Time Patrol

by Poul Anderson

  "You can. I'll swear to it"—Heidhin's voice stumbled a bit—"if our years together are not enough." At once he donned pride. "You understand you have no better spokesman. I am more than the first among your followers, I am a leader in my own right. Men heed me."

  She was long silent. They walked by a paddock where a bull stood, Tiw's beast, his horns mighty beneath the sun. At last she asked: "You will give forth my words unwarped, and work in good faith to have their meaning carried out?"

  He shaped his answer with skill. "It hurts that you should mistrust me, Edh."

  Then she looked at him. Her eyes thawed. "All these years—dear old friend—"

  They stopped where they were, on a muddy track through the swelling grass. "I would have been more than friend to you, had you let me," he said.

  "You knew I never could. And you honored it. How can I do other than forgive you? Yes, go to Colonia for me."

  Sternness came upon him. "I will, and wherever else you may send me, serving you as best I can, if only you do not tell me to break the vow I made on the shore of the Eyn."

  "That—" Color flowed and ebbed in her face. "It was long ago."

  "To me it is as if I swore it yesterday. No peace with the Romans. War while I live, and after I am dead I will harry them on their way down hell-road."

  "Niaerdh could release you from it."

  "I could never release myself." Like a heavily striking hammer, Heidhin bade her: "Either send me from you this day, for always, or swear that you will never ask me to make peace with Rome."

  She shook her head. "I cannot do that. If they offer us, our kinfolk, all of us, our freedom—"

  He turned that over in his mind before he said unwillingly, "Well, if they do, take it of them. I daresay you would have to."

  "Niaerdh herself would want it. She is no bloodthirsty Ans."

  "Hm, aforetime you said otherwise." Heidhin grinned. "I do not await the Romans will gladly let the western tribes and their scot to them go. But should they, then I will take me off, with whatever men will follow me, and raid them in their lands till I fall under their blades."

  "May that never be!" she cried.

  He laid his hands on her shoulders. "Swear to me—bring Niaerdh to witness—that you will call for war without end until the Romans leave these lands or . . . or, at the least, I am dead. If you do this, then I can work for anything else you wish, yes, even for the sparing of what Romans we catch alive."

  "If you will have it thus." Edh sighed. She stepped back from him. Command rang: "Come, then, let us seek the halidom, mingle our blood on the earth and our words in the air, to fasten this bond. I want you riding to Burhmund tomorrow. Time is on our heels."

  8

  Once the city had been Oppidum Ubiorum, or so the Romans called it. Otherwise Germans did not build towns; but the Ubii, on the left bank of the Rhine, were under heavy Gallic influence. After Caesar's conquest, they soon came into the Empire and, unlike most of their kinsmen, were content with this, the trade, the learning, the openings to the world outside. In the reign of Claudius the town was made a Roman colony and named for his wife. Eagerly Latinizing themselves, the Ubii changed their own name to the Agrippinenses. The city waxed. It would be Köln—Cologne, to French and English speakers—but that was far in the future.

  On this day the ground below its massive Roman-built walls seethed. Smoke rose from a hundred campfires, barbarian standards reared above leather tents, pelts and blankets lay spread about where those slept who had brought no shelter along. Horses neighed and stamped. Cattle lowed, sheep bleated in the wattled pens that held them until they were butchered for the army. Men milled to and fro, wild warriors from beyond the river, Gallic rabble from this side. Quieter were the armed yeomen of Batavia and its near neighbors; disciplined were Civilis's and Classicus's veterans. Apart huddled the dispirited legionaries who had been marched here from Novesium. Along the way they had endured such taunts that at last a cavalry troop of theirs said to hell with it, repudiated the pledge of allegiance given the Empire of Gaul, and struck south to rejoin Rome.

  A small set of tents stood by itself near the stream. No rebel ventured within yards of it unless he had cause, and then he approached most quietly. Bructerian men-at-arms kept watch at the corners, but only as an honor guard. What warded it was a sheaf of grain to which was tied several apples, atop an erected pole—from last year, dried and faded, yet emblems of Nerha.

  "Whence came you?" asked Everard.

