Debt of Ages

by Steve White

  “They have been informed, ealdorman” Tylar said smoothly while everyone else wondered how to handle the new arrival. “By the way, I am Tertullian, employer of Bedwyr, who I believe is already known to you.”

  “He is indeed!” Cerdic stepped all the way into the room, walking a little stiffly and beginning to show a spectacular mouse under one eye but managing a certain raffishness. “And this gentleman?” He indicated Artorius.

  “My associate Gerontius.” Tylar spoke quickly and firmly, forestalling everyone else. “And now, ealdorman, I suggest you close the door, for we are discussing matters which are not for every ear. I believe, however, that they are for yours.”

  Cerdic gave Gwenhwyvaer an uncertain look. “Lady… ?”

  “Do it, Cerdic,” she sighed. “I don’t know how Tertullian finds things out, but since he knows so much else he probably knows how deeply you are in my counsels regarding the future of Britain.”

  Sarnac took his first close look at Cerdic of the West Saxons. He was in his mid-twenties, dressed in a version of his peoples standard tunic-and-trousers garb that was less drab than most. He was darker than most Saxons— Sarnac recalled hearing that he was half-British—but had the sturdy build and sweeping mustaches that typified them. And his quietly thoughtful expression would have surprised most of those who knew him.

  “Well, Tertullian,” he finally said, “however you may have learned it, its true. The Regent has tried to smooth my peoples path in this island, so that we may perhaps—” he seemed amused at the thought”—become a new sort of Britons ourselves. And I’m with her.” He grinned in his usual public way. “If all my thoughts were widely aired, I know not whether my own people or the Britons would bellow the loudest. At least it would give them something to agree on!”

  “No,” said Gwenhwyvaer. “It would just give them one more thing to fight over: the right to hang you! And it would probably serve you right. But I have no heir, and the Britain that is to be will need leaders. Sooner or later you’re going to have to become a Christian, of course— and spare me that pained look! Quite a lot of your people have been receiving baptism. It has to come, you know. We need all the sources of unity we can get. All the more so given Tertullian’s news. I’ll call for some wine, then you can hear it yourself.”

  The wine level was a good deal lower by the time Tylar finished his account of what was to be, carefully hedged about with “in all probability” and “I have reason to believe.” Cerdic silently sipped his wine. (“Don’t tell my men I’ve turned traitor to ale!” he’d joked.) Then he cocked one eyebrow at Gwenhwyvaer.

  “I don’t suppose I need to ask what your course will be, do I?”

  “The question is,” she retorted, “what will yours be?”

  Instead of answering, he turned to Tylar. “What if the East reconquers the West and then turns on us?”

  “That could be,” Tylar admitted. “And even if Ecdicius wins in the end, you may well suffer an invasion in the course of the war that’s bound to come. I can’t promise you that these things won’t happen. But I can promise you this: you’ll never see a more auspicious moment to make your bid for British independence. Such an opportunity will not come again.”

  “Well,” Cerdic said after a moments silence, “a little invasion might do wonders for unity in this island. And my people have known Rome for too short a while to have developed much attachment. But,” he turned to Gwenhwyvaer, “what of the Britons?”

  “Remember, we were independent of Rome for a pair of generations, after Honorius graciously permitted us to arm ourselves against the invaders Rome was no longer able to keep from our shores. For the last few years, we’ve convinced ourselves that Borne rejoined us since it was our High King who restored the empire.” She shook her head in rueful acknowledgment of the Celtic genius for self-deception. “As long as he lives, you’ll not find a more loyal set of imperial subjects. But after he dies” —an involuntary side-glance at Artorius— “and especially if Tertullian is right and his heir is denied the purple by a usurper… yes. If I know men like Cador and his son, they’ll be ripe for rebellion.”

  “Well, is there no end to this nights surprises?” Cerdic grinned through his mustache. “I’ve found something in common with Constantine of Cador! For I, too, have no stomach for rebellion against an empire that still has Artorius the Restorer on its throne.”

  “And why would that be?” asked “Gerontius,” speaking for the first time. “Did he not smash your people by the banks of the Loire?”

