Weaver

by Stephen Baxter

  ‘Hmm. Wasn’t Constantine responsible for the establishment of Christianity as the Roman state religion?’

  ‘He was indeed. You can see there’s a tenuous case to be made that the Nectovelin document was authored by O’Malley, in order to deflect Constantine’s establishment of the Church. He even sent it back to 4BC, the year Christ was born, to establish the link with Christianity.’

  ‘But O’Malley is dead. And if there was ever a record of any material he tried to transmit to the past, that’s lost too. We’ve had agents go over everything O’Malley left behind at Princeton. Like all Nazis, Julia Fiveash is nothing if not thorough ...’ Mackie snapped his fingers. ‘But then there’s Kamen. If Rory used him he ought to know what was sent.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mary said. ‘Precisely. Ben knew what had been crammed into his head. And it was following up that that led him to Geoffrey Cotesford’s research.’

  ‘Well, well. So we’ve another reason to get hold of this young man, if we can.’

  ‘I do wish we had a more complete copy of the Prophecy,’ Mary said. ‘There could be more internal evidence. For instance, an acrostic.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A feature that appealed to classical and medieval scholars. You take the first letter of each line, or the last maybe, and put them together to make a new word or phrase. But this document isn’t nearly complete enough to tell...’

  He fingered the papers. So what else did your chum Geoffrey dig up?’

  ‘A lot of material. I’m still exploring it. Not all of it may be relevant. But I think this is.’ She produced another document, another prophecy. It was in Old English, with a modern translation. It was called the Menologium of Isolde. ‘It’s reasonably complete.’

  Mackie read a bit.

  These the Great Years /of the Comet of God

  Whose awe and beauty / in the roof of the world

  Lights step by step the / road to empire ...

  ‘Who was Isolde?’

  ‘Apparently a relation of Nectovelin, generations later. The family link may be significant - an inherited susceptibility.’

  ‘And what is a Menologium?’

  ‘A kind of medieval calendar. According to Geoffrey this is another product of Birdoswald, this one produced some time towards the end of the Roman period, the early fifth century. You can see it is organised around the return of a comet to the skies, every seventy or eighty years. It traces through events fated to occur in these years - I’ve made guesses about some of them. And, it’s a little tricky, but you can reconstruct the dates by adding up these “months of the Great Years. And they match to the events they describe - the Vikings sacking Lindisfarne, a terrible fire in Rome.’ She paused for effect. ‘The ninth verse seems to relate to the year 1066.’

  He was startled, and he laughed. ‘1066? Harold and the Normans, and all of that? Well, you’ve come on an appropriate day to talk about it, haven’t you? And - wait a minute - didn’t a comet turn up in that year and frighten everybody to death?’

  ‘So it did. It was Halley’s comet. It returns on average every seventy-six years. But the intervals differ a bit each time.’

  ‘Should think they would,’ he muttered. ‘Deflections by the planets’ gravity and so forth ...’ He ran his finger down the text of the Menologium. ‘Don’t tell me. The dates of these verses map onto what the astronomers say about Halley’s returns.’

  ‘As far as I can tell. But if the text did originate in the fifth century - look, Halley’s motion is well understood now, but it wasn’t in 1066, or any time earlier. A fifth-century author couldn’t have known these dates.’

  ‘Well, well, well. And you think this has something to do with our German chums?’

  ‘Look at the Epilogue.’

  He glanced down and read:

  Across ocean to east / and ocean to west

  Men of new Rome sail / from the womb of the boar.

  Empire of Aryans / blood pure from the north.

  New world of the strong / a ten-thousand year rule.

  ‘Well, bugger me sideways.’

  ‘That crucial word “Aryan - it comes from a bit of Latin in with the Old English, ”Imperium Aryanes ... I’m still working on the interpretation of the rest of it, but—’

  ‘So the suggestion this time is that some Nazi has sent this back - perhaps to deflect the events of 1066? - in order, somehow, to establish an Aryan empire, a thousand years earlier.’

  ‘Something like that.’ She didn’t feel confident enough to tell him of Josef Trojan’s boasting at Battle of putting right the defeat of Harold Godwineson. ‘The suggestion is that the English King Harold should have made peace with the Danish invaders, and cooperated with them to drive out the Normans. If he had, all subsequent history might have been different. But he didn’t take the advice, evidently.’

  ‘Well, it’s completely bonkers. But Himmler would love it, wouldn’t he?’ Mackie laughed, and laced his fingers behind his head and lay back in his chair. ‘Funny - the second time we’ve come across evidence that somebody is tampering with history seems a lot less startling than the first, doesn’t it? The mind can get used to anything, I suppose. Well, we’re getting somewhere, aren’t we, Mary? The question is what we do about it. I believe the objective is clear: we get into Richborough, we find out what these beggars are up to, disrupt it if we can - and we bring Ben Kamen out.’

