The Empire of Time

by David Wingrove

  ‘Not? You mean, not spying on me? Not prying into my affairs?’

  The Grand Master’s head unlocks, makes a fluid sideways motion. He seems about to say more, then decides against.

  Manfred, though, does not leave it. ‘It will be destroyed, Grand Master. And you will give me proof that it has been destroyed. And as for its architects – you will hand them over to me, tomorrow, before midday.’

  ‘Meister, I …’

  ‘Tomorrow!’

  The Grand Master bows, then stands, waiting to be dismissed, and for a moment I begin to think that Manfred will keep him there, only even the King can only take things so far, and after a second or two’s delay, he waves his hand, dismissing him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lucius,’ he says, as the Grand Master takes a seat below us. ‘I meant to keep that business until later … but he annoys me. He’s so humourless … so pompous and self-righteous. Yes, and such a hypocrite. They say he likes boys. Young boys …’

  I glance at the King, surprised. Then again, these are people who have lived in each other’s pockets for a century and more. That’s time enough and more for nerves to fray and tempers be shredded. The only wonder is that they haven’t self-destructed before now.

  These Adel have been bred with great wisdom, yet they’re also, in some crucial way, like children. Spoiled, petulant children. Even Manfred, now that I see it. Yes, even Manfred.

  I’m about to be indiscreet – to ask Manfred about Gudrun – when the trumpet sounds again. I look across, and as the end doors open, I get a glimpse of a woman – an Adel, fully Manfred’s own size, cradling something in her arms. As she comes closer, so I make out what it is. A child – a baby, to be more precise – though no baby I have ever seen was quite so large, so obscenely overweight. Though a newborn, he must be four feet, maybe even five head to toe. And I know, without attempting it, that I’d as easily lift a horse and run a furlong with it on my back as lift and cuddle this child of Manfred’s.

  Coming up on to the platform, the woman hands Manfred his child and he stands, the proud father, showing it to everyone, no trace of his earlier bitterness extended to this innocent. Yet as he hands it back, I note a flicker of sadness in his eyes, as if foreknowledge of the child’s inevitable corruption has darkened even this for him.

  It’s at this point that I notice Gudrun stand and, with a word to those about her, leave hurriedly. I’ve noticed that she’s been distracted for some while, staring down into her untouched bowl and tugging almost compulsively at her braided hair, yet the way she leaves – without a sign, without a backward glance – makes me wonder just what’s been going through her mind.

  She has been gone only seconds when there’s a huge explosion from somewhere below us. The platform shudders, and in the silence that follows, I turn to Manfred and see a strange, almost withdrawn expression in his eyes.

  ‘Tief,’ he says quietly. ‘Go find out what that is.’

  As his chancellor hurries off, so Manfred sits there, picking absently at the half-eaten loaf, looking about him at his relatives, a kind of vacant yet predatory glare in his eyes.

  Tief returns and, leaning in close, speaks softly to Manfred’s ear. For a moment there’s nothing, and then I notice how the King’s hands have clenched into fists; see, at the same moment, a strange, almost excruciating pain in his face.

  Manfred stands, looking about him blindly, pain and rage at war in his face, tears coursing down his cheeks. And then he bellows at the watching Adel.

  ‘You cunts! You heartless fucking cunts!’

  Eyes watch him warily from the body of the Hall. No one’s laughing. No one wants to draw attention to themselves. The King looks deadly in this mood. They know he’d as soon slit their throats as talk to them.

  He gasps with pain, then looks to me. ‘Lucius. Come with me. You must see this.’

  I don’t know why he asks me, but I follow hastily, running to keep up with his gigantic strides. Members of his special elite – his Leibstandarte – hurry to join us, forming a bodyguard about us as we hasten down a long curve of steps and out on to a kind of balcony.

  It breaks off and floats out into the central space. There’s smoke below us, and a strong smell of burned plastic and roasted flesh. As we descend into it, I see that one of the lower platforms has been badly damaged, a large chunk of it blown away. It’s a sleeping chamber, and the place is a wreck, pieces of debris scattered everywhere.

