by Steve White
She took stock. Her long-range communicator lay deactivated in the cave near the banks of the Cam, with the stasis-field generator and the rest of Tylar’s goodies. She didn’t have all that many—just things she absolutely needed and which could function in the field, like the supply of nondescript little pills that could stimulate the body to heal just about anything within reason, although you slept a lot while it was happening and were very weak and hungry afterwards. It was nothing compared to the infirmary aboard Tylar’s ship, where nanoids simply took an injured body apart at the molecular level and put it back together, uninjured. (Reassembling it in an improved form was sternly interdicted. Tiraena gathered that Tylar’s civilization had had some bad experiences with that sort of thing.) But that required elaborate equipment; the pills were Tylar’s idea of very crude first-aid, and he’d cautioned her that they, like everything else, must be kept from the locals lest their cultural development be distorted. But it was all back in the cave which the folk around Cadbury had come to superstitiously shun. Just as well; the Interrogator couldn’t possibly be so far gone that he wouldn’t recognize high-tech artifacts for what they were. She still had the implant communicator, of course, but it wasn’t doing her much good.
But that wasn’t the only implant in her body. She was a survey specialist and had been given various biotechnic edges over the primitive environments she must face. There was one in particular…
She twisted her shoulders, raising one and lowering the other as she tried to shift the hands the guards had tied behind the post. She could feel skin being rubbed raw by the rope, but she had to get that left forefinger pointed at the knot between her wrists, and she had to do it by feel alone. And it had to be pointing down, not up, which would have been relatively easy.
Finally the fingertip rested against the knot. She wasn’t sure of the angle, and she’d have only one chance. Well, she thought as she strained to hold herself in the miserably uncomfortable position, no time like the present. She took a deep breath against what she knew was coming and gave a carefully trained mental command.
The almost-microscopic superconductor loop just under the tip of the finger yielded up its hoarded energy, and the tiny crystal surrounding it projected that energy as a beam of coherent photons. There was the snapping sound of air rushing in to fill the vacuum drilled through it by a weapon-grade laser. That laser left a sparkling frail of ionization which would have been visible even by daylight and which someone would surely have seen if it had flashed upward into the darkness. But it merely seared the ground, without searing her butt in the process. She clenched her teeth to hold in a cry of agony as the beam burned the flesh on the inside of her right wrist. Piled atop the throbbing pain of her battered head, it sent a wave of nausea through her. Then it all subsided a little and she gingerly tried her bonds. The laser hadn’t burned away as much of the knot as she’d hoped, but after a little work the last strands parted and her hands came free. After she’d untied her feet she spared a moment to feel that fingertip, where the fortunately insensitive artificial skin had been burned away.
Good thing I resisted the temptation to use the thing on my attackers—or later on the Interrogator, she thought. It was strictly a one-shot capability; she would never have gotten out alive. She took a deep shuddering breath—that right wrist still hurt like all the devils of hell—then slipped away through the night.
No one was keeping watch over her, securely bound as they knew her to be. She avoided any still-wakeful Fomorians and was soon clear of the village. She didn’t have her light-gathering contacts, but it was—wonder of wonders—a clear night over Britain, and a three-quarter moon was up. And the constellations weren’t significantly different from those of the twenty-third century Earth she had come to know. She located Ursa Minor and set her course east.
The normal British overcast and drizzle reasserted themselves by morning. I knew it was too good to last, Tiraena thought in her fatigue-dulled and hunger-tormented brain as she continued toiling eastward in the dreary daylight.
She had spent the entire night putting as much distance as possible between herself and her erstwhile captors. Shortly before dawn she’d stumbled onto what this milieu was pleased to call a road. She had no idea which road it was, but it ran in a more or less east-west direction, and a map summoned up on her neural display showed all such roads in these parts converging on Chester. And it beat scrambling up and down the hills that comprised the local topography. She struggled on, trying not to let herself think about pain, or food.
By the time the cavalry column appeared to the east, she was almost beyond noticing it. Only when Peredur and Cynric were supporting her cad she let herself collapse.
