by John Brunner
"Of course not! As you just said, it's framed so as to be virtually unbreakable."
"But you think the Empire-Mohawk alliance is not," said Father Ramón.
There was a long, cold silence. Finally the Margrave rose to his feet. His voice had changed completely when he spoke again. It was heavier and somehow rang false, like a counterfeit coin.
"Very well. I'll clear the site and call the operation off."
Whatever had happened, it was effective, but Don Miguel still hadn't figured out why when he found himself charged by Father Ramón to supervise the removal from this day and age of all the equipment used by the poachers, an order grudgingly acceded to by the Margrave, who looked as though the sky had fallen on his head. The clerks provided fair copies of the equipment manifests so that Don Miguel could confirm they were taking back every item whose presence might linger though a thousand years, and he checked them off until his head was swimming: picks, drills, sieves, shovels, chisels, crowbars, saws, hatchets, axes, guns, shot, powderhorns . . .
The sluices and sedimentation troughs were chopped into fragments and piled on a vast bonfire, the tents were struck and rolled, the pit-props were hauled out from the mine galleries by teams of men tugging on ropes, and even the nails were torn loose and bagged for return to the twentieth century. Scowling, cursing, but compelled to obey, the poachers sweated at their tasks and at last, in the gathering dusk, faded back to where they had come from, leaving the valley once more as empty as it had been.
Except for Father Ramón and Don Miguel, who now at last had the chance to utter the question which had plagued him all day long.
"Father, what on earth did you do to convince the Margrave? I simply don't understand anything about this -- neither what they were up to here, nor what you meant by your references to the Mohawk alliance, nor why they packed up and went home so tamely when there were two of us and over two hundred of them . . . !"
"I'm hardly surprised," Father Ramón said wryly. "I confess I hadu't expected to be shown so spectacularly right. I was more guessing than certain of the reason for this ridiculous adventure by the Confederacy."
The last of the poachers vanished into the gloom; there was the inevitable wash of heat, like the opening of a furnace door, which accompanied temporal displacements. Father Ramón waited like a statue for long seconds. Then he said, "Have you means of making a light?"
"Yes."
"Come with me, then."
He started across the now deserted valley towards the mouth of the gallery which Two Dogs was to show to Don Miguel a thousand years hence. It was of course closed by the counterpoised boulder, but that was freshly placed, and the shifting of the earth which would later call for the strength of two men to make it roll had not yet occurred. Father Ramón set his shoulder to it and gave a gentle heave; before Don Miguel could come to his aid it had settled into the adjacent cup-shaped depression.
"Strike your light," the Jesuit said briskly.
Don Miguel complied, holding up the fizzing fusee at the full stretch of his arm.
"Now carry it into the gallery. Search carefully along the walls and floor right to the end."
Much puzzled, Don Miguel did so. He found nothing except various footmarks left by the workmen and the scars of their excavating toals. And, as he was coming back, he realised what Father Ramón was implying. "It's not here!" he exclaimed, emerging into the open and tossing the burnt-out fusee away.
"You mean this?" Father Ramón felt in a pouch at his waist and produced the cracked drill-bit which Two Dogs had given to Don Miguel, the key to the whole affair. "No, I didn't think it would be. Before my departure from Londres I made some inquiries of -- well, of certain trusted agents. I'm prepared to state that this drill-bit was purchased in Augsburg over the counter of an ordinary shop, the winter before last; I mean, naturally, in our own time. And it was purchased by a Mohawk."
He tossed it up and caught it again. Dim twilight glinted on the shiny broken edges. "Replace the stone, please, my son. I think we should go back and put a few questions to your affable acquaintance the mine manager -- Two Dogs, isn't that his name? I think we'll discover he's not merely what he claims, but someone of far superior calibre and very much more dangerous."
Bending to replace the boulder, Don Miguel said explosively, "But I knew already! I had the equipment manifests in my hands, and I checked that the number of drill-bits returned to the present was the same as the total brought here!"
"Yes, I watched that phase of the operation with considerable attention. You have many admirable qualities, including the ability to see the grand pattern from a few clues and hints, but I can't say that attention to small details is your especial forte . . . is it?" But his eyes were twinkling as he uttered the formal reproof.
"Come now, hurry along. We've already had a long day here, and now we must go back and face another."
VII
It was always the strangest quirk of time-travel that a man might go back a thousand years to a later time of day, and feel below the conscious level of his mind that he had travelled forward, while by returning from a late hour to an earlier one he would; feel he had travelled back. It was dizzying, as usual, to emerge from the evening dusk of the year 984 to the high noon glare of 1989.
Several Licentiates of the Society were gathered to greet them, headed by Don Rodrigo, who -- possibly to atone for his discourtesy towards Father Ramón last night -- did not at once pester them with questions, but urged them to come sit in the shade of an awning and ordered wine and food to be brought.
