Most of the time, they would have set fires all through the fields around Polisso. Not much point to that today, though, because it had rained the day before. The horsemen trampled long swaths through the green, growing wheat, then rode back the way they'd come.
Several of the wagons rumbled past the house where Jeremy and Amanda were living. Some of the animals that pulled them had been hurt. Some of the men who drove them had been hurt, too.
Jeremy gulped at the sight of bandages strained- soaked-with blood. He gulped even more at the sight of flesh punctured by bullets or split by swords. Some of the wounds had been roughly stitched up in the field. The drivers and guards who'd been hurt moaned or wailed or screamed.
In Los Angeles in the home timeline, Jeremy saw gore at the movies or on TV or in video games. He'd hardly ever run into the real thing himself. Oh, he'd gone past a restaurant once not long after a shooting, and he'd seen a few traffic accidents where people got hurt. But he'd never seen so many men other men had hurt on purpose before. And he'd never had the feeling, This could happen to me. He did now.
Doctors ran toward the wounded drivers and guards. They might do a little good. They had long-handled probes for digging out bullets. They could sew up sword-cuts and set broken bones. But all they had to fight pain while they worked was opium, which wasn't nearly enough. And all they had to fight infection was wine.
Injured men screamed louder when the doctors splashed it on their wounds. Jeremy would have screamed, too. Rubbing alcohol stung like the devil when you put it on a little scrape. Splashing something full of alcohol on a gaping cut… Just the idea made him shudder.
Wine wasn't that good a disinfectant-better than nothing, but not great. And there was more filth in this world than in the home timeline-far more. Some of those wounds would fester. When they did, there was nothing to do but drain them and hope for the best. A lot of the time, that wouldn't be enough, either. Some men would die of fever. No one in this alternate could do a thing about it.
About half an hour after the wagons came into Polisso, someone knocked on the front door. Jeremy opened it. Waiting in the street was a lean, dark man in a tunic of good wool but without too much embroidered ornament. After a second or two, Jeremy recognized him. “Good day, sir,” he said politely. “You're Lucio Claudio, aren't you?”
“Called Fusco. Yes, that is correct.” Lucio Claudio nodded. He had the air of somebody who liked to dot every i and cross every t. “I have the honor to act as man of affairs for Gaio Fulvio, called Magno.”
“Yes, I know. Won't you come in?” Jeremy stepped inside. “We can sit in the courtyard, if you like. Would you care for some wine and honey cakes?”
“Thank you. That would be pleasant.” By the frown ironed onto Lucio Claudio's face, he had trouble finding anything pleasant. But he was being polite, too.
Jeremy sat him down on a bench in the courtyard. He- politely-admired the flowers. Jeremy went into the kitchen to get wine and cakes for the two of them. While he was there, Amanda came in and hissed, “What's he want?“
“Don't know yet,” Jeremy answered. “He hasn't said.”
His sister looked daggers in the direction of Lucio Claudio. “He's a snoop.”
“Well, who here isn't?” Jeremy said. “He's Gaio Fulvio's man, too, and Gaio Fulvio is a big wheel in this town. People say he's got Sesto Capurnio in his back pocket. I wouldn't be surprised. I can't just ignore his man of affairs.“
“Don't trust him,” Amanda said fiercely.
“I don't intend to.” Jeremy picked up the tray. “No matter what you think, I'm not dumb.”
“Don't be, that's all.” Amanda scowled at him.
He carried the refreshments out to Lucio Claudio. Gaio Fulvio's man of affairs praised the cakes-once more, politely. He spilled out a small libation for the gods and muttered a prayer before he drank any wine. He waited for Jeremy to do the same. Jeremy did, but in place of the prayer said only, “To the spirit of the Emperor.”
“You are a Christian?” the local asked, frowning.
“Yes, we're Imperial Christians,” Jeremy answered.
“It is permitted,” Lucio Claudio admitted. His face said it wouldn't be if he had anything to do with the way things worked. He took another sip of wine, then gave a grudging nod. “Not bad.”
