The Shield of Time Read online

“It is nothing, sir, nothing.” The man pulled his muck-spattered gown close about him and backed meekly off. Everard made out the beard, broad cap, yellow emblem. Yes, a Jew. Frederick had decreed that Jews wear distinct dress, with no man to shave, and a long list of other restrictions.

  Since no real harm had been done, Everard could swallow his conscience and ride on, keeping in character. The alley gave on a marketplace. Dusking, it was nearly deserted. People in medieval cities mostly stayed indoors after dark, whether because of a curfew or from choice. Here they needn’t fear crime—the emperor’s patrols and hangmen kept that well down—but it was no fun stumbling through unlighted streets full of manure and dumped garbage. A charred stake rose at the middle of the square, not yet removed, the ash and debris only roughly cleaned up. Everard had heard about a woman convicted of Manichaeanism. Apparently this had been the day they burned her.

  He clenched his teeth and continued riding. It isn’t that Frederick’s really malignant, like Hitler. Nor is he some kind of twisted idealist, nor a politician trying to curry favor with the Church. He burns heretics in the same spirit as he burns defiant cities and butchers their inhabitants—the same spirit as he restricts not only Jews and Muslims, but strolling players, whores, every kind of independent operator—they simply are not subservient. He sees to the welfare of those who are.

  Studying up for this mission, more than once I read historians who said he founded the first modern state (in western Europe, at least; since the fall of Rome, anyhow), bureaucracy, regulation, thought police, all authority concentrated at the top. Damn if I’ll ever feel sorry that it went to pieces after his death, in my world!

  On this time line, obviously, it did not. Everard had seen what lay seven centuries ahead. (Hey, Wanda, how’re you doing, gal, a hundred years ago?) The Empire would expand, generation by generation, till it embraced and remade Europe, and surely had profound impact on the Orient. Just how didn’t matter. Everard guessed at an Anglo-Imperial alliance that partitioned France, whereafter the Empire ingested the British Isles, the Iberian peninsula, perhaps everything clear to Russia and maybe a part of that too. Its mariners would reach America, though surely much later than 1492; this history also lacked a Renaissance and a scientific revolution. Its colonies would spread vigorously westward. But all the while, the dry rot that arises in every imperium would be eating the heart out of it.

  As for the Church, well, it wouldn’t die, nor even break up in a Reformation, but it would become a creature of the state, and probably share the death agonies.

  Unless a crippled Patrol could uproot this destiny, without sowing something worse.

  At the palace stables Everard dismounted and turned his horse over to a groom. Like a walled city within the city, the compound loomed hard by. The mews were inside but he, self-acknowledged (falsely) as inexperienced, had no hawk to care for. The forecourt seemed full of bustle. To avoid it, he walked around to the rear gate. Steel dimly ashine in the waning light, its guards recognized him and let him by with a genial greeting. They were good joes, whatever they’d done in the past. War was war, throughout the ages. Everard had been a soldier too.

  The gravel of a path scrunched softly beneath his boots. A formal garden stretched fragrant to right and left. He heard a fountain splash. As clear sounded the strings of a lute. Hidden from Everard by hedges and bowers, a man lifted his voice in song. Most likely a young lady listened, for the words were amorous. The language was southern German. The troubadours were gone with the Provençal civilization that the Albigensian Crusade destroyed; but no few minnesingers crossed the Alps to seek Frederick’s court.

  The palace sprawled ahead. Medieval heaviness was a bit relieved by wings added more recently. Many windows shone. They hadn’t the brightness of electric lamps behind plate glass—this world might well never know that—but a dull yet warm flame-glow seeped through small leaded panes. When Everard entered, he came into a hallway illuminated down its length by bracketed lamps.

  Nobody else was in view. The servants were taking a light supper in their quarters, prior to making things ready for the night. (The main meal was early in the afternoon. Frederick himself, and therefore his entourage, ate once a day.) Everard mounted a staircase. Although the emperor honored him by giving him a room here, naturally it lay offside and he shared it with his man.

  He opened the door and went in. The space was small, its furniture hardly more than a double bed, a couple of stools, a clothes chest, and a chamber pot. Novak rose and snapped to attention. “At ease,” Everard said in American English. “How often must I tell you, your Middle European Ordnungsliebe isn’t necessary around me?”

