Langue[dot]doc 1305

by Gillian Polack

  Guilhem set out with his packhorse and his poor-man’s palfrey. He wanted to leave Pézenas - which was a misery of a place, despite the nice, plump partridge he had recently devoured - and be well clear of its Templar Commanderie, because he wasn’t sure about what had happened and he needed distance to think. Also, he wanted to travel. Ever since his pilgrimage, travel had become easier than finding solutions. Nevertheless, he didn’t really want to return to that hermit hole his aunt had consigned him to. It was inglorious and unmanly and, frankly, dull.

  Guilhem was an experienced traveller. If a brigand had encountered him and overcome his sword and dagger, Guilhem might not have been able to rip the hind leg off a pack animal as his namesake had done and defend himself with that, but he would have coins as long as he had even a single item of clothing. He’d learned the hard way to secrete coins everywhere. Also inglorious, but practical. It had been easier when he’d been a man with an army or a man with his peers.

  He spent much of the long path from Pézenas to Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert hating his aunt.

  Sometimes he rode his horse and sometimes he led both horse and packhorse. I look like a dealer with a string of animals on long leads. When he reached Saint-Guilhem and passed through the boundaries, the turns into his street made the packhorse all but invisible. All the townsfolk will see, Guilhem thought, is a man and his paltry animal, walking together across the narrow path at the end of the road, with the shadow of a half-castle behind him and the powerful menace of the abbey in the valley.

  The abbey would swallow him if he let it, just as the Commanderie could see him eaten up in service to the Templars. But what were his options? He’d burnt many bridges when he had spoken out three years ago. He’d done worse since. This was reparation and penance and a possible future. It felt like disaster.

  He reached his home. His own house. He was welcomed by his people. His own people, no matter what his aunt said. He smiled at the three of them and gave them small gifts he’d bought in Pézenas. They were his, even if all they did was clean his house and feed him and take care of his equipment and, at this moment in time, bring him water for a bath. Not everything in life has to be noble.

  After he’d bathed and after he’d eaten, he collected his coins and his own trinkets. He’d bought an astrolabe, even though he had no idea how to use it. It was beautiful and graceful and inscribed with incomprehensible flowing words and he enjoyed holding it and peering round it at the sky. It had cost rather more than he should spend.

  Money might bear thinking upon soon, since along with the loss of glory in war came the loss of spoils in war and his aunt was parsimonious in sending him income from his northern holdings. There were other possibilities. Not yet. Nothing yet. Guilhem hated the long path, the slow wait.

  He added the astrolabe to his Saint-Jacques shell and his blessed oil from Jerusalem and the bone that the seller swore was from a virgin martyr. He kissed the bone, even though he was positive the seller was a liar. One must be careful, walking this earth. Careful and courteous and calm.

  * * *

  “I’m here.” Artemisia was surprised. One moment stepping onto a glowing platform in a big, empty room and the next moment standing on another glowing platform in a very crowded storeroom. She’d never seen so many boxes and whitegoods in her life.

  “Not bad,” said a male voice from behind her. “I’m writing down what everyone says for posterity, and ‘I’m here’ is certainly better than ‘What a dump’ and ‘It’s full of stuff.’ Not as good, but, as ‘Oh, God, why did I do this?’”

  “I should get down,” Artemisia said uncertainly, turning to look at the gentleman who spoke. He was big and muscular and full of smiles. His voice ought to have been baritone. Instead it was a wispy tenor. His hair was messy and his clothes looked lived-in.

  “Cormac,” he said, holding out his free hand. Artemisia shook it, because that was what he seemed to want. Once Cormac had shaken her hand, he put down his notepad and he helped her off the platform.

  “Artemisia Wormwood,” she said, feeling the name was redundant.

  “That really is your name?” This man was like an inquisitive puppy.

  “I chose it myself,” she smiled up at him. “And I’m the last, aren’t I?”

  “Watch,” Cormac said. He turned them both around and they looked at the platform blinking out. “I wanted to see it properly this time. Last time was too rushed,” he confided. “They told me the light isn’t intrinsic, but it helps us know if we have a live wormhole. Or whatever it is that got us here.”