  Heidhin peered at him. The answer hissed. "If you trekked hither out of the east as you say, you know. The Angrivarri remember Wael-Edh; the Langobardi do, the Lemovii, and more. Did none among them ever say aught of her to you?"

  "She passed through years ago—"

  "I know they remember, for we hear from them through traders, landloupers, and the fighters lately come to Burhmund." A cloud shadow swept over the men where they sat, on a rude bench before Heidhin's pavilion. Darkening his visage, it seemed to whet the piercing stare. Wind bore a puff of smoke, a clang of iron. "Who are you truly, Everard, and what would you here in our midst?"

  This is one smart cookie, and a fanatic to boot, the Patrolman realized. Quickly: "I was about to say, it struck me how her name lives on among tribes far away, long after she passed by."

  "Hm." Heidhin relaxed a trifle. His right hand, which had strayed close to his sword hilt, drew the black cloak more snugly against the wind. "I wonder why you trailed Burhmund, when you have no wish to go beneath his banner."

  "It is as I told you, my lord." Heidhin didn't rate the honorific from Everard, who had not sworn him fealty, but it didn't hurt. And in truth Heidhin had become an important man among the Bructeri, a chieftain with lands and holdings, married into a noble family, above all the confidant and frequent spokesman of Veleda. "I called on him at Castra Vetera because I had heard of his fame and am seeking to learn how things are in these countries. On my way elsewhere I heard that the wise-woman was bound hither. I hoped to meet her, or at least see and hear her."

  Burhmund, who made Everard welcome, had explained that the sibyl sent her representative instead. The Batavian's hospitality was perfunctory, though, as busy as he was. When he saw a chance, Everard sought Heidhin out on his own hook. A Goth was unusual enough to be received, but the conversation went awkwardly, Heidhin's thoughts on other matters until abruptly suspicion awoke.

  "She has withdrawn into her tower to be alone with the goddess," he said. Belief burned in him.

  Everard nodded. "So Burhmund told me. And I listened to your speech yesterday, at the gate of the city. My lord, let's not plow the same soil over again. What I asked was merely—whence came you and holy Wael-Edh? Where did you begin your wanderings, and when and why?"

  "We come of the Alvarings," Heidhin said. "Belike most men in this host were unborn when we left. Why did we? The goddess called her forth." Intensity gave way to brusqueness: "I have better work on hand than enlightening a stranger. If you will abide among us, Everard, you will hear more, and maybe you and I can talk further. Today I must bid you farewell."

  They stood up. "Thank you for your time, my lord," the Patrolman said. "Someday I will go back to my folk. Should you or kin of yours ever seek to the Goths, that man shall have good guesting."

  Heidhin did not let the routine courtesy go by. "It may be," he replied. "Nerha's messengers—but first is this war to win. Fare you well."

  Everard walked through the surrounding turbulence to a pen near Civilis's headquarters, where he claimed his horses. They were shaggy German ponies; his feet dangled just inches above ground when he mounted. But then, he was big even among these men, and they would have wondered too much about him had he lacked animals to bear him and his possessions. He rode north. Colonia Agrippinensis fell from sight behind him.

  Evening light sheened golden on the river. Hills were nearly as he recalled them from his home era, but the countryside lay marred by weed-grown fields and ruined buildings where Civilis had ravaged it
months before. Here and there he glimpsed bones, some human.

  Desolation served his purpose. Nevertheless he waited till dark to tell Floris, "Okay, send down the truck." He mustn't be seen departing the road, and a vehicle capable of accommodating horses was more noticeable than a timecycle. She dispatched it by remote control, he led the beasts aboard, and in an instant overleaping of space he reached their camp. She joined him a minute later.

  They could have sprung back to Amsterdam's comforts, but it would have wasted lifespan, not in the shuttling but in the commuting to and from quarters there, the shucking and redonning of barbarian garb, perhaps most the changes back and forth of mind-set. Let them rather dwell in this archaic land, become intimate not only with its people but with its natural world. Nature—the wilderness, the mysteries of day and night, summer and winter, storm, stars, growth, death—pervaded it and the souls of the folk. You could not really understand them, feel with them, until you had yourself entered into the forest and let it enter into you.

