Thursday, 14th century, in the village of Gotham

Aziraphale always tried to see things from the bright side. He felt it was in keeping with the Ineffable Plan, and how everything that happened forwarded it in one manner or other: therefore, there was always some positive aspect to the situation, if you just looked hard enough.

The 14th century came very close to proving him wrong.

Whenever he and Crowley discussed historical events, Aziraphale made no attempt to argue any point on Crowley's long list of why it was the worst century in the entirety of human history. Aziraphale had lived through it, he had squinted to catch the bright side to anything, and he had come out of it with nothing but a newfound need for reading glasses.

It had seemed so innocuous. The climate had been pleasantly warm for a period, long enough to see a spike in harvest and in population, which in turn meant economic growth and an overall pleasant life for quite a lot of people. Business theory loved a big population, and Famine cracked his knuckles and went to business. First of the four, he swept cold summers and crop failure over the land. In his tracks followed Pestilence, with a fresh set of epidemics and millions of malnourished immune systems to try them out on. The sheep died, the cows died, and while God did not play games with the universe, the Horsemen certainly did.

Not all died horrid deaths in the 14th century, mind. Every game has its underdog, and the village Aziraphale was currently riding for had drawn the Joker in the deck: madness.

That is to say, the humans thought it was madness, and human thinking was not always a reliable citation. They had explained madness variously as a miasmic contagion; as insects that were crawling around in the brain; as being possessed by the spirit of the moon; or as an imbalance of fluids, although that one had some merit depending on which type of fluid they were talking about and what quantities they imbibed.

Madness, as angels and demons understood it, was a misalignment between the mind and the present. A kink in the communication line between the senses and the brain. Sometimes it let humans make connections between things their senses couldn't even perceive and allowed them to read, as if peering through the eyes of the Almighty Herself, the invisible laws that governed the universe. Sometimes they just ended up drooling a lot and needed to be kept away from sharp objects. And sometimes, their minds drifted so far and fully from the present that they were able to see things that did not belong in their own lifetime. Madness as such was not contagious, but certainly heritable.

There was no explanation that Aziraphale knew of for how an entire village could be struck by lunacy all at once. He had his theories, but he would have to see it for himself. The humans living in the countryside seemed to think that qualified him as mad, too. They treated Gotham the same as they would treat a village struck by plague, and pleaded with Aziraphale to turn back every time he stopped to ask directions.

Gotham was a collection of squat stone houses with thatched roofing, situated in the midst of brown, soggy fields. It was a charming little place, aside from the people running around with underwear on their heads. One of them seemed to be giving his wheelbarrow the baptismal rites in a roadside puddle.

"Excuse me, madam?" he addressed a woman whose hair hung wild and dirty about her shoulders. "Could you perhaps enlighten me as to what has happened here?"

"Of course, good sir!" She plodded up next to his horse and put down her basket of small, gnarled pine cones. With the casual and practiced ease of one who handles calves for a living, she took firm hold of his ankle and lifted.

"Madam?"

The woman studied the sole of his boot with grave professionalism. "An unexpected encounter will bring joy, but also grief. Lady Fortune tips her horn of plenty into thy purse, it will serve you well to not spend all of it at once." She traced a finger over the patterns of mud and grass under his boot and hummed to herself. "Probably should avoid too much running. Got to be mindful of that old heart, sir."

"I see." He did not. "Thank you."

She curtsied and, after carefully nudging a pine cone into his saddlebag, continued on her way.

Aziraphale sighed an 'oh dear' under his breath. He watched the pine cone woman climb in through the window of what was hopefully her own house. He glanced over at the fellow who was baptising his wheelbarrow – it was a William – and decided he would have to try a different approach.

Aziraphale closed his eyes and opened another pair. Strictly speaking, eighteen other pairs.

