Timeline

by Michael Crichton

  They could see La Roque in the distance, standing high and impregnable atop the Dordogne cliffs. And they would reach the fortress in less than an hour.

  :

  In a dark corner of the church of Sainte-Mère, the handsome knight helped André Marek to his feet. He said, “Your friends have departed.”

  Marek coughed, and grabbed the knight’s arm to steady himself as a wave of pain shot up his leg. The handsome knight smiled. He had captured Marek just after the explosion at the mill.

  When Marek had climbed out the mill window, by sheer luck he fell into a small pool so deep that he did not hurt himself. And when he came to the surface again, he found he was still beneath the bridge. The pool produced a swirling eddy, so the current hadn’t taken him downstream.

  Marek had stripped off his monk’s habit and thrown it downstream when the flour mill exploded, timbers and bodies flying in all directions. A soldier splashed into the water near him, his body turning in the eddy. Marek started to scramble up onto the bank—and a handsome knight put a sword point at his throat and beckoned for him to come forward. Marek was still wearing the maroon and gray colors of Oliver, and he began to babble in Occitan, pleading innocence, begging for mercy.

  The knight said simply, “Be silent. I saw you.” He had seen Marek climb out the window, and discard his monk’s garb. He took Marek to the church, where he found Claire and Arnaut. The Archpriest was in a sullen and dangerous mood, but Claire seemed to have some ability to influence him, if only by contradiction. It was Claire who had ordered Marek to sit silently in the darkness when Chris and Kate came in. “If Arnaut can set you against the other two, he may yet spare you and your friends. If you are three united before him, he will in rage kill you all.” Claire had stage-managed the subsequent events. And all had turned out reasonably well.

  So far.

  Now Arnaut eyed him skeptically. “So: your friends know the location of this passage?”

  “They do,” Marek said. “I swear it.”

  “On your word, I have spared their lives,” Arnaut said. “Yours, and the word of this Lady, who vouches for you.” He gave a small nod to the Lady Claire, who allowed a faint smile to cross her lips.

  “My Lord, you are wise,” Claire said, “for to hang one man may loosen the tongue of his friend who watches. But as often, it may harden his resolve, so that the friend takes his secret to the grave. And this secret is so important that I would your Lordship have it for certain in his grasp.”

  “Then we will follow those two, and see where they lead.” He nodded to Marek. “Raimondo, see to this poor man’s mount. And provide him as escort two of your best chevaliers, as you follow behind.”

  The handsome knight bowed. “My Lord, if it please you, I will accompany him myself.”

  “Do so,” Arnaut said, “for there may yet be some mischief here.” And he gave the knight a significant look.

  Meanwhile, Lady Claire had gone up to Marek and was pressing his hand warmly in both of hers. He felt something cool in her fingers, and realized it was a tiny dagger, barely four inches long. He said, “My Lady, I am greatly in your debt.”

  “Then see you repay this debt, knight,” she said, looking into his eyes.

  “I shall, as God is my witness.” He slipped the dagger under his robes.

  “And I will pray to God for you, knight,” she said. She leaned over to kiss his cheek chastely. As she did, she whispered, “Your escort is Raimondo of Narbonne. He likes to cut throats. When he knows the secret, have a care he does not cut yours, and those of your friends, as well.” She stepped away, smiling.

  Marek said, “Lady, you are too kind. I shall take your kind wishes to heart.”

  “Good knight, God speed you safe and true.”

  “Lady, you are always in my thoughts.”

  “Good sir knight, I would wish—”

  “Enough, enough,” Arnaut said in a disgusted voice. He turned to Raimondo. “Go now, Raimondo, for this surfeit of sentiment makes my stomach heave.”

  “My Lord.” The handsome knight bowed. He led Marek to the door and out into the sunlight.

  07:34:49

  “I’ll tell you what the goddamn problem is,” Robert Doniger said, glaring at the visitors. “The problem is to bring the past alive. To make it real.”

