Send Simon Savage #1 by Stephen Measday

local townsfolk.
    The Bureau’s Costume Department has got it pretty right, Simon thought. But nothing prepared him for the sights and stinks of the market. The pages of their brief had been clean, but the real streets of history were far from it. The butcher’s stall was a good example. The sheep carcasses hung from hooks, black flies crawling over their fatty flesh, while under the counter two mangy dogs fought over the eyeless, decaying head of a pig. Piles of garbage and grey cesspools of muck lay scattered about the square.
    ‘Fresh mutton, young’uns?’ the butcher asked, holding up a blood-spattered meat cleaver.
    Danice turned away.
    ‘Let’s try over there,’ Simon said, pointing to a cookware stall heaped with bowls and cast-iron pots and pans.
    Their task was to take back some solid object, and that was as good a place to look as any.
    ‘Okay, give it a try,’ Danice said.
    As she turned, a burly farm boy balancing a rusty hoe on his shoulder bumped into her.
    ‘Sorry!’ Danice gasped. ‘I didn’t see you!’
    The flaxen-haired youth scowled and stared at Danice suspiciously. He had heard rumours, only that day, that witches had been seen over the last couple of nights. Hags in disguise who had left the dark forests to haunt the villages. And now there were two cloaked and hooded strangers in the marketplace.
    ‘Quick!’ Simon grabbed Danice’s elbow and steered her across to the kitchen stall.
    ‘A good day to ye!’ said the owner.
    He wore a filthy leather apron, and beamed with a toothless grin as he waved a claw-like hand over his homemade range of products. ‘Pray look at some of me proper fine wares. I’ll make fair trade, I’ll not deceive or cog thee.’
    ‘I think he’s giving us the big sell,’ Danice whispered.
    Simon picked up a small iron pot and turned it over in his hands. ‘Well, let’s nab some piece of junk, pronto,’ he whispered back.
    ‘Ah, good sir, there be a fine pot,’ the fellow said.
    ‘Yeah, a saucepan,’ Simon agreed.
    ‘Simon!’ Danice snapped.
    ‘What dost thou call it?’ the man asked.
    ‘A saucepan,’ Simon said.
    ‘Simon, shut up!’ Danice hastily dropped a couple of silver coins into the man’s hand. ‘There, thank ’ee!’
    The man’s eyes popped with delight at her generosity and the spit dribbled from his lips. It was a payment three times the normal price. ‘Well, thank ’ee and good bounty be with thee!’
    ‘Let’s go!’ said Danice as she dragged Simon away.
    ‘What’s up?’
    ‘You called it a saucepan!’
    ‘That’s what it is,’ he replied, stashing the pot in his nano-carrier backpack.
    ‘Not yet, it’s not.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘It’s what I was saying. We have to respect the time we’re in,’ Danice said, pushing through the crowd. ‘The word saucepan wasn’t used round here for another sixty years or more. Maybe not even till the eighteenth century.’
    Danice was right, but Simon didn’t want to admit it. ‘Oh, is that all?’ he said.
    ‘It’s careless,’ Danice said. ‘It’s interfering with history.’
    He stopped. ‘Look, I didn’t have time to check the language recordings. So I’m sorry, okay!’
    On the far side of the square, the farm boy was talking with three older men and pointing towards the two temponauts. One of the men looked official. He wore an armoured breastplate, and a sword hung at his side.
    ‘We’re being watched!’ Simon muttered.
    Danice glanced across the square. At that moment, the boy and the men started shouting and shoving their way towards them. Attracted by the excitement, a motley rabble of townsfolk grabbed hold of makeshift weapons and joined them.
    ‘We’d better make tracks!’ Simon said, activating his wrist pilot and heading back to the laneway beside the abbey. The timeline that would take them home was at the far end of the lane, out of sight of the square.
    Suddenly he stopped. ‘Hang on! Where’s the timeline? It’s moved. Check your