  Floris had chosen the site, a remote hilltop overlooking woodlands that reached to every horizon. None but a rare hunter ever saw it, and quite likely none had ever climbed to the bare ridge. Northern Europe was so thinly populated; a tribe numbering fifty thousand was large, and spread over a wide territory. Another planet would have been less alien to this country than was the twentieth century.

  Two one-person shelters rested side by side in soft radiance, and savory odors drifted from a cook unit, technology futureward of his and her birthtime. Just the same, after he had gotten his horses settled by hers, Everard kindled firewood he had prepared earlier. They ate in musing silence, then turned off the lamp. The cook unit became another shadow, unobtrusively cleaning up. They sat down on the grass by the flames. Neither had said anything about it; they simply knew, in some blind way, that this was right for them.

  A breeze wandered chilly. Now and then an owl hooted, low, as if asking a question of an oracle. Treetops glimmered like a sea beneath the stars. The Milky Way stretched hoar above them in the north. Higher gleamed the Great Bear, which men here knew as the Wain of the Sky Father. But what do they call it in Edh's home country? wondered Everard. Wherever that is. If Janne didn't recognize the name "Alvaring," then it's so obscure that nobody in the Patrol has heard of it.

  He lit his pipe. The fire crackled, gave him its own smoke, brought Floris's face out of the dark in flickery highlights across the braids she had uncoiled and the strong bones. "I think we've got to search pastward," he said.

  She nodded. "These last few days, they have confirmed Tacitus, have they not?"

  Throughout them, he had necessarily still been the operative on the ground, she observing from on high. But her role had been as active as his. He was confined to his immediate vicinity. She scanned widely, and then dispatched her minute robotic spies by night to lurk unseen and relay what went on beneath selected roofs.

  They witnessed— The senate of Colonia knew its position was desperate. Could they get terms of surrender less than disastrous, and would those be honored? The tribe of the Tencteri, living across the Rhine from them, sent envoys proposing unity independent of Rome. Among their demands was that the city walls be razed. Colonia demurred; it would accept only a loose league, and unhindered passage over the river only by daylight, until usage had bred more trust. It also proposed that the mediators of any such treaty be Civilis and Veleda. The Tencteri agreed. About then, Civilis-Burhmund and Classicus arrived.

  Classicus would as soon, or sooner, have Colonia given to sack. Burhmund was reluctant. Among other reasons for that, the city held a son of his, taken for a hostage in the ambiguous period last year when he was still ostensibly fighting to make Vespasian emperor. Despite everything that had happened since, the boy was well treated, and Burhmund stood to get him back. Veleda's influence could make a negotiated peace possible.

  It did.

  "Yeah," Everard said. "I guess the rest will go according to the book too." Colonia would yield, suffer no harm, and join the rebel alliance. It would, however, get new hostages, Burhmund's wife and sister and a daughter of Classicus. That those men would lay so much on the line spoke of more than realpolitik, the value of the agreement; it spoke of Veleda's power.

  ("How many divisions does the Pope have?" Stalin would gibe. His successors would find it had never mattered. In the long run, humans live mainly by their dreams, and die by them.)

  "Well, we are not at the divergence point yet," Floris said needlessly. "We are exploring the background of it."

  "And we're stiffening our notion that Veleda is a key to it all. Do you think we—meaning you, I suppose—could approach her directly and get acquainted?"

  Floris shook her head. "No. Especially not now, when she has isolated herself. Probably she is in a state of emotional, perhaps religious crisis. An interruption could bring on . . . anything."

  "Uh-huh." Everard puffed on his pipe for a minute. "Religion—Did you hear Heidhin's speech to the army yesterday, Janne?"

  "In part. I knew you were there, taking note."

  "You're not an American. Nor are you any of your Calvinist ancestors. I suspect you don't appreciate what he was doing."

  She held her hands toward the fire and waited.

  "If ever I heard a stem-winding, hellfire-and-damnation revival sermon, throwing the fear of the Lord into the meeting, Heidhin delivered it," Everard said. "Almighty effective, too. There won't be any more Castra Vetera atrocities."

  Floris shivered. "I should hope not."

