movies. He knew she'd given her name to an entire age. He surmised from what few facts he knew of her life, that she was as shrewd a politician that had ever lived and benefited by the high intelligence and charisma he had witnessed in her.
She finished playing her piece, dropped her hands on her skirt and spoke. "If you do something, do it well."
He laughed. "There's no other way to live one's life, your grace. I like to do things right the first time, myself."
She gazed at him, surprised and then impressed. "I don't know many sea captains with such a command of latin, Captain Archer. You do yourself credit."
Archer paused. He didn't know much Latin, beyond a few proverbs, but her surmised she had spoken in Latin and the universal translator had done its work. He made a note to himself to catalog "impressing queens" as an ancillary use for the universal translator.
"I only mean to be a credit to my queen, your grace," he replied.
She smiled at that. "I have decided to reward you with a knighthood. I shall have my clerk draw up the documents. Do you accept?"
Archer thought for a moment. Silik had devised a backstory for him about having been raised on the European continent by his Swedish mother but having a father who was a shipbuilder from the north of England. A knighthood could only enhance his cover.
"I'm honored, your grace," he replied.
She nodded curtly. "After the ceremony, we shall take a cruise on my barge."
Archer sighed. This was probably a good thing. Silik theorized that whatever had caused the timeline to go amiss, it had something to do with the queen. Getting close to her could help him find out what that something was.
On balance, Trip had preferred the visit to the western-style planet in the Expanse to this. At least there, he had seen enough movies to know how to behave and what to expect.
"Shakespeare always bored me, Mal," he said as he helped T'Pol step over a puddle of mud, "except the sword fighting."
"I believe we're a generation too early for Shakespeare," replied Malcolm, who walked behind them.
The quartermaster had dressed them in clothing appropriate for the period. Trip and T'Pol wore the bright colored clothes of prosperous gentry, and Trip had even insisted on wedding bands to further the ruse that they were married. He didn't know much about this time, but he knew that an unmarried woman traveling with two men would not be treated well. T'Pol had deemed the plan logical, remaining completely expressionless as he had put the ring on her finger. Malcolm was dressed soberly, in the clothing befitting a Protestant minister. Back at the house they had rented, several members of the crew were acting as Master and Mistress Tucker's servants. Malcolm thought that better than hiring locals, both to give the appearance of wealth and for their position to remain secure.
Trip glanced over at T'Pol, who wore a gown of mustard yellow with a white collar. Her hair extensions had been styled to cover her ears, since the white cap atop her head did not reach around her them.
"Who's this guy we're meeting, Mal?" said Trip as they turned into the grounds of a small, but obviously expensive stone house along the river.
"His name is Sir Robert Dudley. Lately the Queen's Master of Horse. The Queen gave him this house as a gift."
Trip whistled as the three of them walked up the garden path. "Nice gift."
"Nice exile," replied Malcolm. "Just as in the proper timeline, he's been sent to this house to cool his heels while investigators determine whether or not his unfortunate wife was murdered or died by accident. However, in this incorrect timeline, he never returned to court because the verdict was inconclusive."
T'Pol stopped. "What of the proper timeline? What is supposed to happen?"
Malcolm looked up at the big, wooden doors. "Lady Dudley's death is supposed to be declared accidental. Sir Robert Dudley is supposed to return to court, but the rumors and whispers will make him an impossible choice for a Royal Consort. They never married."
Malcolm reached up and knocked with the brass knocker on the door. "So, we need to clear this man's name - more or less - before Archer can replace him in the queen's affections."
The door creaked open, and a servant appeared. Malcolm introduced them, and the three entered Kew House.