  Mary said, ‘You keep saying “we”.’

  He smiled. ‘You spotted that. I think I’m having a bit of a brain wave. Look here, Mary, suddenly you’re a jolly useful asset. The fact is, a citizen of a neutral country has a much better chance of passing through the Winston Line, and of travelling reasonably freely once he or she is in the protectorate itself. And we do believe Kamen was held in the same camp as your son, at Richborough. So you have a reason to go to that part of the world, don’t you?’

  Mary tried to imagine such a journey, coming so close to Gary a full year after seeing him, and all for a lie.

  ‘But even if you do make it to Richborough, you’ll need some reason to get close to Fiveash and Trojan and their Ahnenerbe loonies. You say you’ve met them, but you’re a bit notorious among the Nazis because of your piece on the Peter’s Well incident. We need something for you to bluff your way in with. Hmm. I expect we’ll come up with something.’ He glanced at the Roman spear on the wall behind him. ‘We have some thinking to do. Come! Shall we walk again?’

  She stood. ‘A restless type, aren’t you?’

  ‘Spent too long on ships to waste the opportunity to stretch my legs ... Do bring your papers with you.’

  XIII

  They walked across the heart of the Roman camp, heading south. The sun had climbed, but there was scattered cloud around and a bit of dampness in the air. It felt autumnal, in that lovely English word. As they walked he glanced over her papers and scribbled with a stub of pencil on a notepad.

  At the camp’s southern perimeter the land fell away spectacularly to reveal a river wending through its valley, and a folded landscape beyond. ‘On a good day you can make out the hills of the Lake District,’ Mackie said. ‘Bit too murky today. Autumn mist and whatnot.’

  ‘I wonder if the Germans will ever come this far, if you will have to build pillboxes and barbed wire fences into the line of Hadrian’s Wall.’

  ‘Let’s hope not, but I suppose it’s a possibility. Or on the other hand we might just push them back into the sea where they came from.’

  ‘History really is fragile, isn’t it? So many possibilities for the future open out from this very moment, from the position of the war.’

  ‘Well, that’s true,’ he said. ‘But I can tell you that makes it tricky for us. Everything is poised. You Americans are supporting us, but you’re not yet in the war, despite Churchill’s best efforts to persuade you. And there is a real risk of defeat, you know. History doesn’t seem to be on our side. I mean, if you look at the global picture, you have these dreadful totalitarian empires, the G
erman and Japanese and Italian, just gobbling up the world. It’s quite possible that if Hitler ever did plant a swastika on the Wall, it would be a long time before we could get rid of him. It took centuries for the Christians to kick the Moors out of Spain, didn’t it? Rudolf Hess is in York, you know, Hitler’s deputy, negotiating away about an armistice. There are many in the British establishment who want to listen to him - and many more, believe me, who sympathise with Hitler’s global war aims, who fear and loathe Bolshevism more even than the Nazis.’

  ‘And all this shapes your thinking about our options.’

  ‘Quite. We must avoid provoking the military government in the protectorate overmuch; we may after all choose to sign that armistice. And on the other hand we have to try to keep the Americans onside. It’s dashed tricky all round. We must be discreet. No parties must be overly alarmed. It will have to be a covert operation, put down to a random act by the auxiliaries, perhaps. We may even be disowned by the government if we get caught.’ Even as he spoke he was still doodling on his pad. ‘But look, as I say, this is all speculative unless I can get backing from my highers-up, and for that we need some clear proof that this material came from the present - proof that we aren’t the subject of some hoax, or misunderstanding. I have to tell you that not all the experts I’ve consulted are finding in our favour.’ He dug a scrap of paper out of his pocket. ‘Thought you might like to see this.’

  It was a letter written in a neat but wavering hand. She read, ‘Like Mr Dunne, I fear you have taken my playful description of duration as a dimension of space far too seriously...’

  ‘I did hope the old boy would be a bit more supportive; he still has an audience in the government.’ His eyes were unfocused, his thoughts chasing.

  Mary was mystified. ‘Who?’

  Mackie came back to himself. ‘Oh! Sorry. H.G. Wells. Wrote to him; thought he was worth a try. What we need is proof, just a grain of it.’

  ‘What is it you’re scribbling?’

  ‘I’m just intrigued by what you said about acrostics. This Menologium is a lot more complete than the Nectovelin prophecy, and I wondered if I could make something of it.’

  ‘I tried that. Actually it works with the epilogue.’ She took a pencil and wrote down:

  AMEN

  ‘Why, so it does.’ He smiled.

  ‘But I can’t make sense of the rest of it.’

