57 pages • 1 hour read
Michael CrichtonTimeline
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1999A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 4, Page 399-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4: “Castelgard”
Part 4, Pages 399-438 Summary
Kate heads north in the forest toward the green chapel. She stops to give an old man a piece of bread, and he attempts to pull her off her horse. At that moment, Chris gallops up and fights him off. They ride on until the track becomes steep and they continue on foot. Suddenly, they both slip and falls. Kate lands in a pool of water. On its banks is the green chapel. As she heads toward it, she is attacked by a large knight who intends to chop her head off.
Gordon calls Stern in the ITC headquarters. Heading toward the control room, he sees a scale model of La Roque and other architectural drawings. At the landing site, Gordon shows Stern that one of the glass shielding walls has been damaged by the acid. It might crack when filled with water.
In La Roque Castle, Marek is met by Sir Guy de Malegant, who takes him to see the professor. The professor is working in the arsenal, grinding gunpowder. He tells Sir Guy that he is ready to give Lord Oliver a demonstration. They go to the ramparts, where the professor demonstrates how “the fire of Athenaios of Naukratis” (416) or “automatic fire” works. He shoots an arrow out of a canon, and when it lands, it catches on fire and burns down a trebuchet. Sir Oliver gives the professor 50 soldiers to make more of the material.
Moments before the large knight cuts Kate’s head off, Chris arrives and kills him. Kate and Chris use the diagram to find the secret entrance to the passageway in the chapel.
Back at ITC headquarters, Gordon shows Chris the simulation of what might happen when they fill the damaged glass with water. It shatters. They decide they have to risk it.
On the ramparts, Lord Oliver, the professor, Sir Robert, and Marek discuss munitions. Lord Oliver grows paranoid because Lord Arnaut’s men have “thunderbolt stone” (430), and he thinks that the professor or his assistants have been helping him and have been lying about not knowing where the secret entrance is. He also says that Lady Claire is a spy who has been colluding with the Abbot against him. He takes Lord Oliver and Marek down to a torture device called “Milady’s Bath” that involves lowering someone in a cage down into a pool of filthy water. He says if they don’t confess, he will put them in it.
Kate and Chris walk along the secret passage toward La Roque. They find a boat that takes them along an underground river. When Kate hits a stalactite, she drops the torch in the water, and Chris falls out of the boat.
The professor tells Marek that Arnaut’s men are trying to hit the armory with an incendiary device to cause an explosion.
Part 4, Pages 439-478 Summary
Kate lights another torch with a fire starter. Chris swims to her and gets back in the boat. On the wall, they see a set of stone steps that lead to a trapdoor. They go up it and enter La Roque.
At ITC headquarters, Doniger is practicing his presentation to the board. His plan is to sell people an experience of an authentic past. Kramer arrives. He tells her that he doesn’t want the team to come back if there is a chance that the shields won’t hold. Kramer tells Gordon and Stern of Doniger’s decision, but at that moment, a technician sees a reading that indicates the imminent return of the team. Kramer reiterates that it is too dangerous for them to come back without shields.
Kate and Chris are behind the fireplace in the great hall of La Roque. At that moment, Sir Guy sees them and jumps through the fireplace after her. Kate runs up a set of stairs and finds herself under the roof of the great hall. She runs across the beams, and Sir Guy comes after her. Meanwhile, Chris contacts Marek, who tells him that he is in the arsenal with the professor.
Gordon shows Stern a cat that is suffering from grotesque deformities due to transcription errors. He explains that transcription errors also made Rob Deckard violent and unstable. They return to the control room. Kramer wants to let the team come back, but she is not sure whether the water shields will hold.
Kate and Sir Guy fight on the beams of the great hall. Kate manages to get him off balance and knock him down. She runs onto the roof, and archers shoot arrows at her as she tries to contact Chris. It’s clear that Sir Robert hears her from the battlements. Chris makes his way to the arsenal, but Lord Oliver is leading the professor and Marek away from it, threatening them with a sword. Sir Robert contacts Chris over the communications system and makes ready to fight him. At that moment, Raimondo arrives. Arnaut puts a knife to Chris’s throat and asks him where Lord Oliver is. They go to an underground chamber.
Stern says knows a way to strengthen the water tank.
Kate goes into the courtyard and sees Sir Robert hacking Raimondo to pieces. Chris and Arnaut go into the dungeon, where Lord Oliver has locked the professor in a cage dangling over the water and has tied up Marek. Arnaut attacks Oliver. Chris fights off the soldiers, frees Marek, and stops the cage from going into the water.
Stern makes progress in his repairs, but the technicians notice anomalies in their readings that suggest something has gone wrong with the team in 1357.
The professor tells Chris and Marek that Oliver has the key to the cage. Arnaut promises to spare Oliver’s life if he gives them the key. Oliver does so, and Arnaut pushes Oliver into the water. They release the professor from the cage and run out of the dungeon.
The professor, Chris, and Marek join Kate in the courtyard. They need to get somewhere with enough space to summon the machines. Sir Robert grabs Chris and pulls him into the arsenal, stating that he is in constant pain because of the transcription errors. They fight. Chris covers him in the automatic fire, and Sir Robert ignites. As Chris runs away, the arsenal explodes.