“So that’s the story,” Tiraena concluded. “It’s the Interrogator, beyond a doubt. Raving mad, but still dangerous. Still capable of inflicting a lot of harm, in both timelines.” Her face clouded as unwanted recollections thrust themselves upward from the storehouse of nightmares into her consciousness. “Remind me to give Tylar a piece of my mind about some of the shit he inflicts on people— primitives, yes, but still people—in the course of ‘policing events.’”
“I’m also going to have a few things to take up with him,” Sarnac said as he studied her face in the little holographically projected display screen that hovered in midair just above his communicator. He knew that expression, and it didn’t occur to him even momentarily to doubt her. “Just before I left Rome he made some typically vague noises about ‘disturbing rumors’ you’d been hearing.” He forced himself to defer that for later. “I never considered that he’d be here. But it makes sense; he escaped to Ireland before the divergence of the timelines.”
“It did occur to me, once. But I dismissed it out of hand, thinking he couldn’t possibly have lasted this long.”
“Well, it’s too late to worry about that. The important thing is that you’re all right now. You are, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes. My first-aid kit took care of the laser burn, though of course I’m keeping the wrist bandaged—it has no business being healed so fast, from the local standpoint. I’m also keeping my left index finger bound up. With that little hole burned through it, the artificial skin looks artificial. And I’m over the exhaustion. The really important question is whether the local troops will hold when they see a Korvaasha coming at them.”
“And when he gets in among them,” Sarnac added grimly. The Korvaasha, evolutionary products of a high-gravity planet, were even stronger relative to humans than they were larger. The Interrogator might be getting along in years, but…
“I’ll do what I can, of course,” Tiraena said. “I’ll explain to Gwenhwyvaer’s troops that he isn’t a demon or any other supernatural being, and that he isn’t deathless. I don’t have much time, though. This General Marcellus—a subordinate of your old friend Kai, isn’t he?—has landed at Richborough and is advancing up the Thames valley. He’s been sending couriers to the Fomorians, and we’re sure we haven’t succeeded in intercepting all of them. The raiders are starting to move south. They’re light troops, with no discipline, but they could cause us trouble if they show up at our rear while we’re engaged with the imperials.”
“Yeah, yeah, right,” Sarnac said, distracted. “Absolutely.
That makes it even more urgent for me to get in touch with Tylar.”
“Tylar? Why?”
“To get you the hell out of Britain, that’s why! Its going to get very dangerous there. So there’s no point in you…”
“No!” Tiraena’s tone stopped Sarnac in his rhetorical tracks. “I’m staying in Britain.”
“What?” Sarnac took a deep breath. “Look, in case you’ve forgotten, your implanted skills don’t include any fifth-century combat,abilities. You’re not supposed to be a soldier in this milieu! So what good do you think you can do when push comes to shove?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I can’t help thinking that there must be something I can do, even though I’
m not allowed to use any advanced technology. And as long as there’s any possibility of that… Bob, I need to stay.”
Sarnac hesitated before speaking, for he knew her well enough to know that this was nothing to be spoken of lightly. “Tiraena, I know you admire Gwenhwyvaer. And maybe you’ve started to take Tylar’s system of trans-dimensional ethics seriously. But…”
“I couldn’t care less about Tylar’s umpteen-thousand-years-distant notions! And its not just Gwenhwyvaer. It’s all of them.” She sought for the words with which to verbalize what was self-evident to her. “They’re barely half a step above savagery. And they’re laboring under more than their fair share of political stupidity. But if you could just be here and know them, Bob! And I’m not talking about the rulers, I’m talking about people like… oh, the two bodyguards Gwenhwyvaer has assigned to me. You’d like them, Bob: Peredur—he’s one of the Artoriani; and Cynric, the son of Cerdic of the West Saxons.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember. So he’s the grandson of…” Sarnac belatedly recalled his promise to Tylar and cut himself off.
“What?”
