The Shield of Time

by Poul Anderson

  Everard sought it the morning after his arrival. The sanctuary-cum-hostel was a modest adobe building, a former tenement, in Ion’s Lane off the Street of the Weavers, distinguished from the neighbors crammed wall to wall against it largely by motifs painted on the whitewash, lotus, jewel, flame. When he knocked, a brown man in a yellow robe opened the door and gave benign greeting. Everard inquired about Chandrakumar of Pa-taliputra. He learned that the esteemed philosopher did indeed live here, but was off on his accustomed Socratic argufying, unless he had settled down someplace to meditate. He should return by evening.

  “Thank you,” said Everard aloud, and Damn! to himself. Not that the news ought to surprise him. He’d had no way to make an advance appointment. Chandra-kumar’s job was to learn what the meager chronicles that survived had omitted, not only details of politics but economics, social structure, cultural activity, multifarious and ever-mutable everyday life. You did that largely by mingling.

  Everard wandered away. Maybe he’d come upon his man. Or he might find some clues on his own. Partly he wished he weren’t so conspicuous, towering above the average of this time and place, with features more suggestive of a barbarian Gaul than of a Greek or even an Illyrian. (A German would have been closer still, but nobody in Asia had ever heard of Angles, Saxons, or any of that lot.) A detective did best when he could fade into his background. On the other hand, curiosity about him should make it easy to strike up conversations; and the Exaltationists should have no reason to suspect the Patrol was on their trail.

  If the Exaltationists were here. Quite possibly they had never winded the bait set out for them, or had been too wary to go after it.

  Anyway, as for his appearance, no one else with equivalent ability and experience had been available for the groundside part of the operation. The joke was well-worn among English-speaking members of the Patrol, that their corps was chronically overextended. You used whomever and whatever came to hand.

  The streets seethed. Beneath its permanent reeks, the air stank of anxiety-sweat. Criers were going about, announcing the imminent return of glorious King Euthydemus and his army. They did not say it was in defeat, but the populace already had a good idea.

  Nobody panicked. Men and women continued their ordinary work or their emergency preparations. They spoke little or not at all about the thoughts that crawled in them, siege, hunger, epidemic, sack. That would have been like clawing at one’s flesh. Besides, most people in the ancient world were more or less fatalistic. Events to come might work out for the better instead of the worst. Undoubtedly many a mind was occupied with schemes to make an extra profit from the situation.

  Still, talk was apt to be loud, gestures jerky, laughter shrill. Foodstuffs disappeared from the bazaars as hoarders grabbed what had not gone into the royal storehouses. Fortune-tellers, charm vendors, and shrines did land-office business. Everard had no difficulty making acquaintances. On the contrary, he never bought a drink for himself. Men panted for any fresh word from outside.

  In streets, marketplace arcades, wineshops, foodshops, a public bath where he took refuge for a while, he fielded questions as noncommittally and kindly as he was able. What he got in exchange was scant. Nobody knew anything about “Areconians.” That was to be expected; but only three or four said they had seen a person of such appearance, and they were vague about it. Maybe someone was correct, but it had been an individual belonging in this milieu, a stray tribesman from afar who happened to fit an imperfectly understood description. Maybe memory was at fault. Maybe the respondent simply told Meander what he supposed Meander wanted to hear; that was an immemorial Oriental custom.

  So much for the dash and derring-do of the Time Patrol, Everard said dryly to his recollection of Wanda. Ninety-nine percent of our efforts are slogwork, same as for any other police force.

  He did finally luck out, to the extent of gaining information marginally more definite. In the bath he met one Timotheus, a dealer in slaves, plump, hairy, quick to set his worries aside and discuss lechery when Meander offered that gambit. Theonis’ name entered readily. “I’ve heard tell about her. I’m not sure what to believe.”