  “So he did. But that was war. Oh, yes, I hated him then—

  I was only a lad of eleven, and his name was used to frighten us children. Actually, I hated Britons in general, for I’d learned early enough that my mother had been used by one of them—you can be sure the other boys let me know from whence I’d come! When my mother and I were forced to leave our home, I could have killed him. But later I learned that we’d been moved to keep us out of the clutches of the Franks. Still later, he allowed our people to emigrate to join our kin in Britain. And as I grew to manhood I followed the tale of his rise to empire. It was like a hero-saga that was really happening! I suppose that was why I felt more and more drawn to him, and wished with all my heart that I could meet him.” He shook his head. “I know that can never be. And I know that after he’s gone the Empire of Rome will have no hold on my loyalty. Yes, Lady I’m with you.” He reached for the amphora and refilled his winecup. “Shall we drink to a war that will see Briton and Saxon on the same side?” As they drank, Sarnac sought to read Artorius’ expression. But there was none to be read.

  “So Tylar’s set up a temporal stasis device for you?” Sarnac kept his voice down even though he and Tiraena were probably out of earshot of the others. Tylar and Artorius talked with Gwenhwyvaer and Cerdic where the latter two sat their horses a good distance ahead on this little-used stretch of road.

  “You’d better believe it. There’s no way I would have spent six subjective years here! My ‘periodic visits’ will be between spells in stasis. At that, I’ll be aging several months more than you will, since you won’t emerge from stasis until 491.”

  “Seems only reasonable to me,” he quoted. She dug him in the ribs.

  Tylar had spoken the truth Always a first time for everything, Sarnac thought) about the limitations of his people’s time travel technology. Their temporal vehicles, used for emplacing temportals, incorporated a hideously expensive, highly specialized capability which Tylar’s ship did not possess. But the temporal stasis field was, in effect, a kind of passive, strictly one-way time travel into the future. While the field was activated, no time passed within it (well, maybe a second for every billion years of the larger universe) and its contents were invisible and impalpable from the outside—in effect, it dug a hole in the space-time continuum and pulled the dirt in over it.

  “Where is this gizmo?” he asked.

  “A very convenient spot: a cave near the base of Cadbury, not far from the River Cam.” Tiraena smiled. “Artorius mentioned that in our reality there’ll be a local legend that that cave is where King Arthur is sleeping, waiting until Britain needs him.”

  “Could Tylar’s little activities possibly have anything to do with getting that story started?” Sarnac wondered out loud.

  “He also mentioned,” she continued, “that the Cam is the root of the name Camlann, the place where, in the 530s of our reality, the last of the Artoriani will effectively wipe themselves out in internecine fighting. By then they’ll just be a well-armed band of freelance brigands. The High Kingship will have ended with him.” She sighed. “This landscape holds a lot of sadness for him, knowing what he knows now.”

  “I gather you’ve resolved your feelings about him by now.”

  “Oh, yes. If Gwenhwyvaer can do it, I can do it!” She smiled wanly. They fell silent, both thinking of that dim battle beside the Cam, the last battle of those cataphractarii who, as King Arthur’s knights, would ride their richly caparisoned
steeds into legend. Somebody named Medraut would incite them to slaughter each other over God knew what quarrel—some tribal feud, someone’s wronged sister— within sight of Glastonbury Tor, where they would never dream that Artorius lay with his lady.

  Up ahead, Tylar motioned them forward. “I fear we must part company here,” he told Gwenhwyvaer. “We have business which requires us to return to Constantinople.” Which, Sarnac reflected, was true as far as it went, as Tylar’s statements so often were.

  “I still can’t believe you wouldn’t let us give you some horses,” Cerdic remarked. “Will you be returning to Britain?”

  “I think not. But remember, I’ll be sending messages to you through Lucasta, whom you’ll be seeing from time to time. I have means of getting information to her.” Do you ever! Sarnac thought.

  “Then this is farewell, Tertullian,” Gwenhwyvaer said. “And… and you, too, Gerontius.” She and Artorius held each others’ eyes for a length of time that Cerdic couldn’t have missed, although he gave no sign. Sarnac wondered what he made of it, in his ignorance of who “Gerontius” was. Tylar could have invented the tern “need to know,” he thought. Come to think of it, I wonder if he did?