At ITC headquarters, the field fluctuations show that three members of the team are coming back. Stern believes that the repairs will be finished in time.
At the drawbridge, Marek runs up a set of stairs to use the winch to lower it. They only have one minute and 19 seconds left. Soldiers from the guardhouse are on their way to stop him. Marek stays behind to fight off the soldiers while the rest of the team makes it across the drawbridge. They urge Marek to follow, but he declines and decides to stay in 1357. The others summon the machines to return to 1999.
Part 4, Page 479-Epilogue Summary
Doniger makes his presentation to the prospective new board members to convince them to invest. He claims that his technology will be used for “cultural tourism sites around the world” (480). After his speech, Gordon tells him that three of the scientists have returned, one with significant injuries. They have heard part of Doniger’s speech. At that moment, Gordon uses the knockout gas on Doniger and states, “We think someone more moderate should run the company now” (482).
Doniger wakes up near Castelgard in the past. He isn’t worried because he has a spare ceramic marker in his shoe. As he walks into town to find a tool to get it out, he sees smoke and witnesses monks flagellating themselves. He bumps into a wooden cart full of dead bodies and realizes that he is in 1348, when a third of the population of Castelgard was killed by the plague. Suddenly, he coughs, which suggests that he has caught it as well.
The Epilogue takes place several months later. Kate, Chris, Elsie, and the professor have arrived in Eltham Castle. Kate is pregnant with Chris’s child. Elsie found records of an Andrew d’Eltham, who was married to a Lady Claire. They find his burial stone and realize that it is Marek’s final resting place. He died in 1382. The professor reflects that no matter how much Marek loved the medieval world, “he must have always felt a foreigner there” (488). They agree that they miss him.
Part 4, Page 399-Epilogue Analysis
In the final section of the book, the graduate students rescue the professor and return to 1999, but Marek’s decision to stay in 1357 reflects his lifelong dedication to a world that holds powerful examples of True Chivalry and Honor. This decision is amply foreshadowed earlier in the novel, for of all the characters, Marek is most at home in the medieval world and revels in the unparalleled opportunity to realize his obsessive passion for medieval life. Early in Timeline, when the professor first disappears, Marek is left to manage the team on his own, and the narrative notes that “his detailed knowledge of the past put him oddly out of touch with the present” (72). As he struggles to communicate with his contemporaries, the implication is that he is a man out of time and would fare far better in the medieval world that he so deeply loves. Given this context, his decision to remain in 1357 is a logical one, and when the team later visits his graveside, their contemplations highlight many Similarities Between Past and Present.
While Marek embodies the principles of True Chivalry and Honor from the very beginning of the text, Chris slowly grows to adopt them himself despite his relative ineptitude in the medieval world. This character development becomes most prominent in the final section of Timeline, when he bravely comes to Kate’s rescue twice in short order. After rescuing her from the peasant knights on the road, he even asks her, “Are you alright ma’am?” (403), deliberately invoking an expression that alludes to the chivalry shown by cowboys in classic Westerns. Shortly thereafter, he defends her against the green knight who is threatening to behead her and ruthlessly kills the man. As seen in other examples, the chivalric code is not just a question of virtue and honor, for it frequently involves violence and bloodshed. By the end of the novel, Chris has learned to cast off his 20th-century inhibitions and do what he must in order to survive the brutal medieval world.
Various allusions and historical references continue to abound throughout the text. For example, the character of the “green knight” is an oblique reference to the 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which is part of Arthurian legend. In many tales of the Green Knight, he is described as “a very large green man with long green hair and a long green beard” (Lawrence Besserman, “The Idea of the Green Knight,” ELH, Vol. 53, No. 2, Summer, 1986, 219). This is similar to the description of the green knight in Timeline, who is characterized as “a huge man, nearly seven feet tall, and his armor was smeared with green mold” (407). In the medieval tale, Sir Gawain meets the Green Knight at the Green Chapel, and his encounter with the figure proves his merit (Besserman, 228). Thus, Crichton draws a connection between the formerly fussy and now transformed and chivalrous Chris and the brave knight of Arthurian legend, Sir Gawain.
The final section of the text also demonstrates the Similarities Between Past and Present, as the characters in both timelines use existing technology in innovative ways to solve their problems. In 1357, for example, Arnaud’s men use heated cannonballs to attempt to cause an explosion in La Roque’s armory. Similarly, Stern uses rubber to fortify the glass walls and prevent them from exploding when they are filled with water. Both scenarios also show the dangers of new technologies. In 1357, Oliver’s stockpiling of automatic fire under the professor’s supervision makes the armory particularly vulnerable to explosions, even though the substance is an innovative military technology that could give them an upper hand on the battlefield. Likewise, in 1999, Doniger’s new technology creates transcription errors that have terrible side effects, proving that the time-travel devices are incredibly dangerous even when they are used correctly. Thus, the larger cautionary approach of this novel is consistent with that of Crichton’s other best-sellers like Jurassic Park, for in his stories, new technologies are never entirely benign.
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