“Glad you like it,” Jeremy said, even if the man of affairs hadn't gone that far. “I hope your principal is pleased with his hour-reckoner?”
“He is.” Again, Lucio Claudio sounded as if he was admitting something he would rather not have. “He is,” he repeated, “though he does still wonder how you few merchants are the only ones who sell such marvelous devices.”
“Hour-reckoners are not the only things we sell, you know,” Jeremy said proudly. “We have fine razors, too, and mirrors of wonderful quality, and knives with sharp blades and many attached tools.”
Amanda had told him to be careful. He'd said he would, but he hadn't. He'd started bragging instead. And that turned out not to be such a good idea just then. He couldn't even blame the wine. He'd had only a sip.
Lucio Claudio smiled. It was the sort of smile an evil banker in a bad movie might have given when he foreclosed on a widow's mortgage. “Yes, I do know about these things,” he said. “So does Sesto Capurnio.”
Uh-oh, Jeremy thought, too late. He did his best to cover up: “I'm sure he hasn't got any complaints about quality or value.”
“No.” Lucio Claudio didn't like admitting that, either. But the shark's-teeth smile didn't slip from his face. “Because of the many, ah, unusual matters pertaining to your family, he now requests and requires an official report on your activities.”
What Jeremy thought this time wasn't, Uh-oh. It was, Damn! An official report meant imperial bureaucrats were going to take a long, close look at the traders from Crosstime Traffic. That was the last thing he wanted. Well, no. He shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to be cut off from the home timeline. He had that. Now he had this, too. Talk about adding insult to injury…
Maybe he could stall if he couldn't get out of it. He said, “Regulations state that an official report must be requested in writing.”
“So they do. And why am I not surprised that you know those regulations very well?” Lucio Claudio had a nasty sarcastic streak. He also looked to be enjoying himself. From his belt pouch he pulled a rolled-up sheet of papyrus sealed with a ribbon and a big, blobby red wax seal. He aimed it at Jeremy as if it were a pistol. “Here.”
“Thank you,” Jeremy said, meaning anything but. He broke the seal and unrolled the papyrus. It was what the local had said it was. In the most complicated classical Latin at his command, Sesto Capurnio-or more likely his secretary- ordered an official report on the deeds and practices of the Soltero family. Jeremy looked at when the report was due, as if it were one for school.
Three weeks. He sighed. It could have been worse. They could have wanted it day after tomorrow. If they were really suspicious, they would have wanted it day after tomorrow. Of course, if they were really suspicious, they would have torn the house apart for answers.
But answers they wanted, even if they were willing-for now-to ask instead of tear. The more Jeremy looked at the written request, the less happy he got. The bureaucrats of Agrippan Rome took pride in their attention to detail. They'd outdone themselves here. They wanted to know how every item Crosstime Traffic traders sold was made. If that information wasn't available, they wanted to know where the traders got each one. They wanted to know how much the traders paid for each. They wanted to find out about profit margins. They were curious about why the traders always wanted grain, not cash.
“This is a mistake.” Jeremy pointed to that question. “We take silver. Ask Livia Plurabella if you don't believe me.”
“Let me see.” Lucio Claudio examined the paragraph. He scratched his chin. “Do you claim the error makes the official request invalid?”
“I could,” Jeremy said. Gaio Fulvio's man had to kn
ow as much, too. Any mistake on an official document invalidated it. That could be true even in the home timeline. Here, it was as much an article of faith as the cult of the Emperor.
“If you do, I will return with a revised request,” Lucio
Claudio said. “I do not know when I will return. I do know the date on which we want your official report will not change- unless it moves up.”
The Romans also wanted to know where Jeremy and Amanda's folks had gone. He'd already explained that to Sesto Capurnio. If they were still asking, the city prefect didn't much like what he'd heard. At least he wasn't sending men to dig up the basement and see if Mom and Dad's bodies were there. That was something-a very small something.