  Manfred groans as he takes it in. ‘Father Odin, weep for her,’ he says quietly, tears running one after another down his massive face.

  I look to Tief, but he shakes his head, as if he’s loath to say a word. But Manfred notices my curiosity, and, with a shuddering breath, tells me what I’m seeing.

  ‘Her name was Signy, Lucius, and she was my aunt. The best of them. The sweetest, kindest of women. My mother’s sister. Her best friend, and, after my mother died, mine.’

  And I see in that instant just what a blow this is to him. Whoever did this meant to cripple him. To strike right at the heart.

  We step out on to the damaged platform, to a scene of carnage. There is a body in the bed but it would be hard to identify it. It looks like it’s been flayed. In fact, there’s so much blood about that I realise it can’t have come from just one person, no matter how big she was.

  Manfred staggers, then straightens. ‘I’ll find them, Tief. And when I do …’

  His face is filled with horror at the sight, but there’s also a hardness there now, a determination, and I know that his vengeance will be horrible. Such a vengeance as might empty Asgard. Or would do, were there time. But Manfred’s time is running out. This is the start of it. The beginning of the end.

  ‘Do we know who was here?’ he asks a captain of the guard, who presents himself before us.

  ‘There were six in all, Meister. Your aunt, two of her serving women, a guard, and her grand-daughters …’

  Manfred blinks, shocked. ‘The twins? Gudrun and Fricka?’

  Impossible, I almost say. Gudrun could not have got down here in time. Only …

  Only what? Only she should have been here? Or was, and then wasn’t …?

  It doesn’t quite make sense. Not yet. But I’m beginning to have an inkling of what happened. Or part of it, anyway.

  I need now to get away. To be somewhere where my absence won’t be missed.

  ‘Forgive me,’ I say quietly. ‘But I feel quite …’

  Manfred reaches out and holds my arm with one of those huge hands, as if to keep me standing.

  ‘You understand now, though? You understand?’

  ‘Your Meister, I—’

  ‘I’ll find out who did this, and be sure I’ll make their lives a living hell. Only …’

  Only what? He never says. Just looks to Tief and nods. And, releasing me to Tief’s care, he turns back to stare at the figure on the bed – that awful bloodied scarecrow of a corpse – his eyes so bleak I cannot bear to look in them again.

  A king. Who could bear to be a king?

  113

  Tief sees me back to my quarters. Heusinger’s waiting there, and when I tell him what I want to do, he shrugs, as if he’s expected all along that I’d do something crazy.

  ‘You’re going to consult Hecht, though?’ he asks, but though I nod, he doesn’t believe me. Only I know now with a gut-driven certainty that my fate and Gudrun’s are tied together somehow. She would have died there, at her great-aunt’s bedside, but for my intervention. Which must mean she’s important. Just why I don’t know as yet, but I do know – or think I know – what I’m about to do.

  ‘Wait for me,’ I say to Heusinger, then jump. Back to Four-Oh.

  Hecht is busy, but it doesn’t take much to persuade the women. I have them send me back first to the moment after the explosion, armed with a camera. Then that done, they send me back again, to the moment after I first met her – after that meeting with her and her odious brother Hagen.

  As she steps out of the chamb
er, so she finds me there, her eyes widening in surprise.

  ‘But I thought …’ And she looks back.

  ‘Oh, I am in there,’ I say quickly. ‘But I’m here too.’

  ‘But you can’t be. I mean …’

  ‘Listen,’ I say, with such unexpected authority that she falls silent. ‘I am not what I seem to be. My name is Otto Behr and I come from the future. If you want proof of it, just look.’

  And I hand her the holo-prints.

  ‘Urd’s breath,’ she says, horrified. ‘Who is …?’ And then she recognises the hangings behind the bed and gasps.

  I feel sorry giving her such pain, but it’s necessary, even if I’m not sure why just yet.

  ‘I can’t prevent this from happening. But I can prevent you from being there. You were going to see her, weren’t you?’

  She nods, shocked now, silent.

  ‘Well, don’t. Go to the banquet instead. You’ll see me there. You must thank me and use my proper name. Okay?’

