“And that’s happened?”
“Yes. To some lab animals. And to several people. The pioneers—the ones who used this prototype machine.”
Stern hesitated. “Where are those people now?”
“Most of them are still here. Still working for us. But they don’t travel anymore. They can’t.”
“Okay,” Stern said, “but I’m only talking about one trip.”
“And we haven’t used or calibrated this machine for a long time,” Gordon said. “It may be okay, and it may not be. Look: suppose I let you go back, and after you arrive in 1357, you discover you have errors so serious, you don’t dare return. Because you couldn’t risk more accumulation.”
“You’re saying I’d have to stay back there.”
“Yes.”
Stern said, “Has that ever happened to anybody?”
Gordon paused. “Possibly.”
“You mean there’s somebody back there now?”
“Possibly,” Gordon said. “We’re not sure.”
“But this is very important to know,” Stern said, suddenly excited. “You’re telling me there might be somebody already back there who could help them.”
“I don’t know,” Gordon said, “if this particular person would help.”
“But shouldn’t we tell them? Advise them?”
“There’s no way to make contact with them.”
“Actually,” Stern said, “I think there is.”
16:12:23
Shivering and cold, Chris awoke before dawn. The sky was pale gray, the ground covered by thin mist. He was sitting under the lean-to, his knees pulled up to his chin, his back against the wall. Kate sat beside him, still asleep. He shifted his body to look out, and winced with sudden pain. All his muscles were cramped and sore—his arms, his legs, his chest, everywhere. His neck hurt when he turned his head.
He was surprised to find the shoulder of his tunic stiff with dried blood. Apparently, the arrow the night before had cut him enough to cause bleeding. Chris moved his arm experimentally, sucking in his breath with pain, but he decided that he was all right.
He shivered in the morning damp. What he wanted now was a warm fire and something to eat. His stomach was growling. He hadn’t eaten for more than twenty-four hours. And he was thirsty. Where were they going to find water? Could you drink water from the Dordogne? Or did they need to find a spring? And where were they going to find food?
He turned to ask Marek, but Marek wasn’t there. He twisted to look around the farmhouse—sharp pain, lots of pain—but Marek was gone.
He had just begun to get to his feet when he heard the sound of approaching footsteps. Marek? No, he decided: he was hearing the footsteps of more than one person. And he heard the soft clink of chain mail.
The footsteps came close, then stopped. He held his breath. To the right, barely three feet from his head, a chain-mail gauntlet appeared through the open window and rested on the windowsill. The sleeve above the gauntlet was green, trimmed in black.
Arnaut’s men.
“Hic nemo habitavit nuper,” a male voice said.
A reply came from the doorway. “Et intellego quare. Specta, porta habet signum rubrum. Estne pestilentiae?”
“Pestilentia? Certo scisne? Abeamus!”
The hand hastily withdrew, and the footsteps hurried away. His earpiece had translated none of it, because it was turned off. He had to rely on his Latin. What was pestilentia? Probably “plague.” The soldiers had seen the mark on the door and had quickly moved away.
Jesus, he thought, was this a plague house? Is that why it had been burned down? Could you still catch the plague? He was wondering about this when to his horror a black rat scuttled out of the deep grass, and away through the door. Chris shivered. Kate awoke, and yawned. “What time is—”
He pressed his finger to her lips and shook his head.
He heard the men still moving away, their voices faint in the gray morning. Chris slid out from under the lean-to, crept to the window, and looked out cautiously.
He saw at least a dozen soldiers, all around them, wearing the green and black colors of Arnaut. The soldiers were methodically checking all the thatched cottages near the monastery walls. As Chris watched, he saw Marek walking toward the soldiers. Marek was hunched over, dragging one leg. He carried some greens in his hands. The soldiers stopped him. Marek bowed obsequiously. His whole body seemed small, weak-looking. He showed the soldiers what was in his hand. The soldiers laughed and shoved him aside. Marek walked on, still hunched and deferential.
:
Kate watched Marek walk past their burned-out farmhouse and disappear behind the monastery wall. He obviously wasn’t going to come to them while the troops were still there.
Chris had crawled back under the lean-to, wincing. His shoulder seemed to be hurt; there was dried blood on the fabric. She helped him unbutton his doublet, and he screwed up his face and bit his lip. Gently, she pulled aside his loose-necked linen undershirt, and she saw that the entire left side of his chest was an ugly purple, with a yellowish black tinge at the edges. That must be where he had been hit by the lance.
Seeing the look on her face, he whispered, “Is it bad?”
“I think it’s just a bruise. Maybe some cracked ribs.”
“Hurts like hell.”
She slid the shirt over his shoulder, exposing the arrow cut. It was a slanting two-inch tear across the skin surface, caked with dried blood.
“How is it?” he said, watching her face.
“Just a cut.”
“Infected?”
“No, it looks clean.”
She pulled the doublet down farther, saw more purple bruising on his back and his side, beneath his arm. His whole body was one big bruise. It must be incredibly painful. She was amazed that he wasn’t complaining more. After all, this was the same guy who threw fits if he was served dried cèpe mushrooms instead of fresh ones in his morning omelette. Who could pout if he didn’t like the choice of wine.