  The Czech’s stocky frame quivered. “Sir—”

  “One moment.” Each of them called Jack Hall sometime during every twenty-four hours, so the man at the timecycle would know they were okay. This was Everard’s first chance today to do it privately. Novak had mentioned being noticed a couple of times when he believed himself alone, and getting odd glances, though nobody braced him. It should seem a religious observance, of which there were countless sorts. Everard pulled out the medallion that hung from a chain under his tunic, brought it to his mouth, thumbed the switch. “Reporting,” he said. “Back in the palace. No developments yet, worse luck. Hang on, old boy.” It must be dull, simply waiting yonder, but cowboy life had schooled Hall in patience.

  How so small a device could generate a radio wave reaching so far, Everard didn’t know. Some quantum effect, he supposed. He turned it off, to save the power cell, and restored it to his bosom. “All right,” he said. “If you want to be of service, fix me a sandwich and pour me a drink. I know you keep a stash.”

  “Yes, sir.” Novak was clearly curbing ants in his pants. From the chest he produced a loaf of bread, a cheese, a sausage, and a clay bottle. Thirsty, Everard reached for that, unstoppered it, and swigged.

  “Vino rozzo indeed,” he snorted. “Haven’t you any beer?”

  “I thought you had found out for yourself, sir,” replied Novak. “In this era, too, Italians cannot brew a drinkable beer. Especially since we lack refrigeration.” He drew his knife and started slicing, using the chest lid for a table. “How was your day?”

  “Fun, in a strained fashion, and educational.” Everard scowled. “Except, blast it, I didn’t get a single useful hint. More reminiscences, but none of them old enough to suggest where or when the turning point was. I give us one more week, then we’ll say to hell with it and hop back to base.” He sat down. “I hope you haven’t been too bored.”

  “On the contrary, sir.” Novak looked up. The broad face tensed, the voice hoarsened. “I believe I have gotten some important information.”

  “What? Say on!”

  “I spent more than an hour talking with Sir Giacomo de Mora.”

  Everard whistled. “You—a hireling, damn near a masterless man?”

  Novak seemed glad to keep his hands occupied. “I was astounded myself, sir. After all, one of the emperor’s chief counselors, his general against the Mongols, his personal ambassador to the king of England, and—Well, he sent for me, received me alone, and was really quite friendly, considering the difference in our ranks. He said he wants to learn everything he can about foreign lands. What you had told, sir, was most interesting, but humble men also see and hear things, often things their superiors don’t notice, and since he happened to have today idle—”

  Everard gnawed his lip. He felt his pulse accelerate. “I’m not sure I like this.”

  “Nor I, sir.” Savagely, Novak finished his cutting and slapped a sandwich together. “But what could I do? Play simpleminded, as best I was able. I’m afraid playacting isn’t a talent of mine.” He straightened. Slowly: “I managed to slip in a few questions of my own. I tried to make them sound like normal curiosity. He obliged. He told me something about himself and … his ancestry.”

  He handed the sandwich over. Everard took it automatically. “Go on,” he mumbled, while iciness crawled over
his scalp.

  Again Novak stood at attention. “I had what you call a hunch, sir. I led him to speak of his family. You know how conscious of their backgrounds these aristocrats are. His father was from—Well, but his mother was a Conto of Anagni. When I heard that, I am afraid I lost my stupid mask for a minute. I said I had heard tell of a famous knight, Lorenzo de Conti, about a hundred years ago. Was that any kin of his? And, yes, sir,” Novak exploded, “Giacomo is a great-grandson of that man. Lorenzo had one legitimate child. Soon after, he went off on the Second Crusade, fell sick, and died.”

  Everard stared before him. “Lorenzo again,” he whispered.

  “I don’t understand this. Like some magical spell, isn’t it?” Novak shivered. “I don’t want that to be so.”

  “No,” Everard answered tonelessly. “It isn’t. Nor a coincidence, I think. Blind chance, always underneath that skin we call reality—” He swallowed. “The Patrol’s dealt with nexuses, points in space-time where it’s all too easy to change the course of the world. But can’t a nexus be, not an event that does or does not happen, but a person? Lorenzo was, is, some kind of a, a lightning rod; and the lightning strikes through him onward beyond his death—what Giacomo’s meant to Frederick’s career—”

  He climbed to his feet. “There’s our clue, Karel. You found it for us. Lorenzo can’t have died at Rignano. He must be active yet in that same crisis year to which we’ve sent Wanda.”