  “We have everything, by the looks of it. Except people.”

  “The rest of the crew’s unpacking. I assigned rooms on the Prof’s orders, by discipline, to prevent squabbles. We’ll meet in the dining room once you’re all done.”

  “I guess I’d better take my stuff.” Artemisia looked around.

  “Some of it came three months ago,” Cormac began. “You’ll find”

  “I wasn’t on the project three months ago.”

  “Oh,” said Cormac. “That’s why I didn’t recognise your name.” He nodded. “I’ll rustle you out the basics, then. We have spares and spares of the spares, so you’ll be fine.” While he led her around boxes and crates and storage containers until they came to a second room, he kept up a constant dribble of chat. “D’you know why you’re here? I mean”

  “Why not the person on your list?” Artemisia helped out to cover the awkwardness. “There were last minute losses. No-one’s told me why the others resigned, but I’m replacing one of them.”

  “You’re double the value, heh?”

  Artemisia didn’t know what to say. She looked down, to break eye contact. Underneath the floor was wire mesh - below it was pale stone.

  “We’re standing on solid rock!” Artemisia couldn’t help sounding pleased.

  “I know. Isn’t it great! Sacred ground, you know. Borrowed time. Winds of change. All of that. Don’t drop anything through the mesh, but, it’s a bugger getting stuff out.”

  Cormac methodically collected bedding, towels and a little bag of toiletries. Also a mirror. “I’ll find you other stuff later. This’ll set you up.” He led the way down cold corridors, curved limestone on one side, a pool of darkness above, light partition wall on the other. “Don’t go down that way.” Artemisia couldn’t tell how serious he was, as he jerked his head towards an unlit tunnel.

  “Why not?” asked Artemisia, half-expecting cave bears.

  “It’s mud, mud all the way,” said Smith. “Once you go down just a little. And by go down, I mean down. It gets really sticky.”

  “So we’re living in the dry section.”

  “Above the big wet.”

  “We should call it Darwin down there, then,” Artemisia joked.

  “Not a bad idea,” nodded Smith. “Be careful down there, but. Don’t drown. Gotta preserve the ecosystem - also can’t leave your bones behind.” They started moving again. Small lights at regular intervals made the whole area surprisingly pleasant. The temperature was a little chilly, but not bad, either.

  Fluffy slippers and warm socks, Artemisia thought, thankful she’d packed both. “You’re one of the historians, right? This must be yours.”

  “I thought I was the only historian.”

  “Ah,” said Cormac. “More changes.” He nodded, amused. Then he opened a door and gestured, “Your home for the next nine months, ma’am. Be grateful you’re the only historian - you get an empty room between yourself and the evil scientists.” Artemisia laughed. Cormac looked thoughtful. “Let me give you a hand setting up. Theo expects us to do things instantly. Like the army.”

  “Theo?”

  “The Prof.”

  “Oh. Luke.”

  “Theo,” Cormac was insistent.

  “Why Theo?” While they were talking, Cormac made the bed and Artemisia unloaded the contents of her two packs into the single chest of drawers. A hook for the mirror above the chest of drawers. It was a spart
an room. Limestone on one side, with a single bed hard against it. A canopied single bed. Iron. Cormac had draped a cotton spread over the canopy - for warmth, presumably, since there was no heating in sight.

  Everything else was white partition or soft cream tile underfoot. Not mesh, thank goodness. Artemisia hung the mirror and pulled out her little bowl and put her earrings in it. Now it felt like home.

  “He calls me McGyver. Until he stops calling me that, his name’s Theo.”

  “I bet McGyver takes. You’re the guy who can do everything, and you have ‘Mac’ in your name.”

  “Smith?”

  “Cormac.”

  The others were in the dining room. It was a very odd space. The kitchen was on one side, slotted into the limestone like a child’s toy. When Artemisia looked up, she saw frayed rock and half-formed stalactites and a symphony of light and curve. When she looked across, she saw metal and fake veneer. At the table, it felt like a real dining room, except that the air reflected its passage through the stone. Tomblike. The scent of calcite was tempered by the smell of bad coffee.