It's not actually the eyes that see: that was something people used to assume before science invented neurology. Seeing, in scientific terms, is what happens when light hits an object and the object hits back, scattering the light in all directions. What the eye does is focus that light to a single point back at the optic nerve, and this is what allows the brain to interpret the colours and outlines of objects. In less scientific terms, seeing is when the brain gets stabbed by broken rainbows.

This is nothing like what Aziraphale did. Science would have a very hard time describing what he and his 38 eyes did, if there had been any instrument that could register surges in angelic presence. If there had been, it would have obtained the first recorded instance of an ethereal being blurting out 'bugger'.

Aziraphale flexed and stretched his fingers, like one does when making sure a glove sits nice and snug. He had returned all his senses to his corporation, and his human eyes were overcast with concern. Nothing was amiss with the villagers. Their minds were unfrayed, the thoughts he'd skimmed were all aligned, and there was no thrum of divine or demonic interference anywhere in the area.

He urged his horse onwards, past the wheelbarrow man and into the heart of the village. Most of the humans there seemed not to be speaking at all, only laughing or screaming wildly, with one particular girl barking and walking on all fours. After some deliberation, Aziraphale steered his horse towards one who seemed comparatively docile.

"Sir, may I have a word?"

The heavyset fellow sat on the ground before a series of small holes. He looked up at the gentleman on the horse, then promptly held out a brown rock for him to inspect. "Hen or cock'rel, you reckon?" Eggs can look an awful lot like rocks, an evolutionary advantage that acts as a camouflage against weasels, predatory birds, and, apparently, angels.

"You know," Aziraphale began tentatively, eyeing the man as he put the egg into a hole and patted dirt over it, "I think they all come from hens. Sir, you wouldn't by any chance–" He quieted immediately, turning his head in the direction of the familiar sound.

Hearing, like seeing, is something that happens in the brain. The perception of sound involves a rather complex relay race between skin, bone, and a spiral of gooey fluid, and it's probably just easier altogether to think of sound as wiggling air.

That the air was not in fact wiggling meant nothing to Aziraphale's scientifically heinous senses; he was wiggling, and it had to do with the whisper of a boneless body winding its way up the wall of Eden. The serpent may walk on two legs these days, but physical form was a technicality neither of them cared much for.

"Angel!"

On second thought, there were times when physical form was not a technicality, as well as times when the brain getting stabbed by broken rainbows was a very physical sensation. Aziraphale scrabbled for some sort of diplomatic verdict on Crowley's appearance. Striking. Yes. The demon looked striking.

He was used to the black with red accents. Liked it, even. Would never wear those colours himself, but they complimented Crowley's hair and complexion nicely. And Crowley still wore black and red, only it was more like red and black, and brought to mind poisonous creatures from the equatorial region.

The demon swaggered over with a pint of ale in his hand and a happy grin on his lips; the long liripipe of his hood swung in tandem in a way that could have looked like a snake, but that implied a measure of elegance that his tottering zigzag walk did not possess. The trained eye could measure Crowley's alcohol intake by the sine wave of his saunter, and Aziraphale's eye deemed this not his first, second, or third pint of ale.

"This is your work, I take it?"

"Brilliant, aren't they?" He lifted the hem of his hood to shoot a happy look up at Aziraphale.

"Brilliant? They're planting eggs to grow chickens! And I can't figure out what's wrong!"

"Relax, 'ziraphale," he drawled. "Nothing's wrong."

"Oh dear, have you gone mad, too?"

"Nobody's mad, angel! You saw it, right? Felt you all over the place just now. They're not crazy, they're lying," he declared with a grin that reached from his lips to his eyes and ended somewhere over in Norfolk. "They're faking it."

Aziraphale's face made a slow frown, as if he were simultaneously understanding and not understanding what Crowley had said. It was the first logical thing anyone had said since he came to Gotham, which improved exactly nothing, since the idea of a village collectively faking madness made no more sense than a whole village actually being mad.

"But why?"