That was very welcome. Having gulped down a long refreshing draught of wine chilled by standing in a mountain stream, Don Miguel felt prepared to cope with the world again. Rejecting Don Rodrigo's solicitous suggestion of a pipe of tobacco with a word of thanks, he glanced around to see who precisely had assembled to hear Father Ramón's report. Don Arturo was here, naturally, and so was Don Felipe; so too was the Inquisitor, Brother Vasco. But in addition, several -- indeed, if memory served him, all -- the Mohawk Licentiates present at the site had come together, and their faces were like stone masks.
Of course. Roan Horse was killed, and he was one of their company.
Don Miguel started as he realised that that episode had not even been mentioned during their confrontation with the Margrave.
That was something the Mohawks here would not enjoy being told.
"Well now, Father Ramón!" Don Rodrigo said importantly. "What news have you brought?"
"The affair is dealt with," the Jesuit said. "The poachers have ceased operations and the matter is closed."
There was silence. Everyone was expecting him to say something more, even Don Miguel. When at length it became clear he had no intention of doing so, Don Rodrigo said feebly, "But -- "
"But nothing, my son. I told you: the matter is closed."
The people around exchanged startled glances. On the fringe of the group Don Miguel saw one of the Mohawk Licentiates whisper to a friend, and then slip away. For a moment he let his gaze follow; then an outburst from Brother Vasco drew back his attention.
"But -- Fatherl You haven't even told us who they were!"
"A group of misguided adventurers from the Confederacy. Unmasked, they went home like whipped curs, their tails between their legs, and will certainly not trouble us again." Don Miguel could detect that Father Ramón was forcing himself to be patient, but equally sympathised with the listeners who wanted more positive information.
The same Mohawk whose friend had whispered to him just now shouldered through the group of Licentiates and confronted Father Ramón. "That's not good enough!" he barked. "What about the death of Roan Horse?"
"The identity of the man responsible is known. We shall demand full recompense from the Confederacy."
A buzz of comment was going around now, like the droning of flies in the hot sunlight. The Mohawk spoke again.
"That's disgraceful! What compensation is adequate for the life of a good friend a
nd a brave man?"
There was a chorus of agreement. Don Felipe put in, "And surely, Father, the fact stands: taking the ore they stole is temporal contrabandage!"
"To the infernal fires with your gold and silver!" the Mohawk cried. "We're concerned with the fate of a man who was brutally shot down!"
It was then that facts clicked together in Don Miguel's mind. The only excuse he could offer himself for having overlooked the obvious twice in one day was that he was confused by tiredness.
"Felipe!" he snapped, bounding to his feet, and Don Felipe Basso whirled to face him. "Sword -- quickly! And with me over the hill!"
He shoved his way unceremoniously through the circle of Licentiates, and Felipe -- not knowing why, but impressed by his friend's urgency -- came after him,
"Wait, you!" the Mohawk snapped, and strode to block Don Miguel's way. "We want to hear from you about all this, as well as Father Ramón!"
Almost, Don Miguel unsheathed his sword, but as yet he had only suspicion to go on. Instead he placed one palm flat on the Mohawk's chest and hooked a toe behind his ankle, sending him sprawling. The sudden commotion had bewildered everyone, but he saw that Don Arturo appeared to have kept his head, and barked at him.
"Hold this man -- call for help and detain his companions! Stop 'em chasing us over the hill! One of them has slipped away, though, and we may already be too late!"
Not waiting to see how well the instruction was obeyed, he gestured to Don Felipe and began to run up the hillside track towards the home of Two Dogs. Behind him there was a shouting and a stamping of feet, but he dared not glance behind for fear of losing his footing on the rough pathway.
Breasting the rise after a short eternity, he found he was indeed too late.
Alongside the mud-plastered house where he had spent so many nights as a guest, he saw Tomás standing inscrutable in his colourful serape. He was shading his eyes to look towards a cloud of dust on the road that led to the sea -- and in that cloud of dust could be discerned two horses, not the stumbling burros of the locality, but horses of the finest racing stock, being ridden as though to outpace the devil himself.
"Miguel!" panted Don Felipe, drawing abreast of his friend. "What's all the fuss about?"
"The birds have flown -- and there's the whole continent and ocean for them to hide in!" Don Miguel pointed. "Go call some men together, give them the best horses we have, and send them in pursuit. One of those fugitives is Two Dogs, and he's probably the most dangerous man in the world!"
Don Felipe threw up his hands in hopeless bewilderment, but turned back. Instantly he uttered a wordless exclamation, and Don Miguel also swung round. With a sinking heart he saw that down in the other valley there was a flashing of steel, and some of it was smeared with red. Red, too, was spreading across the dark habit of the bird-like figure seated in the shade of the awning.
"Father Ramón!" Don Miguel cried, drawing his sword. Together with Don Felipe he launched himself back down the slope.
"He told me himself!" Don Miguel mourned as he set aside the leather water-bottle from which he had slaked his dreadful thirst. "He told me in plain words, and fool that I am I didn't understand!"
"Told you what?" Don Arturo demanded eagerly. He and all the other non-Mohawk Licentiates were hanging on Don Miguel as though his words were pearls of perfect wisdom. They were leaning on him as they had been used to lean on Father Ramón.