“Never mind,” Sarnac said hastily. But then he remembered it was only Artorius that Tylar wanted kept in the dark. Oh, what the hell? He proceeded to tell Tiraena the truth of Cerdic’s parentage.
“Oho!” she said softly when he was done. ‘This explains a lot about Gwenhwyvaer’s feelings toward Cerdic. Typical of her, you know. Some women would hate Cerdic, in her position. But not Gwenhwyvaer. As Artorius’ son, he’s the closest thing to a son she’ll ever have.”
“You’re probably right. And I understand what you’re saying: these people deserve a break. Well, so do a lot of people throughout history. But you can’t give it to them! You’ve done your part by passing on the advance information Tylar transmitted to you.”
“That’s just it: all I’ve done is pass information along! I need to do something!”
Sarnac tried to keep his tone reasonable. “But, Tiraena, in light of what’s about to happen there… Tiraena, you could get killed!”
She grinned. “This, from a guy who was getting ready to go into battle against a Korvaash successor-state more advanced than the Realm of Tarzhgul?” There was dead silence while he sought for a reply.
“Well,” he finally said, “that was my duty.” Come on! he gibed at himself. Is that the best you can do? If you really try, you can come up with something even more stilted!
“This is my duty—to myself! And to these people. I know it’s irrational to feel guilty for having been born into a better era than theirs. But I can’t escape a sense of obligation to them. It’s part of me, Bob, so it’s part of whatever it is you love in me. I have to stick it out for the duration! Tylar may send his ship here, but I won’t willingly go aboard. I’ll stay as much in the thick of things as I can get, so Tylar won’t be able to snatch me without tipping his technological hand!”
Their eyes held each other in silence, but it was a communion and not a confrontation. Then Sarnac smiled.
“Hey, if you need to do this, then do it. I’ll tell Tylar not to try to pull you out until you’re good and ready.”
“Thanks, Bob,” she said softly.
Sarnacs smile blossomed into his trademark raffish grin, and he was once again the young smart-ass she’d saved from the Korvaasha in the wilderness of Danu. “Hey, it’s just the kind of guy I am!” She made a flatulent noise with her mouth. “Just promise me you’ll stay in touch— and that you’ll be careful.”
“Aren’t I always?” She signed off, her smile seeming to linger like the Cheshire cats, before he could think of a retort.
Well, he thought as he deactivated the communicator and the intruder alarm he was careful to employ whenever he was using anachronistic equipment in his tent, hopefully that little turn of the good-ole-Bob routine was what she needed right now. Too bad it’s all bullshit. But he’d done rightly, he decided. He wouldn’t burden her with the knowledge that he was worried sick about her, separated from savages only by troops who’d probably bolt like scared rabbits when they saw the Interrogator. No, there’s no point in undermining her morale. A sudden flash of self-pity: Wish somebody’d do something for my morale!
He shook free of the thought as he left the tent and strolled toward the field where the crossbowmen were honing their tactics under Ecdicius’ eye. The new Western Emperor noticed him and waved.
“Ah, Bedwyr, I think these farm boys are beginning to get the point of your idea—or at least starting to follow orders with a snap! For whatever reason, we’re getting off half again as many flights of quarrels each minute as we were when we first tried your idea.”
“Good!” In response to their call they’d gotten more hunting crossbows, and men who knew how to use them, than they needed or could effectively use. The problem, as Ecdicius had instantly seen, was the things’ slow rate of fire. He’d also seen the possibilities in Sarnacs third-hand idea, and had issued a call for the strongest men in the army. (That point had been emphasized, for it lent prestige to an unglamorous job.) They had become loaders, staying behind the fighting line and constantly cocking the surplus crossbows, which were then passed on to the crossbowmen by relays of boys who brought the discharged weapons back to be readied again.
In the armies of China’s Warring States, Artorius had told him, the loaders had lain on their backs, braced both feet against the back of the bow with one on each side of the stock, and pulled the string down toward the chest with both hands while straightening the legs. That wasn’t absolutely necessary with these crossbows, which weren’t as stiff as the Chinese originals had been. But experiments had shown it to be the fastest loading technique, so Ecdicius had rammed it through past all the obstacles outraged conservatism could erect.
