They rode forth upon a holiday, soon after his arrival. He had barely gotten moved into his two-room castle apartment, and as yet had few possessions. She presented him with a bearskin rug and a bottle of Glenlivet from downtime. He wasn’t sure if it was mere cordiality, like that which some others showed, or what. Her manner baffled him more than her dialect. A lusty kiss, within five minutes of first sight--then casual cheerfulness, and she sat by a different man practically every mess--But Havig found too much else to occupy his mind, those early days.
The proffered concubine was not among them. He didn’t like the idea of a woman being ordered to his couch. This was an extra reason to welcome Leonce’s invitation to a picnic, when they got their regular day off.
Bandits had been thoroughly suppressed in the vicinity, and mounted patrols assured they would not slip back. It was safe to go out unescorted. The pair carried pistols only as a badge which none but their kind were allowed.
Leonce chose the route, several miles through fields dreamy beneath the morning sun, until a trail left the road for a timber lot big enough to gladden Havig with memories of Morgan Woods. A scent of new-cut hay yielded to odors of leaf and humus. It was warm, but a breeze ruffled foliage, stroked the skin, made sun-flecks dance in shadow. Squirrels streaked and chattered over branches. Hoofs beat slowly, muscles moved at leisure between human thighs.
On the way she had eagerly questioned him. He was glad to oblige, within the broad circle drawn by discretion. What normal man does not like to tell an attractive woman about himself? Especially when to her his background is fabulous! The language fence toppled. She had not been here long either, less than a year even if temporal trips were reckoned in. But she could speak his English fairly well by now when she wasn’t excited; and his talented ear began to pick up hers.
“From the High Years!” she breathed, leaned in her stirrups and squeezed his arm. Her hands bore calluses.
“Uh, what do you mean by that?” he asked. “Shortly before the Judgment?”
“Ay-yeh, when men reached for moon an’ stars an’-an’ ever’thing.” He realized that, despite her size and brashness, she was quite young. The tilted eyes shone upon him from beneath the ruddy hair, which today hung in pigtails tied with ribbons.
When we doomed ourselves to become our own executioners, he thought. But he didn’t want to croak about that. “You look as if you come from a hopeful period,” he said.
She made a moue, but at once grew pensive, cradled chin in fist and frowned at her horse’s ears, until: “Well, yes an’ no. Same’s for you, I reckon.”
“Won’t you explain? I’ve heard you’re from uptime of here, but I don’t know more.”
When she nodded, red waves of light ran over her mane. “‘Bout ‘nother hun’erd ‘n’ fifty year. Glacier Folk.”
After they entered the woods they could not ride abreast. Guiding, she led the way. He admired her shape from behind, and her grace in the saddle; and often she turned her head to flash him a grin while she talked.
Her homeland he identified as that high and beautiful country which he had known as Glacier and Waterton Parks and on across the Bitterroot Range. Today her ancestors were in its eastern part, having fled from Mong who conquered the plains for their own herds and ranches. Already they were hunters and trappers more than smallhold farmers, raiders of the lowland enemy, elsewhere traders who brought furs, hides, ores, slaves in exchange for foodstuffs and finished products. Not that they were united; feuds among families, clans, tribes would rage for generations.
But as their numbers and territory expanded, a measure of organization would evolve. Leonce tried to describe: “Look, you, I’m o’ the Ranyan kin, who belong in the Wahorn troop. A kin’s a. . . a gang o’ families who share the same blood. A troop meets four times a year, under its Sherf, who leads ‘em in killin’ cattle for Gawd an’ Oktai an’ the rest o’ what folk here-aroun’ call the Those. Then they talk about things, an’ judge quarrels, an’ maybe vote on laws-the grownups who could come, men an’ women both.” Merriment pealed. “Ha! So we per-ten’. Mainly it’s to meet, gossip, dicker, swap, gorge, booze, joke, show off. . . you know?”
“I think I do,” Havig answered. Some such institution was common in primitive societies.