  There were two young men and a young woman, all slouching on the couch in his office. They were dressed entirely in black, wearing those pinch-shoulder jackets that looked like they’d shrunk in the wash. The men had long hair and the woman had a buzz cut. These were the media people that Kramer had hired. But Doniger noticed that today Kramer was sitting opposite them, subtly divorcing herself from them. He wondered if she had already seen their material.

  It made Doniger irritable. He didn’t like media people anyway. And this was his second meeting with the breed today. He’d had the PR dipshits in the morning, now these dipshits.

  “The problem,” he said, “is that I have thirty executives coming to hear my presentation tomorrow. The title of my presentation is ‘The Promise of the Past,’ and I have no compelling visuals to show them.”

  “Got it,” one of the young men said crisply. “That was exactly our starting point here, Mr. Doniger. The client wants to bring the past alive. That’s what we set out to do. With Ms. Kramer’s help, we asked your own observers to generate sample videos for us. And we believe this material will have the compelling quality—”

  “Let’s see it,” Doniger said.

  “Yes, sir. Perhaps if we lowered the lights—”

  “Leave the lights as they are.”

  “Yes, Mr. Doniger.” The video screen on the wall came up blue as it glowed to life. While they were waiting for the image, the young man said, “The reason we like this first one is because it is a famous historical event that lasts only two minutes from start to finish. As you know, many historical events occurred very slowly, especially to modern sensibilities. This one was quick. Unfortunately, it occurred on a somewhat rainy day.”

  The screen showed a gray, gloomy image, overhanging clouds. The camera panned to show some sort of gathering, shot over the heads of a large crowd. A tall man was climbing up onto a plain, unpainted wood platform.

  “What’s this? A hanging?”

  “No,” the media kid said. “That’s Abraham Lincoln, about to deliver the Gettysburg Address.”

  “It is? Jesus, he looks like hell. He looks like a corpse. His clothes are all wrinkled. His arms stick out of his sleeves.”

  “Yes, sir, but—”

  “And is that his voice? It’s squeaky.”

  “Yes, Mr. Doniger, no one’s ever heard Lincoln’s voice before, but that is his actual—”

  “Are you out of your fucking minds?”

  “No, Mr. Doniger—”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, I can’t use this,” Doniger said. “No one wants Abraham Lincoln to sound like Betty Boop. What else have you got?”

  “It’s right here, Mr. Doniger.” Unruffled, the young man changed the tapes, saying, “For the second video, we adopted a different premise. We wanted a good action sequence, but again, a famous event that everybody would know. So this is Christmas Day, 1778, on the Delaware River, where—”

  “I can’t see shit,” Doniger said.

  “Yes, I’m afraid it is a bit dark. It’s a night crossing. But we thought George Washington crossing the Delaware would be a good—”

  “George Washington? Where is George Washington?”

  “He’s right there,” the kid said, pointing to the screen.

  “Where?”

  “There.”

  “He’s that guy huddled in the back of the boat?”

  “That’s correct, and—”

  “No, no, no,” Doniger said. “He has to be standing in the bow, like a general.”

  “I know that’s the way the paintings portray him, but it’s not what actually happened. Here you see the real George Washington as he actually crossed the—”

>   “He looks seasick,” Doniger said. “You want me to show a video of George Washington looking seasick?”

  “But this is reality.”

  “Fuck reality,” Doniger said, throwing one of their videotapes across the room. “What’s the matter with you people? I don’t care about reality. I want something intriguing, something sexy. You’re showing me a walking corpse and a drowned rat.”

  “Well, we can go back to the drawing board—”

  “My talk is tomorrow,” Doniger said. “I have three major executives coming here. And I have already told them they would see something very special.” He threw up his hands. “Jesus Christ.”

  Kramer cleared her throat. “What about using stills?”

  “Stills?”

  “Yes, Bob. You could take single frames from these videos, and that might be quite effective,” Kramer said.