  ‘Okay …’ But then she looks at me, a moment’s uncertainty in her eyes. I can almost read what she’s thinking. What if this is a trick?

  ‘You want me to prove it?’

  ‘If you can travel in time …’ She blinks, then nods to herself. ‘I broke a cup, a favourite of mine, just this morning. If you could bring it to me whole.’

  I nod. ‘But first you must take me to your rooms. I must know where I am jumping to.’

  ‘Of course.’ And then she shakes her head as if she’s gone mad. ‘Otto, you say? A time traveller?’

  ‘You want proof?’

  She hesitates, then nods.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Then let’s go at once. There’s no time to lose.’

  114

  I hand her the cup, a pretty lavender-glazed thing the size of a small punch bowl. In her hands it seems fine almost, delicate.

  ‘What’s happening, Otto? Why are you here?’

  ‘There’s a war going on,’ I say, breaking all the rules in saying it. ‘A war in time. And for some reason I need you to be alive. I don’t know why just yet, but …’

  ‘My aunt, my sister Fricka?’

  I shake my head. I can’t save everyone. And the explosion has to happen. It’s part of the chain of events that leads … Well, you’ll see, I hope. Only I can’t disturb that part of it. It has to happen. Manfred has to be riled by the act. He has to seek his vengeance.

  Even now he’s giving orders, rounding up the suspects. Bringing them in to his torture chambers, happy to tilt his kingdom into anarchy for the sake of his dead aunt.

  Gudrun puts the cup down, then looks at me, her eyes now filled with wonder. ‘Otto … what’s really happening?’

  ‘I can’t say,’ I say. ‘Only that I need you.’

  She almost smiles at that. And then I jump, leaving her there, the loosest of loose strands that somehow – I hope – will come to make sense.

  115

  I jump back, to those moments after the explosion. Back to the beginning of the madness that will rip everything apart. Tief has left, to do his master’s bidding, leaving Heusinger and I alone. Much will happen this evening, but we cannot be a part of it. No, this evening we must trust to history. It is tomorrow at dawn that our part in events begins.

  Or so I’ve been led to think. Only it doesn’t happen that way. Already things are changing. The simple fact of our presence there has changed it, maybe, or the act of involving Gudrun. Whichever it is, I am summoned again just after midnight, and taken down to the very roots of Asgard – to the great dungeons – where I am brought once more into Manfred’s regal presence. I ought not to be, perhaps, yet I am surprised by his appearance. His hair is matted and he is wearing a butcher’s apron that is encrusted with blood.

  The bitter anger – one might almost term it madness – that was in his eyes, has grown, intensified, one might say. To see such a huge man in his rage is fearful indeed, yet he smiles at me graciously and has me sit, before gesturing to Tief.

  ‘I wanted you to see this, Lucius,’ he says, one great, bloodstained hand resting lightly on my shoulder. ‘I wanted you to bear witness to the depths of iniquity of my kin.’

  He says ‘kin’ like it’s the foulest blasphemy he could utter.

  I swallow, wondering what’s in store, but I don’t have long to wait. One by one they are dragged out into our presence, the marks of torture clear on them. Sons and brothers, Guildsmen and ministers, wives, uncles, even his daughters. Not a single one of them has escaped investigation. His torturers have been busy tonight, and this is the result, this series of confessions and betrayals.

  But lest you think me soft, I have seen worse than this. I was in Novgorod, in the winter of 1570, when the tsar, Ivan IV – known to history as ‘the Terrible’ – earned his name by putting whole families through holes in the ice. I was there when he boiled one of his own ministers – Nikita Funikov – alive, and when he forced his cousin’s wife and children to drink great cups of poison.

  Oh, I’ve seen worse than this, but not from such a man. History is filled with the acts of demons. Such is nature. It is only when such a great man – a man filled with the potential for good – is brought to such wickedness, that the gods weep.

  And the last of them to be brought is Gudrun. I stand, shocked to see her in that condition, her head shaved, the torturer’s scars livid on her pale flesh. Is this why I saved her? For this?

  ‘Otto?’

  Manfred has turned, staring at me. I am standing, I realise, staring open-mouthed at Gudrun.