Crowley raised the pint like a general toasting his victory and gestured a flourishing salute at Aziraphale. "For His Majesty the King of England! For that grand and gallant King that pillages the commons with grievous taxes, with blanks and benevolences and Satan knows what. To him!" He brought the pint down and tipped his head back for a large gulp.

In hindsight, Aziraphale thought, he ought to have known that travelling the countryside in crème velvets and gold-trimmed cloak, asking directions for a certain village, might give people the wrong idea. Still, to be mistaken for a tax collector was quite the blow.

"Well, on His Majesty's behalf I should ask that you stop putting mutinous ideas into the heads of his subjects. It's hard enough to manage a country in times like these."

"Oh yes, must be very hard." Crowley swayed like he had too many bones in his body and not a single clue how they were meant to fit together. "Can only afford five courses for his banquets, can he? Deserves better, as a King. They well deserve to have, who know the strong'st and surest way to get."

It was a shame and a loss to the world, in Aziraphale's opinion, that the demon only used his talent for wordsmithing to make mockery.

Aziraphale was well acquainted with the English court and its politics and knew full well that it was wars, not banquets, that had the King charging higher taxes. He was also woefully aware that it would have been better if the King had been excessive in feasting. War bled the countryside for both money and manpower, and took what Famine and Pestilence hadn't taken already.

"It's a miserable time for England," he agreed diplomatically. Miserable on Earth generally meant an uptick in faith in Heaven. Aziraphale didn't feel like this was the time to mention that. "But will breaking the law really help these people, you think?"

"It's a shite law!"

"It's the law – and what do you think will happen when the Crown finds out? No one escapes justice, Crowley."

"Lookit you, only people's best interests at heart, like a proper angel." Crowley was smiling, but it was a smile that looked a lot like Gabriel's, and Aziraphale would have much preferred it to stay with Gabriel. "Sterling work from your lot, as always, championing goodness and justice from up on your high horses." The demon swayed forward, looking very concentrated as he tried to decide if the perlino mare Aziraphale sat on qualified as high. "Never liked horses. Bloody stupid creatures. Weird teeth."

To have the patience of a saint was an odd turn of phrase. Saints were patient in their endurance of hardship, yes, and stoic in the face of their terrible ends, but while Aziraphale was doing his utmost to be patient, it wasn't he who was going to get violently discorporated if this continued.

"I have no say in policy decisions, Crowley," he reminded politely. "I only do what I'm told."

"Bollocks." His whole head swung with the force of the statement. "You do temptations, angel. S'no one up there telling you to do that."

"Well you're doing blessings, dear." That's the worst thing about arguing with old friends: they know where to aim. "Not to mention you devise the most ridiculous excuses to help people and pass it off as demonic work."

The worst thing about arguing with old friends is that you know where to aim, too, and you have to live with the consequences.

"I– this–" He pointed at Aziraphale in what would have been an accusing manner, if he hadn't been pointing slightly off to the left. "I am undermining the foundations of society here! Inciting criminal activity and civil unrest! Fomenting with the best of them!"

"Fermenting, I'd say." He glanced pointedly at the pint. The pint did its best to shrink out of existence.

"Look, I'm a competent demon, I know how to multicask– multitask, and besides – you're questioning my work? Grand, that's grand, that's– Y'know I wouldn't even be able to pull this off without you, right? This is all you, this whole country going to Hell in a handbasket while your lot – your good, just lot – twiddle their thumbs and play harps!"

"You know we don't play harps!"

"I don't know what you're doing but it's clearly not your job!"

The air was not wiggling; it was crackling. It was doing things air was never meant to do in the first place, and it was very uncomfortable about it. As was everyone else.

"Well then." There was an audible crack when Aziraphale broke the silence. "I believe I shall return to my job."

The problem with horses wasn't that they were high, or that they could kick, but that they made it quite impossible to turn on your heel and storm off in a fit of anger. Aziraphale made the best of the situation and turned his horse to ride off, but not before giving her tail a little miraculous aid in flicking Crowley in the face.