  “Uh-huh, yes, that would work,” the media woman said, head bobbing.

  Doniger said, “Lincoln would still look wrinkled.”

  “We’ll take the wrinkles out with Photoshop.”

  Doniger considered that. “Maybe,” he said finally.

  “Anyway,” Kramer said, “you don’t want to show them too much. Less is more.”

  “All right,” Doniger said. “Make the stills up, and show them to me in an hour.”

  The media people filed out. Doniger was alone with Kramer. He went behind his desk, shuffled through his presentation. Then he said, “Do you think it should be ‘The Promise of the Past,’ or ‘The Future of the Past’?”

  “‘The Promise of the Past,’” Kramer said. “Definitely ‘The Promise.’”

  07:34:49

  Accompanied by two knights, Marek rode in the dust of the baggage carts, moving toward the head of the column. He could not see Chris or Kate yet, but his little group was moving swiftly. He would catch up to them soon.

  He looked at the knights on either side of him. Raimondo on his left, erect, in full armor, with his thin smile. On his right, a grizzled warrior in armor, clearly tough and competent. Neither man paid him much attention, so secure were they in their control over him. Especially since his hands were bound together by ropes, with a six-inch gap between the wrists.

  He rode along, coughing in the dust. Eventually he managed to slip his small dagger from beneath his coat, and palm it beneath his hand as he gripped the wooden pommel of the saddle in front of him. He tried to position the knife so the gentle movement of the horse up and down would slowly fray the rope at his wrists. But this was easier said than done; the knife seemed to be always in the wrong position, and his bonds were not cut. Marek glanced at his wristband counter; it read 07:31:02. There were still more than seven hours left before the batteries ran out.

  Soon they had left the riverside trail behind and started to climb the twisting road up through the village of La Roque. The village was built into the cliffs above the river, the houses almost entirely of stone, giving the town a unified, somber appearance, especially now, when every door and window was boarded shut in anticipation of war.

  Now they moved among the lead companies of Arnaut’s soldiers, more knights in armor, each with their retinues following. Men and horses climbed the steep cobbled streets, horses snorting, baggage carts slipping as they went up. These knights in the lead had a sense of urgency; many of the carts carried pieces of disassembled siege engines. Evidently, they planned to begin the siege before nightfall.

  They were still within the town when Marek caught sight of Chris and Kate, riding side by side on sagging mounts. They were perhaps a hundred yards ahead, alternately visible and hidden as the road twisted up. Raimondo put his hand on Marek’s arm. “We approach no closer.”

  In the dust ahead, a banner flapped too near a horse’s face. The horse reared, whinnying; a cart turned over, spilling cannonballs, which began to roll down the hill. This was the moment of confusion Marek had been waiting for, and he acted on it. He spurred his horse, which refused to go. Then he saw the grizzled knight had deftly grabbed the reins.

  “My friend,” Raimondo said calmly, riding beside him. “Do not make me kill you. At least, not yet.” He nodded to Marek’s hands. “And put that foolish little blade away, before you hurt yourself.”

  Marek felt his cheeks burn. But he did as he was told; he put the small dagger back beneath his robes. They rode on in silence.

  From behind the stone houses, they heard the cry of a bird, repeated twice. Raimondo’s head snapped around when he heard it; so did his companion’s on the other side. Evidently it was not a bird.

  The men listened, and soon there was an answering cry from farther up the hill. Raimondo rested his hand on his sword, but did nothing else.

  “What is it?” Marek said.

  “No wise your affair.”

  And they said nothing else.

  The soldiers were busy and no one paid them any attention, especially since their saddles had Arnaut’s colors of green and black. Eventually, they arrived at the top of the cliff and came out into an open field with the castle on their right. The forest was close by on their left, and the broad, sloping, grassy plain was to the north.

  With Arnaut’s soldiers all around them, Marek did not particularly think about the fact that they were passing some fifty yards from the outer moat and the gatehouses of the castle entrance. Chris and Kate were still about a hundred yards ahead, up the column.