“In later time,” she continued, “Sherfs, an’ whatever troop people can go ‘long, been meetin’ likewise once a year, in the Congers. The Jinral runs that show: first-born to the line o’ Injun Samal, in the Rover kin who belong to no troop. It’d be a blood-flood, that many diff’rent kin together, or would’ve been at the start, ‘cep’ it’s at Lake Pendoray, which is peace-holy.”
Havig nodded. The wild men became less wild as the advantages of law and order grew in their minds--no doubt after Injun Samal had knocked the heads of their chieftains together.
“When I left, things were perty quiet,” Leonce said. “The Mong were gone, an’ we traded of’ner’n we fought with the new lowlanders, who’re strong an’ rich. More ‘n’ more we were copyin’ ‘em.” She sighed. “A hun’erd years after me, I’ve learned, the Glacier Folk are in the Nor’wes’ Union. I don’t want to go back.”
“You seem to have had a rough life just the same.”
“Ay-yeh. Could’a been worse. An’ what the jabber, I got plen’y life to go. . . . Here we are.”
They tied their horses in a small meadow which fronted on a brook. Trees behind it and across the swirling, bubbling brown water stood fair against heaven; grass grew thick and soft, starred with late wildflowers. Leonce unpacked the lunch she had commanded to be prepared, a hearty enough collection of sandwiches and fruit that Havig doubted he could get around his whole share. Well, they wanted a rest and a drink first anyway. He joined her, shoulder to shoulder; they leaned back against a bole and poured wine into silver cups.
“Go on,” he reminded. “I want to hear about you.”
Her lashes fluttered. He observed the tiny freckles across cheekbones and nose. “Aw, nothin’ nex’ to you, Jack.”
“Please. I’m interested.”
She laughed for delight. Yet the tale she gave him, in matter-of-fact phrases that begged no sympathy, had its grimness.
In most respects a Glacier family, which turned such fangs to the outer world, was affectionate and close-knit. An earlier tradition of equality between the sexes had never died there, or else had revived in an age when any woman might at any moment have to hunt or do battle. Of course, some specialization existed. Thus men took the heaviest manual labor, women the work demanding most patience. Men always offered the sacrifices; but what Leonce called skuling was a prerogative of the female only, if she showed a bent for it. “Foreknowin’,” she explained. “Unravehin’ dreams. Readin’ an’ writin’. Healin’ some kinds o’ sickness. Drivin’ black fogs out o’ heads. Sendin’ ghosts back where they belong. That kind o’ job. An’ … m-m-m ... ways to trick the eye, fool the mind-you know?” But hers was no sleight-of-hand or ritual performance. No older self came to warn that child about keeping secrecy.
Her father was (would be) Wolfskin-Jem, a warrior of note. He died fighting off an attack whipped up by the Dafy kin, ostensibly to kill the “thing” which had been born to him, actually to end a long-smoldering feud. But his wife Onda escaped with their children, to find refuge among the Donnal troop. There followed years of guerrifia war and intrigue, before the Ranyans got allies and made their crushing comeback. Leonce, as a spy through time, played a key role. Inevitably, she became the new Skula.
Among friends she was regarded initially with respect, not dread. She learned and practiced the normal skills, the normal sports. But her gift marked her out, and awe grew around her as her ability did. From Onda she learned to be sparing of it. (Also, despite stoic fatalism, it hurt to foreknow the misfortunes of those she cared about.) Nevertheless, having such a Skula, Wahorn waxed mighty.
And Leonce, ever more, became lonely. Her siblings married and moved away, leaving her and
Onda by themselves in Jem’s old lodge. Both took lovers, as was the custom of unwedded women, but none of Leonce’s sought marriage, if only because she seemed to be barren, and gradually they stopped seeking her at all. Former playmates sought her for help and advice, never pleasure. Reaching after comradeship, she insisted on accompanying and fighting in raids on the lowlands. The kindred of those who fell shunned her and mumbled questions about why the Skula had allowed deaths that surely one of her powers could have forbidden--or did she want them--? Then Onda died.
Not much later, Eyrie scouts tracked down a far-flung rumor to the source, herself. She welcomed them with tears and jubilation. Wahorn would never see her again.