That absolute bastard. He wanted to talk work? Aziraphale always did his job, to the letter – had even been given a commendation for that eclipse over Novgorod! When was the last time Crowley had gotten that kind of recognition? Why, in 1054, and for what? Discussing real estate development with Emperor Constantine seven centuries prior? As if anybody could have foreseen that domino effect! If there was any 'architect of the Great Schism' it was the humans themselves!

Nottingham was five miles' journey from Gotham. It gave Aziraphale ample time to consider if he was really going to report Crowley's ploy, list all the reasons why the damned serpent deserved it, and muse what he might be able to get from the kitchen at the local inn if he arrived after nightfall. Not much, probably, what with the famine and all.

If Aziraphale had paid more attention to his surroundings, he might have noticed that the dirt road to Nottingham was unusually void of mud, that the trees were clutching their acorns and twigs for dear life above him, that not a single mosquito disturbed the air. The kind of uncanny little things that bespoke disaster. Things that made men cross themselves and spur their horses to outrun whatever lurked unseen in the woods.

This was ridiculous for several reasons. First off, nature isn't psychic. It doesn't shush wildlife or drain waterlogged roads to warn anybody of impending disaster: it does it in an attempt to prevent disaster. Secondly, Aziraphale did not like being referred to as disaster. He might be a tad upset, but that was a perfectly normal reaction to a demon's needling. Nothing that warranted reality going out of its way to appease his foul mood.

After an austere meal of bread and cheese, and a fretfully long night without reading material, Aziraphale was once again on his horse. The cobblestone road led to the edge of town, where Nottingham Castle lay. The local lord would deal with Gotham as he saw fit, and if Crowley wasn't gone by the time he did, well, then he had it coming.

That Aziraphale was not in the mood for company did not stop company from inflicting itself on him, and that was saying something if even dirt had been capable of taking a hint. The upbeat young lad had ridden up sidelong with him and kept asking silly questions like "headed for the castle, sir?", as if a man in fine velvets could be headed anywhere else.

"What's your errand, then, sir?"

Aziraphale only answered because, unlike certain other people, he knew manners. "There's a ruffian in the area. Has been swindling and riling up the people and such. I need to let his lordship know."

The young man blinked owlishly. "It's not the one with the hood, is it?"

A foreboding prickle sauntered vaguely down Aziraphale's spine.

"Yes," he said slowly, "he had a hood."

"Well, good sir, in that case his lordship already knows, and the ruffian's already behind bars." The lad smiled confidently and wiggled the scroll in his hand. "We caught him yesterday. Can't say it was much of a capture though. Met a horse without rider just outside of town, and a furlong on we found him, dead drunk in the gutter."

"And he's… still there?"

"In the gutter?"

"In gaol."

"I left not a quarter of an hour ago, he was snoring like a pig then. Well not the horse, the horse we left with Mr Carpenter. Don't know what we'll do about him. Sell him, I suppose."

Aziraphale cast a speculative eye at the scroll. Sealed with wax, stamped with an official sigil. And a Crowley who for some ineffable reason hadn't made himself scarce yet.

"And what will happen to him next?"

"The horse?"

"The ruffian," he clarified. Politely.

"His lordship arranges a trial, he's convicted, off to the gallows."

"How do you mean off to the gallows?" The English legal system wasn't that bad. In theory. Aziraphale had gleaned a line or two from the Magna Carta back when it was drawn up. "He hasn't even been on trial yet, he might not be convicted at all."

The look on the young gaoler's face begged to differ. "Our hooded nuisance is wanted for quite a number of offences, sir. He fancies himself some sort of rebel, nabbing money off royal emissaries left and right and, supposedly, giving it to the poor. Horseshit, if you ask me – pardon the language, sir, but I know the sort. He's only in it for the glory. Wants the recognition, to be seen as someone who does good, but when it comes to putting the money where the mouth is he doesn't actually do much for the common folk. Worst sort of hypocrite."

