Message from a Hostel – The Circus is in town

The Manager and Nora had been washed, massaged and oiled.  They had being given several ladies dresses to try on.  They were fed and watered for the night.  They had downed a bottle of the Archbishops best wine and had a good night’s rest.

The following morning after breakfast and have been ordered to stay in the room, until the Archbishop summoned them, Nora asked the Manager, “what are you going to tell the Archbishop about the time travelling?”

“We’ll not mention that at first, I think. He strongly believes that we are witches.  We’ll have to make sure that he understands that we are not witches, for we are in danger of being burned at the stake.  We will have to convince him that we are from a different land far away.”

“Like the land of far, far away in Shrek?” replied Nora

“Nora, I might skip the Shrek part and just mention it’s  across the ocean,” said the Manager.

“Well you seem to have the Archbishop on your side Lady Catherine,” laughed Nora.  “ I think he might try and burn me as a witch.”

“Let me do most of the talking Nora.  Last night just before I went to sleep after the few glasses of wine I wrote down a few notes.  It’s hard using a nib pen and ink again.”

The door of the room sung open and in came two soldiers.  “Right, you two get yourselves ready, we are taking you over to the Archbishops main court room,” shouted one of the soldiers.  Nora and the manager were then taken out of the room to the court yard.  There was a horse and carriage waiting.  They were both told to get into the carriage.

As they were travelling along the road they were obstructed by a peasant farmer herding sheep.  The soldiers were trying to clear the road but all they were doing was making things worse with the sheep running all over the place.  Nora jumped out of the carriage and started driving the sheep out of the way.  She waved her arms wildly and shouted at the peasant and soldiers to cover the gaps and keep the sheep heading in the one direction.

“Mind the feckin gaps, mind the gaps,” Nora shouted.  Within a few minutes Nora had the road cleared and they were on their way again.  “Learnt to drive sheep from when I was knee high,” explained Nora. Those feckin’ soldiers couldn’t drive nails into a bog bank.”

The Manager and Nora arrived at the place where the Archbishop was holding his court.  They were escorted into the centre of a large court room.  On a table was the Higulator. To each side of the room sat six men, all dressed like bishops, waiting as if they were getting a call from ‘old red socks’ in Rome.

“Fellow clergy, these are the very two ladies that I have spoken about,” said Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.

“Well would you take at look at this,” said Nora.  “The feckin’ circus has come to town. Look at all these clowns.”

To be continued…..