  ‘Why her?’ I ask quietly.

  ‘What?’ Manfred asks, as if my question makes no sense. ‘She was supposed to be there, and she wasn’t. She …’

  I don’t wait to hear any more. I jump, and find Hecht waiting for me this time.

  ‘What is it, Otto? What’s happening?’

  I tell him and he frowns. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ I say, interrupting. ‘But she’s important.’

  ‘You know that for a fact?’

  I shake my head. No, it’s instinct. Pure gut instinct. Only Hecht won’t buy that. Or will he? If we’ve failed before, maybe he’s willing to take a gamble on my instincts. Or maybe that’s why we’ve failed. The truth is I don’t know.

  ‘Otto? What do you want to do?’

  I hesitate, then say it. ‘I want to go back again. To change it somehow, so that she’ll be safe.’

  ‘This isn’t …?’

  ‘A love thing? No. It’s instinct. Pure gut instinct.’

  Hecht smiles. ‘Then let’s go with that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. We’ve tried everything else.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  Hecht’s smile fades. ‘We’ve done this thirteen times now, Otto, and every time we’ve had to unravel it all and start all over. But this time … this thing with Gudrun. It’s a new twist. It didn’t happen before. The thing with the cup …’

  Hecht turns and clicks his fingers. At once Urte comes across. In her hands is the lavender-glazed cup I went back and ‘saved’ as proof to Gudrun that I could travel in time.

  I stare at it, amazed.

  ‘It was in Gehlen’s trunk,’ Hecht says, ‘among his things. We asked him where it came from, but he never understood why it was there. But now, perhaps, we know. It’s a time-loop, Otto. It can’t be anything else.’

  116

  I jump back, to the moment after I left her, and watch her blink, almost in disbelief, as – having vanished into the air itself – I reappear an instant later.

  ‘Change of plan,’ I say. ‘You must leave here. If Manfred finds you …’

  It proves difficult to persuade her. There’s no ‘cup’ I can return with to prove what I’m saying, yet she believes me. Only she doesn’t like it. Running away, she feels, will only ‘prove’ her guilt. But she has no choice. Manfred – Manfred, that is, after his aunt’s death – will be in no mood to listen to the truth. Guilt
y and innocent alike will feel his wrath, and I can’t change that. If that doesn’t happen, then the rest of it won’t happen either, and neither we nor the Russians can allow that. But I can save Gudrun, and it seems I must.

  ‘Where will you go?’ I ask.

  ‘To Erfurt.’

  ‘Erfurt?’

  ‘In Thuringia. We have a castle there. It’s not often used, but my aunt …’

  She stops, then looks to me again. ‘Is it true? Is it really going to happen?’ I nod, then, taking the images from my pocket, hand them to her. ‘Here. Keep them. But go. There’s no time to lose. And let no one else know where you’re going. Every second counts now.’

  She hesitates, then stoops and, unexpectedly, kisses me, that huge mouth of hers leaving the softest, most delicate touch upon my lips. And then she’s gone.

  I stare after her, then put my hand up to my lips, amazed.

  And jump. Back to the room. Back to the moment, just after midnight, when Manfred summons me again.

  117

  I watch the dawn come up from the battlements of Asgard, Heusinger beside me. After the night’s events I fully expect Adelbert to overlook his invitation to me, yet even as the first light breaks over the eastern suburbs the Grand Master sends for me.

  ‘What a night,’ he says, as I am ushered into his presence.

  The room’s a high-tech cell. Bare stone walls surround a central nest of cutting-edge technology. But what did I expect? These are warrior-brothers, after all. The same thinking that drove their distant ancestors, the Teuton Knights, drives them.

  ‘I didn’t think …’ I begin, then stop, seeing how he’s watching me from where he’s seated before his screen.

  Like Hecht, I think, surprised to be making that connection. Yet it’s true.

  ‘That I’d keep my word?’

  But there’s no edge to that. If anything – and this is the greatest surprise of all – Adelbert seems amused. But why? Because he survived the night?

  ‘You seem … unconcerned by what’s happened.’