How very dare he. Aziraphale had half a mind to put the man's money where his mouth was, and not in the proverbial sense. Doing good only for show? Hadn't humanity been given agency and independence? Hadn't they been granted the most wondrous gift of all, with every opportunity to create their own destiny? And this runt felt like they were entitled to more, that some divine power ought to coddle them every step of the way? The gaoler had not a single, sorry idea of the ineffable mechanisms he was talking about, and yet he had the nerve to speak to Aziraphale like that. About Crowley.

The cobblestones underfoot were quietly smoothing into apologetic granite flagstones.

"I've been practicing for this," the lad continued. "A new design. It's going to be the prettiest slipknot to ever go round a neck, look, here: the trick is to not underestimate how long the end needs to be to wind around..." He used his reins for an enthusiastic demonstration of the improved knot, and offered to show several other handy-to-know knots in case Aziraphale was interested, which he was not.

"Say, dear boy, wouldn't you rather be a fisherman?" he said in most pleasant tones.

"Pardon, sir?"

"A fisherman." Aziraphale sunk it a little further, slipped a little more divine inspiration into it. "Like your uncle, down by the Trent."

"How do you know my–?"

"You'd still get to catch things, and it's more reliable than farming or animal husbandry. You make many knots as a fisherman, too. Repair old nets, make new ones – sounds rather nice, if you ask me."

A smile crept up on the lad's lips, all the way to his eyes and the epiphany that shone in them. "Knots," he breathed. "Yes, that would– But what about…?" He glanced at the scroll in his hand and his brow furrowed.

"Well, I'm headed for the castle, aren't I?" Aziraphale held out his own hand with a friendly smile. "I wouldn't mind delivering it for you. It's no problem at all, really."

"Why thank you, sir," he beamed, laid the scroll in his hand and thanked him again, before turning his horse down the road to his new destiny.

The local lord turned out to be a winsome fellow, not to mention appreciative of civilised conduct such as giving criminals a fair trial before making public entertainment of their untimely end. When Aziraphale proposed to escort the captive back for the hearing the lord was so taken that he offered to throw him a feast when the legal procedures were over, or if he'd favour a hunt that could be arranged, too; the castle had plenty of spare rooms, moreover, so he wouldn't have to stay at the inn if he would rather be the lord's esteemed guest.

With a new official scroll in hand, and reaffirmed faith in the goodness of humanity, Aziraphale rode towards Nottingham's prison.

The Sheriff of Nottingham would not be remembered kindly by history, which was unfortunate since he was a rather nice man, bad temper aside. He wasn't actually angry, just perpetually short on sleep. What made him properly angry was how every last soul in the city avoided him as if he carried the plague, or collected taxes, which he did in fact do from time to time so maybe they had a point. A minor one.

The citizens of Nottingham didn't actually think their Sheriff was infected with the plague. They thought he was angry, what with his temper and bloodshot eyes, and they weren't very well inclined to socialise with someone who had bad temper and bloodshot eyes as well as the authority to make arrests.

This lamentable misunderstanding could have been easily avoided if anyone had bothered to ask the right questions. And known how to cure sleep apnea.

The Sheriff wasn't averse per se to the idea of a prisoner being taken to trial, he just didn't like the idea of an unknown gent turning up out of nowhere with the news that his gaoler had gone fishing. Couldn't trust men who vanished in thin air, any more than one could trust men who appeared out of thin air with saintly smiles and too bright eyes. Still, when those men had a court order with the lord's seal, there was only one way about it.

Aziraphale had never seen the inside of a prison cell. Or smelled one. Or felt the damp chill creep in under his clothes. The cell went around to all of his senses like an unsober guest at a dinner party, introducing itself to each one and insulting them all. What in the world was Crowley doing there? And how was he still sleeping?