  The attack came with stunning swiftness. Five mounted knights charged from the woods to their left, shouting battle cries and swinging their swords over their heads. They ran right for Marek and the others. It was an ambush.

  With a howl, Raimondo and the grizzled knight drew their swords to fight. The horses wheeled; blades clanged. Arnaut himself galloped up and joined the fray, fighting furiously. Marek was momentarily ignored.

  Looking up the column, he saw that another group had attacked Kate and Chris. Marek glimpsed the black plume of Sir Guy, and then the horsemen had surrounded the two. Marek spurred his mount and began galloping up the line.

  Ahead, he saw one knight grab Chris by his coat and try to pull him from his horse; another grabbed the reins of Kate’s horse, which whinnied and turned. Another knight had taken Chris’s reins, but he kicked his horse so that it reared; the knight let go, but Chris was suddenly covered in blood, and he cried out in shock. Chris lost control of his horse, which whinnied and galloped away into the woods while he slid sideways in the saddle, hanging on weakly. In a moment, he had vanished among the trees.

  Kate was still trying to pull her reins free from the knight who held them. All around them was pandemonium; Arnaut’s men shouting and circling, running for their weapons, jabbing at the attacking knights with their pikes. One stabbed at the knight holding her horse, and the knight dropped the reins. Marek, though unarmed, charged into the middle of the fight, separating Kate from her attacker. She cried, “André!” but he said to her, “Go! Go!” and then Marek cried, “Malegant!” and Sir Guy turned to face him.

  Marek immediately rode his own horse away from the fray, galloping directly toward La Roque. The other knights wheeled and broke free of the soldiers, thundering across the open field after Marek. Down the line, Marek saw Raimondo and Arnaut fighting in a great cloud of dust.

  Kate kicked her horse, spurring him toward the woods to the north. Looking behind her as she rode, she saw Marek ride over the drawbridge of La Roque, into the castle, and out of sight. The pursuing riders followed him. Then the heavy grill of the portcullis gate came rumbling down. And the drawbridge raised up.

  Marek was gone. Chris was gone. Either or both of them might be dead. But one thing was clear. She was the only one still free.

  It was up to her now.

  07:24:33

  Surrounded on all sides by soldiers, she spent the next half hour threading her way through Arnaut’s baggage train of horses and carts, trying to reach the northern woods. Arnaut’s men were setting up a vast tented camp at the edge of the woods, facing
the great grassy plain that sloped up to the castle.

  Men shouted to her to come and help them, but she could only wave in what she hoped was a manly greeting, and keep moving. At length she reached the edge of the forest, and followed it until she saw the narrow trail leading into darkness and isolation. Here she paused a few moments to let the horse rest, and to let her own pounding heart slow down, before she went into the woods.

  Back on the plain, the trebuchets were being swiftly assembled by groups of engineers. The trebuchets looked ungainly—oversized slingshots with heavy wooden beams bracing the armature for the firing paddle, which was winched back by stout hemp ropes, then released to snap upward, flinging its payload over the castle walls. The entire contraption appeared to weigh five hundred pounds, but the men constructed it swiftly, working in quick coordination, then going on to the next engine. But at least she understood now how, in some instances, a church or a castle could be built in a couple of years. The workers were so skilled, so self-effacing, they hardly needed direction.

  She turned the horse away and entered the dense woods north of the castle.

  :

  The path was a narrow track through the forest, which rapidly grew dark as she went deeper. It felt spooky to be alone here; she heard the hooting of owls and the distant cries of strange birds. She passed one tree with a dozen ravens sitting on branches. She counted them, wondering if it was an omen, and what it might portend.

  Riding slowly through the forest, she had the sense of slipping backward in time, of taking on more primitive ways of thought. The trees closed over her; the ground was as dark as evening. She had a sense of confinement, of oppression.