  “Farewell, Lady. And…” Tylar hesitated. “As we’ve all acknowledged, Britain may not be allowed to go its own way in peace. You can depend on Ecdicius’ guarantee for the Western Empire, but he may not be able to shield you from the East. So the peoples of this island may need inspiring to arise in the common defense. I’ve taken the liberty of loosely translating certain possible sources of rhetorical inspiration for you, including a speech given by a queen who found herself in a position not unlike yours.” He reached into a pouch and withdrew two scrolls of the Egyptian papyrus which, along with parchment and vellum, served this world in place of the paper that had not yet made its way west from China. He handed one of them to Gwenhwyvaer. “It helped to unite her people. And, ealdorman” he added, handing Cerdic the other scroll, “I thought you might find this useful. It was used to inspire an army to fight and win against seemingly impossible odds.”

  “Thank you,” Gwenhwyvaer said, putting her scroll away. Cerdic examined his with frank curiosity—having become one of the few Saxons to have mastered the written word, he couldn’t get enough of it. “When you get to Constantinople,” she continued, taking out a scroll of her own from her saddlebag and proffering it not to Tylar but to Artorius, “give this to Artorius.” For an interval whose silence no one felt inclined to break, two pairs of eyes once again held each other, blind to all else. The byplay, including her use of the name rather than the honorific “Augustus,” was lost on Cerdic, who had become absorbed in his scroll.

  With a final gaze, Gwenhwyvaer straightened in her saddle and turned her horse around. “Come, Cerdic.”

  Cerdic came up for air from the scroll and made to follow her. Then he halted his horse and turned to Tylar, holding up the papyrus. “You know, Tertullian, this isn’t bad. ‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’ Yes, I like that! Of course, it can be improved. I’ll work on it.” He nudged his horse forward, and he and Gwenhwyvaer vanished around a turn in the road.

  Sarnac stared at Tylar. “What did you give her?”

  “Oh, this and that. And now…” His walking staff shape-shifted into the recall device. Presently there came the faint breeze which was the only announcement the ship gave of its arrival.

  “This device,” Tylar told Tiraena after the portal that would allow them ingress into the ship had formed, “will reconfigure into a staff after we’ve passed through. Take it to the cave and leave it with the stasis generator. And now we must be going.”

  Sarnac and Tiraena clasped hands. “Hey,” she said, “it’ll only be a few subjective months—even fewer for you. We’ve been apart that long lots of times.”

  “Yeah, I know. But the fact that it’s really going to be six years as far as the rest of the universe is concerned makes it different, somehow.” He sought for something brilliant to say, but only managed: ‘Take care of yourself.”

  “Come, come,” Tylar fidgeted. “Someone might happen along this road.” He and Artorius stepped through the portal into the ship. Sarnac followed.

  Once aboard, Artorius excused himself and went off—to read Gwenhwyvaer’s scroll, Sarnac suspected. He himself followed Tylar to the “observation deck,” where they seemed to be standing in mid-air a few yards above the ground. Tiraena was still beside the road, holding the nondescript walking staff and gazing toward the ship she could not see. Then she gave the self-conscious wave of one who can’t be sure if the gesture is being seen, and turned to go. Feeling foolish, Sarnac waved back.

  “Well,” Tylar said conversationally, “the ships stasis field should finish building any time…”

  In less than an eyeblink, Tiraenas retreating figure vanished from the panoramic outside view, the leaves disappeared from the trees, and the ground acquired a covering of snow.

  “… now.” His sentence finished, Tylar looked concernedly at Sarnac’s face. “Oh, dear! I should have warned you of what to expect.”

  Sarnac shook his head, mental equilibrium reasserting itself. “No… it’s all right. I had no reason to expect anything else, I suppose—I’ve been told often enough that no time passes inside a stasis field.” He took a deep breath. “So it’s now… ?”

  “February of 491,” Tylar confirmed. “We haven’t been able to pinpoint the exact date of Ecdicius’ assassination. But various facts allow us to infer that it’s no earlier in the year than March, and probably later. So…“In response to his silent command, the ship rose in the air and swung around into an eastward course. Looking aft, Sarnac glimpsed Cadbury before it receded into the distance.