Some part of Aziraphale thought it might be a mission from Below. Another part thought that anybody who dressed like that deserved to get locked up.

"Up," the Sheriff grunted and kicked the wooden bench.

Crowley's body had no intention of going anywhere up. It had been in enough inner turmoil over whether it was going to be on the bench or on the floor, and had been somewhere in between the two by the time the kick helped it slide the remaining bit down on the ground.

"You sure he can walk to the trial, sir?" the Sheriff muttered and hauled the unconscious creature up to approximate verticality.

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows, pursed his lips. "Tie him up and sling him over the horse."

"Wozzat?" The demon made a game attempt to focus his gaze on both Aziraphale and the Sheriff at once.

"That," Aziraphale said cordially, "is justice."

It would have gone faster if the dexterous gaoler had been there, but they got Crowley bundled up over the horse's back right and all. Aziraphale rode straight for Nottingham Castle, straight past Nottingham Castle, and out into the countryside. Crowley had better be grateful for the gesture when he woke up, considering the feast Aziraphale was missing out on. The lord had promised pheasant. And dates.

"'Ngel," came a miserable noise from behind him. "M'gonna throw up."

"I'm afraid Madeleine wouldn't like that. She's been known to kick."

"I dun' like her, so we're even. Why m'I in ropes?"

Aziraphale pursed his lips. Honestly, he could at least have said 'thank you'. Or 'hi'. He contemplated not answering Crowley's question at all, but then his features smoothed out into cherubic benevolence. Demons and angels were, after all, of the same original stock.

"Well, I was thinking. You made a rather good point yesterday," he said. "Heaven could do with a more interventionist approach."

"What?"

Crowley, when he was sarcastic, could line his lips with poetry like he had gilt the sky with stars. Crowley when he was honest had the vocabulary of a befuddled duck. But, the mark of a true wordsmith is that he not only possesses mastery over words, but can manipulate inflection to the point where a single word reads like an epos. 'What', in Crowley's mouth, rivalled the scope of the Divina Commedia.

"Just saying you were right, my dear." Aziraphale smiled like an angel. "I've thought about it, and it occurred to me that there is a legal way to return some of the revenue to the people. While ridding the countryside of criminals in one fell swoop."

Why, something fell. It sounded much like when somebody dropped a penny, followed shortly by the sound of that penny landing in somebody's throat.

"You're gonna turn me in for bounty?!" he sputtered.

Aziraphale smiled even more angelically.

"Just doing my job, dear."

"That's–! You're a bloody-minded bastard, angel!"

"And you're a notorious outlaw."

"Notorious! I only did– What am I even accused of? Don't I have rights?"

"Well, in case you've forgotten..." Aziraphale rolled out the scroll with the court summons. "You have poached deer on royal hunting grounds, recruited honest men to rebel against the law, broken out of prison, robbed the Sheriff, robbed a monk, robbed–"

"That's not me."

"Not you?" He frowned. "But the description is of a person with a hood and–"

"Bloody Hell, angel, how many outlaws do you think there are, hiding in these woods? And how many do you think want their faces recognised?"

"Maybe I just found it believable that it could have been you behind those offences? Certainly sounded like your doing," Aziraphale said delicately.

"Robbery and poaching – really?"

"You didn't just rob the Sheriff, Crowley. And honestly, I was getting you out of gaol, not into one."

What he had been told by the chatty gaoler was that the hooded outlaw had gotten himself invited into the Sheriff's home under false identity. He had then lured the Sheriff into the woods with promises of showing him the lair of the wanted criminal, whereupon the poor man had been ambushed, robbed of money and clothes, and left to stumble blindly in the woods until morning.