“My God.” Havig laid an arm around her. “You have had it cruel.”
“Aw, was plen’y good huntin’, skim’, feastin’, singin’, lots o’ jokin’ once I’d gotten here.” She had downed a quantity of wine. It made her breath fragrant as she nuzzled him. “I don’t sing bad. Wanna hear?”
“Sure.”
She bounded to fetch an instrument like a dwarf guitar from a saddlebag, and was back in a second. “I play a bone flute too, but can’t sing ‘long o’ that, hm? Here’s a song I made myself. I used to pass a lot o’ lone-time makin’ songs.”
A little to his astonishment, she was excellent. “-Ride w’ere strides a rattle o’ rocks, / Thunder ‘e sun down t’ dance on your lance-” What he could follow raised gooseflesh on him.
“Wow,” he said low when she had finished. “What else do you do?”
“Well, I can read an’ write, sort o’. Play chess. Rules changed some from home to here, but I take mos’ games anyhow. An’ Austin taught me poker; I win a lot. An’ I joke.”
“Hm?”
She grinned and leaned into his embrace. “Figgered we’d joke after lunch, Jack, honeybee,” she murmured. “But w’y not ‘fore an’ after? Hm-m-m-m?”
He discovered, with glee which turned to glory, that one more word would in the course of generations change its meaning.
“Yeah,” he told me. “We moved in together. It lasted till I left. Several months. Mostly they were fine. I really liked that girl.”
“Not loved, evidently,” I observed.
“N-n-no. I suppose not. Though what is love, anyway? doesn’t it have so infinitely many kinds and degrees and mutations and quantum jumps that--Never mind.” He stared into the night which filled the windows of the room where we sat. “We had our fights, roof-shattering quarrels she’d end by striking me and taunting me because I wouldn’t strike back, till she rushed out. Touchy as a fulminate cap, my Leonce. The reconciliations were every bit as wild.” He rubbed weary eyes. “Not suitable to my temperament, eh, Doc? And I’ll admit I was jealous, my jealousy brought on a lot of the trouble. She’d slept with many agents, and commoners for that matter, before I arrived, not to mention her highland lads earlier. She went on doing it too, not often, but if she particularly liked a man, this was her way to be kind and get closer to him. I had the same freedom, naturally, with other women, but ... I ... didn’t want it.”
“Why didn’t she get pregnant by an, uh, agent?”
His mouth twitched upward. “When she heard in the Eyrie what the situation was, she insisted on being taken to the last High Years, partly for a look around, like me going to Pericles’ Greece or Michelangelo’s Italy, but also to get a reversible sterilization shot. She wanted children in due course, when she felt ready to settle down--Glacier wives are chaste, it seems--but that wasn’t yet and meanwhile she enjoyed sex, same as she enjoyed everything else in life. Judas priest, what a lay she was!”
“If she mainly stayed with you, however, there must have been a strong attraction on both sides,” I said.
“There was. I’ve tried, as near as my privacy fetish will let me, to tell you what held me to her. From Leonce’s side … hard to be sure. How well did we actually know each other? How well have any man and woman ever?--My learning and, yes, intelligence excited her. She had a fine mind, hit-or-miss educated but fine. And, I’ll be frank, I doubtless had the top job in the Eyrie. Then, too, I suppose we felt the attraction of opposites. She called me sweet and gentle--not patronizingly, because I did do pretty well in games and exercises, being from a better-nourished era than average--but I was no stark mountaineer or roughneck Renaissance mercenary.”
Again ghosts dwelt in his smile. “On the whole,” he said, “she gave me the second best part of my life, so far and I think probably forever. I’ll always be grateful to her, for that and for what followed.”
Havig’s suspicions developed slowly. He fought them. But piece by piece, the evidence accumulated that something was being withheld from him. It lay in the evasion of certain topics, the brushoff of certain questions, whether with Austin Caldwell’s embarrassment, or Coenraad van Heuvel’s brusque “I may not say what I have been told,” or Reuel Orrick’s changing the subject and proceeding to get weeping drunk, or the mild “In God’s good time all shall be revealed to you, my son” of Padre Diego the Inquisitor, or an obscene command to shut up from various warrior types.