Of course, it made for an immobile formation. Artorius had expounded from historical knowledge that now extended far beyond his old horizons. ‘There’s an ongoing debate,” he’d told Sarnac over wine one night in Rome. “What would have happened if Alexander the Great had advanced eastward to China? One school of thought holds that he wouldn’t have stood a chance against the armies of the Warring States, with their massed crossbows that could have made colanders of Macedonian shields. I disagree, partly because he would have had no trouble finding local allies—those warlords were incapable of uniting against a common threat, which was why Shih Huang-Ti conquered them all in the end But there’s a strictly military reason as well. You see, all that firepower was locked into rigid, inflexible formations. The only really mobile troops were the cavalry, who were just scouts and skirmishers; they had nothing like Alexanders Companions, who were the closest thing to heavy shock cavalry before stirrups. I have a theory about that: in the West, the cavalry has always been the prestige arm, through which the aristocracy displayed its prowess, while Chinese cavalry were just… just…”
“Grunts on horses,” Sarnac had suggested.
“Precisely. If anything, the cavalry was socially tainted by the barbarian origins of its equipment, techniques and, frequently, personnel. So while an army of the Warring States could have slaughtered the Macedonian phalanx if Alexander had been obliging enough to march it up in front of them, they wouldn’t have known how to respond if the Companions had hit them from an unexpected direction.”
“That doesn’t sound too good for our side, does it? Kai’s going to be able to send the Artoriani against us.”
“It means that high-density crossbow fire is probably going to work for you only once,” Artorius had allowed. “After that, Kai will know how to deal with it. You and Ecdicius are going to have to bring him to a single decisive battle under optimum conditions for a defensive action.”
They had tried, even before Ecdicius had thought they were really ready, for they’d heard news of what the invaders were inflicting on east-central Gaul as they advanced west along the Roman road from Strasbourg to Toul, things that sounded nothing like the Kai Sarnac remembered. Finally, Ecdicius had found what he consid
ered the ideal site to give battle—the gap in the Val d’Ane hills west of Toul— and Kai had neatly maneuvered them out of position. It was a typically cautious duel of generals who knew each other, with the main armies moving warily behind screens of scouting, skirmishing light cavalry. Still, Kai’s hesitancy was beyond what might have been expected, given that he commanded the clearly superior force. Sarnac had wondered about it out loud via communicator, and Artorius had explained: the Briton led unenthusiastic troops. Kai had been able to hold their allegiance for Wilhelmus, but he couldn’t infuse them with a fanatical loyalty to the faux emperor which he doubtless didn’t feel himself.
So the cat-and-mouse game went on. Ecdicius wasn’t entirely displeased; at least the invaders weren’t advancing any further into Gaul, and he had more time to polish his new crossbow tactics. In fact, Sarnac was surprised he was adapting so well to a war so different from his swashbuckling norm. But sometimes, when his officers and allies weren’t around, he could be seen pacing like a caged lion.
Now he turned from the crossbow practice and started to speak to Sarnac, only to stop a frown. “What is it, Bedwyr? You seem distracted.”
God, am I concealing it that badly? “Oh, I’m just worried about my wife in Britain, Augustus. After all, not knowing what’s going on there…” He couldn’t know it, not officially, in this world whose messages moved at the speed of a horseman rather than that of light.
“Yes, you told me about your wife. Attached to Gwenhwyvaer’s court, isn’t she? I know you must be worried. Thank God Faustinas in Rome.” Ecdicius’ face clouded. “Not that Rome’s safety is certain. The latest word is that the Balkan armies have finally gotten moving and are advancing on Aquileia.”
And have taken it, Sarnac didn’t say, for it was something else he had no business knowing. He’d learned only last night that the important city at the head of the Adriatic, only just recovering from its sack by Attila forty years earlier, had fallen. Now an invasion of Italy was imminent, and Tylar and Artorius were preparing to head north from Rome to do what they could.