  “So am I. So are most of us. Seems too good to be true, what gossip says.” Timotheus wiped his brow and stared before him into the gloom, as if to conjure her from the steam-clouds. “An avatar of Anaitis.” Hastily, he sketched a symbol with his forefinger. “No disrespect to the goddess. What I know is only what filters forth to the world, by way of friends and servants and such. Her lovers are few, and higher-ups, every one of them. They don’t say much about her. I guess she doesn’t want them to. Else she’d be as widely spoke of as Phryne or Aspasia or Lais. But her men do let words slip now and then, and those words pass on. Maybe growing in the telling. I don’t know.”

  “Face and form like Aphrodite’s, voice like song, skin like snow, gait like a panther’s. Midnight hair. Eyes the green of a fire where copper is about to melt. That’s what they say.”

  “I’ve never seen her. Few have. She seldom leaves her house, and then it’s in a curtained litter. But, yes, so the song goes. A tavern song. Unfortunately, we can’t do more than sing about her, we commoners. And it could well be exaggerated.” Timotheus sniggered. “Maybe the bard was just wet-dreaming in public.”

  If she is Raor, it is not exaggerated. For Everard, the room suddenly lost its heat. He forced his tone to stay casual. “Where’s she from? Any kin here with her?”

  Timotheus turned his face to the big man. “Why so inquisitive? She’s not for you, my friend, no, not if you offered a thousand staters. For one thing, the patrons she’s got would be jealous. That could get unhealthy.”

  Everard shrugged. “I’m only curious. Somebody out of nowhere, almost overnight fascinating ministers of the king—”

  Timotheus looked uneasy. “They do whisper she’s a sorceress.” Fast: “I’m not backbiting her, mind you. Listen, she’s endowed a small temple of Poseidon outside town. A pious work.” He couldn’t resist cynicism. “It gives employment to her kinsman Nicomachus, its priest. But then, he was here before her, I don’t know what he was doing, and maybe he prepared her way.” Quickly again: “No disrespect. For all I know, she is a goddess among us. Let’s change the subject.”

  Poseidon? wondered Everard. This far inland? … Oh, yes. As well as the sea, he’s god of horses and earthquakes, and this is a country of both.

  Toward evening, he figured Chandrakumar would be back. First he stilled hunger at a vendor’s brazier, with lentils and onions dished into a folded chapatti. Tomatoes, green pepper, and a roast ear of corn on the side were for the future. He would have liked coffee, too, but must settle for diluted sour wine. Another need he took care of in an alley that happened to be unoccupied. That amenity of civilization, the French pissoir, stood equally far uptime, and all too briefly.

  The sun was under the ramparts and streets were cooling off in shadow when he reached the vihara. This time the monk led him to a room inside. Rather, it was a cell, tiny, windowless, a thin curtain across the doorway for privacy. A clay lamp on a shelf gave barely enough flickery, odorous light for Everard to pick his way over a floor whose sole furniture was a straw tick and a bit of rug on which a man sat cross-legged.

  Eyeballs gleamed through murk as Chandrakumar looked up. He was small, thin, chocolate-skinned, with the delicate features and full lips of a Hindu—born in the late nineteenth century, Everard knew, a university graduate whose thesis on Indo-Bactrian society had led to the Patrol seeking him out with an offer to conduct his further studies in person. Here his garb was a white dhoti, his hair hung long, and he was holding near his mouth an object that Everard deduced was not really an amulet.

  “Rejoice,” he said uncertainly.

  Everard returned the greeting in the same Greek. “Rejoice.” The monk’s footfalls dwindled away. Everard spoke softly, in Temporal: “Can we talk without anybody trying to listen?”

  “You are an agent?” The question trembled. Chandrakumar m
ade to rise. Everard waved him back and lowered his own bulk to the clay.

  “Correct,” he said. “Things are getting urgent.”

  “I should hope so.” Chandrakumar had recovered equilibrium. Though he was a researcher, not a constable, field specialists too must needs be tough and quick-witted. His voice held an edge. “I have spent this past year wondering when somebody would arrive. We are now at the very crisis point.” Pause. “Are we not?” A spectacular episode in history was not necessarily one on which the whole future hinged.

  Everard gestured at the disc on its chain. “Best turn that off. We don’t want to risk our conversation falling into the wrong hands.” It doubtless contained a molecular-level recorder, into which Chandrakumar had been whispering notes on this day’s observations. His communicator and other, similarly disguised equipment were stowed somewhere else.