  “Then we must go to her,” Novak said unsteadily. Only now, it seemed, did he see the full meaning of the fact he had unearthed.

  “Of course—”

  The door flew open. Everard’s heart banged. Breath hissed between Novak’s teeth.

  The man who confronted them was in his forties, leanfaced, dark hair graying at the temples. His athletic body was clad for action, leather doublet over the shirt, close-fitting hose, sword naked in hand. Behind him, four men-at-arms grasped falchions and halberds.

  Oh, oh, sounded in Everard’s head. School’s out. “Why, Sir Giacomo.” He remembered, barely in time, to use German. “To what do we owe this honor?”

  “Hold!” commanded the knight. He was fluent in the language. His blade slanted forward, ready for thrust or slash. “Stir not, either of you, or you’re dead.”

  We naturally left our weapons with the palace armorer. We have our table steel And wits? “What is this, sir?” Everard blustered. “We’re guests of his Grace. Have you forgotten?”

  “Quiet. Keep your hands before you. Come out in the corridor.”

  It gave room for shaft weapons. The point of a halberd hovered close to Everard’s throat. A jab would kill him as effectively as a pistol shot, and much less noisily. Giacomo stepped back a few paces. “Sinibaldo, Hermann.” His voice held soft, nonetheless carried down the stone space. “Go behind them, each taking one. Remove those medallions they wear around their necks, beneath their clothes.” To the prisoners: “Resist, and you die.”

  “Our communicators,” Novak whispered in Temporal. “Hall won’t know where we are or, or anything.”

  “None of your secret tongues,” Giacomo snapped. With a grin whose stiffness might bespeak tightly controlled fear: “We’ll be hearing secrets aplenty from you erelong.”

  “Those are reliquaries,” Everard said desperately. “Would you rob us of our sacred things? Beware God’s wrath, sir.”

  “Sacred to a heresy, or to witchcraft?” Giacomo retorted. “I’ve had you watched closer than you know. You’ve been seen muttering at them, not in any way a man would pray to a saint. What were you invoking?”

  “It’s an Icelandic custom.” Everard felt a hand at his neck. He felt the object slide upward across his chest, the chain pass over his head. The guardsman took his knife as well and immediately withdrew.

  “We’ll find out. Come along, now. Quietly.”

  “By what right do you violate the emperor’s hospitality toward us?” Everard demanded.

  “You are spies, belike sorcerers. You lie about whence you came.” Giacomo lifted his free hand. “No, silence, I say.” He must, though, want to try breaking down resistance at once, by a showdown. “I had my suspicions from the first. Your tale did not quite ring true. I know somewhat about those parts you claim to be from, you who call yourself Munan. You are sly, clever enough to hoodwink Piero della Vigna, unless you are in his pay. So I called your companion to me, and from him coaxed what he knows.” A low, triumphant laugh. “What he claims he knows. You landed in Denmark, you say, Munan, and found him there, where he had been for some time. Yet he spoke of strife between the king and his brother, the king and the bishops.”

  “Oh, God, sir,” Novak moaned in Temporal, “I didn’t know any better, and I tried to play ignorant, but—” Before Giacomo could tell him to shut up, he steadied himself and said in German: “Sir, I’m a plain soldier. What do I know of these things?”

  “You would know whether or not there was war in the air.”

  We’re so few left in the Patrol, tumbled through Everard. We couldn’t think of everything. Karel was given a rough knowledge of Danish history in this period, but it was our history, where the sons of Valdemar II fell out with each other, and the king antagonized the bishops by wanting to tax the churches to raise money for the fight. In this world, yeah, I guess Frederick, making Germany into more than an unwieldy, unstable coalition, scared the Danes so they’re hanging together.

  Tears stood in Novak’s eyes. “I’m sorry, sir,” he mumbled.

  “Not your fault,” Everard answered. You couldn’t help it that a smart, knowledgeable man trapped you. You were never recruited or trained for intelligence-type work.