  “Tylar, do you think they’ll pull it off?”

  “Oh, yes. Gwenhwyvaer is, as you’ll have gathered, formidable. And she’s been wise to groom Cerdic for leadership of the future ethnically mixed Britain.”

  “Yeah, Cerdic’s a character. Uh, I suppose that, like everybody else, he also existed in our reality.”

  “Indeed! He’s the Cerdic. Cerdic of Wessex.” Tylar looked at Sarnac expectantly but saw only blankness. “Hmm. I keep forgetting that your knowledge of history isn’t all it might be. Well, in our timeline Cerdic didn’t arrive in Britain until 495. Aided by his son Cynric—an adult by that time— he carved out the kingdom of Wessex which would later unify England. All subsequent English royalty have claimed descent from him.”

  “Huh? You mean James III… ?”

  “Oh, yes, that’s right; they had restored the Stuarts by your lifetime, hadn’t they? But yes, he’s a descendant— although the connection will be extremely tenuous by then.”

  “Well, well!” Sarnac shook his head. “All from an illegitimate son fathered on a Saxon girl by some Briton…”

  “Yes. It was in the course of his first Saxon-fighting expedition to Armorica.”

  “Uh, what do you mean, Tylar?” Sarnac couldn’t make any connection between the bland statement and what they were talking about.

  “Artorius,” Tylar said patiently. “It was in 457, three years after he became High King.”

  For a second or two, Sarnac still didn’t get it. Then little things he should have noticed before—a certain way of cocking the head, a peculiar outward flare to the eyebrows, the body build—began to come to him. “Wait a minute, Tylar! Are you telling me… ?”

  “It’s not uncommon in this era,” Tylar said pedantically, “for victorious troops to share out the women of the vanquished after a battle. An old Roman custom, in fact, which includes the proviso that the commander gets a share. Artorius didn’t take advantage of it very often— usually he’d pick some child and set her free. But he’s only human, after all, and he was in the process of adjusting to the fact that Gwenhwyvaer couldn’t bear him children. And I have reason to think the Saxon woman in question was exceptionally beautiful.”

  I wonder, was all Sarnac could think. Did she tell her son
stories about Artorius the ogre who ate naughty Saxon children with horseradish? Did she even know who the father had been?

  “Tylar,” he finally asked, “does Artorius know?”

  “No, and I’ll be obliged if you don’t tell him. It might prejudice his judgment at some crucial time.”

  “But…” Sarnac glanced aft, where the British landscape had yielded to the gray winter sea. “Does she know?”

  “Gwenhwyvaer? She hasn’t been told, if that’s what you mean. But… oh, yes, I think she knows.”

  Chapter Nine

  The merchant Ventidius had servants because it would have seemed odd for him not to have them. They cleared away the remains of a meal that bore little resemblance to Sarnac’s recollections of Greek cuisine (except perhaps for the prevalence of olive oil) and withdrew, leaving their kindly but mysterious master alone with his guests.

  Koreel activated the device that would safeguard them against eavesdropping. Then he settled back with a sigh and poured more wine all around—not retsina, to Sarnacs relief.

  “So,” Tylar asked Andreas, “his health seems to be getting steadily worse since he restored Acacius to the Patriarchate? I fear the Western clergy will see that as divine justice!”

  “Well,” the young transtemporal voyager replied, “the deterioration hasn’t really been steady. But the trend is downhill. Nevertheless, nobody thinks his life is in any immediate danger, and there’s been no talk of recalling Ecdicius from the Danube.”

  “Given what passes for medical science here, that’s not too reassuring,” Sarnac said dourly. “A turn for the worse could kill him in no time.”

  “That’s true,” Andreas acknowledged. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to watching what these people endure under the name of medical care.” But his tone was that of a man admitting a flaw in a milieu to which he seemed to have taken like a duck to water. He’d changed dramatically in the time since they’d been apart—cheerier and generally more alive. Of course, Sarnac reminded himself, it had been a considerably longer subjective time for Andreas than for the rest of them. But he wondered what had happened during that time to banish the moody, withdrawn Andreas he remembered.