  When the medallion dangled loose, Everard proceeded: “I’m passing for Meander, an Illyrian soldier of fortune. What I am is Specialist Jack Holbrook, born 1975, Toronto.” On a mission as damnable as his, you didn’t tell even an ally more than he had to know. Everard shook hands, the polite thing for men of their natal backgrounds to do. “And you are … Benegal Dass?”

  “At home. Chandrakumar is the name I currently use here. You caused me a bit of trouble about that, you know. Before, I was ‘Rajneesh.’ Wasn’t reasonable he should pop up so soon after he left for home, so I had to concoct a jolly good kinship story to explain why I look just like him.”

  They had slipped into English, almost unconsciously, a breath of the commonplace in this darkness. Perhaps for the same reason, they did not go immediately to the point.

  “I was surprised to learn you hadn’t meant to be present,” Everard said. “Famous siege. You could fill in all the lacunae and correct the errors in Polybius, and whatever other fragments of chronicle will survive.”

  Chandrakumar spread his palms. “Given my limited resources and finite lifespan, I did not care to squander any of it on a war. Bloodshed, waste, misery, and after two years, what result? Antiochus can’t take the city and doesn’t wish or dare to stay bogged down before it any longer. He makes a peace that is sealed by betrothing a daughter of his to Prince Demetrius, and proceeds on south to India. The evolution of a society is what matters. Wars are nothing but its pathologies.”

  Everard refrained from expressing disagreement. Not that he liked wars; he had seen too many. By the same token, though, they must be as much a norm of history as blizzards were of Arctic weather; and all too often, their outcomes did make a difference.

  “Well, I’m sorry,” he said, “but we required an expert observer on the spot, and you’re it. Uh, as Chandrakumar, you’re a Buddhist pilgrim, am I right?”

  “Not precisely. The vihara does possess a few holy objects, but nothing extraordinary. However, Chandrakumar seeks enlightenment, and the letters that his cousin Rajneesh sent from the silk dealership where he worked in Bactra, those decided Chandrakumar on studying the wisdom of the West as well as the East. For example, Heraclitus was approximately contemporary with the Buddha, and some of his thought shows close parallels. This is a good place for an Indian to learn about the Hellenes.”

  Everard nodded. In one identity after another, normally separated by timespans of a length to preclude recognition, Benegal Dass spent years adding up into decades among the Bactrians. Each arrival and departure was by the slow, difficult, dangerous means of the era; a hopper, anything that might seem strange, would have destroyed his usefulness and run afoul of the Patrol’s prime directive. He had watched this city grow great, and he would watch it die. The end product of his labors was the story of it, deep and wide-ranging but never seen except by a handful of interested individuals within the corps or up in the far distant future. When he took furlough in his native country and century, he must lie to family and friends about what he did for a living. Surely no monk had ever accepted an existence harder, lonelier, or more devoted. I don’t have that kind of fortitude, Everard confessed.

  Chandrakumar laughed nervously. “Pardon me,” he said. “I delay matters. Long-windedness, the scholar’s disease. And of course I’m rather in suspense myself, don’t you know. What is afoot?” After a moment: “Well?”

  “I’m afraid you won’t like this,” Everard answered heavily. “You’ve been put to a lot of trouble for what’s just a sideshow, if it’s that much. But the main event is so important that every bit of information counts, including negative information.”

  It was hard to see whether Chandrakumar bit his lip. His voice went cold. “Oh, really? What is this main event, may I ask?”

  “Take too long to explain in detail. Not that I know a lot myself. I’m only acting as a liaison with you, a messenger boy. What the Patrol has to prevent is several years uptime. A sort of … equivalent of the Sassanian dynasty … rising and taking over Persia. Soon.”

  The little man stiffened where he sat. “What? Impossible!”

  Everard’s grin was skewed. “That’s what we have to make it. I repeat, I can’t say much. In intelligence work, operatives don’t get told anything they don’t need to know. But, roughly, as I understand it, the plot they’ve uncovered is for King Arsaces of Parthia to be overthrown by a usurper who denounces the peace treaty with Antiochus, attacks the Seleucid army when it’s on its way back from India, routs it and kills Antiochus himself.”