But Father Ramón was dead. And he was not the only one.
If they knew how little I've actually learned, how much is simply a guess . . .
Don Miguel dared not speak that thought, though. For better or worse, he was the man on whom this crisis turned.
Wearily he said, "He told me that calling him a Mohawk was like calling me a Spaniard. There's Spanish blood in my veins all right, I speak Spanish and bear a Spanish name, but I'm not a Spaniard. I'm a citizen of the Empire, and I may well never set foot in Spain before I die. So too with a Mohawk like Two Dogs; an accident of history makes us call him by the name of a tribe whose hunting-grounds are thousands of miles away, and in his veins there's more blood from other tribes, equally proud, mortally resentful that thanks to us intruders from Europe their nationhood, their identity, has been effaced. We say Mohawk because it was our alliance with the Mohawk Nation which enabled that tribe to become the dominant power on the continent, subjugating the Crees and the Cherokees and the Apaches and the Sioux . . . Oh, scores of them, scores of separate peoples! But it wasn't their intrinsic superiority which brought about their supremacy. It was the guns we gave them, the Arab horses that could out-gallop the little ponies the other tribes owned, the wagons that carried their armoury of powder and shot on the trails to the west! Suppose we'd become the major power in Europe thanks not to our own skills and persistence, but to being patronised by the Moors -- would you expect the French and English and Dutch to have any love for us, hey?"
He glared fiercely around the circle of his audience to see if they understood what he was telling them.
Don Rodrigo, his left arm in a sling thanks to a wild slash by one of the Mohawk Licentiates they had had to put under arrest, uttered a doubtful grunt. "You say they hate us because they're not all genuinely Mohawk by extraction. But I've worked for years with -- with native Licentiates at New Madrid. Certainly some of them were Mohican rather than Mohawk, and others were Oneida and Seneca and Algonquin. But it never seemed to make any difference; we all got along very well."
"These Indians are proud people," Don Miguel said with a sigh. "They do not show that they are humiliated -- it goes against their code. But they remember that they're humiliated, and sooner or later comes the day when they set the score to rights." He glanced to his left, spotting the bowed weary figure of Brother Vasco approaching. "But don't take my word unsupported. In a moment we may hear solid facts instead of mere deductions."
Leaning forward, he called to the Inquisitor. "Is he alive?"
"The man who tried to stop you going after Two Dogs?" Falling into a chair, Brother Vasco nodded. "Yes, he's not too badly injured to talk. And what I've learned is . . . Well, Don Miguel, I must admit it frightens me!"
"Explain!"
"They told me before I saw him that his name was Red Cloud. But when I gave him some of my relaxing draught and, as is customary, asked him how he was named to find out whether his tongue was yet unlocked by the drug, he said he was called Bloody Axe."
"And is he talking now -- freely?"
"Yes, that's what I came to report to you."
"Then let's go to him, quickly, and get at the truth behind this horror!" Don Miguel jumped to his feet and strode towards the tent where the injured Mohawk was being interrogated. Angered at having to leave his chair just after sitting down, Brother Vasco followed.
The modern techniques in use by the Holy Office were, as Don Miguel had discovered while investigating the matter of the contraband Aztec mask, extremely refined, extremely subtle and almost unbelievably efficient. Knowing this, however, scarcely lessened the eerie impact of watching and hearing a man who consciously would have preferred to die rather than give away his secrets yielding full and detailed answers to every one of Brother Vasco's questions.
Two Dogs? That was an alias, the injured man said without being able to stop himself; his tribal name was Hundred Scalps, but he had most commonly been known as Broken Tree. At that, one of Don Rodrigo's New World-born -- but non-Mohawk -- Licentiates drew breath sharply and identified the name as that of a brilliant student at the Mexicological Institute several years before.
That fitted . . .
The information obtained from Bloody Axe pieced together with the clues dropped by Father Ramón before he was killed to make a terrifying unity in Don Miguel's mind. As usual in human affairs, the crisis turned out to be rooted in the festering compost of greed.
The Confederacy of the East was only "of the East" in the sense that that was the direction in which it lay relative to the Empire. In fact, its expansion was
barred on that side, partly by the contrary expansion of Cathay with its old, stable and highly evolved civilisation, partly by the hostile winters which yearly locked up so much of the territory it nominally controlled. It was small consolation to suspect that mineral wealth beyond the dreams of avarice might be discovered in Siberia, when it was buried under earth frozen to the hardness of rock. By contrast, the Empire's alliance with the Mohawk Nation gave them free access to a continent over most of which the climate was equable and whose resources had been charted at leisure during the past century and a half.
But -- as Two Dogs had correctly pointed out to Don Miguel -- just as there were still a handful of revanchists in England who railed against the Spanish domination of their island, so too there were Indians who resented being crammed into a single tribal category. To be a genuine Mohawk, like Red Bear, was to be the heir of a great and proud tradition; to be a courtesy Mohawk was to be deprived of beth traditions and national identity.