“I won't make the claim,” Jeremy said. Lucio Claudio looked smug. Jeremy added, “I am going to remind you there's a war on, though. If King Kuzmickas and the Lietuvans lay siege to Polisso, I don't know if I can get the official report in on time. Flying cannonballs make it hard to write.” He didn't want Lucio Claudio thinking himself the only one who could be sarcastic.
“I suggest you get to work on the report now, then.” Lucio Claudio sounded just like a teacher when a student complained about too much work. “The sooner you start, the sooner you'll finish.”
Thanks a lot, Jeremy thought. He almost said that out loud. Just in time, he swallowed it instead. He already had enough problems here. Why make things worse by offending Lucio Claudio? Sitting there eating honey cakes and sipping wine with him made the next half hour the most uncomfortable time Jeremy had ever spent. It wasn't a year before the local finally left. It only seemed that way.
Amanda looked up from the official request to her brother. She said, “Well, I know the best thing we can hope for.”
“What? The Lietuvans blow up Polisso?” he asked.
“No. Mom and Dad get back before we have to give the prefect the report.”
“Oh.” Jeremy thought about that. He nodded, but not as if his heart was in it. “We can hope, yeah, but I just don't know. Something's got really messed up in the home timeline. If it hadn't, we wouldn't have been stuck here by ourselves so long already.”
It wasn't that he was wrong. He was right. He was, in fact, much too right. Amanda had done her best not to think about why no one had sent them any messages, why no transposition chamber had shown up in the subbasement-or, for that matter, in the cave a few kilometers away.
If the Lietuvans besieged Polisso, that cave wouldn't do the Crosstime Traffic people much good. They'd be on the outside looking in. Could they get through a whole army? Maybe, but Amanda didn't see how.
She had to look at staying here not just for a summer with her folks, but forever. Forever. She couldn't imagine a scarier word. Only one thing kept her from breaking down and crying in something as close to panic as made no difference. She didn't want Jeremy laughing at her for going to pieces like a girl.
It never occurred to her to wonder how close Jeremy was to going to pieces himself.
“Sooner or later, they're bound to come after us,” he said. Was he talking to convince her, or to convince himself? “They can't just leave us here.” If he'd stopped there, it would have been a pretty good pep talk. But he went on, “I wish I knew what happened at the other end.”
“Maybe…” Amanda let her voice trail away.
“Maybe what?” Jeremy asked.
Amanda said the worst thing she could think of: “Maybe somebody… found Crosstime Traffic.”
People from the home timeline had only been traveling to the alternates for about fifty years. They hadn't discovered all of them. The math said they probably couldn't discover all of them. They hadn't even scratched the surface of the infinite swarm of alternates that were out there. They sure hadn't discovered anyone else who could go from one timeline to another.
But just because they hadn't discovered anyone like that didn't mean there wasn't anyone. In a timeline that had branched off from theirs long, long ago, other people might have figured out how to go crosstime five hundred years ago, or five thousand. They might have their own trading zone-or their own crosstime empire. And if they did, and if they noticed newcomers… they might not be friendly. They might not be friendly at all. That could be very bad news indeed.
“Nice, cheerful thought, all right,” Jeremy said. “But I don't believe it. Why now? Why not before?”
“I don't know,” Amanda said. “But why not now? If you've got a good reason, I'd love to hear it.”
She really hoped her brother would come up with something. Jeremy was smart. And he was a year older. Most of the time, that didn't matter. Every once in a while, it did. If he knew why crosstime travelers from a faraway alternate couldn't have found the home timeline, that would have been wonderful.
But he just said, “It doesn't seem likely, that's all.” “Getting stuck here doesn't seem likely, either!” Amanda burst out. “But we are! Why?”
“Something went wrong somewhere-that's got to be it,” Jeremy said, which was true but wasn't reassuring. “It doesn't mean the home timeline's been invaded by one where Alexander the Great discovered transposition chambers.”
“It could mean that. You know it could,” Amanda said.