  “The consequences—” Chandrakumar susurrated.

  “Yeah. The Seleucid realm would very likely fall apart. It’s always on the brink of civil war. That should give the Romans a leg up in the eastern Mediterranean, unless Parthians eager to avenge the humiliation Antiochus handed them sweep east through the power vacuum, restoring the Persian Empire three and a half centuries before the Sassanians are scheduled to do so. What could come of that is anybody’s guess, but it won’t be the history you and I studied.”

  “This usurper … a time traveler?”

  Everard nodded. “We think so. Again, I’ve been told hardly anything. I get the impression the Patrol has clues to a small band of fanatics who’ve somehow obtained two or three vehicles and want to—I don’t know what. Lay a groundwork for Mohammed and the ayatollahs to take over the world? That’s probably farfetched; though the truth may be farther fetched yet. At any rate, an operation is under way to forestall them, without tearing up the continuum ourselves in the process.”

  “Caution, yes…. Of course I am ready to do whatever I can. Your role, sir?”

  “Well, as I told you, I’m a field researcher too, though my area is military, Hellenistic warfare to be exact. I’d intended to observe this siege anyway. It is more interesting than you care to admit. The Patrol ordered me to change my plans slightly, same as it did you. I was to come into town, contact you, and take whatever relevant information you’ve gathered during this past year. Tomorrow I’ll leave, make my way to the invaders, and en-list with them. I’m too big for a cavalryman on present-day horses, but the Syrians make heavy use of infantry still—the good old Macedonian phalanx—and a pikeman my size will be welcome. In due course a Patrolman will contact me and I’ll pass your data on. After the peace with Euthydemus, I’ll accompany the Syrian army to India and then back west. A Patrol agent will have slipped me an energy weapon, and I’ll try to protect Antiochus’ life if things look desperate. Naturally, we hope it won’t come to that. We hope the usurpation can be smoothly aborted, and all I need do is collect details about how the Syrians manage a campaign.”

  “I see.” Everard heard the reluctance. Waging war against Chandrakumar’s beloved Bactrians? However, he could accept a necessity and inquire: “But I say, why so roundabout? This kingdom doesn’t seem involved. In any case, someone could simply arrive on a hopper in a discreet location and get in touch with me.”

  “Precaution. The enemy may have a watchman here, who’d probably be able to detect an arrival or departure nearby. We don’t want to risk alerting anybody like that. If they don’t know we’re a
ware of their existence, we can more handily bag thern. And Bactria does have its role in history. While it exists as a military power, it helps keep the Parthians more cautious than they might otherwise be.” That much, at least, is true. Now for more mendacity. “Maybe, as part of the plot, the gang wants to undermine Bactria somehow. Or maybe not—they can only be a few individuals—but we’re coppering every bet we can. Before you left base, you were told to keep an eye out for any visitors who seemed peculiar. I’m here to get that information from you.”

  “I see,” Chandrakumar repeated, but in friendly wise, now eager to help. The vision Everard presented terrified him, as it certainly should. He stayed calm, though, tugged his chin, stared into the dimness around them. “Hard to tell. This city is such a potpourri of races. I’d be sorry if I cause the corps to waste effort on quite harmless persons.”

  “Never mind. Tell me everything. They’ll evaluate it uptime.”

  “If you could give me some notion—”

  “For openers: who stopped by this house, paid his respects, and in the course of chitchat found out what’s been going on—whether any other oddball strangers were in town, for instance?”

  “Several, off and on. An establishment like this is a sort of verbal bulletin board, you know, and not only for Buddhists.”

  Right. That’s why the Patrol quietly helped found it, half a century ago. In medieval Europe we do the same for certain monasteries. “Go on. Get specific. Please.”

  “Well, as per instructions, I have maintained myself here, not moved to more comfortable quarters, so I have been in a position to pay heed. Generally, I would call them unsuspicious, those who dropped in. I do wish you could indicate a little better what you have in mind.”