  "But . . . the whole approach. . . . I realize it wasn't unknown to the Classical world. Especially after Jews were living everywhere around the Mediterranean. The prophets of the Old Testament came to have their influence even on paganism. But up here, among the Nordics—wouldn't a speaker have appealed to their machismo? At most, to their obligation to abide by a promise?"

  "Yes, of course. Their gods are cruel, but, well, tolerant. Which will make them, the people, vulnerable to the Christian missionaries."

  "Veleda seems to have hit the same unshielded spot," Everard said thoughtfully, "six or seven hundred years before any Christian missionaries reach these parts."

  "Veleda," Floris murmured. "Wael-Edh. Edh the Foreign, Edh the Strange. She has borne her message, whatever it is, across Germany. Tacitus Two says she will carry it back there after Civilis falls—and the faith of the Germans will begin to change—Yes, I believe we must follow her spoor through the past, to wherever she began."

  9

  The months toiled on, slowly grinding down Burhmund's victory.

  Tacitus would record how it happened, the confusions and mistakes, dissensions and treacheries, while the weight of Roman reinforcement inexorably mounted. Already then, memory would have blurred or lost much and any single man staring at the wound from which his life drained would be quite forgotten. Such details as did survive are of interest, but for the most part unnecessary to understanding the end result. A sketch suffices.

  At first Burhmund continued to enjoy success. He occupied the country of the Sunici and recruited intensively among them. At the Moselle River he defeated a band of Imperialist Germans, took some into his host, and chased the rest and their leader south.

  That was a bad error. While he struggled through the Belgic woods, Classicus sat idle and Tutor was fatally slow to occupy the defenses of the Rhine and the Alps. The Twenty-first Legion took advantage, crossing into Gaul. There it linked with its auxiliaries, including a cavalry troop commanded by Julius Briganticus, nephew and implacable enemy of Civilis. Tutor was beaten, his Treveri routed. Before then, a rebel attempt on the Sequani had met disaster, and Roman units had begun moving in from Italy, Spain, and Britain.

  Petillius Cerialis was now in overall charge of the Imperial effort. Though worsted nine years before by Boadicea in Britain, this relative of Vespasian had since redeemed himself by taking a major part in the capture of Rome from the Vitellianists. At Moguntiacum, Mainz to be, he sent the
Gallic conscripts home, declaring that his legions would be ample. The gesture practically completed the pacification of Gaul.

  Thereupon he entered Augusta Treverorum, Trier to be, city of Classicus and Tutor, birthplace of the Gallic rebellion. He gave a general amnesty and took those units that had defected back into his army. Addressing an assembly of Treveri and Lingones in bleakly reasonable style, he convinced them that they had nothing to gain and everything to lose by further insurgency.

  Burhmund and Classicus had regrouped their scattered forces, minus a substantial contingent that Cerialis had trapped. They sent a herald to him, offering him the imperium of Gaul if he would join them. He merely passed the letter on to Rome.

  Busy with the political side of the war, he was not well prepared for the onslaught that followed. In a hard-fought battle, the rebels captured the bridge over the Moselle. Cerialis personally led the assault that took it back. Rallying his cohorts when the barbarians were in his very camp, he caught them in disarray, plundering, and put them to flight.

  Northward down the Rhine, the Agrippinenses—Ubii that were—had made their treaty with Burhmund reluctantly. Now they surprised and massacred the German garrisons among them, and appealed to Cerialis for help. He advanced by forced marches to relieve their city.

  Despite some minor reverses, he got the capitulation of the Nervii and Tungri. When fresh legions had doubled his strength, he set forth for a showdown with Burhmund. In a two-day battle near Old Camp, aided by a Batavian deserter, who guided his men in a flanking movement, he broke the Germans. The war might have ended there, had the Romans had ships on hand to block their escape across the Rhine.

  Upon learning of this, the remaining Treverian rebel leaders also withdrew over the river. Burhmund retreated into the Batavian island, where the men left to him waged for a while a guerrilla campaign. Among those they killed was Briganticus. Yet they could keep no ground. The fiercest fight saw Burhmund and Cerialis pitted directly against one another. The German, trying to rally his troops as they reeled back, was recognized; missiles hailed about him; he barely got away by jumping off his horse and swimming across the stream. His boats took off Classicus and Tutor, who were thenceforward no more than disconsolate hangers-on.