Ides of March (Time Patrol)

by Bob Mayer

  All four girls and their mother were staring at their brother, as rapt as when they had been praying.

  The Tsarina gasped when the bleeding stopped. Doc withdrew the icon, and the needle. He dropped the syringe, which had contained the most modern recombinant antihemophilic factor for the relatively rare hemophilia B, into the black bag. While they were still amazing over the cessation of blood, he took a quick glance inside. There was a grey case with a red cross and a post-it taped to it, a hand-written message in Edith’s thin script: If Class III use this second!

  He flipped the top open, revealing a second, larger syringe. He had no idea what it was. It bothered him briefly that Edith had access to medicines he wasn’t aware of, and that she had obviously thought even further ahead on this mission that he had, but he pushed that aside.

  He placed his hands once more on the boy and gave the second shot.

  The porcelain skin began to gain color. No longer matching the cold, lifeless marble of the palace but a color that the living possessed.

  The Tsarina slid off the lounge with great difficulty, painfully kneeling, unused to such discomfort. She was no longer the lithe and beautiful woman the newly crowned Tsar had married in November 1894, just five days after the funeral of his father. She was a large woman, who spent most of her time in bed or on the chaise lounge.

  Her thyroid was off, Doc diagnosed just by looking at her. But thyroxin had only been isolated in 1914 and it would be decades before treatment was—Doc realized his own knowledge was now competing with the download for distractions.

  The Tsarina cut through that. “You are the angel we have been praying for!”

  She reached out and grabbed his legs, wrapping her arms around him.

  Doc’s heart twitched, because he was indeed their angel.

  Their angel of death.

  He gently unwrapped her arms and tried to avoid seeing the hope and awe in the Duchesses’ faces. He knew the utter devotion that the Tsarina had bestowed on Rasputin was now shifted to him. The rapture that had unwittingly set this entire mess up to begin with. Yes, he knew there were other factors: Nicholas’ failure to lead being the primary one, but this woman, his wife, she had been the Tsar’s strength. His pillar. But when she turned to Rasputin, by proxy, the Tsar had turned too. Now the country was revolting against them, choosing the devil they didn’t know, and would only understand when it was far too late, rather than the flawed monarchy corrupted by the devil they did know.

  He checked the wound. The coagulant had sealed it.

  Once more, it was Anastasia who did the next practical thing, tearing off a piece of her nightgown and wrapping it around the wound on her younger brother’s arm. She looked up at Doc and her gaze was different. She smiled, but there was sadness mixed in it.

  “Thank you.”

  Doc nodded, not trusting his voice and disturbed by the young girl’s gaze.

  Doc understood that the Tsarina loved the Russian people even more than her family, because she’d been willing to sacrifice her only son for them. He had to give her something more in return than this temporary reprieve. He had to give her peace of mind.

  “Yes. I am an angel. God has sent me, as he sent the Prophet Rasputin, to save the Russian people. As God sacrificed his son for mankind and brought him back to life, you must protect your son, whom I have brought back to life, for Russia. He is not to be sacrificed. He is to live. He is the hope of Russia!”

  They began to weep, but the anxiety was draining from their faces, replaced with the glow of the truly faithful. Doc felt a pang of jealousy that they could so easily have faith; something his powerful brain would never allow and he knew would dog him the rest of his years.

  Except for Anastasia. She was staring at him with dark eyes.

  He pressed on. “I have come to deliver God’s words. The future of your people, of your family, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, depends on the Prince remaining alive. He will be Tsar one day.”

  Alexandra made the sign of the cross.

  Then Doc cursed them with the prophecy of future history: “Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, your husband’s abdication becomes final today. You must not talk him out of it. You must not protest. You must not take any other action to prevent that from happening. You must not fear. You, your daughters, your husband, and most especially Alexei, are now cradled in the hand of God.

  “You must have patience, for in two years time, the monarchy will be restored. It will be Alexei who will take the throne and lead Russia into future greatness.”

  Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna threw her hands up in the air, weeping loudly with joy. Her daughters joined, and Doc realized he too was crying. Not from joy, but from the horror of his lies, that he had said too much, had given them hope when there was no hope.

  “I did not know angels cried.”

  Doc looked at Anastasia, the only one with no tears. He abruptly left the bedchamber, knowing there would never be penance enough for him.

  Palos de la Frontera, Spain, 1493 A.D.

  MAC WASN’T THERE AND THEN HE was there, but he’d sort of always been there. It was the best way to explain how he arrived, becoming part of his current time and place without fanfare or excitement among those around him. He was in the bubble of this day, not before, and hopefully he wouldn’t be here afterward.

  He wished this damn hangover would go away more than anything else. Traveling through time seemed to have exacerbated it.

  “Where’s the band? The King? The Queen? The Sons of Italy?” Mac muttered as he looked at the tiny ship.

  The download intruded: The Nina was roughly forty to fifty feet long and twenty feet in beam at the widest. One deck. The crew slept exposed to the elements. There was a partial second deck aft, where the ship’s captain got to bunk down under some cover. My dinghy is larger than your boat, popped into Mac’s brain from somewhere, probably one of Eagle’s many book or movie quotes. Crew around 25 men.

  Mac was standing just above the mud flats on the south bank of the estuary. The town of Palos de la Frontera was behind. To the right, on a low rocky bluff overlooking the confluence of two rivers, was La Rabida Friary, where Columbus had spent years planning his journey, consulting with the Franciscans who ran the place, and, most importantly, trying to get funding.

  It was afternoon, a gray day, the sun hazed behind a sullen sky. The smell of salt water filled the air and Mac could hear seagulls calling.

  “Devotio Moderna?”

  Mac turned. The man who’d addressed him was dressed in a plain brown tunic, with a rope around his waist. He wore a similar, rough wood cross on his belt.

  “Yes. Devotio Moderna.”

  “I am Geert. From Belgium. Welcome to Palos de la Frontera.” Geert didn’t seem to think much of the town and Mac had to agree with the assessment. Population a few hundred people, making its living off the sea through fishing and trade.

  “I’m Mac.”

  “’Mac’? That is all?”

  “That is all.”

  “They should give a better name before they send you back. Welcome to my time.”

  “It’s only for twenty-four hours,” Mac said. “My name is not important.”

  “True,” Geert acknowledged. He nodded at the ship. “Columbus arrived here from Lisbon an hour ago. It is odd that he went to Portugal first. Most strange and many are speaking of it, considering Ferdinand and Isabella financed his journey, not King John.”

  It is 1493 A.D. Under the Treaty of Barcelona, Charles VIII of France gives Cerdange and Roussillon back to the Ferdinand of Aragon; in the Papal Bull Inter Caetera based on Columbus’ report on the New World (if he gets to make it) Pope Alexander VI decrees that all lands discovered 100 leagues or further west of the Azores are Spanish, those to the east are Portuguese; Alexander VI follows that up with Inter Siquidem, further dividing the New World among the various Catholic Monarchs, the locals not having a say in the matter; England places sanctions on Burgundy for harboring Perkin Warbeck, a
pretender to the English throne; Deodorant still hadn’t been invented.

  “Why am I here?” Mac asked.

  Some things change; some don’t.

  “You know what is supposed to happen,” Geert said. “I only know what has happened and a little of what is happening. Columbus is on board the Nina. He has allowed no one to disembark yet, which is strange because a number of the crew are from the town.”

  That explained the small group of women and children who were gathered at a small quay, talking quietly and peering at the ship.

  “Why has no one come ashore?”

  “I have no clue,” Geert said. “There are people visible on deck, but otherwise—” he shrugged. “And there is also that.”

  Six men clad in black doublets and hose about fifty meters away were seated at a wood table.

  “Who are they?” Mac asked.

  “They’re from the Cent Suisses,” Geert said.

  “The Hundred Swiss?”

  “Swiss mercenaries. They fight for whatever Crown will pay them. These particular ones? They’ve been sent by Rome.”