She started to button up his doublet for him. He said, “I can do that.”
“I’ll help you. . ..”
“I said, I can do it.”
She pulled away, held her palms up. “Okay. Okay.”
“I have to get these arms moving, anyway,” he said, wincing with each button. He did them all up by himself. But afterward, he sat back against the wall, eyes closed, sweating from the exertion and the pain.
“Chris. . ..”
He opened his eyes. “I’m fine. Really, don’t worry about me. I’m perfectly fine.”
And he meant it.
She almost felt as if she were sitting next to a stranger.
:
When Chris had seen his shoulder and chest—it was the purple color of dead meat—his own reaction had surprised him. The injury was severe. He expected to feel horrified, or frightened. But instead, he felt suddenly light, almost carefree. The pain might be making him gasp for breath, but the pain didn’t matter. He just felt glad to be alive, and facing another day. His familiar complaints, his cavils and his uncertainties seemed suddenly irrelevant. In their place, he discovered that he had some source of boundless energy—an almost aggressive vitality that he could not recall ever experiencing before. He felt it flowing through his body, a kind of heat. The world around him seemed more vivid, more sensuous than he could remember before.
To Chris, the gray dawn took on a pristine beauty. The cool, damp air bore a fragrance of wet grass and damp earth. The stones against his back supported him. Even his pain was useful because it burned away all unnecessary feeling. He felt stripped down, alert and ready for anything. This was a different world, with different rules.
And for the first time, he was in it.
Totally in it.
When the troops had gone, Marek returned. “Did you understand all that?” he said.
“What?”
“The soldiers are searching for three people from Castelgard: two men and a woman.”
“Why?”
“Arnaut wants to talk to them.”
“Isn’t it nice to be popular,” Chris said with a wry smile. “Everyone’s after us.”
Marek gave them each a handful of wet grass and leaves. “Field greens. That’s breakfast. Eat up.”
Chris chewed the plants noisily. “Delicious,” he said. He meant it.
“The plant with the jagged leaves is feverfew. It’ll help with the pain. The white stalk is willow. Reduce your swelling.”
“Thanks,” Chris said. “It’s very good.”
Marek was staring at him in disbelief. He said to Kate, “Is he okay?”
“Actually, I think he’s fine.”
“Good. Eat up, and then we’ll go to the monastery. If we can get past the guards.”
Kate pulled off her wig. “That won’t be a problem,” she said. “They’re looking for two men and a woman. So: who’s got the sharpest knife?”
:
Fortunately, her hair was already short; it took only a few minutes for Marek to cut away the longer strands and finish the job. While he worked, Chris said, “I’ve been thinking about last night.”
“Obviously, somebody’s got an earpiece,” Marek said.
“Right,” Chris said. “And I think I know where they got it.”
“Gomez,” Marek said.
Chris nodded. “That’s my guess. You didn’t take it from her?”
“No. I didn’t think to.”
“I’m sure another person could push it far enough into his own ear to hear it, even if it doesn’t really fit him.”
“Yes,” Marek said. “But the question is, who? This is the fourteenth century. A pink lump that talks in little voices is witchcraft. It’d be terrifying to anyone who found it. Whoever picked it up would drop it like a hot potato—and then crush it immediately. Or run like mad.”
“I know,” Chris said. “That’s why every time I think about it, I can see only one possible answer.”
Marek nodded. “Those bastards didn’t tell us.”
“Tell us what?” Kate said.
“That there’s somebody else back here. Somebody from the twentieth century.”
“It’s the only possible answer,” Chris said.
“But who?” Kate said.
Chris had been thinking about that all morning. “De Kere,” he said. “It’s got to be de Kere.”
Marek was shaking his head.
“Consider,” Chris said. “He’s only been here a year, right? Nobody knows where he came from, right? He’s wormed his way in with Oliver, and he hates all of us, because he knows we might do it, too, right? He leads his soldiers away from the tannery, goes all the way up the street, until we speak—and then he’s right back on us. I’m telling you, it has to be de Kere.”
“There’s only one problem,” Marek said. “De Kere speaks flawless Occitan.”
“Well, so do you.”
“No. I speak like a clumsy foreigner. You two listen to the translations in the earpiece. I listen to what they actually say. De Kere speaks like a native. He’s completely fluent, and his accent exactly matches everybody else’s. And Occitan is a dead language in the twentieth century. There’s no way he could be from our century and speak like that. He’s got to be a native.”
“Maybe he’s a linguist.”
Marek was shaking his head. “It’s not de Kere,” he said. “It’s Guy Malegant.”
“Sir Guy?”
“No question,” Marek said. “I’ve had my doubts about him ever since that time we were caught in the passage. Remember? We were almost perfectly silent in there—but he opens the door and catches us. He didn’t even try to act surprised. He didn’t draw his sword. Quite straightforward, shouting the alarm. Because he already knew we were there.”
“But that’s not how it happened. Sir Daniel came in,” Chris said.
“Did he?” Marek said. “I don’t remember him ever coming in.”