  Luke was drawing directly on the table. He half-noticed Artemisia and Cormac and he gestured them to sit down.

  “Welcome all,” said Sylvia brightly, the perfect second-in-command. “We’re getting right into it. Luke’s already working on data the transit spawned. That’s the big project, of course. The rest of you are with the global warming and environmental science mob. And I’m refining delta T, of course.” Most of the team nodded sagely. Artemisia had no idea what delta T was, but this was not the time to ask. Besides, she found herself the surprised recipient of a cup of instant coffee. Foul stuff, sweetened beyond belief, but she nodded thanks to Pauline, who had deposited it in front of her. “God,” Sylvia said, her right hand dragging her pretty hair out of shape. “I’m so nervous. This is so big. Can we just skip the introduction and set up our computers?”

  “Fine with me,” said Geoff Murray, obviously amused.

  “Go for it,” said Luke, waving his hand again. He hadn’t once stopped drawing on the white tabletop. Artemisia caught a glimpse of impossible mathematical formulae as she edged past.

  She wondered if she’d ever feel less lost in the Middle Ages. She thought she was coming to her intellectual home, but there was nothing homely about this arrival. In fact, the only saving grace so far was Cormac Smith and his sense of humour.

  “Can we talk about schedules first?” Ben Konig’s voice was persuasive and his manner apologetic. Luke waved his hand in vague agreement and those who had begun to stand up, sat down again, their faces denying that movement.

  It was different when Konig stood before them, explaining how their work fitted together and how the seasons would impact the schedule. It confirmed that they were in the Middle Ages.

  * * *

  The next morning was when the project really began. After breakfast, the whole team assembled in the big room that served as the main office space. Artemisia blinked twice as she entered. By daylight it looked much larger. So much stone. And golden light pouring through the massive triangular opening. Light and warmth and an open plan office. Hardly troglodytic.

  “This is Day One,” announced Luke, stroking his beard and leaning forward into the light. “St Benedict’s Day. March 21, 1305. We’re in the hills near Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert.”

  Artemisia noticed that the gorgeous Dr Konig winced a little when Luke pronounced ‘Désert’ in pure Strine.

  “We have a calendar that we’ll fill with our projects,” and Luke handed it to the now straight-faced Ben Konig, who stuck it on one of the big office dividers that passed for internal walls. “Dr Wormwood will supply us with current history on the computer system, for easy reference. The history is important because those people outside are the past us. We won’t interfere with them and we won’t touch their lives. Dr Wormwood is our resource for enabling this. Lots happening in town. Lots happening here. Let’s keep them separate.

  “Remember your contracts and your ethics briefings. Always keep in mind that we are guests in this foreign time. We do our work and when we’re not working, we’re here,” he gestured back to the rest of the cave, “underhill. Like hobbits. We’re neutral observers and we never, ever touch people’s lives.” He gave them a moment to appreciate the importance of this statement, then moved on.

  “All the rest of you will update your data files regularly and we’ll send data back monthly. Konig’ll put the dates for transmission on the calendar: these dates are crucial. There will be actual transfers of goods a third through the project and again at two-thirds. We’ll be reprovisioned then. You’ll note that we’re down one historian, one scientist and one general staff member. Sylvia will handle day-to-day administration, with help from Ben, who is the French Government amongst us,” Konig smiled wryly. “Go to McGyver for general needs, and to Doc for medical problems. She can cure everything short of plague. This isn’t 1320, or even 1348, so there should be no plague.” My God, Artemisia thought, He made a Connie Willis joke. “When she’s not saving you from imminent death, she’s our live-in gourmet chef. Sylvia, have I missed anything?”

  Sylvia then said what Artemisia thought was a lot of positive nothings about everything. She didn’t learn much from it. But then, she didn’t have the background and she didn’t like Sylvia. This really wasn’t fair on Sylvia.

  Ben Konig was also ambivalent about Dr Smith, Artemisia suspected, as he spent the whole of her pep talk watching, face inexpressive, arms crossed, leaning against the cold wall of polished limestone. Geoff Murray’s feet were tapping and his eyes looking towards his computer terminal.