  “Why are they here?”

  Geert spread his hands. “Who knows? Protect Columbus, perhaps?”

  “From who?”

  Geert looked at him. “Perhaps from us? You tell me. In your history, does he die today? Or does he live? Are we to help him live or let him die? Or kill him ourselves?” His hand strayed inside his robe enough to show Mac the hilt of his dagger. “Life or death. Just let me know what it is to be.”

  “What makes you think someone wants to kill him?” Mac asked, although he was leaning toward life, since Columbus didn’t die until, the download pushed the date through his hangover: 20 May 1506, after being ill for a number of years. From complications of Reiter’s Syndrome, which was a—

  Mac shut it down. All that mattered was Columbus didn’t die today. Plus, for some reason, accessing the download made the hangover worse.

  “Why did he go to Portugal first?” Geert asked. “I have heard that Columbus left the Nina in Lisbon and traveled to a town just outside the city to meet King John II. If this is true, then his life is in danger from Spain. Also, why are the Centre Suisse here? Why has no one disembarked? Something is not right.”

  According to the download, Columbus had disembarked in Lisbon and met King John II. Something historians had not found worthy of much mention, nor was there any information about what happened at that meeting. But Mac had enough of the big picture to make a decision for the immediate future.

  “Let’s go with life,” Mac said.

  Geert seemed relieved.

  Thermopylae, Greece, 480 B.C.

  SCOUT WASN’T THERE AND THEN SHE was there, but she’d sort of always been there. It was the best way to explain how she arrived, becoming part of her current time and place without fanfare or excitement among those around him. She was in the bubble of this day, not before, and hopefully she wouldn’t be here afterward.

  And she knew she wasn’t Scout. Not completely. She felt the tendrils of the past, a lifetime before her, many lives before, part of her blood, her genes, creeping into her consciousness, from the present stretching into the past. A long, long way back, like the way the spiral of the Possibility Palace faded down, far down, into a distant haze.

  All the way back to Atlantis, a dim golden beacon before the start of history as we know it.

  Scout, who was immediately aware she was called Cyra in this time and place, knew if she remained Cyra long enough, she’d have it all: The history of her bloodline; memories of Atlantis. But if she remained here, past twenty-four hours, there would be no Scout to remember anything.

  She would revert back to Cyra and Scout would no longer exist.

  She almost gagged at the foul stench of death that filled the air; the tint of iron from massive amounts of spilled blood.

  “If the words of your Oracle are true, this is my final night,” Leonidas said. “What say you, priestess of the Oracle of Delphi? What of the prophecy?”

  “The words are true,” Scout replied.

  “The way you paused,” Leonidas said. “It almost gave me hope. But it’s strange. Before every battle, I have felt fear. Of being maimed. Killed. Most of all defeated. But no matter how dire the fight appeared, or how terrible the odds, I always believed deep inside that none of those would happen.” He sat up and looked at his soldiers. “We all know we’ll die one day. Everyone does. In battle or of disease or inevitably of old age. But it’s always in the future. Not today.”

  Scout felt an affinity, affection for Leonidas, a memory of what she’d felt for Nada. She could also sense darkness in him, the ability to kill. But there was another side to such darkness, the side that had allowed Nada to make the decision to go back and sacrifice his own life to make things right.

  “When you take this map,” Leonidas said, “will you stay with it or do you deliver it somewhere?”

  “I will know when I have it.” So, this was about a map, Scout thought. But she could sense it wasn’t a typical map. It was special.

  Of course, if it wasn’t special, why would she be here in the first place?

  Leonidas continued. “And after you fulfill whatever task has been laid on you, will you go back to the Oracle?”

  “I don’t know my fate.” That, at least, was true.

  “If you survive somehow and stay in Greece, will you do me a favor?”

  “Yes, if it is within my power.”

  Leonidas smiled. “I believe it is indeed within your power. Go to my home. Tell my wife how I died.”

  “I can do that,” Scout lied.