“It could mean all kinds of things. Bombs. Earthquakes. Who knows what?“ Jeremy was trying very hard to be reasonable. ”Why come up with something that's never happened before and probably isn't happening now?“
“Because I never got stuck in an alternate before,” Amanda blazed. The more reasonable Jeremy tried to be, the less reasonable she wanted to be.
He went right on trying: “It has to be something natural, something possible, for heaven's sake.“
“What's so impossible about somebody else discovering crosstime travel?” Amanda asked. “We did ourselves, and we worry about it on some of the timelines that aren't far from ours. Why not somebody else, a long time ago?”
“Well, if somebody else did do it, they're liable to come up from the subbasement and wipe us out in the next twenty minutes,” Jeremy said. “What are we going to do about that?”
Amanda hadn't the faintest idea. She hadn't thought she could feel any worse than she did already. Now she discovered she was wrong. “Thanks a lot,” she told her brother. “You just gave me something brand new to worry about.”
He shook his head. “Nope. No point worrying about that, because we can't do anything about it. What we can do is worry about this lousy official report, and about selling as much as we can, and about doing whatever we can to make sure the Lietuvans don't take Polisso. Getting captured and sold into slavery can ruin your whole day.“
“So can getting killed,” Amanda pointed out. “That, too,” Jeremy said.
He was so grave, so earnest, so serious, that Amanda started to laugh. She couldn't help it. When Jeremy was being reasonable, she didn't want to think. When he was being serious, she wanted to act like a clown. What went through her mind was, Anybody would think he's my big brother, or something.
“I don't know what else we can do except wait and hope and keep trying our best as long as we're stuck here,” he said now.
That was what she'd been thinking, too. She hadn't liked the idea. It was the best they could manage. No doubt of that. It still seemed grim. Or it had seemed grim, till he said it. Then, all of a sudden, it was the funniest thing in the world. That made no sense at all, which didn't stop it from being true. She giggled.
Jeremy gave her an odd look. “You're weird,” he said.
“You only just noticed?” Amanda laughed harder than ever. It was probably no more than reaction to too much stress carried for too long. It felt awfully good anyhow.
Solemn as usual, Jeremy shook his head again. “No, I'd suspected it for a while now.”
“Really? What gave you the clue, Sherlock?” I'm punchy, Amanda thought. Well, who could blame me? I've earned the right.
The market square was a busy place these days. Everybody who lived in Polisso was trying to get hold of enoug
h food to last out a siege. The soldiers who'd come to reinforce the garrison were laying in food, too. They all reminded Jeremy of squirrels gathering nuts for the winter. But that was important business for the squirrels, and this was important business for the locals.
If you had grain to sell, you could pretty much name your price. Somebody would pay it. Jeremy knew how many modii of wheat were stored under the house. He didn't want to sell them, though, even if he could make a lot of silver on the deal. The local authorities already wondered about Amanda and him. They would ask why those sacks of wheat hadn't left the city, the way they thought the grain had. They would accuse him of profiteering if he sold now.
A soldier was arguing with a farmer. “You should take less,” he said.
“How come?” the farmer said. “When am I going to get another chance to make this kind of money?”
“But you're cheating me,” the soldier said.
“By the gods, I'm not,” the farmer answered. He was a big, burly man, almost as tall as Jeremy and half again as wide through the shoulders. Next to him, the soldier was a skinny, yappy little terrier. The farmer went on, “If you don't want to pay what I ask, you don't have to. I'll find other customers.”
“Not if the city prefect or the commandant sets a top price,” the soldier said. “They can do that. All they have to do is declare danger of siege. Everybody knows that's real. Then fixing prices is as legal as buying and selling slaves.”
“Oh, yes. It's legal. But prefects don't try it very often,” the farmer said. “And do you know why? Because when they set a top price, they always set it too cursed low. Then nobody wants to sell any grain. It just disappears from the market, and people start going hungry.“
“You- You-” The soldier looked as if he couldn't find anything bad enough to call the farmer. “To the crows with you!” he snarled at last, and stalked off. Disgust showed in every line of his body.
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