  Tony Dargentueil was in his own world, somewhere deep. His own world; that was funny. Here they were in the past and their agricultural scientist was on another planet entirely.

  * * *

  Guilhem was fascinated by this land. It was his mother’s. He knew it from her stories, but he had never been here. He knew the stories of his namesake as well as he knew the earth underneath his feet, with its dry, crumbly ground and its olives and its twisted pines. Rich in the way his northern kin never understood. Rich in legends and in the farming of the desert, where man didn’t live on top of man and the sun was always ripening the olives and grapes to rich harvest. That wine and the olive oil were the wealth of the Languedoc. The sunshine on his skin was its gold.

  He walked towards the caves, intending to explore. His mother had told him the usual childhood stories. She had said those caves were forbidden and dangerous. She told him stories of the humanlike creatures that lived in the dark under the hill, about lights at night. The uncanny excited him. His feet wanted to carry him to that excitement and search out monsters and secrets, but he firmly turned back. It was too close to Sext.

  * * *

  Cormac issued torches and led the company on a stumbling tour of the caverns. “Watch your toes and knees,” he would say, after someone hit the wall with their knee or a partition with a big toe. “We couldn’t make this bit work. It’s got a slope and a bump and a step.” He led them up and down and round about, showing them every human-size space in the complex of caves and tunnels. “Our water supply,” he’d say, proudly, as they stood over a fissure filled with clear liquid. “Look, it goes on forever. I need a snorkel, but, to find out where forever ends.”

  “You need to be an intrepid cave explorer,” Geoff Murray suggested. Cormac’s eyes brightened and the tour continued.

  When the team was bewildered by the maze of limestone walls and caverns, Cormac led them to the stores. Artemisia realised that the system wasn’t nearly as big as it felt. It’s because it’s unfamiliar, and that mesh leads our eyes down to the rock underneath. We feel every footstep. When we’ve been here a few weeks, the same big space will probably be claustrophobically tiny.

  Cormac handed each of them a pack with the equipment they would need for their specific work.

  “This is it?” asked Tony Dargenteuil.

  “This is wha
t you need when you go outside. Standard stuff. The computers are set up in your workspace, which you already know and me telling you is stupid but Theo said I had to. So I might as well tell you that your workspace is next to the big opening. The workspace you’ve already sat down in and worked in,” Cormac replied. “Come back for outside clothes separately,” he added, as an afterthought. “Some of you were prefitted and some not, so it’s easier not to do it all at once.”

  “Pity,” said Pauline, “No displays of naked manhood.”

  Ben laughed. Every single woman looked at him, with Pauline’s comment in mind. He’ll look good in Medieval clothes, Artemisia thought. He really is rather splendid. I wonder what he’s thinking, though. That laugh was not a conformist laugh.

  From stores they went to the living area. There was one big chair “’Specially brought in for Prof. Mann,” Smith said, his tone disrespectful. “Be nice to it. It’s the only chair like it in the whole world.” The others would sit on less sumptuous furniture. Ikea in cane.

  “We set this up so you’re all facing outwards.” Outwards was a small opening that looked onto a twisted tangle of bushes. “The TV screen is solar-powered and this was the best set-up for it. Also, you can pretend there’s a view. And you don’t have to look at your workspace all the time.” The office area was directly behind them, past a rather spectacular stalagmite formation.

  “Why is the furniture all cane?” asked Artemisia.

  “I hate cane,” Tony said, firmly. “Not comfortable.”

  “Cane burns quickly,” Cormac was apologetic. “Less to take back in nine months. Our bums’ll get used to it.” Cormac led them back again, through to the dormitory, which was really a wide straight tunnel divided into a narrow corridor and slightly wider rooms. Spartan, but private, was Artemisia’s thought the night before, and it was her thought again today.

  He was taking them in circles when he could. She laughed to herself. Someone was going to get confused. Possibly Dr Sylvia Smith, if the gods were good.

  “You already know this,” Mac said. “Kitchen and medical area and bathrooms. And toilets. Very Japanese. Also development of waste products for the garden.” Cormac was enjoying himself.