  “I’m not done yet,” Leonidas said. “I have grown to admire you during our journey here from the Oracle. I want you to teach my daughter.”

  “What would you like me to teach her?”

  “To be like you.”

  Scout hated this next lie. “I will.”

  It is 480 B.C. The world’s population is roughly 100 million humans. Soon to be less three hundred Spartans and quite a few Persians, along with troops sent by vassals of Persia and mercenaries paid by King Xerxes. The average life expectancy is twenty-eight but if a child made it to ten, then they had an average of another thirty years.

  Scout sensed a presence. She got to her feet.

  Some things change; some don’t.

  “What is it?” Leonidas was up, putting his helmet on. “The Persians come in the dark?”

  “No.” Scout took a step toward the grisly barricade of Persian bodies and stone the Spartans had erected. “Someone like me.”

  “The Sibyl Pandora that the Oracle spoke of?” Leonidas asked.

  Scout shivered at the mention of that name and the connection she immediately felt to it.

  “Perhaps. She is not a danger. Not right now.” Scout had no idea if that were true or not, but she knew this Pandora was her problem, not the Spartan’s.

  “How does she fit into the Oracle’s prophecy?” Leonidas asked.

  Scout didn’t know that either since she hadn’t been there for the prophecy. “What do you remember of the prophecy?”

  Leonidas gave her a strange look. “She told me I would gain much honor and fame. And that I would die. She said I was to save a sphere that was a map. That the fate of not just Greece but the entire world lay in the balance. That we must give the map to another warrior.” He shook his head. “A warrior who is not yet alive, but alive. Of this world but not of this world. You people speak in riddles.”

  Scout’s first thought was Nada. Did he exist in some time, some place between his death and his choice to go back?

  Leonidas didn’t let her dwell on that for long. He pointed toward the north. “I know who we fight there. I can see them. But fighting a Shadow? That I don’t understand. And your Oracle couldn’t tell me what this Shadow is. How to find it to defeat it.”

  “Prophecies can be taken many ways,” Scout said.

  “Yes,” Leonidas said. “We all learned the le
sson of Croesus, last of the Lydian Kings. He earned that title after he consulted the Oracle. She gave him a prophecy. That if he went to war against the Persians, he would destroy a great empire.”

  Scout dialed up the info. “He heard what he wanted to hear. That is not the Oracle’s fault. He led his troops into war with Cyrus, King of Persia, grandfather of Xerxes who we now battle.”

  “And he did destroy an empire,” Leonidas said. “His own. A good reason I should not trust you. Or the Oracle. I should trust this.” He tapped the hilt of his sword. “It has always been reliable.”

  Scout focused on the King, staring into his eyes. “You can trust me.”

  A long pause, then Leonidas nodded. “I believe I can.”

  A weariness passed through Scout, a brief wave, then it was gone.

  “I will check on the men,” Leonidas said, leaving her be and heading for the nearest fire.

  Scout knew of the name Pandora without the download. Part of Greek mythology. Something about opening a box. And then data flowed, a fire hydrant of information overwhelming Scout’s sketchy schooling:

  After Prometheus sided with the Gods in the epic battle against Cronus and his fellow Titans, he’d been tasked by Zeus to create man. But Prometheus, jealous of all that the Gods had, stole the secret of fire from Mount Olympus. Angered, Zeus ordered his son Hephaestus to create a woman. Thus, Pandora was formed by the Gods out of clay.

  Pandora was blessed, or cursed, depending on your perspective, with both beauty and cunning. She was given to Prometheus’ younger brother as a bride. Once she was inside his house, Pandora showed him the pithos (a jar not a box; someone in records had been anal on facts, Scout thought, then remembered Edith and that answered that), which Zeus had bequeathed her to give as a wedding present.

  Prometheus had warned his brother against accepting any gifts from Zeus, but one given under the allure of Pandora could not be resisted. He opened it, releasing the evil spirits trapped within and thus unleashed them on mankind ever since: ‘burdensome toil and sickness that brings death to men, diseases and a myriad of other pains’.