“Actually,” Kate said, “I think Chris might be right. It might be de Kere. Because I was in the alley between the chapel and the castle, pretty far up the chapel wall, and de Kere was telling the soldiers to kill you, and I remember I was too far away to hear them clearly, but I did.”
Marek stared at her. “And then what happened?”
“Then de Kere whispered to a soldier. . .. And I couldn’t hear what he said.”
“Right. Because he didn’t have an earpiece. If he had an earpiece, you would have heard everything, including whispers. But he didn’t. It’s Sir Guy. Who cut Gomez’s head off? Sir Guy and his men. Who was most likely to go back to the body and retrieve the earpiece? Sir Guy. The other men were terrified of the flashing machine. Only Sir Guy was not afraid. Because he knew what it was. He’s from our century.”
“I don’t think Guy was there,” Chris said, “when the machine was flashing.”
“But the clincher that it is Sir Guy,” Marek said, “is that his Occitan is terrible. He sounds like a New Yorker, speaking through his nose.”
“Well, isn’t he from Middlesex? And I don’t think he’s well-born. I get the impression he was knighted for bravery, not family.”
“He wasn’t a good-enough jouster to take you out with the first lance,” Marek said. “He wasn’t a good-enough swordsman to kill me hand-to-hand. I’m telling you. It’s Guy de Malegant.”
“Well,” Chris said, “whoever it is, now they know we’re going to the monastery.”
“That’s right,” Marek said, stepping away from Kate and looking at her hair appraisingly. “So let’s go.”
Kate touched her hair cautiously. She said, “Should I be glad I don’t have a mirror?”
Marek nodded. “Probably.”
“Do I look like a guy?”
Chris and Marek exchanged glances. Chris said, “Kind of.”
“Kind of?”
“Yes. You do. You look like a guy.”
“Close enough, anyway,” Marek said.
They got to their feet.
15:12:09
The heavy wooden door opened a crack. From the darkness inside, a shadowed face in a white cowl peered out at them. “God grant you growth and increase,” the monk said solemnly.
“God grant you health and wisdom,” Marek replied in Occitan.
“What is your business?”
“We come to see Brother Marcel.”
The monk nodded, almost as if he had been expecting them. “Certes, you may enter,” the monk said. “You are in good time, for he is still here.” He opened the door a little wider, so they were able to pass through, one at a time.
They found themselves in a small stone anteroom, very dark. They smelled a fragrant odor of roses and oranges. From within the monastery itself, they heard the soft sound of chanting.
“You may leave your weapons there,” the monk said, pointing to the corner of the room.
“Good brother, I fear we cannot,” Marek said.
“You have nothing to fear here,” he said. “Disarm, or depart.”
Marek started to protest, then unbuckled his sword.
:
The monk glided ahead of them down a quiet hallway. The walls were bare stone. They turned a corner and went down another hallway. The monastery was very large, and mazelike.
This was a Cistercian monastery; the monks wore white robes of plain cloth. The austerity of the Cistercian order stood as a deliberate reproach to the more corrupt orders of Benedictines and Dominicans. Cistercian monks were expected to keep rigid discipline, in an atmosphere of severe asceticism. For centuries, the Cistercians did not permit any carved decoration on their plain buildings, nor any decorative illustrations to their manuscripts. Their diet consisted of vegetables, bread and water, with no meats or sauces. Cots were hard; rooms were bare and cold. Every aspect of their monastic life was determinedly Spartan. But, in fact, this quality of rigid discipline had—
Thwock!
Marek turned toward the sound. They were coming into a cloister—an
open court within the monastery, surrounded by arched passages on three sides, intended as a place of reading and contemplation.
Thwock!
Now they heard laughter. Noisy shouts of men.
Thwock! Thwock!
As they came into the cloister, Marek saw that the fountain and garden in the center had been removed. The ground was bare, hard-packed dirt. Four men, sweating in linen smocks, were standing in the dirt, playing a kind of handball.
Thwock!
The ball rolled on the ground, and the men pushed and shoved each other, letting it roll. When it stopped, one man picked it up, cried, “Tenez!” and served the ball overhand, smacking it with his flat palm. The ball bounced off the side wall of the cloisters. The men yelled and jostled one another for position. Beneath the arches, monks and nobles shouted encouragement, clinking bags of gambling money in their hands.
There was a long wooden board attached to one wall, and every time a ball hit that board—making a loud bonk!—there were extra shouts of encouragement from the gamblers in the galleries.
It took Marek a moment to realize what he was looking at: the earliest form of tennis.
Tenez—from the server’s shout, meaning, “Receive it!”—was a new game, invented just twenty-five years earlier, and it had become the instant rage of the period. Racquets and nets would come centuries later; for now, the game was a variety of handball, played by all classes of society. Children played in the streets. Among the nobility, the game was so popular that it provoked a trend to build new monasteries—which were abandoned unfinished, once the cloisters had been constructed. Royal families worried that princes neglected their instruction as knights in favor of long hours on the tennis court, often playing by torchlight far into the night. Gambling was ubiquitous. King John II of France, now captive in England, had, over the years, spent a small fortune to pay his tennis debts. (King John was known as John the Good, but it was said that whatever John was good at, it was certainly not tennis.)
Timeline Page 32