  ‘Let’s have another crack. I rather enjoy ciphers and such. Got me into Bletchley for my sins.’ Still walking, he wrote down the leading letters of the verses, omitting the prologue and epilogue:

  TEIN TNSN TTEN TINN TGON TDEN TLKN TAMN TENT

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Told you.’

  ‘Yes, but look - there’s some redundancy here.’

  ‘Redundancy?’

  ‘A coder’s term. Repeated letters. Each verse, save the last, begins and ends with the same letters, T and N. If you were encrypting this lot for transmission you’d put in some kind of summary cipher and cross the lot out. Suppose I try that.’ He took an eraser and went through the line, removing the first and last letters each time:

  EI NS TE IN GO DE LK AM EN

  Mary considered this. ‘Is that another AMEN at the end?’

  ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Look - if you group the letters differently - ‘ He wrote out the line again.

  EINSTEIN GODEL KAMEN

  ‘Ben Kamen,’ she said ‘Oh my.’

  ‘He’s sent us a message,’ Mackie said. ‘A message through history. Clever boy, clever boy indeed. This will do the trick, I think. I must call Lindemann.’ He turned on his heel and trotted back towards the farmhouse.

  She followed more slowly.

  She admired Mackie’s pragmatism, his determination to deal with this extraordinary problem, his ability to absorb this astounding new development and act on it decisively. But she felt only profound shock at this latest discovery. Could it really be true that this message from Ben Kamen had been waiting, embedded in a document from the fifth century, written down in whatever original had existed and then transcribed into copy after copy - waiting for her to detect it, on this fall day in England?

  She shivered, and hurried after Mackie, not wanting to be alone.

  XIV

  21 October

  The convoy bowled along the Hastings road.

  Heinz Kieser was driving the staff car. He was relaxed, the top buttons of his uniform open, but Ernst thought he was pushing up too close to the truck ahead of them. And he insisted on having the top down, although the day was blustery and overcast. Viv had her scarf tied tightly over her head, to try to keep her hair from blowing all over the place.

  Beside his sister in the back seat, Alfie leaned forward. ‘Can’t this old bucket go any faster, Ernst?’

  Heinz snapped at him, ‘You shut your mouth. And speak respectfully to the officer.’

  Alfie flinched back, shocked. He looked small and very young in his Jugend uniform. But he said bravely enough, ‘He’s not an officer. He’s an obergefreiter, and so are you.’

  Heinz, barely understanding, scowled at Ernst. ‘What? ... Just shut up, boy, or—’

  Ernst said, ‘Enough. Sit quiet, Alfie.’

  ‘Yes, Ernst.’

  Heinz shook his head, and said in German, ‘Wretched little kid.’

  ‘There’s no need to speak to them like that, Heinz. Not these two.’

  ‘Are you joking? We’re an occupying army, not kindergarten teachers!’

  ‘Look, Alfie has joined the Jugend and Vivien is learning the language, and they’ve both been given a Tuesday off school for Trafalgar Day. I mean, what more can you ask of them? We’re building an empire here. We must win the hearts of the next generation. And the way to do that isn’t by bullying kids.’

  ‘“Win the hearts.”’ Heinz laughed. ‘You do talk some shit, Ernst.’ He grinned and glanced at Viv in his mirror. ‘You know the talk is still that you’re giving that little sweetie lessons in more than German. Oh, come on, Ernst, you must see how it looks. All the lads are saying it.’

  ‘All the lads are wrong, then, aren’t they?’

  ‘Look, we all make this sort of arrangement. I, for example, have an agreement with a lady in Rye. Her husband is a “conchy, as the English say, a conscientious objector. He ended up in prison, up in London, and that’s where he still is as far as my friend knows. Let’s call her ”Mrs X.’

  ‘Let’s!’

  ‘Now she has a bad time of it. The English being the English, they despise her for her husband’s cowardice far more than they despise us. So they won’t help her in all the small give-and-take ways that make life bearable. Not just the black market - nobody will dig her potatoes for her in return for her baking a cake, that sort of thing. And she has a kid, a boy of about ten. Hungry all the time! So it’s hard for her.’

  Ernst had heard something of this; not all the barracks gossip was about him. ‘So you exploit her.’

  ‘No, not at all. I help her out with the ration. Sometimes a bit of chocolate for the kid, that sort of thing. I tell the lads to go easy when they come requisitioning from her little ploughed-up garden.’

  ‘And in return?’

  He grinned. ‘Let me tell you about Mrs X. She’s older than us, Ernst. Late thirties. But she’s a strong-looking woman, tall, with a rangy frame. Dark hair, dark eyes. A certain quality, a sad autumnal beauty. And deep, heavy breasts.’ He took his hands off the wheel to mime this.