"What, you would've busted out a guy like that?" Crowley, damn him, sounded like he was having a merry time of it. Perhaps he still hadn't slept off all the ale. "Angel, I don't know what to say! Tax the commoners and free the robbers! Sounds just like Upstairs, always liked being above the la– nguh! "

"Oh dear." Aziraphale sounded shocked, the way a woodsman might sound shocked that the tree he's been applying his axe to is falling. "I told you, she kicks if she's provoked." He reined in the horse to a halt.

Things were made to be a certain way in the Beginning, and they were prone to staying that way if they could. Thus the Serpent of Eden had a natural propensity for writhing on the ground, and the ground had an equally strong inclination towards drawing him down onto it. It was like gravity, if gravity could have personal crushes. This meant Crowley did not break anything from taking a swan dive onto a gravelly dirt road; it did not mean he particularly enjoyed it.

"Won't miss the horses," he grumbled and made a feeble effort to not lie in the mud. "One good bloody thing at least. No more horses."

Aziraphale frowned. "Whatever is that supposed to mean?"

"The End. S'all gonna end, angel. Horses, ale, bloody taxes and bloody Kings. All of it. No more Earth. No more anything. No–"

"What the devil are you talking about, Crowley? Sober up, you're not making sense."

"Horses," he proclaimed, somber more than sober, but his grasp on spelling had never been very good. "Saw 'em. The white one, and the red one, and the black. The pale one, too." His voice choked, as if the fall had dislodged something in his throat. "They're all gathered now. The final ride'll be any day, any day now, angel, and I can't– I don't–"

His eyes were blown wide, yellow like they hadn't been since they first met on the wall of Eden. Still and unblinking, they were the only thing not moving in a face that quivered with a hundred desperate emotions. Crowley hadn't hidden them behind glasses, as he had in Rome, or under the drooping hem of a hood. He hadn't let himself out of prison, and he had still not sobered up.

Oh.

"Crowley." Aziraphale dismounted his horse.

There was a special voice he reserved for occasions when he had to manifest before humans. It was the voice he used to say do not be afraid and make it sink into their hearts, a soothing breath of bliss to still whatever fear had shaken them. It was the softest and most loving wiggle of air an angel could provide, and speaking Crowley's name with that voice made the demon choke on something he would later insist was just the air knocked out of his lungs when he fell off the stupid horse.

"There shall be a world and it shall last six thousand years." Aziraphale knelt down by Crowley with that gentle voice and began undoing his ropes. "Remember, dear? Six thousand years. Plenty time yet for us." His tongue caught on the last word, on the implications of a word like that spoken with softness and bliss, and hurried on: "Plenty yet for them. They will find a way through this, too, as they always have."

Aziraphale kept speaking until Crowley's breathing evened out and he was a bit less wild about the eyes. A bit less tied up, too, but he made no move to get up, or to stop staring at Aziraphale kneeling beside him. He looked like he wanted to say something, but more than that he looked like he hoped Aziraphale would say it first.

"Now will you please sober up?" Aziraphale used his regular voice, but his tongue almost caught on those words, too.

A/N

§ It wasn't the 14th century's fault that just about everything bad happened at the same time. It's believed that the Little Ice Age happened because of prolonged volcanic eruptions that threw so much particles into the atmosphere the climate changed.

§ Gotham wasn't the only English village to employ spectacular means of tax evasion, but it is one of the most famous.

§ This is during the reign of Richard II, so quotes from Shakespeare's Richard II, in which Tennant has played King Richard.

§ The original Robin Hood wore red - the green outfit is an invention of later date. The plot of the chapter borrows from Robin Hood and the Monk, a ballad that was written down around 1450 but is older than that. It's about Robin and Little John having a falling out and going their separate ways, but when John hears Robin has been captured he doesn't hesitate to rush to the rescue. (Now with 100% less gratuitous murder.)

§ 1054 was when Christianity split and gave rise to the Eastern Orthodox Church in Constantinople and the Roman Catholic Church in Rome.

§ The lengthy note about "what" is a nod to Tennant as the 10th Doctor.