He was not alone in this isolation. Of those others whom he approached about it, most were complaisant, whether from prudence or indifference. But young Jerry Jennings exclaimed, “By Jove, you’re right!”
So did Leonce, in more pungent words. Then after a moment she said: “Well, they can’t give us new ‘uns ever’thing in a single chaw, can they?”
“Coenraad’s as new as I am,” he protested. “Newer than you …”
Her curiosity piqued, she found her own methods of investigation. They were not what you’d think. She could match a tough, woman-despising man-at-arms goblet for goblet till he was sodden and pliable, while her head remained ice-clear. She could trap a sober person by an adroit question; it helped having been a shaman. And she appalled Havig by whispering to him at night, amidst schoolgirl giggles, how she had done what was strictly forbidden without permission, slipped into different periods of the Eyrie’s existence to snoop, pry, and eavesdrop.
She concluded: “Near’s I can learn, ol’ Walls’s jus’ feared you an’ ‘em like you might get mad at what some o’ the agents do in some times an’ places. Anyhow, till you’re more used to the idear.”
“I was arriving at the same notion myself,” Havig said bleakly. “I’ve seen what earlier ages are like, what personalities they breed. The travelers who respond to his come-ons, or make themselves conspicuous enough for his searchers to hear about, are apt to be the bold--which in most cases means the ruthless. Coming here doesn’t change them.”
“Seems like orders is, you got to be led slow to the truth. I s’pose I’m only kep’ from it ‘cause of bein’ by you.” She kissed him. “‘S ‘kay, darlya.”
“You mean you’d condone robbery and--”
“Hush. We got to use who we can get. Maybe they do be rough. Your folk, they never were?”
Sickly, he remembered how ... from Wounded Knee to My Lai, and before and after ... he never disowned his nation. For where and when--if it had not abdicated all responsibility for the future-existed a better society?
(Denmark, maybe? Well, the Danes boasted about Viking ancestors, who were comfortably distant in time, but stayed notably silent about what happened during the slave uprising in the Virgin Islands, 1848, or less directly in Greenland. By 1950 or so, of course, they were free to relax into a smugness shared by the Swedes, who had not only traded with Hitler but let his troop trains roll through their land. And yet these were countries which did much good in the world.)
“‘Sides,” Leonce said candidly, “the weak go down, ‘less they’re lucky an’ got somebody strong to guard ‘em. An’ in the end, come the 01’ Man, we’re all weak.” She thought for a minute. “Could be,” she mused, “was I undyin’, I’d never kill more’n a spud, an’ it only for food. But I will die. I’m in the game too. So’re you, darlya. Let’s play for the best score we can make, hm?”
H
e pondered long upon that.
“But if nothing else,” he told me, and I heard his anguish, “I had to try and make certain the gold was worth more than the tailings.”
“Or the end could justify the means?” I responded. “Sure, I follow. To say it never does is a counsel of perfection. In the real world, you usually must choose the lesser evil. Speaking as an old doctor—no--well, yes, I’ll admit I’ve given my share of those shots which end the incurable pain; and sometimes the choice has been harder. Go on, please do.”
“I’d been promised a survey of the Maurai epoch,” he said, “so I could satisfy myself it was, at best, a transition period, whose leaders became tyrants and tried to freeze the world. So I could agree that, when the Maurai hegemony began to crumble-perhaps hastened by our subversion--we ought to intervene, seize power, help turn men back toward achievement and advancement.”
“Not openly, surely,” I objected. “That, the sudden mass appearance of time travelers, would produce headlines nobody could mistake.”
“True, true. We were to spend centuries building our strength in secret, till we were ready to act in disguise. It wasn’t made clear exactly what disguise; but it was admitted that information was still sparse, because of the usual difficulties. Besides, I heard long philosophical arguments from guys like Padre Diego, about free will and the rest. I thought the logic stank, but said nothing.”
“Had, urn, Leonce already been taken uptime?”
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