  “I arrest you at once, lest you work your evil,” Giacomo said. “His Grace is busied, I hear, but he shall be informed at the first opportunity, and will surely himself wish to know whom you serve and why … and if that be a foreigner.”

  Piero della Vigna, Everard realized. This guy’s bitter rival. Sure, Giacomo would love to get something incriminating on Piero. And maybe his notions aren’t altogether paranoid. In the end, in my world, Frederick did decide that Piero had betrayed him.

  A knowledge more chilling struck home: Giacomo, Lorenzo’s descendant. It’s as if this warped continuum were defending its existence—reaching through Lorenzo, who begot it, beyond his grave to us. He looked into Giacomo’s eyes and saw death.

  “You’ve delayed overmuch,” the nobleman said. “Move!”

  Everard’s shoulders slumped. “We’re innocent, sir. Let me speak with the emperor.” Fat lot of use that’ll be, except to bring on another round of torture. Where’ll we go afterward, to the gallows, the block, or the stake?

  Giacomo turned and started for the stairs. Everard shambled behind, next to a more resolutely walking Novak. The two men with falchions flanked them, the halberdiers took the rear.

  Everard swung his arm up. He brought the edge of that palm down in a karate chop on his right-hand guard’s neck.

  At once he whirled. The halberdier at his back shouted and lowered his Weapon. Everard’s arm parried the shaft. It cost him a bruise, but then he was at close quarters. He drove the heel of his hand under the man’s nose. He felt bone splinter, driven into the brain.

  Surprise, and martial arts that wouldn’t be known even in Asia for a long time to come. They weren’t sufficient by themselves. Two men-at-arms sprawled dead, dying, knocked out, whatever. The other two, and Giacomo, had bounded clear. Novak grabbed the dropped falchion. Everard went for the halberd. The second pole arm chopped. It could have taken his hand off. He jerked clear. Sparks flashed where steel hit stone.

  “Help!” Giacomo shouted. “Murder! Treason! Help!” Never mind confidentiality any more. These were outlanders, commoners, who had stricken two of the emperor’s men. His remaining followers took up the cry.

  Everard and Novak pelted toward the landing. Giacomo slipped aside. Along the corridor in either direction, people were emerging from rooms. “We’ll never make it like this,�
� Everard got out between breaths.

  “You go on,” Novak rasped. “I’ll keep them busy.”

  They were at the head of the stairs. He stopped, turned about, brandished his blade. “You’ll be killed,” Everard protested.

  “We’ll both be if you don’t run while you have the chance, you fool. You know how to end this damned world. I don’t.” Sweat runneled over Novak’s cheeks and made his hair lank, but he grinned.

  “Then it’ll never have been. You won’t exist anymore.”

  “How’s that different from the usual death? Run, I tell you!” Novak crouched where he stood. His sword flickered to and fro. Giacomo harangued the men who were appearing. Others must also hear a little, on the lower level. They’d hesitate, uncertain, for a minute or two, no longer.

  “God bless,” Everard choked, and sprang down the stairs. I’m not abandoning him, he pleaded before his heart. He’s right, we’ve each of us a special duty, me to bring this knowledge to the Patrol and make use of it

  Knowledge smote: No! We should’ve thought of this right away, but the hurry—Once I’ve gotten to Jack, we should be able to rescue Karel. If he stays alive for the next five minutes or so. I can’t reappear any sooner, or I’d risk upsetting my own escape, and God damn it, I do have this duty.

  Hang in there, Karel.

  Out the rear door, into the garden. Uproar loudened behind him. He passed a young man and woman in the twilight, maybe the minnesinger and his sweetie. “Call the guards,” he told them in Italian as he pounded by. “A riot yonder. I’m off for help.” Multiply the confusion.

  Approaching the gate, he slowed to a halt. The sentries there had not heard anything yet. He hoped they wouldn’t notice how he smelled. “Good evening,” he said casually and sauntered on, as if bound for a party or an assignation.

  When beyond their view, he took to the byways. Dusk deepened. He could reach a city portal before closing time and, if questioned, talk his way through. He wasn’t glib by nature, but he’d learned assorted fox-tricks, as Karel never did. By morning the hunt for him would be ranging across the countryside. He’d need his woodcraft, and probably two or three days, to stay free till he reached the dell where Jack Hall waited—by then, worried half loco. After that, he thought, things will really get hairy.